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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 5/22/24 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
A “Summary of the Invention” section is missing before the “Brief Description of the Drawings” section. See section (h) below.
Content of Specification
(a) TITLE OF THE INVENTION: See 37 CFR 1.72(a) and MPEP § 606. The title of the invention should be placed at the top of the first page of the specification unless the title is provided in an application data sheet. The title of the invention should be brief but technically accurate and descriptive, preferably from two to seven words. It may not contain more than 500 characters.
(b) CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS: See 37 CFR 1.78 and MPEP § 211 et seq.
(c) STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT: See MPEP § 310.
(d) THE NAMES OF THE PARTIES TO A JOINT RESEARCH AGREEMENT. See 37 CFR 1.71(g).
(e) INCORPORATION-BY-REFERENCE OF MATERIAL SUBMITTED ON A READ-ONLY OPTICAL DISC, AS A TEXT FILE OR AN XML FILE VIA THE PATENT ELECTRONIC SYSTEM: The specification is required to include an incorporation-by-reference of electronic documents that are to become part of the permanent United States Patent and Trademark Office records in the file of a patent application. See 37 CFR 1.77(b)(5) and MPEP § 608.05. See also the Legal Framework for Patent Electronic System posted on the USPTO website (https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2019LegalFrameworkPES.pdf) and MPEP § 502.05
(f) STATEMENT REGARDING PRIOR DISCLOSURES BY THE INVENTOR OR A JOINT INVENTOR. See 35 U.S.C. 102(b) and 37 CFR 1.77.
(g) BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION: See MPEP § 608.01(c). The specification should set forth the Background of the Invention in two parts:
(1) Field of the Invention: A statement of the field of art to which the invention pertains. This statement may include a paraphrasing of the applicable U.S. patent classification definitions of the subject matter of the claimed invention. This item may also be titled “Technical Field.”
(2) Description of the Related Art including information disclosed under 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98: A description of the related art known to the applicant and including, if applicable, references to specific related art and problems involved in the prior art which are solved by the applicant’s invention. This item may also be titled “Background Art.”
(h) BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION: See MPEP § 608.01(d). A brief summary or general statement of the invention as set forth in 37 CFR 1.73. The summary is separate and distinct from the abstract and is directed toward the invention rather than the disclosure as a whole. The summary may point out the advantages of the invention or how it solves problems previously existent in the prior art (and preferably indicated in the Background of the Invention). In chemical cases it should point out in general terms the utility of the invention. If possible, the nature and gist of the invention or the inventive concept should be set forth. Objects of the invention should be treated briefly and only to the extent that they contribute to an understanding of the invention.
(i) BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING(S): See MPEP § 608.01(f). A reference to and brief description of the drawing(s) as set forth in 37 CFR 1.74.
(j) DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION: See MPEP § 608.01(g). A description of the preferred embodiment(s) of the invention as required in 37 CFR 1.71. The description should be as short and specific as is necessary to describe the invention adequately and accurately. Where elements or groups of elements, compounds, and processes, which are conventional and generally widely known in the field of the invention described, and their exact nature or type is not necessary for an understanding and use of the invention by a person skilled in the art, they should not be described in detail. However, where particularly complicated subject matter is involved or where the elements, compounds, or processes may not be commonly or widely known in the field, the specification should refer to another patent or readily available publication which adequately describes the subject matter.
(k) CLAIM OR CLAIMS: See 37 CFR 1.75 and MPEP § 608.01(m). The claim or claims must commence on a separate sheet or electronic page (37 CFR 1.52(b)(3)). Where a claim sets forth a plurality of elements or steps, each element or step of the claim should be separated by a line indentation. There may be plural indentations to further segregate subcombinations or related steps. See 37 CFR 1.75 and MPEP 608.01(i) - (p).
(l) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE: See 37 CFR 1.72 (b) and MPEP § 608.01(b). The abstract is a brief narrative of the disclosure as a whole, as concise as the disclosure permits, in a single paragraph preferably not exceeding 150 words, commencing on a separate sheet following the claims. In an international application which has entered the national stage (37 CFR 1.491(b)), the applicant need not submit an abstract commencing on a separate sheet if an abstract was published with the international application under PCT Article 21. The abstract that appears on the cover page of the pamphlet published by the International Bureau (IB) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the abstract that will be used by the USPTO. See MPEP § 1893.03(e).
(m) SEQUENCE LISTING: See 37 CFR 1.821 - 1.825 and MPEP §§ 2421 - 2431. The requirement for a sequence listing applies to all sequences disclosed in a given application, whether the sequences are claimed or not. See MPEP § 2422.01.
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: In Para. 00136, line 14, “computer system 1000” should read –computer system 800–. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
Claim 16 is objected to because of the following informalities:
In line 1, “Non-transitory computer-readable medium” should read –A non-transitory computer-readable medium–.
In line 2, “one or more one or more” should read –one or more–. The duplicate “one or more” should be removed.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 17 is objected to because of the following informalities: In lines 2-3, “one or more one or more” should read –one or more–. The duplicate “one or more” should be removed. Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-15 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.
The term “majority” in claim 1 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “majority” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. Therefore, “a linearly-sloped middle segment” and “a domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function” have been rendered indefinite. The Examiner suggests that the Applicant provide a predetermined threshold or percentage of the domain that the linearly-sloped middle segment spans.
Claims 2 recites the limitation “training images” in line 7. It is unclear and indefinite if this is the same as the training images previously recited in claim 1 from which claim 2 depends.
Claim 3 depends on claim 2 and is therefore also rejected under 112(b).
