DETAILED ACTION
Status
This Office Action is responsive to claims filed on 05/20/2025. Please note Claims 1-8 are pending and have been examined.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 1-8 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.
Claim 1 recites “selected modules” (line 9) which is ambiguous. It’s unclear whether this feature refers to the selected modules in the selection step (line 4-8). If so, applicant is suggested to recite “the selected modules”; otherwise, applicant should amend the claim to distinguish two different groups of selected modules.
Claim 1 recites “a stage in the middle” (line 11) which lacks a clear definition of the scope associated with the term “middle”. If the feature is referring to a stage in the middle of all stages, applicant is suggested to simply name it “a middle stage”.
Claim 1 recites “the modules” (last line of claim 1) which is ambiguous. “The modules” may refer to the selected modules or the plurality of modules in claim 1. Clarification is needed.
Claims 2-6 are dependent from claim 1 and are therefore rejected.
Claims 7 and 8 recite similar features of claim 1 and are therefore rejected.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-8 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
ZHU (US 20250356646 A1) – This reference teaches an image classification method includes: obtaining an original image and prompt texts, each prompt text being generated according to an image label that corresponds to a preset image category; for each prompt text, inputting the original image, the prompt text, and a random noise image into a trained diffusion model to generate a noisy image based on the original image and the random noise image, generating a predicted noise image according to the noisy image and the prompt text, and calculating a difference between the predicted noise image and the random noise image; selecting, according to differences calculated for predicted noise images, a predicted noise image having a smallest difference, and acquiring a prompt text based on which the selected predicted noise image is generated; and using an image label corresponding to the acquired prompt text as an image label of the original image.
HEIDE (US 20190005360 A1) – This reference teaches a learning machine employs an image acquisition device for acquiring a set of training raw images. A processor determines a representation of a raw image, initializes a set of image representation parameters, defines a set of analysis parameters of an image analysis network configured to process the image's representation, and jointly trains the set of representation parameters and the set of analysis parameters to optimize a combined objective function. Processor executable instructions are organized into a module for transforming pixel-values of the raw image to produce a transformed image comprising pixels of variance-stabilized values, a module for successively performing processes of soft camera projection and image projection, and a module for inverse transforming the transformed pixels. The image projection process performs multi-level spatial convolution, pooling, subsampling, and interpolation.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHONG WU whose telephone number is (571)270-5207. The examiner can normally be reached MON-FRI: 9AM-5PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Xiao Wu can be reached at 571-272-7761. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHONG WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2613
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