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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Claims recites “one or more computer storage media”. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a “computer storage media” covers forms of non-transitory computer readable media and transitory propagation signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning. It is suggested that the claim language be amended to cover only statutory embodiments by adding the limitation “non-transitory” to the claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1-4, 6, 9-14 and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Fujii (JP 5122155, presented in the IDS. Note: The paragraphs are labeled in the attached Machine Translation).
As of claims 1, 17 and 20, Fujii discloses a method comprising:
obtaining, from an imaging device, a set of images of one or more physical locations surrounding or including an area of a property (via obtaining, from detection unit 5, a set of images surrounding door D; see fig. 1; also see paragraph [0026] and [0029]);
detecting a human depicted in the set of images (via detecting person M1; see fig. 1; also see paragraph [0029]);
determining whether the set of images includes an indication of a non-visible energy signal emitted by a wearable device worn by the human (via detecting tag 3; see paragraph [0030]) and
determining that the human has permission to access the area of the property in response to determining that the set of images includes the indication of the non-visible energy signal emitted by the wearable device worn by the human (the infrared communication part 3b of the tag 3 contains the ID signal, which is checked and the door opened or kept closed; see paragraphs [0034]-[0035]).
As of claims 2 and 18, Fujii discloses obtaining, from the imaging device, a second set of images of the area of the property; detecting a second human in the second set of images; determining whether the second set of images includes an indication of a non-visible energy signal emitted by a second wearable device worn by the second human; and determining that the second human does not have permission to access the area of the property in response to determining that the set of images does not include the indication of the non-visible energy signal emitted by the wearable device worn by the second human (see the rejection of claim 1. Further when the detection system does not detect infrared communication from a tag 3, it will not unlock the lock 2).
As of claims 3 and 19, Fujii determining that the human has permission to access the area of the property comprises: in response to determining that the set of images includes the indication of the non-visible energy signal emitted by the wearable device worn by the human, detecting a pattern of the non-visible energy signal; comparing the pattern of the non-visible energy signal to a set of stored patterns of non-visible energy signals; and determining that the human has permission to access the area of the property in response to (a) determining that the set of images includes the indication of the non-visible energy signal emitted by the wearable device worn by the human and (b) determining that the pattern of the non-visible energy signal matches a stored pattern of the set of stored patterns of non-visible energy signals (via detecting ID of the tag 3 via the infrared communication and checking the ID to determine if the person is allowed access; see paragraph [0034]).
As of claim 4, Fujii discloses that the pattern of the non-visible energy signal comprises a time-varying pattern detected over multiple images of the set of images (via disclosing that the imaging unit 5b is configured not only to be used for generating an infrared image within the light projection range T but also to function as a receiving unit for ID information transmitted from the tag 3. The demodulator 5c demodulates the image information output from the imaging unit 5b and extracts ID information; see paragraph [0027]).
As of claim 6, Fujii discloses the step of determining that the pattern of the non-visible energy signal matches the stored pattern comprises determining that the pattern of the non-visible energy signal matches the stored pattern within a threshold similarity (via detecting ID of the tag 3 via the infrared communication and checking the ID to determine if the person is allowed access; see paragraph [0034]).
As of claim 9, Fujii discloses the step of determining that the human has permission to access the area of the property comprises: in response to determining that the set of images includes the indication of the non-visible energy signal emitted by the wearable device worn by the human, detecting a signal characteristic of the non-visible energy signal; comparing the signal characteristic of the non-visible energy signal to a set of stored signal characteristics of non-visible energy signals; and determining that the human has permission to access the area of the property in response to (a) determining that the set of images includes the indication of the non-visible energy signal emitted by the wearable device worn by the human and (b) determining that the signal characteristic of the non-visible energy signal matches a stored signal characteristic of the set of stored signal characteristics of non-visible energy signals (please see the rejection of claim 1. Fujii further discloses that the imaging unit 5b is configured not only to be used for generating an infrared image within the light projection range T but also to function as a receiving unit for ID information transmitted from the tag 3. The demodulator 5c demodulates the image information output from the imaging unit 5b and extracts ID information (see paragraph [0027]) and detecting ID of the tag 3 via the infrared communication and checking the ID to determine if the person is allowed access; see paragraph [0034]).
