DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-10 in the reply filed on July 20, 2026 is acknowledged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-5 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US PgPub. No. 2019/0253633 by Kim et al. (hereinafter ‘Kim’).
In regards to claim 1, Kim teaches an image data collection system, comprising: an image capture device, configured to capture an image of an object at a first focal length to obtain a first image and capture an image of the object at a second focal length to obtain a second image, wherein the first image and the second image are of the same resolution; (See Kim paragraphs [0102]-[0103], Kim teaches capturing a wide angle image and tele angle image.)
a storage device, configured to store the first image and the second image captured by the image capture device; (See Kim Figure 1, element 130, Kim teaches a memory for storing images.)
a processing module, obtaining the first image and the second image from the storage device, configured to process the first image to obtain a first processed image with a first resolution, and processing the second image to obtain a second processed image with a second resolution, wherein the first resolution is greater than the second resolution; and a registration module, obtaining the first processed image and the second processed image from the processing module, configured to perform image alignment on the first processed image and the second processed image to obtain a high-resolution and low-resolution image pair. (See Kim paragraph [0117], Kim teaches processing the first and second images to create third and fourth images with different resolutions.)
In regards to claim 2, Kim teaches wherein the processing module comprises a cropping module configured to crop a first area in the first image to obtain the first processed image and crop a second area in the second image to obtain the second processed image, image content of the first area corresponds to the image content of the second area, and the resolution of the first area is greater than the resolution of the second area. (See Kim paragraph [0117] and Figures 6A-6D).
In regards to clams 3, Kim teaches wherein the first focal length is f1, the second focal length is f2, then f1 = A * f2, where A > 1, and wherein the resolution of the first area is X, and the resolution of the second area is X/A. (See Kim paragraph [0117]).
In regards to claim 4, Kim teaches wherein A=2, and the obtained high-resolution and low-resolution image pairs are used to train a model that is suitable for improving image resolution by two times. (See Kim paragraph [0117]).
In regards to claim 5, Kim teaches wherein the resolution of the first area is greater than or equal to 100 x100. (See Kim Figures 6A-6D).
In regards to claim 9, Kim teaches wherein the first focal length and the second focal length of the image capture device are determined by performing magnification calibration on a calibration image. (See Kim paragraphs [0093]-[0094]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-8 and 10 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
In regards to claim 6, the applied art does not teach or suggest “further comprising a standard deviation filter configured to determine whether to remove or keep the cropped image of the first area based on standard deviation of grayscale values of the first image and standard deviation of grayscale values of the image of the first area.”
In regards to claim 7, the applied art does not teach or suggest “wherein the registration module performs the image alignment based on a difference between phase maps of spectrum of the first processed image and the second processed image.”
In regards to claim 8, the applied art does not teach or suggest “wherein after the image alignment is performed, if correlation between the first processed image and the second processed image is greater than a certain value, the registration module stores the first processed image and the second processed image as the high-resolution and low-resolution image pair.”
In regards to claim 10, the applied art does not teach or suggest “wherein the magnification calibration performed on the calibration image is achieved based on cosine pattern spectrum and Fourier Mellin transform.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to UTPAL D SHAH whose telephone number is (571)272-5729. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7:30-5:30.
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/UTPAL D SHAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2668
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