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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/05/2022 was received and the information disclosure statement has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-2, 8-11, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guerra et al. ("Homological Scaffold via Minimal Homology Bases", full reference on the PTO-892 included in the file wrapper) in view of Tewari et al. "Meshing genus-1 point clouds using discrete one-forms", full reference on the PTO-892 included in the file wrapper) in further view of Gulsun et al. (US 20090278846 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Guerra discloses:
wherein the computer executable components comprise: a filtering component (the examiner is interpreting the components of the claims as computer executable components which may be stored on a memory, i.e. instructions that can be executed on a computer implemented system. The teachings of Guerra are understood as instructions) that filters a first undirected graph (pg. 2 para. 5, a simplicial complex is a collection of connected geometrically independent points, therefore, the examiner understands a simplicial complex as an undirected graph)
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by eliminating one or more edges of the first undirected graph that are longer than an adaptive threshold (pg. 4 para. 2, a simplicial complex is filtered by the distance between points being less than a value epsilon, which is understood as a threshold. The value epsilon may be varied which the examiner understands as an adaptive threshold. See also pg. 9 para. 3 and Fig. 4 (a), which refers to the change in epsilon values as steps of filtration),
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wherein filtering the first undirected graph produces a second undirected graph (pg. 4 para. 2, the resulting simplicial complex(es) after applying the filtering limit of epsilon is understood as the second undirected graph);
and a detection component that detects a minimum cycle basis of the second undirected graph (pg. 7 para. 3, the minimal bases of cycles is computed. Pg. 9 para. 3, the minimal bases is applied to different filtration levels which is understood as the second undirected graph)
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Guerra does not disclose expressly that a first undirected graph is of a 3D point cloud.
Tewari discloses:
a first undirected graph of a three-dimensional (3D) point cloud (pg. 920 col. 1 para. 3, the point of the point cloud are connected together into a graph, which is understood as a undirected graph of a 3D point cloud. See pg. 921 col. 2 para. 4 for explicit teaching that the point cloud is 3D),
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Guerra and Tewari are combinable because they are from the same field of endeavor of analyzing points in a 3D point cloud (Guerra, pg. 3 para. 8; Tewari, pg. 1 col. 1 para. 1).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the creation of an undirected graph from a 3D point cloud of Tewari with the invention of Guerra.
The motivation for doing so would have been "This is a key feature of the parameterization, and guarantees that ‘‘pieces’’ of the mesh may be parameterized locally and independently, yet they will all fit together seamlessly at the global level," (Tewari, pg. 919 col. 2 para. 4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tewari with Guerra.
Guerra in view of Tewari does not disclose expressly a computer implemented system and detecting a minimum cycle basis to determine a cycle path that traverses an irregular annular shape in the 3D point cloud.
Gulsun discloses:
A computer-implemented system, comprising: a memory ([0069] a memory) configured to store computer executable components (As the "computer executable components" are being stored on a memory and may be executed by a processor, the examiner is interpreting them as instructions. [0069] a routine is stored which is understood as instructions, see also [0018]);
and a processor configured to execute the computer executable components stored in the memory ([0069] a processor executes the routine),
and a detection component that detects a minimum cycle basis of the second undirected graph ([0066] "minimum mean cycle optimization" is performed which is understood as minimum cycle basis as it computes the minimum cost for cycles) to determine a cycle path ([0066] the optimization finds a contour which is understood as a path) that traverses an irregular annular shape ([0066] a cross sectional area 91 is detected. Fig. 9(b), the cross section is annular and not perfectly circular, therefore it is irregular) that is represented by the 3D point cloud ([0010] the input data is a 3D digitized image which is a 3D lattice of point which is understood as a point cloud. [0067] cross section boundaries are associated to generate a 3D surface).
Gulsun is combinable with Guerra in view of Tewari because it is in the same field of endeavor of analyzing points in a 3D space (Gulsun, [0010], "a 3D lattice of points").
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the computer implemented system of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been to combine prior art elements, the process disclosed by the combination of Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun and the computing system of Gulsun, according to known methods, as shown by Gulsun it is known to use a computer-implemented system to perform such processes, to yield predictable results such as digitized computation. Further, while Guerra in view of Tewari does not expressly disclose a computer-implemented system, a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that such processes may be implemented by a computer implemented system.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the annular shape analysis of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been "They are important for clinical applications, including: (1) quick diagnosis via visualizing tubular structures in curved multi-planar reformatting (MPR); (2) quantification of pathologies in cross-sectional views such as determination of a degree of a stenosis; and (3) path planning for interventional operations" (Gulsun, [0003]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Gulsun with Guerra in view of Tewari to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Regarding claim 2, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 1.
