DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Notice to Applicants
2. This communication is in response to the application filed on 01/22/2025.
3. Claims 1-14 are pending.
4. Limitations appearing inside {} are intended to indicate the limitations not taught by said prior art(s)/combinations.
Information Disclosure Statement
5. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/22/2025 has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. 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.
7. Claims 1-3, 5-6, and 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No. 2021/0303844 to Goda et al. (hereinafter Goda), and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2023/0083271 to Yamamoto (hereinafter Yamamoto).
8. Regarding Claim 1, Goda discloses an inspection apparatus, comprising: one or more controllers including one or more processors and one or more memories, the one or more controllers configured to ([par. 0036, ln. 1-13] “The detailed system configuration of the print system according to this embodiment will be described next with reference to FIG. 2. The arrangement of the print apparatus 107 of the image forming apparatus 101 will first be described. The print apparatus 107 of the image forming apparatus 101 includes a communication I/F 217, a LAN I/F 218, a video I/F 220, an HDD 221, a CPU 222, a memory 223, an operation unit 224, and a display 225. Furthermore, the print apparatus 107 of the image forming apparatus 101 includes an original exposure unit 226, a laser exposure unit 227, an image forming unit 228, a fixing unit 229, and a paper feed unit 230.”):
read a print product formed by an image forming device to obtain an inspection target image ([par. 0041, ln. 13-18] “The shooting unit 240 shoots the conveyed sheet in accordance with an instruction of the CPU 238. The CPU 238 determines whether the printed image is normal by comparing the image shot by the shooting unit 240 with the reference image saved in the memory 239.”, [par. 0107, ln 1-14] “In step S303, the CPU 238 reads the image of the sheet using at least one of the cameras 331 and 332, and saves the read image in the memory 239 of the verification apparatus 109. The saved image is displayed in the display portion 1201 of FIGS. 12A-12D. Subsequently, the process advances to step S304, the CPU 238 compares the final sheet read in step S303 with the reference image, determines whether a half-cut is in the half-cut area, and determines whether a preprint image is in the preprint area, and the process advances to step S305. As a determination result, the determination items displayed in the display portion 1221 of FIGS. 12A-12D are determined. Detailed determination processing will be described later with reference to a flowchart 1510.”);
obtain a reference image to be used in an inspection of the inspection target image ([par. 0041, ln. 13-18], [par. 0062, ln. 1-15] “Display screens in the verification apparatus 109 according to this embodiment will be described below with reference to FIGS. 5 to 12. Each of these display screens is displayed based on an instruction of the CPU 238 of the verification apparatus 109. The verification apparatus 109 inspects the sent final sheet in accordance with preset inspection items. The final sheet is inspected by comparing a sent sheet image with a preset reference image. Examples of a comparison method of the final sheet are a method of comparing pixel values for each image position, a method of comparing the positions of objects by edge detection, and a method of extracting character data by OCR (Optical Character Recognition). The inspection items include a shift of a print position, the tint of the image, the density of the image, a streak or thin spot, and a lack of printing.”, [par. 0107, ln 1-14]);
determine an inspection area to be targeted in an inspection in the reference image in accordance with whether or not an {unnecessary} part {removal} process for {removing an unnecessary part} of the print product is executed ([Fig. 5-12] see specifically reference image selection in Fig. 6, Fig. 7A-B and Fig. 9A-B for determination of part removal area (i.e., half-cut area), and Fig. 8-11 for setting of level of verifications for half-cut areas, [par. 0062, ln. 1-15], [par. 0075, ln. 1-8] “FIGS. 9A and 9B show examples of a screen displayed on the display unit 241 of the verification apparatus 109 when setting an area to be registered as a half-cut area. A screen 900 is displayed when the button 711 of FIGS. 7A and 7B is operated. Two patterns will be described as examples of setting an area (reference region) for which it is determined whether a half-cut is in the area, with reference to the screen 900 and a screen 950.”, [par. 0076, ln. 1-17] “…The screen 900 includes display of components 901 to 903, 912 to 916, and 941… 901, a reference region set to indicate an area for which it is determined whether a half-cut is in the area is displayed. In this example, two half-cut areas are set, and reference regions for the areas are represented by half-cut areas 923 and 933, respectively. The half-cut area 923 is an area between a half-cut internal area 921 and a half-cut external area 922 which are set in accordance with a user input. In the portion 941, the distances of the half-cut external area 922 from the half-cut internal area 921 of the half-cut area 923 are displayed. Similarly, the half-cut area 933 is an area between a half-cut internal area 931 and a half-cut external area 932 which are set. When the button 914 (to be described later) for setting another half-cut area is operated, setting values concerning the half-cut area 933 are displayed.”, [par. 0077, ln. 1-18] “A method of setting the half-cut areas 923 and 933 will be described next. In the position setting portion 902 and the area size setting portion 903, the positions and sizes of the half-cut internal area and the half-cut external area can be changed. Each of the position setting portion 902 and the area size setting portion 903 includes upper, lower, left, and right directional keys, and the position and size of the area can be adjusted when each directional key is selected. As a setting example, a region serving as a half-cut internal area is set in the position setting portion 902 and the area size setting portion 903. Then, when the button 912 is operated, the half-cut internal area 921 is set. Next, a region serving as a half-cut external area is set in the position setting portion 902 and the area size setting portion 903. Then, when the button 913 is operated, the half-cut external area 922 is set. If both the half-cut internal area and the half-cut external area are set, an area between them is automatically set as the half-cut area 923.”, [par. 0083, ln. 1-19] “If the feature point, half-cut area, and preprint area are set in