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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 09/08/2025 and 03/29/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claims 10 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hu et al. (US 2021/0201001 A1, hereinafter “Hu”).
Regarding claim 16, Hu discloses a system, comprising:
a viewfinder (display 203 in Fig. 1) configured to display a preview a facial image captured with a first camera device (204); an image detection controller (201) configured to: detect that facial characteristics in the preview of the facial image are one or more of too small for facial recognition, or misaligned in a region-of-view of the first camera device (see Figs. 1-8, par. [0062]-[0064] and [0085]-[0088], wherein facial recognition fails due to misaligned caused by excessive tilting of the mobile device, or the face is too small due to the user’s face is too far away from the camera); and
revise the preview of the facial image so that the facial characteristics will support the facial recognition (see Fig. 3 and par. [0088], [0092]-[0093]).
Regarding claim 10, the subject matter of this claim is also met by the discussion in claim 16 above.
Claims 1, 6, 10, 13, 16 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Aguma (US 2023/0130745 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Aguma discloses a mobile device (a smartphone shown in Figs. 1-5), comprising:
a first camera device (standard lens camera 115b in Figs. 1 & 2) configured to capture a facial image (Figs. 5A & 5B; par. [0015], [0058]-[0059]);
at least a second camera device (ultrawide angle lens camera 115c in Figs. 1 & 2) with a wider field-of-view than the first camera device (Figs. 1, 5A, 5B and par. [0015]);
a viewfinder configured to display a preview of the facial image (see Figs. 5A & 5B);
at least one processor (Fig. 2) coupled with at least one memory to implement an image detection controller configured to: detect that facial characteristics in the preview of the facial image will not support facial recognition (Fig. 3, step S309, and Fig. 5A, par. [0044] & [0058]); and revise the preview of the facial image so that the facial characteristics will support the facial recognition (Fig. 3, step S314, and Fig. 5B, par. [0048] & [0059]).
Regarding claim 6, as disclosed by Aguma, the image detection controller is configured to: detect that a face in the preview of the facial image is misaligned in a region-of- view of the first camera device (Fig. 5A shows that the facial image is partially out of field of view which is considered as “misaligned in the region of view of the first camera device”); and capture an updated preview of the facial image (Fig. 5B) with the at least second camera device (115c) with the wider field-of-view, wherein the facial characteristics are detectable in the updated preview of the facial image and support the facial recognition (see Figs. 3 & 5B and par. [0048], [0058]-[0059]).
Regarding claims 10 and 13, the subject matter of these claims are also disclosed by Aguma as discussed in claims 1 and 6, respectively.
Regarding claim 16, the subject matter of this claim is also disclosed by Aguma as discussed in claims 1 and 6.
Regarding claim 19, Aguma discloses that the image detection controller is configured to capture an updated preview of the facial image with a second camera device (115c) having a wider field-of-view, wherein the facial characteristics are detectable in the updated preview of the facial image and support the facial recognition (Figs. 3 & 5B and par. [0048], [0058]-[0059]).
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 3, 5, 7, 11, 14 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aguma in view of Sakamaki (US 2023/0421885 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Aguma is silent about the feature of “the image detection controller is configured to: detect that the facial characteristics in the preview of the facial image are too small for the facial recognition; and zoom-in the preview of the facial image to increase detectability of the facial characteristics for the facial recognition.” However, as taught by Sakamaki in paragraph [0074]: “if the size of a face region is too small in a captured image for which the shooting determination is to be made (hereinafter referred to as an image for determination), whether a person related to this face region is the target subject cannot be determined. Therefore, in a case where a face region included in the search target area falls below the minimum size to which the face recognition processing can be applied, the first control unit 323 changes the zoom factor toward the telephoto end, and performs zoom driving so that the image for determination is obtained in a state where the size of this face region has been increased.” Since the mobile device in Aguma is fully capable of performing zoom-in using telephoto lens camera (115a in Figs. 1 & 2), one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by the teaching of Sakamaki to provide such useful feature when the facial image is too small to zoom-in the preview of the facial image to increase detectability of the facial characteristics for the facial recognition in a conventional and common knowledge fashion.
