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 Amendment
The amendment received 12/19/25 has been entered in full.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the pending claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection is used which teaches the amended limitations.
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.
Claim 8 is 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.
Claim 8 recites the limitation "the plurality of calculated LPIPS distances" in lines 2-3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Examiner suggests amending to “a plurality of calculated LPIPS distances”.
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 1-6, 7 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Piegert et al. US 2022/0174089 (hereinafter “Piegert”) in view of Laidlaw et al. Perceptual Adversarial Robustness: Defense Against Unseen Threat Models (hereinafter “Laidlaw”, included in the IDS).
Piegert discloses a detection device comprising: processing circuitry configured to: (see paragraph 0021 an automated detection system for identifying and classifying adversarial attacks, paragraph 0038 discloses that a processor for carrying out the method)
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acquire data to be detected and acquire normal reference data separately from the data to be detected ( see figure 4 S12 and above paragraph 0021 section a) provide a reference image and a potentially manipulated image [the potentially manipulated image here is interpreted as the data to be detected], see also paragraph 0070, an original image captured by a vehicle camera)
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classifying the acquired data into either a Clean Sample or an Adversarial Example by using n-metrics
Piegert does not explicitly disclose calculate a Learned Perceptual Image Patch Similarity (LPIPS) distance between the acquired data and the reference data.
Laidlaw proposes an adversarial attack detection model that uses LPIPS distance as part of an improved model for determining adversarial threat levels in a perceptual adversarial robustness model thus enhancing the detection of adversarial attacks (see section from pages 2-3)
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Piegert and Laidlaw are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of adversarial attack detection.
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Piegert and Laidlaw to use the LPIPS distance as the n-metric in Piegert. The motivation would be to improve the adversarial attack detection by measuring with a level that accurately reflects human perception and therefore improve the detection.
Regarding claim 2, as discussed above Piegert discloses an abnormality score [s14 n metrics is calculated which quantify differences between the original image and potentially manipulated image, see paragraph 0089]
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and as discussed above it would be obvious to use Laidlaw’s teaching of using LPIPS distance to classify the sample as clean or abnormal (see above cited section from pages 2-3).
Regarding claim 3, Laidlaw discloses learn the model for classifying data into normal or abnormal, using the calculated LPIPS distance as an abnormality score (see section 5 which discloses perceptual adversarial training using the LPIPS distance).
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Regarding claim 4, although not specifically specified what type of image is used for the adversarial detection it is well known that signs on roads captured by cameras are common instances where adversarial examples are found to which the Examiner declares official notice. Thus it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art to use the invention specified above for capture signs.
Claims 5-6 are similarly analyzed and rejected to claim 1.
Regarding claim 7, Piegert discloses acquiring a prediction class of the data to be detected (see S18, classifying the calculated metrics which come from the image, thus interpreted as prediction class of the data).
Regarding claim 9, Piegert discloses the detection device is incorporated into an autonomous vehicle (see paragraph 0070 copied above, a multicamera system in an autonomous vehicle).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 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 (note the 112 rejection of claim 8 must also be overcome).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN B STREGE whose telephone number is (571)272-7457. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5 (PST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chan Park can be reached at (571)272-7409. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOHN B STREGE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2669