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.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/13/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 13 and 14 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In each of claims 1, 13, and 14, four lines from the end of each respective claim, the word “marge” should be changed to --merge--. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claims 1, 5, 9, 10, 13, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by CN109697452A, hereinafter referred to as “CN’452.” Note that all citations set forth below with respect to CN’452 are in reference to the supplied English translation thereof.
With regard to claim 1, CN’452 discloses an information processing apparatus comprising: at least one memory storing instructions; and at least one processor that, upon execution of the stored instructions, cause the at least one processor to: acquire a plurality of elements (page 5, operation S201); classify the acquired elements into a plurality of clusters based on a similarity between the elements (first and second paragraphs of page 5); select a first cluster related to a predetermined object based on a first index calculated from elements included in the classified clusters (again, S201); select a second cluster based on a second index calculated from the first cluster and the elements included in the classified clusters (reanalysis in operation S202, page 5); specify a merge element to be merged, among the acquired elements, based on the second cluster and the first cluster (see examples at the bottom of page 5 - clusters A1 and A3 are merged to create B2); and output a third cluster (B2) including the merge element, an element included in the first cluster, and an element included in the second cluster.
With respect to claim 5, CN’452 discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first index is a certainty indicating a possibility that a predetermined object is included, and is calculated based on at least one of a similarity between elements, a number of elements included in a cluster, and information related to an element (see top of page5).
With respect to claim 9, CN’452 discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the second index is an index indicating a similarity between the first cluster and a target cluster different from the first cluster, and is calculated for each cluster (see reanalysis operation S202 on page 5).
With respect to claim 10, CN’452 discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the second index is calculated based on a similarity between the element included in the first cluster and an element included in the target cluster different from the first cluster, or the first index of the target cluster (see again S202).
Claims 13 and 14 are rejected for reasoning applied, mutatis mutandis, to that of independent claim 1 above. Furthermore, the claimed non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program is taught by CN’452 at page 9.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 4, 6-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CN’452.
CN’452 discloses a clustering of objects via a first and second clustering where clusters may be merged if a similarity threshold is met, see top of page 6 and operation S204 “preset deviation threshold.” However, CN’452 fails to explicitly disclose a cluster is generated by extracting elements having a similarity to each other that is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold, a cluster having the first index that is greater than a first threshold is selected as the first cluster, a cluster having the first index that is greatest is selected as the first cluster, and a cluster having the second index that is greater than a second threshold is selected as the second cluster.
However, considering CN’452 employs at least one threshold in the cluster analysis operations, one of ordinary skill in the art of object clustering in images would have been well aware of creating predetermined thresholds for various clustering abilities like a similarity threshold or a most likely cluster threshold.
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have selected various clusters for comparisons based upon thresholding predetermined by the user for the user’s specific intent as doing so would ensure that appropriately similar (or most likely) clusters would be selected and compared, thus enhancing the overall accuracy of the final clustering of objects. See similar rationale provided by CN’452 for loop iteration of clustering at the bottom of page 6.
Claims 11 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CN’452 in view of CN109086697A, hereinafter “CN’697.” Note that all citations set forth below with respect to CN’452 and CN’697 are in reference to the respectively supplied English translation thereof.
CN’452 discloses a clustering technique that creates clusters of similar objects, and then reanalyzes those clusters to create a potential for merged clusters as taught at pages 5 and 6. However, CN’452 fails to disclose that the first and second indexes for the clusters are derived from different methods from each other. CN’452 also fails to disclose that the data objects being clustered are face images (the objects in CN’452 are simply generic “objects”).
In the same field of endeavor, CN’697 discloses clustering of faces based upon feature vectors and a clustering threshold in order to create a denoised fave image, and then performs further clustering on the denoised faces via a similarity threshold comparison, see CN’697 at page 1, see also page 4 at step S204 and S205. Thus, CN’697 teaches both different methos of clustering, while also teaching the specific objects to be faces.
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the different clustering methods taught by CN’697 into the clustering operations taught by CN’452 for use with clustering faces as doing so would have permitted both an effective and efficient method of grouping faces in a crowd of people, as well as ensuring a robust safety check on the accuracy of the face clustering by performing two different methods of clustering. Large discrepancies in results between clustering methods would indicate a fundamental flaw in the data and/or the reliability of the final clustering results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 3 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The cited prior art is indicative of the general state-of-the-art surrounding the clustering of similar elements/objects in an image via various means of determining a particular cluster.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID OMETZ whose telephone number is (571)272-7593. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8am-4pm.
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DAVID OMETZ
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2672
/DAVID OMETZ/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672
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