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 .
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.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: “reference-information acquiring unit”, “target-information acquiring unit”, “calculating unit”, and “determining unit” in claim 6.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mojsilovic et al. (A Method for Color Content Matching of Images, 2000, IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo. ICME2000 Proceedings. Latest Advances in the Fast Changing World of Multimedia, Vol. 2, Pages 649-652), hereinafter “Mojsilovic”, in view of Marcal et al. (Normalised Color Distances, 21-23 April 2023, 3rd International Conference on Image Processing and Vision Engineering (IMPROVE 2023), Pages 134-141), hereinafter “Marcal”.
Claim 1 is met by the combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal, wherein
Mojsilovic discloses:
A color comparing method (See the Abstract.) comprising:
a reference-information acquiring step for acquiring a measured color value at a plurality of reference points in a reference item containing a color irregularity (See page 650, section 3, 1st paragraph: “This section introduces a new method for measuring the distance between two images in terms of color composition…Therefore, the distance between two images in terms of color composition should be a measure of the optimal match between the color components of the two images.” To measure that match, a measured color value is acquired in each of the two images, one of which meets the claimed “reference item”. Because there is a distance between the two images, the images have the claimed “color irregularity” relative to each other. Regarding the limitation “reference points”, see section 3, 2nd paragraph: “First, the set of color components of each image is quantized into a set of n color units, each with the same area percentage p, where nxp = 100.”);
a target-information acquiring step for acquiring a measured color value at a plurality of measurement points in a target object (See page 650, section 3, 1st paragraph: “This section introduces a new method for measuring the distance between two images in terms of color composition…Therefore, the distance between two images in terms of color composition should be a measure of the optimal match between the color components of the two images.” To measure that match, a measured color value is acquired in each of the two images, one of which meets the claimed “target object”. Regarding the limitation “measurement points”, see section 3, 2nd paragraph: “First, the set of color components of each image is quantized into a set of n color units, each with the same area percentage p, where nxp = 100.”);
a calculating step for combining the reference points and the measurement points to calculate a Euclidean distance (See page 649, section 2.1, 1st paragraph: “This step is crucial, since our metric relies on the perceptual uniformity of the Lab space where fixed Euclidean distance represents a fixed perceptual distance regardless of the position in the space [7].”) on a color space coordinate between the reference points and the measurement points that are combined (See the paragraph bridging pages 650-651: “Suppose we have two images A and B, having QCC sets
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and
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. Let
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denotes the color index unit
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, and let
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be the set of one-to-one mapping functions from set
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28
28
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to set
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24
22
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. Each mapping function defines a mapping distance between the two sets:
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where W(i, j ) is the distance between color i and color j in a given color codebook. Our goal is to find the optimal mapping function that minimizes the overall mapping distance. The distance between the images A and B is then defined to be the minimal mapping distance.”); and
Mojsilovic does not disclose the following; however, Marcal discloses:
a determining step for comparing a predetermined threshold value and the Euclidean distance calculated on a basis of at least a combination from among combinations of the reference points and the measurement points to determine whether or not a color of the reference item and a color of the target object are similar (See page 138, section 4.3: “An evaluation parameter inspired by the Dunn simi larity index used for data clustering (Dunn, 1973) is proposed- the Modified Dunn Index. It is based on internal distances (for observations of the same class) and external distances (for observations of different classes). The Modified Dunn Index (MDI) is computed by (9), where C(i) is the class of element i. MDI is the ratio of the minimum external and maximum internal distances, which one aims at maximising.
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”. Then see page 139, left column, 1st full paragraph: “For each image in a test set, there are 4 external distances, and only one internal distance to consider. If MDI < 1 for an image, it means that it is mismatched, as there is an image from another class in the set with a shorter distance than the other image of its class.”).
Mojsilovic and Marcal together disclose the limitations of claim 1. Marcal is directed to a similar field of art (judging color similarity/difference based on distance measures). Therefore, Mojsilovic and Marcal are combinable. Modifying the system and method of Mojsilovic by adding the capability of “comparing a predetermined threshold value and the Euclidean distance calculated on a basis of at least a combination from among combinations of the reference points and the measurement points to determine whether or not a color of the reference item and a color of the target object are similar”, as taught by Marcal, would yield the expected and predictable result of finding a better matching image from among a test set of images of varying classes. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Mojsilovic and Marcal in this way.