the setting screens described with reference to FIGS. 8 to 10, when returning to the verification area setting screen shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B, contents set in the display portion 701 can also be displayed. A display example is the display portion 701 of the screen 720. The user can confirm the registration contents by seeing the displayed settings. With respect to the half-cut areas 923 and 933 and the preprint area 1021 of hatched areas, the verification apparatus 109 does not perform comparison with the reference image (first algorithm). That is, the present invention has as its feature that the verification apparatus 109 performs verification by another algorithm (second algorithm) for determining for the areas (first areas) whether each area includes a half-cut and whether each area includes a preprint image. For an area (second area) that is not hatched, the verification apparatus 109 performs comparison with the reference image, and performs defect determination (first algorithm).”, [par. 0085, ln 1-22] “The display region 1131 is used to set a verification image. A setting portion 1101 is used to set a verification level. In this region, it is possible to change the verification accuracy. That is, this region is related to setting of a threshold indicating the difference from the comparison target at the time of verification. As the level of the verification accuracy is higher, the verification apparatus 109 determines a defective image even if the difference between the reference image and the read image is small. Therefore, a threshold is set for determining a defective image despite a progressively smaller difference as the level of the verification accuracy is increased. A setting portion 1102 is used to set a verification type. It is possible to set verification items in accordance with the verification purpose of the user. In the example shown in FIG. 11, the position, tint, streak, and lack are verification targets but the density is excluded from the verification targets. Note that this does not intend to limit the present invention and other verification targets may be displayed to be selectable. The setting portions 1101 and 1102 of the display region 1131 indicate verification settings to be applied to an area other than the hatched areas of the display portion 701 of the screen 720.”); and
based on the inspection area, perform the inspection by comparing the reference image and the inspection target image ([Fig. 15A-B], see steps S301-305 in 15A, S311-S315 in 15B, [par. 0108, ln 1-6] “In step S305, the CPU 238 confirms the results of the determination processes in step S304. If all the determination results of the half-cut area, the preprint area, and the image area as an area other than those areas are normal (verification OK), the process advances to step S306; otherwise, the process advances to step S308.”, [par. 0110, ln. 1-4] “Subsequently, details of the verification determination processing in step S304 described above will be explained with reference to the flowchart 1510 shown in FIG. 15B.”, [par. 0111, ln. 1-30] “In step S311, the CPU 238 extracts the feature point set in step S203 from the image of the final sheet read in step S303. More specifically, the CPU 238 extracts, as a feature point, a position similar to information (luminance value and a position) concerning the set feature point based on the luminance value and position of the read image. To reduce the processing load, it may be determined whether there is a similar pixel position by centering the position of the set feature point. Furthermore, the feature point may be formed from a plurality of pixels, and if a predetermined number or more of pixels among the plurality of pixels are similar, that position may be extracted as a feature point. Subsequently, in step S312, the CPU 238 executes affine transformation (rotation processing) so that the position of the feature point extracted in step S311 coincides with the position of the feature point of the reference image. This is done to prevent, when the final sheet is shifted due to skewing or the like and read at the time of reading the final sheet, the shift of the read position from being determined as a shift of an image formation position. By executing the transformation, the CPU 238 can specify, on the read image, as the first region, a region that should be the preset half-cut area or preprint area (reference region) and the remaining region as the second region based on the feature point extracted in step S311. Based on the positional relationship between the feature point on the reference image set via the buttons 710 to 712 and the reference region as a region where the predetermined pattern should be formed, the first region is specified from the image position of the feature point extracted in step S311.”, [par. 0112, ln. 1-13] “In step S313, with respect to the image having undergone affine transformation in step S312, the CPU 238 determines whether the half-cut pattern set in the screen 1100 of FIG. 11 exists in the half-cut area set in step S205. As described when explaining the screen 1100, individual determination processing needs to be prepared as the determination processing of determining whether the half-cut pattern exists in the area. For example, to detect whether a half-cut is in a white portion, processing of detecting whether a dotted line of a luminance lower than the luminance of white even by a small value (predetermined value) continuously exists in one round of the half-cut area is performed since the luminance of white is very high.”, [par. 0113, ln. 1-15] “In step S314, with respect to the image having undergone affine transformation in step S312, the CPU 238 determines whether the preprint image set in the screen 1100 of FIG. 11 exists in the preprint area set in step S207. In this example, it is determined whether the preset preprint image exists in the preprint area. Subsequently, in step S315, with respect to the image having undergone affine transformation in step S312, the CPU 238 performs comparison with the reference image for the region that has not been set as a half-cut area or a preprint area in the setting processing shown in FIG. 14. Items to be compared in step S315 are determined based on the verification level set in the setting portion 1101 and the verification type set in the setting portion 1102 in FIG. 11. When the processing in step S315 ends, this process ends”),
wherein in determining the inspection area, the one or more controllers determine an area remaining after removing a part corresponding to the {unnecessary} part from the reference image to be the inspection area in a case of that the {unnecessary} part {removal} process is executed ([par. 0111, ln. 1-30], [par. 0112, ln. 1-13], [par. 0113, ln. 1-15]).
