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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is a Final.
This action is in response to correspondence filed on 02/27/2026 and 03/13/2026.
Claims 1-13, 15-18 are pending and have been considered.
Claims 1-13 and 15-18 are pending. Claims 1-5, 8, 9, 15 and 17 were amended, Claim 14 was cancelled, and Claim 18 is new.
Claim objections are withdrawn in view of the amendments.
Claim 9, 15 rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) is withdrawn in view of the amendments.
in view of the amendments to claims 1, 17 a new rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) is made for claims 1, 17, and by dependency for claims 2-13, 15, 16, 18
Claims 1-4, 6-8, 10-13, 15-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter, a judicial exception, an abstract idea (mental process), without significantly more.
Claims 5 and 9 would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all the limitation of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 1, 17 are rejected under U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Blechschmidt US 11640708 B1 in view of Chen et al Hierarchical constraints and particle swarm optimization for home layout, Journal of Computer-Aided Design & Computer Graphics, Vol. 26 No. 10, Oct. 2014 in further view of Farooki et al, Interactive and Scalable Layout Synthesis with Design Templates, 2020 IEEE AIVR, 2020 in further view of Scott-Leikach et al US 20060101742 A1
Claims 2-4, 5-13, 15,16 are also rejected under U.S.C. 103.
Response to Amendments/Arguments
The amendments and arguments filed on 02/27/2026 and 03/13/2026 have been considered.
Claims 1-5, 8, 9, 15 and 17 have been amended, Claim 14 was cancelled, and Claim 18 is new.
In view of the amendments, all claim objections have been withdrawn.
Claims 1-4, 6-8, 10-13, 15-18 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter, a judicial exception, an abstract idea, without significantly more: the amendments in independent claims have not made the independent claims eligible.
However in view of the amendments and arguments, claims 5, 9 would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all the limitation of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is in response to the arguments, which focused on independent claims. While the arguments regarding the recitation of mathematical concept in independent claims – regarding the graph – have been found persuasive, the arguments regarding the mental process have not been found persuasive. For brevity only one example is included here: the applicant states “In other words, if the claim when considered as a whole cannot be performed in the human mind, then the claim cannot be considered abstract under prong 1 as a mental process.” Examiner uses MPEP guidance, as included in the analysis below. For example, a claim reciting a WURC data acquisition/gathering, at rates beyond human mind capability, followed by a mental process limitation, an abstract idea, is directed to a mental process as the recited data gathering is an insignificant extra- (pre) solution activity, and without significantly more, as the data gathering being also WURC, thus not eligible under 35 USC 101.
The independent claim in the instant application recites a limitation of furnishing a 3D room. However, the mental processes are related to extraction and use of the graph, the zone and constraints , which are graphs as well, and the template, which in view of the specification is a simple (relation graph) representation of the relationship between 3D elements: see “said template comprising said zone and said set of constraints.” “Template: set of one or several zones and spatial and functional constraints between the zones and between the zones and the 3D architectural elements of the room.”; Fig 4 and 5 illustrate the zones; Zone: a zone defines a local spatial arrangement of the one or several 3D furnishing objects in it with its plausible transformations, the transformations may correspond to one or more: suppression of some of the 3D furnishing objects in the zone, replacement of one or more 3D furnishing objects by one or more 3D furnishing objects in the zone. The first step of the method consists in automatically extracting a spatial relations graph based on spatial relations between the 3D elements of the 3D room. Figure 7. illustrates the code for the template shows the equivalent of what a person would use as positional/spatial relationships, which expressed here in natural language as opposed to literal/numerical labels, would represent the relationship and constraints as sofa in front of the wall, at medium distance, to the right of the table, etc.
The steps of furnishing 3D room according to a template and displaying are not considered a mental processes, but instead considered to be an insignificant post-solution activities, and WURC, which do not amount to practical application or significantly more. See e.g. T. Germer et al Procedural Arrangement of Furniture for Real-Time Walkthroughs, 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2009.01351.x; see also Pintore - State‐of‐the‐art in Automatic 3D Reconstruction of Structured Indoor; Computer Graphics Forum - 2020 - see also Yu et al Make it home: Automatic optimization of furniture arrangement. Trans. Graph., 2011 and reference used for prior art in 103 rejection in this OA.
The specification contains disclosure that can overcome the interpretation of extraction being mental process, e.g. including how the extraction of graphs is performed, e.g. with bounding boxes, use of ray-tracing etc, which are computer methods. Such limitations are used, for example in claims 5, 9.
In this respect, Claims 5, 9 would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all the limitation of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Regarding Claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 – Applicant’s arguments have been considered but have not been found persuasive. The art used to reject claim 1s 1 and 14, from which the amended limitations are derived, can be combined to render the claims as amended obvious in view of the prior art. The rejections are maintained.
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, 17 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The claims recite “generating a template of furnished virtual 3D rooms” which indicates a single template associate with multiple (plural) furnished virtual 3D rooms. However, it further recites “providing at least a template …for each furnished virtual 3D room” suggesting multiple templates. The claim then recites “furnishing the virtual room to map the template” without specifying which template is used when multiple templates are generated. It is thus imprecise whether the claimed method/system requires generating one template, or multiple templates – and if one, how to generate one for differently furnished rooms, and if multiple, then which one to use in the mapping to furnish the virtual room.
One of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
For the purpose of examination “to map the template” will be treated as “to map one of the templates” (a selected template – though a step of selection per se is missing), in accordance with the original claim 14, now canceled.
The rejection could be overcome if the selection step (or similar step that identifies one single template to be mapped) - is reintroduced, as it was originally in claim 14.
Dependent claims 2-13, 15, 16, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph for the reasons set in the rejection of the base claim – independent claim 1 –(as they inherit the deficiencies of the independent claim 1) and are not further limited in a manner that would overcome the rejection.
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.
Claims 1-13, 15-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea of both a math concept and a mental process without significantly more and without an integration of the abstract idea itself into a practical application.
Step 1:
Claims 1-13, 15, 18 are directed to methods and fall within the statutory category of processes, claims 17 directed to a computer system, which falls under the statutory category of machines, and claims 16 directed to a memory , which falls under the statutory category of an article of manufacture. Thus, on its face, each independent claim and the associated dependent claims are directed to a statutory category of invention.
[INDEPENDENT CLAIMS]
Independent claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claim is directed to an abstract idea, a judicial exception, without reciting additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application, and without significantly more.
Claims 16, 17, and the dependents thereof, are rejected under a similar rationale as representative claim 1.
Step 2A.1.
