Ex Parte Stoker et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 30, 201813029911 (P.T.A.B. May. 30, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/029,911 02/17/2011 14824 7590 06/01/2018 Moser Taboada/ SRI International 1030 Broad Street Suite 203 Shrewsbury, NJ 07702 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR David Stoker 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. SRI6055-2 1569 EXAMINER NASR!, MARY AM A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2483 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/01/2018 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): docketing@mtiplaw.com llinardakis@mtiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DAVID STOKER, CREGG COW AN, MOTILAL AGRA WAL, JAN EDWARD VANDERLAAN, and JOHN BRIAN BURNS Appeal2017-011288 Application 13/029,911 Technology Center 2400 Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and SHARON PENICK, Administrative Patent Judges. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellants 1 appeal from the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1, 3-8, 10-13, 28, and 32-36. Claims 2, 9, 14--27, 29-31, and 37--40 have been canceled. See App. Br. 19-23 (Claims App'x). We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is SRI International. App. Br. 3. Appeal2017-011288 Application 13/029,911 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants' Invention Appellants' invention generally relates to "long-range acquisition of facial and ocular features." Spec. ,r 2. Claim 1, which is illustrative of the claimed invention, reads as follows: 1. A system for acquiring an image of a facial feature of a subject, the system comprising: a source of spatially incoherent illumination comprising multiple emitters; a stationary diffuser for diffusing and expanding the spatially incoherent illumination to produce diffused illumination; a steerable telescope positioned to receive the diffused illumination from the diffuser and to collimate the diffused illumination into a beam directed at the facial feature, wherein the steerable telescope includes a low-resolution sensor configured to create an image of the subject's face and a high resolution sensor configured to acquire the image of the facial feature, wherein the low-resolution sensor and the high- resolution sensor are both exposed by the same light source and share the same field of view; a first computational imaging element configured to minimize an effect of defocus in the image of the facial feature; a second computational imaging element configured to minimize an effect of motion blur in the image of the facial feature; and a gaze monitor for identifying a location of the facial feature and for tracking a gaze angle of the subject in a continuous manner including when the subject is looking in a direction other than at the steerable telescope and during an acquisition of the image, wherein the tracking is based on a position of glint relative to a pupil of the subject. 2 Appeal2017-011288 Application 13/029,911 References The Examiner relies on the following prior art in rejecting the claims: Zhai et al. US 2002/0126479 Al Sept. 12, 2002 Ji et al. US 2004/0174496 Al Sept. 9, 2004 Shchegrov US 2006/0280219 Al Dec. 14, 2006 Raskar et al. US 2008/0187305 Al Aug. 7, 2008 Friedman et al. US 2010/0290668 Al Nov. 18, 2010 Rejections2 Claims 1, 3-5, 8, 10, 11, and 32-36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Friedman, Ji, and Zhai. Final Act. 6-13. Claims 6 and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Friedman, Ji, Zhai, and Shchegrov. Final Act. 13-14. Claims 12 and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Friedman, Ji, Zhai, and Raskar. Final Act. 14--15. 2 The Examiner finds the limitations "first computational imaging element," "second computational imaging element," and "gaze monitor," recited in claim 1, "subject tracker," recited in claim 3, "range finder," recited in claim 5, and "three-dimensional trajectory generator," recited in claim 8, invoke 35 U.S.C. § 112, 6th paragraph. Final Act. 5--6. The Examiner "has not rejected claims 1, 3, 5, and 8 [under 35 U.S.C. § 112, 6th paragraph], but has only mentioned that the claims 1, 3, 5, and 8 invoke 35 U.S.C. § 112, 6th paragraph." Ans. 15. Therefore, the issue is not properly before us and is not addressed herein. 3 Appeal2017-011288 Application 13/029,911 Claim 28 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Friedman and Ji. Final Act. 15-17. ANALYSIS Claim 1 Appellants contend the combination of Friedman, Ji, and Zhai fails to teach or suggest "a second computational imaging element configured to minimize an effect of motion blur in the image of the facial feature," as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 7-1 O; Reply Br. 3---6. According to Appellants, Friedman teaches using a distance along a Z-axis of a range finder ("Z- distance") to predict the anticipated movement of a subject and techniques for moving a long focal length zoom lens to achieve a highest focus measurement at a particular Z-distance. App. Br. 7-8 ( citing Friedman ,r,r 42--45). Appellants argue "predicting a future location of a subject and moving a lens to provide a focal plane at that location and waiting for the subject to move through focus," as taught by Friedman, "does not and cannot minimize an effect of motion blur in the image," as required by claim 1. App. Br. 8. The Examiner finds Friedman teaches using the Z-distance measurement to control the zoom and focus of the imaging system with respect to the subject's movement. Ans. 18 (citing Friedman, Figs. 1, 6; 42). The Examiner finds Friedman also teaches utilizing the Z-distance for zoom- focus processing and quality measures, including computing focus measure scores to estimate the sharp details in the iris region of the subject. Ans. 18 ( citing Friedman ,r 148). The Examiner further finds Friedman teaches 4 Appeal2017-011288 Application 13/029,911 utilizing the computed focus measure scores to reject blurred iris images and, therefore, Friedman teaches or suggests the disputed limitation. Id. In response, Appellants argue Friedman does not teach utilizing the Z- distance to control the zoom and focus of the imaging system with respect to the subject's movement; rather, Friedman teaches using the Z-distance to determine an optimal focus for a subject at different positions. Reply Br. 5. Appellants argue moving a long focal length of a zoom lens to correct for an out of focus target subject, as taught by Friedman, does not teach or suggest minimizing motion blur, as required by claim 1. Id. We find Appellants' arguments persuasive. Friedman teaches that the Z-distance is utilized to improve the accuracy of estimates of the position of the targeted subject as well as to determine the range of focus and zoom. Friedman ,r 42. Friedman describes a zoom and focus control process employed for non-stationary ( e.g., moving) subjects that includes predicting where the subject will be in focus at some time Tin the future, moving the lens to a position for capturing an image of the subject at the predicted location in a time less than T, and waiting for the subject to move through focus. Friedman ,r 45. We agree with Appellants (Reply Br. 5), that Friedman is silent regarding the processing including techniques for minimizing motion blur in a captured image. Regarding blurred images, we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 18) that Friedman teaches utilizing the computed focus measure scores to reject blurred iris images (Friedman ,r 148). However, the Examiner's findings fail to explain how rejecting a blurred image based on a computed score, as taught by Friedman, teaches or suggests an imaging element configured to minimize an effect of motion blur in the image of the facial feature, as required by claim 1. 5 Appeal2017-011288 Application 13/029,911 Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1; claim 28, which recites similar limitations; and claims 1, 3-5, 8, 10, and 32- 36, which depend, directly or indirectly, from claim 1. Claims 6, 7, 12, and 13 depend from claim 1. The Examiner does not find that the teachings of the additional references cited in the rejection of claims 6, 7, 12, and 13 cure the deficiencies noted above with respect to claim 1. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 6, 7, 12, and 13 for the reasons discussed supra with respect to claim 1. We do not reach Appellants' further allegations of error because we find the issue discussed above to be dispositive as to the rejection of all the pending claims. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 1, 3-8, 10-13, 28, and 32-36. REVERSED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation