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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12 June 2026 has been entered.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 11-13, and 17-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2015/0010236 A1 (hereinafter “HTC”) in view of US 12,003,691 B1 (hereinafter “Microsoft”).
As per Claim 1, HTC discloses an imaging device configured to determine an initial focus value (paragraph [0006] discloses automatic image adjusting method, estimating corresponding depth distances of the target objects in the image; and
displaying the image on the display screen by switching focus between the target objects), the imaging device comprising:
one or more processors (paragraph [0013] discloses one or more processors); and
a computer-readable medium storing machine readable instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to (paragraph[0025] comprising storage);
capture, via the imaging assembly, the depth image data of the one or more objects appearing in view (paragraph [0020] discloses image capture unit captures an image, the processor may analyze the retrieved image to determine multiple target objects, the processor 110 may estimate a depth map, e.g. a grey level map of luminance values from 0 to 255, corresponding to the image 200, thereby estimating the depth distance
of each target object in the image 200);
detect one or more candidate objects of the one or more objects appearing (paragraph [0020] discloses the processor recognizes human faces in the image), each candidate object of the one or more candidate objects being associated with a candidate distance (paragraph [0002] discloses the users 210, 220, and 230 may be located at different depth distances within the scene);
generate a ranking of the one or more candidate objects based on at least the candidate distance for the each candidate object of the one or more candidate objects (paragraph [0021] discloses the processor 110 may calculate a ranking based on the estimated depth distances of the target objects), the ranking indicative of a focus target likelihood for the each candidate object of the one or more candidate objects (paragraph [0021] discloses the ranking of the depth distances, where the largest value of the depth distance indicates that the corresponding target object is located at the farthest place of the scene, and the smallest value of the depth distance, e.g. with a largest grey level in the depth image indicates that the corresponding target object is located at the nearest place of the scene); and
automatically determine the initial focus value based on the ranking of the one or more candidate objects (paragraph [0021] discloses and automatically focus each of the target objects in a specific display order associated with the calculated ranking of the estimated depth distances of the target objects to alter the focus on different target objects).
HTC does not disclose an imaging assembly including a depth camera and configured to capture depth image data of one or more objects appearing in a field of view FOV. MICROSOFT disclose an imaging assembly including a depth camera and configured to capture depth image data of one or more objects appearing in a field of view FOV (Col. 3, lines 34-44 discloses a computing system receives a depth image of surrounding, i.e. field of view, captured by depth camera, where in the depth image comprises plurality of objects).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have modified the disclosure of HTC according to the teachings of MICROSOFT to allow automatic focusing where a human user is not present.
As per claim 2, modified HTC discloses the imaging device of claim 1. HTC discloses wherein automatically determining the initial focus value is further based on a highest ranked candidate object (paragraph [0021] discloses automatically focus each of the target objects in a specific display order associated with the calculated ranking of the estimated depth distances of the target objects).
As per claim 11, modified HTC discloses the imaging device of claim 1. HTC discloses wherein the ranking of one or more candidate objects is further based on position of the one more candidate objects (paragraph [0021] discloses the ranking of the depth distances, where the largest value of the depth distance indicates that the corresponding target object is located at the farthest place of the scene, and the smallest value of the depth distance ( e.g. with a largest grey level in the depth image) indicates that the corresponding target object is located at the nearest place of the scene).
As per claim 12, modified HTC discloses the imaging device of claim 1. HTC does not disclose wherein the ranking of the one or more candidate objects is further based on an intersection between an aiming line and the one or more candidate objects. MICROSOFT disclose wherein the ranking of the one or more candidate objects is further based on an intersection between an aiming line and the one or more candidate objects (Col. 2, lines 34-41 discloses the computing system receives a depth image of a surrounding environment captured by the depth camera, where depth pixels of the depth image encode depth values representing distances between the depth camera and objects in the environment. One or more such depth pixels are identified as a region-of-interest ROI-e.g., by tracking a gaze direction of a human user, and/or by detecting presence of an object of interest in the environment). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the disclosure of HTC according to the teachings of MICROSOFT to allow automatic focusing where a human user is not present.
