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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in EP on 06/21/2021, an application filed in EP on 07/21/2021, an application filed in EP on 08/30/2021, and an application filed in EP on 09/16/2021. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the EP 21305845.6, EP 21306026.2, EP 21306163.3 and EP 21306276.3 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
CONTINUING DATA
This application is a 371 of PCT/EP2022/066476 06/16/2022
FOREIGN APPLICATIONS
EP 21305845.6 06/21/2021
EP 21306026.2 07/21/2021
EP 21306163.3 08/30/2021
EP 21306276.3 09/16/2021
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.
Claims 22, 23, 39, 40 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.
Claim 22 recites the limitation "the difference" and “the residual”, Claim 23 recites the limitation “the difference latent code” and “the residual”, and the claims are dependent of claim 12. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 39, 40 recite the limitation "The apparatus" in preamble, and the claims are dependent of claim 12 and claim 12 is a method claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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 38 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Claim 38 is drawn to functional descriptive material recorded on a computer readable storage medium. Normally, the claim would be statutory. However, the specification, at page 44 defines the claimed computer readable medium as encompassing statutory media such as non-statutory subject matter such as a “signal”.
A “signal” embodying functional descriptive material is neither a process nor a product (i.e., a tangible “thing”) and therefore does not fall within one of the four statutory classes of § 101. Rather, “signal” is a form of energy, in the absence of any physical structure or tangible material.
Because the full scope of the claim as properly read in light of the disclosure encompasses non-statutory subject matter, the claim as a whole is non-statutory. Examiner suggests amending the claim to recite the term “non-transitory” computer readable media, while at the same time excluding the intangible media such as signals, carrier waves, etc. Any amendment to the claim should be commensurate with its corresponding disclosure.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 36 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a) (1) as being anticipated by Joshi (US 2016/0150234 A1).
Claim 36 directed to a non-transitory computer readable storage medium (CRM) comprising a bitstream obtained according to a method claim (claim 1). The claim does not recite that the CRM contains executable instruction, that when executed, implement the method. The bitstream is a product produced by the method. Therefore, the claim is not limited to the recited steps, only the structure implied by the steps. (See MPEP 2113 - Product-by-Process claims.) Hence, the method steps recited are given patentable weight only to structures in the bitstream that are implied by the steps.
To be given patentable weight, the CRM and the bitstream (i.e. descriptive material) must be in a functional relationship. A functional relationship can be found where the descriptive material performs some function with respect to the CRM to which it is associated. See MPEP §2111.05(I)(A). When a claimed “computer-readable medium merely serves as a support for information or data, no functional relationship exists”. MPEP §2111.05(III).
The CRM comprising the claimed bitstream in claim 19 merely services as a support for the CRM of the bitstream and provides no functional relationship between the stored bitstream and the CRM.
Therefore, the structure bitstream, which scope is implied by the method steps, is non-functional descriptive material and given no patentable weight. MPEP §2111.05(III).
Thus, the claim scope is just a computer readable medium comprising purely bitstream data and is anticipated by Joshi et al. (US 20160150234 A1) which recites a medium storing a bitstream ([0156] storing the encoded bitstream on a storage medium).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-3, 7, 11-13, 22, 23, 25, 28, 36, 38-40, 43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (US 2022/0084204 A1) in view of Cho (US 2019/0306526 A1).
Regarding Claims 1, 2, Li discloses a method/an apparatus (e.g. abstract, Fig. 4) comprising: obtain a first latent representation of the image using an inversion of a generative adversarial network (e.g. Fig. 4 Paragraph [0091, 0092], GAN generator generates labels of synthetic version of input image using initial latent code 411), obtain a second latent representation of the at least one image from the first latent representation of the image, using an invertible transformation (e.g. Fig. 4 and Paragraph [0093], process inverse optimization module to generate an updated latent code).
Although Li discloses codec (e.g. Paragraph [0267], video encoders/decoders); it fails to explicitly disclose encoding at least one image and encoding the latent representation.
However, Cho teaches encoding at least one image (e.g. Fig. 1) and encoding the latent representation (e.g. Paragraph [0706]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at time of the invention to incorporate latent code coder as taught as CHO with the method/apparatus of Li in order to improve coding efficiency with machine learning model.
Regarding Claim 3, Cho further teaches a latent space of the second latent representation is obtained from an unfolding of a latent space of the generative adversarial network based on a rate-distortion constraint (e.g. Fig. 27 and Paragraph [0734]).
Regarding Claim 7, Cho further teaches encoding comprises at least one of quantization or entropy coding (e.g. Fig. 1, Paragraph [0204]).
Regarding Claims 11, 28, 43, Li discloses the invertible transformation is a normalizing flow (e.g. Paragraph [0073]).
Regarding Claims 12, 13, Li discloses a method/an apparatus comprising: obtain a first latent representation of the at least one first image using a generative adversarial network (e.g. Fig. 4 Paragraph [0091, 0092], GAN generator generates labels of synthetic version of input image using initial latent code 411), obtain a second latent representation of the at least one first image from the decoded first latent representation using an invertible transformation (e.g. Fig. 4 and Paragraph [0093], process inverse optimization module to generate an updated latent code).
Although Li discloses codec (e.g. Paragraph [0267], video encoders/decoders); it fails to explicitly disclose decoding the latent representation and generate at least one image from the latent representation.
However, Cho teaches decoding the latent representation (e.g. Paragraph [0706]) and generate at least one image from the latent representation (e.g. Fig. 2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at time of the invention to incorporate latent code coder as taught as CHO with the method/apparatus of Li in order to improve coding efficiency with machine learning model.
Regarding Claim 22, Cho further teaches at least one of dequantization or entropy decoding (e.g. Fig. 2).
Regarding Claim 23, Cho further teaches entropy decoding uses a same trained entropy model for decoding (e.g. Paragraph [0228]).
Regarding Claim 25, Li discloses mapping the first latent representation from a proxy latent space designed for compression to a latent space of the generative adversarial network using the invertible transformation (e.g. Li, Paragraph [0076]).
Although Li discloses codec (e.g. Paragraph [0267], video encoders/decoders); it fails to explicitly disclose decoding the latent representation and generate at least one image from the latent representation.
However, Cho teaches decoding the latent representation (e.g. Paragraph [0706]) and generate at least one image from the latent representation (e.g. Fig. 2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at time of the invention to incorporate latent code coder as taught as CHO with the method/apparatus of Li in order to improve coding efficiency with machine learning model.
Regarding Claim 36, Li discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising a bitstream comprising image or video data representative of a latent representation of at least one first image (e.g. Paragraph [0570]) obtained according to claim 1.
Regarding Claim 38, Li discloses a computer readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions for causing one or more processors (e.g. Paragraph [0570]) to perform the method of claim 12.
Regarding Claim 39, Li discloses at least one of (i) an antenna configured to receive a signal, the signal including data representative of at least one image (e.g. Paragraph [0140, 0197]), (ii) a band limiter configured to limit the received signal to a band of frequencies that includes the data representative of the at least one image, or (iii) a display configured to display at least one part of the at least one image (e.g. Paragraph [0139]).
Regarding Claim 40, Li discloses a television (TV), a cell phone, a tablet or a set top box (e.g. Paragraph [0384]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 6, 14-17, 20, 21, 44 are 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kalarot (US 2022/0391611 A1), discloses latent model for multi-attribute;
Luo (US 2022/0375024 A1), discloses hierarchical variational encoder.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YULIN SUN whose telephone number is (571)270-1043. The examiner can normally be reached 10AM - 6PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jay Patel can be reached at 571-272-2988. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YULIN SUN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2485