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 .
Claims 1-12 are active in this application as a result of addition claim 12.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/16/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 01/02/2026 have been considered.
The arguments are drawn to the newly recited limitations. The new ground of rejection as necessitated by the amendment is presented herein.
Claim Objections
Claim 8 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Regarding claim 8, “includes ing” is suggested to change to --includes--.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 1, 9, 10 and 11:
There is insufficient antecedent basis for “the plurality of feature vectors” and “the reduced-dimension feature space”.
Moreover, the term “unsupervised clustering algorithm" and “high cluster-quality metric”, in claims 1, 9, 10 and 11, is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "unsupervised" and “high” are not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claims 1, 9, 10 and 11 also recite the terms “multi-dimensional numerical feature vector”, “dimensionality-reduction transformation”, and “reduced-dimension feature representations”, which are not defined in the specification. While Applicant is allowed to be his own lexicographer, when doing so Applicant must clearly set forth a definition of the term in the specification where it differs from the plain and ordinary meaning. These terms are unclear and should be clarified.
Claims 1, 9, 10 and 11 also recite “the images assigned to at least one cluster…the images assigned to one or more of the clusters”, “until all of the plurality of images are clustered” and “one or more clusters to which the images are assigned”; it is unclear how the images assigned to the cluster relating to clustering the reduced-dimension feature representations. The claim appeared only recite clustering the reduced-dimension feature representations. More specifically, it is not clear how limitations of the claims connected or related to each other.
Dependent claims are rejected as the same as based claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Boman (US 9,064,161) discloses system and method for detecting generic items in image sequences.
Liu (US 2025/0106369) discloses methods and systems for personalized image generation.
Nagarajan (US 20240411724 ) discloses systems and methods for advanced duplicate image search and analysis.
Bai (US 2021/0342643) discloses method, apparatus, and electronic device for training place recognition model.
Gregson (US 20240411724) discloses automated clustering of anomalous histopathology tissue samples.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MERILYN P NGUYEN whose telephone number is 571-272-4026. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kavita Stanley can be reached on (571) 272-8352. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MERILYN P NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2153
January 22, 2026
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