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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim(s) 14 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
In regards to claim 14, claim 14 recites the limitation "A computer readable storage medium" in line 1. The scope of this claim is unclear because it is not clear whether or not the storage medium include signal embodiments. The description provided in the disclosure is confusing. For example, paragraph [0134] recites “… computer-readable medium in the present disclosure may be a computer-readable signal medium or a computer-readable storage medium or any combination thereof … the computer-readable signal medium may include a data signal that propagates in a baseband or as a part of a carrier and carries computer-readable program codes … The computer-readable signal medium may also be any other computer-readable medium than the computer-readable storage medium.”
The specification states that signal medium includes signal embodiments that “computer-readable signal medium may also be any other computer-readable medium than the computer-readable storage medium”. However, it is still not 100% clear whether the storage medium may or may not also include signal embodiments. There is no definitive statement that says a storage medium cannot also include a signal embodiments. Thus, the overall scope of claim 14 is confusing and unclear.
In regards to claim 18, claim 18 recites the limitation "the row boundary pixel points" in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. However, in the interest of compact prosecution, since “row boundary pixel points” is initialized in claim 15, Examiner is viewing claim 18 as being dependent on claim 15 instead of claim 13 which it is recited as being dependent on.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 13-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishida (US 2010/0158365 A1) in view of Nagai (US 2017/0052068 A1).
In regards to claim 1, Ishida teaches an image processing method, comprising:
acquiring a to-be-processed image (e.g. [0032],Fig.1: an image input unit 1 inputs a color document image as an input image), and determining a wipe area of the to-be-processed image (e.g. [0033],Fig.1: a region division unit 21 performs region division processing of the color document image that is input by the image input unit 1 and extracts a position of the object region; Examiner’s note: as shown in more detail below, object region is extracted then filled; as such, extracted object region may be viewed as a wiped area);
acquiring a replacement pixel value corresponding to a target pixel point in the wipe area, wherein the replacement pixel value is determined based on a boundary pixel point corresponding to the target pixel point (e.g. [0034]-[0035],Fig.1: an adjacent pixel region setting unit 22 sets an adjacent pixel region including pixels located in the vicinity of the object region but not included in the rectangular object region that is extracted by the region division unit 21; a boundary region setting unit 23 sets a boundary region (zonal region) in the object region of the input image and in the boundary of the object region; based on a result obtained from the region division unit 21 and the adjacent pixel region set by the adjacent pixel region setting unit 22, pixel values of the pixels neighboring the extracted object region are obtained, and the colors to be used in filling the region corresponding to the object region is determined); and
setting a corresponding target pixel point according to the replacement pixel value, so as to generate a completed image (e.g. [0036]-[0037],Fig.1: an adjacent pixel value writing unit 26 writes a pixel value of each pixel in the adjacent pixel region, which is set by the adjacent pixel region setting unit 22, in the boundary region (zonal region) of the object region set by the boundary region setting unit 23; background image is generated based on the image input by the image input unit 1, in which the region corresponding to the object region is filled with a filling color by the filling unit 25, and further the adjacent pixel values are written in the boundary region by the adjacent pixel value writing unit 26),
but does not explicitly teach the method,
wherein the boundary pixel point is a projection point of the target pixel point on an area boundary of the wipe area.
However, Nagai teaches a method,
wherein the boundary pixel point is a projection point of the target pixel point on an area boundary of the area (e.g. [0066]: using the edge filter for use in detecting an edge extending in one direction in an image, to thereby generate the partial image-based binarized edge image data, and, after further subjecting the generated partial image-based binarized edge image data to a Hough transform to thereby generate the partial image-based edge line image data, further integrate and project pixel values of a plurality of pixels in the generated partial image-based edge line image data, along the one direction to thereby generate the partial image-based edge line projection graph data; Examiner’s note: this shows that a pixel value of an edge of an area may be projected along one direction).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings/combination of Ishida to project pixel values, in the same conventional manner as taught by Nagai as both deal with setting pixel values. The motivation to combine the two would be that it would allow the filling of an area by projecting a pixel value on the edge/boundary to other pixels.
In regards to device claim 13 and medium claim 14, claim(s) 13-14 recite(s) limitations that is/are similar in scope to the limitations recited in claim 1. Therefore, claim(s) 13-14 is/are subject to rejections under the same rationale as applied hereinabove for claim 1.
Claim(s) 9, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Ishida and Nagai as applied to claims 1, 13 above, and further in view of Miyazaki et al. (US Pat. 4,868,884).
In regards to claim 9, the combination of Ishida and Nagai teaches a method, wherein the determining a wipe area of the to-be-processed image comprises:
identifying an outline of a target object in the to-be-processed image (e.g. Ishida as above, [0033],Fig.1: a region division unit 21 performs region division processing of the color document image that is input by the image input unit 1 and extracts a position of the object region; further in [0033]: an example of extracting a rectangle region, which includes a photo image, as an object region is described),
but does not explicitly teach the method, comprising:
generating a mask image according to the outline of the target object, the mask image being used to characterize the wipe area in the to-be-processed image.
However, Miyazaki teaches a method, comprising:
generating a mask image according to the outline of the target object, the mask image being used to characterize the wipe area in the to-be-processed image (e.g. c.2 L.54-59: forming an image extraction mask for extracting a drawing or a complicated constituent image as well as a simple constituent image from respective originals semiautomatically detecting the outline thereof accurately).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings/combination of Ishida and Nagai to generate a mask, in the same conventional manner as taught by Miyazaki as both deal with extracting portions in an image. The motivation to combine the two would be that it would allow the use of a mask to be used for extracting the image region.
