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 .
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.
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, 6-13 and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura et al (11,967,101) and Harbour et al (12,567,174)
Regarding claims 1 and 11 Nakamura discloses
Generating a plurality of motion-aware heatmaps for each joint based on a plurality of previously input images corresponding to continuous time (note col. 6 lines 31-46, camera images taken, heatmap is generated by the heatmap generating unit);
Nakamura does not disclose generating intersection heatmaps by considering motions between motion-aware heatmaps at different time points from among the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps. Harbour discloses generating intersection heatmaps by considering motions between motion-aware heatmaps at different time points from among the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps (note col. 15 lines 29-44, examiner interprets pixel values of different heatmaps and then averaged as intersection heatmaps). Nakamura and Harbour are combinable because they are from the same field of endeavor. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include generating intersection heatmaps by considering motions between motion-aware heatmaps at different time points from among the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps in the system of Nakamura as evidenced Harbour. The suggestion/motivation for doing so provides pose detection system chosen that remedy requiring high amounts of computation resources and high computational “costs” that have limited the development and adoption of detection systems in the context of pose estimation. It would have obvious to combine Harbour and Nakamura ,to obtain the invention as specified by claims 1 and 11.
Estimating a human posture based on the intersection heatmaps (note Harbour, fig. 13, block 1302 col. 20 lines 9-19, estimate poses uses loss supervision matching and Nakamura col. 6 lines 42-46, pose generated).
Regarding claims 2 and 12 Nakamura and Harbour,
Wherein the generating of the intersection heatmaps comprises: generating the intersection heatmaps based on motion-aware heatmaps at each of a current time point, a past time point, and
A future time point, which are different time points (note Harbour, col. 15 lines 29-44, examiner interprets pixel values of different heatmaps and then averaged as intersection heatmaps).
Regarding claims 3 and 13 Nakamura and Harbour discloses,
Wherein the generating of the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps comprises: generating a motion-aware heatmap at the current time point, a past motion-aware heatmap at a past time point relative to the current time point, and a future motion-aware heatmap at a future time point relative to the current time (note Nakamura, col. 6 lines 31-46, camera images taken, heatmap is generated by the heatmap generating unit);
Regarding claims 6 and 16 Nakamura and Harbour discloses,
Calculating weights for each of the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps (note Nakurama, col. 13 lines 25-35); wherein the generating the intersection heatmaps comprises: generating the intersection heatmaps by reflecting the weights of each of the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps (note Nakurama, col. 13 lines 50-60)
Regarding claims 7 and 17 Nakurama and Harbour discloses,
Wherein the estimating the human posture comprises: generating a combined heatmap by combining the intersection heatmaps (note Harbour, col. 12 lines 6-23); and
estimating the human posture on the basis of the combined heatmap (note Harbour, col. 12 lines 6-23, estimating pose ).
Regarding claims 8 and 18 Nakamura and Harbour discloses,
Wherein the estimating the human posture on the basis of the combined heatmap comprises (note Harbour, col. 12 lines 6-23, combining disclosed): generating a merged heatmap by merging the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps; extracting an offset and a mask based on the combined heatmap; and
estimating the human posture based on the merged heatmap, the offset, and the mask (note Harbour, note col. 20 lines 1-9, estimating poses).
Regarding claims 9 and 19 Nakamura and Harbour discloses,
Wherein the generating the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps comprises: extracting a motion vector of a joint keypoint from each of the plurality of images (note Harbour col. 3 lines 7-13, cites keypoints_; and generating the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps based on a magnitude and a direction of the motion vector of the joint keypoint (note Harbour, col. 3 lines lines 37-45)
Regarding claims 10 and 20 Nakamura and Harbour discloses,
Wherein the generating the plurality of motion-aware heatmaps comprises: learning to generate the motion-aware heatmaps by using regression loss (note Harbour, col. 4 lines 1-5, applying an appropriate loss function during training)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-5 and 14-15 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter for dependent claims 4 and 14. Prior art could not be found for the features when there are a plurality of motion-aware heatmaps of each of the past time point and the future time point, generating current motion-aware heatmaps with respect to the current time point, a first past motion-aware heatmap at a first past time point relative to the current time point, a second past motion-aware heatmap at a second past time point earlier than the first past time point, a first future motion-aware heatmap at a first future time point relative to the current time point, and a second future motion-aware heatmap at a second future time point later than the first future time point. These features in combination with other features could not be found in the prior art. Claims 5 and 15 depend on claims 4 and 14, respectively. Therefore, are also objected.
Related Prior Art
Fisch (11,816,851) generating a plurality of motion-aware heatmaps for each joint based on a plurality of previously input images corresponding to continuous time (note col. 13 lines 27-48 cites heatmaps for each joint based).
Che et al (11,830,204) estimating a human posture based on the intersection heatmaps (cites pose estimator for humans and heatmaps).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GREGORY M DESIRE whose telephone number is (571)272-7449. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 6:30am-3:00pm.
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G.D.
July 9, 2026
/GREGORY M DESIRE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2676
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