Detailed Action
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/08/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/20/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/08/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
The amended claims and associated applicant arguments/ remarks filed on 1/8/2026 were received and considered.
Claims 1 and 10 have been amended.
Claims 1-17 are pending.
Upon entry of the claim amendments, the claims 10-16 are now being examined and no longer withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed 01/08/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-9, and 17 under USC 103 have been fully considered. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Saricam et al. (Estimation of RQD by digital image analysis using a shadow-based method).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Canny (refer to “Canny Edge Detection” mentioned in the IDS filed on 3/1/2023) and further in view of Jesus et al. (refer to “Permeability Estimation Using Ultrasonic Borehole Image Logs in Dual-Porosity Carbonate Reservoirs” mentioned in the IDS filed on 3/1/2023) and Saricam et al. (Estimation of RQD by digital image analysis using a shadow-based method) referred to as Saricam hereinafter.
Regarding claim 1, Canny teaches A computational script stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium for treating images, (“A C++ implementation of the algorithm” Canny, p.1, Introduction) using a Canny Edge Detection algorithm the computation script comprises the following operations: (“Canny’s Edge Detector is optimal for a certain class of edges” Canny, p.1, Introduction)
applying a 5x5 Gaussian filter to smooth an image of a well and reduce noise in the image: (“Therefore the image is first smoothed by applying a Gaussian filter.” Canny, p. 1, 2.1 Smoothing, and equation (1))
calculating an image intensity gradient of each pixel in the smoothed image; (“Finding gradients: The edges should be marked where the gradients of the image has large magnitudes.” Canny, p. 2, step 2 of The Canny Edge Detection Algorithm)
removing pixels that do not correspond to an edge of the image based on the image intensity gradient of each pixel; (“2. Compare the edge strength of the current pixel with the edge strength of the pixel in the positive and negative gradient direction. I.e. if the gradient direction is north (theta = 90◦), compare with the pixels to the north and south.
3. If the edge strength of the current pixel is largest; preserve the value of the edge strength.
If not, suppress (i.e. remove) the value.
A simple example of non-maximum suppression is shown in Figure 4. Almost all pixels have gradient directions pointing north. They are therefore compared with the pixels above and below. The pixels that turn out to be maximal in this comparison are marked with white borders. All other pixels will be suppressed.” Canny, p. 4, 2.3 Non-maximum suppression)
determining which remaining pixels are true edges based on predefined image intensity gradient upper and lower limits; and (“The edge-pixels remaining after the non-maximum suppression step are (still) marked with their strength pixel-by-pixel. Many of these will probably be true edges in the image, but some may be caused by noise or color variations for instance due to rough surfaces. The simplest way to discern between these would be to use a threshold, so that only edges stronger that a certain value would be preserved. The Canny edge detection algorithm uses double thresholding.” Canny, p. 5)
However Canny does not teach treating well images, highlighting textural and structural variations of rock in an image with the determined true edges.
Jesus teaches treating well images (“Ultrasonic-image-derived estimated permeability curves were calculated for three different wells drilled in karstified carbonate reservoirs” Jesus, abstract)
highlighting textural and structural variations of rock in an image with the determined true edges. (“The natural and artificial irregularities on the wall surface cause divergence of the incident and reflected acoustic waves (Luthi, 2000), scattering the trajectory of the acoustic beam, which is not reflected at the ideal 90o angle at an uneven surface. Those irregularities are related to textural and structural variations of the reservoir that may be caused by actual geological structures or by artifacts, i.e., structures of a nongeological nature, related to drilling, logging, well instability (e.g., borehole breakouts) and the invasion process. The intensity of the divergence created is a function of the structure dimensions such as depth (into the wall) and length (Fig. 6)… The availability of the 500-kHz frequency emission pattern in the acoustic image logs has made it possible to improve upon facies and structural identification in the image logs (Faraguna et al., 1989). A higher frequency source creates a shorter wavelength, which interacts with the reservoir structures that are proportional to its size, resulting in a higher resolution image log. This allows us to distinguish impedance variations and rugosity variations from the meter scale to the centimeter/millimeter scale.” Jesus, p. 626) and figs. 6-7
Canny and Jesus are combinable because they are from the same field of endeavor, image processing in geology.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canny in light of Jesus’s treating well images. One would have been motivated to do so because it can help building a more accurate reservoir model and for the reservoir exploitation. (Jesus, p. 635)
However, the combination of Canny and Jesus does not teach and quantifying edge contrasts by depth based on the determined true edges.
