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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application KR10-2023-0144945, filed on October 26, 2023.
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.
Claims 1-3, 5-8, and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KR20200003971 to Lee Suk Bok et al. (hereinafter "Lee") in view of US Patent No. 10,289,812 to Kim Dong Hwa et al. (hereinafter “Kim”).
Regarding claim 1, Lee teaches an image forgery prevention device using a hash function comprising:
a privacy area detection processor (Lee; Claim 1; Fig. 7-9; “privacy protection image generation unit”) configured to detect a privacy area image from an original image (Lee; Claim 1, Fig. 8-9);
a hash value generation processor (Lee; [0033]; Fig 3. 125-126) configured to use the hash function to generate a hash value of the privacy area image (Lee; [0007]);
an obfuscation processor (Lee; Claim 1; Fig. 7 140) configured to obfuscate the privacy area image (Lee; Claim 1, [0084-0088], Fig. 12 s140, “performs pixelation on a critical block”).
Lee fails to explicitly disclose a verification hash value insertion processor configured to insert a verification hash value corresponding to the hash value into an obfuscated privacy area of the original image in a predetermined encrypted form, but does disclose that the verification hash value is stored (unencrypted) in the memory of the unit (Lee; [0048]).
Kim teaches a verification hash value insertion processor (Kim; Column 20, lines 35-42; Fig. 1 500; “secure electronic document generating unit”) configured to insert a verification hash value (Kim, Column 3, lines 1-6; disclosed “forgery falsification verification data” is analogous to claimed “verification hash value”) corresponding to the hash value (Kim; Claim 4) into an obfuscated privacy area of the original image (electronic document) in a predetermined encrypted form (Kim; Column 20, lines 53-56).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Lee to incorporate the teachings of Kim to modify the image forgery prevention device disclosed in Lee to be capable of encrypting and inserting the encrypted verification hash value into an obfuscated privacy area. Further encrypting the verification hash value data would allow for data to be inserted into a specific location in the original electronic document to both “indicate and identify the location of the forged or falsified content with integrity verification of an electronic document file, whereby forgery or falsification of the electronic document can be effectively prevented (Kim; Column 2, lines 43-46).
Regarding claim 6, Lee teaches an image forgery prevention method using a hash function, the method comprising:
a privacy area image detection step of detecting a privacy area image from an original image (Lee; Claim 1, Fig. 8-9) by a privacy area detection processor (Lee; Claim 1; Fig. 7-9; “privacy protection image generation unit”);
a hash value generation step of using the hash function to generate a hash value of the privacy area image (Lee; [0007]) by a hash value generation processor (Lee; [0033]; Fig 3. 125-126);
an obfuscation step of obfuscating the privacy area image (Lee; Claim 1, [0084-0088], Fig. 12 s140, “performs pixelation on a critical block”) by an obfuscation processor (Lee; Claim 1; Fig. 7 140).
Lee fails to explicitly disclose a verification hash value insertion step of inserting a verification hash value corresponding to the hash value into an obfuscated privacy area of the original image in a predetermined encrypted form by a verification hash value insertion processor, but does disclose that the verification hash value is stored (unencrypted) in the memory of the unit (Lee; [0048]).
Kim teaches a verification hash value insertion step (Kim; Column 20, lines 35-42; Fig. 1 500; “secure electronic document generating unit”) configured to insert a verification hash value (Kim, Column 3, lines 1-6; disclosed “forgery falsification verification data” is analogous to claimed “verification hash value”) corresponding to the hash value (Kim; Claim 4) into an obfuscated privacy area of the original image (electronic document) in a predetermined encrypted form (Kim; Column 20, lines 53-56).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Lee to incorporate the teachings of Kim to modify the image forgery prevention device disclosed in Lee to be capable of encrypting and inserting the encrypted verification hash value into an obfuscated privacy area. Further encrypting the verification hash value data would allow for data to be inserted into a specific location in the original electronic document to both “indicate and identify the location of the forged or falsified content with integrity verification of an electronic document file, whereby forgery or falsification of the electronic document can be effectively prevented (Kim; Column 2, lines 43-46).
