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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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 1-28 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.
As to claim 1, claim limitation “at least one data acquisition device of any kind, configured to provide as outputs therefrom first and second data sets associated with at least one object” has been evaluated under the three-prong test set forth in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, but the result is inconclusive. Thus, it is unclear whether this limitation should be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because while the “device… configured to” language can invoke 35 USC 112(f) (see MPEP 2181, which lists “device for” as a non-structural generic placeholder that may invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f)), the “of any kind” modifier appears to broaden the interpretation of the “data acquisition device” beyond what is described in applicant’s specification. The boundaries of this claim limitation are ambiguous; therefore, the claim is indefinite and is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph.
In response to this rejection, applicant must clarify whether this limitation should be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. Mere assertion regarding applicant’s intent to invoke or not invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph is insufficient. Applicant may:
(a) Amend the claim to clearly invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, by reciting “means” or a generic placeholder for means, or by reciting “step.” The “means,” generic placeholder, or “step” must be modified by functional language, and must not be modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function;
(b) Present a sufficient showing that 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, should apply because the claim limitation recites a function to be performed and does not recite sufficient structure, material, or acts to perform that function;
(c) Amend the claim to clearly avoid invoking 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, by deleting the function or by reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to perform the recited function; or
(d) Present a sufficient showing that 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, does not apply because the limitation does not recite a function or does recite a function along with sufficient structure, material or acts to perform that function.
Claim 1, line 20 recites “perform respective Fourier transforms, if necessary”. It is unclear what would define necessity to perform these transforms. One person’s definition of a “necessary” transform can differ from another’s, and thus the claim cannot be interpreted definitely. Claim 15, line 13 recites a similar limitation.
Claim 1 recites the limitation “the information and resolution assessment” in line 22. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 15, line 14 recites a similar limitation.
Claim 1, line 31 recites “for three or multi-dimensional data sets”, but “two-dimensional data sets” would be a part of “multi-dimensional data sets” and are treated differently in the claim, raising ambiguity about how exactly two-dimensional data sets are treated. Claim 14, line 8; claim 15, line 21; and claim 27, line 9 recite similar limitations.
Claim 1, lines 28-32 recite various variables that are not defined- for example, while FRC and FSC are known terms of art, FC is not. Further, it is unclear what the “12” subscript notation on each variable represents. Further, it is unclear what the terms ri and xi represent and exactly what the variable K is, although for prior art purposes K will be interpreted as any constant. Similar issues occur in claim 14, lines 5-9; claim 15, lines 18-22; and claim 27, lines 6-10.
Claim 4 recites the limitation “the differences in the visualized representation” in lines 3-4. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 18, line 4 recites a similar limitation.
Claim 9 recites the limitation “the at least one representation of the data set” in line 4. There is unclear antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim, since claim 1, on which claim 9 depends recites representation of multiple data sets.
Claim 10 recites the limitation “the sums of the data” in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 24, line 29 recites a similar limitation.
Claims 13 and 28 are use claims, and indefinite because they attempt to claim a use of a system or process without setting forth any limitations delimiting how the use is actually practiced (see MPEP 2173.05(q)). Claim 13 recites adapting and configuring the system for use in a number of applications, but does not include any system components or limitations of existing system components that would function to implement the applications recited. Similarly, claim 28 recites adapting and configuring the method for use in a number of applications, but does not include any active, positive steps delimiting how the use of the method in these applications is actually practiced.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-5, 9, 13, 15-19, 23, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shim (U.S. Publication 2020/0152216) in view of Penczek (“Chapter Three….”)
As to claim 1, Shim discloses a system configured to, based on one or more data sets in any dimension of at least one object (p. 5, section 0098), provide information content in any form of representation or visualization comprising:
(a) at least one computing device (figs. 4 and 8), and
(b) at least one data acquisition device of any kind, configured to provide as outputs therefrom first and second data sets associated with at least one object (fig. 11; p. 1, section 0005; data is acquired in the form of sound information, associated with an object such as a user or an object from the user’s surroundings),
wherein the computing device is configured to
(i) receive the acquisition data sets, either available as Real space or Fourier space data (fig. 11; fig. 16; p. 6, section 0106; real space intensity data is received from the microphones);
(ii) perform respective Fourier transforms, if necessary, over at least portions of the input data sets (fig. 11; fig. 16) for the information and resolution assessment (figs. 14a-14c; p. 6, sections 0109-0126; the Fourier transformed data is assessed based on a particular resolution of partitions and the information therein is classified into those partitions);
(iii) evaluate respective Fourier transforms of at least one of the data sets using the information content determination algorithm to generate output representative of the differences between data (figs. 15-16; a difference signal between the two Fourier-transformed data signals is generated and partitioned into frequency bands).
