Ex Parte Westmacott et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 28, 2017

13367770 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 28, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/367,770 02/07/2012 Ian Westmacott 0270.0002US1/R-SN-00119US 9833
103122 7590 05/02/2017
HoustonHogle LLP
1666 Massachusetts Avenue
Suite 12
Lexington, MA 02420
EXAMINER
FEREJA, SAMUEL D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2489
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/02/2017 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@houstonllp.com
grant .hou ston@houstonllp .com
eleahy @ tycoint. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte IAN WESTMACOTT and CHRISTOPHER J. BUEHLER
Appeal 2017-001227
Application 13/367,7701
Technology Center 2400
Before MARC S. HOFF, JOHN D. HAMANN, and
STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a Final Rejection of
claims 1—31. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
Appellants’ invention is a video monitoring and analysis system that
detects subjects when they are entering and/or exiting from a room. The
system enables a user to define a portal, such as a doorway of the room.
Objects that initially appear in the portal and then are detected moving
within the room are classified as having entered the room. Objects that are
1 The real party in interest is Sensormatic Electronics, LLC.
Appeal 2017-001227
Application 13/367,770
in the room and then disappear within the portal are classified as having
exited the room. The system has provisions for generating real-time alerts
and performing forensic searches. See Abstract.
Claims 1 and 6 are exemplary of the claims on appeal:
1. A method for monitoring a portal of an area being monitored with a video
analysis system, comprising:
enabling definition of a portal area of a background model of a scene
as a portal, the portal area being a rectangular or other two dimensional area
surrounded and within a remainder of the scene;
monitoring movement of foreground objects against the background
model; and
classifying foreground objects that first appear within the portal area
of the scene and then move out of the portal area but remain in the scene as
entering the area being monitored.
6. A method for monitoring a portal of an area being monitored with a video
analysis system, comprising:
enabling definition of a portal area of a background model of a scene
as a portal, the portal area being a rectangular or other two dimensional area
surrounded and within a remainder of the scene;
monitoring movement of foreground objects against the background
model;
and
classifying foreground objects in the scene that pass into the portal
area and then disappear within the portal area as exiting the area being
monitored.
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art in rejecting the
claims on appeal:
Buehler US 2005/0265582 A1 Dec. 1, 2005
Hiromasa US 2009/0244281 A1 Oct. 1, 2009
Boghossian US 2010/0238286 A1 Sept. 23,2010
Yehezkel US 2013/0038737 A1 Feb. 14, 2013
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Application 13/367,770
Claims 1, 3—6, 8—11, 13—16, and 18—31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Buehler, Boghossian, and Hiromasa.
Claims 2, 7, 12, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Buehler, Boghossian, Hiromasa, and Yehezkel.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
(“App. Br.,” filed Feb. 19, 2016), the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Oct.
26, 2016), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Aug. 26, 2016) for
their respective details.
ISSUES
1. Does the combination of Buehler, Boghossian, and Hiromasa teach
or fairly suggest classifying foreground objects that first appear within the
portal area of the scene and then move out of the portal area but remain in
the scene as entering the area being monitored?
2. Does the combination of Buehler, Boghossian, and Hiromasa teach
or fairly suggest classifying foreground objects in the scene that pass into the
portal area and then disappear within the portal area as exiting the area being
monitored?
3. Does the combination of Buehler, Boghossian, and Hiromasa teach
or fairly suggest enabling definition of a portal area of a background model
of a scene as a portal, the portal area being a rectangular or other two
dimensional area surrounded and within a remainder of the scene?
ANALYSIS
Claims 1-5,11-15, and 22-25
Each of independent claims 1 and 11 recite “classifying foreground
objects that first appear within the portal area of the scene and then move out
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Application 13/367,770
of the portal area but remain in the scene as entering the area being
monitored,” or analogous language.
Appellants argue that neither Buehler nor Boghossian teach or suggest
classifying the entry status of foreground objects based on the objects’
relationship to the portal area. App. Br. 9. We find Appellants’ argument to
be unpersuasive. We agree with the Examiner that Buehler teaches
monitoring and recording the location of a tracked object. See Ans. 3—4, 15.
Buehler teaches the tracking of a particular object within a location, such as
a store, over time. Figure 16 of Buehler is an illustrative data structure of a
monitored object. See also Buehler H 158—162. Over time, the object is
tracked to locations such as “ENTRANCE,” “AISLE 2,” “DVD’s,”,
“RETURNS,” and “EXIT.” This example shows that Buehler teaches
recognizing that a monitored object is within a portal area (ENTRANCE)
and then moves out of the portal area but remains in the scene (e.g., AISLE
2). The fact that Buehler stores data on this monitored object moving to
different locations within the store shows that Buehler classifies the object as
having entered the area being monitored.