The limitations of independent claim 1 (and limitations of claims 16, 17, which are substantially similar ) recite an abstract idea, shown in bold in the following:
[1] generating a template of furnished virtual 3D rooms including 3D elements; (generation of a template is considered a generation of a short form representation, in view of the further limitations below
[2] wherein the template is obtained generated by automatically providing at least a template of a furnished virtual 3D room including 3D elements, for each furnished virtual 3D room by
a. automatically extracting a spatial relations graph based on spatial relations between the 3D elements of the 3D room, said 3D elements including 3D architectural elements and 3D furnishing objects located in the furnished virtual 3D room; - a mental process, but do it on a computer. E.g. a person is readily able to mentally observe a room, and observe furniture and architectural elements, e.g. chairs, tables, etc. for furniture; and columns, walls, etc. for architectural elements (e.g. see fig. 5) and then mentally evaluate the results of said observation by drawing a spatial relations graph using pen and paper, e.g. graphing paper, e.g. see fig. 5.
b. automatically extracting at least one zone from the 3D room based on the spatial relations graph, and extracting a set of constraints about a relative arrangement of said zone with respect to a room architecture or with respect to other zones of the 3D room, a zone being defined by a local spatial arrangement of at least one 3D furnishing object; same argument as above, observation of relationships and forming a representation of the relationships between elements observed
c. and determining and
d. storing a template of the furnished virtual 3D room, said template including said zone and said set of constraints. (determining the template, itself composed of graph representations)
Extracted spatial relations graph between the 3D elements of the 3D room, said 3D elements including 3D architectural elements and 3D furnishing objects located in the furnished virtual 3D room
is interpreted as the process of obtaining what is illustrated in Fig 2 shown below, for which the Description of the Drawings is “Figure 2 illustrates the spatial relations graph”
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A person presented a 3D virtual room can observe and determine 3D elements, such as wall (architectural) noted as 4, sofa (object) noted as 5, and table (object) noted as 6; can observe and identify the spatial relationship between them, e.g. sofa in front of the wall, table in front of sofa, and establish mentally, and use pen and paper to draw the graph in Figure 2. Establishing such relationship is routinely done in the mind before putting on paper.
extracting at least one zone from the 3D room based on the spatial relations graph,
…a zone being defined by a local spatial arrangement of at least one 3D furnishing object
is interpreted as a set of spatial relationship graph which includes elements locally arranged around at least one 3D furnishing object. This is best illustrated by Fig 4 and 5, for simplicity using only Fig. 4 :” Figure 4 illustrates zones along 3D architectural elements;”
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Observe the two spatial relationship graphs in boxes. Focusing on the top left this would could represent the architectural element, a wall, 2, in front of which (in the direction towards the viewer) there are furnishing objects 9 and 10, one on the Right of the other.
The “zone” , to be clear is represented by the graph, e.g:
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A person can mentally determine such a graph, observe and identify the spatial relationship between the one or more furnishing objects, what is local arrangement in terms of relative position of furnishing and architectural elements establish mentally, and use pen and paper to draw the graph in Figure 4 fragment.
extracting a set of constraints about a relative arrangement of said zone with respect to a room architecture or with respect to other zones of the 3D room
In BRI and view of the specification, for example Fig 6 and 8, for which Description of Drawings indicate (“ Figure 6 illustrates the corner constraint”; “ Figure 8 illustrates the distance constraint between zones”) the limitation is interpreted as a set of spatial relationship graph which uses the convention of Fig. 2 as for node representation, arrows direction and thickness of edges and corresponds to (in fig 6 shown below) edges of node 8 (boxed) indicating the constraint of a corner for zone between walls 2 and 3; similarly, in reference to Fig 8 shown below, thickness of arrows
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A person can mentally determine such a graph, observe and identify the constraining relationship between a zone and other zones or architectural elements, and use pen and paper to draw the graph in Figures 6, 8.
…said template including said zone and said set of constraints
the specification: “ the template comprises a set of one or several zones and spatial and functional constraints between the zones and between the zones and the 3D architectural elements of the room”
thus template generation in BRI is the totality of zone and constraints, which are the relationships that can be mentally established.
Independent claim 1 (representative of claim 16, 17) recites: determining a graph reflecting the relationships between room elements, of the room itself and objects inside [a]; using the graph to determine a zone, i.e. object(s) in local spatial relationships, and its constraints on relative placement compared to room or zones [b], determine the template as the zone and constraints [c] which, based on the claim language and in view of the application specification, can be summarized as a process of forming a template, including a zone, determined as a graph of local spatial relationships, and a zone’s arrangement constraints relative to a room or other zones.
This is a combination that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation covers performance of limitations expressing observation, evaluation, judgement regarding determination of the elements of the room, relative spatial positioning, creation of a graph. These are Mental Processes – Concepts Performed in the Human Mind (MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III).
Regarding the claim element “automatically” and reference to “computer-implemented” : the courts do not distinguish between claims that recite mental processes performed by humans and claims that recite mental processes performed on a computer. As the Federal Circuit has explained, "[c]ourts have examined claims that required the use of a computer and still found that the underlying, patent-ineligible invention could be performed via pen and paper or in a person’s mind." Versata Dev. Group v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1335, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1702 (Fed. Cir. 2015). See also Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1318, 120 USPQ2d 1353, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III).
Accordingly, claim 1 (which is representative of claims 7, 8 ) recites an abstract idea.
Step 2A.2.
The claim does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The additional elements in [d], obtaining a room, and furnishing the room when considered individually, are considered insignificant extra-solution activities, and as such fail to amount to more than the judicial exception itself.
Regarding the claim element “automatically” and “computer-implemented” : the courts do not distinguish between claims that recite mental processes performed by humans and claims that recite mental processes performed on a computer. As the Federal Circuit has explained, "[c]ourts have examined claims that required the use of a computer and still found that the underlying, patent-ineligible invention could be performed via pen and paper or in a person’s mind." Versata Dev. Group v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1335, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1702 (Fed. Cir. 2015). See also Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1318, 120 USPQ2d 1353, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III).
Taken individually or in combination, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on the judicial exception, nor do they effect an improvement to any technology or technical field. According, the claim as a whole does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, and thus the claim remains directed to a judicial exception.
Step 2B.
Independent claim 1 (which is representative also of claim 16, 17) does not contribute an inventive concept. The additional elements when considered individually and as an ordered combination, and the claim as a whole, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (see MPEP 2106.05 and 2106.07).
The additional elements of obtaining the room (data gathering) and template storing (data storing) ([d]) and displaying are insignificant extra-solution activities, MPEP 2106.05(g)(3) -See Mayo, 566 U.S. at 79, 101 USPQ2d at 1968; OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363, 115 USPQ2d 1090, 1092-93 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (presenting offers and gathering statistics amounted to mere data gathering). Further, the insignificant extra-solution data storing are also Well-Understood, Routine and Conventional (see MPEP § 2106.05(d)(ll)). The additional elements, when considered individually, are limitations that the courts have found not enough to qualify as “significantly more” than the judicial exception.
