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 .
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: Examiner suggests correction to modify each instance of “basic class selection unit” to “base class selection unit”, for purposes of consistency. A thorough review of the specification by Applicant is also recommended to identify and correct any other similar informalities.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 4 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 1, Examiner suggests correction of “a basic class selection unit” to “a base class selection unit” for purposes of claim language consistency; and
In claim 4, Examiner suggests correction of “wherein the classification determination unit determines that the base class…” to “wherein the classification determination unit determines . Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: “a basic class selection unit”, “a continual learning unit”, “an additional class selection unit”, “a classification determination unit”, “a centroid derivation unit” and “a centroid vector correction unit”. Claims 1-4 are therefore being interpreted under 35 USC 112(f).
Because these claim limitations are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, they are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof. Based upon Examiner’s review of Applicant’s Specification, the corresponding structure is described at least in paragraph [0044].
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
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 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.
Claims 1, 5 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by over “A Closer Look at Few-shot Classification” (hereinafter “Chen”; published 2019).
Regarding claim 1, Chen teaches an image processing apparatus (Chen, Fig. 2; algorithm implemented on a GPU (see Acknowledgment, p. 10)) comprising:
a basic class selection unit that selects, in response to input data, a base class based on an embedding vector output by a basic neural network that has learned the base class and a centroid vector of the base class (Chen, Section 3.1-3.2, Fig. 1; “The training procedure of Baseline++ is the same as the original Baseline model except for the classifier design…the learned weight vectors…can be interpreted as prototypes (similar to Snell et al. (2017); Vinyals et al. (2016)) for each class and the classification is based on the distance of the input feature to these learned prototypes.” – the per class “prototype” of weight vectors is read here as corresponding to the claimed “centroid vector”);
a continual learning unit that continually learns an additional class by using an additional neural network that has learned the base class (Chen, Section 3.1-3.3, Fig. 1, Fine-tuning stage; “In the meta-testing stage, all novel class data Xn are considered as the support set for novel classes Sn, and the classification model M can be adapted to predict novel classes with the new support set Sn.”);
an additional class selection unit that selects, in response to the input data, an additional class based on an embedding vector output by the additional neural network subjected to continual learning and centroid vectors of the base class and the additional class (Chen, Section 3.1-3.3; “For both MatchingNet Vinyals et al. (2016) and ProtoNet Snell et al. (2017), the prediction of the examples in a query set Q is based on comparing the distance between the query feature and the support feature from each class”); and
a classification determination unit that classifies the input data based on the base class selected by the base class selection unit and the additional class selected by the additional class selection unit (Chen, Section 3.3; “For both MatchingNet Vinyals et al. (2016) and ProtoNet Snell et al. (2017), the prediction of the examples in a query set Q is based on comparing the distance between the query feature and the support feature from each class”).
Claim 5 recites a method having features corresponding to the elements recited in apparatus claim 1, the rejection of which is applicable here.
Claim 6 recites a non-transitory computer-readable medium having features corresponding to the elements recited in apparatus claim 1, the rejection of which is applicable here.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The closest prior art of record, either alone or in combination, does not expressly teach or render obvious the additional limitations of each of claims 2-4.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The additionally cited references pertain generally to meta-learning and fine-tuning classification models trained on base classes to learn novel classes.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAMAH A BEG whose telephone number is (571)270-7912. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9 AM - 5 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, HENOK SHIFERAW can be reached at 571-272-4637. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SAMAH A BEG/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2676