Patents Examined by Michael Vanchy, Jr.
  • Patent number: 9830712
    Abstract: Disclosed are an apparatus for sensing a moving golf ball and a method for sensing the moving golf ball using the apparatus. The apparatus includes an image acquisition unit for acquiring consecutive images of a ball, an image processing unit for extracting a feature portion of the ball from the acquired images, and a spin calculation unit for performing any one of forward operation analysis and inverse operation analysis to calculate spin of the ball.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 8, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2017
    Assignee: GOLFZON CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Se Hwan Kim
  • Patent number: 9824258
    Abstract: The present disclosure applies to the field of biometric identification technologies and provides a method and an apparatus for fingerprint identification. The method includes: extracting a minutia of the input fingerprint image by using a statistical method; performing fingerprint matching according to the extracted minutia to obtain a fingerprint identification result. According to the method provides in embodiments of the present disclosure, the direction of the minutia is calculated by using statistical information, a descriptor with statistical significance is added for the minutia, and during the matching process, calculation of the similarity of the minutia by using the descriptor and region matching by using information of the direction field and the gradient field of the overlapping region are added, therefore, instability and weak specificity of expression of fingerprint characteristics in a conventional algorithm are avoided, and accuracy of the fingerprint identification is improved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2017
    Assignee: SHENZHEN GOODIX TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Hongsheng Li, Hongwei Xu, Jinchun Ye
  • Patent number: 9811897
    Abstract: The purpose of the present invention is to easily extract, from samples to be observed, defect candidates that can be labeled as a defect or “nuisance” (a part for which a manufacturing tolerance or the like is erroneously detected) and to allow parameters pertaining to observation processing to be easily adjusted. This defect observation method comprises: an imaging step to image, on the basis of defect information from an inspection device, an object to be inspected and obtain a defect image and a reference image corresponding to the defect image; a parameter determining step to determine a first parameter to be used in the defect extraction by using a first feature set distribution acquired from the reference image and the defect image captured in the imaging step and a second feature net distribution acquired from the reference image; and an observing step to observe using the first parameter determined in the parameter determining step.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2017
    Assignee: HITACHI HIGH-TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Minoru Harada, Yuji Takagi, Ryo Nakagaki, Takehiro Hirai, Hirohiko Kitsuki
  • Patent number: 9798971
    Abstract: Provided us a visual cortical circuit apparatus comprising: a current mirror unit which uses a transistor as a current source to generate a current having the same size as that of a reaction; a transconductance unit which takes, as an input, the current generated by the current mirror unit and outputs a voltage using a transconductance; and a buffer unit for converting the voltage output from the transconductance unit into a current and buffering the current.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 24, 2017
    Assignee: KOREA ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
    Inventors: Il Song Han, Woo Joon Han
  • Patent number: 9779280
    Abstract: A sensor has drive lines and transverse pickup lines to define an electrode pair where each pickup line crosses a drive line. A reference pickup line is arranged parallel to the pickup lines and a compensation drive line is arranged parallel to the drive lines. A signal source provides a first signal to the drive lines and a second signal that is the inverse of the first signal to the compensation drive line. An amplifier has a first input connected to a pickup line, a second input connected to a reference pickup line, and a output indicative of an object in contact with the electrode pair(s). Each impedance between the compensation drive line and a pickup line, between the reference pickup line and a reference drive line, and between the compensation drive line and the reference pickup line is equal to the impedance at the electrode pair when no object is contact with the electrode pair.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2017
    Assignee: IDEX ASA
    Inventor: Fred G. Benkley, III
  • Patent number: 9778464
    Abstract: Provided are a shape recognition device, a shape recognition program, and a shape recognition method capable of obtaining more accurate information for recognizing an outer shape of a target object. A shape recognition device according to the present invention includes: an outer shape detection unit that detects an outer shape of a hand; a reference point extraction unit that extracts a central point of a maximum inscribed circle of the detected outer shape as a reference point; a distance measurement unit that measures a distance between the reference point and each of a plurality of outer shape points on the outer shape; and a feature recognition unit that determines a feature part of the outer shape from the plurality of outer shape points on the basis of the distance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2017
    Assignee: MIRAMA SERVICE INC.