Similarity, furnishing 3D room according to a template and displaying are instead considered to be an insignificant post-solution activities, and WURC, which do not amount to practical application or significantly more. See e.g. T. Germer et al Procedural Arrangement of Furniture for Real-Time Walkthroughs, 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2009.01351.x; see also Pintore - State‐of‐the‐art in Automatic 3D Reconstruction of Structured Indoor; Computer Graphics Forum - 2020 - see also Yu et al Make it home: Automatic optimization of furniture arrangement. Trans. Graph., 2011 and reference used for prior art in 103 rejection in this OA.
When considered as a whole, as an ordered combination, the additional elements in the claim do not provide steps significant or meaningful to the underlying judicial exception because the identified abstract idea - forming a template, including a zone, determined as a subgraph of local spatial relationships, and a zone’s arrangement constraints relative to a room or other zones, could have been reasonably performed when provided with the relevant data and/or information. The claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Therefore, it is concluded that claims 1, 16 and 17 are deemed ineligible.
As currently drafted the claim limitations of extracting are so general that recite mental processes. If amended to include procedures that are computer specific, e.g. the computer method of bounding boxes, or involving raytracing, etc. these are computer specific methods not practically performed in the mind.
Claim 2 recites the method of claim 1, further comprising:
(a) computing a ratio between a 3D furnishing objects total floor occupation area of the room and a room floor area
(b) implementing the automatically extracting and the determining and storing when said ratio satisfies a predefined criterion based on a standard deviation of the ratio for a data set of rooms of the same category.
The claim recites mathematical concepts, calculation of ratio and ratio based on standard deviation. These additional abstract ideas do not contribute to integration into a practical application or significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Therefore, claim 2 is deemed ineligible.
Claim 3 recites the method of claim 1, wherein the automatically extracting the spatial relations graph further comprises:
obtaining a set of nodes corresponding to the 3D elements, and
extracting vertical and horizontal relations between 3D elements based on distances between said 3D elements.
The claim elements reciting extracting vertical and horizontal relationship based on distances between elements ([b]) covers performance of limitations expressing observation, evaluation, judgement mentally or manually. These are Mental Processes, (MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III); furthermore, calculating distances and determine geometrical arrangements are Mathematical Concepts (MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection I). Thus, claim elements recite an abstract idea.
The additional elements in this dependent claim ([a]) amount to no more than data gathering, an insignificant extra solution activity. When considered individually and in combination, these additional elements recited by the claim only further elaborate on the abstract idea identified in the independent claims - the claim continues to recite the identified abstract idea. These additional elements do not do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, are not directed to any specific improvement of the claim, and do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
The insignificant extra-solution data gathering is Well-Understood, Routine and Conventional (see MPEP § 2106.05(d)(ll)) in view of the same evidence discussed above for the mere data gathering step in claim 1. When considered as a whole, as an ordered combination, the dependent claim elaborates on the previously identified abstract idea. It does not practically or significantly alter how the identified abstract idea would be performed. There is no inventive concept - the claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the exception itself.
Therefore, claim 3 is deemed ineligible.
Claim 4, dependent on claim 3, further recites
wherein at least one node of the set of nodes is an anchor node, and wherein the vertical relations are extracted by: computing a volume of a 3D intersection between a 3D element and the anchor, when the volume of the intersection is above a proportion of the volume of the 3D element, - math calculations in geometry, wherein people are also readily able to compute volumes using physical aids and simple equations, e.g. the volume of a cube is length times width times height, and a person is readily able to calculate the results of that mentally or using physical aids, recites a math concept
adding a support edge to the anchor node with a "contained" tag, and
when the volume of the intersection is not above the proportion of the volume of the 3D element, adding a support edge to the anchor node with a distance tag computed based on a distance between a bottom of a supported target and a top face of the anchor only when a 3D element bottom face center is above a bottom face of the anchor. – math calculations in computing of the volume and computing the distance. Adding support edges and assigning tags merely organize information in graph relationships. The claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Therefore, claim 4 is deemed ineligible.
Claim 6, dependent on claim 1, further recites
wherein the automatically extracting the spatial relations graph further comprises:
detecting at least a superstructure in the spatial relations graph, and applying a pruning on edges of the spatial relations graph which do not belong to a superstructure, or applying a pruning on edges of the spatial relations graph which have the lowest frequencies of occurrence in a dataset of graphs extracted from a dataset of 3D furnished rooms.
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, detecting a superstructure in a graph and applying pruning on edges with low frequency of occurring covers performance of limitations expressing observation, evaluation, judgement mentally or manually. These are Mental Processes, and, therefore, claim elements recite an abstract idea. Calculating frequencies recites also mathematical concepts. The use of a general computer does not alter the essence of the fact that this is a mental process, thus an abstract idea.
The claim recites no additional elements. The claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Therefore, claim 6 is deemed ineligible.
Claim 7, dependent on claim 1, further recites wherein automatically extracting at least one zone further comprises
creating a zone for each 3D architectural element which has at least one 3D furnishing object in front of said 3D architectural elements, said zone including all 3D furnishing objects which are in front of the 3D architectural element with a proximal or adjacent edge.
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, creating a zone for each element depending on a positional arrangement covers performance of limitations expressing observation, evaluation, judgement mentally or manually. These are Mental Processes, and, therefore, claim elements recite an abstract idea. These also could be performed in the mind, or using pen and paper. The use of a general computer does not alter the essence of the fact that this is a mental process, thus an abstract idea.
The claim recites no additional elements. The claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Therefore, claim 7 is deemed ineligible.
Claim 10, dependent on claim 1, further recites
wherein automatically extracting at least one zone further comprises:
detecting if a 3D furnishing object is located in front of two perpendicular 3D architectural elements, and creating a constraint for the zone having the 3D furnishing object to be positioned in a corner of the room.
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, detecting if an object is in front of other elements and creating a constraint for the zone covers performance of limitations expressing observation, evaluation, judgement mentally or manually. These are Mental Processes, and, therefore, claim elements recite an abstract idea. These also could be performed in the mind, or using pen and paper. The use of a general computer does not alter the essence of the fact that this is a mental process, thus an abstract idea.
The claim recites no additional elements. The claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Therefore, claim 10 is deemed ineligible.
Claim 11, dependent on claim 1, further recites
wherein automatically extracting at least one zone further comprises:
adding a distance constraint between a zone which is located along a 3D architectural element and a zone in the middle of the room, and defining potential relative movements of the zone in the middle of the room with respect to the zone along the 3D architectural element so that the relation between 3D furnishing objects of both zones is maintained.
