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 § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Finegan et al. (US 11,797,780 B1).
Regarding claim 1, Finegan discloses an image generation apparatus comprising: at least one memory that is configured to store instructions; (Column 4, lines 14-18, instructions stored in memory) and at least one processor that is configured to execute the instructions to: (Column 4, lines 18-21, processor for executing the instructions) acquire sentence data; (Column 6, lines 12-21, natural language paragraph that is a summary of various sources of context, including text documents) extract a plurality of keywords from the sentence data; (Column 6, lines 23-30, distilling keywords from the summary) and generate an image related to the sentence data by inputting the plurality of keywords to an image generation model (Column 6, lines 23-30, the keywords enable a text-to-image model to generate images relevant to the text documents).
Regarding claim 2, Finegan discloses wherein the extraction of the plurality of keywords includes: acquiring keyword information that specifies a semantic text representing a meaning of a word for one or more words to be extracted as the keywords; (Column 7, lines 24-35, dictionary having a key-value data store that relates various keywords to thematic topics or semantics) and when the sentence data includes a word associated with the semantic text in the keyword information, extracting one or more of the keywords from the semantic text corresponding to the associated word (Column 10, lines 8-13, keywords are extracted using a knowledge base from the dictionary).
Regarding claims 8 and 15, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 1 is applied.
Regarding claims 9 and 16, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 2 is applied.
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.
Claim(s) 3, 10, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Finegan et al. (US 11,797,780 B1) in view of Oya (US 2020/0175049 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Finegan discloses all limitations as discussed in claim 1. Finegan does not clearly disclose wherein the extraction of the plurality of keywords includes: acquiring keyword information that specifies a replacement word for one or more words to be extracted as the keywords; and when the sentence data includes a word associated with the replacement word in the keyword information, extracting the replacement word corresponding to the associated word as the keyword. Oya discloses using a keyword dictionary for providing synonyms to replace extracted words with (Paragraph 0059). Oya’s technique of using a keyword dictionary for providing synonyms to replace extracted words with would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art to be applicable to the keywords extracted based on context for generating an image of Finegan and the results would have been predictable in using a keyword dictionary to replace extracted keywords based on context that can be subsequently used for generating an image. Therefore, the claimed subject matter would have bene obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claims 10 and 17, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 3 is applied.
Claim(s) 4 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Finegan et al. (US 11,797,780 B1) in view of Denison (US 2024/0193821 A1).
Regarding claim 4, Finegan discloses all limitations as discussed in claim 1. Finegan does not clearly disclose wherein the generation of the image includes: determining a weight of each of the keywords, based on a feature of each of the keywords; and inputting each of the keywords and the weight of each of the keywords to the image generation model. Denison discloses calculating weights for keywords used to generate an image using an AI model based on a context, the keywords, and keyword sequences (Paragraphs 0039 and 0045). Denison’s technique of calculating weights for keywords used to generate an image using an AI model based on a context, the keywords, and keyword sequences would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art to be applicable to the generation of an image through a text-to-image model using keywords related to a context of Finegan and the results would have been predictable in the calculating of weights for keywords used to generate an image related to a context through a text-to-image model based on the context, the keywords, and keyword sequences. Therefore, the claimed subject matter would have bene obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 11, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 4 is applied.
Claim(s) 5 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Finegan et al. (US 11,797,780 B1) in view of Denison (US 2024/0193821 A1) and further in view of Singaraju et al. (US 2024/0233427 A1).
Regarding claim 5, Finegan in view of Denison discloses all limitations as discussed in claim 4. Finegan in view of Denison does not clearly disclose wherein the generation of the image includes determining a weight of each of the keywords based on an occurrence count of each of the keywords in the sentence data. Singaraju discloses calculating a keyword weight based on a keyword frequency in documents (Paragraph 0064). Singaraju’s technique of calculating a keyword weight based on a keyword frequency in documents would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art to be applicable to the keyword weights used with keywords for a text-to-image model to generate images related to a context of Finegan in view of Denison and the results would have been predictable in the calculation of keyword weights based on a keyword frequency in a context for generating images related to the context using a text-to-image model. Therefore, the claimed subject matter would have bene obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 12, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 5 is applied.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 7, 13, and 14 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Regarding claim 6, the prior art does not clearly disclose the image generation apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the generation of the image includes increasing a weight of the keyword when the keyword is not a polysemous word and is related to a specific topic.
Regarding claim 7, the prior art does not clearly disclose the image generation apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the generation of the image includes decreases a weight of the keyword when the keyword is a polysemous word and is not related to a specific topic.
Regarding claim 13, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 6 is applied.
Regarding claim 14, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 7 is applied.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Nuckolls (US 2016/0070803 A1) discloses creating a dictionary and assigning weights to words based on the number of meanings they have.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHI HOANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3417. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8:00-5:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, JASON CHAN can be reached at (571)272-3022. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PHI HOANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2619
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