Goda does not specifically disclose wherein the part processing (i.e., the half-cut region determination) is to remove an unnecessary part. Specifically, the examiner notes that while half-cuts are often used to remove unnecessary portions in printing (e.g., to make a sheet of labels), Goda does not specifically disclose that the portion that is denoted outside of the half cut is unnecessary.
However, Yamamoto specifically teaches wherein the area denoted by the part processing is specifically for part removal of the unnecessary part ([Fig. 11, see non-inspection target area], [par. 0004, ln. 1-12] “In a typical inspection device, an inspection target may be a sheet assumed to be cut and a print job assuming the cutting of the sheet. In this case, a cut area of the sheet is finally unused. Accordingly, when inspection is constantly performed on the entire surface of the sheet, the sheet may be undesirably determined to be defective due to an abnormality in the cut area even though no abnormality is present in an image area. In order to avoid this inconvenience, techniques have been proposed and already known that a user sets any area of the sheet as a non-inspection-target area not inspected by an inspection device so that the inspection is not performed in the non-inspection-target area.”, [par. 006, ln. 1-9] “method of determining a non-inspection-target area. The method includes searching and determining. The searching searches for a mark included in master image data generated based on an image to be printed. The determining determines a non-inspection-target area to be excluded from an inspection-target area in a conveyance medium on which the image is printed, based on a position of the searched mark.”, [par. 0094, ln. 1-10] “Subsequently, the reading unit 2007 acquires the read image data from the reading device 131 (step S106). The difference image generation unit 2009 generates a difference image based on the master image data and the read image data (step S107). The defect determination unit 2015 determines the presence or absence of a defect in the inspection-target area excluding the non-inspection-target area when the non-inspection-target area is determined by the non-inspection-target area determination unit 2014 (step S108).”). One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize Goda and Yamamoto as within the same field of print inspection involving cutting of the printed product, and as analogous to the claimed invention. Specifically, the motivation to combine is disclosed in Yamamoto, wherein it removed accidental defect detection on areas of the print that are not necessary to the final product ([par. 0004, ln. 1-12]). One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto through known means, with no change to their respective function, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results. Specifically, one of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto such that the apparatus of Goda was used to detect and remove unnecessary parts (e.g., by setting a level of verification in Goda for region outside of half-cut to zero).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
9. Regarding Claim 2, a combination of Goda and Yamamoto teaches the apparatus of claim 1. Goda discloses in obtaining the reference image, the one or more controllers obtain the reference image based on image data used for forming the print product ([Fig. 4], [par. 0056, ln. 1-16] “In FIG. 4, reference numerals 410, 411, and 412 denote sheets before printing, respectively; 401, a half-cut; and 402, a preprint image. The sheet 410 is an example of a sheet in which the half-cuts (for example, person 1, person 2) 401 and the preprint image (for example, company name logo) 402 are at ideal positions (reference regions) in the sheet before printing. The sheet 411 is a sheet before printing in a state in which the half-cuts 401 and the preprint image 402 are shifted and are not at the ideal positions with respect to the sheet 410. The sheet 412 is the same as the sheet 410, and is a sheet in which the half-cuts 401 and the preprint image 402 are formed at the ideal positions. When printing an image, the sheets 410 to 412 are set on the paper feed deck 301 or 302. In this way, when printing the half-cuts 401 and the preprint image 402 on the print sheet, a slight shift unwantedly occurs”, [par. 0058, ln. 1-19] “Since, on the sheet 414, the half-cuts 401 and the preprint image 402 are at the ideal positions on the sheet before printing and the image is printed at the ideal position, the positional relationship between the image and the half-cuts 401 and preprint image 402 is in an ideal state. Since, on the sheet 415, the half-cuts 401 and the preprint image 402 are printed at positions deviated from the ideal positions on the sheet before printing, the half-cuts 401 and the preprint image 402 are unwantedly shifted with respect to the ideally printed image on the sheet after printing the image. On the sheet 416, the half-cuts 401 and the preprint image 402 are at the ideal positions on the sheet before printing, but the position at which the image is formed is shifted when printing the image. Therefore, on the sheet after printing the image, the half-cuts 401 and the preprint image 