As per claim 13, modified HTC discloses the imaging device of claim l. HTC does not disclose wherein the ranking of the one or more candidate objects is further based on contrast from the depth image data of the one or more candidate objects. MICROSOFT disclose wherein the ranking of the one or more candidate objects is further based on contrast from the depth image data of the one or more candidate objects (Col. 8, lines 46-51 discloses For instance, the camera calibration may be changed automatically by evaluating contrast levels in images captured after focus adjustment, and/or changed manually by a human user after deciding that the current calibration is not providing sufficiently focused images). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the disclosure of HTC according to the teachings of MICROSOFT to allow automatic focusing where a human user is not present.
As per claim 17, HTC discloses a method for determining an initial focus value of an imaging device (paragraph [0006] discloses automatic image adjusting method, estimating corresponding depth distances of the target objects in the image; and displaying the image on the display screen by switching focus between the target objects), the method comprising: capturing, by one or more processors (paragraph [0013] discloses one or more processors); via an imaging assembly, a depth image data of one or more objects appearing in a view (paragraph [0020] discloses image capture unit captures an image, the processor may analyze the retrieved image to determine multiple target objects, the processor 110 may estimate a depth map, e.g. a grey level map of luminance values from O to 255, corresponding to the image 200, thereby estimating the depth distance of each target object in the image 200); detecting, by the one or more processors, one or more candidate objects of the one or more objects appearing in the view (paragraph [0020] discloses the processor recognizes human faces in the image), each candidate object of the one or more candidate objects being associated with a candidate distance (paragraph [0002] discloses the users 210, 220, and 230 may be located at different depth distances within the scene); generating, by the one or more processors, a ranking of the one or more candidate objects based on at least the candidate distance for the each candidate object of the one or more candidate objects (paragraph [0021] discloses the processor 110 may calculate a ranking based on the estimated depth distances of the target objects), the ranking indicative of a focus target likelihood for the each candidate object of the one or more candidate objects (paragraph [0021] discloses the ranking of the depth distances, where the largest value of the depth distance indicates that the corresponding target object is located at the farthest place of the scene, and the smallest value of the depth distance, e.g. with a largest grey level in the depth image, indicates that the corresponding target object is located at the nearest place of the scene); and automatically determining, by the one or more processors, the initial focus value based on the ranking of the one or more candidate objects (paragraph [0021] discloses and automatically focus each of the target objects in a specific display order associated with the calculated ranking of the estimated depth distances of the target objects to alter the focus on different target objects). HTC does not disclose an imaging assembly configured to capture depth image data of one or more objects appearing in a field of view FOV. MICROSOFT disclose an imaging assembly configured to capture depth image data of one or more objects appearing in a field of view FOV (Col. 3, lines 34-46 discloses a computing system receives a depth image of surrounding, i.e. field of view, captured by depth camera, where in the depth image comprises plurality of objects). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the disclosure of HTC according to the teachings of MICROSOFT to allow automatic focusing where a human user is not present.
As per claim 18, modified HTC discloses the imaging device of claim 17. HTC discloses wherein automatically determining the initial focus value is further based on a highest ranked candidate object (paragraph [0021] discloses automatically focus each of the target objects in a specific display order associated with the calculated ranking of the estimated depth distances of the target objects).
Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over HTC in view of Microsoft, and further in view of US 2021/0254968 A1 (hereinafter “Purdue”).
As per claim 14, HTC in view of Microsoft discloses the imaging device of claim 1. HTC does not disclose a two dimensional 2D autofocus imaging assembly configured to: capture, via the 2D autofocus imaging assembly, 2D image data of one or more objects.
PURDUE discloses a two dimensional 2D autofocus imaging assembly configured to: capture, via the 2D autofocus imaging assembly, 2D image data of one or more objects (paragraph [0031] discloses detect the focal plane in autofocused images captured of objects in the scene, which are captured using a conventional 2D autofocusing technique).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have modified HTC with the teachings of Microsoft and Purdue in order to allow better and more accurate focusing on target objects.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-10, 15, 16, 19, and 20 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHIAWEI A CHEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1707. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 12:00pm - 9:00pm EST.
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/CHIAWEI CHEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2637
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