Regarding claim 5, the combined teaching of Aguma and Sakamaki also discloses that the image detection controller is configured to: detect that the facial characteristics in the preview of the facial image are too small for the facial recognition; and capture an updated preview of the facial image with the at least second camera device with the wider field-of-view, wherein the facial characteristics are detectable in the updated preview of the facial image and support the facial recognition (see Aguma in par. [0048] & [0059], and Sakamaki in par. [0074]).
Regarding claim 7, the subject matter of this claim is also met by the combined teaching of Aguma and Sakamaki as discussed in claims 5 & 6 above.
Regarding claims 11 and 14, these claims are also met by the discussions in claims 3 and 7, respectively.
Regarding claim 17, this claim is also met by the discussion in claim 3.
Claims 4, 8, 12, 15, 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aguma in view of Sakamaki and in further view of Ericson (US 2009/0202180 A1).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Aguma and Sakamaki teaches all the limitations of claim 4 except for performing a post-processing of the preview facial image based on a planar angle shift to increase detectability of the facial characteristics for the facial recognition. However, this lack of teaching is well compensated by Ericson as disclosed in Figs. 1 & 3 and paragraphs [0057]-[0058]: “if at step 440, the processing unit 250 has detected that the image sensing unit 230 has been rotated more than a certain minimum angle (for example more than .+-.5.degree.), it proceeds to calculate the rotation angle from the reference coordinates and the relative position of the image sensing device. Also, at step 440, the processing unit 250 rotates the image data received from the image sensing unit 230 to the actual position of the image sensing unit 230 of the image acquisition device by the calculated angle… At the next step, at 450, the processing unit 250 may perform face recognition on the image data rotated to the reference position.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to further configure the mobile device to incorporate the teaching from Ericson to arrive at the Applicant’s claimed invention for the benefit of improving accuracy in facial recognition.
Regarding claims 8 and 20, the subject matter of these claims are also met by the the combined teaching of Aguma, Sakamaki and Ericson as discussed in claims 4 and 6 above.
Regarding claims 12, 15 and 18, the subject matter of this claim is also met by the combined teaching of Aguma, Sakamaki and Erison as discussed in claim 4 above.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aguma in view of Hu.
Regarding claim 2, Aguma fails to disclose that the facial recognition is a class 3 biometric with a security level for one or more of unlocking the mobile device or accessing a secure application on the mobile device. Hu teaches the facial recognition as a biometric identification a security level for one or more of unlocking the mobile device or accessing a secure application on the mobile device (see Hu, Figs. 5 & 6 and par. [0097]-[0103]). Although Hu is silent about a class 3 biometric, this feature is well known and a common knowledge in facial recognition, and easily derived from the configuration from the teaching of Hu with an additional Official Notice taken with respect to this subject matter. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to configure the mobile device to encompass the limitations recited in claim 2 for an improved security of the device.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aguma in view of Cho (US 2021/0018957 A1).
Regarding claim 9, Aguma fails to teach a foldable housing configured to fold the mobile device from an opened form factor to a folded form factor; and a camera system including the first camera device and the at least second camera device configured to capture images in the folded form factor of the mobile device, and the first camera device and the at least second camera device operational as rear-facing cameras in the opened form factor of the mobile device. Cho, on the other hand, teaches a foldable mobile device comprising at least a first camera (215), a second camera (217) that are capable of capturing images in the folded form factor of the mobile device (Figs. 2B & 7), and the first camera and the second camera are operational as rear-facing cameras in the opened form factor of the mobile device (Fig. 2A & 4). See Cho, par. [0125]-[0126].
Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Aguma and Cho to arrive at the Applicant’s claimed invention to improve capability of the mobile device utilizing the foldable form factor for user convenience.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NHAN T TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-7371. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm.
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/NHAN T TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2638
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