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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1–16, 18–20, and 22 have been submitted for examination.
Claims 1–4, 9, and 18–20 have been examined and rejected.
Claims 17 and 21 are canceled.
Claims 5–8, 10–16, and 22 are objected to.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5–8, 10–16, and 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 § 102
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 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.
Claims 1, 9, and 18–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Walker (US 2007/0157260).
Regarding claim 1, Walker discloses:
An image display method, comprising:
acquiring an original resolution of an original image (Walker, ¶ [0236], “recorded content stored on storage unit 1030[. …]. For the purposes of illustration and not limitation, the recorded content stored on storage unit 1030 is a high-definition recording of "Desperate Housewives" in MPEG-4 format.”) and a target resolution of a display apparatus; (Walker, ¶ [0235], “a cellular phone 1024, high-definition user equipment device 1026, and standard-definition user equipment device 1028. As discussed above, the home network server may translate recorded content into formats suitable for display by the user equipment devices in the home network.”)
generating a target image according to the original image, the original resolution and the target resolution; (Walker, ¶ [0237], “a resolution that is supported by cellular phone 1024 using scaler 1034.”, ¶ [0239], “Home network server 1022 may process the recording of "Desperate Housewives" by deinterlacing the recording using deinterlacer 1036 (e.g., to convert 720p content to 720i) and scaling the recording to standard definition (e.g., 480i) using scaler [1038].”) and
sending the target image to the display apparatus, so that the display apparatus displays the target image. (Walker, Fig. 10c, generally, ¶ [0033], “system diagram for translating and delivering content to user equipment devices in a home network.”, ¶ [0238], “Home network server 1022 may deliver the recording of "Desperate Housewives" from storage unit 1030”)
Regarding claims 9, Walker discloses:
The method according to claim 1, wherein the generating a target image according to the original image, the original resolution and the target resolution comprises: (Walker, ¶ [0236], “recorded content stored on storage unit 1030[. …]. For the purposes of illustration and not limitation, the recorded content stored on storage unit 1030 is a high-definition recording of "Desperate Housewives" in MPEG-4 format.”) down-sampling the original image at a second preset multiple to obtain a low- resolution image; (Walker, ¶ [0235], “a cellular phone 1024, high-definition user equipment device 1026, and standard-definition user equipment device 1028. As discussed above, the home network server may translate recorded content into formats suitable for display by the user equipment devices in the home network.”) determining a second conversion resolution according to the target resolution, a width of the low-resolution image and a height of the low-resolution image; (Walker, ¶ [0237], “a resolution that is supported by cellular phone 1024 using scaler 1034.”) inputting the down-sampled original image and the second conversion resolution into an image generation model to generate an intermediate conversion image, wherein a resolution of the intermediate conversion image is the second conversion resolution; (Walker, ¶ [0239], “Home network server 1022 may process the recording of "Desperate Housewives" by deinterlacing the recording using deinterlacer 1036 (e.g., to convert 720p content to 720i)”) and adjusting the resolution of the intermediate conversion image according to the target resolution and the intermediate conversion image, so as to generate the target image. (Walker, ¶ [0239], “Home network server 1022 may process the recording of "Desperate Housewives" by […] scaling the recording to standard definition (e.g., 480i) using scaler [1038].”)
Regarding claims 18, Walker discloses:
An electronic device, comprising: one or more processors; and a storage device configured to store one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs are configured to, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method of claim 1. (Walker, ¶ [0067], “some or all of the features of the interactive applications of system 100 (including the media guidance application) may be provided using operating system software or middleware software. Such operating system software and middleware may be used instead of or in combination with application-level software. In yet other approaches, interactive applications may also be supported by servers or other suitable equipment at one or more service providers such as service provider 142. Regardless of the particular arrangement used, the software that supports these features may be referred to as an application or applications.”, Fig. 6, Processing Circuitry 606, )
Regarding claim 19, Walker discloses:
An image display device, comprising: the electronic device according to claim 18; and a display apparatus configured to acquire a target image from the electronic device and display the target image. (Walker, ¶ [0235], “a cellular phone 1024, high-definition user equipment device 1026, and standard-definition user equipment device 1028. As discussed above, the home network server may translate recorded content into formats suitable for display by the user equipment devices in the home network.”)
Regarding claim 20, Walker discloses:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable instructions thereon, wherein the instructions are configured to, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the method of claim 1. (Walker, ¶ [0067], “some or all of the features of the interactive applications of system 100 (including the media guidance application) may be provided using operating system software or middleware software. Such operating system software and middleware may be used instead of or in combination with application-level software. In yet other approaches, interactive applications may also be supported by servers or other suitable equipment at one or more service providers such as service provider 142. Regardless of the particular arrangement used, the software that supports these features may be referred to as an application or applications.”, Fig. 6, Processing Circuitry 606, )
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 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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 2–4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Walker (US 2007/0157260) in view of Lin et al. (US 2011/0129164).
