CTNF 18/904,639 CTNF 71234 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. DETAIL ACTION Notice to Applicant(s) This application has been examined. Claims 1-20 are pending. The prior art submitted on October 02, 2024 has been considered. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20 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) A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, nowwitstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 1, 2, 10-12 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tang et al. (2022/0172369) in view of Harary et al. (20250005727) . As per claim 1, Tang et al. disclose a computer-implemented method for object detection which includes the steps of obtaining an input image of a road scene (see at least figure 1, step 410), and training an object detection model (see at least figure 6; paragraphs 5-9); identifying an object within a driving scene using the trained object detection model (see at least paragraphs 0003, 0044); and performing a driving action in a self-driving vehicle responsive to the identified object (see at least paragraphs 0038, 0039 and 0045). Tang et al. do not disclose the steps of generating a negative description for an input image of a road scene, based on a positive description of the input image, using a language model; generating a negative image based on the input image and the negative description by replacing a portion of the input image that is described by the positive description with content that is described by the negative description using a generative image model. However, such limitations are taught in at least the abstract, figures 2-7, and paragraphs 0004-0006, 0021, 0039-0062 of the Harary et al. reference. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to incorporate the teaching of Harary et al. into the system of Tang et al. with a reasonable expectation of success in order to provide the sytem witht the enhanced capacity of using the well know technology of using the input image, the positive description, the negative description and the negative image to training an object detection model. As per claim 2, Harary et al. disclose that the training the object detection model includes using the negative description with the input image and using the positive description with the negative image as negative examples (see at least figures 2-4). As per claim 10, Tang et al. disclose that the driving action is selected from the group consisting of a steering action, a braking action, and an acceleration action (see at least paragraph 0038). With respect to claims 11, 12 and 20, the limitations of these claims have been noted in the rejections above. They are therefore considered rejected as set forth above . 12-151-08 AIA 07-43 12-51-08 Claim s 3-9 and 13-19 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. Conclusion Claims 1, 2, 10-12 and 20 are rejected. Claims 3-9 and 13-19 are objected. The following references are cited as being of general interest: Taralova (10,832,093), Mercep et al. (2018/0314253), Koopman et al. (2022/0004818) and Aberman et al. (2024/0296596). 07-101 Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TAN QUANG NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571) 272-6966. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Thursday from 7:00am to 5:30pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Peter Nolan, can be reached at 570-270-7016 . Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal. Should you have questions about access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). 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. March 18, 2026 /TAN Q NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3661 Application/Control Number: 18/904,639 Page 2 Art Unit: 3661 Application/Control Number: 18/904,639 Page 3 Art Unit: 3661 Application/Control Number: 18/904,639 Page 4 Art Unit: 3661
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