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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Examiner Note
The claims have been evaluated under 35 U.S.C. §101 and are directed to patent eligible subject matter. While the claims appear to involve mental/mathematical steps, the claims are integrated into a practical application because they recite steps/elements directed to a specific improvement such as eliminating image jittering phenomenon (See ¶ 4, 41). Accordingly, the claims are not directed to an abstract idea and no rejection under §101 is made.
MPEP 2106.05(a) states:
“After the examiner has consulted the specification and determined that the disclosed invention improves technology, the claim must be evaluated to ensure the claim itself reflects the disclosed improvement in technology. Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1316, 120 USPQ2d 1353, 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (patent owner argued that the claimed email filtering system improved technology by shrinking the protection gap and mooting the volume problem, but the court disagreed because the claims themselves did not have any limitations that addressed these issues). That is, the claim must include the components or steps of the invention that provide the improvement described in the specification. However, the claim itself does not need to explicitly recite the improvement described in the specification”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claim is directed to computer-readable storage medium. The definition of CRSM is open-ended and hence transitory embodiments are included.
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) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hu et al. (hereinafter Hu)(US Publication 2023/0025058 A1)
Re claim 1, Hu discloses an image correction method, comprising: for each shooting device in a plurality of shooting devices, acquiring a target image shot by the shooting device (See fig. 5: S502; ¶ 44, 49, 80 where it teaches obtaining a first image and a second image for an identical shooting object, wherein a first shooting apparatus capturing the first image and a second shooting apparatus capturing the second image are coaxially arranged.); and based on a correction parameter corresponding to the shooting device, correcting the target image (See fig. 5: S504; ¶ 50 where it teaches correcting the second image according to an internal parameter of the first shooting apparatus, and an internal parameter and a rotation matrix of the second shooting apparatus, to obtain the second rectified image corresponding to the second image.)
But the reference of Hu fails to explicitly teach wherein in the case that at least two axis points in a rotation axis containing a virtual center are projected onto the target image to obtain a projection axis, projection axes on corrected target images are consistent, and the virtual center is located on a virtual plane corresponding to the plurality of the shooting devices, and corresponds to physical optical centers of the plurality of the shooting devices.
However, the reference of Hu does suggest (See fig. 6; ¶ 30, 80) wherein in the case that at least two axis points in a rotation axis containing a virtual center are projected onto the target image to obtain a projection axis, projection axes on corrected target images are consistent, and the virtual center is located on a virtual plane corresponding to the plurality of the shooting devices, and corresponds to physical optical centers of the plurality of the shooting devices. (See fig. 1, 6; ¶ 30, 80 where it teaches where cl and cr are optical centers of left and right shooting apparatuses respectively, πl and πr are the images captured by the left and right shooting apparatuses respectively, w is a point in a three-dimensional space. After a perspective projection, ml and mr are image points in the images captured by the left and right shooting apparatuses respectively, and el and er are intersections of optical center connecting lines of the left and right shooting apparatuses and the left and right images respectively, the intersection may also be called epipolar (or epipolar point); the connecting line between ml and el and the connecting line between mr and er may be called epipolar line, corresponding to the “epipolar line” as shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 6. After the image stereo rectification, the two images π1 and nr are transformed into two new virtual images πvl and πvr respectively, corresponding to the “virtual parallel plane” shown in FIG. 1; at this time, the image coordinate of the three-dimensional space point w in the virtual image of the left shooting apparatus is {circumflex over (m)}.sub.l, and the image coordinate in the virtual image of the right shooting apparatus is {circumflex over (m)}.sub.r. After the image stereo rectification, the ordinates of {circumflex over (m)}.sub.l and {circumflex over (m)}.sub.r are the same, so as to complete the image stereo rectification; referring to the structural diagram of the shooting apparatus in the same horizontal direction as shown in FIG. 6, where CL is the optical center of the first shooting apparatus and CR is the optical center of the second shooting apparatus; πL is a plane of the first image acquired by the first shooting apparatus, and πR is a plane of the second image acquired by the second shooting apparatus. At this time, the image stereo rectification model may be further simplified. For example, it is possible to keep the first shooting apparatus stationary and only move the second shooting apparatus based on the first shooting apparatus, and finally the optical axes of the two shooting apparatuses are parallel, and the first image and the second image are coplanar, so that the corrected two shooting apparatuses have a fixed base distance while maintaining the same posture)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art to incorporate this feature into the system of Hu, in the manner as claimed, for the benefit of improving the accuracy and stability of image rectification results. (See ¶ 5)
Claim 13 has been analyzed and rejected w/r to claim 1 above. Furthermore, fig. 3 teaches these components.
Claim 14 has been analyzed and rejected w/r to claim 1 above. Furthermore, fig. 3 & ¶ 37 teaches the medium.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims (2-11, 15-21) 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 prior art of record fails to teach the limitations in claim 2 & 8.)
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Zhao (US 2019/0068877 A1) discloses a mobile terminal image synthesis method.
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LEON FLORES whose telephone number is (571)270-1201. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am - 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, HENOK SHIFERAW can be reached at 571-272-4637. 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.
/LEON FLORES/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2676 September 17, 2026
Prosecution Insights