We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ further argument that the
combination of Buehler, Boghossian, and Hiromasa fails to teach or suggest
“enabling definition of a portal area of a background model of a scene as a
portal, the portal area being a rectangular or other two dimensional area
surrounded and within a remainder of the scene.” We agree with the
Examiner that Boghossian teaches this limitation, including a zone-tracker
function that identifies when an object moves from a first user-defined
detection area to a second user-defined detection area of a ffame/image. See
Boghossian 1161. An “incident analysis function” monitors tracking of a
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Application 13/367,770
pedestrian-sized object from a subset of the first detection area to the second
detection area. Boghossian 1353. The second detection area consists of
two sub-areas of the image, relating to exits from the platform. See id.
Figure 17B illustrates that the exits contemplated in paragraph 353 of
Boghossian are rectangular portals.
Given Boghossian’s teachings regarding enabling definition of
rectangular portal areas, we regard the teachings of Hiromasa as merely
cumulative to the combination of Buehler and Boghossian asserted by the
Examiner. A further result of our finding that Hiromasa is merely
cumulative is that Appellants’ argument regarding a lack of motivation to
combine Buehler and Boghossian with Hiromasa is rendered moot. See
App. Br. 8.
We find that the Examiner did not err in combining Buehler,
Boghossian, and Hiromasa to achieve the invention of claims 1 and 11. We
sustain the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of claims 1 and 11, as well as
claims 3—5, 13—15, and 22—25 not separately argued.
With respect to claims 2 and 12, Appellants rely on the arguments
made with respect to parent claims 1 and 11. See App. Br. 15. Accordingly,
we sustain the § 103(a) rejection of claims 2 and 12 over Buehler,
Boghossian, Hiromasa, and Yehezkel, for the reasons given supra with
respect to the rejection of claims 1 and 11.
Claims 6-10,16-21, and 26-31
Each of independent claims 6, 16, and 31 recite “classifying
foreground objects in the scene that pass into the portal area and then
disappear within the portal area as exiting the area being monitored.”
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The Examiner finds that Buehler teaches the limitations at issue. See
Ans. 3—4, 15; Buehler || 52, 106, 158, 161. Buehler paragraph 52 is a
generic description of classifier 306. Buehler paragraph 106 discloses
tracking metadata, which may have dynamic properties as well as static
properties. Buehler paragraph 158 discloses the properties of an object,
which include location, state, and duration. Buehler paragraph 161
discloses, in pertinent part to the instant appeal, that the location property
can take the value “ENTRANCE” or “EXIT.”
We find, however, that the Examiner has failed to establish that
Buehler teaches the “classifying” limitation claimed. The Examiner has not
substantiated that Buehler provides a teaching of classifying foreground
objects that pass into the portal area and then disappear within the portal area
as exiting the area being monitored. Buehler’s disclosure is limited to
establishing that a monitored object (i.e., person) is detectable at the location
“EXIT.” Buehler 1161.
We find that the combination of Buehler, Boghossian, and Hiromasa
fails to teach or suggest all the limitations of independent claims 6, 16, and
31. Hence, we do not sustain the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of claims 6,
16, and 31, nor of claims 8—10, 18—21, and 26—30 not separately argued.
Claims 7 and 17 depend, respectively, from claims 6 and 16 and stand
rejected under § 103(a) over the combination of Buehler, Boghossian,
Hiromasa, and Yehezkel. We have reviewed Yehezkel and we find that it
does not remedy the deficiencies of Buehler expressed supra. Accordingly,
we do not sustain the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 7 and 17, for the
same reasons expressed with respect to claims 6 and 16 supra.
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Application 13/367,770
CONCLUSIONS
1. The combination of Buehler, Boghossian, and Hiromasa fairly
suggests classifying foreground objects that first appear within the portal
area of the scene and then move out of the portal area but remain in the
scene as entering the area being monitored.
2. The combination of Buehler, Boghossian, and Hiromasa does not
teach or fairly suggest classifying foreground objects in the scene that pass
into the portal area and then disappear within the portal area as exiting the
area being monitored.
3. The combination of Buehler, Boghossian, and Hiromasa teaches
enabling definition of a portal area of a background model of a scene as a
portal, the portal area being a rectangular or other two dimensional area
surrounded and within a remainder of the scene.
ORDER
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—5, 11—15, and 22—25
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is affirmed. The Examiner’s decision to reject
claims 6—10, 16—21, and 26—31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is reversed.
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).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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