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. Election/Restrictions Applicant’s arguments, see Response to Election/Restriction, filed 12/24/2025, with respect to Requirement for Restriction/Election have been fully considered and are persuasive. The Requirement for Restriction/Election of claims 1-8, 10-11 has been withdrawn. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101 35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows: Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title. Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because “computer readable storage medium” may or may not be non-transitory. For example, air medium carrying a transitory signal can be considered as computer-readable storage medium, which would be a non-statutory subject matter. 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 appl icant regards as his invention. Claims 1-8 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. In claims 1-8, there is a lack of clarification in what performs or executes the claimed method (e.g., by machine, or by something/someone else) , which triggers indefiniteness. And, may be due to translation, the term “operator” is used in multiple occurrences throughout claims 1-8, which is also indefinite because of multiple distinct definitions the word “operator” represents. For examination purpose, the broadest reasonable interpretation is taken. Claim Objections Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informalities: In claim 4, line 5, remove “(4)” to correct typo. 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. Claim (s) 1 -2 , 4 -6, 8, 10-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (“ Variable damping constraint tomography and its application in VSP Data ”) in view of Civiero et al. (“The Seismic Signature of Upper-Mantle Plumes: Application to the Northern East African Rift”). To claim 1, Huang teach a method for fault control beam tomography regularization, comprising: acquiring a seismic imaging data volume; extracting a coherence attribute from the seismic imaging data volume (page 178, column 2 lines 31-32, ray paths and travel times from shot to geophones can be calculated after determining the shot location ); obtaining an input ray density (page 179, column 1 lines 11-12, check ray coverage density quantitatively based on the uneven ray distribution ) ; calculating a fault control beam tomography operator according to coherence attribute and the input ray density (page 177, calculate operator G) ; and introducing the fault control beam tomography operator to a tomography inversion target function for regularization constraint, to obtain a tomography inversion target function into which the regularization constraint has been added. But , Huang do not expressly disclose resampling data of the coherence attribute to obtain a resampling coherence attribute corresponding to a tomography grid . Civiero teach a tomographic method resampling data of the coherence attribute to obtain a resampling coherence attribute corresponding to a tomography grid (pages 8-9 section 4.2, synthetic structure is imaged using the tomographic relative traveltime inversion for P and S wave velocity… To perform the resolution tests, the numerical models need to be projected onto the tomographic grid. This is done by preserving slowness within each nodal volume. Because the tomographic grid is coarser than the numerical one, some of the finer-scale features are smoothed when the numerical model is resampled onto the tomographic grid). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate teaching of Civiero into the method of Huang, in order to adapt and refine data. To claim 10, Huang and Civiero teach a computer device, comprising a memory on which a computer program is stored and a processor, wherein the processor, when executing the computer program, implements the method according to claim 1 (as explained in response to claim 1 above). To claim 11, Huang and Civiero teach a computer readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored, wherein when the computer program is executed by a processor, the method according to claim 1 is implemented (as explained in response to claim 1 above). To claim 2, Huang and Civiero teach claim 1. Huang and Civiero teach wherein in a step of the resampling the data of the coherence attribute to obtain the resampling coherence attribute corresponding to the tomography grid, a calculation formula of the resampling is: ( obvious as Huang Civiero teach resampling coherence attribute while claimed feature merely introduces parameters involved in resampling, which would also be well-known in the art, hence Official Notice is taken). To claim 4 , Huang and Civiero teach claim 1 . Huang and Civiero teach wherein in a step of the introducing the fault control beam tomography operator to the tomography inversion target function for regularization constraint, a preconditioned regularization operator is used to introduce the fault control beam tomography operator to the tomography inversion target function by a calculation formula: wherein L is a tomography inversion linearized operator, F is the fault control beam tomography operator, and u is a preconditioned solution (Huang, pages 178-180; and claimed feature merely introduces parameters involved in control operation, which would also be well-known in the art, hence Official Notice is also taken). To claim 5 , Huang and Civiero teach claim 1 . Huang and Civiero teach wherein after a step of the obtaining the tomography inversion target function into which the regularization constraint has been added, the method further comprises: solving the tomography inversion target function into which the regularization constraint has been added to obtain a velocity around a fault ( Civiero , page 2 section 1.1, page 8 section 4.2) . To claim 6 , Huang and Civiero teach claim 5 . Huang and Civiero teach wherein the acquiring the seismic imaging data volume comprises : acquiring the seismic imaging data volume according to the velocity around the fault ( Civiero , page 2 section 1.1, page 8 section 4.2). To claim 8, Huang and Civiero teach claim 1. Huang and Civiero teach wherein the input ray density is obtained by ray tracing (Huang, page 178, column 2 lines 31-32; Civiero , page 8 section 4.2). Claim (s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (“ Variable damping constraint tomography and its application in VSP Data ”) in view of Civiero et al. (“The Seismic Signature of Upper-Mantle Plumes: Application to the Northern East African Rift”) and Rasmussen et al. (US2006/0074610). To claim 7, Huang and Civiero teach claim 5. Huang and Civiero teach wherein a step of the solving the tomography inversion target function into which the regularization constraint has been added to obtain the velocity around the fault , but do not expressly discloses using a preconditioned conjugate gradient method to obtain the velocity around the fault. Rasmussen teach using a preconditioned conjugate gradient method to obtain the velocity around the fault (paragraph 0026), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the method of Huang and Civiero , in order to implement velocity update by design preference. Allowable Subject Matter Claim 3 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. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FILLIN "Examiner name" \* MERGEFORMAT ZHIYU LU whose telephone number is FILLIN "Phone number" \* MERGEFORMAT (571)272-2837 . The examiner can normally be reached FILLIN "Work Schedule?" \* MERGEFORMAT Weekdays: 8:30AM - 5:00PM . 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, FILLIN "SPE Name?" \* MERGEFORMAT Stephen R Koziol can be reached at FILLIN "SPE Phone?" \* MERGEFORMAT (408) 918-7630 . 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. FILLIN "Examiner Stamp" \* MERGEFORMAT ZHIYU . LU Primary Examiner Art Unit 2669 /ZHIYU LU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665 March 27, 2026