Ex Parte Lin

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Apr 11, 2007

10074179 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 11, 2007)

The opinion in support of the decision being entered today was not written
for publication and is not binding precedent of the Board.
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UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
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Ex parte QIAN LIN
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Appeal 2007-0017
Application 10/074,1791
Technology Center 2600
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Decided: April 11, 2007
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Before JAMES D. THOMAS, JOHN C. MARTIN, and LEE E. BARRETT,
Administrative Patent Judges.
BARRETT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final
Rejection of claims 14-19 and 27. Claims 1, 2, 20, and 25 have been
canceled. Claims 3-13, 21-24, and 26 have been allowed. We have
jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 Application filed February 12, 2002, entitled "Method and System
for Assessing the Photo Quality of a Captured Image in a Digital Still
Camera."
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BACKGROUND
The claims are directed to a method for assessing, in-camera, the
photo quality of a captured image in a digital camera and providing visual or
audio feedback of the photo quality to a camera user.
Claim 14 is illustrative:
14. A method for assessing the photo quality of a captured image in
a digital camera, said method comprising:

checking, in-camera, the photo quality of the captured image to
determine if the photo quality is acceptable; and

providing a corresponding photo quality feedback to a camera
user wherein said checking step further comprises:

computing a face quality figure of merit for the captured
image; and

comparing said computed face quality figure of merit to a
threshold to determine if said face quality figure of merit exceeds said
threshold.

THE REFERENCES

The Examiner relies on the following prior art references:

Lin US 6,016,354 Jan. 18, 2000
Luo US 6,134,339 Oct. 17, 2000
Ina US 6,298,198 B1 Oct. 2, 2001
Cheatle US 2002/0191861 A1 Dec. 19, 2002
(filed Dec. 20, 2001)

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THE REJECTIONS
Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Ina and Luo. The Examiner finds that Ina discloses the claimed
invention except for last limitation of "comparing said computed face quality
figure of merit to a threshold to determine if said face quality figure of merit
exceeds said threshold." The Examiner finds that this limitation was well
known in the art as taught by Luo and concludes that it would have been
obvious to modify Ina to provide the comparing step as taught by Luo since
"such a modification would enable enhancement and manipulation of images
containing one or more human faces, so that, red-eye correction can be
reliably performed" (Final Rejection 6-7).
Claims 15-18 and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Ina and Luo, further in view of Cheatle.
Claim 19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Ina and Luo, further in view of Lin.

DISCUSSION
Issues
The issues argued with respect to independent claim 14 are: (1) Does
Ina disclose "checking, in-camera, the photo quality of the captured image to
determine if the photo quality is acceptable"?; (2) Does Ina disclose
"computing a face quality figure of merit for the captured image"; and
(3) Does Luo make up for the deficiencies of Ina? We answer each of these
questions in the negative based on the following analysis.
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Content of Ina
Ina discloses a verifying camera, which is a type of hybrid
film-electronic camera in which the user has an opportunity to check the
captured film images immediately after capture using a concurrently
recorded electronic image. A shortcoming of such cameras is that the
exposure time required for the electronic array imager is often much shorter
than the exposure time for the film. This shorter exposure time "stops" a
motion of the photographic subject that is recorded on the film as a blur, so
that the captured electronic image is not fully accurate for verification
purposes. See col. 1, lines 24-35. For example, in Figure 14, if the "smiley"
face subject image 28 moves, the latent image 30 on the film shows a blur,
but an electronic (digital) image taken at the same time, say image 128,
would stop the motion and not show a blur. Ina's invention is to capture a
first electronic (digital) image 128 at the beginning of the film exposure time
interval and to capture a second digital image 130 at the end of the film
exposure time interval and to combine the images in an image 134 so that
the user may determine whether the resultant image is blurred. With
reference to Figure 2, the first digital image is stored in memory 98a, the
second digital image is stored in memory 98b, and the images are combined
by processor 92 and combiner 132 to be displayed on image display 40
(col. 7, l. 64, to col. 8, l. 23). Controller 100 calculates exposure parameters
for the film exposure, the shutter times for the electronic exposure of the
imager, and the aperture for the image paths (col. 6, l. 50, to col. 7, l. 6).
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Content of Luo

