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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
2. The Information Disclosure Statements filed 17 March 2025 and 22 May 2025 have been fully considered by Examiner. Annotated copies are included herewith.
Double Patenting
3. The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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4. Claims 21-40 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,283,030. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present Application are broader and include the subject matter of the claims of the Patent, and are therefore obvious variants. Claim 21 of the present Application and claim 1 of the Patent are compared below with differences underlined.
Present Application
U.S. Patent # 12,283,030
21. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
detecting, in a video, a first object to be tracked;
tracking, with a model, the first object;
determining, as part of the tracking of the first object, a first plurality of frames of the video that includes an unobscured representation of the first object;
segmenting, from each of the first plurality of frames, pixels representative of the first object;
storing, for each of the first plurality of frames, the pixels representative of the first object as visible object images;
determining, as part of the tracking of the first object, a second plurality of frames of the video that includes an obscured representation of the first object by an artifact;
segmenting, from each of the second plurality of frames, pixels representative of the first object and pixels representative of the obscured representation of the first object;
storing, for each of the second plurality of frames, the pixels representative of the first object and the pixels representative of the obscured representation of the first object as degraded object images;
generating, using at least the visible object images and the degraded object images, a refined model to learn an appearance of the first object; and
subsequent to generating the refined model:
detecting, in the video, a second object to be tracked;
tracking, with the refined model, the second object in the video;
determining a predicted tracked object appearance of the second object in a future frame of the video;
determining, with the refined model and based at least in part on the learned appearance of the first object, that at least a portion of the predicted tracked object appearance of the second object in the future frame is at least partially obscured by the artifact;
infilling pixels of the future frame with pixel values corresponding to the predicted tracked object appearance of the second object to generate an enhanced frame that illustrates the second object as at least partially visible through the artifact; and
presenting the enhanced frame.
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
detecting, in a scene of a video, a first object to be tracked;
tracking, with a model, the first object as the first object moves through the scene;
determining, as part of the tracking of the first object, a first plurality of frames of the video that includes an unobscured representation of the first object;
segmenting, from each of the first plurality of frames, pixels representative of the first object;
storing, for each of the first plurality of frames, the pixels representative of the first object as visible object images;
determining, as part of the tracking of the first object, a second plurality of frames of the video that includes an obscured representation of the first object by an artifact;
segmenting, from each of the second plurality of frames, pixels representative of the first object and pixels representative of the obscured representation of the first object;
storing, for each of the second plurality of frames, the pixels representative of the first object and the pixels representative of the obscured representation of the first object as degraded object images;
refining, as the first object is tracked by the model and using the visible object images and the degraded object images, the model to at least learn an appearance of the artifact in the scene that obscures the first object in the second plurality of frames, wherein the appearance of the artifact includes at least a position, a size, and a shape of the artifact in the scene; and
subsequent to the refining:
detecting, in the scene of the video, a second object to be tracked;
tracking, with the refined model, the second object in the video as the second object moves within the scene;
determining a predicted tracked object appearance of the second object in a future frame of the video;
determining, with the model and based on the learned appearance of the artifact, that at least a portion of the predicted tracked object appearance of the second object in the future frame is at least partially obscured by the learned appearance of the artifact;
infilling artifact pixels of the learned appearance of the artifact in the scene with pixel values corresponding to the predicted tracked object appearance of the second object to generate an enhanced frame that illustrates the second object as at least partially visible through the learned appearance of the artifact in the scene; and
presenting the enhanced frame.
As can be seen above, claim 21 of the present Application includes the subject matter of claim 1 of the Patent, with some minor differences that are either obvious or implicit in the claim language. Thus, claim 21 of the present Application is an obvious variant of claim 1 of the Patent.
Similarly, claims 27 and 37 of the present Application are obvious variants of claims 7 and 17 of the Patent, respectively. Similarly, dependent claims 22-26, 28-36, and 38-40 of the present Application further limit the claimed subject matter correspondingly and respectively with claims 2-6, 8-16, and 18-20 of the Patent.
Thus, for the reasons set forth above, claims 21-40 of the present Application are obvious variants of claims 1-20 of the Patent.
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 21-40 are rejected above on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,283,030. Therefore, there is no allowable subject matter. However, claims 21-40 do distinguish over the prior art. The closest prior art discovered by Examiner is the combination of Yuan (US-2023/0070514), Ho (US-11,908,180), Casaburo (US-11,151,798), Cole (US-2023/0206955), and Cheng (US-2022/0058871). However, none of the prior art cited above, nor any other prior art discovered by Examiner, fully teaches any of claims 21-40, either singly or in an obvious combination. Therefore, claims 21-40 each distinguish over the prior art.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to James A Thompson whose telephone number is (571)272-7441. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am-6pm.
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/JAMES A THOMPSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2615
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