    Inventor: Johannes Lundberg
  • Patent number: 9767362
    Abstract: Techniques for matching a feature of captured visual data are described in various implementations. In one example implementation, a server from among plural servers matches a feature of captured visual data of a physical target received from an electronic device with features of one of a plurality of partitions. Based on the matching, an object is identified that corresponds to the captured visual data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2017
    Assignee: Aurasma Limited
    Inventor: George Saklatvala
  • Patent number: 9747524
    Abstract: A disparity value deriving device includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire a degree of matching between a reference region in a reference image captured from a first imaging position and each of a plurality of region in a designated range including a corresponding region to the reference region in a comparison image captured from a second imaging position; a synthesizer configured to synthesize the degree of matching of a reference region in neighborhood of a predetermined reference region in the reference image and the degree of matching of the predetermined reference region in the reference image; and a deriving unit configured to derive a disparity value of an object whose image is being captured in the predetermined reference region and a corresponding region to the predetermined reference region, based on a synthesized degree of matching obtained by the synthesizer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 23, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 29, 2017
    Assignee: RICOH COMPANY, LTD.
    Inventors: Wei Zhong, Yoshikazu Watanabe, Soichiro Yokota, Kiichiroh Saitoh, Ryohsuke Tamura
  • Patent number: 9740926
    Abstract: A method for identity verification using biometric data is disclosed herein. The method comprises receiving, by a processor, an image of an identification document and receiving a video associated with a face of a user. A predefined number of frames is selected in the video. Based on the selection, it is determined whether the video depicts a live person. Additionally, the face of the user in the video is compared with the image of the identification document and, based on the comparing, results of the identity verification are provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 22, 2017
    Assignee: IDchecker, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael Hagen, Pierre de Boer, Istvan Mandak
  • Patent number: 9734560
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method and apparatus for selectively enhancing regions in an image. In one embodiment, a digital image is read from an image source and is converted into a desired image model. One or more regions in the image having intensity values of pixels falling outside a pre-determined optimal intensity range are determined. The one or more regions in the image are then enhanced using a modeled light source of an optimal intensity such that the intensity value of pixels corresponding to the one or more regions in the image fall within the pre-determined optimal intensity range.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 15, 2017
    Assignee: KPIT TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
    Inventors: Vinay Govind Vaidya, Sanjyot Gindi
  • Patent number: 9665794
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention relate to an inventory management method and system. The present invention addresses the foregoing need of an inventory management system through which all size and shape of components can tracked before and after an assembly process in a manufacturing facility. The invention address the challenges faced by store keeping clerks in locating the position of excess components returned from assembly floor, which are taken in excess but not being utilized during assembly process. Since basic spare parts which are smaller in size but taken in large quantity from store room due to their frequent usage, excess components needs to be kept back in store keeping units for effective inventory management.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 18, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2017
    Assignee: Infosys Limited
    Inventors: Harikrishna Gandhinagara Narayana Rai, Krishnamurthy Sai Deepak, Radha Krishna Pisipati
  • Patent number: 9665768
    Abstract: Process, and related apparatus, that exploits psycho-physiological aspects involved in generation and perception of handwriting for directly inferring from the trace on the paper (or any other means on which the author writes by hand) the interpretation of writing, i.e. the sequence of characters that the trace is intended to represent.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2017
    Assignee: Natural Intelligent Technologies s.r.l.
