The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 1/21/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4 6-11 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Manuel Blanco Valentín (“Deep Learning Methods on Geological Reservoir Borehole Log Images and Applications”, CBPF – Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, 2018).
With respect to claim 1, Blanco teaches obtaining a period value of the pad artifacts in the ultrasonic image (page 48, ultrasonic borehole image, page 53-54 3.4.2.2 Automatic pad period detection) ;
modeling the pad artifacts as a periodic square wave on an azimuthal axis based on the period value of the pad artifacts (page 49, 3.4.2.1 Pad rejector filter design, model the traces that these pads leave noise added by the pads of the logging tool on each line of borehole image as a square wave);
providing a filter based on the modeling of the pad artifacts, wherein the filter is configured to remove the pad artifacts from the ultrasonic image (page 53, equation (3.26) and (3.27));
generating a modified ultrasonic image based on the filter and the ultrasonic image (page 102, In order to adjust the ultrasonic borehole image data to these conditions, first the pad-removal filter designed by Valentin (2018), and presented in 3.4.2, was applied to the ultrasonic borehole image data, so that the artifacts caused by the pads of the logging tool would be removed and the real values of ultrasonic response of the rock lying undernearth them would stand out)
determining one or more geological properties of the well based on the modified ultrasonic image (page 121, 7.3 Method for automatic pad artifact removal from borehole image logs, resulting image contains only the lithological information of the wellbore that was not caused by the artifacts.); and
characterizing the well based on the one or more geological properties of the well (page 121, 7.3 Method for automatic pad artifact removal from borehole image logs, help geologists and Petro physicists to analyze and extract information from these borehole logs more easily).
With respect to claim 2, Blanco teaches obtaining the period value of the pad artifacts in the ultrasonic image comprises receiving data with a complete azimuthal sweep, after sweeping 360֠ of a well wall (page 20 2.4.2 Acoustic Televiewers, Acoustic Televiewers are azimuthal imaging tools, which means that there is usually one sensor that rotates a certain number of times to cover all 360 degrees that form the borehole wall).
With respect to claim 3, Blanco teaches obtaining a magnitude of a one-dimensional spectrum of a Fourier transform of each line of an input the ultrasonic image (page 54, extract the 1-D fft for each line of our image)
With respect to claim 4, Blanco teaches calculating an average, by frequency, for all lines, to obtain an average of a one-dimensional spectrum for all lines of the ultrasonic image (page 54, Figure 3.17 – Average of the magnitude of the FFT obtained from the image Uxy for each line).
With respect to claim 6, Blanco teaches the periodic square wave is defined as an infinite summation of spaced square pulses of a constant value (page 51 equation (3.20)).
With respect to claim 7, Blanco teaches applying the Fourier transform to the square wave (page 51 equation (3.19)-(3.21)).
With respect to claim 8, Blanco teaches generating the modified ultrasonic image based on the filter and the ultrasonic image comprises multiplying the model and a two-dimensional Fourier transform of an input the ultrasonic image. (page 31, equation (3.27)).
With respect to claim 9, Blanco teaches generating the modified ultrasonic image comprises applying an inverse two- dimensional Fourier transform (page 31, equation (3.27), the reference does not explicitly teach inverse two- dimensional Fourier however it disclose two- dimensional Fourier transform, in order to get recognizable result image inverse Fourier transform is required).
With respect to claim 10, Blanco teaches the period value of the pad artifacts is obtained from a tool that performs amplitude measurements by a transducer of emission and reception of ultrasonic waves (page 47,Fig. 3.11).
With respect to claim 11, Blanco teaches the wells comprise a borehole for any type of reservoir and without casing (page 47,Fig. 3.11).
Claim 13 is rejected as same reason as claim 1 above.
Conclusion
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/RANDOLPH I CHU/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2667