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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to applicant's preliminary amendment filed on 12/18/2024 in which claims 1-18 are pending.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in Japan parent Application No. 2022-109834 on 07/07/2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/18/2024, and 10/27/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
Objection to the Title
TITLE OF THE INVENTION: See 37 CFR 1.72(a) and MPEP § 606. The title of the
invention should be placed at the top of the first page of the specification unless the title is provided in an application data sheet. The title of the invention should be brief but technically accurate and descriptive. The title of the disclosure is objected to because the current title, “TRANSMISSION ENTITY, RECEPTION ENTITY, DATA TRANSMISSION METHOD, AND DATA PROCESSING METHOD FOR AI/ML APPLICATION”, is more indicative of a general category/subject to which claims are directed. While the current title describes the invention it does so in a very general sense and is not clearly indicative of the claimed invention. It lacks the necessary detail to differentiate Applicant's communication apparatus. If a satisfactory title is not supplied by the Applicant, the Examiner may, at the time of allowance, change the title by Examiner's Amendment pursuant to MPEP 606.01.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1, line 1 recites “…an AI/ML application…”. Should recite “…an artificial intelligence / machine learning (AI/ML) application…”.
Claims 8, 17 and 18 recites similar limitation and same objection applies.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-18 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1: The term "reduced" in line 7 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "reduced" is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claim 17: The term "reduced" in line 7 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "reduced" is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claim 1: The term "whether" in line 12 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "whether" is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claims 8, 10, 17, and 18: The term "whether" in line 18 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "whether" is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claim 7: The term "manner" in line 3 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "manner" is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claim 16: The term "manner" in line 3 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "manner" is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claim 10: The term "degree" in line 4 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "degree " is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claim 12: The term "degree" in line 4 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "degree " is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
The dependent claims included in the statement of rejection but not specifically addressed in the body of the rejection have inherited the deficiencies of their parent claim and have not resolved the deficiencies. Therefore, they are rejected based on the same rationale as applied to their parent claims above.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4-8, and 10-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maruta et al. (US 20220350987 A1) hereinafter “Maruta” in view of Tsuyuki et al. (US 20200219252 A1) hereinafter “Tsuyuki”.
As to claim 1, Maruta discloses a transmission entity used for an AI/ML application, the transmission entity comprising: an acquisition section that acquires original input data (Maruta [102-104, 201-203], discloses wherein a trained model corresponding to the learning result by machine learning, acquires the inference result information output as the inference result by the trained model);
a generator that generates, from the original input data, a plurality of pieces of input data with reduced data amounts (Maruta [218-221], discloses wherein the multiple-filter application unit generates time-sequential data obtained by calculating differences or products between the input time-sequential data D1 and some or all pieces of the filter response time-sequential data);
Maruta is silent on a data transmitter that sequentially transmits pieces of input data of the plurality of pieces of input data; and a request receiver that receives feedback information based on whether there is a need for an additional piece of input data from among the plurality of pieces of input data.
However, Tsuyuki [69, 73, 104-106] discloses a system for generating trained model using learning data, wherein the apparatus sequentially transmits image data acquired in the pre-scan to the medical information processing apparatus, and wherein the controlling function sequentially transmits the generated image data to the medical information processing apparatus).
Maruta and Tsuyuki are analogous art because they are from the same field of
endeavor, namely, systems and methods of sending and receiving sequential data.
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Maruta and Tsuyuki before him or her, to modify the inference apparatus system of Maruta to include the system of transmitting data sequentially after it’s generated of Tsuyuki with reasonable expectation that this would result in a system that is capable of sequentially transmitting pieces of data as needed based on feedback/response from the receiver/acquiring node. This method of improving the time sequential learning system of Maruta was well within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Tsuyuki. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Maruta with Tsuyuki to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
As to claim 4, Maruta-Tsuyuki discloses the transmission entity according to claim 1, wherein the original input data is still-image data, and the plurality of pieces of input data is pieces of still-image data of different resolutions (Tsuyuki [36, 61-62, 73], discloses wherein generate a group of time-series image data on the basis of a plurality of pieces of raw data in a time series acquired in the pre-scan, and wherein the function is configured to generate CT image data on the basis of raw data acquired in the main scan). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references Maruta and Tsuyuki as in claim 1 above.
As to claim 5, Maruta-Tsuyuki discloses the transmission entity according to claim 1, wherein the original input data is still-image data, and the plurality of pieces of input data is pieces of still-image data of partially or completely different regions (Tsuyuki [104-106, 176-178], discloses wherein generate a group of time-series image data on the basis of a plurality of pieces of raw data in a time series acquired in the pre-scan, and wherein the function is configured to generate CT image data on the basis of raw data acquired in the main scan). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references Maruta and Tsuyuki as in claim 1 above.
As to claim 6, Maruta-Tsuyuki discloses the transmission entity according to claim 1, wherein the transmission entity is provided to a terminal apparatus that is connected to a cellular network (Tsuyuki [29-30, 56-57], discloses wireless communication console for communicating on the cellular network). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references Maruta and Tsuyuki as in claim 1 above.
As to claim 7, Maruta-Tsuyuki discloses the transmission entity according to claim 1, wherein the transmission entity is provided to a cellular network and a terminal apparatus in a distributed manner, the terminal apparatus being connected to the cellular network (Tsuyuki [29-30, 56-57], discloses wireless communication consoles and terminals, wherein the input interface is configured by a tablet terminal apparatus that is capable of wirelessly communicating). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references Maruta and Tsuyuki as in claim 1 above.
Claims 8, 10-16, and 17-18 are corresponding apparatus and data transmission method claims that recite similar limitations as of claims 1, 4-7 and do not contain any additional features with respect to novelty and/or inventive steps; therefore, they are rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3, and 9 are 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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See Form 892.
Correspondence Information
The examiner also requests, in response to this Office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line no(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting the application. When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111(c).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Razu Miah whose telephone number is (571)270-5433. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-5 EST.
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, Glenton Burgess can be reached at 23949. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RAZU A MIAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
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