402 are shifted with respect to the image. When printing the image on the sheet, a slight shift from the ideal position may unwantedly occur due to sheet conveyance in the image forming apparatus 101.”, [par. 0064, ln. 1-10] “The button 503 is used to call a reference image selection screen. As the reference image, an image to be compared with an image read by the verification apparatus 109, and obtained by reading the final sheet determined, in advance, visually or by the verification apparatus 109, to have normally been printed is desirably registered. The reference image is registered in, for example, the memory 239. The reference image may be read out from an external apparatus when performing verification, as a matter of course. The button 504 is used to call a verification area setting screen.”). The examiner further notes that Yamamoto teaches an analogous reference image from image data used for forming the print product ([par. 0035, ln. 1-15] “The inspection device 20 is a device that inspects printed sheets output from the printer 10. Specifically, the inspection device 20 generates a master image based on rasterized image data received from the printer 10. Then, the inspection device 20 compares the read image read by the reading device 131 with the master image and determines whether the read image includes any defect. The operation panel 117 acquires information indicating an inspection result from the inspection device 20 and displays the information. The rasterized image is, for example, in the CMYK format (format in a subtractive color mode including cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) with 8-bit colors and 600 dpi resolution. The read image is, for example, in the red, green, and blue (RGB) format with 8-bit colors and 200 dpi resolution.”, [par. 0082, ln. 1-6] “The master image generation unit 2008 generates the master image data based on rasterized image data indicating an image to be printed by the printer 10. Specifically, the master image generation unit 2008 converts the rasterized image data in the CMYK format into the master image data in the RGB format.”, [par. 0083, ln. 1-7] “Note that the master image data is data serving as a reference for comparison with the read image data and is used as the correct data obtained when the master image data is correctly printed. The master image data may be created by reading the sheet on which a reference image is printed with the scanner section 1131, an inline sensor, or a scanner of an external device”). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto to obtain the invention as specified in claim 2.
10. Regarding Claim 3, a combination of Goda and Yamamoto teaches the apparatus of claim 2. Goda further discloses wherein in determining the inspection area, the one or more controllers determine the inspection area based on cutting information referenced in the unnecessary part removal process ([par. 0111, ln. 1-30], [par. 0112, ln. 1-13], [par. 0113, ln. 1-15]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto to obtain the invention as specified in claim 3.
11. Regarding Claim 5, a combination of Goda and Yamamoto teaches the apparatus of claim 3. Goda discloses wherein the cutting information is included in the image data used to form the print product ([Fig. 4], [par. 0056, ln. 1-16], [par. 0058, ln. 1-19], [par. 0064, ln. 1-10]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto to obtain the invention as specified in claim 5.
12. Regarding Claim 6, a combination of Goda and Yamamoto teaches the apparatus of claim 1. Goda discloses wherein, in obtaining the reference image, the one or more controllers obtain, as the reference image, image data obtained by reading the print product ([Fig. 4], [par. 0056, ln. 1-16], [par. 0058, ln. 1-19], [par. 0064, ln. 1-10]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto to obtain the invention as specified in claim 6.
13. Regarding Claim 12, a combination of Goda and Yamamoto teaches the apparatus of claim 1. Goda discloses wherein in determining the inspection area, the one or more controllers determine the entirety of the reference image to be the inspection area in a case that the unnecessary part removal process is not executed ([par. 0068, ln. 1-9] “In the display portion 701, a result of setting a verification area is displayed. In the display portion 701 shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B, no verification area has been set, and a state in which the reference image selected in FIG. 6 is displayed as an example remains set. If no verification area has been set (that is, in a default setting), a setting of inspecting the final sheet read for verification and the entire reference image is made. That is, the entire region of the reference image is set as a verification area.”). Specifically, given that the verification areas correspond to the half-cut areas, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that setting the entire reference image as the verification area when no verification area has been set is analogous to setting the entire image as a verification area if no part removal process (e.g., cut) is being made. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto to obtain the invention as specified in claim 12.
