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 .
Third Party Submission
The third party submission filed April 30, 2025 has been placed in the application file and the information referred to therein has been considered as to the merits.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claims 1-11 and 15-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US patent publication 20220374946 granted to Kass et al and further in view of US patent 10,417,490 granted to Martin.
Regarding claim 1, Kass teaches a system for authenticating an object by capturing a plurality of digital images of a physical object {see paragraph [0137] (The images captured by the image acquisition device 102 under the different lighting conditions highlight and uncover the unique physical characteristics) and generating a digital fingerprint for the object based on the extracted features (characteristics) {see paragraph [0137] (The system 100 is able to store a high-resolution image of a collectible and create a “fingerprint” of the collectible for future authentication purposes of all collectibles). Kass fails to specifically teach determining in real-time if the digital image is of sufficient quality to determine an object type for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image; determining in real-time an object type for the object when the digital image is of sufficient quality to determine an object type for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image; and determining in real-time if the digital image is of sufficient quality to generate a digital fingerprint for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image; and extracting features from one or more authentication regions of a digital image of the plurality of digital images, which has been determined to be of sufficient quality to generate a digital fingerprint for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image.
In an analogous art, Martin discloses a method for assessing the quality of an image used for authenticating an object such as an ID card (see Abstract). Martin teaches determining in real-time if the digital image is of sufficient quality to determine an object type for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image; determining in real-time an object type for the object when the digital image is of sufficient quality to determine an object type for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image; and determining in real-time if the digital image is of sufficient quality to generate a digital fingerprint for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image; and extracting features from one or more authentication regions of a digital image of the plurality of digital images, which has been determined to be of sufficient quality to generate a digital fingerprint for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image (see Abstract and column 7, line 8 to column 8, line 41). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object with Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two in order to gain the advantage of minimizing computing resources needed in the object authentication (see Martin; column 3, lines 37-43).
Regarding claim 2, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition Kass teaches storing the digital fingerprint for the physical object type in an authentication database to induct the physical object into the authentication database {see Kass; paragraph [0137] (These images are stored on the database 103 and serve as a fingerprint of the graded card based on the physical characteristics and/or defects of the card. The system 100 may store the high-resolution image in a collectible image file and is able to use the “fingerprint” to authenticate a collectible that is in a holder (“Slab”) or other grading company's holder if the collectible was put in a slab by another company but graded by the system 100).
Regarding claim 3, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition Kass teaches comparing the generated digital fingerprint to a plurality of stored digital fingerprints; and determining a match between the generated digital fingerprint and one of the stored digital fingerprints to authenticate the physical object {see Kass; paragraph [0110] (When the system 104 receives a newly-obtained image of a collectible or card 116, its 64-bit perceptual hash is also computed. Then, the perceptual hash of the newly-obtained image is compared to all of the known hashes from the database 130. The top 200 closest matches are then considered, one-by-one, and the collectible's or card's 116 pixels are directly compared to the images in the database 130 using a template matching process).
Regarding claim 4, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition Kass teaches re-positioning the physical object relative to a camera used to capture the plurality of digital images between captures of different digital images of the plurality of digital images {see Kass; paragraph [0100] (the collectible 116 can be repositioned, either automatically or manually, in order to capture images of another side of the collectible 116 utilizing the same and/or different series of instructions).
Regarding claim 5, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition Martin teaches providing one or more indications to a user when a digital image is of sufficient quality to determine a digital fingerprint for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image {see Martin; column 4, lines 37-52 (text that indicates that the server identified an image of the identification card 115 of sufficient quality . . . a graphical indicator that the server identified an image of the identification card 115 of sufficient quality). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object with Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two in order to gain the advantage of minimizing computing resources needed in the object authentication (see Martin; column 3, lines 37-43).
Regarding claim 6, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 5), in addition Martin teaches providing one or more indications to a user when a digital image is of insufficient quality to generate a digital fingerprint for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image {see Martin; column 6, lines 59-63 (If none of the images have a sufficient quality score, then the quality score comparer 245 may provide data indicating that the user should attempt to capture a better image of the document 205.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object with Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two in order to gain the advantage of minimizing computing resources needed in the object authentication (see Martin; column 3, lines 37-43).
Regarding claim 7, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition Martin teaches determining if each digital image is of sufficient quality to generate a digital fingerprint for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image includes determining whether the digital image data of the digital image satisfy a plurality of quality metrics {see Martin; column 1, lines 62-65 (If the quality of any metric or combination of metrics in the action where the quality of the first image is quantified are below thresholds, the image is rejected and the other images are considered). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object with Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two in order to gain the advantage of minimizing computing resources needed in the object authentication (see Martin; column 3, lines 37-43).
