DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Claims
Original claims 1-21 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on October 24, 2024, and February 6, 2025, are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Interpretation
Claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) during examination. MPEP 2111. Under BRI, the words of a claim are given their plain meaning, unless such meaning is inconsistent with the specification. MPEP 2111.01, Subsection I. The plain meaning of a term is the ordinary and customary meaning given to the term by those of ordinary skill in the art at the relevant time. Id.
Claim 1 recites the term “few-shot images” at the fifth line. Claims 20 and 21 recite the same term. Within the art of image analysis, the plain meaning of this term is a relatively small number of labeled images (i.e., more than zero, but much less than in a conventional training image dataset used for initial training of a model). This meaning is not inconsistent with the specification – see, e.g., par. [0039] (as published).
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.
Claim(s) 14-16 and 19 is/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 14 recites that “the set of few-shot images comprises 50 or less images.” The meaning of this phrase is unclear.
On the one hand, the phrase “50 or less” suggests that no more than 50 images may be included in the set of few-shot images.
On the other hand, “comprises” is synonymous with “including” or “containing” and is open-ended – i.e., it does not exclude additional elements. See, e.g., MPEP 2111.03, Subsection I. An open-ended interpretation of the term “comprises” would suggest that more than 50 images may be included in the set of few-shot images. For example, a set of 90 images comprises (i.e., includes or contains) 50 images as well as an additional 40 images.
Claim 14 is indefinite because it is unclear whether the claim requires that the set of few-shot images includes no more than 50 images, or whether the scope of the claim includes embodiments with more than 50 images.
Claims 15 and 16 recite similar limitations that are also indefinite for substantially the same reasons as claim 14.
Claim 19 requires that “the mask decoder is operable absent any input from a prompt encoder or user prompt.” The meaning of this limitation is unclear.
As evidenced by original claim 5, the target embeddings computed by the image encoder may be utilized as prompts by the mask decoder. Accordingly, the claimed image encoder (which computes the target embeddings) appears to fall within the scope of a “prompt encoder”.
Claim 1 specifies that the mask decoder receives the target embeddings as an input and associates them to produce its output. This suggests that the claimed mask decoder is not operable absent any input from the image encoder, and thus cannot be “operable absent any input from a prompt encoder” as required by claim 19.
This apparent contradiction makes the scope of the claim unclear and renders the claim indefinite.
Applicant may wish to clarify what is meant by a “prompt encoder”.
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 1-19 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 their scopes include embodiments of data or computer programs per se.
Claim 1 is to a system comprising an image encoder and a mask decoder. Encoders and decoders are machine learning model components that may be embodied as computer programs (i.e., computer programs with instructions for performing image encoding and mask decoding functions) and/or data (e.g., sets of weight values and other parameters defining how image encoding and mask decoding functions are performed). These computer program and/or data embodiments do not have a physical or tangible form and thus do not fall within any of the statutory categories. See MPEP 2106.03.
“A claim whose BRI covers both statutory and non-statutory embodiments embraces subject matter that is not eligible for patent protection and therefore is directed to non-statutory subject matter.” Id at Subsection II. Claim 1 is directed to non-statutory subject matter because its scope covers non-statutory embodiments of software and/or data per se.
Claims 2-19 depend from claim 1 and none require a product having a physical or tangible form, so they are also patent-ineligible for substantially the same reasons as claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 20-21 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance.
‘Wu’ (“Self-Prompting Large Vision Models for Few-Shot Medical Image Segmentation,” 15 August 2023) is similar to the claimed invention in that it uses encoder embeddings of input medical images and few-shot images (e.g., Figure 1, input images are encoded through SAM encoder to produce image embeddings) and a mask decoder (e.g., Fig. 1, SAM decoder) to output a predicted segmentation mask for the input medical image (e.g., Fig. 1, output). However, Wu does not teach all elements of the claimed invention. For example, Wu uses the set of few-shot images to train a per-pixel logistic regression model in its self-prompt unit (e.g., Sections 3.1-3.2), which is then used for inference on an input medical image (e.g., Sec. 4.2, last paragraph). At no time does the mask decoder of Wu accept an input including both image embeddings and target embeddings (i.e., embeddings from the set of few-shot images), as required by the claimed invention.
‘Silva-Rodriguez’ (“Transductive few-shot adapters for medical image segmentation,” 29 March 2023) is an example of using a set of few-shot images to learn an adapter that modifies an existing encoder-decoder foundation model to perform medical image segmentation (e.g., Fig. 1). However, like Wu, the few-shot images are only used for training the adapter and at no time does the mask decoder of Silva-Rodriguez accept an input including both image embeddings and target embeddings as required by the claimed invention.
‘Morard’ (US 2023/0245317 A1) is an example of an encoder-decoder medical image segmentation model that accepts user prompts, such as points (e.g., Figs. 4-5). The user input may be represented two-dimensionally akin to images (e.g., Fig. 5, element 502) but such user inputs do not fall within the scope of “few-shot images” as defined in Claim Interpretation above. I.e., a 2D representation of a user input is not the same as a labeled image.
None of the identified prior art discloses, teaches, suggests, or otherwise renders obvious the full combination of elements required by the claimed invention.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GEOFFREY E SUMMERS whose telephone number is (571)272-9915. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM ET.
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/GEOFFREY E SUMMERS/Examiner, Art Unit 2669
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