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 .
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to
determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is
requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the
specification.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns, paragraphs, figures and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner. The entire reference is considered to provide disclosure relating to the claimed invention. The claims & only the claims form the metes & bounds of the invention. Office personnel are to give the claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure. Unclaimed limitations appearing in the specification are not read into the claim. Prior art was referenced using terminology familiar to one of ordinary skill in the art. Such an approach is broad in concept and can be either explicit or implicit in meaning. Examiner's Notes are provided with the cited references to assist the applicant to better understand how the examiner interprets the applied prior art. Such comments are entirely consistent with the intent & spirit of compact prosecution.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends.
Claim 20 recites “The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, …” but claim 16 recites “The system of claim 10, …”. It is unclear whether claim 20 is depending on claim 16 or 18.
Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. These claims are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
As to claim 1,
Step 1: Claim 1 is directed to a method. Therefore, the claim is eligible under Step 1 for being directed to processes.
Step 2A Prong One
Claim 1 recites
receiving input data expressed in at least a first domain; (input data)
decomposing the input data into at least i) low-pass filtered data that captures a low- pass filtered version of the input data in the at least the first domain and ii) high-pass filtered data that captures a high-pass filtered version of the input data in the at least the first domain; (mental process)
transforming the low-pass filtered data to frequency domain; (mental process)
applying a first set of weights to the low-pass filtered data in the frequency domain to generate weighted low-pass filtered data in the frequency domain; (mental process)
transforming the weighted low-pass filtered data from the frequency domain to the at least the first domain; and (mental process)
composing output data for the numerical simulation based on at least the weighted low-pass filtered data in the at least the first domain. (output data and mental process)
The claimed concept is a method of decomposing and composing data based on mathematic relationship directed to “Mental Process” and/or “Mathematical Concepts” grouping. These limitations can be performed in a human mind or using pen and paper.
Therefore, claim 1 is an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong Two
The input/output data step is recited at a high level of generality (i.e., as a general means of collecting input for use in the evaluation step) and amounts to mere data collecting, which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity.
The claim did not recite additional elements. Note that, simply implementing the abstract idea on a generic computer is not a practical application of the abstract idea.
Step 2B:
The same analysis of Step 2A Prong Two applies here in 2B. The present claim does not recite any limitation that would integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Thus, claim 1 is not patent eligible. Same conclusion for dependent claims of claim 1. See below.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein: decomposing the input data comprises applying a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to the input data, and composing the output data comprises applying an inverse discrete wavelet transform (IDWT) to at least the weighted low-pass filtered data in the at least the first domain. (math concept)
3. The method of claim 1, wherein: transforming the low-pass filtered data to the frequency domain comprises applying a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) to the low-pass filtered data, and transforming the weighted low-pass filtered data from the frequency domain to the at least the first domain comprises applying an inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) to the weighted low-pass filtered data. (math concept)
4. The method of claim 1, wherein composing the output data for the numerical simulation comprises composing the output data based on i) the weighted low-pass filtered data in the at least the first domain and ii) the high-pass filtered data that captures the high-pass filtered version of the input data in the at least the first domain. (data description)
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising applying a second set of weights to the high-pass filtered data to generate weighted high-pass filtered data in the at least the first domain, (math concept)
wherein composing the output data for the numerical simulation comprises composing the output data on based on i) the weighted low-pass filtered data in the at least the first domain and ii) the weighted high-pass filtered data in the at least the first domain. (data description)
6. The method of claim 5, wherein applying the second set of weights to the high-pass filtered data comprises applying the second set of weights to a subset of high frequency coefficients in the high-pass filtered data, (math concept)
the subset including one or both of i) a subset of largest magnitude high frequency coefficients in the high-pass filtered data and ii) a subset of smallest magnitude high frequency coefficients in the high-pass filtered data. (data description)
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the input data is expressed in one or both of spatial domain and time domain. (data description)
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the numerical simulation models multi-phase flow of carbon dioxide (CO2) in sub-surface at a CO2 injection site. (data description)
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the input data comprises one or more parameters of the CO2 injection site, and the output data comprises one or both of saturation and pressure distribution of CO2 as a function of time as CO2 injected into the CO2 site propagates in the sub-surface at the CO2 injection site. (data description)
Same conclusion for independent claims 10 and 18 and dependent claims. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. In particular, the claim limitations do not recite a combination of additional elements that tie or “integrate the invention into a practical application”.