Regarding claims 2, Walker discloses:
The method according to claim 1, wherein the original resolution comprises an original pixel width and an original pixel height, and the target resolution comprises a target pixel width and a target pixel height; and (Walker, ¶ [0237], “a resolution that is supported by cellular phone 1024 using scaler 1034.”, ¶ [0239], “Home network server 1022 may process the recording of "Desperate Housewives" by deinterlacing the recording using deinterlacer 1036 (e.g., to convert 720p content to 720i) and scaling the recording to standard definition (e.g., 480i) using scaler [1038].”)
Walker fails to explicitly teach “the generating a target image according to the original image, the original resolution and the target resolution comprises: determining a first height ratio of the target pixel height to the original pixel height; determining a first width ratio of the target pixel width to the original pixel width; determining an overlapping resolution according to the first height ratio, the first width ratio, the original resolution and the target resolution; determining a difference value according to a ratio of the overlapping resolution to the target resolution; and generating the target image according to the difference value, the original image and the target resolution.”
In a similar field of endeavor Lin teaches:
the generating a target image according to the original image, the original resolution and the target resolution comprises: (Lin, ¶ [0057], “the conversion module firstly calculates the original pixel array Xi by bicubic interpolation, so as to obtain an enlarged pixel array Xb enlarged by 2-fold. In FIG. 4, a pixel with a mark "n" indicates that the pixel is an original pixel n from the pixel array Xi, and pixels without the mark "n" are interpolated pixels between the neighboring original pixels n obtained by bicubic interpolation.”) determining a first height ratio of the target pixel height to the original pixel height; (Lin, ¶ [0058], “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R”) determining a first width ratio of the target pixel width to the original pixel width; (Lin, ¶ [0058], “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R”) determining an overlapping resolution according to the first height ratio, the first width ratio, the original resolution and the target resolution; (Lin, ¶ [0058], “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R”) determining a difference value according to a ratio of the overlapping resolution to the target resolution; (Lin, ¶ [0058], “according to image value differences between the enlarged pixel array Xb and the neighboring original pixels n,”) and generating the target image according to the difference value, the original image and the target resolution. (Lin, ¶ [0058], “so as to obtain the second-resizing image.”)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the system for scaling resolution as taught by Walker with the system for calculating differences as taught by Lin, the motivation is “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R according to image value differences between the enlarged pixel array Xb and the neighboring original pixels n, so as to obtain the second-resizing image” as taught by Lin (¶ [0058]).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Walker and Lin teaches:
The method according to claim 2, wherein the determining an overlapping resolution according to the first height ratio, the first width ratio, the original resolution and the target resolution comprises: in a case that the first height ratio is less than or equal to the first width ratio, (Lin, ¶ [0058], “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R”) determining the target pixel height as a height of the overlapping resolution; (Lin, ¶ [0058], “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R”) and determining a width of the overlapping resolution according to the height of the overlapping resolution, (Lin, ¶ [0058], “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R”) the original pixel height and the original pixel width. (Lin, ¶ [0057], “the conversion module firstly calculates the original pixel array Xi by bicubic interpolation, so as to obtain an enlarged pixel array Xb enlarged by 2-fold. In FIG. 4, a pixel with a mark "n" indicates that the pixel is an original pixel n from the pixel array Xi, and pixels without the mark "n" are interpolated pixels between the neighboring original pixels n obtained by bicubic interpolation.”)
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Walker and Lin teaches:
The method according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the determining an overlapping resolution according to the first height ratio, the first width ratio, the original resolution and the target resolution further comprises: in a case that the first height ratio is greater than the first width ratio, (Lin, ¶ [0058], “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R”) determining the target pixel width as the width of the overlapping resolution; (Lin, ¶ [0058], “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R”) and determining the height of the overlapping resolution according to the width of the overlapping resolution, (Lin, ¶ [0058], “the conversion module patches the original pixels to a target pixel array R”) the original pixel width and the original pixel height. (Lin, ¶ [0057], “the conversion module firstly calculates the original pixel array Xi by bicubic interpolation, so as to obtain an enlarged pixel array Xb enlarged by 2-fold. In FIG. 4, a pixel with a mark "n" indicates that the pixel is an original pixel n from the pixel array Xi, and pixels without the mark "n" are interpolated pixels between the neighboring original pixels n obtained by bicubic interpolation.”)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL B PIERORAZIO whose telephone number is (571)270-3679. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday, 8am - 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nasser Goodarzi can be reached on 5712704195. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL B. PIERORAZIO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426