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 .
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
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: “obtaining unit” and “registration unit” in claim 1, “inference unit” and “learning unit” in claim 8, “deployment unit” in claim 9, “unit” in claim 10.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/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 limitation(s) to avoid it/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 limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 11-14 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 11 recites the limitation "the image-capturing information that has been sampled". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 12-14 depend on claim 11 and therefore are rejected.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 15, and 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kim et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 20190379837).
Regarding claim 1, Kim discloses:
An information processing apparatus (electronic device 101 where processor 120 may execute, for example, software (e.g., a program 140) to control at least one other component (e.g., a hardware or software component) of the electronic device 101 coupled with the processor 120, and may perform various data processing or computation, where the instructions are stored in a computer-readable storage medium, such as RAM or flash memories, par. 42-43, 151-152) comprising:
an obtaining unit configured to obtain a recommended image-capturing parameter, based on content of image processing performed on image-capturing information obtained through image capturing (the server 108 (e.g., the processor 530) may transmit a plurality of parameter sets identified based on the capturing-related information to the electronic device 101, where electronic device 101 (e.g., the processor 120) transmitted capturing-related information at the time of running the camera to the server 108 and capturing-related information may include at least one of position information about the electronic device 101, capturing environment information, or user profile information and capturing environment information may include at least one of capturing time, capturing target object, weather, place, or model of the electronic device 101, where setting parameters may include at least one value of light, color, shutter speed, focusing mode, or white balance set in the camera 180 depending on the capturing environment, par. 69, 95, 102-103); and
a registration unit configured to register the image-capturing information and the recommended image-capturing parameter in association with each other as learning data (setting parameter information 810 corresponding to a captured image selected and stored by the user may be accrued (or accumulated), where when the user selects and stores one or more of preview images provided through the display of the electronic device 101, information regarding the stored images may be transferred to the server 108, where the information regarding the stored images may include at least one of a setting parameter set corresponding to the image, position information, capturing environment information, or user profile information, where the parameter set may be constituted of a combination of at least one value of the light, color, shutter speed, focusing mode, or white balance, and processor 120 may generate or update user preference information based on the parameter set corresponding to the one or more images stored, par. 69, 80, 103, 113, 114).
Regarding claims 15 and 16 see the rejection of claim 1 and note that the limitations of claims 15 and 16 were shown.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 2-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 20190379837).
Regarding claims 2 and 3, Kim discloses a raw image obtained (e.g., a Bayer-patterned image, a high-resolution image) may be stored in the memory 250, and its corresponding copy image (e.g., a low-resolution image) may be previewed via the display device 160 in par. 65. Kim is silent with regards to image-capturing information includes a thumbnail image of a RAW image, and Exif information, and the thumbnail image of the RAW image is a reduced image developed at a time point of the image capturing. Official Notice is taken that it was well known before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include image capturing information including RAW images with corresponding Exif information as well as thumbnail reduced images corresponding to a RAW images at a time of capturing and recording images. This is advantageous in that users/professional photographers can edit RAW images to their aesthetic tastes, photographing metadata can be utilized later, and thumbnail images can be displayed on a screen without having to load a full sized image. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include to image-capturing information includes a thumbnail image of a RAW image, and Exif information, and the thumbnail image of the RAW image is a reduced image developed at a time point of the image capturing.
Regarding claim 4, Kim further discloses:
obtaining unit obtains a recommended exposure correction value from a brightness adjustment value in brightness adjustment performed on the image-capturing information (parameter set may be constituted of shutter speed, par. 103).
Note that the RAW image and the Exif information was previously shown.
Regarding claim 5, Kim further discloses:
recommended image-capturing parameter includes one or more of a correction value of an ISO sensitivity, a correction value of an aperture value, and a correction value of a shutter speed (parameter set may be constituted of shutter speed, par. 103).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-10 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.
Regarding claim 6, no prior art could be located that teaches or fairly suggests obtaining unit further obtains a pseudo image-capturing parameter that includes an ISO sensitivity, an aperture value, and a shutter speed, and that is set according to brightness adjustment, and the pseudo image-capturing parameter changes in conjunction with a brightness adjustment value in the brightness adjustment, in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim and parent claim.
Regarding claim 7, no prior art could be located that teaches or fairly suggests obtaining unit obtains, as a flag indicating whether to perform HDR image capturing, a flag that has 1 if a value resulting from subtracting a highlight adjustment value from a shadow adjustment value is greater than or equal to a threshold, and has 0 if the value is less than the threshold, in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim and parent claim.
Regarding claim 8, no prior art could be located that teaches or fairly suggests an inference unit configured to infer an image-capturing parameter by performing calculation processing of an inference model that is based on the image-capturing information; and a learning unit configured to learn the inference model, based on an error between the image-capturing parameter inferred by the inference unit, and the recommended image-capturing parameter, in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim and parent claim.
Claim 9 depends on claim 8 and therefore is objected to.
Regarding claim 10, no prior art could be located that teaches or fairly suggests a unit configured to: infer an image-capturing parameter by performing calculation processing of an inference model to which a sample image has been input; generate a screen showing an image capturing recipe, based on the inferred image-capturing parameter; and output the screen, in combination with the rest of the limitations of the claim and parent claim.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Pub. No. 20180359411 – directed to comparing a parameter to a target parameter, and adjusting a camera to cause a preview image to have the target parameter where final photographs are provided as feedback to a database of photographs used by a learning process for determining target parameters for input in an adjusting function
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICHOLAS G GILES whose telephone number is (571)272-2824. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 6:45AM-3:15PM EST (HOTELING).
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/NICHOLAS G GILES/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2639
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