14. Regarding Claim 13, the claim language is analogous to claim 1, with the exception of “An inspection system…” and “…an image forming device generates a print product in which an image is printed on a recording medium, wherein the inspection apparatus inspects the print product generated by the image forming device.”. Goda specifically discloses a system ([par. 0029, ln. 1-6] “…An overview of the system configuration of a print system according to the embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 1. A print system 100… includes an image forming apparatus 101…”,), and wherein the an image forming device generates a print product in which an image is printed on a recording medium, wherein the inspection apparatus inspects the print product generated by the image forming device ([par. 0032, ln. 1-4] “The image forming apparatus 101 will be described next. The image forming apparatus 101 includes a print apparatus 107, an inserter 108, a verification apparatus 109, a large capacity stacker 110, and a finisher 111. In this way, the image forming apparatus 101 is connected to the plurality of apparatuses having different functions, and is configured to perform complicated print processing such as bookbinding.”, [par. 0033, ln. 1-21] “The print apparatus 107 forms (prints), using toner, an image on a recording medium such as a sheet conveyed from a paper feed unit arranged in the lower portion of the print apparatus 107. The arrangement and operation principle of the print apparatus 107 are as follows. A photosensitive drum is irradiated with, as scanning light, a light beam such as a laser beam modulated in accordance with image data and reflected by a rotary polyhedral mirror such as a polygon mirror. An electrostatic latent image formed on the photosensitive drum by the laser beam is developed by toner, and the toner image is transferred to a sheet attached to a transfer drum. This series of image forming processes is executed sequentially for toners of yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), and black (K), thereby forming a full-color image on the sheet. The sheet, on which the full-color image has been formed, on the transfer drum is transferred to a fixing unit. The fixing unit includes rollers and belts, incorporates a heat source such as a halogen heater in each roller, and melts and fixes, to the sheet, by heat and a pressure, the toners on the sheet to which the toner images have been transferred.”, [par. 0034, ln. 3-7] “The verification apparatus 109 is an apparatus for determining whether the printed image is normal or not by reading the image on the conveyed sheet and comparing the read image with a preregistered reference image.”, [par. 0041, ln. 13-18]). Regarding the remainder of the claim, rejections analogous to claim 1 are further applicable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the system of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto to obtain the invention as specified in claim 13.
15. Regarding Claim 14, the claim language is analogous to claim 1 with the exception of “A method for controlling an inspection apparatus, the method comprising…”. Goda further discloses a method for controlling an inspection apparatus ([par. 0007, ln. 1-3] “…the present invention provides a control method for a verification apparatus, comprising…”). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the method of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto to obtain the invention as specified in claim 13.
16. Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No. 2021/0303844 to Goda, and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2023/0083271 to Yamamoto, and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2024/0319931 to Kawabe et al. (hereinafter Kawabe).
17. Regarding Claim 4, a combination of Goda and Yamamoto teaches the apparatus of claim 3. Goda discloses wherein in determining the inspection area, the one or more controllers set an approximate center of an area that the cutting information indicates as a reference ([par. 0073, ln. 1-15] “In the display portion 801, candidates of a feature point to be used are displayed. In this example, four feature point 821 to 824 are candidates. As the feature point candidates, a plurality of feature point candidates that can be extracted at the time of registering the reference image are extracted by a general feature point extraction algorithm. Therefore, when transitioning to the screen 800, the feature point candidates are displayed by default. Note that a reference image in the display portion 801 includes images of image A, person 1, and person 2 but one or more feature points are extracted and displayed for each of all the images. Note that no feature image needs to be displayed for an image such as a lattice image without any feature point in which a pattern is repeated. Alternatively, the central point of the image may be selected by default.”), {and determine the inspection area based on an enlarged area that enlarges the area by a predetermined amount}. Goda does not specifically disclose wherein to determine the inspection area based on an enlarged area that enlarges the area by a predetermined amount. Yamamoto likewise fails to teach a central point or to determine the inspection area based on an enlarged area that enlarges the area by a predetermined amount.
However, Kawabe specifically teaches to determine the inspection area based on an enlarged area that enlarges the area by a predetermined amount ([par. 0059, ln. 1-19] “…instead of setting the inspection level for the entire pressure-bonded surface specified in S106 to be high, the information processing system 30 may set the level only for the region in which there is an image to be printed in the pressure-bonded surface, or the level only for a region obtained by expanding the above region by a predetermined ratio, to be high. The region in which there is the image to be printed is a region in which an object is drawn by a drawing command in the printing data. In this case, a portion of the pressure-bonded surface other than the region in which the level “high” is set may be excluded from the inspection target. Similarly, in S118, the level may be set to be low only for a region in which there is the image to be printed (or a region obtained by expanding the above region by a predetermined ratio), instead of the entire non-pressure-bonded surface. The portion of the non-pressure-bonded surface other than the region where the level is set to be low is excluded from the inspection target. The same applies to the case of folding processing.”). One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize Goda, Yamamoto, and Kawabe as within the same field of print inspection involving cutting of the printed product, and as analogous to the claimed invention. The motivation to combine would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, in that by using a predetermined value enlargement as taught in Kawabe, you avoid the requirement to have the user specify the enlargement area as taught in Goda (see [Goda, Fig. 9A]), which would increase user convenience. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and further combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto with the area enlargement of Kawabe through known means, with no change to their respective function, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results. Specifically, one of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto such that the inspection area is based on an enlarged area that enlarges the area by a predetermined amount as taught in Kawabe.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and the area enlargement of Kawabe to obtain the invention as specified in claim 4.
18. Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No. 2021/0303844 to Goda, and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2023/0083271 to Yamamoto, and further in view CN-101046728-A to Sato (hereinafter Sato).
19. Regarding Claim 7, a combination of Goda and Yamamoto teaches the apparatus of claim 1. Goda and Yamamoto do not specifically disclose wherein the one or more controllers determine whether or not the unnecessary part removal process is executed in accordance with whether or not a cutting device is connected to the inspection apparatus.
However, Sato specifically teaches wherein the one or more controllers determine whether or not the unnecessary part removal process ([pg. 9, par. 5-6, ln. 1-5] “…marking/property comprises: when electronic manuscript file, and when designated marking and (offset (offset) on each page to be the item to be specified.
can be specified (width) to each side edge of each finishing page, and indicate the width to be when the sheet. is a mark that represents the of the user using offline finisher sheet automatically when the marks (offset marks).”) is executed in accordance with whether or not a cutting device is connected to the inspection apparatus ([pg. 9, par. 13, ln. 1-3] “…product attribute includes information for specifying whether the sheet discharged for example, saddle binding, on seal (binding), three-side processing. the validity of the attribute depends on whether the printing device has the corresponding function.”). One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize Goda, Yamamoto, and Sato as within the same field of print inspection involving cutting of the printed product, and as analogous to the claimed invention. The motivation to combine would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, as it expands the applicability of the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto to non-cut capable printers (e.g., allowing pre-print inspection as taught in Goda but not allowing half-cut processing if the printer has no cutting device). One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and further combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto with the determination of whether the inspection apparatus has a cutting device for unnecessary parts removal of Sato, through known means, with no change to their respective function, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results. Specifically, one of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto such that unnecessary part removal as indicated was deemed invalid if the inspection device does not have a corresponding cutting device to perform the unnecessary part removal as taught in Sato.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and determination of whether the inspection apparatus has a cutting device for unnecessary parts removal of Sato to obtain the invention as specified in claim 7.
20. Claims 8 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No. 2021/0303844 to Goda, and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2023/0083271 to Yamamoto, and further in view U.S. Publication No. 2017/0039724 to Yanagiuchi et al. (hereinafter Yanagiuchi).
21. Regarding Claim 8, a combination of Goda and Yamamoto teaches the apparatus of claim 2. Goda discloses wherein in determining the inspection area, the one or more controllers determine the inspection area based on image data corresponding to a {foreground layer in which} image data of a design is drawn, the {foreground layer} being included in the reference image ([par. 0111, ln. 1-30], [par. 0112, ln. 1-13], [par. 0113, ln. 1-15]). Goda does not specifically disclose a foreground layer, though one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize Goda does disclose using intensity of pixels to determine the inspection area ([par. 0112, ln 1-13]). Likewise, Yamamoto does not specifically disclose a foreground layer.
However, Yanagiuchi teaches a foreground/background layer extraction and wherein the foreground includes the image data of a design ([par. 0099, ln. 1-17] “The character-background removing unit 75 performs the binarization processing to remove the noise 403a to 403d thereby generating a binary image from the background-removed image 321 (Step S16). As a result, the insignificant noise 403a to 403d remaining in the background-removed image 321 is also removed and the character image containing only the character can be acquired. FIG. 8B shows a character image 322 generated from the background-removed image 321 shown in FIG. 8A by executing the binarization processing. The character image 322 is a binary image in which the pixels constituting the background are represented with white pixels and the pixels constituting the character are represented with black pixels. In this manner, the presence of the stain 401 and the missing portion 402 becomes clear in the character image 322, and the printing inspection of the character image 322 can be performed appropriately by using this character image 322.”). One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize Goda, Yamamoto, and Yanagiuchi as within the same field of print inspection, and as analogous to the claimed invention. The motivation to combine would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art and is disclosed in Yanagiuchi, in that by using an analogous binarization processing, you can remove unwanted defects of an image using subtraction ([par. 0097, ln. 13-16] “In this manner, by removing the background by using the linear discriminant function, the stain 401 is left behind, without being removed from the background-removed image 321, as a part of the ink constituting the character.”). One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and further combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto with the foreground including image data of a design of Yanagiuchi, through known means, with no change to their respective function, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results. Specifically, one of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto with the foreground including image data of a design of Yanagiuchi such that the inspection area was determined by the foreground layer of Yanagiuchi (e.g., by binarizing the image, half-cut can be more easily extracted and the area bound by the half-cut is the inspection area).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and the foreground including image data of a design of Yanagiuchi to obtain the invention as specified in claim 8.
