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 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: image acquisition unit, object detection unit, selection unit, area specifying unit, counting unit, determination unit, change unit and environment information acquisition unit in claims 1-7.
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 § 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.
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.
Claims 1-4 and 8-9 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20220408037 A1 to Sudo et al. (hereinafter “Sudo”), in view of US 20240430547 A1 to Usami et al. (“Usami”), further in view of US 8218868 B2 to Stern et al. (“Stern”).
Consider claim 1, Sudo discloses an image adjustment apparatus (Par. [0052]: correction processing) comprising:
a first image acquisition unit configured to acquire a first image captured by a first image-capturing element (Par. [0056]-[0058] and Fig. 4: visible camera 27);
a second image acquisition unit configured to acquire a second image captured by a second image-capturing element that detects far-infrared light (Par. [0018], [0056]-[0058] and Fig. 4: “The image sensor 1 is an element that receives an infrared ray coming from objects”);
an object detection unit configured to detect objects included in the first image (Par. [0056]-[0058] and Fig. 4: “The image capturing range of the visible camera 27 overlaps with the image capturing range of the image sensor 1 … the object extracting unit 23 extracts objects as imaging targets from a captured image of the visible camera 27”);
an area specifying unit configured to specify a determination area including the target object in the second image (Par. [0056]-[0058] and Fig. 4: “Further, the object temperature calculating unit 24 calculates, based on the object information (i.e., the locations of the objects shot in the captured image of the visible camera 27) provided by the object extracting unit 23, the temperatures of the objects based on the second thermal image”).
Sudo fails to explicitly disclose:
a selection unit configured to select a target object from among the objects included in the first image by referring to priority information given to objects; a counting unit configured to count the number of saturated pixels that are saturated in the determination area; a determination unit configured to determine whether or not a rate of the saturated pixels in the determination area is equal to or greater than a threshold; and/or a change unit configured to change, when the rate is equal to or greater than the threshold, a value of a gain or an offset in the second image-capturing element.
In analogous art, Usami discloses a selection unit configured to select a target object from among the objects included in the first image by referring to priority information given to objects (Par. [0051]: “Examples of methods of determining the tracking object from one or more object candidate areas include a method of determining the tracking object based on optional priority ranking prepared in advance … In the priority ranking, for example, a largest person in size is prioritized most, or an object nearest to an AF area designated by the user is prioritized most. The object determining unit 110 stores, in the tracking memory 114, information specifying which object candidate area is to be tracked.”).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Sudo in view of the above teachings of Usami in order to realize good tracking of objects by combining the visible light image data and the non-visible light image data (Usami: Par. [0005]-[0006]).
The combination of Sudo and Usami fails to explicitly disclose:
a counting unit configured to count the number of saturated pixels that are saturated in the determination area; a determination unit configured to determine whether or not a rate of the saturated pixels in the determination area is equal to or greater than a threshold; and a change unit configured to change, when the rate is equal to or greater than the threshold, a value of a gain or an offset in the second image-capturing element.
In analogous art, Stern discloses:
a counting unit configured to count the number of saturated pixels that are saturated in the determination area; a determination unit configured to determine whether or not a rate of the saturated pixels in the determination area is equal to or greater than a threshold; and a change unit configured to change, when the rate is equal to or greater than the threshold, a value of a gain or an offset in the second image-capturing element (Col. 4 Ln. 48 - Col. 5 Ln. 14 and Fig. 4: “FIG. 2 is a flowchart, indicated generally at 36, showing enhanced automatic gain control (AGC) features … the present invention can be applied to enhance various aspects of an input image, so as to accentuate highlights in the image, details in shadows, or normal enhancement of the input image based on average pixel values … In step 38, a determination is made as to whether the average pixel value of a frame (saturated and low pixels are included) is out of a pre-defined range … If a positive determination is made, step 40 is invoked, wherein the gain of the imager is adjusted … the gain level of the imager (e.g., SWIR camera, sensor, or any other suitable type of device) is set based on the number of saturated pixels in the input image”.)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of modified Sudo further in view of the above teachings of Stern such that shadow regions or bright areas of the image can be enhanced to provide additional detail (Stern: Col. 2 Ln. 53-64).
Consider claim 2, modified Sudo discloses the image adjustment apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the selection unit refers to the priority information set according to the temperature of the object or the type of the object (Usami: Par. [0045]: “The object candidate information includes the position and size of the object candidate in the frame, and the type”; Par. [0051]: “determining the tracking object from one or more object candidate areas include a method of determining the tracking object based on optional priority ranking prepared in advance”: Par. [0102]: “determine whether to switch the tracking object based on the priority ranking setting. For example, switching to an object candidate area of the type “cat” is determined in a case where the tracking object is an object of the type “dog”, the type “cat” is set to be higher than the type “dog” in the priority ranking”).
The motivation to combine references is the same as regarding claim 1.
