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 Objections
Claim 6 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 6, line 2 should be amended to read: “a viewfinder configured to display a preview of a facial image”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hamamura (US 2007/0298829 A1).
Claim 1, Hamamura teaches a mobile device (Fig. 1), comprising:
a foldable housing configured to fold the mobile device from an opened form factor to a folded form factor (unfolded state and folded state; paragraph 0159 and Figs. 2-3); and
a camera device (camera portion 21; paragraph 0162 and Fig. 3) to capture digital images in the folded form factor of the mobile device (user can take an image of the user himself when in the folded state; paragraph 0194 and Fig. 5B),
the camera device operational as a rear-facing camera (user can direct camera portion to subject 30 opposite to user; paragraph 0193 and Fig. 5A) located approximately centered between a first half of the foldable housing and a second half of the foldable housing in the opened form factor of the mobile device (camera portion 21 is arranged approximately between the first body 2 and second body 3; Fig. 2), and the camera device located at a top edge of the first half of the foldable housing in the folded form factor of the mobile device (see Fig. 3).
Claim 2, Hamamura further teaches wherein the camera device is located at least one of a left, center, or right along the top edge of the first half of the foldable housing in the folded form factor of the mobile device (see Fig. 3).
Claim 3, Hamamura further teaches wherein the camera device is configured to capture one or more of a digital image as the rear-facing camera in the opened form factor of the mobile device (paragraph 0193 and Fig. 5A), or a facial image in the folded form factor of the mobile device (paragraph 0194 and Fig. 5B).
Claim 4, Hamamura further teaches wherein the camera device is configured to capture a facial image in the folded form factor of the mobile device (user take an image of himself in the folded state; paragraph 0194 and Fig. 5B).
Claim 5, Hamamura further teaches wherein the camera device, located at the top edge of the first half of the foldable housing in the folded form factor of the mobile device, has a region-of-view conducive to capturing a facial image with facial characteristics that are usable for facial recognition (see Fig. 5B).
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) 6, 8, 9, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hamamura (US 2007/0298829 A1) in view of Hefny (US 2020/0242778 A1).
Claim 6, Hamamura teaches the mobile device of claim 1, further comprising:
a viewfinder configured to display a preview a facial image (user can use display portion 20 as a finder; paragraph 0194 and Fig. 5B);
but Hamamura does not expressly teach at least one processor 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; and
revise the preview of the facial image so that the facial characteristics will support the facial recognition.
Hefny teaches a viewfinder configured to display a preview a facial image (display device 720; Fig. 7);
at least one processor coupled with at least one memory (processor 702 and memory 704; Fig. 7) to implement an image detection controller (pose correction 730; Fig. 7) configured to:
detect that facial characteristics (face detection; paragraph 0049) in the preview of the facial image will not support facial recognition (upward angle of the user device 104 creates a pose that may not provide high quality video; paragraph 0039); and
revise the preview of the facial image so that the facial characteristics will support the facial recognition (pose correction is performed and device 402 displays the re-projected video; paragraph 0041, 0051).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have used the teaching of Hefny with that of Hamamura in order to correct for image distortion when user is captured at a less than optical angle (see paragraph 0001 of Hefny).
Claim 8, Hefny further teaches wherein 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 camera device (an unflattering pose can be determined by face detection; paragraph 0061, 0050); and
adjust a viewing angle of the viewfinder to at least one of decrease or eliminate angular distortion of the face in the preview of the facial image (pose correction is performed to create an adjusted face pose; paragraph 0051).
Claim 9, Hefny teaches wherein the image detection controller is configured to:
detect a vertical image of a face in the preview of the facial image (face of the user; paragraph 0040 and Fig. 3); and
adjust a viewing angle of the viewfinder to at least one of decrease or eliminate a vertical angle of the vertical image of the face in the preview of the facial image (pose correction is performed to re-project the face to correct the angle of the face; paragraph 0068).
Claim 19, Hamamura teaches a mobile device (Fig. 1), comprising:
a camera device to capture a facial image in a folded form factor of the mobile device (user can take an image of the user himself when in the folded state; paragraph 0194 and Fig. 5B), the camera device operational as a rear-facing camera (user can direct camera portion to subject 30 opposite to user; paragraph 0193 and Fig. 5A) located approximately centered in a foldable housing in an opened form factor of the mobile device (camera portion 21 is arranged approximately between the first body 2 and second body 3; Fig. 2), and the camera device located at a top edge of the foldable housing in the folded form factor of the mobile device (Fig. 3); but is silent regarding
an image detection controller configured to:
detect that facial characteristics in a preview of the facial image will not support facial recognition;
and adjust a viewing angle of a viewfinder to align the facial characteristics in the preview of the facial image with the facial characteristics in a comparative image for the facial recognition.
Hefny teaches an image detection controller (processor; Fig. 7) configured to:
detect that facial characteristics in a preview of the facial image will not support facial recognition (upward angle of the user device 104 creates a pose that may not provide high quality video; paragraph 0039); and
adjust a viewing angle of a viewfinder to align the facial characteristics in the preview of the facial image with the facial characteristics in a comparative image for the facial recognition (pose correction is performed and device 402 displays the re-projected video; paragraph 0041, 0051).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have used the teaching of Hefny with that of Hamamura in order to correct for image distortion when user is captured at a less than optical angle (see paragraph 0001 of Hefny).
Claim(s) 7, 10, 14-18, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hamamura (US 2007/0298829 A1) in view of Hefny (US 2020/0242778 A1), and further in view of Yan (US 2025/0363697 A1).
