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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 5/9/2025, 7/7/2025, 5/25/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Ikegami (United States Patent Application Publication US 2019/0026565 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Ikegami discloses a monitoring control device configured to calculate a number of detection targets present inside a predetermined area based on an image captured by an imaging device (Ikegami, the device of claim 1, see paragraph 7), wherein the monitoring control device is configured to: count the number of the detection targets present in the area among the detection targets detected in an image to calculate a first estimated number of the detection targets inside the area (Ikegami, paragraph 34, “The image capturing apparatus 310 is an apparatus configured to capture an image and […] as well as detecting passage of an object, detecting the number of people in a predetermined region.” Embodiment of Fig. 6 and paragraph 53, “the fact that two persons have queued up in the region 30 is displayed on the display screen”. Embodiment of Fig. 8 and paragraph 61, “the fact that four persons have queued up in the region 30 is displayed on the display screen”), track the detection targets detected in the image to thereby count the number of detection targets entering the area (Ikegami, paragraph 34; paragraph 54, “the entry and exit detection unit 411 detects an object 601 passing through the entrance 10. Herein, the image on the display screen 600 is an image in which two persons who overlap with each other pass through the entrance 10, and thus the entry and exit detection unit 411 detects the two overlapping persons as one object”. See also the “waiting queue” of Fig. 6A-8D and paragraph 45; it is updated to keep track of how many persons have entered and how many persons have exited the area) and the number of detection targets exiting the area respectively as an entry count and exit count (Ikegami, paragraph 34; embodiment of Fig. 8: paragraph 62, “the entry and exit detection unit 411 detects an object 801 passing through the exit 20, and the waiting queue generation unit 413 deletes the start data 811 from the waiting queue”. The “entry count” and “exit count” of claim 1 are implicitly disclosed in the above embodiment of Ikegami, since each time a person enters (exits) the area, an entry is added to (subtracted from) the waiting queue) and calculate a second estimated number of the detection targets inside the area based on a difference between the entry count and the exit count (Ikegami, see paragraphs 54 “the waiting queue generation unit 413 adds data 613 to the end of the waiting queue”, 62 “the waiting queue generation unit 413 deletes the start data 811 from the waiting queue” and 63); and, when the first estimated number and the second estimated number differ, employ the larger one as the number of the detection targets inside the area (Ikegami, paragraph 64, “the waiting queue correction unit 414 request the number-of-people detection unit 412 to detect the number of people in response to elapse of a predetermined time from time 12:10 when the entry and exit detection unit 411 detects the object 801. The number-of-people detection unit 412 detects that the number of people who are queued up in the region 30 is three. Because the number of data in the waiting queue 830 is two, the waiting queue correction unit 414 determines that an error (one person less than the actual queue number) has arisen. Here, it is thought that because the entry and exit detection unit 411 detects an object at the exit 20, and an error arises after a given time from when the waiting queue generation unit 413 deletes the start data of the waiting queue, the data operation on the start is the cause of the error. Thus, the waiting queue correction unit 414 performs correction for returning (adding) data 812 with the last waiting start time, in the deleted data, to the start of the waiting queue”. The same situation from the entry point of view is disclosed in paragraph 55. By adding another entry to the queue, the larger number (three) is employed).
Regarding claim 4, which is a method of monitoring by a monitoring control device configured to detect a number of detection targets present inside a predetermined area based on an image captured by an imaging device, the rejection analysis of claim 1 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 5, which is a non-transitory computer storage medium including a computer program calculating a number of detection targets present inside a predetermined area based on an image captured by an imaging device, wherein the computer program makes a computer, the rejection analysis of claim 1 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 2, Ikegami discloses the monitoring control device according to claim 1, configured to correct the entry count so that the second estimated number becomes the first estimated number when the first estimated number is larger (Ikegami, paragraph 55: the “first estimated number” in the case of Fig. 6C is 4 and the “second estimated number” is 3, thus, the waiting queue (“entry count” of claim 1) is corrected to 4).
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.
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ikegami (United States Patent Application Publication US 2019/0026565 A1) in view of Rittscher et al. (United States Patent Application Publication US 2007/0003141 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Ikegami discloses the monitoring control device according to claim 1. However, Ikegami fails to disclose configured to correct the first estimated number to the second estimated number when the second estimated number is larger.
Rittscher et. al. teaches configured to correct the first estimated number to the second estimated number when the second estimated number is larger (Rittscher et. al. [0050]-[0053] successfully counting the number of individuals even in the event of occlusion). This problem is well known in the field of computer vision as the problem of occlusion. Thus, this solution is important to the claimed invention because it improves the accuracy of the estimated number of people detected. Thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of Ikegami and Rittscher et. al. to arrive at the solution of the claimed invention.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JESSICA YIFANG LIN whose telephone number is (571)272-6435. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:00am-6:15pm, with optional day off.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vu Le can be reached at 571-272-7332. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JESSICA YIFANG LIN/Examiner, Art Unit 2668 October 11, 2026
/VU LE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2668
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