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 .
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.
Claims 21-23, 33 and 34-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Video pixel networks, by Kalchbrenner et al., in view of Attention is all you need, by Vasvani et al.
With respect to claim 21, Kalchbrenner discloses A computer-implemented method comprising:
identifying a partitioning of an initial output video into a set of segments that are indexed according to a particular order, (see page 4, section 3.1, first paragraph, wherein, .encodes each of the first T frames with a CNN encoder... the CNN network teaches partitioning if the input frame in channel slices, in accordance with the structure of the input layer of the CNN, see page 3, first paragraph, wherein, ...color for the prediction of colors is chosen by convention as R,G,B..., teaches an order of the color channels and the channel stack comprises the R, G, B colors, and it follows from the ordering imposed on the set of variables, on Page 3, first paragraph, wherein, ..we choose an ordering according to two criteria...);
processing, using an encoder neural network, a current output video comprising a current representation of the set of segments to generate an encoded conditioning segment, wherein the encoder neural network comprises of the channel stack; and page 1, last paragraph, wherein, predict the following 10 frames.. the predicted frames a fully generated channel stack, being a sequence of such channel stacks and is the output video), as claimed.
However, Kalchbrenner fails to explicitly disclose wherein the encoder neural network comprises
Vasvani wherein the encoder neural network comprises
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art at the effective date of invention to combine the two references as they are analogous because they are solving similar problem of video image analysis and both the references belong to the same assignee. The teachings of Vasvani transformer can be incorporated into Kalchbrenner system (see Kalchbrenner figure 1, CNN), for suggestion, and modifying the system yields superior quality results of the video image analysis (see Vasvani Abstract), for motivation.
Both of the references fail to disclose the padded video. But it is well-known in the art to pad bits, for various reasons (see US 2019/0082204, paragraph 0001). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art at the effective date of invention to simply utilize the well-known knowledge for padding the video for inputting into a network, this will yield ease of data migration.
With respect to claim 22, combination of Kalchbrenner and Vasvani further discloses wherein the encoder neural network comprises a 3D encoder convolution layer followed by a plurality of encoding self-attention layers, wherein each encoding self-attention layer comprises: an encoder layer-norm layer, a block self-attention layer, and one or more encoder feed-forward layers, (see Vasvani section 3 Model Architecture and figure 1), as claimed.
With respect to claim 23, combination of Kalchbrenner and Vasvani further discloses wherein the decoder neural network comprises a 3D decoder convolution layer followed by a plurality of decoding self-attention layers, wherein each decoding self-attention layer comprises: a decoder layer-norm layer, a masked block self- attention layer, and one or more decoder feed-forward layers, (see Vasvani section 3 Model Architecture and figure 1), as claimed.
With respect to claim 33, combination of Kalchbrenner and Vasvani further discloses wherein the encoder neural network and the decoder neural network are jointly trained, (see Kalchbrenner figure 1, and section 3.1 and 3.2, that teach the encoder and the decoder as part of the VPN; section 5.1, first paragraph, wherein VPNs have 8RMBs in the encoders and 12 RMBs in the decoders train the models for steps with 20 frame sequences predicting ...), as claimed.
With respect to claim 34, combination of Kalchbrenner and Vasvani further discloses wherein processing, using a decoder neural network, the encoded conditioning segment to generate the respective values for the segment comprises: initializing the decoder neural network with pixels having predetermined pixel values from the initial output video. (see Kalchbrenner page 4, section 3.1, first paragraph, wherein encodes each of the first T frames with a CNN encoder the input layer of the CNN initializing the channel slices when prepared for input into the CNN teaches the initialization; and page 1, last paragraph, wherein Moving MNIST given 10 frames of two moving digits the values of the pixels in Moving MNIST are predetermined), as claimed.
Claims 35-37 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejections for claims 21-23, because claims 35-37 are claiming subject matter similar to the subject matter claimed in claims 21-23.
Claims 38-40 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejections for claims 21-23, because claims 38-40 are claiming subject matter similar to the subject matter claimed in claims 21-23.
Double Patenting
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 21-40 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,142,015. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the entire scope of the instant application claims 21-40 is encompassed by the patented claims 1-20.
Conclusion
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/VIKKRAM BALI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2663
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