DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the amendment filed on 07/24/2026. Claims 1-4 and 13-16 have been amended and claims 8-12 have been cancelled. Claims 1 and 13 are independent claims. Claims 1-7 and 13-17 are pending in the case.
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 .
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.
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.
Claims 1-7 and 13-17 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. Specifically, the following limitations found in independent claims 1 and 13:
16-layer Visual Geometry Group
an addition node, coupled to an output of the final Adder convolution layer,
a feature addition path, connected from an output of the first Adder convolution layer to the addition node
the feature addition path including:
an attention layer, configured to receive an output of the first Adder convolution layer and apply attention to the output of the first Adder convolution layer to generate attention-processed first-layer features, and
a dimension matching kernel, configured to transform the attention-processed first-layer features, such that a dimensionality of the transformed attention-processed first-layer features matches a dimensionality of features output by the final Adder convolution layer,
wherein the addition node adds the transformed attention-processed first-layer features to the features output by the final Adder convolution layer to generate a combined feature map, and
Claim 2 and 14 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. Specifically, the following limitations found in dependent claims 2 and 14:
wherein the dimension matching kernel is further configured to transform the dimensionality of the attention-processed first- layer features, without changing information extracted by the first Adder convolution layer
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they include the following reference character(s) not mentioned in the description: 232, 224, 226 and 228 in Figure 2. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d), or amendment to the specification to add the reference character(s) in the description in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(b) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
The acronym SDD used throughout the specification however SDD is never defined and never explained. SDD appears to be used interchangeably with SSD.
Appropriate correction is required.
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
The acronym VGG-16 is used throughout the specification however VGG-16 is never defined and never explained. Additionally, VGG16 is used on page 9, line 17 as a substitute for VGG-16.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1-7 and 13-17 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) as set forth in this Office action and include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Relevant Art:
Examiner found the following relevant art that relevant to SWIN-transformer, single shot detectors and VGG-16 as claimed:
“Swin-Transformer-Based YOLOv5 for Small-Object Detection in Remote Sensing Images” by Cao et al
US20180158203A1 by Kanetake et al
US-20220156929-A1 by Wang et al
“An Empirical Study of Adder Neural Networks for Object Detection” by Chen et al
“Swin-Transformer-Enabled YOLOv5 with Attention Mechanism for Small Object Detection on Satellite Images” by Gong et al
“SSD: Single Shot MultiBox Detector” by Liu et al
“Video Swin Transformer” by Liu et al
“Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows” by Liu et al
“Adaptive Image Transformer for One-Shot Object Detection” by Chen et a
“FEA-Swin: Foreground Enhancement Attention Swin Transformer Network for Accurate UAV-Based Dense Object Detection” by Xu et al
“A Lower Complexity Deep Learning Method for Drones Detection” by Kassab et al
“Feature-Fused SSD: Fast Detection for Small Objects” by Cao et al, as it uses a SSD with a VGG16 architecture
“FD-SSD: An improved SSD object detection algorithm based on feature fusion and dilated convolution” by Yin et al, as it uses a SSD with a VGG16 architecture
“FSSD: Feature Fusion Single Shot Multibox Detector” by Li et al, as it uses a SSD with a VGG16 architecture
“Bird/Drone Detection and Classification using Classical and Deep Learning Methods” by Kassab et al, as the architecture described is similar to the described architecture
“US20230401838A1” by Chen et al, as figure 9 shows a Skip feature to an adder node to determine features.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 10/06/2023, with respect to 101 and 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 1-7 and 13-17 has been withdrawn.
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 CHARLES JEFFREY JONES JR whose telephone number is (703)756-1414. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00 - 5:00 EST.
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, Kakali Chaki can be reached at 571-272-3719. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/C.J.J./Examiner, Art Unit 2122
/MICHAEL H HOANG/PRIMARY EXAMINER, Art Unit 2122