22. Regarding Claim 11, a combination of Goda, Yamamoto, and Yanagiuchi teaches the apparatus of claim 8. Goda does not specifically disclose wherein the foreground layer is represented by (C, M, Y, K) # (0, 0, 0, 0), though one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that Goda does disclosed both CMYK and that the print product is white ([par. 0048, ln. 9-11] “Developing stations 304 to 307 form toner images using color toners of Y, M, C, and K, respectively, to form a color image.”, [par. 0112, ln 1-13]). Likewise, while Yamamoto teaches wherein the reference image may be in CMYK format ([par. 0035, ln. 1-15]), Yamamoto does not specifically teach wherein the foreground layer is #0000.
However, Yanagiuchi specifically teaches wherein the foreground is black ([par. 0099, ln. 1-17]). The motivation to combine remains analogous to claim 8. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and further combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto with the foreground including image data of a design as a black foreground of Yanagiuchi, through known means, with no change to their respective function, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results. Specifically, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that black in CMYK is #0000, and given that Yanagiuchi represents the foreground as black, that in a CMYK color space it would be #0000. As such, in combining the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto with the foreground including image data of a design as black foreground of Yanagiuchi, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the foreground would be represented by #0000 in CMYK color space.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and the foreground including image data of a design of as black foreground Yanagiuchi to obtain the invention as specified in claim 11.
23. Claims 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No. 2021/0303844 to Goda, and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2023/0083271 to Yamamoto, and further in view U.S. Publication No. 2025/0278827 to Zhang et al. (hereinafter Zhang).
24. Regarding Claim 9, a combination of Goda and Yamamoto teaches the apparatus of claim 2. Goda discloses wherein in determining the inspection area, the one or more controllers execute an area division process on the reference image, and among a plurality of areas obtained in the area division process ([Fig. 5-12] see specifically reference image selection in Fig. 6, Fig. 7A-B and Fig. 9A-B for determination of part removal area (i.e., half-cut area), and Fig. 8-11 for setting of level of verifications for half-cut areas, [par. 0062, ln. 1-15], [par. 0075, ln. 1-8], [par. 0077, ln. 1-18], [par. 0083, ln. 1-19], [par. 0085, ln 1-22]), determine the inspection area based on an area including a {foreground layer} in which image data of a design is drawn ([par. 0111, ln. 1-30], [par. 0112, ln. 1-13], [par. 0113, ln. 1-15]). The examiner specifically notes the BRI of the claim language would encompass the area division designated by a user and performed by the controller/processors as taught in Goda. Goda does not specifically disclose wherein the area includes a foreground layer. Likewise, Yamamoto does not specifically disclose a foreground layer.
However, Zhang specifically teaches to execute an area division process on the reference image, and among a plurality of areas obtained in the area division processing, determine the inspection area based on an area including a foreground layer in which a region of interest is present ([par. 0027, ln. 1-8] “The processor 102 may fetch, decode, and execute the instructions 114 to receive a scanned image 212 corresponding to the master image 202. The scanned image 212 may include a scanned image ROI 214, which may include a raster ROI, a symbol ROI, a background ROI, and/or a color vector ROI.”, [par. 0037, ln. 1-12] “In this section, the raster ROI preprocessing for color fading detection and classification is described. It includes three parts: raster ROI image registration (block 304), “SLIC” Super-pixels separating master raster ROI (block 310), and extracting smooth super-pixels (block 312). The image registration may be to remove the misalignment between the master and test raster ROI. The “SLIC” Super-pixels algorithm may be implemented to separate the master raster ROI based on the color and position of the pixels. After we have the “SLIC” Super-pixels result, the processor 102 may remove the super-pixels' high variance and may keep the smooth super-pixels.”, [par. 0039, ln.1-27] “The processor 102 may apply the “SLIC” algorithm. In some examples, the only input may be k, which may be the number of approximately equally-sized super-pixels. The processor 102 may first transform the master raster ROI in, for instance, the CIE L*a*b* color space and initialize the k cluster centers C.sub.i=[I.sub.i, a.sub.i, b.sub.i, x.sub. i,y.sub.i].sup.T sampled on a regular grid spaced S pixels apart, where S=√{square root over (N/k)} and N is the number of pixels in the raster ROI. To avoid the centers of the super-pixels on edge, the gradient of 3×3 neighbor pixels of the center may be calculated and moved to the lowest gradient position. After k initialized cluster centers are obtained, each pixel i may be assigned. For each super-pixel center, the distance measure D may be calculated for each pixel in the 2S×2S area. This distance measure of D will be introduced in the next paragraph. Because each super-pixel size is approximately S×S, each pixel i will have several distance measures D for different neighboring super-pixel's center, and the smallest distance measure D determines the nearest super-pixel center for each pixel i. After every pixel in the raster, ROI has the nearest super-pixel center, and the center of every new super-pixels may be updated by calculating the mean of [L′,a*,b*,x,y].sup.T vector of all of the pixels belonging to the same super-pixel. Then, calculation of the distance measure D is repeated for each pixel and the center of new super-pixels is found, until the centers of the super-pixels are almost fixed or reach a fixed iteration number.”, [par. 0053, ln. 1-21] “Intuitively, extraction of the different cluster points may be based on the distance between the different points. So, it may be desirable to find the best