Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 2/23/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments and amendments, see the response filed 2/23/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 21-42 under 35 U.S.C. 102 in view of Liu have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, new ground(s) of rejection are made under 35 U.S.C. 112 as detailed below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 21-42 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Independent claims 21, 29 and 37 recite:
processing one or more subsets of pixels of the image to be processed using a convolution kernel to compute one or more motion vectors pixel data representing an occlusion object
generating one or more other motion vectors based on the motion vectors the one or more other vectors identifying another pixel depicting a portion of the object at a different location in the image, the other pixels used to replace the pixel representing the occluded object
modifying a size of the convolution kernel based on the displacements of the one or more other motion vectors
The examiner is unable to find support in the applicants specifications for the particular operations recited in the claims.
Fig. 2 and pars. 39-46 of the applicants specification describe a video prediction system including a first neural network (210), a second neural network (220), and a spatially displaced convolution (SDC) module (230). Par. 41 indicates that the first neural network (210) receives input frames (202) and outputs one or more initial motion vectors in the form of optical flow information (212). Par. 42 indicates that the second neural network (220) receives the frames (202) and the initial motion vectors and outputs refined motion vectors in the form of predicted displacement vectors and predicted convolution kernel sizes for each pixel of video.
The “one or more motion vectors” of element 1 do not correspond to the initial motion vectors of par. 41, as the initial motion vectors are not determined using convolutional kernels. Neither do the “one or more motion vectors” correspond to the refined motion vectors of par. 42 as the refined motion vectors are generated based on the initial motion vectors and the “one or more motion vectors” are not. Thus element 1 lacks written description support in the applicants specification.
The ”one or more other motion vectors” of element 2 also do not correspond to the initial motion vectors of par. 41 as the ‘other’ motion vectors must be based on the initial ‘one or more’ vectors from element 1, and the initial, optical flow, vectors of par. 41 are not determined using input motion vectors. Neither do the ‘other’ motion vectors correspond to the refined motion vectors of par. 42 because the refined motion vectors are not used to modify the size of convolution kernels as required by element 3. Rather, par. 41 indicates that the size of the convolutional kernels is determined based on the initial motion vectors provided by the optical flow (212). Thus elements 2 and 3 lack written description support in the applicants specification.
The examiner would recommend amending the claim to include, in addition to the limitations relating to correcting object occlusions:
a first step of generating one or more motion vectors using a first neural network;
a second step of generating, using a second neural network, one or more predicted displacement vectors and predicted convolution kernel sizes based on the one or more motion vectors; and
a third step of generating a new image using the displacement vectors and convolution kernels.
These steps corresponding to the process shown in Fig. 2 and described in pars 39-46 of the applicants specification.
Should the applicant wish to discuss the above proposed changes to the claims, they are invited to schedule an interview with the examiner in order ensure clear communication of the issues and suggestions raised above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEREMIAH CHARLES HALLENBECK-HUBER whose telephone number is (571)272-5248. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, William Vaughn can be reached at (571)272-3922. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JEREMIAH C HALLENBECK-HUBER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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