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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments and amendment have persuasively overcome the claim objections, the 112(a) and (b) rejections, the abstract idea rejection, and the prior art rejections. However, in addition to the 101 abstract idea rejection, there was also a 101 statutory category rejection (i.e., software per se) that was not specifically argued.
The remaining issues are addressed below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1, 4-6, 14, and 15 (all claims) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 recites both “passing the first input pair to the discriminator” and “passing the second input pair to the discriminator,” but this is new matter. The antecedent basis of “the discriminator” is understood as both being the same discriminator. MPEP 2173.05(e). However, Fig. 6 shows the two pairs being input into two different discriminators. See also, Fig. 5, where the discriminators are illustrated as blocks labeled ‘D’ as 101 and 100.
Claim 1 is also rejected for reasons corresponding to the “image feature-level distance” 112(b) rejection below. Specifically, if the claim is understood as summing the distance between the first low level path and the second low level path, this differs from Eq. 5 in [0091] of the pre-grant publication (citations are to the pre-grant publication because the specification lacks paragraph numbers) where the losses/distances are computed as between the respective low-level and coarse paths as opposed to pairing a low-level path with a coarse path.
Dependent claims are likewise rejected.
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, 4-6, 14, and 15 (all claims) 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 1 recites three “wherein” clauses, but the scope of these are unclear because the claim is directed to a generative adversarial network, but the wherein clauses are fashioned as method steps. This is most similar to the situation described in MPEP 2173.05(p)(II). Therefore, it is unclear if this claim should be understood as directed to software configured to take these steps, or if the claim should be understood as a method of taking these steps.
Claim 1 recites “wherein the image feature-level distance is measured as a summation of all the … .” However, the distance is not literally a summation. Rather, as explained in [0091] of the pre-grant publication (citations are to the pre-grant publication because the specification lacks paragraph numbers), the loss (n.b., the terms loss and distance are interchangeable, see [0082] “The distance between the probability and the ground truth is denoted as a loss value.”) is computed as between the various features and then the losses (i.e., distances) are summed. In other words, the amount of differences/errors are added together, not literally the features themselves.
Dependent claims are likewise rejected.
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.
Claims 1, 4-6, 14, and 15 (all claims) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claims are directed to “a generative adversarial network,” without specifying either that this is a method or an apparatus.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 11398026 B2 – abstract “synthesize a predicted medical image of the patient that depicts the patient as if they were administered with a second imaging agent”
US 10482600 B2 – title “Cross-domain image analysis and cross-domain image synthesis using deep image-to-image networks and adversarial networks”
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/DAVID ORANGE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2663
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