DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 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 1-20 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. Limitation “generating link relationships between a plurality of object boxes detected in a current step and the plurality of predicted tracks, based on associations between the plurality of object boxes and the plurality of predicted tracks”.
it is unclear what is a term “object box”. Paragraph 5 of specification recites “Conventionally, in order to track an object, technology was developed that tracks the object using an association method in which a rectangular box, i.e., an object box, corresponding to the object is generated based on LiDAR data received through LiDAR, i.e., point data, generates a track including an estimated position value of the object based on the object box, and maintains the generated track” but even this is unclear. Does it mean that if you have a ball lidar associates all the points from that ball with single box in xyz coordinate? Or box is any cluster which correspond to the same object or it can be just simple measurement point. It is not even clear whether box means set of data associated with cluster (such as position and velocity).
Applicant in response refers to the paragraph [0051] to which Examiner has clarity issue. Paragraph 51 does not clarify the definition but rather uses language “may include”. Applicant further adds that the ‘object box’ which means that it can be for example sphere or any other type of shape. That creates the issue due to the fact that in real world measurement each point measurement is not a point but rather it is a 2D bin which can be considered a box. Can it be taken as interpretation.
Claims 6, 7, 13, 14,19-20 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. It is unclear what is a distance or length between tracks and box. It is unclear what are the “tracking points” of tracks and objects. One can assume that tracking point of the box can be a center of the box or any other point inside of the box but what is the tracking point of the track.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 8 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by D1 US 5379044 A.
Claim(s) 15, 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1.
Regarding claims 1, 8 D1 teaches
a memory configured to store a plurality of track information generated in a previous step; and
a controller electrically connected to the memory, wherein the controller is configured to(implicit)
generating a plurality of predicted tracks from a plurality of track information generated in a previous step;(claim 1 col 3 lines 8-13)
generating link relationships between a plurality of object boxes(col3 hypotheses) detected in a current step and the plurality of predicted tracks, based on associations between the plurality of object boxes and the plurality of predicted tracks; and(col 3 liens 14-22)
determining one of the two or more predicted tracks, based on association scores between the two or more predicted tracks and an object box having the link relationships with two or more predicted tracks among the plurality of predicted tracks, and associating the determined one of the two or more predicted tracks with a track of the object box having the link relationships.(col 3 liens 23-33)
wherein the link relationships(col 3 line 67-col 4 line 6 “score function”) include a link relationship of a predicted track(likelihood of association of the observation to a track ), which is associated with multiple obiect boxes(observation), with the multiple object boxes;
Regarding claim 15 although D1 does not explicitly teach lidar and vehicle lidar is one of the specific types of radar which in the past was called laser radar and therefore using lidar is just one particular very well known to the art devices and placing radar or lidar on vehicle is also very well known and practices in order to measure the distance to different objects(or in military to the flying objects).
2,9, 16 The method according to claim 1, wherein the link relationships are generated by recording an object box having the associations with each of the plurality of predicted tracks as an association candidate, and recording information of a second predicted track having the associations with the association candidate. (col 3 liens 23-33)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 18 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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.
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645