As of claim 10, Fujii discloses that the signal characteristic of the non-visible energy signal comprises at least one of a frequency, an amplitude, a wavelength, a pulse width, and a pulse repetition frequency (via using infrared communication which comprises at least a carrier frequency, wavelength in the infrared range, or pulse width modulation or pulse position modulation; see paragraph [0027]).
As of claim 11, Fujii discloses that determining that the signal characteristic of the non-visible energy signal matches the stored signal characteristic comprises determining that the signal characteristic of the non-visible energy signal matches the stored signal characteristic within a threshold similarity (via detecting ID of the tag 3 via the infrared communication and checking the ID to determine if the person is allowed access; see paragraph [0034]).
As of claim 12, Fujii discloses that the area of the property comprises an outdoor area; and the imaging device comprises an outdoor imaging device that is physically located within a threshold distance of the outdoor area (via outdoor area; see fig. 1).
As of claim 13, Fujii discloses the non-visible energy signal comprises an electromagnetic signal having a wavelength that is imperceptible to a human eye (via using infrared communication that is not visible to a human eye; see paragraph [021]).
As of claim 14, Fujii discloses that the non-visible energy signal comprises radio energy, microwave energy, infrared energy, ultraviolet energy, x-ray energy, or gamma energy (via using infrared communication; see paragraph [021]).
As of claim 16, Fujii discloses that the imaging device is configured to generate images from detection of non-visible energy (via generating images from detection of infrared; see paragraph [0026]).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claims 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujii (JP 5122155) in view of Haynes et al. (US Pub 2011/0007938).
As of claims 7 and 8, Fujii discloses all the limitations of the claimed invention as mentioned din claim 3 above but does not explicitly disclose that the set of stored patterns correspond to one or more character encoding systems, wherein the one or more-character encoding systems includes at least one of Morse code, Baudot code, or tap code.
Haynes discloses an identification system wherien using IR emitter 250 and a receiver 260, wherein set of stored patterns correspond to one or more character encoding systems, wherein the one or more-character encoding systems includes Morse code (see paragraph [0028]).
From the teaching of Haynes, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the system of Fujii to utilize character encoding system as taught by Haynes in order to generate a covert signaling code (see paragraph [0028]).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujii (JP 5122155) in view of Herrero (US Pub 2023/0326275).
As of claim 15, Fujii discloses all the limitations of the claimed invention as mentioned in claim 1 however it does not explicitly disclose that the non-visible energy comprises acoustic energy.
Herrero discloses an access control system wherein a user device 208 acoustically broadcast an authentication message that may cause an unlocking of an access control device (see fig. 2; also see paragraphs [0020]-[0021]).
From the teaching of Herrero, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the system of Fujii to include the function of acoustic energy as taught by Herrero in order to provide an additional means of transmitting the identification signal.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 5 is 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
McCloskey et al. (US Pub 2014/0152840) discloses the steps of: (a) controlling the IR projector to generate IR at the first wavelength; (b) controlling the IR detector to capture the object fluorescence; and (c) identifying the object as friendly or non-friendly based upon the object fluorescence.
Cioarga (US Pub 2021/0233370) discloses a system for identifying users whrein a user identification unit receives an image frame captured by the plurality of cameras, detect one or more IR LED devices in the image frame based on signals emitted by the one or more IR LED devices, detect an IR LED group of each detected IR LED device based on a geometric configuration, a blinking frequency, and a color of LEDs of corresponding IR LED device, and determine a type of user of each IR LED device based on detected LED group of corresponding IR LED device.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NABIL H SYED whose telephone number is (571)270-3028. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00-5:00 M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Davetta W Goins can be reached at (571) 272-2957. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NABIL H SYED/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2689
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