DETAILED ACTION
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
The current application claims foreign priority from the Japanese application (JP2023-187900). Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/15/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97 and has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) are:
“acquisition unit” and “application unit” first claimed in claim 1
“first addition unit”, “normalization unit”, “first transformation unit”, “activation unit”, “second transformation unit”, and “second addition unit” in claim 8
Because these claim limitation(s) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, they are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
The corresponding structures in the disclosure are encompassed in the hardware configuration of the computer device shown in FIG. 1, including a CPU 101, an arithmetic device 102 including a GPU and/or other calculation processing circuits, a ROM 103, a RAM 104, a storage device 105, and an input unit 106 (FIG. 1, paragraphs 0056-0066).
If applicant does not intend to have these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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 –
(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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-6 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yao et al. (US 2023/0081645 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Yao discloses an information processing apparatus comprising: an acquisition unit configured to acquire input data (paragraph 0031: “Obtain a target facial image”); and an application unit configured to obtain an attention vector (FIG. 7, paragraph 0138: “a spatial-domain attention map A1t and a frequency-domain attention map A2t ”) by performing a feature transformation process having a local receptive field on the input data (paragraph 0138: “are obtained by using the convolutional layer (Conv3 x 3 ) with 3x3”), and apply attention to the input data based on the input data and the attention vector (paragraph 0139: “weight the fused spatial-domain feature at the (t-1)th layer through a weight of the fused spatial-domain feature at the tth layer indicated by the spatial-domain attention map at the tth layer, to obtain the fused spatial-domain feature at the tth layer; and correspondingly generate the fused frequency-domain feature at the tth layer based on the fused frequency-domain feature at the (t-1)th layer and the frequency-domain attention map at the tth layer”).
Regarding claim 2, Yao discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the acquisition unit acquires an image (paragraph 0031: “Obtain a target facial image”) or an image in a region of a face extracted from the image as the input data.
Regarding claim 3, Yao discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the application unit performs the feature transformation process on the input data once or twice or more (paragraph 0131: “The tth layer is any one of the n layers, 1≤t≤n, and both t and n are a positive integer”).
Regarding claim 5, Yao discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a parameter of the application unit is acquired by learning (paragraph 0124: “using a group of weight coefficients learned autonomously by a network”).
Regarding claim 6, Yao discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the feature transformation process includes one or more of convolution (FIG. 7, paragraph 0138: “a convolutional layer (Conv3x3 ) with 3x3”), point wise convolution (FIG. 7, paragraph 0138: “a convolutional layer (Conv1x1 ) with a kernel size of 1x1”), depth wise convolution, group convolution, max pooling, average pooling, batch normalization (FIG. 7, paragraph 0138: “a batch normalization (BN) layer”), and layer normalization.
Regarding claim 9, it is the corresponding method executed by the apparatus claimed in claim 1. Therefore, Yao discloses the limitations of claim 9 as it does the limitations of claim 1.
Regarding claim 10, it is the corresponding non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program executed by the apparatus claimed in claim 1. Therefore, Yao discloses the limitations of claim 10 as it does the limitations of claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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) 4 and 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao in view of Sorakado (US 2024/0169202 A1).
Regarding claim 4, Yao discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the attention vector is a vector obtained by performing nonlinear transformation by an activation function on a vector obtained as a result of the feature transformation process (Yao FIG. 7, paragraph 0138: “a rectified linear unit (ReLU) function…a Sigmoid function”). However, Yao fails to explicitly disclose obtaining an element product of the attention vector and the input data. In the related art of attention, Sorakado discloses obtaining an element product of the attention vector and the input data (Sorakado paragraph 0082: “performing attention based on an element product of the input data and the attention map”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Yao to incorporate the teachings of Sorakado to improve the processing accuracy of a neural network including an attention mechanism (Sorakado paragraph 0094).
Regarding claim 7, Yao discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1. However, Yao fails to explicitly disclose the attention vector is a vector having the same number of dimensions as the input data. In related art, Sorakado discloses the attention vector is a vector having the same number of dimensions as the input data (Sorakado paragraph 0090: “an attention map in accordance with AЄRHxWxD and three dimensions may be obtained. For example, convolution or the like may be applied to the input X to obtain a feature amount map having the same size as the input”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Yao to incorporate the teachings of Sorakado to improve the processing accuracy of a neural network including an attention mechanism (Sorakado paragraph 0094).
Regarding claim 8, Yao discloses the information processing apparatus according to claim 1. However, Yao fails to explicitly disclose a first addition unit configured to add the input data and a result of the application; a normalization unit configured to normalize the result of the addition and acquire a result of the normalization as a feature amount; a first transformation unit configured to transform the feature amount by linear transformation to expand the number of dimensions of the feature amount in a channel direction; an activation unit configured to apply an activation function to the transformed feature amount; a second transformation unit configured to linearly transform the feature amount to which the activation function is applied and to reduce the number of dimensions of the feature amount in a channel direction; and a second addition unit configured to add a result of the addition and a result of the linear transformation. In related art, Sorakado discloses a first addition unit configured to add the input data and a result of the application (Sorakado FIG. 3A, paragraph 0037: “an adder 307 adds the input to the first half portion 321 and a processing result so far”); a normalization unit configured to normalize the result of the addition and acquire a result of the normalization as a feature amount (Sorakado FIG. 3A, paragraph 0038: “Norm 308 normalizes an input feature amount of the second half portion 322”); a first transformation unit configured to transform the feature amount by linear transformation to expand the number of dimensions of the feature amount in a channel direction (Sorakado FIG. 3A, paragraph 0038: “Proj 309 transforms the feature amount into a feature amount of a high-dimensional channel by linear transformation”); an activation unit configured to apply an activation function to the transformed feature amount (Sorakado FIG. 3A, paragraph 0038: “Activation 310 applies an activation function to the feature amount”); a second transformation unit configured to linearly transform the feature amount to which the activation function is applied and to reduce the number of dimensions of the feature amount in a channel direction (Sorakado FIG. 3A, paragraph 0038: “Proj 311 transforms the dimension of the channel into the same number of dimensions as the input dimension to the second half portion 322 by linear transformation”); and a second addition unit configured to add a result of the addition and a result of the linear transformation (Sorakado FIG. 3A, paragraph 0038: “An adder 312 adds the input to the second half portion 322 and a processing result so far”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Yao to incorporate the teachings of Sorakado to improve the processing accuracy of a neural network including an attention mechanism (Sorakado paragraph 0094).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
So et al. (US 2022/0383119 A1) discloses an attention neural network including one or more attentions layers that each include a squared ReLU activation layer, a depth-wise convolution layer, or both.
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/C.Z./Examiner, Art Unit 2677
/ANDREW W BEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2677
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