Claim 7, Hamamura in view of Hefny teaches the mobile device of claim 6, but is silent regarding wherein the image detection controller is configured to zoom-in the preview of the facial image to increase detectability of the facial characteristics for the facial recognition.
Yan teaches wherein an image processor is configured to zoom-in a facial image to increase detectability of facial characteristics for facial recognition (photographed portrait is normalized through translation, rotation, and scaling operations; paragraph 0034).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have used the teaching of Yan with that of the cited prior art in order to improve accuracy of image feature extraction and facial recognition (see paragraph 0078, 0086 of Yan).
Claim 10, Yan further teaches wherein the image detection controller is configured to adjust a viewing angle of the viewfinder to align the facial characteristics in the preview of the facial image with the facial characteristics in a comparative image for the facial recognition (portraits photographed at various angles are corrected, which improves accuracy of facial recognition for the aligned source image; paragraph 0086).
Claim 14, Hamamura in view of Yan teaches the method of claim 11, but is silent regarding:
detecting that the facial characteristics in a preview of the facial image will not support the facial recognition; and
revising the preview of the facial image so that the facial characteristics will support the facial recognition.
Hefny teaches detecting that the facial characteristics in a preview of the facial image will not support the facial gnition (upward angle of the user device 104 creates a pose that may not provide high quality video; paragraph 0039); and
revising the preview of the facial image so that the facial characteristics will support the facial recognition (pose correction is performed and device 402 displays the re-projected video; paragraph 0041, 0051).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have used the teaching of Hefny with that of Hamamura and Yan in order to correct for image distortion when user is captured at a less than optical angle (see paragraph 0001 of Hefny).
Claim 15, Yan further teaches zooming-in the preview of the facial image to increase detectability of the facial characteristics for the facial recognition (photographed portrait is normalized through translation, rotation, and scaling operations; paragraph 0034).
Claim 16, Hefny further teaches detecting that a face in the preview of the facial image is misaligned in a region-of-view of the camera device (an unflattering pose can be determined by face detection; paragraph 0061, 0050); and
adjusting a viewing angle of a viewfinder to at least one of decrease or eliminate angular distortion of the face in the preview of the facial image (pose correction is performed to create an adjusted face pose; paragraph 0051).
Claim 17, Hefny further teaches detecting a vertical image of a face in the preview of the facial image (face of the user; paragraph 0040 and Fig. 3); and
adjusting a viewing angle of a viewfinder to at least one of decrease or eliminate a vertical angle of the vertical image of the face in the preview of the facial image (pose correction is performed to re-project the face to correct the angle of the face; paragraph 0068).
Claim 18, Yan further teaches adjusting a viewing angle of a viewfinder to align the facial characteristics in the preview of the facial image with the facial characteristics in a comparative image for the facial recognition (portraits photographed at various angles are corrected, which improves accuracy of facial recognition for the aligned source image; paragraph 0086).
Claim 20, Hamamura in view of Hefny teaches the mobile device of claim 19, but is silent regarding wherein the image detection controller is configured to zoom-in the preview of the facial image to increase detectability of the facial characteristics for the facial recognition.
Yan teaches wherein zooming-in the preview of the facial image to increase detectability of the facial characteristics for the facial recognition (photographed portrait is normalized through translation, rotation, and scaling operations; paragraph 0034).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have used the teaching of Yan with that of Hamamura and Hefny in order to improve accuracy of image feature extraction and facial recognition (see paragraph 0078, 0086 of Yan).
Claim(s) 11-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hamamura (US 2007/0298829 A1) in view of Yan (US 2025/0363697 A1).
Claim 11, Hamamura teaches a method, comprising:
capturing a facial image with a camera device in a folded form factor of a mobile device that includes the camera device (user can take an image of the user himself when in the folded state; paragraph 0194 and Fig. 5B), the mobile device being foldable from an opened form factor to the folded form factor, the camera device operational as a rear-facing camera (user can direct camera portion to subject 30 opposite to user; paragraph 0193 and Fig. 5A) located approximately centered in a foldable housing of the mobile device in the opened form factor (camera portion 21 is arranged approximately between the first body 2 and second body 3; Fig. 2), and the camera device located at a top edge of the foldable housing in the folded form factor of the mobile device (see Fig. 3),
but Hamamura is silent regarding performing facial recognition based on facial characteristics detected in the facial image.
Yan teaches performing facial recognition based on facial characteristics detected in the facial image (facial recognition is performed on a source image; paragraph 0053).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have used the teaching of Yan with that of Hamamura in order to improve accuracy of image feature extraction and facial recognition (see paragraph 0078, 0086 of Yan).
Claim 12, Hamamura further teaches capturing one or more of a digital image as the rear-facing camera in the opened form factor of the mobile device, (user can direct camera portion to subject 30 opposite to user; paragraph 0193 and Fig. 5A) or the facial image in the folded form factor of the mobile device (user can take an image of the user himself when in the folded state; paragraph 0194 and Fig. 5B).
Claim 13, Hamamura further teaches wherein the camera device, located at the top edge of the foldable housing in the folded form factor of the mobile device (Fig. 3), has a region-of-view conducive to capturing the facial image with the facial characteristics that are usable for the facial recognition (user can take an image of the user himself when in the folded state; paragraph 0194 and Fig. 5B).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892 attached.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHIAWEI A CHEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1707. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 12:00pm - 9:00pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sinh Tran can be reached at (571)272-7564. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHIAWEI CHEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2637
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