Prosecution Insights
Last updated: August 17, 2026
Application No. 18/938,175

ADDING GREATER REALISM TO A COMPUTER-GENERATED IMAGE BY SMOOTHING JAGGED EDGES

Non-Final OA §102§103§DOUBLEPATENT
Filed
Nov 05, 2024
Priority
Apr 12, 2018 — provisional 62/656,951 +3 more
Examiner
MAZUMDER, SAPTARSHI
Art Unit
2612
Tech Center
2600 — Communications
Assignee
NVIDIA Corporation
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
65%
Grant Probability
Moderate
1-2
OA Rounds
1y 1m
Est. Remaining
76%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 65% of resolved cases
65%
Career Allowance Rate
251 granted / 387 resolved
+2.9% vs TC avg
Moderate +11% lift
Without
With
+11.4%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 10m
Avg Prosecution
24 currently pending
Career history
414
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
11.5%
-28.5% vs TC avg
§103
51.6%
+11.6% vs TC avg
§102
5.5%
-34.5% vs TC avg
§112
20.6%
-19.4% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 387 resolved cases

Office Action

§102 §103 §DOUBLEPATENT
CTNF 18/938,175 CTNF 89647 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. 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. Double Patenting 08-33 AIA The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg , 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman , 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi , 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum , 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel , 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington , 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969). A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b). The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13. The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA/25, or PTO/AIA/26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer. Claims Correspondence Instant application 21, 28, 35 34, 40 27, 39 Patent 11113790 1, 15 7, 21 9 08-34 AIA Claim s 21, 27-28, 34-35 and 39 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim s1, 7, 9, 15 and 21 of U.S. Patent No. 11113790 . Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the limitation of claim 1 of the instant application is broader than the limitation of claim 15 of Patent 11113790 . Instant application Claim 1 Patent 11113790 Claim 15 (New) One or more processors, comprising: 15. A system comprising: circuitry to: cause one or more second antialiasing techniques to be used to correct one or more pixels in an image based, at least in part, on failure of one or more first antialiasing techniques to correct the one or more pixels. a processor that is configured to: apply temporal antialiasing (TAA) to an image, wherein for each pixel of at least a subset of pixels, the TAA compares a historical value for the pixel in a previous frame with current values of maskng pixels to the pixel in a current frame; identify failure pixels resulting from applying the TAA to the image, where each pixel of the at least a subset of pixels with the historical value that differs from the current values of the neighboring pixels by more than a predetermined amount is identified as a failure pixel; and perform antialiasing on each of the failure pixels, utilizing a combination of ray tracing and fast approximate anti-aliasing (FXAA); and a memory that is configured to store results of the antialiasing . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 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 Claim (s) 21-22, 24, 27-30, 35-37 and 39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102( a)(1 ) as being anticipated by Uralsky et al. (US Patent publication: 20160071246, “Uralsky”) Regarding claim 28, Uralsky teaches, a system (Fig. 1) comprising: one or more processors ( Uralsky , Fig.1 Parallel processing subsystem PPU element 112) “[0039] As mentioned above in conjunction with FIG. 1, the connection of PPU 202 to the rest of computer system 100 may be varied. In some embodiments, parallel processing subsystem 112, which includes at least one PPU 202, is implemented as an add-in card that can be inserted into an expansion slot of computer system 100.) to cause one or more second antialiasing techniques to be used to correct one or more pixels in an image based, at least in part, on failure of one or more first antialiasing techniques to correct the one or more pixels. ( ( Fig. 11 step 1104 (part of temporal antialiasing steps 1102, 1104 and 1106, 1108) and [0121] detects failure pixels when the motion is detected between pixels of frames. Fig. 11 step 1110-1112 performs spatial anti-aliasing on the failure pixel) Claim 21 is directed to a processor and its elements are similar in scope and functions of the elements of device claim 12 and therefore claim 21 is rejected with same rationales as specified in the rejection of claim 12. Claim 35 is directed to a method and its steps are similar in scope and functions of the element of device claim 12 and therefore claim 21 is rejected with same rationales as specified in the rejection of claim 12. Regarding claims 22, 29 and 36, Uralsky teaches, identify that a difference between the one or