Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
2. The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on 11/01/2024 and 09/08/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
3. 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.
4. Claims 1 and 9 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. The claims teach “based on at least one of similarity…” it is unclear if the similarity is between 3D pose augmented data and other 3D pose augmented data included in the augmented data set or between the 3D pose augmented data and other data that is not included in the augmented data set.
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 3, 5, 11 and 13 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
6. 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.
7. Claim(s) 1, 4, 6-9, 12 and 14-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Li et al. (“Cascaded Deep Monocular 3D Human Pose Estimation with Evolutionary Training Data”), cited in IDS, hereinafter “Li”.
As per claim 1, Li discloses an electronic device comprising:
one or more processors; and memory (the NVIDIA Titan Xp GPU taught in last paragraph, right column of page 8, inherently contains a processor and memory), storing:
a first training data set comprising a plurality of pieces of 2D pose data and a plurality of pieces of 3D pose data corresponding to the plurality of pieces of 2D pose data (see first paragraph of section 3 on pages 2-3); and
instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the electronic device to: train a first neural network model to estimate 3D poses based on the first training data set (see first paragraph of section 3 on pages 2-3); obtain an augmented data set by augmenting the first training data set (page 3, left column lines 21-24; see also the table on page 4 left column),
based on at least one of similarity or reliability of 3D pose augmented data included in the augmented data set; select at least one piece of 3D pose augmented data among a first plurality of pieces of 3D pose augmented data included in the augmented data set (page 4, right column lines 13-119); obtain a second training data set comprising the 3D pose augmented data and 2D pose augmented data corresponding to the 3D pose augmented data (see first paragraph of section 3.2 on page 4); and retrain the first neural network model based on the second training data set (page 3, left column lines 21-27).
As per claim 4, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 1 are applicable for claim 4.
As per claim 6, Li discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the 2D pose data comprises 2D coordinate information for a plurality of joints constituting an object, and the 3D pose data comprises 3D coordinate information for the plurality of joints, and wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the electronic device to augment the first training data set by exchanging 3D coordinate information for at least one same joint among the plurality of pieces of 3D pose data (see Figure 5, which shows 2D joints and 3D joints; see also Figures 3-4 and equation 1 on right column of page 3).
As per claim 7, Li discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the electronic device to: obtain an image including an object; obtain 2D pose data corresponding to the image by inputting the image into a second neural network model trained to estimate 2D pose data of the object; obtain 3D pose data corresponding to the 2D pose data by inputting the obtained 2D pose data into the retrained first neural network model; and identify a pose of the object based on the obtained 3D pose data (see Figure 5).
As per claim 8, Li discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the second training data set corresponds to augmentation of the first training data set in a scale of 1.29 times (see section 5.2 on page 6, a scale of 2.5 encompasses 1.29).
As per claim 9, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 1 are applicable for claim 9.
As per claim 12, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 1 are applicable for claim 12.
As per claims 14-15, arguments analogous to those applied for claims 6-7 are applicable for claims 14-15.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
11. Claim(s) 2 and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (“Cascaded Deep Monocular 3D Human Pose Estimation with Evolutionary Training Data”) in view of Banerjee et al. (US 2021/0073669) hereinafter “Banerjee”.
As per claim 2, Li discloses the electronic device of claim 1; however, Li does not explicitly disclose wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the electronic device to: obtain a distribution probability value of the first plurality of pieces of 3D pose augmented data for the first training data set based on a distribution of the plurality of pieces of 3D pose data; and identify the similarity to be higher as the distribution probability value increases.
In an analogous art, Banerjee discloses wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the electronic device to: obtain a distribution probability value of the first plurality of pieces of 3D pose augmented data for the first training data set based on a distribution of the plurality of pieces of 3D pose data; and identify the similarity to be higher as the distribution probability value increases (paragraphs 0038 and 0036, wherein the dataset can be 3D pose data as taught by Li).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one having skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Li by applying probability distribution function of Banerjee to identify similarities of 3D pose data; thus improving the quality of new generated data (paragraph 0058 of Banerjee).
As per claim 10, arguments analogous to those applied for claim 2 are applicable for claim 10.
12. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. (US 12175703, US 12333760, US 11521373, US 20220051440, US 20210248772, US 20200402305, US 20190220993, US 20230141392)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMMED JEBARI whose telephone number is (571)270-7945. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 09:00am-06:00pm.
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/MOHAMMED JEBARI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2482
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