Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 9, 2022

2021001362 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2022)

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. 16/394,285 04/25/2019 Seungju HAN 012052.1494C1 5904 89980 7590 03/09/2022 NSIP LAW P.O. Box 65745 Washington, DC 20035 EXAMINER MANGIALASCHI, TRACY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2668 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/09/2022 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): eofficeaction@appcoll.com pto.nsip@gmail.com pto@nsiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SEUNGJU HAN, MINSU KO, DEOKSANG KIM, and JAE-JOON HAN Appeal 2021-001362 Application 16/394,285 Technology Center 2600 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, BETH Z. SHAW, and JAMES W. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judges. SHAW, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-30. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a) (2019). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Samsung Electronics Co., Inc. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2021-001362 Application 16/394,285 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to a facial verification method and apparatus. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter, with disputed limitations in italics: 1. A mobile computing apparatus, comprising: a camera configured to capture an image; a display configured to be observable by a user during a capturing of the image by the camera; and one or more processors configured to: while the mobile computing apparatus is in a lock state, control the camera to perform the capturing of the image, detect for a face in the captured image, control the display to display information to the user prior to or during a detection and/or a facial verification of the face in the captured image, and in response to the face having been detected, initiate the facial verification by performing a matching consideration with respect to the detected face and a registered face information of a predetermined valid user; and based on a result of the facial verification being determined a success, cancel the lock state of the mobile computing apparatus and allow the user access to the mobile computing apparatus, wherein the mobile computing apparatus in the lock state does not display face image feedback to the user during the detecting for the face and/or the performing of the facial verification in response to the face having been detected. Appeal Br. 21 (Claims App.). Appeal 2021-001362 Application 16/394,285 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Kuperstein US 6,128,398 Oct. 3, 2000 Aisaka US 2008/0247611 Oct. 9, 2008 Sun US 2012/0288167 Al Nov. 15, 2012 Murillo US 2016/0267319 Al Sept. 15, 2016 AbdAlmageed et al. Face Recognition Using Deep Multi-Pose Representations, IEEE Winter Conference on Application of Computer Vision (WACV) pp. 1-9 Mar. 7, 2016 Dhouib et al. Advanced Multimodal Fusion for Biometric Recognition System based on Performance Comparison of SVM and ANN Techniques, International Journal of Computer Applications, vol. 148 - No. 11 Jan. 1, 2016 REJECTIONS Claims 1-3, 10, 17-21, 26, and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102 as being anticipated by Murillo. Claims 4, 5, 7, 15, 16, 22, 23, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Murillo and Sun. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Murillo, Sun, and Aisaka. Appeal 2021-001362 Application 16/394,285 4 Claims 8, 9, 24, and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Murillo, Sun, and Dhouib. Claims 11-14 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Murillo, Sun, and Dhouib, and AbdAlmageed. Claim 30 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Murillo and Kuperstein. OPINION We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner erred. On this record, we find Appellant has not identified an error in the Examiner’s reliance on the cited reference(s) for disclosing, or collectively teaching or suggesting the elements recited in the claims. We agree with and adopt as our own the Examiner’s findings and conclusions in the Final Rejection and Answer. See Final Act. 2-27; Ans. 3- 9. Appellant argues Murillo does not anticipate claim 1 because Murillo captures a first image for determining whether a user is within the interaction zone, and then captures a second new image. different from the first image, for authentication, which is different from the claimed features of claim 1, for example and further (2) because Murillo does not, and would/could not, initiate the facial verification by performing a matching consideration authenticate the user in response to a face of the user being detected as would be required by claim 1 Appeal Br. 16; see also Reply Br. 7. Appellant additionally argues that: In particular, Murillo describes that to facilitate having the user situated so that a user is within the interaction zone, prior to Appeal 2021-001362 Application 16/394,285 5 authenticating the user, a determination is made as to whether the user is within the suitable distance range from the camera. If the user is within the suitable distance range from the camera, then a new image can be captured and used for authentication, or an image previously captured while determining whether the user is within the suitable distance range can be used for authentication (see Murillo, paragraphs [0012]-[0013]). The authentication module 204 analyzes one or more images captured by the camera 102 only while the user is within the interaction zone (see Murillo, paragraph [0023]). Appeal Br. 16, 17. Appellant argues that only if the user is determined to be within the suitable distance range, the system of Murillo authenticates the user, otherwise (i.e., if the user is determined to be not yet within the suitable distance range), the system of Murillo cannot authenticate the user or even start a process of the authenticating the user. Id. at 17-18. As the Examiner finds, and we agree, Murillo discloses that a user is authenticated based on user features that can be captured by a camera, “such as facial features or eye features. In order for the user to be authenticated, an image is captured of the user while the user is within an interaction zone, which is an area that is within both a field of view of the camera and a suitable distance range from the camera.” Ans. 4 (citing Murillo, Abstract). Appellant argues that Murillo does not disclose that determining whether the user is within the suitable distance range by detecting a face, and that instead, the detecting a face is a process of a separate user authentication process in Murillo. See Appeal Br. 18. We find this argument unavailing because Murillo expressly describes “the field of view and suitable distance range for face recognition can be a 60 degree field of view and a suitable distance range of 30-100cm.” Ans. 5 (citing Murillo ¶¶ 26, 28). Appellant does not respond to these findings or cited portions of Murillo Appeal 2021-001362 Application 16/394,285 6 (see generally Reply Br.), and consequently, we are not persuaded of error in them. Appellant argues that Murillo does not disclose facial verification of the face “in the captured image” because “Murillo [only] captures a first image for determining whether the user is within the interaction zone, and then captures a second new image, different from the first image, for authentication.” Appeal Br. 19. We find this argument unavailing because, as the Examiner finds, although Murillo discloses a new image, Murillo also discloses “or an image previously captured while determining whether the user is within the suitable distance range can be used for authentication.” Murillo ¶ 13 (emphasis added); Ans. 5. Appellant argues that Murillo’s authentication is in response to determining whether the user is within the suitable distance range, and not in response to the face having been detected, as required by claim 1. Appeal Br. 18; Reply Br. 8-9. Appellant, however, provides insufficient evidence that the Specification or claims limit “in response to the face having been detected” in a way that, under a broad but reasonable interpretation, is not encompassed by Murillo’s teachings of: capturing an image when a user is within a suitable distance range, which Murillo discloses can be a suitable distance range for face recognition, and analyzing one or more images captured by the camera while the user is within the interaction zone. See Murillo, ¶¶ 3, 12, 13, 23, 26, 28. In other words, as the Examiner explains (see Ans. 8), the claims do not preclude the criteria or algorithm presented by Murillo. Accordingly, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1, and we therefore sustain the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claim 1, as well as the rejection of claims 2, 3, 10, 17-21, 26, Appeal 2021-001362 Application 16/394,285 7 and 29, which were all argued together with claim 1. See Appeal Br. 10-11. We also sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of the remaining pending claims, which are not argued separately with particularity. See id. CONCLUSION We affirm the Examiner’s rejections. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1-3, 10, 17- 21, 26, 29 102 Murillo 1-3, 10, 17- 21, 26, 29 4, 5, 7, 15, 16, 22, 23, 28 103 Murillo, Sun 4, 5, 7, 15, 16, 22, 23, 28 6 103 Murillo, Sun, Aisaka 6 8, 9, 24, 25 103 Murillo, Sun, Dhouib 8, 9, 24, 25 11-14, 27 103 Murillo, Sun, Dhouib, AbdAlmageed 11-14, 27 30 103 Murillo, Kuperstein 30 Overall Outcome 1-30 Appeal 2021-001362 Application 16/394,285 8 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED