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 .
Status of the Claims
Claims 17-36 were pending with claims 1-16 previously withdrawn as non-elected. Claims 17-22, 24-35, 27-34 have been amended. Claims 26, 35-36 have been canceled. Claims 37-39 have been newly added. Thus, claims 17-25, 27-34, 37-39 are currently pending including independent claims 17, 27.
Claim Objections
The objection to claim 30 is removed in light of the remarks and amendments filed 01/08/2026.
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 17-25, 27-34, 37-39 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.
The term “discriminative” is recited by claims 17, 21, 22, 23, 27, 31, 32, 33. The term is unclear and confusing as no clear definition is provided in either the claims or in the specification as to the meaning of the term “discriminative” in the context of the claims. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claims 18-25, 28-34, 37-39 are dependent on claim 17 or claim 27 and are thus similarly rejected.
The rejections of claims 17-36 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) regarding the term “brighter and darker regions” are removed in light of the remarks and amendments filed 01/08/2026.
The rejections of claims 20, 30 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) regarding the “bright regions”, “dark regions”, “under-exposed”, “over-exposed”, “well-defined”, and “finer details” are removed in light of the remarks and amendments filed 01/08/2026.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The rejections under 35 U.S.C. 102 are removed in light of the remarks and amendments filed 01/08/2026.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 17, 27 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Claims 18-25, 28-34, 37-39 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 17, Lin (US 20200327648 A1) discloses a method of enhancing images ([0006] a method of adjusting images based on brightness), comprising:
receiving an input image ([0051], [0062] capturing an original image);
adjusting an exposure range of the input image, including synthetically changing exposures of portions of the input image associated with at least two intensity ranges to generate an exposure-adjusted image (Fig. 2, Fig. 3, [0062]-[0063], [0074]: adjusting exposure range of the original image including changing exposure of brighter and dark regions (i.e. two different intensity ranges, see EV0 and EV+) to generate an exposure-adjusted image);
determining discriminative features for the exposure-adjusted image ([0063] determining denoised images for the reference image; [0075] wherein the denoised images each discriminatively highlights details in different respective regions to be weighted); and
combining the discriminative features to generate an enhanced image ([0072] synthesizing the denoised images to generate a target image using the weights).
However, neither Lin nor any obvious combination of the closest known prior art discloses wherein synthetically changing exposures comprises: (i) applying a parametric non-linear exposure transformation function having one or more learnable parameters to the input image to generate a plurality of synthetic exposure-variant images, and (ii) combining at least two of the plurality of synthetic exposure-variant images to generate the exposure-adjusted image.
Similar reasoning applies to claim 27 which includes similar subject matter to claim 17. Dependent claims 18-25, 28-34, 37-39 are dependent on a claim which includes allowable subject matter and thus also include allowable subject matter.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 01/08/2026 have been fully considered and they are persuasive.
Applicant asserts on page 11 that “Lin does not teach or suggest a learnable parametric exposure-transformation function that is trained/tuned (i.e. learnable parameters) to generate the plurality of exposure variant images from the input image itself" as recited in amended claim 17. Examiner agrees. The rejection of amended claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. 102 as being anticipated by Lin is removed, as stated above.
Conclusion
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CAROLINE DEPALMA whose telephone number is (571)270-0769. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thurs 9:00am-4pm Eastern Time.
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/CAROLINE E. DEPALMA/Examiner, Art Unit 2675
/ANDREW M MOYER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2675
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