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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 6/13/25 is in accordance with provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
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 1-5, 7-15, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Au et al. (WO 2006/104903A1) in view of Piran et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2013/0250121; cited in the IDS filed 6/13/25).
In regard to claim 1, Au teaches a method comprising:
determining that no high-priority events are occurring (i.e., event detection module 54; event detection module 54…detect occurrence of an event of interest; associated with a particular event…if desired, an alarm level…can be provided to vary the level of the alarm (e.g., “High”, Medium”, “Low”, etc.); note: if no event detected, then no alarm) (para[25], [52]) in two or more video streams (i.e., connect one or more DVSS’s 14 to a network server 16 or other such host application; examples of DVSS’s that can be employed by the system 10 may include…one or more digital cameras…digital video recorders, etc.) (Fig. 1; para[15], [30]);
detecting a first object (i.e., object classification (OC) module 52) (Fig. 1; para[25]) in a first portion of a first video stream of the two or more video streams (i.e., connect one or more DVSS’s 14 to a network server 16 or other such host application; examples of DVSS’s that can be employed by the system 10 may include…one or more digital cameras…digital video recorders, etc.) (Fig. 1; para[15], [30]) using a criteria (i.e., information that can be extracted at this step may include, for example, information about an object’s motion, trajectory, orientation, size, aspect ratio, color, lighting, temperature, and /or information about an object’s type or classification (e.g. "human", "animal", "vehicle", "animate", "inanimate", etc.)) (para[29]);
detecting a second object (i.e., object classification (OC) module 52) (Fig. 1; para[25]) in a second portion of a second video stream of the two or more video streams (i.e., connect one or more DVSS’s 14 to a network server 16 or other such host application; examples of DVSS’s that can be employed by the system 10 may include…one or more digital cameras…digital video recorders, etc.) (Fig. 1; para[15], [30]) using the criteria (i.e., information that can be extracted at this step may include, for example, information about an object’s motion, trajectory, orientation, size, aspect ratio, color, lighting, temperature, and /or information about an object’s type or classification (e.g. "human", "animal", "vehicle", "animate", "inanimate", etc.)) (para[29]);
… in response to determining that no high-priority events are occurring (i.e., event detection module 54; event detection module 54…detect occurrence of an event of interest; associated with a particular event…if desired, an alarm level…can be provided to vary the level of the alarm (e.g., “High”, Medium”, “Low”, etc.); note: if no event detected, then no alarm, no output video feeds sent to station(s) as in para[55]) (para[25], [52]) in the two or more video streams (i.e., connect one or more DVSS’s 14 to a network server 16 or other such host application; examples of DVSS’s that can be employed by the system 10 may include…one or more digital cameras…digital video recorders, etc.) (Fig. 1; para[15], [30]).
However, Au does not explicitly teach generating a summary view to include the first portion and the second portion in response to determining that no high-priority events are occurring in the two or more video streams; and
displaying the summary view via a display device.
In the same field of endeavor, Piran teaches generating a summary view to include the first portion and the second portion (i.e., the program code 50 uses the received video information (i.e., composited digital images 33) to drive the video hardware 42 to output a corresponding video image 46) (Figs. 2-4; para[0035])…; and
displaying the summary view via a display device (i.e., surveillance display matrix 63; to drive the video hardware 42 to output a corresponding video image 46 for display on the monitor 60) (Figs. 2-4; para[0020], [0035]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, at the time of applicant's invention, to combine the teachings of Au and Piran because Piran teaches improvements relating to security cameras in order to avoid network bandwidth bottleneck issues by using a video compositing device (See, for example, para[0007]-[0008] of Piran). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings of Au with those of Piran
In regard to claim 2, Au and Piran teach all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above. In addition, Au teaches further comprising:
determining that a high-priority event is occurring (i.e., event detection module 54; event detection module 54…detect occurrence of an event of interest; an ALARM selection box 1 86 can be selected to generate an alarm when an event is detected by the monitoring system; if desired, an ALARM LEVEL…can be provided to vary the level of the alarm {e.g. "High", "Medium", "Low", etc.) (para[25], [52]) in a third video stream the two or more video streams (i.e., connect one or more DVSS’s 14 to a network server 16 or other such host application; examples of DVSS’s that can be employed by the system 10 may include…one or more digital cameras…digital video recorders, etc.) (Fig. 1; para[15], [30]) after determining that no high-priority events are occurring (i.e., associated with a particular event…if desired, an alarm level…can be provided to vary the level of the alarm (e.g., “High”, Medium”, “Low”, etc.); note: if no event detected, then no alarm, no output video feeds sent to station(s) as in para[55]) (para[25], [52]); and
displaying the high-priority event in response to determining that the high-priority event is occurring (i.e., selection button 204 can be selected to output video feeds to selected stations upon the detection of an event by the monitoring system; particular terminal or network station) (para[55]).
In regard to claim 3, Au and Piran teach all of the limitations of claims 1 and 2 as discussed above. In addition, Au teaches further comprising ceasing the displaying of the summary view in response to determining that the high-priority event is occurring (i.e., the appliance manager 32 can also be configured to record a video clip containing the detected event and/or send a video feed to a terminal station, browser, network server, or other such location for further analysis by a user and/or host application; in some embodiments, the video feed may contain one or more supporting event parameters; note: only the video feed containing the event would be sent to a terminal station) (para[32], [55]).
