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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claim 20 recite "A computer readable recording medium" which covers non-statutory subject matter. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a computer readable medium typically covers forms of non-statutory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se, in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media, particularly when the specification is silent. See MPEP 2111.01. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claim must be rejected under 35 USC § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. The claim is broad enough to encompass transitory propagating signals because it does not recite a non-transitory storage medium and the specification teaches supplying the program via network [0154]. Therefore, the claim encompasses non-statutory subject matter.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-29 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The prior art of record, including US 20240196116 A1 and US 11284023 B2, teaches radiation/imaging detector pixel architectures including photoelectric conversion units, charge transfer structures, floating diffusion nodes, readout circuitry, threshold comparisons, and signal processing using information obtained from multiple image frames. Prior art further teaches detection of saturated pixel values and image processing based on information derived from multiple exposures and/or multiple frames.
However, prior art fails to teach or suggest a signal processing operation in which, in a case where the pixel signals read from a certain pixel of the pixel array in two consecutive frames exceed a predetermined value, the signal processing unit corrects the pixel signal read from the certain pixel for temporally earlier one of the two consecutive frames to a smaller correction value.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARCUS H TANINGCO whose telephone number is (571)272-1848. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-6pm EST.
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/MARCUS H TANINGCO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2884
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