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 .
Response to Remarks
The Office Action has been made issued in response to amendment filed January 02, 2026. Claims 1-4, 6-14 and 16-20 are pending. Applicant’s arguments have been carefully and respectfully considered in light of the instant amendment, and are not persuasive. Accordingly, this action has been made FINAL.
Claim Rejections – 35 USC section § 103
Applicant argues on page 15, Wilensky does not teach measuring one or more parameters including at least one of a speed, a length, a pressure, or a time duration of the at least one user input.
In Response, the Examiner disagrees. Wilensky teaches “measuring the magnitude of a modification (e.g., the magnitude of change for parameter values) is based on the relative displacement of a movement in a particular direction. For example, the digital image enhancement system 110 can identify a horizontal distance between an initial location of a movement and a subsequent location of the movement and modify parameter values of a first parameter proportionate to the horizontal distance” (see [p][0056]). Further, Wilensky teaches the digital image enhancement system 110 displays the digital image 1006 for the duration of the user input (e.g., until the long press event is complete) [p][0133]. These two citation clearly shows that Wilensky teach “one or more parameters including at least one of a speed, a length, a pressure, or a time duration of the at least one user input.
Examiner Notes
In an effort to expedite the case, the Examiner contacted Applicant (Stuart Lee, Reg # 61,124) on March 19, 2026 to discuss amending independent similar to independent claim 4. However, Applicant prefers a written Office Action.
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 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 of this title, 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.
Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilensky et al (Pub No.: US20200394773A1) in view of Back et al (NPL titled: Lightweight Image Enhancement Network for Mobile Devices Using Self-Feature Extraction and Dense Modulation [cited in IDS]).
As to independent claim 1, Price discloses an artificial intelligence based method to correct artifacts in an image or a video (utilizing gesture inputs on a digital image to modify corresponding digital image parameters to accurately generate enhanced digital image – see [p][[0006]), the method comprising: receiving at least one of user input on at least a portion of the image or a video (see [p][0030] for a digital image and [p][0050] the digital image enhancement system 110 can monitor user interaction with the digital image enhancement user interface (e.g., mouse movements or movements of a finger on a touchscreen) and modify the location of the transparent sensor); measuring one or more parameters including at least one of a speed, a length, a pressure, or a time duration of the at least one user input (the magnitude of a modification (e.g., the magnitude of change for parameter values) is based on the relative displacement of a movement in a particular direction. For example, the digital image enhancement system 110 can identify a horizontal distance between an initial location of a movement and a subsequent location of the movement and modify parameter values of a first parameter proportionate to the horizontal distance – see [p][0056]); and activating at least one of a plurality of neural networks or activating at least one of a plurality of neural network layers of a neural network (the color analysis model 310 comprises a machine learning model (such as a neural network). For example, the color analysis model 310 can include a convolutional neural network that classifies the digital image content 308 to generate the digital image features 312. To illustrate, the digital image enhancement system 110 can utilize a neural network classifier to determine a predominant color, brightness, or saturation for the digital image content – see [p][0073]), wherein the plurality of neural networks and the plurality of neural network layers are pre-trained to correct the artifacts iteratively (the digital image enhancement system 110 utilizes pre-trained neural networks – see [p][0078] and the digital image enhancement system 110 can iteratively change different parameters utilizing a sensor – see [p][0121]), in response to a measurement result of one or more artifact modification parameters, wherein the one or more artifact modification parameters are based on the at least one user input (a such a feature that responds to green, leaf-textured image content could drive changes in parameters associated with foliage such as changing green hues and changing medium spatial frequency content so as to control leaf sharpness without sharpening noise – see [p][0078]); however, Price does not expressly discloses wherein the neural networks is lightweight.
Back discloses a lightweight image enhancement network including wherein the neural networks is lightweight (see section 2.1).
Price and Back are combinable because they are from the same field of endeavor. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to incorporate the lightweight image enhancement network Back into the utilizing gesture inputs on a digital image to generate enhanced digital image of Price to easily learn texture detail and structural information of high-quality images without any loss from channel reduction while using only a small number of parameters. Since conventional approaches using dense connection are optimized for reconstructing structural information (see section 2.3). Such a modification is the result of combining prior art elements according to known methods, they would have performed as expected, and the results would have been predictable.
As to claim 3, Price teaches the method, further comprising determining a type among a plurality of types of the at least one user input, wherein the at least one user input corresponds to a different type of artifact comprising a noise effect (see [p][0078]), a blur effect, or a reflection shadow in the image or the video.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 6-14 and 16-20 allowed.
Claim 2 is 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Inquiries
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDRAE S ALLISON whose telephone number is (571)270-1052. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 9am-5pm EST.
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/ANDRAE S ALLISON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2673
March 23, 2026