Regarding claims 2 and 7, Lee (in view of Kim) teaches all the limitations of claims 1 and 6. Lee (in view of Kim) further teaches:
an authenticity determination processor/step (Lee; [0010]; Fig. 1 200) configured to determine whether the privacy area image is authentic (Lee; [0008]) or not by comparing the hash value of the privacy area image with the verification hash value (Lee; [0029]). Lee fails to teach that the verification hash value is inserted into the obfuscated privacy area of the original image but does disclose that the verification hash value is stored in the memory of the unit (Lee; [0048]).
Kim teaches a verification hash value inserted into the obfuscated privacy area of the original image (Kim; Column 20; lines 38-41).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Lee to incorporate the teachings of Kim to modify the image forgery prevention device disclosed in Lee to be capable of inserting the encrypted verification hash value into an obfuscated privacy area under the same reasoning used to reject claims 1 and 6.
Regarding claims 3 and 8, Lee (in view of Kim) teaches all the limitations of claims 1-2, and 6-7. Lee (in view of Kim) further teaches:
an image restoration processor/step (Lee; [0028]) configured to restore the privacy area image to the obfuscated privacy area in a case where the hash value and the verification hash value are identical (Lee; [0027-0030]).
Regarding claims 5 and 10, Lee (in view of Kim) teaches all the limitations of claims 1 and 6. Lee (in view of Kim) further teaches:
wherein the predetermined encrypted form of the verification hash value inserted in the verification hash value insertion processor/step is an encrypted-metadata form or a watermarking form (Kim; Claim 3, “digital signature”).
Claims 4 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KR20200003971 to Lee Suk Bok et al. (hereinafter "Lee") in view of US Patent No. 10,289,812 to Kim Dong Hwa et al. (hereinafter “Kim”) and US Patent 12,547,782 to Zhuk, Dmytro et al. (hereinafter “Zhuk”) .
Regarding claims 4 and 9, Lee (in view of Kim) teaches all the limitations of claims 1 and 6, but fails to disclose wherein the detecting of the privacy area image is performed by using artificial intelligence object detection technology, and the obfuscated privacy area corresponds to an area of a bounding box of the privacy area image.
Zhuk teaches artificial intelligence object detection technology (Zhuk; Column 14, lines 15-38), and the obfuscated privacy area corresponds to an area of a bounding box of the privacy area image (Zhuk; Column 2, lines 40-67; Column 3, lines 1-15, Fig. 8, Fig. 9D).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Lee (in view of Kim) to incorporate the teachings of Zhuk by to modify the image forgery prevention device disclosed in Lee (in view of Kim) to be capable of detecting the privacy area image using artificial intelligence object detection technology, and for the obfuscated privacy area to correspond to an area of a bounding box of the privacy area image. The artificial intelligence object detection technology disclosed by Zhuk shows that the system may include one or more processors, configured to receive motion data, image data, input data, audio data, and location data (Zhuk; Column 17, line 7 – Page 34, Column 19, line 25, Fig.3-Fig. 4). Because the model described by Zhuk is configured to be able to receive a definition of the privacy zone via the user (Zhuk; Column 28, lines 5-16), a person of ordinary skill in the art could have modified the parameters for the data used in the artificial intelligence object detection model referenced by Zhuk to serve the purposes of detecting the privacy area in the image forgery detection device referenced by Lee (in view of Kim) to achieve predictable results.
Examiner’s Note
The referenced citations made in the rejection(s) above are intended to exemplify areas
in the prior art document(s) in which the examiner believed are the most relevant to the
claimed subject matter. However, it is incumbent upon the applicant to analyze the prior
art document(s) in its/their entirety since other areas of the document(s) may be relied
upon at a later time to substantiate examiner's rationale of record. A prior art reference
must be considered in its entirety, i.e., as a whole, including portions that would lead
away from the claimed invention. W.L. Gore & associates, Inc. V. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d
1540, 220 USPQ 303 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984). However, "the prior art's mere disclosure of more than one alternative does not constitute a teaching away from any of these alternatives because such disclosure does not criticize, discredit, or otherwise discourage the solution claimed..." In re Fulton, 391 F.3d 1195, 1201, 73 USPQ2d 1141, 1146 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
Conclusion
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/C.L./Examiner, Art Unit 2435
/J. BRANT MURPHY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2435