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, adding a distance constraint between zones and defining potential movements of the zone, covers performance of limitations expressing observation, evaluation, judgement mentally or manually. These are Mental Processes, and, therefore, claim elements recite an abstract idea. These also could be performed in the mind, or using pen and paper. The use of a general computer does not alter the essence of the fact that this is a mental process, thus an abstract idea.
The claim recites no additional elements. The claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Therefore, claim 11 is deemed ineligible.
Claim 12, dependent on claim 1, further recites
wherein automatically extracting at least one zone further comprises:
adding a distance constraint between two zones along a 3D separator, and
defining potential relative movements of both zones so that the relation between 3D furnishing objects of both zones is maintained.
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, adding a distance constraint between zones and defining potential movements of the zone, covers performance of limitations expressing observation, evaluation, judgement mentally or manually. These are Mental Processes, and, therefore, claim elements recite an abstract idea. These also could be performed in the mind, or using pen and paper. The use of a general computer does not alter the essence of the fact that this is a mental process, thus an abstract idea.
The claim recites no additional elements. The claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Therefore, claim 12 is deemed ineligible.
Claim 15, dependent on claim 1, further recites
wherein furnishing the virtual 3D room further comprises:
determining all combinations of couples made by a 3D architectural element of the 3D room to furnish and a zone of the template;
assigning all combinations as a variable of a particle of a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm; and
( c) running the PSO algorithm until a solution, which satisfies the constraints, is found.
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, determining all combinations of couples ([a]) assigning combinations as a variable to a particle of PSO [(b)] covers performance of limitations expressing observation, evaluation, judgement mentally or manually. These are Mental Processes, and, therefore, claim elements recite an abstract idea. Calculating all combinations recites mathematical concepts. These also could be performed in the mind, or using pen and paper. The use of a general computer does not alter the essence of the fact that this is a mental process, thus an abstract idea.
The additional element of running the PSO algorithm is merely using computer as a tool to automate the mental trial-and-error process of furniture placement in view of page 28, i.e. a person drawing out multiple different ways furniture may be placed in a room, but mere automation of this manual process using a computer and a commonplace math algorithm as a tool (MPEP § 2106.005(f):” Other examples where the courts have found the additional elements to be mere instructions to apply an exception, because they do no more than merely invoke computers or machinery as a tool to perform an existing process include:…. A commonplace business method or mathematical algorithm being applied on a general purpose computer, Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. V. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983 (2014); Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 64, 175 USPQ 673, 674 (1972); Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015)). Applying PSO is a WURC, - routinely used in the field. See for example: Marini, F., & Walczak, B. (2015). Particle swarm optimization (PSO). A tutorial. Chemometrics and intelligent laboratory systems, 149, 153-165. ; Fernández Martínez, J. L., & García Gonzalo, E. (2008). The generalized PSO: a new door to PSO evolution. Journal of Artificial Evolution and Applications, 2008(1), 861275.; Hashemi, A. B., & Meybodi, M. R. (2009, October). Cellular PSO: A PSO for dynamic environments. In International Symposium on Intelligence Computation and Applications (pp. 422-433). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
The claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Therefore, claim 15 is deemed ineligible.
Claim 8, and 13, dependent on claim 1, further recites:
wherein a zone is split in several zones if its length along the 3D architectural element is above a threshold.
wherein the template includes a set of one or several zones and spatial and functional constraints between the zones and between the zones and the 3D architectural elements of the room.
These further elements in the dependent claims do not perform any claimed method steps. They describe the nature, structure and/or content of other claim elements –zone and template nature and as such, cannot change the nature of the identified abstract idea, from a judicial exception into eligible subject matter, because they do not represent significantly more (see MPEP 2106.07). The nature, form or structure of the other claim elements themselves do not practically or significantly alter how the identified abstract idea would be performed and do not provide more than a general link to a technological environment. These additional elements do not do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
When the dependent claims are considered as a whole, as an ordered combination, the claim elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application; the limitations only apply it to a technical environment in a very general sense. The fact that the computing devices and the dependent claims are facilitating the abstract concept is not enough to confer statutory subject matter eligibility, since their individual and combined significance do not transform the identified abstract concept at the core of the claimed invention into eligible subject matter. Therefore, it is concluded that the dependent claims of the instant application, considered individually, or as a as a whole, as an ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more (see MPEP 2106.07(a)II).
The claims are not eligible.
Claim 5, dependent on claim 3, further recites:
wherein at least one node of the set of nodes is an anchor node, and wherein the horizontal relations are extracted by tracing a series of rays starting from the anchor and computing intersections with other 3D furnishing objects of the 3D room.
As amended the claim is deemed eligible under 101.
Claim 9, dependent on claim 1, further recites:
wherein automatically extracting at least one zone further comprises:
sorting, according to importance of the 3D furnishing object, 3D furnishing objects which have a node in the graph with at least a relation with another 3D object's node and which are not located in a zone along 3D architectural elements, the importance being defined by its dimensions, its category and/or the relations the 3D furnishing object is involved in with other 3D furnishing objects, the importance of a 3D furnishing object being defined with regard to its dimensions, its category and/or the relations the 3D furnishing object is involved in with other 3D furnishing objects; ; and
creating new zones including the most important 3D furnishing objects.
The process may not be practical to perform in the mind, and as such extracting the zone is no longer interpreted as a mental process. In view of the amendment and arguments claim 9 is deemed eligible.
In sum, Claims 1-4, 6-8, 10-13, 15-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter, a judicial exception, an abstract idea, without significantly more. Claims 5 and 9 would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all the limitation of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
i. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
ii. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
iii. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
iv. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims with similar limitations are grouped, and a single rejection analysis is performed, on a representative claim for the group.
Claims with similar limitations are grouped and analyzed together.
Claims 1, 3, 6, 7, 11-13, 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blechschmidt US 11640708 B1 in view of Chen et al Hierarchical constraints and particle swarm optimization for home layout, Journal of Computer-Aided Design & Computer Graphics, Vol. 26 No. 10, Oct. 2014 in further view of Farooki et al, Interactive and Scalable Layout Synthesis with Design Templates, 2020 IEEE AIVR, 2020 in further view of Scott-Leikach et al US 20060101742 A1 (“Scott”)
Claims 1, 16, 17 share a group of similar limitations; Claim 17 (system claim) has an additional limitation reciting a processor coupled to a memory.
Regarding the limitations of claims 1, 16, 17 which are similar, Blechschmidt discloses:
automatically extracting a spatial relations graph based on spatial relations between the 3D elements of the 3D room, said 3D elements including 3D architectural elements and 3D furnishing objects located in the furnished virtual 3D room; {[Summary (4)] a scene graph is generated for a current environment based on one or more images of the current environment. For example, a scene graph may include a room node … Moreover, the room node may be linked to four wall objects, a table object, and six chair objects. (31) In some implementations, the machine learning model outputs a graph representing the objects and their relationships, e.g., object relationship graph 200}
Blechsmidth suggests the concept of zone in his teaching “(64) Scene graphs may organize object-specific information and object relationships, for example in a hierarchical arrangement”, yet fails to explicitly disclose zones. However Chen teaches:
automatically extracting at least one zone from the 3D room based on the spatial relations graph, and extracting a set of constraints about a relative arrangement of said zone with respect to a room architecture or with respect to other zones of the 3D room, a zone being defined by a local spatial arrangement of at least one 3D furnishing object; and {Chen2014 [p1604 box 1] Furniture combinations are extracted from home scenes. For example, a pair of tables and chairs that appear at the same time is defined as a furniture group, which is similar to the context classification method in reference [8] and the concept of structural group in reference [9]. Furniture without a combination can also be considered as a furniture group with only one piece of furniture. They have distance and angle constraints with the wall. See also Fig 12 below, Generated furniture hierarchy tree}. Zone is interpreted as furniture group.
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In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth with Chen. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of operating object arrangement per clusters, as several pieces of furniture often belong and move together in a functional arrangement. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen .
Blechsmidth, in view of Chen, does not explicitly teach, however Farooki teaches
generating a template of furnished virtual 3D rooms including 3D elements;
{ A. Functional Zones and Design Templates :We define functional zones as spatial areas containing groups of furniture items (Fig. 1). Zones are categorized into the following types: Conversation, Dining, Bedroom, Office, and Television. Additionally, we include a “default” zone, which can be used for furniture placement outside of individual zones. We also include an “any” zone, which can be used for placement rules that apply regardless of the zone. Creating more custom zones is easily accomplished with our system (Figure 5b). Each zone is associated with design templates and furniture. Given a design template, and a list of furniture, the output is a sequence of possible layouts. We define several design templates: Base: This template (Fig. 3b) supports zone types such as a Bedroom, Office, and Television (Algorithm 1). In brief, we first generate a list of potential furniture items that have an associated origin placement rule applicable to the zone, called origin items. Then, for each origin item, we generate a list of side items by filtering the input furniture items, excluding the origin item, and match the resulting furniture with open side item placements.; Fig. 5: (a) Left: A list of furniture items that can be added to the scene. Right: Interactive 3D view of the furniture layout}
wherein the template is obtained generated by automatically providing at least a template of a furnished virtual 3D room including 3D elements, for each furnished virtual 3D room; determining and storing a template of the furnished virtual 3D room, said template including said zone and said set of constraints.
{ p256 A. Functional Zones and Design Templates :We define functional zones as spatial areas containing groups of furniture items (Fig. 1). Zones are categorized into the following types: Conversation, Dining, Bedroom, Office, and Television. Additionally, we include a “default” zone, which can be used for furniture placement outside of individual zones. We also include an “any” zone, which can be used for placement rules that apply regardless of the zone. Creating more custom zones is easily accomplished with our system (Figure 5b). Each zone is associated with design templates and furniture. Given a design template, and a list of furniture, the output is a sequence of possible layouts. We define several design templates. [p. 237 IV. DISCUSSION AND FUTURE WORK] We demonstrated that our system is effective in synthesizing layout arrangements using design templates. } The templates are clearly saved (‘stored’) between the definition/extraction and the use in synthesizing layout arrangements.
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displaying the furnished virtual 3D room to the user,
{Fig. 1 interactive layout suggestion; Results Experiments were conducted on an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU,
using C#. We utilized the Unity Engine for rendering and user interaction.} Rendering interpreted as display.
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth/ Chen with Farooki. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of using templates for faster generation of possible room arrangements, as it is done in many other fields – where templates are extracted – including in redacting many legal documents. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki .
Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki does not teach, however Scott teaches
obtaining a virtual 3D room to be furnished, said virtual 3D room being provided by a user
{ [00010] the present invention provides a system for generating a floor plan, comprising a user interface for receiving from a client information about a space to be designed, the information including dimension and desired use … the floor plan including an arrangement of furnishings. [0068] The floor plan generator 340 may enable the client 110 to modify a selected floor plan... This may be reflected in the 3D image provided to the user.[0059] In this embodiment, the design engine 305 begins by obtaining room information [0066] After the client 110 indicates (e.g., selects) a room use, the design engine 305 suggests floor plans.}
furnishing the virtual 3D room to map the template into the 3D room to be furnished;{ { Scott[ 0010] the present invention provides a system for generating a floor plan, … the floor plan including an arrangement of furnishings. [0067] In a template-based embodiment, the floor plan generator 340 may select from a predetermined set of floor plan templates to determine which of the floor plan templates work with the given space. [0068] The floor plan generator 340 may enable the client 110 to modify a selected floor plan... This may be reflected in the 3D image provided to the user .Claims 20, 21. Figure 8A step 835 Design assistant recommends furnishing } Furnishing the virtual 3D room to map the template into the 3D room to be furnished interpreted as select from a set of floor templates and generate floorplan including an arrangement of furnishing;
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth/ Chen/Farooki with Scott. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of user interaction in obtaining the rooms to be furnished and for the final step of furnishing the rooms according to the templates. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ .
Re the additional limitation of claim 17, Blechschmidt discloses:
a processor coupled to a memory, the memory storing computer-executable instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to be configured to {[Summary (8)] a device includes one or more processors, a non-transitory memory, and one or more programs; the one or more programs are stored in the non-transitory memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processor}.
Re Claim 3 Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ teach the limitations of the parent claim. Blechschmidt discloses:
obtaining a set of nodes corresponding to the 3D elements, and extracting vertical and horizontal relations between 3D elements based on distances between said 3D elements. { (20) FIG. 2 is an object relationship graph representing relationships between objects (e.g., floor 125, table 130, chair 135, and cup 140). ..[35] In some implementations, this involve s determining whether a first position of a first object of the separate objects satisfies a distance-based threshold condition with respect to a second position of a second object of the separate objects (e.g., to determine whether the objects are attached, near, next to, etc.). In some implementations, this involves determining whether a first position of a first object of the separate objects satisfies an orientation-based threshold condition with respect to a second position of a second object of the separate objects (e.g., to determine whether the objects are facing, on top of, beneath, etc.).} vertical and horizontal relationship interpreted as on top (vertically above), beneath (vertically below).
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki, Scott with further elements of Chen. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of creating well defined groupings which constitute the templates, with elements that consistently belong to a group as and not with other that occasionally are associated with a group but not necessarily part of the group, consistent with the intent of having representative templates. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki, Scott evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Further element of Chen is merely relied upon to refine the elements of the grouping/template pruning those who only occasionally appear in such association. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ .
Re Claim 7 Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ teach the limitations of the parent claim. Farooki further discloses:
creating a zone for each 3D architectural element which has at least one 3D furnishing object in front of said 3D architectural elements, said zone including all 3D furnishing objects which are in front of the 3D architectural element with a proximal or adjacent edge. {[236 left column We modularize a layout synthesis problem into several components, which include furniture items to be placed, and functional zones, which are areas within a layout that are associated with specific furniture. Fig. 3 (a) a Table zone, which employs origin and side placement rules, with an input of a single table and chair. [237 left column, middle] Wall: Several furniture items need to be placed against a wall (Fig. 2c). We attempt to generate placements for each wall of the room, as close to the corner as possible, ignoring walls with no space. Additionally, we include an offset to control how far the placement is from the wall, and its orientation relative to it.}
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki with further elements of Farooki. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of including all furnishing elements near an architectural element into a zone. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ .
Re Claim 11, Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ teach the limitations of the parent claim. Farooki further discloses
wherein automatically extracting at least one zone further comprises:
adding a distance constraint between a zone which is located along a 3D architectural element and a zone in the middle of the room, and defining potential relative movements of the zone in the middle of the room with respect to the zone along the 3D architectural element so that the relation between 3D furnishing objects of both zones is maintained.{ [237 left col, middle Wall: Several furniture items need to be placed against a wall (Fig. 2c). We attempt to generate placements for each wall of the room, as close to the corner as possible, ignoring walls with no space. Additionally, we include an offset to control how far the placement is from the wall, and its orientation relative to it. Fig 2. 236 left col, middle Fig. 2: (a) Origin placement. The sofa’s center is placed at the center of the layout plus the placement rule’s offset. (b) Side placement. The sofa is the anchor and the coffee table’s center
is placed at the specified offset from the sofa’s center. (c) Wall placement. The sofa is automatically adjusted so that its edge would be touching the wall, and then the sofa is further moved by the placement rule’s offset.} Distance constraint interpreted as offset to control how far
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki with further elements of Farooki. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of maintain a separability between the zones, and preserve their independent functional operability. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Further element of Farooki is merely relied upon to ensure a separability between zones. As best understood by Examiner, since establishing zones and imposing separability constraints between them are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki and further elements of Farooki would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ .
Re Claim 12, Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ teach the limitations of the parent claim. Farooki further discloses
wherein automatically extracting at least one zone further comprises:
adding a distance constraint between two zones along a 3D Separator, and defining potential relative movements of both zones so that the relation between 3D furnishing objects of both zones is maintained. {[page 236 right column B. Placements] We define two placement types: furniture and zone placements (Fig. 6). Zone placements are spatial regions within a layout that serve a certain function, such as socializing or working. Furniture placements are candidate positions of such furniture, which may be numerous depending on the available space and placement rules. Furniture may either be placed independently or placed within zones (Fig. 1). As an abstraction of the individual rules for placing furniture items in a layout, we introduce placement rules. Placement rules take an existing layout, along with an additional furniture,
as input, and output a collection of possible layouts with the input furniture item added to the original layout.} Distance constraints interpreted broadly as placement rules. Defining potential relative movements of both zones so that the relation between 3D furnishing objects of both zones is maintained is interpreted as placement rules for zone placement, in which entire zone moves and thus relation between furnishing objects inside the zone are maintained.
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki with further elements of Farooki. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of maintain a separability between the zones, along a definable alignment and preserve their independent operability and functionality within a defined pattern. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Further element of Farooki is merely relied upon to ensure a separability along definable alignment and maintaining a pattern of arrangement in case of moving as a zone. As best understood by Examiner, since establishing zones and having specific relationship between and within zones are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki and further elements of Farooki would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ .
Re Claim 13, Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ teach the limitations of the parent claim. Farooki further discloses
wherein the template includes a set of one or several zones and spatial and functional constraints between the zones and between the zones and the 3D architectural elements of the room.{ [p 2 (236) right column] We define functional zones as spatial areas containing groups of furniture items (Fig. 1). Zones are categorized into the following types: Conversation, Dining, Bedroom, Office…Each zone is associated with design templates and furniture. Given a design template, and a list of furniture, the output is a sequence of possible layouts. Fig. 3: (a) a Table zone, which employs origin and side placement rules, with an input of a single table and chair. (b) Base zone, created with origin and side placement rules. The table forms the basis for the layout. The TV is placed on top of the table. (c) Conversation zone, which encompasses an abstract rectangle-shaped area, in which we visualize three
rectangle edges. [p4 (238) Our system can also be utilized to bootstrap other layout synthesis work. For example, to encode an initialization for a graph of geometric constraints [5]} constraints interpreted as rules.
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki with further elements of Farooki. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of having a tool (the template) that is useful for an entire space, e.g. a room, with multiple functional areas of operation, which need to maintain separability and positional relationship to ensure optimal functionality. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Further element of Farooki is merely relied to further specify constraints between zones and between zones and architectural elements. As best understood by Examiner, since establishing zones and having specific relationship between and within zones and having specific constraints are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki and further elements of Farooki would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ .
Re Claim 15, Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott disclose the limitations of the parent claim. They do not disclose, however
Chen discloses wherein furnishing the virtual 3D room further comprises:
determining all combinations of couples made by a 3D architectural element of the 3D room to furnish and a zone of the template; assigning all combinations as a variable of a particle of a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm; and ( c) running the PSO algorithm until a satisfactory solution, which satisfies the constraints, is found. { The spatial layout problem is a combinatorial optimization problem, which can generally be solved using the simulated annealing algorithm. When it comes to furniture placement, a scene consisting of more than 20 pieces of furniture often takes tens of seconds to several minutes, which does not meet the requirements of real-time interaction. Considering that the PSO algorithm has inherent parallelism [18], GPU acceleration can be used to improve the efficiency of calculation. On the one hand, since the PSO algorithm converges quickly, this paper uses the PSO sampling energy density function to improve time efficiency through simultaneous calculation of multiple parallel particle swarms. Each particle in the particle swarm corresponds to a furniture arrangement plan; multiple particle swarms calculate in parallel, and each particle swarm obtains an optimal plan, and finally the optimal plan is selected as the final solution.} All combinations of couples made by a 3D architectural element of the 3D room to furnish and a zone of the template are interpreted as to all possible furniture arrangement plan, each being assigned to a particle in the swarm.
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Scott-Leikach, Farooki with Chen. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of solcing the optimization problem of furniture arrangement with an algorithm that is commonly used, simple to map and can be parallelized for speeding up. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Scott-Leikach, Farooki evidently discloses obtaining the room, template and doing the furniture placement. Chen is merely relied to specify an algorithm for doing furniture placement. As best understood by Examiner, since preparing for and doing furniture placement and doing placement by a specific optimization method are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by Scott-Leikach, Farooki and Chen would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ .
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blechschmidt US 11640708 B1 in view of Chen et al Hierarchical constraints and particle swarm optimization for home layout, Journal of Computer-Aided Design & Computer Graphics, Vol. 26 No. 10, Oct. 2014 in further view of Farooki et al, Interactive and Scalable Layout Synthesis with Design Templates, 2020 IEEE AIVR, 2020 in further view of of Scott-Leikach et al US 20060101742 A1 in further view of Fischer, Data-Driven Tools for Scene Modeling, PhD Thesis, Stanford, 2019 in further view of Wang, 2019
Re Claim 4, Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ teach the limitations of the parent claim. Blechschmidt, Chen, Farooki Scott does not disclose, however Fisher discloses
wherein the vertical relations are extracted by, for each node referred to as an anchor: computing a volume of a 3D intersection between a potential supported 3D element and the anchor, when the volume of the intersection is above a certain proportion of the volume of the supported 3D element, adding a support edge to the node of the anchor with a "contained" tag { [p. 51] We start by constructing a corresponding relationship graph for each scene. The nodes of a relationship graph represent all objects in the scene and the edges represent the relationships between these objects. [page 52] Enclosure: Mesh A is enclosed inside mesh B if 95% of the volume of mesh A’s bounding box is inside the bounding box of mesh. Each node contains a number of features that relate to the identity and semantic classification of a particular object. These properties include the size of the object and the geometry, tags… [p. 65]The relationships that the desired object should have with other objects in the scene are defined through a labeled set of connecting query edges.}
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki with those of Fisher. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of providing both humans analysing the graph and automatic tools searching the graph, a rapid determination of the relationship between the tagged/labeled objects. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Fished is merely relied to automatic labeling of those relationships. As best understood by Examiner, since establishing relationships and labeling them are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki and Fisher would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ .
Blechschmidt, Chen, Farooki, Fische Scott r does not disclose, however Wang 2019 discloses
when the volume of the intersection is not above the certain proportion of the volume of the supported 3D element, adding a support edge to the node of the anchor with a distance tag computed based on a distance between a bottom of a supported target and a top face of the anchor only when a 3D element bottom face center is above a bottom face of the anchor. { [page 132-5] Fig. 4. Relationships modeled by the edges in our relation graphs. We define support edges for statically supported child nodes, and the four spatial edges front, left, right, and back, at three distances: adjacent, proximal and distant; [p 132-5 left column, bottom] Distance labels are determined by the distance between the two objects’ OBBs: adjacent if A is within two inches of B or within 5% of the largest diagonal of the two objects (whichever is smaller), proximal if A is within 1.5 feet or 10% of the largest diagonal (whichever is larger), and distant otherwise. } Volume of intersection not above a certain proportion of the volume of the supported 3D element is interpreted as a distance between the two objects exists, i.e. there is no overlap/intersection between the volumes. Distance tag computed based on a distance between a bottom of a supported target and a top face of the anchor only when the bottom face center is above a bottom face of the anchor is interpreted as a distance label Wang, consistent with the specification which recites “distance tag” to be “adjacent” “proximal” or “distant”. Since bounding boxes are used (“distant” if the minimal distance between the bounding box of the starting node of the edge and the bounding box of the ending node of the edge is greater that the “proximal” threshold) the distances are interpreted as the distances between the bounding boxes.
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki, Fisher with those of Wang. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of providing both humans analyzing the graph and automatic tools searching the graph, a rapid determination of the relationship between the tagged/labeled objects in terms of distance. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki, Fisher evidently discloses extracting relationships and labeling them. Fished is merely relied to automatic labeling distance relationships. As best understood by Examiner, since establishing relationships and labeling them and labeling for distance are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki Fisher and Wang would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/Fisher/Wang
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blechschmidt US 11640708 B1 in view of Chen et al Hierarchical constraints and particle swarm optimization for home layout, Journal of Computer-Aided Design & Computer Graphics, Vol. 26 No. 10, Oct. 2014 in further view of Farooki et al, Interactive and Scalable Layout Synthesis with Design Templates, 2020 IEEE AIVR, 2020 in further view of of Scott-Leikach et al US 20060101742 A1 in further view of Eftekharian, Ata A., Charlie Manion, and Matthew I. Campbell. "Geometric Reasoning for Assembly Planning of Large Systems." International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. Vol. 55850. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2013
Blechschmidt, Chen, Farooki Scott does not disclose, however Eftekharian discloses:
wherein the horizontal relations are extracted, for each node referred to as an anchor, by tracing a series of rays starting from the anchor and computing intersections with other 3D furnishing objects of the 3D room. {[7/ 1: “ On the other hand, a finite DOF is the finite direction that the part can move before colliding with the fixed part. This is shown as distance d in Figure 7d. The colliding distance d is computed by using ray tracing and uses several rays parallel to the moving direction starting from the object (fixed shape) boundary. The distance is then calculated when the rays hit the boundary of the moving object.”}
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki with Eftekharian. One would have been motivated to use straight lines as in ray tracing, in order to obtain the positioning relationship, according toa distance (distances are measured along a straight line), as well as placing elements without a placing conflict. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Eftekharian is merely relied to further specify a modality to determine linearity for the purpose of constraint determination. As best understood by Examiner, since establishing zones and having specific relationship between and within zones and determining ways to evaluate specific constraints are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki and Eftekharian would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ Eftekharian.
Claims 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blechschmidt US 11640708 B1 in view of Chen et al Hierarchical constraints and particle swarm optimization for home layout, Journal of Computer-Aided Design & Computer Graphics, Vol. 26 No. 10, Oct. 2014 in further view of Farooki et al, Interactive and Scalable Layout Synthesis with Design Templates, 2020 IEEE AIVR, 2020 in further view of of Scott-Leikach et al US 20060101742 A1 in further view of Fu et al Adaptive Synthesis of Indoor Scenes via Activity-Associated Object Relation Graphs, ACM Transactions on Graphics, Vol. 36, No. 6, Article 201. Publication date: November 2017.
Re Claim 8, Blechschmidt, Chen, Farooki Scott, dislose the limitations of the parent claim. Thye do not disclose, however Fu discloses: wherein a zone is split in several zones if its length along the 3D architectural element is above a certain threshold.{ Compare to the left example, the right case shows a large room that encouraged by our system to be pieced by multiple parts, i.e., a study room left and a bedroom right. Fig 11. }
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Length along the 3D architectural element is above a certain threshold is interpreted as large room, which as the figure shows is shown to extend in length.
