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 .
The action is responsive to the following communication: an application filed on 10/29/2024 where:
Claims 1-14 are cancelled.
Claims 15-25 are currently pending.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 17-19 and 21-22 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.
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 15, 16, 20, and 23-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nishiura (US 2013/0107296) in view of Ueda et al. (US 2015/0103201, hereinafter Ueda).
Regarding claim 15, Nishiura teaches: An information processing apparatus (fig. 1, MFP 100) comprising:
a first acceptance unit configured (fig. 4, target color extracting unit 406) to accept information for identifying a color to be measured ([0077], In response to the designation, the target color extracting unit 406 extracts the color information of the pixel present at the point).
Nishiura does not explicitly teach: a determination unit configured to determine, as a candidate for a colorimetric region, one or more regions that has the color to be measured in an image to be formed by image data in an image forming apparatus;
a second acceptance unit configured to accept a user instruction input regarding a selection result of the colorimetric region selected from one or more candidates determined by the determination unit; and
a transmission configured to transmit the selected colorimetric region.
However, Ueda teaches: a determination unit configured to determine, as a candidate for a colorimetric region, one or more regions that has the color to be measured in an image to be formed by image data in an image forming apparatus ([0048. 0084, 0090], In this step ST5, the image analysis unit 101 determines at least one color region among the color regions of which the frequencies exceed the threshold value as an extraction color region, and outputs information on the extraction color region and fig. 2, steps st1-st5, );
a second acceptance unit configured to accept a user instruction input regarding a selection result of the colorimetric region selected from one or more candidates determined by the determination unit (fig. 10, st17-st19, [0088-0089], In this way, when there are a plurality of color regions of which frequencies exceed the threshold value, a user is made to select a color region to be determined as an extraction color region, so that a color region preferred by the user can be determined as an extraction color region. ); and
a transmission configured to transmit the selected colorimetric region (fig. 1, output to image processing unit 102, [0052], The image analysis unit 101 determines an extraction color region including at least a partial region in an image using color information of the input image signal SVin, and supplies information on the region to the image processing unit 102.).
Therefore, the Applicant's claimed invention would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Nishiura to include a determination unit configured to determine, as a candidate for a colorimetric region, one or more regions that has the color to be measured in an image to be formed by image data in an image forming apparatus; a second acceptance unit configured to accept a user instruction input regarding a selection result of the colorimetric region selected from one or more candidates determined by the determination unit; and a transmission configured to transmit the selected colorimetric region as taught by Ueda. The motivation/suggestion would have been to further enhance/improve the information processing apparatus since doing so would allow for displaying and selection of colorimetric region selection from candidates. Therefore, it is possible to determine a color region preferred by a user as the extraction color region.
Regarding claim 16, Nishiura and Ueda teach: The information processing apparatus according to claim 15, further comprising: a display unit configured to display the image to be formed by the image data (Nishiura, fig. 9, display image 902), wherein
the first acceptance unit is further configured to accept a user input regarding a specified area in the image displayed on the display unit as the information (Nishiura, [0077], Here, the user has designated a point 911 (a portion of the blue sky in the image) shown in FIG. 9.).
Regarding claim 20, Nishiura and Ueda teach: The information processing apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the determination unit is further configured to determine the one or more candidates based on selection criterion (Ueda, [0087], In this way, a user is prompted to select the extraction color region. FIG. 11 shows a displayed example of candidate color regions in the display unit 114), and
the selection criterion includes a first condition that a region in which a maximum color difference from the color to be measured is less than or equal to a predetermined value in the image to be formed by the image data (Ueda, [0046]).
Regarding claim 23, Nishiura and Ueda teach: The information processing apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the transmission unit is further configured to transmit a print job (Nishiura, [0039]) including the selected colorimetric region and the image data to the image forming apparatus (Ueda, fig. 1, output to image processing unit 102, [0052], The image analysis unit 101 determines an extraction color region including at least a partial region in an image using color information of the input image signal SVin, and supplies information on the region to the image processing unit 102.).
Claims 24 and 25 are rejected for reasons similar to claim 15 above
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW H LAM whose telephone number is (571)270-7969 and fax number is 571-270-8969. The examiner can normally be reached on 9AM-5PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Benny Tieu can be reached on 571-272-7490. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANDREW H LAM/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2682
Prosecution Insights