Luo relates to determining the position of a pair of eyes within a
captured image frame using the red-eye effect, which eye location can be
used for spatial normalization of the face for face recognition, model-based
face image compression, etc. (col. 6, ll. 46-56). In addition, eye movement
and iris motion can be monitored to check if a driver is still alert (col. 6,
ll. 56-57). Two color frames of an image scene are captured with minimum
delay: one frame is captured with ambient illumination and another frame is
captured with additional illumination (col. 8, ll. 6-11). Brightness
compensation, differencing, and confirmation operations are performed to
determine a difference image which is then scanned for regions of high
intensity pixel value in the red channel to locate the pupils (col. 8, ll. 12-29).
Once the spatial coordinates are obtained, the eye-defect correction may be
performed automatically in the digital camera or the coordinates may be
recorded for correction in a photo-finishing lab (col. 8, ll. 29-36).
Issue 1: Does Ina disclose "checking, in-camera, the photo quality of the
captured image to determine if the photo quality is acceptable"?

Arguments
The Examiner finds (Final Rejection 5) that the processor 92 and
controller 100 in Ina perform the step of "checking, in-camera, the photo
quality of the captured image to determine if the photo quality is
acceptable." The Examiner points to Figures 7, 11, and 14, and column 7,
lines 50+, column 8, lines 25+, and column 9, lines 5+.
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Appellant argues that Ina does not disclose "checking, in-camera, the
photo quality of the captured image to determine if the photo quality is
acceptable." It is argued that Ina is directed to a camera which digitally
combines two digital images and displays the resultant image to the user for
manual verification of motion, and not to a camera for "checking,
in-camera" the photo quality of a captured image (Br. 9). That is, the user,
and not a processor in the camera, makes the actual determination of
whether the photo quality is acceptable (Br. 10). Appellant addresses each
of the sections of Ina cited by the Examiner and finds that none of the
sections could reasonably be interpreted to indicate that the processor 92/100
determines the quality of the captured image (Br. 10-12).
The Examiner responds that "the images stored in the
memory 98a/98b are combined by the processor 92 to check, in camera,
the photo quality of the captured image to determined [sic] if the photo
quality is acceptable (i.e., see col. 8, lines 5-20) as recited in present
claimed invention" (Answer 10-11).
Appellant replies that Ina merely discloses that two images are
combined to enable a user to determine whether there was a relative
movement between the time the two images were captured, and this
checking is not done "in-camera" (Reply Br. 4). Appellant argues that the
Examiner has apparently interpreted "in-camera" to include processes that
occur in the camera as well as processes performed by the user, and this
interpretation is improper because "in-camera" clearly denotes that checking
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of the image photo quality is performed by components contained in the
camera (Reply Br. 5).

Analysis
As a matter of claim interpretation, we agree with Appellant that
"checking, in-camera, the photo quality of the captured image to determine
if the photo quality is acceptable" means that checking the photo quality is
done by components in the camera and does not include the user
determining the photo quality. The Examiner has not attempted to provide a
different interpretation of the limitation. The processor 92 merely combines
two digital images, and does not check the quality of the captured images,
e.g., by comparing the two images. The controller 100 calculates parameters
for taking the images, and does not check the quality of the captured images.
No elements in Ina calculate any quantity that corresponds to a photo quality
of captured image. In Ina, it is the human user that must look at the
combined image (e.g., 134 in Fig. 14) to determine the photo quality, where
the photo quality is "blurring." The Examiner, in fact, finds that "the
feedback image is display[ed] on the LCD 40 of the camera so . . . the
quality of the image can be determined by the user during the image
capturing process" (Final Rejection 6), indicating that checking the photo
quality is not done "in-camera." Ina does not disclose "checking, in-camera,
the photo quality of the captured image to determine if the photo quality is
acceptable."

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Issue 2: Does Ina disclose "computing a face quality figure of merit
for the captured image"?

Arguments
The Examiner finds that the controller 92/100 of Ina computes a "face
quality of merit" which is the face quality of the images in Figure 14 (Final
Rejection 6).
Appellant argues that Ina does not disclose "computing a face quality
figure of merit for the captured image." It is argued that a "face quality
figure of merit" is described in the Specification as a number of different
attributes of a face detected in the captured image which are computed in the
camera (Br. 13). Appellant argues that the "smiley" face representation of
the subject image 28 in Figure 14 is merely a representation of any possible
subject matter and is not intended to indicate that the subject image 28
constitutes a face because Ina never directly discusses images of faces
(Br. 14). It is argued that the Examiner fails to clearly define how the term
"face quality figure of merit" is interpreted or what the Examiner considers
to correspond to this term (Br. 15).
The Examiner responds that the controller 100 and processor 92
compute the first and second exposure time intervals 146, 148 in Figure 10
and combine the first and second images 128, 130 to determine the "face
quality figure of merit," which the Examiner considers to be the blurred
image 134 in Figure 14 (Answer 11-12).
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Appellant replies that the exposure time has nothing to do with
computing a face quality figure of merit (Reply Br. 6-7). It is argued that
Ina never states that the camera is capable of computing the degree to which
the resultant image is blurred and the camera is incapable of informing a
user whether the image is blurred (Reply Br. 7).