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki with Fu. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of best utilizing the space, taking advantage of the room shape – thus if room is long, one would have more zones aligned along the length of the room . Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Fu is merely relied to further specify a constraint that uses characteristics of the available space. As best understood by Examiner, since establishing zones and having specific relationship between and within zones and having specific constraints are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki and further elements of Fu would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ Fu
Re Claim 9, Blechschmidt, Chen, Farooki does not disclose, however Fu discloses:
sorting, according to importance of the 3D furnishing object, 3D furnishing objects which have a node in the graph with at least a relation with another 3D object's node and which are not located in a zone along 3D architectural elements, the importance being defined its dimensions, its category and/or the relations the 3D furnishing object is involved in with other 3D furnishing objects; and
creating new zones including the most important 3D furnishing objects. { Then, an object exploration algorithm is employed to adaptively suggest more proper object categories beyond the user-specified ones via the object relation graphs and the floor plan database, to make the input room have more closely related objects … Fig. 6. Adaptive scene synthesis. (a) the input room and specified object categories. (b) based on the object relation graph, more proper object categories (green) which are related to the specified ones (blue) are explored. }
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki with Fu. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to ensure clusters of furniture are arranged by functional characteristics and important properties, according to functional and other category reasons. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Fu is merely relied to further add to modalities by which clusters of furniture are determined. As best understood by Examiner, since establishing zones and having specific relationship between and within zones and ensuring sufficient criteria for clustering furniture are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki and Fu would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ Fu
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blechschmidt US 11640708 B1 in view of Chen et al Hierarchical constraints and particle swarm optimization for home layout, Journal of Computer-Aided Design & Computer Graphics, Vol. 26 No. 10, Oct. 2014 in further view of Farooki et al, Interactive and Scalable Layout Synthesis with Design Templates, 2020 IEEE AIVR, 2020 in further view of of Scott-Leikach et al US 20060101742 A1 further view of Henderson et al Automatic Generation of Constrained Furniture Layouts,arXiv.2019
Re Claim 10, Blechschmidt, Chen, Farooki Scott does not disclose, however Henderson discloses
wherein automatically extracting at least one zone further comprises:
detecting if a 3D furnishing object is located in front of two perpendicular 3D architectural elements, and creating a constraint for the zone having the 3D furnishing object to be positioned in a corner of the room. { [page 6 left column, middle] Traversability: A layout is traversable if there exists a path between all points in free space (regions with no furniture) and from all points in free space to all doors in the room. To verify this, we rasterise an orthographic projection of the furniture onto the floor plane at a fixed resolution and identify free space as the complement of this footprint. We calculate P (areas where people can stand or pass) via morphological erosion of the free space using a circular kernel of radius 0.25m and also add regions on doors to P. Similarly we calculate regions A that require access using morphological erosion, but with a larger kernel. Then we verify traversability by checking whether x is reachable from y, ∀x, y ∈ A via some {z} ⊆ P [page 10 right column] The model has learnt to place different classes meaningfully – for example, showers are almost always at the corner of a bathroom }
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki with Henderson. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of allowing free passage for both functionality, safety, and esthetic reasons. A simple example illustrating this concept is placing the chair of a museum attendant not in the middle of the passage room between two exhibitions connected by a hallway with doors at right angle, but placing it in the corner. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Henderson is merely relied to indicate a specific constraints in a specific context. As best understood by Examiner, since establishing zones and constraints and having specific constraints defined implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki and Henderson would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ Henderson
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blechschmidt US 11640708 B1 in view of Chen et al Hierarchical constraints and particle swarm optimization for home layout, Journal of Computer-Aided Design & Computer Graphics, Vol. 26 No. 10, Oct. 2014 in further view of Farooki et al, Interactive and Scalable Layout Synthesis with Design Templates, 2020 IEEE AIVR, 2020 infurther view of of Scott-Leikach et al US 20060101742 A1 in further view of Von Castell, et al "The effect of furnishing on perceived spatial dimensions and spaciousness of interior space." PloS One 9.11 (2014): e113267. Referred in the following as Castell.
Re Claim 2 Blechschmidt, Chen, Farooki Scott does not disclose, however Castell discloses
(a) computing a ratio between a 3D furnishing objects total floor occupation area of the room and a room floor area and (b) implementing the automatically extracting and the determining and storing when said ratio satisfies a predefined criterion based on a standard deviation of the ratio for a data set of rooms of the same category. {A second aspect relates to the density and arrangement of furnishing. With a maximum percentage of 11.84% of surface area covered by furniture, we used low furnishing densities. In contrast, the maximum furnishing density realized by Imamoglu [18] was approximately 41%. Besides the density, the arrangement of furnishing (e.g. centered vs. near-wall, spread out in the room vs. crowded together) is also likely to influence the perceived spatial dimensions as well as the impression of spaciousness. The common rules of thumb in architecture and interior design emphasize the importance of both the role of furnishing density and the role of arrangement of furnishing.} Castell teaches calculating the ratio of furniture over size of room and that this is a rule of thumb in interior design to consider the furnishing density. Implementing when ration satisfied a predefined criterion based on the standard deviation of ratio for a data set of rooms of same category is in BRI the a coverage/statistical measure for the statistics between 11% to 41% in this teaching.
The implementation of the method of performing the interior design (automatically extracting and the determining and storing) is disclosed by Blechenschmidth, Chen and Farooki. And Scott
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki Scott with Castell. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain templates where it is reasonable to determine principles of interior design from human examples, while avoiding solving unusual/uncommon, and unusable /difficult to obtain templates (pattern clusters) from rooms that barely have any furniture inside or that are essentially storage rooms with cluttered elements. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has supported that combining well known prior art elements, in a well-known manner, to obtain predictable results is sufficient to determine an invention obvious over such combination (see KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. (KSR), 550 U.S.,82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) & MPEP 2143). In the instant case, Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki evidently discloses extracting relationships between elements and zones of a room and their constraints and these forming templates. Castell is merely replied upon to ensure these are extracted where it makes sense based on a fill factor, and does not seek to determine templates/patterns where there are none (as this would be both difficult and misleading) As best understood by Examiner, since establishing zones and having specific relationship between and within zones and extracting such zones where a fill factor is meaningful are implemented through well-known computer technologies in the same or similar context, combining their features as outlined above using such well-known computer technologies (i.e., conventional software/hardware configurations), would be reasonable, according to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, since the elements disclosed by of Blechsmidth, Chen, Farooki and Castell would function in the same manner in combination as they do in their separate embodiments, it would be reasonable to conclude that the results of the combination would be predictable. Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over Blechsmidth/Chen/Farooki/Scott/ Castell.
Prior art made of record
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
CN 112861235 A A 3 D Household Design Display System
CN 107239997 A Self-service Furniture Home Decoration Design System
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.
the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/A.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2188
/RYAN F PITARO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2188
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