Shim does not disclose, but Penczek discloses using the formula K * log((1+FSC)/(1-FSC)) for evaluating correlation/differences of multi-dimensional sets (p. 85, eq. 3.16; K would be ½ in this case). Pencsek further discloses using the same concept for 2D applications with FRC instead of FSC (p. 80; the two are defined the same but with different labels for historical reasons). The one-dimensional transform in this claim is defined by the variable “FC” which is not a term of art, like FRC and FSC are. However, as best understood, this is a Fourier correlation and would work the exact same way in one-dimension as the FRC and FSC do in 2 and 3 dimensions, respectively. Thus, the FSC/FRC equation in Penczek would also read on an FC equation and the FRI, FSI, and FI values claimed would be obvious from the combination of references. The motivation for this is to compensate for a complexly distributed correlation coefficient. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Shim to use the formula K * log((1+FSC)/(1-FSC)) and similar formulas for evaluating correlation/differences of multi-dimensional sets in order to compensate for a complexly distributed correlation coefficient as taught by Penczek.
The only other difference between the equations in Penczek and the claimed invention is the claimed invention’s use of a base 2 logarithm instead of the base 10 logarithm in Penczek. However, this is still an obvious variation of the prior art, since it is a simple size/scale change, and there is no disclosed criticality of the use of base 2 in applicant’s disclosure. Scaling of a process, such as the change between base 10 and base 2 in the equations in Penczek vs the claimed invention, does not establish patentability over an old process (see MPEP 2144.04), especially absent any disclosed or implicit advantage for one scale over the other.
As to claim 2, Shim discloses wherein the system is further configured to provide a visual representation to a user of the information content output (fig. 13; p. 6, section 0108; the information output is represented on a display as a spectrogram, with colors representing differences in intensity).
As to claim 3, Shim discloses wherein the visual representation provided to the user is color coded to represent differences in the visualized information content output (fig. 13; p. 6, section 0108; the information output is represented on a display as a spectrogram, with colors representing differences in intensity).
As to claim 4, Shim discloses wherein the differences in the visualized representation correspond to changes in properties or characteristics of the object (fig. 13; p. 6, section 0102; p. 6, section 0108; the color-coded differences are representing change in the sound frequency difference property/characteristic associated with the user/object over time).
As to claim 5, Shim discloses wherein the properties or characteristics are one or more of biological, physical, chemical, magnetic, nuclear, and structural (p. 6, sections 0109-0126; properties of sound waves, including frequency, intensity, and direction read on physical properties).
As to claim 9, Shim discloses wherein the system further comprises: a display, screen, or monitor operably connected to at least one computing device and configured to visually display to a user the at least one representation of the data set corresponding to, at least portions of the information content output (fig. 13; p. 2, section 0029; p. 6, section 0108; the information output is represented on a display as a spectrogram, with colors representing differences in intensity).
As to claim 13, Shim discloses wherein the system is adapted and configured for use in one or more of the following applications: (a) electron microscopy; (b) light microscopy (c) atomic force microscopy (d) other microscopies (e) photography; (f) medical imaging, including X-ray, MRI, MT, NMR, and CAT-scan imaging; (g) geophysical data processing, including seismic data processing; (h) remote sensing, including remote earth sensing; (i) information communication, including optical fiber, electromagnetic, magnetic, electrical, radio, wired, wireless, LAN, WAN, and internet applications; (j) image processing; (k) image analysis; (l) image display; (m) information or data processing; (n) information or data analysis; and (o) information of data display (fig. 13; p. 6, sections 0108-0126; sound would read on an information communication application; the processing of it would read on information/data processing and information/data analysis; the display of analyzed difference information would read on image processing, information display, and information of data display).
As to claim 15, see the rejection to claim 1.
As to claim 16, see the rejection to claim 2.
As to claim 17, see the rejection to claim 3.
As to claim 18, see the rejection to claim 4.
As to claim 19, see the rejection to claim 5.