In regards to device claim 19, claim(s) 19 recite(s) limitations that is/are similar in scope to the limitations recited in claim 9. Therefore, claim(s) 19 is/are subject to rejections under the same rationale as applied hereinabove for claim 9.
Claim(s) 10, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Ishida, Nagai and Miyazaki as applied to claims 9, 19 above, and further in view of Duncan et al. (US 2008/0288857 A1).
In regards to claim 10, the combination of Ishida, Nagai and Miyazaki teaches the method of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach the method, wherein before determining the wipe area of the to-be-processed image according to the mask image, the method further comprises:
acquiring effect information, the effect information characterizing an outline shape of a target effect added to the to-be-processed image; and
expanding the mask image based on the effect information, so as to update the wipe area in the to-be-processed image.
However, Duncan teaches a method, comprising:
acquiring effect information, the effect information characterizing an outline shape of a target effect added to the to-be-processed image (e.g. [0029]: if rendered by the application, which may allow for more advanced rendering techniques, then the API may simply require enough information to produce the annotation mask; in the case of effects like a drop-shadow on ink, all that is needed may be an integer with how much the mask ink needs to be expanded to cover the rendered ink); and
expanding the mask image based on the effect information, so as to update the area in the to-be-processed image (e.g. as above, [0029]: all that is needed may be an integer with how much the mask ink needs to be expanded to cover the rendered ink).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings/combination of Ishida, Nagai and Miyazaki to expand the mask, in the same conventional manner as taught by Duncan as both deal with using image masks. The motivation to combine the two would be that it would allow the expansion of a mask for extraction based on effects on the object/area.
In regards to device claim 20, claim(s) 20 recite(s) limitations that is/are similar in scope to the limitations recited in claim 10. Therefore, claim(s) 20 is/are subject to rejections under the same rationale as applied hereinabove for claim 10.
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Ishida and Nagai as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Storer (US 2020/0314356 A1).
In regards to claim 11, the combination of Ishida and Nagai teaches the method of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach the method, wherein the method further comprises at least one selected from the group consisting of:
adding Gaussian blur for the to-be-processed image after the wipe area of the to-be-processed image is determined; and
adding Gaussian blur for the wipe area in the completed image after the completed image is generated.
However, Storer teaches a method, wherein the method further comprises at least one selected from the group consisting of:
adding Gaussian blur for the to-be-processed image after the wipe area of the to-be-processed image is determined; and
adding Gaussian blur for the wipe area in the completed image after the completed image is generated (e.g. [0079]: a Gaussian blur can “soften” the edges of a selected portion of image data (e.g. blog-segmented foreground data with small blobs removed); Examiner’s note: this shows the blurring of areas where objects were removed (wipe area)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings/combination of Ishida and Nagai to use Gaussian blur, in the same conventional manner as taught by Storer as both deal with removing regions during image processing. The motivation to combine the two would be that the Gaussian blur would soften the edges of the removed portions.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 2-8, 12, 15-18 is/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. To note, claims 3-8 are included as they depend on claim 2, and claims 16-18 are included as they depend on claim 15 (see 35 USC 112 rejection above for claim 18).
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim(s) 2-8, 15-18 was/were carefully reviewed and a search with regards to independent claim(s) 1, 13 and intervening claim(s) 11 (for claim 12) has been made. Accordingly, those claim(s) are believed to be distinct from the prior art searched.
Regarding claim(s) 2-8, 15-18 (and specifically independent claim(s) 1, 13), the prior art search was found to neither anticipate nor suggest the method of claim 1/device of claim 13, wherein the acquiring a replacement pixel value corresponding to a target pixel point in the wipe area comprises: executing in order, for every pixel row of the to-be-processed image, the following steps of: acquiring a number of row projection points corresponding to the target pixel point in a current pixel row, the row projection points being located at intersections of the current pixel row and the area boundary; obtaining a row boundary pixel point corresponding to the target pixel point in the current pixel row according to distances from the row projection points to the corresponding target pixel point, if the number of the row projection points is at least one; and obtaining the replacement pixel values corresponding to respective target pixel points in the current pixel row according to pixel values of the row boundary pixel points (emphasis added).
Regarding claim(s) 12 (and specifically independent claim(s) 1), the prior art search was found to neither anticipate nor suggest the method of claim 11, wherein the method further comprises: acquiring device performance information of a terminal device; determining a Gaussian blur parameter according to the device performance information, the Gaussian blur parameter being used to characterize a number of times the Gaussian blur is performed, and/or a precision of Gaussian blur; the adding Gaussian blur comprises: adding Gaussian blur based on the Gaussian blur parameter (emphasis added).
It is viewed that any of the previously cited references or any of the prior art searched, in part or in whole, cannot be combined in such a way to render the claimed invention obvious.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JED-JUSTIN IMPERIAL whose telephone number is (571)270-5807. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday, 9am - 6pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Daniel Hajnik can be reached at (571) 272-7642. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JED-JUSTIN IMPERIAL/Examiner, Art Unit 2616
/DANIEL F HAJNIK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2616
Prosecution Insights