more pixels in the image and one or more corresponding pixels of a second image exceeds a difference threshold; ( Uralsky [ 0119] “As shown, a method 1100 begins at step 1102, where device driver 103 compares previous frames having similar sample pattern arrangements. For example, if raster 385 changes sample patterns between even and odd numbered frames, then device driver 103 could compare frame N to frame N-2, and compare frame N-1 to frame N-3. At step 1104, device driver 103 determines whether motion is detected. In doing so, device driver 103 may determine whether the difference between pixel values of previous frames is greater than a threshold value. For example, device driver 103 could determine whether the difference between frame N and frame N-2 exceeds the threshold. Device driver 103 could also determine whether the difference between frames N-1 and N-3 exceeds another threshold. If either one of, or both of the thresholds is exceeded, then device driver 103 detects motion”. ).and apply an antialiasing technique to determine one or more pixel values to be used to display the one or more pixels of the image. (“[121] If, at step 1104, device driver 103 does, in fact, detect motion, then the method 1100 proceeds to step 1110, where device driver 103 initiates a spatial blend. In doing so, device driver 103 may configure SM 310 to perform the spatial blend. At step 1112, device driver 103 blends pixels along edges detected within the graphics scene. In one embodiment, device driver 103 implements an edge detection algorithm to identify edges within a neighborhood of pixels. For a given pixel that resides along a detected edge, device driver 103 then selects one or more pixels adjacent to the given pixel and residing along the edge. Then, device driver 103 may blend the given pixel with the adjacent pixels.”) Claims 24,30 and 37, Uralsky teaches, wherein the failure of the one or more first antialiasing techniques is determined by comparing a historical pixel value accumulated during temporal antialiasing with pixel values generated for the image being rendered. ( Uralsky, [0119] “…..At step 1104, device driver 103 determines whether motion is detected. In doing so, device driver 103 may determine whether the difference between pixel values of previous frames is greater than a threshold value. For example, device driver 103 could determine whether the difference between frame N and frame N-2 exceeds the threshold. Device driver 103 could also determine whether the difference between frames N-1 and N-3 exceeds another threshold. If either one of, or both of the thresholds is exceeded, then device driver 103 detects motion”. Fig. 11, 1104 is a step of TAA ); Regarding claims 27 and 39, Uralsky teaches, wherein the circuitry is further to generate an output image based on combining a result produced by the one or more second antialiasing techniques with a result produced by the one or more first antialiasing techniques. ( Uralsky, “[0122] Device driver 103 may implement the method 1100 for each different pixel within the frame. Accordingly, certain pixels may be subject to temporal blending, while others may be subject to spatial blending. For example, referring to FIG. 10, pixels associated with stationary objects 1020 and 1030 would be subject to temporal blending, while pixels associated with moving object 1010 would be subject to spatial blending. Device driver 103 may also perform a mixture of spatial and temporal blending for each different pixel. For example, device driver 103 could assign each pixel a motion score, and then perform a combination of temporal filtering and spatial filtering that depends on the motion score. To do so, device driver 103 could weight spatial filtering results based on the motion score, and weight temporal filtering results based on an inverse of the motion score.”) 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 23, 31 and 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Uralsky in view of Brown et al. (US patent Publication: 20080238920, “Brown”) . Regarding claims 23, 31 and 38, Uralsky doesn’t expressly teach, wherein the one or more second antialiasing techniques comprise tracing a plurality of rays through one or more sub-pixel sample locations of the one or more pixels. However, Brown teaches, one or more antialiasing techniques comprise tracing a plurality of rays through one or more sub-pixel sample locations of the one or more pixels. (“[0014] According to one embodiment of the invention a method of rendering an image of a three-dimensional scene by performing ray tracing with adaptive anti-aliasing is provided. The method generally comprising: identifying high contrast areas of pixels based on an initial set of rays issued into the scene; and issuing an additional set of rays into one or more of the high contrast areas”) Uralsky and Brown are analogous as they are from the field of anti-aliasing. Therefore it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled person in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Uralsky to have included the one or more second antialiasing techniques comprise tracing a plurality of rays through one or more sub-pixel sample locations of the one or more pixels as taught by Brown. The motivation to perform ray tracing along with anti-aliasing is to render final image with a shorted time (“Brown [0126]…. By determining relatively early on where the areas of high contrast exist, the image processing system may begin adaptively anti-aliasing portions of the frame while performing ray tracing with other initial rays and/or secondary rays. This parallel anti-aliasing and ray tracing may reduce the time required to render an anti-aliased ray-traced image in comparison to waiting until pixels have final colors before beginning to anti-alias the image.”) 