DETAILED ACTION
[1] Remarks
I. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
II. Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined, where claims 1, 6-8, 10, 15-17, and 19 is/are rejected and claim 2-5, 9, 11-14, 18 and 20 is/are objected to. Explanations will be provided below.
III. Inventor and/or assignee search were performed and determined no double patenting rejection(s) is/are necessary.
IV. Patent eligibility (updated in 2019) shown by the following: Claims 1-20 pass patent eligibility test because there is/are no limitation or a combination of limitations amounting to an abstract idea. Also, the following limitation or the combinations of the limitations: “if the comparison value exceeds a threshold value, return the at least one stored image to the application; and if the comparison value does not exceed the threshold value, forward the search request including the captured image to a remote detection service for image detection”
effects a transformation or a reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing / adds a specific limitation(s) other than what is well-understood, routine and conventional in the field, or adding unconventional steps that confine the claim to a particular useful application and providing improvements to the technical field of software authentication, which recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and amounting significant more.
[2] Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
Use of the word “means” (or “step for”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim element is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph). The presumption that 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph) is invoked is rebutted when the function is recited with sufficient structure, material, or acts within the claim itself to entirely perform the recited function. Absence of the word “means” (or “step for”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim element is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph). The presumption that 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph) is not invoked is rebutted when the claim element recites function but fails to recite sufficiently definite structure, material or acts to perform that function.
Claim elements in this application that use the word “means” (or “step for”) are presumed to invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Similarly, claim elements that do not use the word “means” (or “step for”) are presumed not to invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
Claim(s) 10-18 are not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA U.S.C. 112 6th paragraph because of the following reason(s): limitations are modified by sufficient structure or material for performing the claimed function.
Claim(s) 1-9 and 19-20 does not require 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA U.S.C. 112 6th paragraph interpretation because they are method claims and / or they are CRM claims.
Upon examination of the specification and claims, the examiner has determined, under the best understanding of the scope of the claim(s), rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(a)/(b) is not necessitated because of the following reasons: sufficient support are provided in the written description / drawings of the invention.
[3] Grounds of Rejection
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
1. 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.
2. Claims 1, 6-7, 10, 15-16, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rasmussen (US 6912071) in view of Williams (US 5642202).
Regarding claim 1, Rasmussen discloses a method, comprising:
receiving, by a processor, a search request including a captured image of a graphical user interface from an application under test (see column 3, lines 35-40, FIG. 3B is an exemplary digital test pattern used by the invention, including several sub-regions, test targets, that can be used for measurements of specific aspects of image quality, also see column 4, lines 35-40, the UIM core 18 also has connected thereto a control panel I/O processor 44 and a generic accessories interface I/O processor 46);
if the comparison value exceeds a threshold value, returning, by the processor, the at least one stored image to the application under test (see column 5, lines 25-30, flow advances to step S360 where a determination is made by the image quality analysis module 70 whether the image quality for this particular test image is acceptable and whether further analysis by a diagnostic facility is desirable, also see column 5, lines 52-54, a third category of such factors are user image quality acceptability threshold); and
if the comparison value does not exceed the threshold value, forwarding, by the processor, the search request including the captured image to a remote detection service for image detection (see column 5, lines 30-37, the image quality is below threshold, flow advances from step S360 to step S370 where a call can be made to a diagnostic facility, this call may be an automatic service call made through modem 48 for scheduling an actual service visit by a service technician to correct the noted problems. Alternatively, it may be a call to a more sophisticated diagnostic module 80 located locally or at the remote facility that can further analyze the image quality problem).
Rasmussen is silent in disclosing comparing, by the processor, the captured image with at least one stored image in a cache; calculating, by the processor, a comparison value between the captured image and the at least one stored image in a cache; determining, by the processor, if the captured image has been stored in a cache by: comparing, by the processor, the captured image with at least one stored image in the cache; and calculating, by the processor, a comparison value between the captured image and the at least one stored image.
Williams discloses
comparing, by the processor, the captured image with at least one stored image in a cache (see figure 3, S11 compare transformed master image with scanned image, where the master image is stored, figure 1, 3 is read as the processor);
calculating, by the processor, a comparison value between the captured image and the at least one stored image in a cache (see column 3, lines 52-56, means for comparing scanned image data with the retrieved prestored image data and for generating compensation values based on a difference between the scanned image data and the prestored image data);
determining, by the processor, if the captured image has been stored in a cache by:
comparing, by the processor, the captured image with at least one stored image in the cache (see column 4, lines 8-11, the scanned image data is compared with the retrieved prestored image data to generate compensation values); and
calculating, by the processor, a comparison value between the captured image and the at least one stored image (see column 5, lines 30-33, the absolute value is fed into a comparator or decision circuit to determine if the absolute value is greater than a threshold value).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include comparing, by the processor, the captured image with at least one stored image in a cache because the system avoids heavy loads by reusing past results and this process helps devices run faster and use less battery, where reusing a matched result is faster than running a new, computational heavy AI or computer vision search.