Claims 4-6 depend on claim 1 and are therefore also rejected under 112(b).
The term “majority” in claim 7 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “majority” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. Therefore, “a linearly-sloped middle segment” and “a domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function” have been rendered indefinite. The Examiner suggests that the Applicant provide a predetermined threshold or percentage of the domain that the linearly-sloped middle segment spans.
Claim 8 depends on claim 7 and is therefore also rejected under 112(b).
Claim 9 depends on claim 8 and is therefore also rejected under 112(b).
Claims 10-11 depend on claim 7 and are therefore also rejected under 112(b).
Claim 12 recites the limitation “images” in line 5. It is unclear and indefinite which images are being referred to here (i.e., images categorized to a first few class group or images categorized to a second few class group).
Claim 13 depends on claim 12 and is therefore also rejected under 112(b).
Claims 14-15 depend on claim 7 and are therefore also rejected under 112(b).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-15 are not rejected over prior art and would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Claims 16-20 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 1, Shamir et al. (US 2021/0133565 A1, hereinafter “Shamir”) teaches an activation function that includes two or more piecewise segments that have a gradient (Para. 0042). Shamir also teaches that the piecewise activation function has a left and right linear segment and a middle quadratic segment (Para. 0045). “L*ReLU: Piecewise Linear Activation Functions for Deep Fine-grained Visual Categorization” by Basirat et al. (hereinafter “Basirat”) teaches a L*ReLU piece-wise linear activation function (Abstract; Pg. 1208) and evaluating the L*ReLU using coarse-grained datasets, such as CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 (Pg. 1212). However, the cited references, either alone or in combination, do not reach or suggest the following limitations in the ordered combination with the rest of claim 1, such as inter alia, “training an autoencoder (AE) to reconstruct training images, wherein the AE utilizes a piece-wise near linear activation function comprising: a linearly-sloped middle segment spanning a majority of a domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function; a first end segment with a different slope than the linearly-sloped middle segment, wherein the first end segment commences at a lower boundary of the domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function and terminates at a first end of the linearly-sloped middle segment, and a second end segment with a different slope than the linearly-sloped middle segment, wherein the second end segment commences at a second end of the linearly-sloped middle segment and terminates at an upper boundary of the domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function; and using the trained AE to construct reference images from sample images.” Claims 2-6 depend on claim 1 and therefore also contain allowable subject matter.
Regarding claim 7, Shamir teaches an activation function that includes two or more piecewise segments that have a gradient (Para. 0042). Shamir also teaches that the piecewise activation function has a left and right linear segment and a middle quadratic segment (Para. 0045). Basirat teaches a L*ReLU piece-wise linear activation function (Abstract; Pg. 1208) and evaluating the L*ReLU using coarse-grained datasets, such as CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 (Pg. 1212). However, the cited references, either alone or in combination, do not reach or suggest the following limitations in the ordered combination with the rest of claim 7, such as inter alia, “train a first autoencoder (AE) to reconstruct images categorized to a first few class group of a training dataset, wherein the first AE utilizes a piece-wise near linear activation function comprising: a linearly-sloped middle segment spanning a majority of a domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function, a first end segment with a different slope than the linearly-sloped middle segment, wherein the first end segment commences at a lower boundary of the domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function and terminates at a first end of the linearly-sloped middle segment, a second end segment with a different slope than the linearly-sloped middle segment, wherein the second end segment commences at a second end of the linearly-sloped middle segment and terminates at an upper boundary of the domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function; and train a second AE to reconstruct images categorized to a second few class group of the training dataset, wherein the second AE utilizes the piece-wise near linear activation function.” Claims 8-15 depend on claim 7 and therefore also contain allowable subject matter.
Regarding claim 16, Shamir teaches an activation function that includes two or more piecewise segments that have a gradient (Para. 0042). Shamir also teaches that the piecewise activation function has a left and right linear segment and a middle quadratic segment (Para. 0045). Basirat teaches a L*ReLU piece-wise linear activation function (Abstract; Pg. 1208) and evaluating the L*ReLU using coarse-grained datasets, such as CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 (Pg. 1212). However, the cited references, either alone or in combination, do not reach or suggest the following limitations in the ordered combination with the rest of claim 16, such as inter alia, “use a trained autoencoder (AE) to construct reference images from sample images, wherein the AE utilizes a piece-wise near linear activation function comprising: a linearly-sloped middle segment spanning at least eighty percent (80%) of a domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function, a first end segment with a different slope than the linearly-sloped middle segment, wherein the first end segment commences at a lower boundary of the domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function and terminates at a first end of the linearly-sloped middle segment, and a second end segment with a different slope than the linearly-sloped middle segment, wherein the second end segment commences at a second end of the linearly-sloped middle segment and terminates at an upper boundary of the domain of the piece-wise near linear activation function.” Claims 17-20 depend on claim 16 and therefore also contain allowable subject matter.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
“Activation Functions for Convolutional Neural Networks: Proposals and Experimental Study” by Vargas et al.
“Improving the Performance of Deep Neural Networks Using Two Proposed Activation Functions” by Alkhouly et al.
“Learning Neural Representations for Network Anomaly Detection” by Cao et al.
“A Machine Vision Anomaly Detection System to Industry 4.0 Based on Variational Fuzzy Autoencoder” by Jiang.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Daniella M. DiGuglielmo whose telephone number is (571)272-0183. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM.
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, Emily Terrell can be reached at (571)270-3717. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Daniella M. DiGuglielmo/Examiner, Art Unit 2666
/EMILY C TERRELL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2666