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 .
The Request for Continued Examination of 14 July 2026 has been received and entered, including the amendment of 01 July 2026.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
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 1-20 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.
This is a new matter rejection based on the language added to Claims 1 and 11. The amendment of 1 July 2026 does not appear to identify support in the specification as filed for added language.
Claim 1 has been amended to specify that the input text and/or image data is received at the OICR engine. This appears to correspond with [0053] of the specification and subsequent description in [0054-0057]. However, this appears to describe the system in use and not the claimed training of the deep learning module. The last sentence of [0055] refers to training and assigning weights, but does not appear to include the remaining elements of the claims.
The model training appears to be best described at [0025-0036]. In particular [0025] describes much of the training, but does not appear to state that the input of the training is to the OICR engine. [0021] and [0024] describe the system as comprising an OICR engine and a machine learning model, and describe a method of training the machine learning model, but do not state that the text or images are received at the OICR engine, altered there, and then sent to the machine learning model.
[0019] describes Fig. 11 as “for receiving input data and training either an OICR engine or an end user model according to an embodiment”.
The most natural read of [0021] is that the “receiving input text and/or image data” is done at the machine learning system.
Where does the specification as filed describe
“receiving input text and/or image data at the OICR engine; altering the input text and/or image data to produce degraded data; training the machine learning system using the degraded data; receiving the degraded data into the machine learning system”
in the appropriate context as now required by Claim 1?
Claim 11 has been amended in a similar fashion; dependent claims 2-10 and 12-20 inherit this language from their parent claim; they are rejected for the same reason.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
With respect to claim 1, input is received at the OICR engine, and then it is altered to produce degraded data, and then the degraded data is used to train the machine learning system, and then the degraded data is received into the machine learning system. It is unclear how the machine leaning system is trained with the degraded data before the degraded data is received at the machine learning system.
Claim 11 has parallel indefiniteness; the dependent claims inherit this from their parent claims.
Conclusion
No prior art is applied in this action. The relevance of the pertinent art is identified in the prior actions, particularly the final rejection of 06 April 2026.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GREGORY A MORSE whose telephone number is (571)272-3838. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30-4.
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/GREGORY A MORSE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2698
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