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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 02/27/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-10, 12-15, 17, 19, 23-26, 46, 47, 51 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-10, 12-14, 23-26, 46, 47, 51 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20240070925 A1 FINLAY; Chris et al. (hereafter Finlay), and further in view of US 12008788 B1 Li; Kun et al. (hereafter Li).
Regarding claim 1, Finlay discloses A method of processing a current object (Fig.1), the method comprising: inputting a set of input data tensors representing the current object into a first neural layer of a transformer based neural network (Figs.2,6; [220], [243], input image comprising tensor is passed to layer of a transformer base neural network, and the image in Fig.6 depicts some objects); wherein the at least one auxiliary data tensor is different from each of the input data tensors of the set of input data tensors and represents at least one auxiliary input ([243]-[244], the auxiliary transformed tensors y, z are derived through mathematical functions, the tensors are altered or different than the tensors representing the input data).
Finlay fails to disclose inputting, based on information about processing the current object, at least one auxiliary data tensor into the transformer based neural network; processing
However, Li teaches inputting, based on information about processing the current object, at least one auxiliary data tensor into the transformer based neural network (Fig.4, col.2 lines 31-33, col.5 lines 61-63, col.6 lines 54-63, one of other feature tensors is an additional tensor, a input to a neural network supported transformer); processing
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to modify the method of processing a current object disclosed by Finlay to including the teaching in the same field of endeavor of Li, in order to provide techniques using vision transformers to evaluate spatial relationships, as identified by Li.
Regarding claim 2, Finlay discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the current object is processed during neural network inference (Fig.6, [407]-[408]).
Regarding claim 3, Finlay discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the current object is processed during neural network training ([04]).
Regarding claims 4, 24, Li teaches The method of claim 1, wherein the set of input data tensors is inpu
Regarding claims 5, 25. Finlay discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the set of input data tensors is input into the first neural layer of the transformer based neural network and the at least one auxiliary data tensor is input into the second neural layer of the transformer based neural network that is different from the first neural layer ([243]-[244], [255]).
Regarding claims 6, 26, Finlay discloses The method of claims 1, wherein inputting first neural layer of the transformer based neural network ([243]-[244]).
Regarding claim 7, Finlay discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the at least one auxiliary data tensor by one of linearly converting the at least one auxiliary input into the at least one auxiliary data tensor ([254]); Liu teaches non-linearly converting the at least one auxiliary input into the at least one auxiliary data tensor; and converting the at least one auxiliary input into the at least one auxiliary data tensor by means of another neural network ([87]).
Regarding claim 8, Li teaches The method of claim 1, wherein the information about processing the current object is information about processing the current object over a continuous parameter range (col.8 lines 27-32).
Regarding claim 9, Finlay discloses The method of claim 8, further comprising obtaining the information about processing the current object from a bitstream generated for the object (Fig.6, [229], [393])).
Regarding claim 10, Finlay discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the current object comprises one of an image or a part of an image (Fig.6).
Regarding claim 12, Finlay discloses The method of claim 10, wherein the at least one auxiliary input is selected from a group comprising: a quality indicating parameter; channel-wise distortion metrics in signal space; channel-wise distortion metrics in a latent space; brightness, contrast, blurring, warmness, sharpness, saturation, color Histogram, cade; shadowing, luminance, vignette control, painting style; discontinuously variable filter strength, continuously variable filter strength; indication of intra prediction or inter prediction; and conversion rate for object replacement applications ([244], [331]).
Regarding claim 13, Finlay discloses A method of encoding an image, the method comprising the method of claims 10 (Fig.6).
Regarding claim 14, Finlay discloses A method of decoding an encoded image, the method comprising
Regarding claim 23, see the rejection for claim 1, Finlay further discloses a trained transformer based neural network (Fig.1, [230]); inputting, based on at least one of information about properties of the current object and information about processing the current object (Fig.6, [220]-[221], the input of the trained transformer processes some properties of channel).
Regarding claims 46, 47, see the rejection for claim 1.
Regarding claim 51, Finlay discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the input at least one auxiliary data tensor is based on variable information about processing the current object that does not represent a pre-trained and fixed input ([244]-[247]).
Claim(s) 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Finlay, in view of Li, and further in view of US 20240223762 A1 ZHANG; Honglei et al. (hereafter Zhang).
Regarding claim 15, Zhang teaches The method of claim 13, wherein the transformer based neural network is comprised in an inloop filter (Fig.3).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention having all the references Finlay, Li, and Zhang, before him/her, to modify the method of processing a current object disclosed by Finlay to including the teaching in the same field of endeavor of Li and Zhang, in order to provide techniques using vision transformers to evaluate spatial relationships, as identified by Li, and improve the quality of the decoded image for the consumption, as identified by Zhang.
Claim(s) 17, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Finlay, in view of Li, and further in view of US 20220108417 A1 Liu; Ming-Yu et al. (hereafter Liu).
Regarding claim 17, Liu teaches The method of claims 1, wherein the current object comprises one or more sentences, and wherein the at least one auxiliary input is selected from a group comprising temperature, language, and affection ([46]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention having all the references Finlay, Li, and Liu before him/her, to modify the method of processing a current object disclosed by Finlay to including the teaching in the same field of endeavor of Li, and Liu, in order to provide techniques using vision transformers to evaluate spatial relationships, as identified by Li, improve efficiency, accuracy, and efficacy of image processing, as identified by Liu.
Regarding claim 19, Liu teaches The method of claims 1, wherein the current object comprises an audio signal, and wherein the at least one auxiliary input is selected from a group comprising: a quality indicating parameter; channel-wise distortion metrics in signal space; channel-wise distortion metrics in any latent space; equalizer settings; volume; and conversion rate ([48]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TRACY Y. LI whose telephone number is (571)270-3671. The examiner can normally be reached Monday Friday (8:30 AM- 4:30 PM) EST.
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/TRACY Y. LI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
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