CTNF 18/844,468 CTNF 88766 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101 07-04-01 AIA 07-04 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 6 is directed to a “ non-statutory recording medium”. The claim is not limited to nontransitory embodiments. The claim can be reasonably interpreted as encompassing transitory signal embodiments, which are nonstatutory ( In re Nuijten , 500 F.3d 1346, 84 USPQ2d 1495 (Fed. Cir. 2007)). If the specification includes written description support, this rejection can be overcome by including the term “nontransitory” in the claim (see USPTO Official Gazette notice 1351 OG 212.). Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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. 07-07-aia AIA 07-07 The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action: A person shall be entitled to a patent unless – 07-08-aia AIA (a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. 07-15-aia AIA Claim(s) 1-3, 5, and 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as being anticipated by Rocchio ( Relevance Feedback in Information Retrieval , August 1965, Information Storage and Retrieval, Scientific Report No. 9, Pages 1-18) . Regarding claim 1, Rocchio teaches: A verification apparatus (See the Summary.) comprising: at least one memory configured to store instructions (See page 11, section 5: “The vector images of the documents (given by the SMART thesaurus) together with the image of the request were used as input to a FORTRAN program which produced a modified vector suitable for input to SMART.” Presence of a memory is understood.) ; and at least one processor configured to execute the instructions to (See page 11, section 5: “The vector images of the documents (given by the SMART thesaurus) together with the image of the request were used as input to a FORTRAN program which produced a modified vector suitable for input to SMART.” Presence of a processor is understood.) : extract a plurality of pieces of first similar data similar to query data, from a plurality of pieces of registration data (See the equation on page 8, R (subset of the retrieved set which the user deems relevant) and S (subset of the retrieved set which the user deems nonrelevant).) , on the basis of a query feature quantity that is a feature quantity of the query data (See page 2, section 1: “The retrieval or searching process consists in matching a request image against the set of document images which constitute the store. Various matching strategies are possible; we will assume here that the information contained in the index image of a test is represented by the orientation of the concept vector in the concept space (that is, the matching process is assumed independent of the magnitude of the concept vector). Retrieval therefore consists in locating the set of documents having an orientation (angular position) similar to that of the request image.”) ; and correct the query feature quantity on the basis of an arithmetic value of a plurality of registration feature quantities that are feature quantities of the plurality of pieces of first similar data (See the first equation on page 9, where the original query vector is modified by adding to it the average of the relevant documents vectors and subtracting from it the average of the nonrelevant documents vectors.) , wherein the at least one processor configured to execute the instructions to extract at least one piece of second similar data similar to the query data, from the plurality of pieces of registration data, on the basis of the query feature quantity corrected by the correction unit (See page 8, first full paragraph: “ The resultant vector (the new query) should thus be a better approximation to the optimal query than Q0, and should therefore produce better retrieval when resubmitted .”) . Regarding claim 2, Rocchio teaches: The verification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor configured to execute the instructions to correct the query feature quantity by subtracting the arithmetic value of the registration feature quantities of the plurality of pieces of similar data from the query feature quantity (See page 9: PNG media_image1.png 138 400 media_image1.png Greyscale ) . Regarding claim 3, Rocchio teaches: The verification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the arithmetic value includes an average value (See the average of the relevant documents vectors and the average of the nonrelevant documents vectors in the first equation on page 9.) . Rocchio teaches the method of claim 5 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 1. Rocchio teaches the non-statutory recording medium of claim 6 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 1 . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-23-aia AIA 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim (s) 4 is is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rocchio ( Relevance Feedback in Information Retrieval , August 1965, Information Storage and Retrieval, Scientific Report No. 9, Pages 1-18) in view of Torres et al. ( Relevance Feedback in Conceptual Image Retrieval: A User Evaluation , 2008, arXiv, Pages 1-15), hereinafter “ Torres ” . Claim 4 is met by the combination of Rocchio and Torres, wherein Rocchio teaches: The verification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the query data include query image data (See page 2, section 1: “The retrieval or searching process consists in matching a request image against the set of document images which constitute the store.”) Rocchio does not disclose the following; however, Torres discloses: in which a query person is captured, the query feature quantity includes a feature quantity of the query person, each of the plurality of pieces of registration data includes registration image data in which a registered person is captured, and the registration feature quantity includes a feature quantity of the registered person (See the query person in Fig. 3 and the retrieval results of registered persons in Fig. 4. Feature quantities are extracted from the query person image and the registered person images, as understood from the feature space in Fig. 2.) . Rocchio and Torres together disclose the limitations of claim 4. Torres is directed to a similar field of art (image retrieval systems). Therefore, Rocchio and Torres are combinable. Modifying the system and method of Rocchio by adding the capability of (1) accepting input images in which a query person is captured and (2) drawing from a database of image data in which a registered person is captured, as taught by Torres, would yield the expected and predictable result of wider application of the Roccio approach. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Rocchio and Torres in this way. Contact Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN S LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-1981. The examiner can normally be reached 11:30 AM - 7:30 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, Andrew Bee can be reached at (571)270-5183. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /Jonathan S Lee/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2677 Application/Control Number: 18/844,468 Page 2 Art Unit: 2677 Application/Control Number: 18/844,468 Page 3 Art Unit: 2677 Application/Control Number: 18/844,468 Page 4 Art Unit: 2677 Application/Control Number: 18/844,468 Page 5 Art Unit: 2677 Application/Control Number: 18/844,468 Page 6 Art Unit: 2677 Application/Control Number: 18/844,468 Page 7 Art Unit: 2677
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