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 .
Application Status
This office action is responsive to amendments filed on 09/04/2026 for Application No.:18/950,718, filed on 11/18/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending and presented for examination.
This action has been made FINAL.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 09/04/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The Applicant alleges the following: “The Office Action has not shown the cited art teaches optimizing the intermediate output by minimizing an overlap between a cross-attention map of the first element and a self-attention map of the second element”. The examiner is not persuaded. Because "applicants may amend claims to narrow their scope, a broad construction during prosecution creates no unfairness to the applicant or patentee." In re ICON Health and Fitness, Inc., 496 F.3d 1374, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004)). The examiner asserts, the combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses the Applicant’s claim language. Moreover, Yang discloses the Applicant’s claim language of “optimizing the intermediate output by minimizing an overlap between a cross-attention map of the first element and a self-attention map” in Column 13, Lines 15-35 and Column 22, Lines 24-40. MPEP § 2106 states Office personnel are to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure. In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027-28 (Fed Cir. 1997). Accordingly, the examiner maintains the rejection.
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) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over YAMADA, US20250104291 in view of Weber, US20080069445 and in further view of Yang, et al, US 12,141,929.
Claim 1:
YAMADA a method (See YAMADA Abstract). YAMADA failed to explicitly disclose a second location. Weber discloses this feature in paragraph 0271. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified YAMADA by the teachings of Weber to enable improved image processing systems, as taught Weber by including locations, more effectively (See Weber Paragraph 0001). Additionally, both of the references teach features that are directed to analogous art and they are directed to the same field of endeavor, such as, image generation.
In addition, YAMADA and Weber failed to disclose minimizing an overlap between a cross-attention map of the first element and a self-attention map. Yang discloses this feature in Column 13, Lines 15-35 and Column 22, Lines 24-40. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified YAMADA and Weber by the teachings of Yang to enable improved overlapping, as taught Yang by including self-attention and cross-attention in an augmented reality system, more effectively (See Yang Abstract). Additionally, both of the references teach features that are directed to analogous art and they are directed to the same field of endeavor.
As modified:
The combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses the following:
obtaining an input prompt describing a first element and a second element (See YAMADA Figure 10, Item s1010; Paragraph 0084);
generating, using an image generation model, an intermediate output based on the input prompt (See YAMADA Figure 10, Item s1045; Paragraph 0106);
optimizing the intermediate output by minimizing an overlap between a cross-attention map of the first element and a self-attention map (See Yang Column 13, Lines 15-35 and Column 22, Lines 24-40) of the second element to obtain an optimized intermediate output (See YAMADA Figure 10, Item s1055; Paragraph 0108), wherein the optimized intermediate output represents the first element at a first location and the second element at a second location (See Weber Paragraph 0271);
and generating, using the image generation model, a synthetic image based on the optimized intermediate output (See YAMADA Figure 10, Item s1055; Paragraph 0108), wherein the synthetic image depicts the first element at the first location and the second element at the second location (See Weber Paragraph 0271).
Claim 2:
The combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses encoding the input prompt to obtain a text embedding, wherein the intermediate output is based on the text embedding (See YAMADA Paragraphs 0043; 0091; 0096; 0098; 0153).
Claim 3:
The combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses wherein optimizing the intermediate output comprises: updating a mean (See YAMADA Paragraphs 0044-0046) and a covariance of the intermediate output (See Weber Paragraph 0177).
Claim 4:
The combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses wherein optimizing the intermediate output comprises: generating a self-attention map for the first element (See YAMADA Paragraphs 0044-0046; 0076-0078); generating a cross-attention map between the first element and the second element (See YAMADA Paragraphs 0044-0046; 0076-0078); and computing an attention contrast term based on the self-attention map and the cross-attention map, wherein an attention contrast loss includes the attention contrast term (See YAMADA Paragraphs 0044-0046; 0076-0078).
Claim 5:
The combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses wherein optimizing the intermediate output comprises: generating a self-attention map for the first element (See YAMADA Paragraphs 0044-0046; 0076-0078); generating a cross-attention map between the first element and itself (See YAMADA Paragraphs 0044-0046; 0076-0078); and computing an attention complete term based on the self-attention map and the cross-attention map, wherein an attention contrast loss includes the attention complete term (See YAMADA Paragraphs 0044-0046; 0076-0078).
Claim 6:
The combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses wherein optimizing the intermediate output comprises: computing a distribution divergence term, wherein an attention contrast loss includes the distribution divergence term (See Weber Paragraph 0177).
Claim 7:
The combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses wherein generating the synthetic image comprises: denoising the intermediate output (See YAMADA Paragraphs 0052-0054; 0060-0061).
Claims 8-14:
Claims 8-14 are rejected on the same basis as claims 1-7.
Claim 15
Claim 15 is rejected on the same basis as claim 1.
Claim 16:
The combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses wherein: the image generation model includes an attention layer, and wherein an attention contrast loss is based on an output of the attention layer (See YAMADA Paragraph 0077).
Claim 17:
The combination of YAMADA, Weber and Yang discloses wherein: the image generation model includes a latent diffusion model (See YAMADA Paragraph 0060).
Claims 18-20:
Claims 18-20 are rejected on the same basis as claims 2-5.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHEREE N BROWN whose telephone number is (571)272-4229. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 5:30-2:00 PM EST.
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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.
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/SHEREE N BROWN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2612 October 5, 2026