As to claim 23, see the rejection to claim 9.
As to claim 28, see the rejection to claim 13.
Claims 6, 7, 20, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shim in view of Penczek and further in view of Majumdar (U.S. Publication 2012/0194522).
As to claim 6, Shim does not disclose, but Majumdar discloses, wherein the system is further configured to permit a user to selectably change information content thresholds in the information content output (p. 11, sections 0103-0105; content thresholds in content output can be defined by the end user). The motivation for this is to highlight groups of interest. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Shin and Penczek to permit a user to selectably change information content thresholds in the information content output in order to highlight groups of interest. as taught by Majumdar.
As to claim 7, Shim does not disclose, but Majumdar discloses wherein the system is further configured to permit a user to selectably change colors in the information content output (p. 9, section 0091; a user input changes color coding in a content graph). Motivation for the combination is given in the rejection to claim 6.
As to claim 20, see the rejection to claim 6.
As to claim 21, see the rejection to claim 7.
Claims 8 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shim in view of Penczek and further in view of Tewfik (U.S. Patent 8,149,961).
As to claim 8, Shim does not disclose, but Tewfik discloses wherein the system is further configured to align at least portions of the input data sets before generating the transformed data sets (col. 3, lines 26-52; input filtered signals are aligned before a Fourier transform is applied). The motivation for this is to refine a coarse resolution achieved by simple correlation. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Shim and Penczek to align at least portions of the input data sets before generating the transformed data sets in order to refine a coarse resolution achieved by simple correlation as taught by Tewfik.
As to claim 22, see the rejection to claim 8.
Claims 10-12 and 24-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shim in view of Penczek and further in view of Weng (U.S. Publication 2021/0378580).
As to claim 10, Shim does not disclose, but Weng discloses wherein the system is further configured to estimate the information content output by using at least one or more portions of the sums of the data, rather than the data directly, for generating the information content output (p. 3, section 0025; the information signal is converted using a Fourier transform and a sum of power of a frequency band is used to determine information content regarding quality). The motivation for this is that instead of instant reads, one skilled in the art can select a length of a time segment according to actual needs. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Shim and Penczek to estimate the information content output by using at least one or more portions of the sums of the data, rather than the data directly, for generating the information content output in order to enable one skilled in the art to select a length of a time segment according to needs as taught by Weng.
As to claim 11, Shim discloses wherein the estimated resolutions are global or local (figs. 14a-14c; p. 6, sections 0109-0126; the Fourier transformed data is assessed based on a particular resolution of partitions and the information therein is classified into those partitions; the resolution of partitions varies locally).
As to claim 12, Shim does not disclose, but Weng discloses wherein the system is further configured to estimate a quality or efficiency of at least one of the data acquisition device using at least portions of the information content output (p. 3, section 0025; the information signal is converted using a Fourier transform and a sum of power of a frequency band is used to determine information content regarding quality; the quality is associated with an electrode wire for acquiring signals for brain wave monitoring). Motivation for the combination is given in the rejection to claim 10.
As to claim 24, see the rejection to claim 10.
As to claim 25, see the rejection to claim 11.
As to claim 26, see the rejection to claim 12.
Claims 14 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shim in view of Penczek and further in view of Kniffin (U.S. Publication 2018/0052185).
As to claim 14, Shim in view of Penczek does not disclose, but Kniffin discloses wherein the system is further configured to generate at least one Transducer Information Efficiency TIE metric for at least the data acquisition device (p. 4, section 0024; a Fourier representation of an output of a transducer is divided by the Fourier representation of the input to determine a transfer function, which would also read on an efficiency metric since it determines how efficiently an input is transferred to an output). Plugging the Fourier-based FRI, FSI, and FI values taught by the combination of references discussed in the rejection to claim 1 into the equation in Kniffin would result in the FRI out/FRI in, FSI out/FSI in and FI out/FI in calculations recited in the claim for 2D, 3D, and 1D sets respectively. The motivation for this is to determine calibrated measurements of a physical stimulus (p. 1, section 0012-p. 2, section 0013). It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Shim and Penczek to generate at least one Transducer Information Efficiency TIE metric for at least the data acquisition device in order to determine calibrated measurements of a physical stimulus as taught by Kniffin.
As to claim 27, see the rejection to claim 14.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AARON M RICHER whose telephone number is (571)272-7790. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM.
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/AARON M RICHER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2617
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