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 .
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 7/16/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant has amended claims 1, 3-4, 9, 11-2. Claims 2 and 10 are canceled. Claims 1, 3-9, 11-16 are currently being considered. Applicant’s arguments, filed 8/13/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-16 under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Kalchbrenner et. al. (United States Patent Application Publication US 2020/0410643 A1).
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, 3-4, 9, 11-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He et. al. (Chinese Patent Application CN 113473038 A) in view of Kalchbrenner et. al. (United States Patent Application Publication US 2020/0410643 A1).
Regarding claim 1, He et. al. discloses an image recognition system for a neural network, comprising (He et. al. page 4, para. 1 input image to a neural network): a memory; an image sensor configured to obtain an image that includes a plurality of pixels, wherein the image is divided into a plurality of initial sub-images based on a division criterion (He et. al. page 2, para. 5-9, page 3, para. 1, determining pixel values of a plurality of pixel points in the first target sub-image based on the positions of the plurality of pixel points in the first target sub-image in the original image), and wherein the plurality of initial sub-images are rotated by a rotation angle to form a plurality of target sub-images; a preprocessing circuit coupled to the image sensor and the memory and configured to execute an image preprocessing program when sequentially obtaining data for the pixels (He et. al. pg. 11, para 8, the ROI needs to be scaled to the size of the input of the neural network), wherein the image preprocessing program includes the following processes: for each of the pixels, classifying the pixel based on the division criterion and the rotation angle, so as to classify the pixel as belonging to at least one of the plurality of target sub-images; and for each of the pixels, calculating, based on the rotation angle, a memory address corresponding to the pixel in the target sub-image to which the pixel belongs, and storing the data of the pixel in the memory based on the memory address, so as to sequentially store the plurality of target sub-images in the memory; and a neural network processing member coupled to the memory and configured to retrieve one of the plurality of stored target sub-images from the memory for recognition (He et. al. Figure 1, pg. 11 para. 9-10, pg. 12, para. 1-5, writing processing results of the at least two sub-image processing tasks into the memory, pg. 13, para. 3, first processing instruction carries the steps of storing address information of a first sub-image in a memory, position information of the first sub-image in an original image, and transformation parameters required for processing the first sub-image…the first computing unit sequentially reads data stored from the start address to the end address to obtain a pixel value of each pixel in the first sub-image.).
However, He et. al. fails to disclose a division criterion, which defines a horizontal length, a vertical length, and a position in the image for each of the plurality of initial sub-images.
Kalchbrenner et. al. teaches a division criterion, which defines a horizontal length, a vertical length, and a position in the image for each of the plurality of initial sub-images (Kalchbrenner et. al. Abstract, [0005], [0031]-[0032]: To perform subscaling, the system partitions the H by W pixel grid of the output image into K disjoint, interleaved sub-images (also known as “slices”) and orders the sub-images into a sub-image order.)
This is important to the claimed invention because this defines the size of each sub-image. Thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of He et. al. and Kalchbrenner et. al. so that this division criterion with specific image lengths are included in the solution of the claimed invention.
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Regarding claim 9, which is an image preprocessing method that corresponds to the system and image preprocessing program of claim 1, in which the rejection analysis is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 3 and 11, He et. al. further discloses the image recognition system according to claim 1 and method according to claim 9, wherein each of the pixels has an x-axis coordinate value and a y-axis coordinate value in the image, and the division criterion further defines an x-axis coordinate value range and a y-axis coordinate value range for each of the plurality of initial sub-images in the image (He et. al. pg. 5, para. 3, based on a transformation parameter in the received processing instruction, a coordinate corresponding to each coordinate in the target sub-image in the original image, where the target sub-image is a processing result of a sub-image processing task; and determining the pixel value of each coordinate in the target sub-image based on the corresponding coordinate of each coordinate in the target sub-image in the original image).
Regarding claim 4 and 12, He et. al. further discloses the image recognition system according to claim 3 and method according to claim 11, wherein, for each of the pixels, when the x-axis coordinate value and the y-axis coordinate value of the pixel in the image respectively fall within the x-axis coordinate value range and the y-axis coordinate value range of one of the plurality of initial sub-images in the image, the preprocessing circuit classifies the pixel as belonging to a target sub-image formed by the initial sub-image being rotated by the rotation angle (He et. al. pg. 5, para. 3, based on a transformation parameter in the received processing instruction, a coordinate corresponding to each coordinate in the target sub-image in the original image, where the target sub-image is a processing result of a sub-image processing task; and determining the pixel value of each coordinate in the target sub-image based on the corresponding coordinate of each coordinate in the target sub-image in the original image).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-8, 13-16 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Response to Amendment
Examiner has carefully considered the amendments to the claims and performed an updated search. New prior art was found to reject claims 1, 3-4, 9, 11-12.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JESSICA YIFANG LIN whose telephone number is (571)272-6435. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:00am-6:15pm, with optional day off.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vu Le can be reached at 571-272-7332. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JESSICA YIFANG LIN/Examiner, Art Unit 2668 September 4, 2026
/VU LE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2668
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