Ex Parte Eshghi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 15, 2016

13418112 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 15, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/418,112 03/12/2012
22879 7590 08/17/2016
HP Inc,
3390 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 35
FORT COLLINS, CO 80528-9544
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
KaveEshghi
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www .uspto.gov
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
82901601 5454
EXAMINER
PERLMAN, DAVIDS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2666
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/17/2016 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address( es):
ipa.mail@hp.com
barbl@hp.com
yvonne.bailey@hp.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte KA VE ESHGHI and MEHRAN KAP AI
Appeal2015-003792
Application 13/418,112
Technology Center 2600
Before JOHN F. HORVATH, KEVIN C. TROCK, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2015-003792
Application 13/418,112
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm-in-part and enter a new ground of rejection.
THE INVENTION
The application is directed to methods to "improve on prior methods
of across pose face recognition ... by using similarity to a standard
reference set as a face descriptor, and then computing similarity using the
face descriptor." (Spec. i-f 9.)
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative:
1. A non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code
representing instructions that when executed by a processor
cause the processor to:
for a first image, calculate a first vector of similarity to a set
of two-dimensional reference images as a first face descriptor;
for a second image, calculate a second vector of similarity to
the set of reference images as a second face descriptor; and
calculate a similarity measure between the first face
descriptor and the second face descriptor.
1 Appellants identify Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP as the
real party in interest. (See App. Br. 2.)
2
Appeal2015-003792
Application 13/418,112
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Gohda et al.
Sun et al.
US 2005/0157952 Al July 21, 2005
US 2012/0288166 Al Nov. 15, 2012
Volker Blanz and Thomas Vetter, Face Recognition Based on
Fitting a 3D Morphable Model, IEEE Transactions on Pattern
Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol. 25, No. 9 (September
2003)
THE REJECTIONS 2
1. Claims 1-5, 7, 9-13, and 16-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as anticipated by Sun. (See Final Act. 11.)
2. Claims 6, 8, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Sun and Blanz. (See Final Act. 12-14.)
3. Claim 15 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Sun and Gohda. (See Final Act. 14--15.)
ANALYSIS
The claims are directed to a method for image processing that
calculates similarity vectors (called "face descriptors") between first and
second images and a set of reference images and then calculates a similarity
measure between the face descriptors.
2 A Section 101 rejection of claims 7 and 8 was withdrawn following an
amendment after final. (See Ans. 3.) Claims 4 and 5 are 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. (See Ans. 2.)
3
Appeal2015-003792
Application 13/418,112
Sun teaches methods for facial recognition, one embodiment of which
is illustrated in Figure 4:
,..--102
r5:,7i;z~~~-;;1111:;~;1~1;~~--------··---···--·--·-··-··-·--····-············:
> I
: IF SA IS COMPARABLE TO S& , PERFOf, where
fi=max(S(P,Ii,i),S(P,Ii,2),S(P,Ii,3), ... ,S(P,Ii,K)). In other words, the face
descriptors described in the application include N entries, each
corresponding to the most similar of the K reference images for a given
individual. We find no description of a face descriptor/similarity vector
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Appeal2015-003792
Application 13/418,112
which "includes a discrete similarity measurement between the
corresponding first or second image and each of said reference images," as
recited in claim 17. Essentially, claim 1 7 is directed to a situation in which
Fp= and fi=, but the
Specification only describes fi=max(S(P ,Ii,1), S(P ,Ii,2), S(P ,Ii,3 ), ... ,S(P ,Ii,K) ).
For this reason, we conclude that claims 17-19 lack adequate written
description support and are, therefore, invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1-5, 7, 9-13, 16, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. §
102( e) are affirmed.
The rejections of claims 6, 8, 14, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are
affirmed.
The rejections of claims 17-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 102( e) are reversed.
Claims 17-19 are newly rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
NEW GROUND
This decision contains a new ground of rejection pursuant to 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(b).
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) provides that "[a] new ground of rejection
pursuant to this paragraph shall not be considered final for judicial review"
and that Appellants, WITHIN TWO MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THE
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Appeal2015-003792
Application 13/418,112
DECISION, must exercise one of the following two options with respect to
the new ground of rejection to avoid termination of the appeal as to the
rejected claims:
(1) reopen prosecution by submitting an appropriate amendment of
the claims so rejected, or new Evidence relating to the claims so rejected, or
both, and have the matter reconsidered by the examiner, in which event the
proceeding will be remanded to the examiner; or
(2) request that the proceeding be reheard under§ 41.52 by the Board
upon the same Record.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(B)
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