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 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 1-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nakada (US 2021/0304385 A1).
With respect to Claim 1, Nakada’385 shows an information processing apparatus (figure 1 printing system including an image processing apparatus) configured to perform setting to inspect a printed sheet (paragraph [0032] setting unit with region setting unit 202 sets inspection regions and detection sensitivity setting unit 203 sets detection sensitivities for defects in each of the inspection regions), comprising:
at least one memory that stores instructions (figure 1 storage device 104); and
at least one processor (figure 1 CPU 101) that executes the instructions to:
set an inspection region for each inspection level indicating accuracy of the inspection based on a first user instruction for a reference image, which is a reference for the inspection (Figure 3: set reference image S301, set inspection regions S302, set detection sensitivities S303); and
extract an object existing in the reference image (figure 3 extract local pattern region S304, local pattern/object), wherein in a case where a plurality of inspection regions which have the different inspection levels are set for the extracted object based on the first user instruction (paragraph [0035] sets detection sensitivities for defects in each of the inspection regions based on an instruction from the user acquired via the UI, sets detection sensitivities for a point-like defect and a line-like defect in each of the inspection regions at three levels, namely high, medium, and low see figures 5-6), one inspection region is determined from the plurality of the inspection regions based on a proportion of each of the plurality of the inspection regions included in the object (paragraph [0037] in figure 9 S901 (included in s305) object pattern edge regions utilized for dividing/determining inspection region, paragraph [0036] an edge region is extracted as the region corresponding to the line-like pattern (object)), and
the inspection level corresponding to the determined one inspection region is set as the inspection level for the object (paragraph [0037] setting sensitivity S902).
With respect to Claim 2, Nakada’385 shows the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor executes the instructions further to: determine the inspection level designated for an inspection region having the largest proportion included in the object as the inspection level corresponding to the one inspection region (Figure 11 S1105 inspection processing unit 207 detects, among pixels in the defect-enhanced image, a pixel having a pixel value greater than or equal to the threshold Th.sub.1, as a defect pixel by the threshold process. In step S1105, the inspection processing unit 207 performs a threshold process on the areas of defect regions in the defect-enhanced image using the threshold Th.sub.2).
With respect to Claim 3, Nakada’385 shows the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor executes the instructions further to: make an inquiry to a user is made after the inspection level corresponding to the one inspection region is set as the inspection level for the object; and set the inspection level for the object again based on a second user instruction in response to the inquiry to the user (paragraph [0035] shows inspection instruction from the user acquired via the UI panel 108, paragraph [0038] determines whether the processing is to be ended based on an instruction from the user acquired through the UI panel 108).
With respect to Claim 4, Nakada’385 shows the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor executes the instructions further to: make an inquiry to a user after the inspection level corresponding to the one inspection region is set as the inspection level for the object in a case where a predetermined condition is satisfied; and set the inspection level for the object again based on a second user instruction in response to the inquiry to the user (paragraph [0035] shows inspection instruction from the user acquired via the UI panel 108, paragraph [0038] determines whether the processing is to be ended based on an instruction from the user acquired through the UI panel 108).
With respect to Claim 5, Nakada’385 shows the information processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the at least one processor executes the instructions further to: determine the inspection level designated for an inspection region having the largest proportion included in the object as the inspection level corresponding to the one inspection region in a case where the predetermined condition is not satisfied (Figure 11 S1105 inspection processing unit 207 detects, among pixels in the defect-enhanced image, a pixel having a pixel value greater than or equal to the threshold Th.sub.1, as a defect pixel by the threshold process. In step S1105, the inspection processing unit 207 performs a threshold process on the areas of defect regions in the defect-enhanced image using the threshold Th.sub.2).
With respect to Claim 6, Nakada’385 shows the information processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the predetermined condition is that there are a plurality of the inspection regions having the proportions included in the object, which are equal to or larger than a first threshold (paragraph [0036] local pattern extraction unit 204 performs a threshold process on pixels in the line-enhanced image and extracts a pixel having a pixel value greater than a threshold, as an edge pixel included in the edge region. A known morphological process may be applied to the extracted edge region, thereby correcting the edge region).
With respect to Claim 7, Nakada’385 shows the information processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the first threshold is 50% (figure 10A for region Be detection sensitivity of medium/50%).
With respect to Claim 8, Nakada’385 shows the information processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the predetermined condition is that there is the inspection region having the proportion included in the object in which a difference from the largest proportion included in the object is equal to or smaller than a second threshold (Figure 11 S1105 inspection processing unit 207 detects, among pixels in the defect-enhanced image, a pixel having a pixel value greater than or equal to the threshold Th.sub.1, as a defect pixel by the threshold process. In step S1105, the inspection processing unit 207 performs a threshold process on the areas of defect regions in the defect-enhanced image using the threshold Th.sub.2).
