Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the
first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was filed on 03/06/2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: “an illumination unit configured to…”, “an imager configured to…”, “an image processor configured to…” in claim 6.
Because these claim limitations are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, they are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitations to avoid them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitations recite sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
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.
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.
Claims 1 and 5-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koshihara et. al. (US Pub. No. 20200025690-A1) in view of Okuike et. al. (US Pub. No. 20210176390-A1) .
As per claim 1, “A surface defect detection method for optically detecting a surface defect in a strip-shaped body, the surface defect detection method comprising:
an image acquisition step of detecting reflected light from the strip-shaped body obtained by illuminating a surface of the strip-shaped body and imaging while relatively scanning the surface of the strip-shaped body to acquire a plurality of images including the surface of the strip-shaped body;” (See paragraphs 33-44 “[0035] The image capturing device 3 captures an image of a part of the surface of the steel strip S being illuminated by the illumination device 2, and transmits data of the acquired image of the surface of the steel strip S (original image) to the image processing device 4. The image capturing device 3 may be what is called a line sensor camera having a one-dimensional imaging device, or what is called an area camera having a two-dimensional imaging device, but, in either case, the image capturing device 3 captures the image synchronously with the conveyance of the steel strip S. When the image capturing device 3 is a line sensor camera, a continuous illumination device is used as the illumination device 2. When the image capturing device 3 is an area camera, a flash illumination device that emits flash light every time the steel strip S is carried by a certain distance is used as the illumination device 2.” See also paragraphs 46-50. Koshihara)
“an image correction step of performing shading correction on each image in the acquired plurality of images using the… image to obtain corrected images; and” (See paragraphs 38-50 and 53-57. “[0039] The image correcting unit 42 generates a corrected image by sequentially reading the pieces of image data stored in the temporary storage area included in the image input unit 41, and applying a correction process to the read image data. In the correction process, to begin with, if one or both of the edges of the steel strip S are included in the image, the image correcting unit 42 detects the position of the edge, sets the image area corresponding to the outside of the edge of the steel strip S as an area to be excluded from the inspection, and fills the area to be excluded from the inspection with a mirror image of the inner area of the steel sheet S, being inner with respect to a border at the edge position, for example. The image correcting unit 42 then corrects (applies a shading correction of) the luminance non-uniformity resultant of illuminance non-uniformity attributable to the illumination device 2, in the image of the steel strip S, so that the entire image comes to have a uniform brightness.” Koshihara)
“a defect detection step of detecting a surface defect in the strip-shaped body based on the corrected images, wherein the… image calculation step includes recognizing an inspection target region in which the strip-shaped body is located in each image in the plurality of images and contributing to the… image only for pixels in the inspection target region.” (See fig. 2-4 and paragraphs 58-61 “[0060] FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating the sequence of the defect detecting process applied to the corrected image. As illustrated in FIG. 4, the defect detecting process includes a texture feature image generating step S31, a texture feature extracting step S32, an abnormality level calculating step S33, and a defect candidate detecting step S34.” See paragraphs 39-46 “[0039] The image correcting unit 42 generates a corrected image by sequentially reading the pieces of image data stored in the temporary storage area included in the image input unit 41, and applying a correction process to the read image data. In the correction process, to begin with, if one or both of the edges of the steel strip S are included in the image, the image correcting unit 42 detects the position of the edge, sets the image area corresponding to the outside of the edge of the steel strip S as an area to be excluded from the inspection, and fills the area to be excluded from the inspection with a mirror image of the inner area of the steel sheet S, being inner with respect to a border at the edge position, for example. The image correcting unit 42 then corrects (applies a shading correction of) the luminance non-uniformity resultant of illuminance non-uniformity attributable to the illumination device 2, in the image of the steel strip S, so that the entire image comes to have a uniform brightness.” By performing an exclusion to the area outside of the steel strip, it results in only using pixels obtained from the metal strip which is interpreted as being the inspection region. See also paragraphs 53-57. “[0056] At the shading correcting step S23, the image correcting unit 42 computes a corrected image IC(x, y) in which the brightness of the entire image is uniformized, by correcting the luminance non-uniformity of (applying a shading correction to) the outside-of-edge corrected image IE(x, y). In the shading correction process, for example, the brightness may be standardized by subtracting a moving average of the one-dimensional luminance from the luminance in the original image, and dividing the result with the moving average, or by performing the same process using a moving average of two-dimensional luminance in both directions of the x and the y directions.” Koshihara), however Koshihara does not teach “an average image calculation step of calculating an average image of the acquired plurality of images;” and “using the average image…”