Saricam teaches and quantifying edge contrasts by depth based on the determined true edges. (“After finding strong edges in gray core box image using Canny18 edge detector, the edges that come from the box itself are removed by applying the core mask to the edge image. Next, a contour connection graph is created. A contour connection graph is a graph which is formed by considering contours (detected edges) as graph nodes and the smallest distance between the contours as graph edges. Visualization of a sample graph can be found in Fig. 7.” Saricam, p. 257, 3.2.2.2.1. Separating touching cores) and (“First, the 0.05-m pink marker's position is retrieved by color thresholding. The marker's position indicates the position of the core retrieved from the shallowest depth compared to the other cores inside the core box. Since the placement of the cores in the box follow a snake-like pattern with respect to their depth, which rows store the cores upside-down can be detected using the marker's position (Fig. 15). Next, the cores placed upside down are flipped in XY. Finally, each core is placed to their right depth in the depth image.” Saricam, p. 260, 3.4. Depth image creation)
Canny, Jesus, and Saricam are combinable because they are from the same field of endeavor, image processing in geology.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canny and Jesus in light of Saricam’s quantifying edge contrasts by depth. One would have been motivated to do so because it can improve accuracy of the process.
Regarding claim 2, Canny teaches wherein the script uses the Canny Edge Detection algorithm through customized parameterizations. (“The simplest way to discern between these would be to use a threshold, so that only edges stronger that a certain value would be preserved.” Canny, 2.4 Double thresholding)
Regarding claim 5, Canny teaches wherein the predefined image intensity gradient the upper and lower limits are defined by the user, to highlight textural and structural variations of the image. (“Edge pixels stronger than the high threshold are marked as strong; edge pixels weaker than the low threshold are suppressed and edge pixels between the two thresholds are marked as weak.” Canny, p. 5, 2.4 Double thresholding)
Regarding claim 6, Canny teaches wherein the script allows removal of artifacts (“Smoothing: Blurring of the image to remove noise” Canny, p. 2, 2 The Canny Edge Detection Algorithm) from the image, wherein the artifacts comprise tool marks. (“The edge-pixels remaining after the non-maximum suppression step are (still) marked with their strength pixel-by-pixel. Many of these will probably be true edges in the image, but some may be caused by noise or color variations for instance due to rough surfaces.” Canny, p. 5, 2.4 Double thresholding)
Regarding claim 8, Canny teaches wherein the script allows analyzing images of a well sequentially, optionally analyzing the images of the well in terms of their resolution in DPI, height and width in pixels and/or inches. (“The training geologic core images have a resolution. The pixels and/or voxels of the core image define the resolution of the training image. If the training image is two-dimensional then the training image is comprised of a plurality of pixels, where the area defined by each pixel represents a maximum resolution of the training image. If the training image is three-dimensional then the training image is comprised of a plurality of voxels, where the volume defined by each voxel represents a maximum resolution of the training image. The resolution of the training image should be selected to provide a pixel and/or voxel size at which the desired geological features are sufficiently resolved and at which a sufficient field of view is provided so as to be representative of the core sample for a given geological feature to be analyzed.” Solum, para. [0038])
Regarding claim 17, Canny teaches wherein calculating the image intensity gradient of each pixel in the smoothed image comprises applying a Sobel Kernel filter for each pixel in the smoothed image. (“Gradients at each pixel in the smoothed image are determined by applying what is known as the Sobel-operator.” Canny, p. 3, 2.2 Finding gradients)
Claim(s) 3, 4, and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Canny, Jesus, and Saricam as mentioned above and further in view of Solum et al. (US 20230145880 A1) referred to as Solum hereinafter.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Canny, Jesus, and Saricam does not teach wherein the scripts extracts edge contour contrasts observed in the image, wherein the edge contour contrasts comprise image profiles, tomographic image or testimonial photos, and/or lateral sample.