With respect to Claim 9, Nakada’385 shows the information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the second threshold is 25% (figure 10A for region Be detection sensitivity of low/25%).
With respect to Claim 10, Nakada’385 shows the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor executes the instructions further to: control a display unit; and display the proportion of each of the plurality of the inspection regions included in the object on the display unit (paragraph [0030] UI panel 108 is a display device such as a liquid crystal display and functions as a user interface for notifying the user of the current state and settings of the image processing apparatus 100).
With respect to Claim 11, Nakada’385 shows a method of controlling an information processing apparatus (figure 1 printing system including an image processing apparatus) configured to perform setting to inspect a printed sheet (paragraph [0032] setting unit with region setting unit 202 sets inspection regions and detection sensitivity setting unit 203 sets detection sensitivities for defects in each of the inspection regions);
comprising:
setting an inspection region for each inspection level indicating accuracy of the inspection based on a first user instruction for a reference image, which is a reference for the inspection (Figure 3: set reference image S301, set inspection regions S302, set detection sensitivities S303); and
extracting an object existing in the reference image (figure 3 extract local pattern region S304, local pattern/object); and
in a case where a plurality of inspection regions having the different inspection levels are set for the extracted object in the extracting step (paragraph [0035] sets detection sensitivities for defects in each of the inspection regions based on an instruction from the user acquired via the UI, sets detection sensitivities for a point-like defect and a line-like defect in each of the inspection regions at three levels, namely high, medium, and low see figures 5-6), determining one inspection region from the plurality of the inspection regions based on a proportion of each of the plurality of the inspection regions included in the object (paragraph [0037] in figure 9 S901 (included in s305) object pattern edge regions utilized for dividing/determining inspection region, paragraph [0036] an edge region is extracted as the region corresponding to the line-like pattern (object)), and setting the inspection level corresponding to the determined one inspection region as the inspection level for the object (paragraph [0037] setting sensitivity S902).
With respect to Claim 12, Nakada’385 shows an inspection system (figure 1 printing system), comprising:
a printing apparatus configured to perform printing on a sheet based on image data designated by a printing job (figure 1 printing apparatus 190);
an information processing apparatus configured to perform setting to inspect a printed sheet (figure 1 image processing apparatus 100); and
an inspection apparatus configured to perform the inspection on the printed sheet based on the setting set by the information processing apparatus (paragraph [0032] setting unit with region setting unit 202 sets inspection regions and detection sensitivity setting unit 203 sets detection sensitivities for defects in each of the inspection regions),
wherein the information processing apparatus comprises:
at least one memory that stores instructions (figure 1 storage device 104); and
at least one processor that executes the instructions to (figure 1 CPU 101):
set an inspection region for each inspection level indicating accuracy of the inspection based on a first user instruction for a reference image, which is a reference for the inspection (Figure 3: set reference image S301, set inspection regions S302, set detection sensitivities S303); and
extract an object existing in the reference image (figure 3 extract local pattern region S304, local pattern/object), wherein in a case where a plurality of inspection regions which have the different inspection levels are set for the extracted object based on the first user instruction (paragraph [0035] sets detection sensitivities for defects in each of the inspection regions based on an instruction from the user acquired via the UI, sets detection sensitivities for a point-like defect and a line-like defect in each of the inspection regions at three levels, namely high, medium, and low see figures 5-6),
one inspection region is determined from the plurality of the inspection regions based on a proportion of each of the plurality of the inspection regions included in the object (paragraph [0037] in figure 9 S901 (included in s305) object pattern edge regions utilized for dividing/determining inspection region, paragraph [0036] an edge region is extracted as the region corresponding to the line-like pattern (object)), and
the inspection level corresponding to the determined one inspection region is set as the inspection level for the object (paragraph [0037] setting sensitivity S902).
With respect to Claim 13, rejection analogous to those presented for claim 2, are applicable.
With respect to Claim 14, rejection analogous to those presented for claim 3, are applicable.
With respect to Claim 15, rejection analogous to those presented for claim 4, are applicable.
With respect to Claim 16, rejection analogous to those presented for claim 5, are applicable.
With respect to Claim 17, rejection analogous to those presented for claim 10, are applicable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kawabe et al. (US 2024/0319931 A1): shows in paragraph [0059] 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
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/IRIANA CRUZ/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2681