Thus, claims 1-20 are not patent eligible.
Claim 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. As per claim 18, the claim limitation recites “computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions”. However, the usage of the phrase “computer-readable storage medium” is broad enough to include both “non-transitory" and “transitory” (moving electrons, etc) media. The specification does not clearly limit the utilization of a non-transitory computer storage medium and, thus does not constitute functional descriptive material. Therefore, when the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claim must be rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. See In re Nuijten, 500 F. 3d 1346, 1356-57 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (transitory embodiments are not directed to statutory subject matter).
The USPTO recognizes that applicants may have claims directed to computer readable medium (also called machine readable medium and other such variations) that cover signals per se, which the USPTO must rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering both non-statutory subject matter and statutory subject matter. In an effort to assist the patent community in overcoming a rejection or potential rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in this situation, the USPTO suggests the following approach. A claim drawn to such a computer readable medium that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 by adding the limitation “non-transitory’ to the claim. Cf. Animals – Patentability, 1077 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 24 (April 21, 1987) (suggesting that applicants add the limitation “non-human” to a claim covering a multi-cellular organism to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101). Such an amendment would typically not raise the issue of new matter, even when the specification is silent because the broadest reasonable interpretation relies on the ordinary and customary meaning that includes signals per se. The limited situations in which such an amendment could raise issues of new matter occur, for example, when the specification does not support a non-transitory embodiment because a signal per se is the only viable embodiment such that the amended claim is impermissibly broadened beyond the supporting disclosure. See, e.g., Gentry Gallery, Inc. v. Berkline Corp., 134 F. 3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
Therefore, claim 18-20 are non-statutory.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 10 and 18 are objected but would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
1. Tao (NPL: Distortion-constraint compression of three dimensional CLSM images using image pyramid and vector quantization, 2005) teaches a method for developing a distortion-constraint three-dimensional image compression approach, using vector quantization techniques combined with image pyramid structures. See detail in chapter 4-6.
2. Wu et al (NPL: A multi-dimensional parametric study of variability in multi-phase flow dynamics during geologic CO2 sequestration accelerated with machine learning, 2021) teaches a novel workflow that utilizes physics based numerical simulation to train an artificial neural network (ANN) emulator for interrogating the multivariate parameter space that governs both capillary pressure and relative permeability.
3. Yang et al (NPL: Time-domain sparsity promoting least-squares reverse time migration with source estimation, 2020) teaches a scalable time-domain approach to sparsity promoting least-squares reverse-time migration (SPLS-RTM) with on-the-fly source estimation in principle suitable for industrial 3D imaging problems. The presented approach leverages recently developed techniques from convex optimization and variable projection that greatly reduce costs and the necessity to provide an estimate for the source function.
4. Degarrido (US 2014/0280417 A1) teaches a method for filtering a signal with a bi-orthogonal wavelet filter bank. A signal is decomposed, with a decomposition bank, into high-pass and low pass signal components using corresponding high-pass and low-pass filter decomposition kernels; a filtering processor applies noise filtering to the high-pass and low-pass signal components. A synthesis bank reconstructs a processed signal from the noise-filtered high-pass and low-pass signal components using corresponding high-pass and low-pass filter synthesis kernels, wherein the filter parameters defining the high-pass and low-pass filter decomposition kernels and the high-pass and low-pass filter synthesis kernels are generated with power complimentarity and perfect reconstruction restraints.
These references taken either alone or in combination with the prior art of record fail to disclose instructions, including:
Claims 1, 10 and 18: “applying a first set of weights to the low-pass filtered data in the frequency domain to generate weighted low-pass filtered data in the frequency domain;
transforming the weighted low-pass filtered data from the frequency domain to the at least the first domain; and composing output data for the numerical simulation based on at least the weighted low-pass filtered data in the at least the first domain.”
in combination with the remaining elements and features of the claimed invention.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHUEN-MEEI GAN whose telephone number is (469)295-9127. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm EST.
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/CHUEN-MEEI GAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2189