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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
Claim(s) 21-40 have been examined.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 21-22, 24-32, 34-36, 38-40, are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-18 of U.S. Patent No. 11,900,433. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because instant claim(s) 21-22, 24-32, 34-36, 38-40 fully “read-on” or are anticipated by reference claim(s) 1-18 of U.S. Patent No. 11,900,433. This is a non-statutory, obviousness-type Double Patenting rejection with an anticipation analysis. See MPEP 804(II)(B)(1).
Remarks
The prior art of record neither alone nor in combination anticipates nor renders obvious the present invention. The limitations in claim 21, 31, and 40 are not taught by the prior art include: determining the one or more parameters associated with the image quality for the received image comprises determining a degree of obstruction of the item in the received image, the determining the degree of obstruction further comprising using an object detection model based on a neural network architecture applied to the received image to detect a presence of obstructions; the neural network architecture divides the received image into a plurality of regions, predicts bounding boxes and probabilities of each region, and weighs the bounding boxes by the predicted probabilities; and the bounding boxes bound the item and the obstructions such that the object detection model detects the degree of obstruction.
The most related prior art patent of record is Hao (US 10,467,507) which teaches creating an image listing and scoring an uploaded image for an item and the most related non-patent literature of record is Reference V (see PTO-892) which teaches using object detection models to detect obstructions in product listing images and updating the listing based on detection results. However, Hao and Reference U neither teach nor render obvious: determining the one or more parameters associated with the image quality for the received image comprises determining a degree of obstruction of the item in the received image, the determining the degree of obstruction further comprising using an object detection model based on a neural network architecture applied to the received image to detect a presence of obstructions; the neural network architecture divides the received image into a plurality of regions, predicts bounding boxes and probabilities of each region, and weighs the bounding boxes by the predicted probabilities; and the bounding boxes bound the item and the obstructions such that the object detection model detects the degree of obstruction.
Additional prior art related to the invention but not relied upon includes:
Reference U (see PTO-892) which teaches a neural network architecture that divides an image into a grid of regions, predicts bounding boxes and class probabilities for each region, weighs those bounding boxes by the predicted probabilities
Chen (US 2019/0130583) teaches an overlapping area between two bounding boxes is determined and the bounding boxes are weighted by predicted probabilities.
ZHOU (US 2019/0130191) teaches two bounding boxes and a degree of overlap between them and the bounding boxes are weighted by predicted probabilities.
In regards to Chen and ZHOU and Reference U, while these references disclose bounding-box prediction with associated probabilities, they do so in the context of object tracking in a video analytics system which is directed to a different problem (tracking objects across video frames) than the problem addressed by the claimed invention (assessing still-image quality to update an item listing). A person of ordinary skill in the art would not have had a reason, absent impermissible hindsight, to extract the bounding-box technique from these references’ video-tracking context and combine it with Hao (which teaches the item listing) and Kanter (US 9,152,990) which teaches updating an item listing, to arrive at the claimed invention.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW E ZIMMERMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5278. The examiner can normally be reached 8-4pm M-T, 8-12pm W.
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/MATTHEW E ZIMMERMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3688
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