Analysis
The limitation of "computing a face quality figure of merit for the
captured image" is a further limitation of the "checking" step, which is done
"in-camera," and should be interpreted to mean computing in the camera an
attribute of a face detected in the captured image, i.e., computing a number
representative of the quality of a face in the image. Ina does not compute a
number representative of the quality of a face or any other image. The
computations by the processor 92 are to combine two whole images into
one, and the computations by the controller 100 are to set exposure
parameters. Neither of these operations relate to computing a "face quality
figure of merit" or computing anything to do with the quality of the image.
While the user may subjectively judge a "face quality" from the combined
image 134 in Figure 14, wherein the "smiley" face at least suggests a face,
this does not meet the limitations of computing a face quality figure of merit
in-camera. Ina does not disclose "computing a face quality figure of merit
for the captured image."

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Issue 3: Does Luo make up for the deficiencies of Ina?

Arguments
Appellant argues that the Examiner has failed to indicate exactly what
feature in Luo corresponds to the "computed face quality figure of merit" or
what is considered to be the "threshold" and where Luo discloses comparing
the "computed face quality figure of merit" to a "threshold," which makes it
difficult to determine why Luo has been cited (Br. 17). It is argued that Luo
discloses using red-eye detection for locating eyes in an image and that eye-
defect correction may automatically be performed once the eye locations are
determined, but does not disclose computing a face quality figure of merit
in-camera as part of a checking step to determine photo quality or comparing
a computed face quality figure of merit to a threshold to determine if it
exceeds the threshold (Br. 17).
The Examiner responds that computing a face quality figure of merit
corresponds to computing an eye-defect such as red-eye and comparing the
peak value to a threshold to determine if the face quality figure of merit
exceeds the threshold (Answer 12). In particular, the Examiner refers to
step 46 in Figure 8 as showing a threshold.
Appellant replies that Luo is not concerned with determining whether
the quality of an image is acceptable, but only determines the locations of
eyes using the red-eye phenomenon and compensates for the detected
red-eye (Reply Br. 9)

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Analysis
Appellant discloses that computing a face quality figure of merit is
done in several steps, where the camera computes: "(a) a brightness figure of
merit, (b) a noise level figure of merit, (c) a contrast figure of merit, and (d)
to check for the presence/absence of red eye in the respective detected
regions" (Specification para. 0088). Red-eye is not characterized as having
a figure of merit. Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, we assume that the
phrase "face quality figure of merit" in the claim is broad enough to read on
a value that represents the presence or absence of red-eye..
Luo detects the location of red-eye. The detection of red-eye is
considered an indication of the photo quality, with the presence of red-eye
being unacceptable. Nevertheless, Luo does not provide "photo quality
feedback to a camera user," as claimed, because the red-eye is automatically
corrected in the camera or in the photo-finishing lab. That is, the camera
user would not be notified of the presence of red-eye so that the user could
take another picture. Thus, neither Ina nor Luo discloses providing "photo
quality feedback to a camera user," so, even if the references were
combined, the combination would not teach the invention of claim 14.
Moreover, the Examiner only relies on Luo for a teaching of the limitation
of "comparing said computed face quality figure of merit to a threshold to
determine if said face quality figure of merit exceeds said threshold," and we
find no motivation to modify Ina to have a threshold since Ina does not
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compute a face quality figure of merit that it capable of being compared to a
threshold. Therefore, Luo does not make up for the deficiencies of Ina.

Conclusion
For the reasons stated above, the rejection does not establish a
prima facie case of obviousness. The rejection of claim 14 is reversed.
The Examiner does not rely upon Cheatle or Lin, which are applied in
the rejections of dependent claims 15-19 and 27, to meet any of the
limitations in claim 14. We decline to consider whether Cheatle or Lin
would cure the deficiencies in the rejection of claim 14. The rejections of
claims 15-19 and 27 are reversed.

CONCLUSION
The rejections of claims 14-19 and 27 are reversed.
REVERSED

KIS

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