Regarding claim 8, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 7), in addition Martin teaches the quality metrics include at least one of a distance quality metric, a focus quality metric, an illumination metric, a rotation metric, and a noise metric {see Martin; column 2, lines 59-64 (The action of determining whether to perform document authentication on the first image is further based on determining whether the focus score satisfies the focus score threshold). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object with Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two in order to gain the advantage of minimizing computing resources needed in the object authentication (see Martin; column 3, lines 37-43).
Regarding claim 9, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 7), in addition Martin teaches the quality metrics are measured based on digital image data from the one or more authentication regions in the digital image {see Martin; column 6, line 4 to column 7, line 7. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object with Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two in order to gain the advantage of minimizing computing resources needed in the object authentication (see Martin; column 3, lines 37-43).
Regarding claim 10, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 7), in addition Martin teaches providing a plurality of indications to a user, each indication representing a different one of the plurality of quality metrics, and each indication indicating whether a digital image satisfies the quality metric represented by the indication, wherein satisfying the quality metric is a requirement for generating a digital fingerprint for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image {see Martin; column 6, line 4 to column 7, line 7}. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object with Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two in order to gain the advantage of minimizing computing resources needed in the object authentication (see Martin; column 3, lines 37-43).
Regarding claim 11, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 7), in addition Martin teaches determining, for each digital image, a total quality metric based on the quality metrics measured for the image; extracting features from one or more authentication regions of the digital image of the plurality of digital images, which has been determined to have a highest total quality metric of the plurality of digital images; and generating the digital fingerprint for the object based on the extracted features {see Martin; column 6, line 4 to column 7, line 7}. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object with Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two in order to gain the advantage of minimizing computing resources needed in the object authentication (see Martin; column 3, lines 37-43).
Claims 15-19 are system claims that are substantially equivalent to method claims 1, 5-9 and 11. Kass further teaches a system with processors, memory and a scanner for implementing the method (see paragraphs [0199] (image acquisition device, such as but not limited to a scanner, to a processor); [0254]-[0256]).Therefore claims 15-19 are rejected by a similar rationale.
Claims 12-14 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US patent publication 20220374946 granted to Kass et al and further in view of US patent 10,417,490 granted to Martin and US patent publication 20210056673 granted to Narasimha-iyer.
Regarding claim 12, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), however Kass as modified fails to specifically teach capturing the plurality of digital images of the physical object includes capturing the plurality of digital images at a rate greater than or equal to 24 Hz. In an analogous art, Narasimha-iyer discloses a method for using a quality threshold for a fingerprint image of an object where the rate or capturing the image can be greater than or equal to 24 Hz. {see Narasimha-iyer; paragraph [0063] (capturing a new fingerprint image can be done at a high rate of multiple times per second (e.g. 1-30 Hz or higher)}. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Narasimha-iyer’s quality threshold for a fingerprint image with Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object and Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine the references in order to quickly determine images suitable for generating the fingerprint image.
Regarding claim 13, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 12), in addition Narasimha-iyer as modified teaches determining in real-time if the digital image is of sufficient quality to generate a digital fingerprint for the physical object from digital image data of the digital image occurs within 0.5 seconds of the capture of the digital image. {see Narasimha-iyer; paragraph [0063]}. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Narasimha-iyer’s quality threshold for a fingerprint image with Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object and Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine the references in order to quickly determine images suitable for generating the fingerprint image.
Regarding claim 14, Kass as modified discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition Narasimha-iyer as modified teaches capturing the plurality of digital images of the physical object includes capturing the plurality of digital images at a rate greater than or equal to 60 Hz. {see Narasimha-iyer; paragraph [0063]}. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Narasimha-iyer’s quality threshold for a fingerprint image with Martin’ method for assessing image qualities of a physical ID object and Kass’ method for authenticating objects. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine the references in order to quickly determine images suitable for generating the fingerprint image.
Claim 20 is a system that is substantially equivalent to method claims 12-13. Kass further teaches a system with processors, memory and a scanner for implementing the method (see paragraphs [0199] (image acquisition device, such as but not limited to a scanner, to a processor); [0254]-[0256]).Therefore claim 20 is rejected by a similar rationale.
Conclusion
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/MATTHEW SMITHERS/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2437