threshold to separate in-cluster distance and out-cluster distance. To find this best threshold, a histogram distance matrix may be plotted. FIG. 6 shows a chart of an example histogram 600 of a distance matrix of the data points depicted in FIG. 5. The apparent valley of this histogram may be found to be around 5, and there may be peak values before and after this valley. The distance value smaller than the valley may be the in-cluster distance, and the distance value larger than the valley may be the out-cluster distance. By way of particular example and for purposes of illustration, the Otsu method may be used to find this best threshold because the Otsu method may be well suited to separate the background and foreground using the pixel's gray value histogram. For these 100 sample points, the Otsu method result may be 6.234. That means the distance smaller than this threshold is the in-cluster distance, and the corresponding points may belong to the same cluster, but if the distance larger than the threshold is out-cluster, and the corresponding points may belong to different clusters.”). One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize Goda, Yamamoto, and Zhang as within the same field of print inspection, and as analogous to the claimed invention. The motivation to combine would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, and is disclosed in Zhang, wherein division processing may be more accurate ([par. 0032, ln. 1-24] “A common printer issue in electrophotographic printers is color fading defect. Color fading defects may be defined as faint print or faded content, and may be caused by a low level ink/cartridge. As described herein, the processor 102 may use a Simple Linear Iterative Clustering (“SLIC”) Super-pixels method to separate the scanned image ROI 214 and extract smooth super-pixels. In this regard, the scanned image ROI 214 may be a scanned image raster ROI. A super-pixel as referred to herein may be a group of pixels. The separation method as described herein may be more accurate than conventional methods in extracting a color from a master ROI, such as the master image ROI 204 depicted in FIG. 2, and a test raster ROI, such as the scanned image ROI 214 depicted in FIG. 2.). One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and further combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto with the division processing and foreground layer of Zhang, through known means, with no change to their respective function, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results. Specifically, one of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto with the division processing and foreground layer of Zhang such that the division processing for the half-cut region determination would be performed automatically by the division processing as the foreground of the image as taught in Zhang.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and the division processing and foreground layer of Zhang to obtain the invention as specified in claim 9.
25. Regarding Claim 10, a combination of Goda, Yamamoto, and Zhang teaches the apparatus of claim 9. Goda discloses determining the inspection area, the one or more controllers determine the inspection area {by executing the area division process} in a case where cutting information referenced in the unnecessary part removal process has not been received ([par. 0068, ln. 1-9]). Specifically, Goda does not disclose wherein inspection area is set by executing the area division process in the case where cutting information has not been received, because the cutting information as taught in Goda is received via the division process as designated by the user. Rather, Goda simply sets the whole image as the inspection area. Likewise, Yamamoto does not specifically disclose an area division process.
However, Zhang specifically discloses an automatic area division process that does not require input from a user ([par. 0027, ln. 1-8], [par. 0037, ln. 1-12], [par. 0039, ln.1-27], [par. 0053, ln. 1-21]). The motivation to combine remains analogous to claim 9. Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, would recognize that by implementing an automatic detection for the inspection area analogous to Zhang, you prevent the need to specifically designate cutout information by a user, since the division process can automatically determine the cutting information (e.g., by detecting the relevant portion of the document and separating into foreground and background), and that this also contains the added benefit of removing processing requirements for verification (e.g., areas classified as background can likely be safely ignored during verification). One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and further combined the apparatus of the combination of Goda and Yamamoto with the division processing and foreground layer of Zhang, through known means, with no change to their respective function, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results. Specifically, one of ordinary skill in the art, in combining the apparatus of Goda and Yamamoto with the automatic division processing and foreground layer of Zhang, would have applied the automatic division processing and foreground layer of Zhang to the case where no verification area is received as taught in Goda such that the apparatus automatically performs the division process when the user does not designate cutting information in the reference image (i.e., where cutting information referenced in the unnecessary part removal process has not been received).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the apparatus of Goda with the unnecessary part removal of Yamamoto and the automatic division processing and foreground layer of Zhang to obtain the invention as specified in claim 10.
Conclusion
26. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. See PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PAULO ANDRES GARCIA whose telephone number is (703)756-5493. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri, 8-4:30PM ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chan Park can be reached on (571)272-7409. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PAULO ANDRES GARCIA/Examiner, Art Unit 2669 /CHAN S PARK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2669
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