Guerra does not disclose expressly a graphing component that generates the first undirected graph by allocating individual distances between individual nodes.
Tewari discloses:
The computer-implemented system of claim 1, further comprising: a graphing component that generates the first undirected graph of the 3D point cloud (pg. 920 col. 1 para. 3, the point of the point cloud are connected together into a graph, which is understood as a undirected graph of a 3D point cloud. See pg. 921 col. 2 para. 4 for explicit teaching that the point cloud is 3D) wherein the graphing component allocates individual distances between individual nodes of the first undirected graph as edge weights of respective edges connecting the individual nodes (pg. 920 col. 1 para. 3, the graph is generated by connected the nodes by k-nearest neighbor, which is understood to connect neighbors as a function of proximity which may be understood as weight).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the creation of an undirected graph from a 3D point cloud of Tewari with the invention of Guerra.
The motivation for doing so would have been "This is a key feature of the parameterization, and guarantees that ‘‘pieces’’ of the mesh may be parameterized locally and independently, yet they will all fit together seamlessly at the global level," (Tewari, pg. 919 col. 2 para. 4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tewari with Guerra to obtain the invention as specified in claim 2.
Regarding claim 8, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 1.
Guerra does not disclose expressly that detecting a cycle path based on the minimum cycle basis is detected such that the cycle path has a length greater than respective lengths of individual cycles of the minimum cycle basis.
Tewari discloses:
The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the detection component detects the minimum cycle basis (pg. 920 col. 2 para. 3, a minimum cycle basis is calculated) such that the cycle path has a length greater than respective lengths of individual cycles of the minimum cycle basis (pg. 920 col. 2 para. 3, the minimum cycle basis minimizes is a sum of lengths of the cycles within it. Therefore, the length of the cycle, as a sum, is greater than the length of any respective individual cycle within the minimum cycle basis).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the minimum cycle basis (MCB) of Tewari with the invention of Guerra.
The motivation for doing so would have been that "The advantage in using the MCB is that if the sample is dense enough, the two longest cycles are guaranteed to be non-trivial, and the rest trivial" (Tewari, pg. 921 col. 1 para. 1). In order to obtain non-trivial cycles, it would have been obvious to combine the invention of Tewari.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tewari with Guerra.
Guerra in view of Tewari does not disclose expressly that the cycle path is based on the minimum cycle basis.
Gulsun discloses:
wherein the detection component detects the cycle path based on the minimum cycle basis ([0066] the optimization of the minimum cycle finds a contour which is understood as a path)
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the determination of a contour of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been "They are important for clinical applications, including: (1) quick diagnosis via visualizing tubular structures in curved multi-planar reformatting (MPR); (2) quantification of pathologies in cross-sectional views such as determination of a degree of a stenosis; and (3) path planning for interventional operations" (Gulsun, [0003]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Gulsun with Guerra in view of Tewari to obtain the invention as specified in claim 8.
Regarding claim 9, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 1.
Guerra in view of Tewari does not disclose expressly that the cycle path traverses all nodes in the second undirected graph to determine an irregular annular shape is a closed ring.
Gulsun discloses:
The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the detection component further detects whether the cycle path traverses all nodes in the second undirected graph ([0066] and Fig. 9(a), the optimized cycle path is a closed contour which connects "each vertex" to other vertices which is understood as traversing all nodes), to determine whether the irregular annular shape is a closed ring shape ([0066] and Fig. 9(b), the optimized cycle path is determined around a carotid artery which has an irregular annular shape and is closed).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the determination of a contour of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been "They are important for clinical applications, including: (1) quick diagnosis via visualizing tubular structures in curved multi-planar reformatting (MPR); (2) quantification of pathologies in cross-sectional views such as determination of a degree of a stenosis; and (3) path planning for interventional operations" (Gulsun, [0003]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Gulsun with Guerra in view of Tewari to obtain the invention as specified in claim 9.
Regarding claim 10, Guerra discloses:
filtering a first undirected graph (pg. 2 para. 5, a simplicial complex is a collection of connected geometrically independent points, therefore, the examiner understands a simplicial complex as an undirected graph)
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by eliminating one or more edges of the first undirected graph that are longer than an adaptive threshold (pg. 4 para. 2, a simplicial complex is filtered by the distance between points being less than a value epsilon, which is understood as a threshold. The value epsilon may be varied which the examiner understands as an adaptive threshold. See also pg. 9 para. 3 and Fig. 4 (a), which refers to the change in epsilon values as steps of filtration),
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wherein filtering the first undirected graph produces a second undirected graph (pg. 4 para. 2, the resulting simplicial complex(es) after applying the filtering limit of epsilon is understood as the second undirected graph);
and detecting, by the system, a minimum cycle basis of the second undirected graph (pg. 7 para. 3, the minimal bases of cycles is computed. Pg. 9 para. 3, the minimal bases is applied to different filtration levels which is understood as the second undirected graph)
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Guerra does not disclose expressly that a first undirected graph is of a 3D point cloud.
