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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant traversed the restriction requirement in the reply filed on 07/29/2026. The examiner agrees with the applicant, and the restriction requirement of 05/29/2026 has been withdrawn.
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 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Claim 15 recites a “computer-readable storage medium”, however, such medium is not limited to non-transitory media by the applicant’s specification, and therefore this claim as a whole is non-statutory. This claim, considered in its entirety, is therefore directed to a program/software per se. The examiner suggests amending claim 15 to explicitly recite a “non-transitory computer-readable storage medium” or equivalent.
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.
Limitations of claim 1 render the claim indefinite for the following reasons:
i) The limitation “noise characteristics” renders the claim indefinite. The image pair, according to the applicant’s specification, may have the noise characteristics of being “noise-dependent” or “noise-independent” with each other. However, the applicant’s specification does not provide explicit definitions to what is considered “noise-dependent” or “noise-independent”, thereby fail to particularly point out and distinctly defining the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
For example, are a pair of images taken from the same camera considered “noise-dependent” because they share the same inherent camera noise, or “noise-independent” because the noise in the images do not affect each other? Please point to the portion of the specification where an explicit definition is given to the limitations “noise-dependent” and “noise-independent”, or amend the claim for clarification. Similar reasons apply to claims 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15 (i.e., no clear definition is provided for “noise characteristics” including both “noise-dependent” or “noise-independent”).
ii) The limitation “signal strength” renders the claim indefinite. The applicant’s specification does not provide explicit definitions to what is considered “signal strength”, thereby fail to particularly point out and distinctly defining the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
For example, is the “signal strength” of an image an average intensity value of all the pixels, or is it a measure of brightness? Following are examples that describe how the limitation “signal strength” may vary in scope depending on how it is defined:
- Takizawa et al. (US 2024/0377422) defines signal strength as a magnitude of image brightness changing rate in para [76];
- Sumida et al. (US 2023/0152273) defines signal strength as brightness of image data in para [1112]; and
- Li et al. (US 2022/0092739) defines signal strength as an average signal intensity of pixels in a region of interest of an image in para [181].
Please point to the portion of the applicant’s specification where an explicit definition is given to the limitation “signal strength” or amend the claim for clarification. Similar reasons apply to claims 2, 6, 8, 10, 11, and 13-15 (i.e., no clear definition is provided for “signal strength”).
iii) The limitation “whether an image pair […] is present among the one or more input images” renders the claim indefinite. Specifically, the limitation implies that there may be a single image, and it is unclear and confusing how an image pair is found among a single image. Similar reasons apply to claims 5, 13, and 15 (i.e., claim limitations clearly require at least two input images while reciting “one or more input images”). Please amend the claim for clarification
iv) The limitations “training data”, “training image”, and “label image” render the claim indefinite. The labels “training” and “label” appear to only indicate the intended use or purpose of the images without claiming the actual use of the images (i.e., the claim does not recite any actual “training” using the “training image”), therefore, it is unclear and confusing whether such labels carry patentable weight. Similar reasons apply to claims 2-15.
It is further unclear and confusing what the differences are between the “training image” and “label image”. For example, claim 7 indicates both “training image” and “label image” are inputted to a neural network (i.e., for “training”), even though only one of them is labeled as “training image”. Please point to the portion of the specification where an explicit definition is given to the limitations “training image” and “label image”, or amend the claim for clarification.
v) The limitation “the determination based on a preset noise reduction target” lacks antecedent basis.
Allowable Subject Matter
The prior art of record does not disclose the subject matter of claims 1-15, however, these claims are rejected under 112(b) as stated above. These claims would allowable if amended to overcome the 112(b) rejection. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 1, Calvarons (“Improved Noise2Noise denoising with limited data”) discloses:
analyzing signal strength and noise characteristics of one or more input images; determining whether an image pair having corresponding signal strength and noise characteristics is present among the one or more input images (see sections 2.1-2.2, an image pair x̂ and ŷ having corresponding signal strength (i.e., both have the same underlying clean scene) and have noise characteristics (i.e., noise may be correlated or not correlated); see section 3.2, the image pair is selected among 99 images); and
generating a training image and a label image according to results of the determination based on a preset noise reduction target (see section 2.2, generating noise surrogate images x̂s and ŷs to increase training data, wherein the noise surrogate images are interchangeably to be used as an input and target for training in addition to the image pair x̂ and ŷ).
However, Calvarons does not disclose: based on a preset noise reduction target (i.e., Calvarons discloses that the surrogate images are created either by swapping pixels or lines of pixels between the image pair x̂ and ŷ, wherein such swapping is random or based on noise characteristics rather than based on a preset noise reduction target, as recited in the claim).
Similar reasons apply to claims 8, 10, 13, and 15 (i.e., each of these claims recites generating images based on a preset noise reduction target).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Maleky et al. (“Noise2NoiseFlow: Realistic camera noise modeling without clean images”) also discloses denoising with Noise2Noise algorithm. Andrew et al. (US 11,972,511) discloses a Noise2Noise fashion denoising utilizing an improvement factor.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SJ PARK whose telephone number is (571)270-3569. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00 AM - 5:00 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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/SJ Park/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2675
Prosecution Insights