Solum teaches wherein the scripts extracts edge contour contrasts observed in the image, wherein the edge contour contrasts comprise image profiles, tomographic image or testimonial photos, and/or lateral sample. (“Images of geologic cores can also be collected by an indirect or direct measurement of a physical or chemical property of the geologic core, including without limitation, computed tomography (“CT”) scans” Solum, para. [0029] and fig. 1)
Canny, Jesus, Saricam, and Solum are combinable because they are from the same field of endeavor, image processing in geology.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canny, Jesus, and Saricam in light of Solum’s computed tomography. One would have been motivated to do so because it can improve conventional processes by improving resolution, accuracy, efficiency and transferability of the method. (Solum, para. [0010])
Regarding claim 4, Solum teaches wherein the script highlights textural and structural variations of the image to assist in interpretation of image facies. (“FIG. 1 illustrates a preferred embodiment of a first aspect of the method of the present invention 10 for training a backpropagation-enabled process 12 for structural geological features. In this embodiment, a set 22 of training core images 24A-24n of structural geological features are inputted to the backpropagation-enabled process 12” Solum, para. [0042])
Canny, Jesus, Saricam, and Solum are combinable because they are from the same field of endeavor, image processing in geology.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canny, Jesus, and Saricam in light of Solum’s highlighting variations. One would have been motivated to do so because it can produce a core description in a time-efficient manner with better resolution and accuracy than conventional processes (Solum, para. [0017])
Regarding claim 7, Solum teaches wherein the image with the determined true edges is viewed individually, and/or superimposed on the original. (“the core sample should be of sufficient size such that characteristics of the bulk sample predominate over the characteristics of the edges of the sample at the scale or field of view of the image to be generated” Solum, para. [0028] and fig. 1)
Canny, Jesus, Saricam, and Solum are combinable because they are from the same field of endeavor, image processing in geology.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canny, Jesus, and Saricam in light of Solum’s edge is viewed individually/ superimposed. One would have been motivated to do so because it can improve conventional processes by improving resolution, accuracy, efficiency and transferability of the method. (Solum, para. [0010])
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Canny, Jesus, Saricam as mentioned above and official notice.
Regarding claim 9, Solum teaches wherein data of edge density are exported in a *.txt file and a graph of these data in *.PNG format. (“Examples of structural geological features include, without limitation, veins, fractures, bedding contacts, mechanical units' boundaries, stylolites, discontinuities (such as, for example, fracture-enhanced vugs), changes in density, deformed and undeformed regions, deformation bands, and the like.” Solum, para. [0018])
Official notice is taken that txt is a common text format to keep size of the file small.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canny, Jesus Saricam in light of Saricam’s detecting density as taught by txt format via the official notice. One would have been motivated to do so because it can keep the size of the file small.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10-16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Regarding claim 10, the combination of the closest prior arts does not teach: adjusting a tomographic profile depth through correlation between a coregamma curve measured in a laboratory and a reference gamma ray curve of a first profiling run acquiring data in a well; fine adjusting the tomographic profile depth with correlation of textures and geological surfaces observed in an image profile of the well and in the tomographic profile; taking lateral samples from pre-established depths of the well; repositioning of lateral samples, wherein repositioning of the lateral samples comprises determining the exact depth at which the lateral samples were taken based on the image profile of the well; calibrating different facies through textural and structural comparison between rock data from the lateral samples taken and the image profile of the well; interpreting facies in the image profile using the highlighted textural and structural variations of rock in the image with the determined true edges from the computational script for treating images; and extrapolating image facies for depths of unsampled intervals between lateral samples of the well.
Conclusion
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/PARDIS SOHRABY/Examiner, Art Unit 2664
/JENNIFER MEHMOOD/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2664