Regarding claim 6, Williams discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the comparison includes a structural comparison and a pixel comparison (see column 6, lines 20-23, analyzer 3 determines the errors or differences between the two positionally associated images and produces calibration values therefrom which are stored as a screen matrix or matrices in a calibration values memory 5). See the motivation for claim 1. In addition, the comparison includes a structural comparison and a pixel comparison measures the distance and similarity which improve image recognition.
Regarding claim 7, Williams discloses the method according to claim 6, wherein the structural comparison includes a structural similarity index method (see column 8, lines 8-10, more specifically, the points are compared with the target location of these points according to the master image information to produce a positional difference). See the motivation for claims 1 and 6. Also a structural comparison measures perceived similarity between images by evaluating local patterns, luminance, contrast, which improve image recognition.
Regarding claims 10 and 19, see the rationale and rejection for claim 1.
Regarding claim 15, see the rationale and rejection for claim 6.
Regarding claim 16, see the rationale and rejection for claim 7.
3. Claims 8 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rasmussen (US 6912071) in view of Williams (US 5642202) and Jahng (US 20020039442).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Rasmussen and Williams as a whole discloses all the limitations of claim 6, but is silent disclosing the method according to claim 6, wherein the pixel comparison includes comparing distances between histograms of images.
Jahng discloses the method according to claim 6, wherein the pixel comparison includes comparing distances between histograms of images (see paragraph 41, query image and the stored Subject Images is calculated by comparing the relevant gray histogram distributions, more specifically, the difference of the Euclidean distance is calculated between the gray histogram distributions of the image stored in the database and the query image):
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It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include comparing distances between image histograms helps because it measures how colors or light are spread out, rather than checking every single pixel, improving image recognition.
Regarding claim 17 see the rationale and rejection for claim 8
[4] Claim Objections
Claim(s) 2-5, 9, 11-14, 18 and 20 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.
With regards to claim 2, the examiner cannot find any applicable prior art providing teachings for the following limitation(s): the method according to claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the processor, search results from the remote detection service based on the forwarded search request, wherein the search results include at least one candidate image; updating, by the processor, the cache with the search request and the at least one candidate image; and sending, by the processor, the at least one candidate image to the application under test; in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 1.
Rasmussen discloses the method according to claim 1, further comprising:
receiving, by the processor,
updating, by the processor,
sending, by the processor, the at least one candidate image to the application under test (see column 3, lines 6-8, sends the test results and possibly part or all of the scanned test pattern to a service or diagnostic facility).
Claim(s) 3-5 is/are objected as well because it is dependent on a claim with allowable subject matter.
With regards to claim 9, the examiner cannot find any applicable prior art providing teachings for the following limitation(s): the method according to claim 6, wherein probabilities from the structural comparison and the pixel comparison are combined to determine the threshold value; in combination with the rest of the limitations of claims 1 and 6.
Regarding claims 11-14 and 20 see the rationale for claim 2.
Furtado (Furtado, P. Testing Segmentation Popular Loss and Variations in Three Multiclass Medical Imaging Problems. J. Imaging 2021, 7, 16) the method according to claim 6, wherein probabilities from the structural comparison and the pixel comparison are combined (see equation 11), but not to determine the threshold value.
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IoU1 is read as the structural comparison and IoU2 is read as the pixel to pixel comparison. IoU measurement can read on both structural comparison and pixel to pixel comparison because IoU compares the shape of the groundtruth and the segmented image (see figure 2 below) and the comparison is based pixel to pixel matching.
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Regarding claim 18 see the rationale for claim 9.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALEX LIEW (duty station is located in New York City) whose telephone number is (571)272-8623 (FAX 571-273-8623), cell (917)763-1192 or email alexa.liew@uspto.gov. Please note the examiner cannot reply through email unless an internet communication authorization is provided by the applicant. The examiner can be reached anytime.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, MISTRY ONEAL R, can be reached on (313)446-4912. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ALEX KOK S LIEW/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2674 Telephone: 571-272-8623
Date: 7/25/26
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