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 .
Claim Interpretation
Claims 1-11 are not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the recitations of “memory”, “processor” and “instructions” provide sufficient structure to perform all claimed limitations.
Claims 12-16 are not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because each of these claims is directed to a method claim.
Claims 17-20 are not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because each of these claims is an article of manufacture claim.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement.
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
An obviousness-type double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but an examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985). Anticipation is “the ultimate or epitome of obviousness” (In re Kalm, 154 USPQ 10 (CCPA 1967), also In re Dailey, 178 USPQ 293 (CCPA 1973) and In re Pearson, 181 USPQ 641 (CCPA 1974)).
Claims 1, 5-6, 8, 10-12, 16-17 and 20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Pat. No. 12,125,190 B1 (referred as ‘190 patent hereinafter).
Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because each limitation of the instant claims 1-20 is fully defined by claims of the ‘190 patent. For example, as to the instant claim 1, claim 1 of the ‘190 patent discloses: a computing system comprising (see line 1):
one or more processors; and memory storing program instructions that, upon execution by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising (see lines 2-5):
receiving, from a client device, a query including an image of at least a section of a manufactured part (see lines 6-7);
determining, based on executing a neural network on the image, a fabrication source of the manufactured part, wherein the neural network was trained to associate images of manufactured parts with corresponding indicators of fabrication sources of the manufactured parts (see lines 8-14); and
in response to determining the fabrication source of the manufactured part, transmitting, to the client device, a response indicating the fabrication source. (see lines 25-32).
While claim 1 of the ‘190 patent includes additional limitations (i.e., recitation in lines 17-24) that are not set forth in the instant claim 1, the use of transitional term “comprising/comprises” in the instant claim 1 fails to preclude the possibility of additional elements. Therefore, instant claim 1 fails to define an invention that is patentably distinct from claim 1 of the ‘190 patent.
Furthermore, each of the limitations recited in instant claim 1 is anticipated by patented claim 1 and anticipation is “the ultimate or epitome of obviousness.”
Likewise, each of instant claims 2, 4-10, and 12-20 is fully defined by patented claims 1-20.
As to instant claims 5-6, see patented claim 5.
As to instant claim 8, see patented claim 1 (manufacturing machine).
As to instant claim 10, see patented claim 7.
As to instant claim 11, see patented claim 8.
As to instant claim 12, see rejection applied to instant claim 1 above.
As to instant claim 16, see patented claim 5.
As to instant claim 17, see patented claim 20.
As to instant claim 20, see patented claim 5.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 7, 9, 13-15 and 18-19 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:
Regarding claims 2-4, 13-14 and 18-19, the cited prior art does not teach or suggest claim limitations “wherein the neural network comprises an encoder that produces, based on pixels or voxels in the image, a fabrication signature vector embedding of the manufactured part, and wherein determining the fabrication source of the manufactured part comprises: determining to which cluster of known fabrication signature vector embeddings the fabrication signature vector embedding is a closest cluster; and identifying the fabrication source as that which is associated with the closest cluster”.
Regarding claim 7, the cited prior art does not teach or suggest claim limitations “wherein the computing system refrains from determining the fabrication source of the manufactured part until after verifying that the client device has permission or a license to interact with the computing system”.
Regarding claim 9, the cited prior art does not teach or suggest claim limitations “wherein the neural network was trained in federated fashion by multiple parties such that the neural network was trained with the images of manufactured parts and the corresponding indicators of fabrication sources of the manufactured parts for each party privately by that party”.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Suk (U.S. Pat. No. 11,004,088 B1) teaches a system and method for certifying product authenticity (see abstract, figure 1).
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DMD
1/2026
/DUY M DANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2662