In regard to claim 4, Au and Piran teach all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above. In addition, Au teaches wherein determining that no high-priority events are occurring includes:
determining that no high-priority events are occurring in the first video stream (i.e., event detection module 54; event detection module 54…detect occurrence of an event of interest; associated with a particular event…if desired, an alarm level…can be provided to vary the level of the alarm (e.g., “High”, Medium”, “Low”, etc.); note: if no event detected, then no alarm, no output video feeds sent to station(s) as in para[55]) (para[25], [52]) in the first video stream (i.e., connect one or more DVSS’s 14 to a network server 16 or other such host application; examples of DVSS’s that can be employed by the system 10 may include…one or more digital cameras…digital video recorders, etc.) (Fig. 1; para[15], [30]); and
determining that no high-priority events are occurring (i.e., event detection module 54; event detection module 54…detect occurrence of an event of interest; associated with a particular event…if desired, an alarm level…can be provided to vary the level of the alarm (e.g., “High”, Medium”, “Low”, etc.); note: if no event detected, then no alarm, no output video feeds sent to station(s) as in para[55]) (para[25], [52]) in the second video stream (i.e., connect one or more DVSS’s 14 to a network server 16 or other such host application; examples of DVSS’s that can be employed by the system 10 may include…one or more digital cameras…digital video recorders, etc.) (Fig. 1; para[15], [30]).
In regard to claim 5, Au and Piran teach all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above. However, Au does not explicitly teach wherein displaying the summary view includes displaying the first portion and the second portion on a single display screen.
In the same field of endeavor, Piran teaches wherein displaying the summary view includes displaying the first portion and the second portion on a single display screen (i.e., surveillance display matrix 63; to drive the video hardware 42 to output a corresponding video image 46 for display on the monitor 60) (Figs. 2-4; para[0020], [0035]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, at the time of applicant's invention, to combine the teachings of Au and Piran for the same reasons as those discussed above for claim 1.
In regard to claim 7, Au and Piran teach all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above. In addition, Au teaches wherein the criteria relates to a type of vehicle (i.e., information about an object's motion, trajectory, orientation, size, aspect ratio, color, lighting, temperature, and/or information about an object's type or classification (e.g. "human", "animal", "vehicle”, "animate", "inanimate", etc.); Information regarding the classification of the object, in turn, can be determined by invoking the object classification module 52 and running an algorithm or routine therein that determines whether an object is a vehicle) (para[29]).
In regard to claim 8, Au and Piran teach all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above. In addition, Au teaches wherein the criteria relates to whether a person has been previously detected (i.e., information about an object's motion, trajectory, orientation, size, aspect ratio, color, lighting, temperature, and/or information about an object's type or classification (e.g. "human", "animal", "vehicle”, "animate", "inanimate", etc.); the appliance manager 32 can be configured to task a video face detection module and/or video face tracking module to run separate algorithms or routines that can be used to gather information to perform facial recognition on individual) (para[29]).
In regard to claim 9, Au and Piran teach all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above. In addition, Au teaches wherein the criteria relates to an item worn by a person (i.e., information about an object's motion, trajectory, orientation, size, aspect ratio, color, lighting, temperature, and/or information about an object's type or classification (e.g. "human", "animal", "vehicle”, "animate", "inanimate", etc.); note: would fall under “inanimate, etc.”) (para[29]).
In regard to claim 10, Au and Piran teach all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above. In addition, Au teaches wherein the criteria relates to moving objects (i.e., information about an object's motion, trajectory, orientation, size, aspect ratio, color, lighting, temperature, and/or information about an object's type or classification (e.g. "human", "animal", "vehicle”, "animate", "inanimate", etc.)) (para[29]).
In regard to claims 11-15 and 17-20, the claims recite analogous limitations to claims 1-5 and 7-10 above, and are therefore rejected on the same premise.
Claims 6 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Au et al. (WO 2006/104903A1) in view of Piran et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2013/0250121; cited in the IDS filed 6/13/25), and further in view of Girgensohn et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0288288).
In regard to claim 6, Au and Piran teach all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above. In addition, Au teaches wherein determining that no high-priority events are occurring includes:
detecting a first event in the first video stream (i.e., event detection module 54; event detection module 54…detect occurrence of an event of interest; associated with a particular event…if desired, an alarm level…can be provided to vary the level of the alarm (e.g., “High”, Medium”, “Low”, etc.)) (para[25], [52]).
However, Au and Piran do not explicitly teach
determining that a priority of the first event is less than a threshold level.
In the same field of endeavor, Girgensohn teaches determining that a priority of the first event is less than a threshold level (i.e., once the measure of interest has been computed for each frame in the video, frames are combined into event sequences by first smoothing the importance score with a moving average, and then selecting sequences where the moving average is above a threshold; in FIGS. 1 and 8, sequences with the moving average above a threshold are grouped into events; note: therefore, if less than the threshold, not grouped into events) (para[0029]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, at the time of applicant's invention, to combine the teachings of Au and Piran with those of Girgensohn because Girgensohn teaches techniques for locating periods of interesting activity within a video stream and methods for grouping activity into events that use an importance score compared to a threshold in order to identify events in a video stream (See, for example, para[0012] and [0029] of Girgensohn). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings of Au and Piran with those of Girgensohn.
In regard to claim 16, the claim recites analogous limitations to claim 6 above, and is therefore rejected on the same premise.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Kristin Dobbs whose telephone number is (571)270-7936. The examiner can normally be reached Monday and Thursday 9:30am-5:30pm EST.
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KRISTIN DOBBS
Examiner
Art Unit 2488
/KRISTIN DOBBS/Examiner, Art Unit 2488
Prosecution Insights