Claim 2 is met by the combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal, wherein
The combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal discloses:
The color comparing method according to claim 1, wherein
And Mojsilovic further discloses:
the measured color value is expressed in a L*A*B* color system (See page 649, section 2.1, 1st paragraph: “This step is crucial, since our metric relies on the perceptual uniformity of the Lab space where fixed Euclidean distance represents a fixed perceptual distance regardless of the position in the space [7].”).
Claim 3 is met by the combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal, wherein
The combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal discloses:
The color comparing method according to claim 1, further comprising:
And Mojsilovic further discloses:
a combination determining step for determining all combinations between the reference points and the measurement points so as to minimize a total sum of the Euclidean distance between the reference item and the target object, wherein in the determining step, the threshold value is compared with the Euclidean distance calculated on a basis of at least a combination from among all the combinations between the reference points and the measurement points that are determined in the combination determining step (See the paragraph bridging pages 650-651: “Suppose we have two images A and B, having QCC sets
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and
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34
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. Let
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28
230
media_image3.png
Greyscale
denotes the color index unit
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30
30
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Greyscale
, and let
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28
178
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be the set of one-to-one mapping functions from set
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28
28
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to set
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24
22
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Greyscale
. Each mapping function defines a mapping distance between the two sets:
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46
314
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Greyscale
where W(i, j ) is the distance between color i and color j in a given color codebook. Our goal is to find the optimal mapping function that minimizes the overall mapping distance. The distance between the images A and B is then defined to be the minimal mapping distance.”).
Claim 4 is met by the combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal, wherein
The combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal discloses:
The color comparing method according to claim 3, wherein
And Marcal further discloses:
in the determining step, the threshold value is compared with a maximum Euclidean distance calculated on a basis of a combination from among all combinations between the reference points and the measurement points that are determined in the combination determining step (See Eq. 9 on page 138:
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Then see page 139, left column, 1st full paragraph: “For each image in a test set, there are 4 external distances, and only one internal distance to consider. If MDI < 1 for an image, it means that it is mismatched, as there is an image from another class in the set with a shorter distance than the other image of its class.”).
See the motivation to combine in the treatment of claim 1.
Claim 5 is met by the combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal, wherein
The combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal discloses:
The color comparing method according to claim 1, wherein
And Mojsilovic further discloses:
in the reference-information acquiring step, each measured color value at the plurality of reference points in the reference item, a measured-color average value, the number of the reference points,…are acquired as a set (See page 650, section 2.2, 1st paragraph: “We first partition each image into non-overlapping N×N (N is typically 20) windows and then proceed independently in each window. For each window, we compute an m×m neighborhood color histogram matrix, H, where m is the number of colors found in the region. H[i,j] is the number of times a pixel having color j appears in the D×D (D is a small number, typically 3-5) neighborhood of a pixel having color i, divided by the total number of pixels in the D×D neighborhoods of pixels having color i.”).
Mojsilovic alone does not disclose also acquiring “the threshold value”; however, Mojsilovic, as modified by Marcal, applies an MDI of 1 as the threshold, which would be present as a part of the claimed set (of parameters).
Claim 6 is met by the combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 1.
Claim 7 is met by the combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal, wherein
The combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal discloses:
The color comparing device according to claim 6 further comprising:
And Mojsilovic further discloses:
a display unit configured to display data indicating positions of the reference points in the reference item (See the displayed image in Fig. 1(b) after quantization into color units.).
Claim 8 is met by the combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal, wherein
The combination of Mojsilovic and Marcal discloses:
The color comparing device according to claim 6 further comprising:
And Mojsilovic further discloses:
a display unit configured to display a result of determination by the determining unit (See page 651, section 4, paragraph bridging the left and right columns: “In the examples shown below, all retrieval results are displayed with the query image at the upper-left comer, and the 5 retrieved images arranged from left to right and top to bottom in order of decreasing similarity.”).
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN S LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-1981. The examiner can normally be reached 11:30 AM - 7:30 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Bee can be reached at (571)270-5183. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Jonathan S Lee/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2677
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