    Inventors: Angelo Marcelli, Adolfo Santoro, Claudio De Stefano, Antonio Parziale, Rosa Senatore
  • Patent number: 9655515
    Abstract: In the field of eye tracking, greater accuracy or resolution in monitoring movement of the eye can be gained by digitizing the eye, and tracking the movement of a landmark with fixed size and a fixed location relative to the eye's local coordinate system. The edge of the iris can be used as such a fixed landmark. Through the location and or establishment of at least a portion of the outer edge of the iris and/or an iris center point, both large and small scale eye movements, including but not limited to micro-tremors, can be traced with a higher degree of accuracy. This will aid in the diagnosis of diseases, assessing state of consciousness, and defining brainstem death.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 2009
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2017
    Assignee: NEURO KINETICS
    Inventors: John Howison Schroeder, Alexander D. Kiderman
  • Patent number: 9652662
    Abstract: An image processing device includes: a face detector which detects a face region including a face of a person from an input image signal; a determination portion which determines, in the input image signal of the face region, an addition amount of a pixel value to be added to the input image signal of the face region based on a size of a difference in a pixel value between adjacent pixels; and a signal corrector which adds the addition amount to the pixel value of the input image signal of the face region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2017
    Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Tsuyoshi Hirashima, Tatsumi Watanabe
  • Patent number: 9619690
    Abstract: An authentication apparatus includes a prism and an imaging unit. The prism comprises: a contact surface, an imaging surface, a first reflection surface opposed to the imaging surface, contacted with the contact surface to make an angle to be lower than an optimum angle to an incident light from a concave portion of the living body, and to reflect an incident light from a convex portion of the living body on the imaging surface and a second reflection surface opposed to the imaging surface, contacted with the first reflection surface, and to form a reflection body that reflects the incident light from the concave portion of the living body and the incident light from the convex portion of the living body on the imaging surface. The imaging unit images the light which is reflected by the first reflection surface and the light, which is reflected by the second reflection surface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 11, 2017
    Assignee: NEC Corporation
    Inventor: Teruyuki Higuchi
  • Patent number: 9607246
    Abstract: A system, apparatus, method, and computer-readable medium for optimizing classifiers are disclosed. The optimization process can include receiving one or more training examples. The optimization process can further include assigning a loss parameter to each training example. The optimization process can further include optimizing each loss parameter of each training sample based on a sample variance of each training example using a non-linear function. The optimization process can further include estimating a classifier from the one or more weighted training samples. The optimization process can further include assigning a loss parameter to the classifier based on a number of training examples that the classifier correctly classified and a number of training examples that the classifier incorrectly classified. The optimization process can further include adding the weighted classifier to an overall classifier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2017
    Assignee: THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
    Inventors: Tony Jebara, Pannagadatta Shivaswamy
  • Patent number: 9600735
    Abstract: An image processing device is provided with an acquiring unit configured to acquire a face image and, a control unit configured to specify a face direction in the face image acquired by the acquiring unit and add, based on the specified face direction, a picture expressing a contour of a face component to the face image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 21, 2017
    Assignee: CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Kouichi Nakagome, Shigeru Kafuku
  • Patent number: 9589205
    Abstract: A method identifies user demographic characteristics, such as age and gender. First, a plurality of photos are acquired from postings to a social media site by a specific user. A plurality of facial images are identified in the acquired photos. Using a selected subset of the facial images, the method estimates one or more demographic characteristics of the user. In some cases, the estimation uses a profile photograph of the user. In some cases, the facial images are clustered based on similarity. The cluster that most closely matches the profile photo is used for demographic analysis to estimate the characteristics of the user. In some cases, a cluster is selected based on cluster purity, and the images in the cluster are used to estimate the characteristics of the user. In some cases, other self-portrait features are used, such as large facial images or arms along the perimeter of photographs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 15, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 7, 2017
    Assignee: FUJI XEROX CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Dhiraj Joshi, Francine Chen, Lynn Donelle Wilcox
  • Patent number: 9582874
    Abstract: A method of detection of faults on circuit boards comprising the steps of capturing an image (14) of each of a plurality of circuit boards (10) and dividing each of the captured images (14) into a plurality of image segments, each having an image characteristic value. One of the circuit boards 10 is selected for testing and each image segment is compared with corresponding image segments of each other circuit boards (10) to define a plurality of differential image characteristic values. The differential image characteristic values for each image segment are ranked from lowest to highest and an nth differential image characteristic value is selected. An overlay image comprising a representation of the selected differential image characteristic values is created and displayed over the selected circuit board.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2017
    Inventors: Alexander Phillip Davies, Kevin Stephen Davies
  • Patent number: 9576224
    Abstract: The present invention provides a face recognition method on a computing device, comprising: storing a plurality of training face images, each training face image corresponding to a face class; obtaining one or more face test samples; applying a representation model to represent the face test sample as a combination of the training face images and error terms, wherein a coefficient vector is corresponded to the training face images; estimating the coefficient vector and the error terms by solving a constrained optimization problem; computing a residual error for each face class, the residual error for a face class being an error between the face test sample and the face test sample's representation model represented by the training samples in the face class; classifying the face test sample by selecting the face class that yields the minimal residual error; and presenting the face class of the face test sample.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2017
    Assignee: TCL RESEARCH AMERICA INC.
    Inventors: Michael Iliadis, Haohong Wang