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 Interpretation
The examiner notes claims terms such as “high speed” and “low speed” are recited, where as disclosed in the specification, an automatic (machine implemented) PTZ is “high speed” and a user PTZ operation is “low speed”. The claims have been interpreted based upon the disclosure, and rejected in accordance with such interpretation.
Claim Objections
Claim 7 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 7 recites “any one claim of claims 1”.
The examiner presumes the claim is “[any one claim] of claim[s] 1,”
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6, 9 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Higgins et al., US 20240214527
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The claimed non-volatile memory is met where the camera imagery and data may be stored and accessed in a database, on camera hardware, onsite server, server cluster, remote server, within a private network, or cloud. (para 23, 25, 26, 64, 65, 67
The claimed input device is met by user and machine inputs (205-1…Fig 2, para 27, 39, 41, 46 and 51), where the user operations may include PTZ commands (para 3, 23, 26, 28, 32, 34, 41, 42, 44, 46)
The claimed processor…is met where the system uses command and control software including machine learning, AI (C&C system Fig 9), including the use of a computer vision model for processing the data. (para 69) including camera hardware (para 23-24) and control software to carry out (via some controller/processor(s)) the invention (para 3-4, 6, 23-25, 38-39, 43, 67)
the claimed display…is met where the system visually displays data (para 3-6, Fig 8 (815), Fig 9 (920), Fig 10 (1035), Fig 11 (1145), para 25, 26, 30, 31-44, 46-48, 50-61, 63-67, 70-72.
e-f) The claimed PTZ control history…is met where the system logs all camera movement (para 42) and settings and where user may be able to return a camera to a previously viewed location by clicking on an historical position setting within the displayed movement log. As noted for claim interpretation, this logged camera position/movement information is returned automatically, since it was previously stored (thus “high-speed”) where the system also stores objects/regions of interest (Para 23, 25, 26, 28, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 48, 53-55, 57, 60-61, 65-69, 71).
In considering claim 2,
As noted above, when history information regarding the camera position of an object of interest is stored, the system can return to the previous settings (high-speed), when no such data is stored, then the user would have to manually (slow-speed) perform the PTZ command.
In considering claim 3,
Higgins discloses any time the user performs a camera operation including PTZ, those settings are saved/learned which are stored in a log and can then be used to perform an automatic updated (high-speed) operation.
In considering claim 4,
Higgins disclose that in the use of an emergency dispatcher the ability to click on a map location can cause the C&C system to command all cameras within a certain distance of the clicked location to capture one or more images of the desired location and generate a image quilts with multiple angle of the target location of interest simultaneously (para 54).
In considering claim 5,
HIGGINS discloses that the system for instance if a location has identified smoke or fire the system can prioritize that location (para 5, 6, 32, 38, 59, 64, 66 and 69), thus meeting the type of object of interest
In considering claim 6,
Higgins discloses the use of AI to analyze the objects/regions obtain by the camera (abstract, para 3-6, Fig 10, 11, 13, para 25-26, 28, 34. 35, 36, 38, 44, 48, 51, 55-56, 60-61, 65-66, 68-69, 70-71).
In considering claim 9,
Refer to claim 1.
In considering claim 10,
Refer to claim 2.
In considering claim 11,
Refer to claim 3.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Higgins et al., US 20240214527 in view of TINE et al., US 20140078300.
In considering claim 7, Higgins does not explicitly recite “unnecessary regions” although as stated above, the system uses AI to enhanced detection/identification of objects.
The examiner incorporates TINE which discloses a “heat-map” or areas of incidents which is created by processing historical incident data (para 13-15, 19, 26, 29, 30, 36, 44 and 46), which is used by the cameras to view areas that have the highest probability of incident occurrence (i.e. hot spot (para 46)). TINE also discloses generating a map that includes obstructions such as buildings, bridges, hills (para 45) which would compromise a camera view.
The motivation to modify Higgins with TINE would ensure the cameras in a surveillance system prioritized and allocated their resources into known area which were “hot-spot” (necessary) and were viewable by the camera and eliminating regions (uncessary such as building, bridges which obstructed a camera view) and thus prioritizing those regions and setting/lowering the priority for non-hot-spot regions, which would proper camera coverage and thus by setting regions of importance higher than non-priority regions, and set obstructable regions as unnecessary as would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
In considering claim 8,
The combination discloses avoiding obstruction regions (see claim 7) and thus any unnecessary region not viewable by the camera would not have any user PTZ history and thus no automatic (high-speed) operation could be performed, thus being an obvious modification to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure—see newly cited references on attached form PTO-892.
US 20140341427 (para 97, PTZ history)
US 20240015398 (para 12, history)
US 20200314329 (Auto track)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRIAN P YENKE whose telephone number is (571)272-7359. The examiner can normally be reached Typically 8:00am-4:30pm (M-F).
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/BRIAN P YENKE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2422
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