Okuike teaches “an average image calculation step of calculating an average image of the acquired plurality of images;” and “using the average image to obtain corrected images…” and “the body is located in each image… to the average image only for pixels in the inspection target region” (See paragraphs36-37 “0037] Particularly, in a case where an object is irradiated with a flicker light source (e.g., a fluorescent lamp, etc.) that causes a flicker phenomenon, a luminance of the object in the plurality of imaging frames should vary in accordance with a period of the flicker phenomenon. Therefore, in the present embodiment, an average value of luminances of a plurality of pixels corresponding to an image of the object are acquired for respective imaging frames acquired at a predetermined frame rate…” See also paragraphs 133 “[0133] … the first correction section sets, as a target value, a value obtained by averaging the respective luminance average values in a plurality of frames, and performs correction to cause the luminance of the image to be the target value.” See also paragraph 137. See also paragraphs 15 and 73, it is within the inspection region (location of the object and detection) “[0015] FIG. 3 is a schematic view of an example including, in addition to the configuration of FIG. 1A, an object detection section that is able to detect a target object and an object tracking section that keeps grasping a location of the object in a frame after detecting the object.” “[0073] FIG. 3 is a schematic view of an example including, in addition to the configuration of FIG. 1A, an object detection section 190 that is able to detect a target object and an object tracking section 200 that keeps grasping a location of the object in a frame after detecting the object… but differs from the second flicker correction section 150 in that the third flicker correction section 210 calculates a correction value in a predetermined region including a tracked object…”
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 teachings of Koshihara with the teachings of Okiuke to calculate an average of the images and using the average images of the located object pixels to correct an image for surface defect detection . The modification would have been motivated by the desire to suppress fluctuation of luminance components, suppressing saturation therefore improving image quality therefore it is an improvement, as suggested by Okiuke (See paragraph 50 “[0050] On the basis of the flicker waveform b one period before the flicker period, the target value (average value d) and an average value a of the flicker waveform b one period before the flicker period of each of the frames are used to determine a correction value c, which is a difference between the average value a and the average value d, for each of the frames. The result of applying the correction value c to the flicker waveform b is a flicker waveform e after the correction illustrated in FIG. 8. The exposure amount control section 170 performs an exposure control on the basis of the correction amount c to thereby cause, in the flicker waveform e after the correction, the average value a before the correction to be moved onto the flicker waveform e. This makes it possible to suppress fluctuation of luminance components due to the flicker phenomenon…” and paragraph 98 “[0098] As described above, according to the present embodiment, causing the first flicker correction section 140 to perform the flicker correction makes it possible to suppress occurrence of saturation (a blown-out highlight or a blocked-up shadow) at a time point of analog data acquired by the imaging element 100, and thus to increase S/N. In addition, it is possible to provide a robust flicker correction method even for the movement of the imaging element 100 and for a moving subject…” Okiuke)
Claim 6 is rejected under the same analysis as claim 1.
As per claim 5, Koshihara in view of Okuike teaches “The surface defect detection method according to claim 1,wherein the strip-shaped body may include steel material.” (See paragraphs 34-39. Koshihara)
Pertinent Prior Art
Watanabe et. al. (JP-2017062181-A) discloses flaw detection in steel materials based on illuminated light (See page 9 paragraphs 2-6) but does not disclose the features of the dependent claims.
Minagawa et. al. (JP-2010249522-A) discloses a surface defect inspection object along with calculating the average luminance (See page 2 paragraphs 1-7), but does not disclose the features of the dependent claims.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DYLAN J MENDEZ MUNIZ whose telephone number is (703)756-5672. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8AM - 5PM ET.
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/DYLAN JOHN MENDEZ MUNIZ/Examiner, Art Unit 2675
/VU LE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2668
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