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 34 and 40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Uralsky in view of Gokturk (US Patent Publication: 20080152231, “Gokturk”) . Regarding claims 34 and 40, Uralsky teaches , wherein the one or more second antialiasing techniques are applied only to a subset of pixels identified as failure pixels generated during application of the one or more first antialiasing techniques as shown in claim 1 but does teach failure pixels are in a segmentation mask. However, Gokturk teaches, identify failure pixels in a segmentation mask . (“[0113] In another embodiment, the edges of the segmentation mask is found first, which serve as the boundary pixels”. Boundary pixels are complex or failure pixels) Gokturk and Uralsky are analogous as they are from the field of image display. Therefore it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled person in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Uralsky to have included the one or more second antialiasing techniques are applied only to a subset of pixels identified as failure pixels in a segmentation mask generated during application of the one or more first antialiasing techniques based on teaching of failure pixels identified in a segmentation mask as taught by Gokturk and user segmentation mask during application of the one or more first antialiasing techniques. The motivation to include the modification is that segmentation mask provides a far more granular understanding of the object(s) in the image . Allowable Subject Matter 12-151-08 AIA 07-43 12-51-08 Claim s 25-26 and 32-33 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. Claim 25 is objected because the combination of available prior arts fails to expressly teach, wherein the circuitry is further to omit an application of the one or more second antialiasing techniques for one or more pixels of the image that are identified as fully covered by geometry. Claim 26 is objected because the combination of available prior arts fails to expressly teach, wherein the one or more second antialiasing techniques comprise calculating a coverage of geometry within a pixel without ray tracing. Claim 32 is objected because the combination of available prior arts fails to expressly teach, wherein a number of the plurality of rays traced for each pixel of the image identified for correction is determined based on a primitive count associated with the pixel. Claim 33 is objected because the combination of available prior arts fails to expressly teach, wherein the one or more processors are further to prevent an application of the one or more second antialiasing techniques to one or more pixels of the image that are identified as being fully covered by geometry. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAPTARSHI MAZUMDER whose telephone number is (571)270-3454. The examiner can normally be reached 8 am-4 pm PST. 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, Said Broome can be reached at (571)272-2931. 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. /SAPTARSHI MAZUMDER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 2 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 3 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 4 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 5 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 6 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 7 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 8 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 9 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 10 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 11 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 12 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 13 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 14 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 15 Art Unit: 2612 Application/Control Number: 18/938,175 Page 16 Art Unit: 2612
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Nov 05, 2024
Application Filed
May 14, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102, §103, §DOUBLEPATENT
Jul 17, 2026
Interview Requested
Jul 28, 2026
Examiner Interview Summary
Jul 28, 2026
Applicant Interview (Telephonic)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
65%
Grant Probability
76%
With Interview (+11.4%)
2y 10m (~1y 1m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 387 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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