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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I – claims 1-14 and 17-20 in the reply filed on 1/23/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 15-16 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 1/23/2026.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-4, 9-10 and 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0265029 A1 to Niinami.
With respect to claim 1 Niinami discloses, in Fig. 1-9B, a distance information generation apparatus (paragraph 24; where the apparatus is a digital camera and “distance information” is further defined within the confines of the claims, so how it is a “distance information generation apparatus” will become clear as limitations are addressed) comprising: at least one processor (paragraph 31); and at least one memory storing program instructions, wherein, by executing the program instructions, the at least one processor is configured to (paragraph 31): divide a first image captured by an imaging device into a plurality of blocks (paragraph 27); determine direction movement values for at least one block among the plurality of divided blocks as targets (paragraph 43); control an imaging direction of the imaging device based on the direction movement values of the at least one block (paragraph 55 and 64; where motion and zoom are used to control the imaging direction of the imaging device related to the object tracking of the object with respect to movement of the camera (which includes shake and panning)); and acquire distance information for the at least one block based on a second image captured by the imaging device (paragraph 41, 61 and 67; where contrast information is used for the tracking and tracking is done for each frame (i.e. a second image); Applicant’s specification provides that contrast information is part of their distance determination and is therefore interpreted as “distance information”).
With respect to claim 2 Niinami discloses, in Fig. 1-9B, the distance information generation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the distance information for the at least one block is a representative distance value for the at least one block based on the direction movement values of the at least one block among the plurality of divided blocks (paragraph 61; where a group contrast value is determined for each image area generated from the blocks).
With respect to claim 3 Niinami discloses, in Fig. 1-9B, the distance information generation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first image is divided into M blocks in a horizontal direction and a vertical direction, in which M is a natural number (paragraph 34; where the image is divided into A horizontal and B vertical blocks, thus M = A*B).
With respect to claim 4 Niinami discloses, in Fig. 1-9B, the distance information generation apparatus of claim 3, wherein the direction movement values include pan, tilt, and zoom (PTZ) values for the at least one block, and wherein the second image is a zoomed-in image having a same size as the first image (paragraph 25, 41-46 and 55; where horizontal and vertical motion would be pan/tilt and where the zoom is optical zoom, thus the images have the “same size”).
With respect to claim 9 Niinami discloses, in Fig. 1-9B, the distance information generation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: determine a scan order of the plurality of divided blocks (paragraph 26; where the pixels are readout from the sensor, it is inherent they would be read with a determined scan order which would then relate to a block scan order).
With respect to claim 10 Niinami discloses, in Fig. 1-9B, the distance information generation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to determine a range of a number of divisions for the plurality of blocks (paragraph 66).
Claims 17-19 are rejected for similar reason as claims 1 and 3-4 above respectively as they are corresponding method claims to those of apparatus claims 1 and 3-4 respectively.
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) 5-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0265029 A1 to Niinami in view of KR 20090056592 A to Kim. NOTE: referenced portions of Kim relate to the provided machine translation from the Examiner.
With respect to claim 5 Niinami discloses, in Fig. 1-9B, the distance information generation apparatus of claim 1 (see above)
However, Niinami does not expressly disclose wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: provide, through a user interface, distance information for one or more blocks corresponding to a region of interest based on a specific position in the first image being set as the region of interest.
However, in analogous art, Kim teaches a digital camera (page 2 first full paragraph), where images are divided into blocks, the focus value is calculated for each block and the focus value is used to determine the distance of the camera to that portion of the scene based on a maximum focus value (page 4 first full paragraph) and then an interface is provided for the use showing the determined distance for a specific position/region of interest within the captured images (page 5 last paragraph). Therefore, Kim teaches wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: provide, through a user interface, distance information for one or more blocks corresponding to a region of interest based on a specific position in the first image being set as the region of interest.
Before the invention was effectively filed it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art to have used a distance displaying interface such as Kim’s in the camera of Niinami for doing so would merely be a simple combination of prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results as Niinami is already dividing images into blocks and determining values used for focus (such as contrast).
With respect to claim 6 Niinami discloses, in Fig. 1-9B, the distance information generation apparatus of claim 1 (see above).
However, Niinami does not expressly disclose wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: obtain, through a user interface, a specific position in the first image as a region of interest, acquire distance information for the region of interest based on distance information for one or more blocks corresponding to the region of interest, and control the imaging device to capture an image based on a focus distance according to the acquired distance information.
However, in analogous art, Kim teaches a digital camera (page 2 first full paragraph), where images are divided into blocks, the focus value is calculated for each block and the focus value is used to determine the distance of the camera to that portion of the scene based on a maximum focus value (page 4 first full paragraph) and then an interface is provided for the use showing the determined distance for a specific position/region of interest within the captured images (page 5 last paragraph) and where a user selected object displays for a user on the display is used for focusing (page 1 paragraph starting “Typically”). Therefore, Kim teaches wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: obtain, through a user interface, a specific position in the first image as a region of interest, acquire distance information for the region of interest based on distance information for one or more blocks corresponding to the region of interest, and control the imaging device to capture an image based on a focus distance according to the acquired distance information.
Before the invention was effectively filed it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art to have used a distance displaying interface such as Kim’s in the camera of Niinami for doing so would merely be a simple combination of prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results as Niinami is already dividing images into blocks and determining values used for focus (such as contrast).
With respect to claim 7 Niinami further discloses the wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: based on the region of interest spanning two or more blocks, obtain the distance information for the region of interest based on distance information of each of the two or more blocks and an area ratio of an overlapping portion between the region of interest and each of the two or more blocks (paragraph 48-49 and 61; where groups of block are formed into imaging area and these areas have average contrasts generated for them based off all the block contrasts).
With respect to claim 8 Niinami further discloses wherein the at least one processor is further configured to: based on a continuous automatic focusing operation (auto-focusing) for the region of interest, obtain the distance information for the region of interest at a first time based on the distance information for each of the two or more blocks, and an area ratio of an overlapping portion between the region of interest and each of the two or more blocks based on the region of interest moving to span two or more blocks at the first time (paragraph 48-49, 61 and 67; where groups of block are formed into imaging area and these areas have average contrasts generated for them based off all the block contrasts and this is done for each frame during the process).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-14 and 20 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.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0130650 A1 to Lee et al which has been incorporated by reference in Korean Publication Kim cited above for claims 5-8.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL M PASIEWICZ whose telephone number is (571)272-5516. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9 AM - 5:30 PM EST.
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/DANIEL M PASIEWICZ/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2699
February 6, 2026