Consider claim 3, modified Sudo discloses the image adjustment apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, when a plurality of objects whose priority is the same are included in the first image, an object with the largest imaged area in the first image is selected as a target object from among the plurality of objects whose priority is the same (Usami: Par. [0051]: “The priority ranking may be determined in advance at the object determining unit 110 or may be set through an operation on the image pickup apparatus 100 by a user. In the priority ranking, for example, a largest person in size is prioritized most”; Par. [0102] further describes the priority based on object type. Note, therefore it is implicit that, for example, the largest ‘person’ or ‘cat’ can be selected as a target object from among a plurality of similar object types).
The motivation to combine references is the same as regarding claim 1.
Consider claim 4, modified Sudo discloses the image adjustment apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, when a plurality of objects whose priority is the highest are included in the first image, an object with the largest imaged area in the first image is selected as a target object from a plurality of objects whose priority is the highest (Usami: Par. [0051]: “The priority ranking may be determined in advance at the object determining unit 110 or may be set through an operation on the image pickup apparatus 100 by a user. In the priority ranking, for example, a largest person in size is prioritized most”; Par. [0102] further describes the priority based on object type. Note, therefore it is implicit that, for example, the largest ‘person’ or ‘cat’ can be selected as a target object from among a plurality of similar object types, also it is implicit that the prioritized object type could be considered as the highest priority type, even if there is only one object type set to be prioritized).
The motivation to combine references is the same as regarding claim 1.
Consider claim 8, the method is rejected along the same rationale as the apparatus of claim 1.
Consider claim 9, the non-transitory computer readable medium is rejected along the same rationale as the apparatus of claim 1, and because Sudo discloses an embodiment of the apparatus implemented as a computer system with a computer program (Par. [0082]-[0093]).
The motivation to combine references is the same as regarding claim 1.
Claims 5-6 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sudo, Usami and Stern, further in view of US 20210201070 A1 to Omari et al. (“Omari”).
Consider claim 5, modified Sudo discloses the image adjustment apparatus according to claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose the further features of claim 5.
In analogous art, Omari discloses: an environment information acquisition unit configured to acquire environment information including a position of the sun or a weather condition, wherein the area specifying unit specifies the determination area in accordance with the environment information (Par. [0035] and Fig. 4: “block 428 may identify a location of the sun and exclude the sun and/or sun-related effects, such as lens flare, from the processing that is performed to generate the processed image 432 … Subsequent processing of the processed image 432, e.g., by the object detector at block 434, may produce better results without the sun in the processed image 434. For example, the sun's brightness may skew the brightness histogram of the processed image 432 to greater levels, which may reduce the image quality in regions that contain objects to be recognized”).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of modified Sudo further in view of the above teachings of Omari to produce better results without the sun in the processed image (Omari: Par. [0035]).
Consider claim 6, modified Sudo discloses the image adjustment apparatus according to claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose the further features of claim 6.
In analogous art, Omari discloses: an environment information acquisition unit configured to acquire environment information including a position of the sun or a weather condition, wherein the selection unit changes the priority information in accordance with the environment information and selects the target object (Par. [0035] and Fig. 4: “block 428 may identify a location of the sun and exclude the sun and/or sun-related effects, such as lens flare, from the processing that is performed to generate the processed image 432 … Subsequent processing of the processed image 432, e.g., by the object detector at block 434, may produce better results without the sun in the processed image 434 … Accordingly, step 428 may determine a location of the sun or one or more sun-related effects (e.g., lens flare from the sun) in the first image 426, and exclude one or more regions of the first image comprising the sun and/or the sun-related effects from the processing”. Note, therefore the relative priority of objects to be processed is affected by the sun position).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of modified Sudo further in view of the above teachings of Omari to produce better results without the sun in the processed image (Omari: Par. [0035]).
Claim 7 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sudo, Usami and Stern, further in view of US 20240428596 A1 to Parikh et al. (“Parikh”).
Consider claim 7, modified Sudo discloses the image adjustment apparatus according to claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose the further features of claim 7.
In analogous art, Parikh discloses, wherein the image adjustment apparatus is mounted on a mobile body such as a vehicle, and the selection unit selects, from among the objects included in the first image, an object that affects traveling of the mobile body as the target object (Par. [0005]-[0006] and Fig. 19C: “the systems and methods may use parameters associated with the detected objects to determine priority scores associated with the detected objects. The parameters may include, but are not limited to, distances to the objects, directions associated with the objects, classifications associated with the objects, time-to-collision (TTC) estimations associated with the objects”).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of modified Sudo further in view of the above teachings of Parikh to track each of the objects of higher priority while still allowing for a reduction in the amount of compute resources (Parikh: Par. [0006]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 10819923 B1 to McCauley et al. discloses thermal imaging for self-driving cars and classifying objects based on environment information. US 20050012825 A1 to Kimber discloses gain control for thermal imaging. US 20090128618 A1 to Fahn et a. discloses prioritizing objects based on temperature.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEPHEN R SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-1318. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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STEPHEN R. SMITH
Examiner
Art Unit 2484
/THAI Q TRAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2484
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