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 .
1. This is in response to the communications filed on 26 May 2026.
2. Claims 2-21 are pending in the application.
3. Claims 2-21 have been rejected.
4. Claim 1 has been cancelled in a preliminary amendment.
Information Disclosure Statement
5. The examiner has considered the information disclosure statement (IDS) filed on 03 April 2026.
Terminal Disclaimer
6. The terminal disclaimer filed on 26 May 2026 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of U.S. Patent No. 11,715,004 B2 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded.
Response to Arguments
7. Applicant's arguments filed 26 May 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On pages 7 and 8 the applicant argues that there is support for the claim limitation “disentangling, with the model, a latent vector and a manipulation vector”. The applicant argues that paragraph [019] discloses that "the machine-learning model can learn to disentangle the effect of manipulations from the effect of the ground truth (i.e. the true fact of what is actually being observed)." The applicant argues that further, paragraph [119] describes that the "[o]ur causally consistent model effectively disentangles the latent representation: Z and M models possible manipulations", while paragraph [138] describes that "deep CAMA naturally learns disentangled representation due to its independent mechanism design [t]his shows that deep CAMA can disentangle the intrinsic unknown style Z and the shifting manipulation variable M." The applicant argues that Figures 6(c) and 12 illustrate this disentanglement. The applicant argues that the "intrinsic unknown style Z" described in paragraph [138] is disclosed as the claimed latent vector in paragraphs [031], [063], [066], and [127], which describe "latent factors Z", a "latent vector Z", a "latent space Z", and "the latent unobserved cause in Z", respectively.
The examiner respectfully disagrees. Paragraph [019] discloses "the machine-learning model can learn to disentangle the effect of manipulations from the effect of the ground truth (i.e. the true fact of what is actually being observed)." However, this does not mention disentangling of a latent vector AND a manipulation vector. With paragraph [0019], there is not even a mention of disentangling of any vector just a latent representation. There is nothing disclosed in the specification that unknown style Z is the same as latent vector Z.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
8. Claims 2-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Independent claims 2, 15 and 20 all recite the limitation of “disentangling, with the model, a latent vector and a manipulation vector”. However, after a review of the applicant’s specification of the instant application as well as the specification of the parent application (U.S. Patent No. 11,715,004 B2) the examiner has not found support for the limitation. Since there is no support in the specification for this limitation it constitutes as new matter. The specification, at the time the application was filed, would not have taught one of ordinary skill in the art how to make and/or use the full scope of the claimed invention without undue experimentation. The state of the art existing at the filing date of the application is used to determine whether a particular disclosure is enabling as of the filing date.
Any claims not directly addressed are rejected on the virtue of their dependency.
Allowable Subject Matter
9. Claims 2-21 are allowed over the prior art.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The closest prior art to the instant application are Viswanathan US 2020/0175339 A1 and Li et al US 2021/0312296 A1 (hereinafter Li). Viswanathan is directed towards providing a lower-power perception architecture [abstract]. Viswanathan teaches a feature vector that comprises selected training features [0041]. Viswanathan teaches a training module that feeds the feature vectors of the training data set (e.g., the ground truth data) into the machine learning model [0041]. Viswanathan teaches determining a set of model parameters of the machine learning model [0043]. Li is directed towards a method of removing individual variation from emotional representations that may include classifying physiological data based on subject-independent emotion factors [abstract]. Li teaches disentangling, with the model (i.e. through building a model from sample inputs) [0018], a latent vector and a manipulation vector (i.e. using an individual-disentanglement encoder) [0018]. However, the prior art does not disclose, teach or fairly suggest the limitations of “the manipulation vector representing an effect of a potential manipulation occurring between the ground truth and the observation of the ground truth represented by the feature vector” and “the potential manipulation comprising manipulation of at least one of an image, audio content, or natural language content”, as recited by independent claims 2, 15 and 20.
Any claims not directly addressed are allowed on the virtue of their dependency.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Relevant Prior Art
10. The following references have been considered relevant by the examiner:
A. Liu et al US 2018/0288431 A1 directed to video generation, and more particularly to content and motion controlled action video generation [0002].
B. Taha et al US 2020/0234086 A1 directed to retrieval operations in neural networks, and more particularly, to modeling uncertainty for neural network retrieval operations [0001].
C. Park et al US 2020/0334543 A1 directed to a neural network that is trained to identify one or more features of an image [abstract].
Conclusion
11. 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 ARAVIND K MOORTHY whose telephone number is (571)272-3793. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 4:30-3:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Catherine Thiaw can be reached at 571-270-1138. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ARAVIND K MOORTHY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2407
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