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 .
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 2-21 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,141,986 and over claims 1-4, 11, and 17 of U.S. Patent No. 11,676,284. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the current application are broader than the claims of the conflicting application, except as indicated in the table below:
Current application
Conflicting patent 12,141,986
Conflicting patent 11,676,284
2
1
1 (“segmentation data” corresponds to “boundary data” and “shape data” corresponds to “semantic data”)
3
2
2
4
3
3
5
4
4
6
5
7
6
8
7
9
8
10
9
11
10
12
11
11
13
12
14
13
15
14
16
15
17
16
18
17
17
19
18
20
19
21
20
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-21 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the double patenting rejections set forth in this Office action.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art of record, individually or in combination, does not disclose or suggest in
claim 2: “inferring boundary data for one or more objects represented in an image using a convolutional neural network (CNN) by identifying and removing one or more portions of the image that do not correspond to the boundary data; inferring semantic data for the image; and inferring, using a fusion of the boundary data and the semantic data, a segmentation and an object type corresponding to at least one object of the one or more objects.”
claim 12: “infer, using a convolutional neural network (CNN) by identifying and removing one or more portions of the image that do not correspond to boundary data, the boundary data for one or more objects represented in image data representative of an environment, infer semantic data for the image data; and infer, using a fusion of the boundary data with semantic data, a segmentation and an object type corresponding to at least one object of the one or more objects.”
claim 18: “infer boundary data of one or more objects represented in the at least one image using a convolutional neural network (CNN) by identifying and removing one or more portions of the image that do not correspond to the boundary data; infer semantic data for the at least one image; and infer, using a fusion of the boundary data with the semantic data, a segmentation and an object type corresponding to at least one object of the one or more objects.”
The closest prior art of record is noted as follows:
Huang et al. (Object Boundary Guided Semantic Segmentation, 2016, arXiv, Pages 1-16) discloses in Fig. 1 on page 2 an object boundary guided fully convolutional network (OBG-FCN) that includes two parallel stages that output a class prediction, serving as the claimed “semantic data”, and a boundary prediction, serving as the claimed “boundary data”, which are fused into a combined prediction, which serves as the claimed “to infer a segmentation”. However, Huang does not appear to also infer an object type by fusing the boundary data with semantic data.
Wang et al. (Deep Cropping via Attention Box Prediction and Aesthetics Assessment, 2017, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, Pages 2186-2194) discloses in Figs. 1-3, a network based on fully convolutional neural networks that crops out non-boundary data.
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN S LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-1981. The examiner can normally be reached 11:30 AM - 7:30 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Bee can be reached at (571)270-5183. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Jonathan S Lee/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2677
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