DETAILED ACTION
Non-Final Rejection
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 .
Excessive Information Disclosure Statement
An applicant's duty of disclosure of material information is not satisfied by presenting a patent examiner with "a mountain of largely irrelevant data from which he is presumed to have been able, with his expertise and with adequate time, to have found the critical data. It ignores the real-world conditions under which examiners work." Rohm & Haas Co. v. Crystal Chemical Co., 722 F.2d 1556, 1573,220 U.S.P.Q. 289 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied 469 U.S. 851 (1984). An applicant has a duty to not just disclose pertinent prior art references but to make a disclosure in such way as not to "bury" it within other disclosures of less relevant prior art. See Golden Valley Microwave Foods Inc. v. Weaver Popcorn Co. Inc., 24 U.S.P.Q.2d 1801 (N.D. Ind. 1992); Molins PLC v. Textron Inc. 26 U.S.P.Q.2d 1889, 1899 (D. Del. 1992); Penn Yan Boats, Inc. v. Sea LarkBoats, Inc. et al.,175 U.S.P.Q. 260, 272 (S.D. FI. 1972). It is unreasonable for Examiner to review all of the cited references thoroughly. By initialing the accompanying 1449 forms, examiner is merely acknowledging the submission of the cited references and indicating that only a cursory review has been made.
The information disclosure statements fail to comply with 37 CFR 1.98(a)(3) because they
do not include a concise explanation of the relevance, as it is presently understood by the individual designated in 37 CFR 1.56(c) most knowledgeable about the content of the information, of each patent or reference listed. It has been placed in the application file, but the information referred to therein has not been considered.
The Examiner has spent a significant amount of time perusing the excessive prior art citations, and most of the references are not germane to the instantly claimed invention. The Examiner is unable to do a quality examination when Applicant overburdens the Examiner with superfluous prior art. Applicant's own representatives should thus filter out the non-relevant prior art literatures and/or specifically point out those references applicable as prior art that concern the
instantly claimed invention.
Specification
The lengthy specification (more than 20 pages) has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
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(s) 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 for covering non-statutory subject matter.
The terms “Computer-readable storage media comprising instructions that, when executed, configure processing circuitry to […]”; the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a machine-readable storage medium, as recited, covers both non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals/waves embodiments per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media, particularly when the specification is silent (see MPEP 2111.01).,
In the instant case, the specification does not preclude transitory media. The specification does however state that “[…] If implemented in software, the functions may be stored, as one or more instructions or code, on and/or transmitted over a computer-readable medium and executed by a hardware-based processing unit. Computer-readable media may include computer-readable storage media, which corresponds to a tangible medium such as data storage media, or communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another (e.g., pursuant to a communication protocol). In this manner, computer-readable media generally may correspond to (1) tangible computer-readable storage media, which is non-transitory or (2) a communication medium such as a signal or carrier wave. Data storage media may be any available media that can be accessed by one or more computers or one or more processors to retrieve instructions, code and/or data structures for implementation of the techniques described in this disclosure. A computer program product may include a computer-readable medium […]” (see [0245). The Examiner further notes that the term computer-readable storage media has been used by those of ordinary skill in the art to include signals. Listed below are some examples:
U.S. Patent 6,286,104 (col. 3, lines 50-56: In particular, the methods described herein may be implemented by a series of computer-executable instructions residing on a storage medium such as a carrier wave, disk drive, or computer-readable medium. Exemplary forms of carrier waves may take the form of electrical, electromagnetic or optical signals conveying digital data streams along a local network or a publicly accessible network such as the Internet).
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2013/0097292, ([0086]: The term “machine-accessible storage medium” shall accordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to, solid-state memories, optical and magnetic media, and carrier wave signals).
According to current guidance, a proper medium that qualifies as a patent eligible process under 35 USC 101 must be non-transitory medium that is also a recording medium and should not include propagation signals. Because the instant claims include medium that could involve propagation signals, Claim(s) 17 is being held as non-statutory under 35 USC 101.
In order to overcome the rejection of Claim(s) 17, the Examiner suggests amending the Claim(s) to recite “non-transitory computer-readable storage medium […]”.
Allowable Subject Matter
Independent Claim(s) 1 and 9; and Dependent Claim(s) 2-8 and 10-16, are allowed. The following is the examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Regarding Independent Claim 1, the claimed limitations “perform an analysis-by-synthesis reconstruction using an implicit neural representation to predict complex-valued scatterers from the pulse deconvolved measurements; generate synthesized complex measurements from the complex-valued scatterers using a differentiable forward model; iteratively update weights of the differentiable forward model with a computed minimized loss between the synthesized complex measurements and the complex-valued scatterers; generate as output from the differentiable forward model, a reconstruction of the underwater object; return the output to a computing device” are neither anticipated nor found obvious over the art of record.
The Closest Prior art of reference is Kozachenok (US 2021/0329892 A1)) teaches a system comprising: processing circuitry ([0025]); non-transitory computer readable media storing instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry ([0181]), configure the processing circuitry to: obtain measurements of an underwater object ([0012]) using high-resolution synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) ([0035]; [0122]);
Walsworth (US 2014/0306707 A1) discloses apply an iterative deconvolution optimization process to the measurements to generate pulse deconvolved measurements ([0090]).
Bott (US 2025/0220231 A1 discloses so-called scatterer coefficients, that is to say, the complex-valued attenuation, the delay and the Doppler shift in the channel, are used. The reflections of a signal transmitted between a transmitter and a receiver caused by so-called scatterers have a causative influence on the quality of the transmission channel ([0011]).
Amir discloses the test object is measured, and alignment with calibration measurements to obtain time alignment is performed in step 308. In step 310 the test measurements are deconvolved with the source pulse, which is the pulse transmitted by the transmitter, obtained in the calibration phase. This gives the theoretical band-limited impulse response ([0061]).
Neither Kozachenok, Walsworth, Bott, nor Amir, either in combination or alone remedy the deficiencies as claimed because the claimed invention requires perform an analysis-by-synthesis reconstruction using an implicit neural representation to predict complex-valued scatterers from the pulse deconvolved measurements; generate synthesized complex measurements from the complex-valued scatterers using a differentiable forward model; iteratively update weights of the differentiable forward model with a computed minimized loss between the synthesized complex measurements and the complex-valued scatterers; generate as output from the differentiable forward model, a reconstruction of the underwater object; return the output to a computing device. Therefore, the art of record does not teach or suggest at least the combination of interrelated steps or elements recited in the claims.
Claim 9 is essentially the same as Claim 1 and refers to computer-implemented method comprising: obtaining measurements of an underwater object using claimed in Claim 1. Therefore Claim 9 is allowed for the same reasons as applied to Claim 1 above.
Any comments considered necessary by the applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AMIE M N'DURE whose telephone number is 571-272-6031. The examiner can normally be reached on 8AM-5:30PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Isam Alsomiri can be reached on 571-272-6970. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/AMIE M NDURE/Examiner, Art Unit 3645
/DANIEL L MURPHY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645