Tewari discloses:
a first undirected graph of a three-dimensional (3D) point cloud (pg. 920 col. 1 para. 3, the point of the point cloud are connected together into a graph, which is understood as a undirected graph of a 3D point cloud. See pg. 921 col. 2 para. 4 for explicit teaching that the point cloud is 3D),
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It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the creation of an undirected graph from a 3D point cloud of Tewari with the invention of Guerra.
The motivation for doing so would have been "This is a key feature of the parameterization, and guarantees that ‘‘pieces’’ of the mesh may be parameterized locally and independently, yet they will all fit together seamlessly at the global level," (Tewari, pg. 919 col. 2 para. 4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tewari with Guerra.
Guerra in view of Tewari does not disclose expressly a computer implemented system and detecting a minimum cycle basis to determine a cycle path that traverses an irregular annular shape in the 3D point cloud.
Gulsun discloses:
A computer-implemented method ( [0069] a routine is stored which is understood as instructions and a processor executes the routine, see also [0018]);
detecting a minimum cycle basis of the second undirected graph ([0066] "minimum mean cycle optimization" is performed which is understood as minimum cycle basis as it computes the minimum cost for cycles) to determine a cycle path ([0066] the optimization finds a contour which is understood as a path) that traverses an irregular annular shape ([0066] a cross sectional area 91 is detected. Fig. 9(b), the cross section is annular and not perfectly circular, therefore it is irregular) that is represented by the 3D point cloud ([0010] the input data is a 3D digitized image which is a 3D lattice of point which is understood as a point cloud. [0067] cross section boundaries are associated to generate a 3D surface).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the computer implemented system of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been to combine prior art elements, the process disclosed by the combination of Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun and the computing system of Gulsun, according to known methods, as shown by Gulsun it is known to use a computer-implemented system to perform such processes, to yield predictable results such as digitized computation. Further, while Guerra in view of Tewari does not expressly disclose a computer-implemented system, a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that such processes may be implemented by a computer implemented system.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the annular shape analysis of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been "They are important for clinical applications, including: (1) quick diagnosis via visualizing tubular structures in curved multi-planar reformatting (MPR); (2) quantification of pathologies in cross-sectional views such as determination of a degree of a stenosis; and (3) path planning for interventional operations" (Gulsun, [0003]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Gulsun with Guerra in view of Tewari to obtain the invention as specified in claim 10.
Regarding claim 11, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 10.
Guerra does not disclose expressly a graphing component that generates the first undirected graph by allocating individual distances between individual nodes.
Tewari discloses:
The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising: generating, by the system, the first undirected graph of the 3D point cloud (pg. 920 col. 1 para. 3, the point of the point cloud are connected together into a graph, which is understood as a undirected graph of a 3D point cloud. See pg. 921 col. 2 para. 4 for explicit teaching that the point cloud is 3D) wherein a graphing component allocates individual distances between individual nodes of the first undirected graph as edge weights of respective edges connecting the individual nodes (pg. 920 col. 1 para. 3, the graph is generated by connected the nodes by k-nearest neighbor, which is understood to connect neighbors as a function of proximity which may be understood as weight).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the creation of an undirected graph from a 3D point cloud of Tewari with the invention of Guerra.
The motivation for doing so would have been "This is a key feature of the parameterization, and guarantees that ‘‘pieces’’ of the mesh may be parameterized locally and independently, yet they will all fit together seamlessly at the global level," (Tewari, pg. 919 col. 2 para. 4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tewari with Guerra to obtain the invention as specified in claim 11.
Regarding claim 17, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 10.
Guerra does not disclose expressly that detecting a cycle path based on the minimum cycle basis is detected such that the cycle path has a length greater than respective lengths of individual cycles of the minimum cycle basis.
Tewari discloses:
The computer-implemented method of claim 10, detecting, by the system, the minimum cycle basis (pg. 920 col. 2 para. 3, a minimum cycle basis is calculated) such that the cycle path has a length greater than respective lengths of individual cycles of the minimum cycle basis (pg. 920 col. 2 para. 3, the minimum cycle basis minimizes is a sum of lengths of the cycles within it. Therefore, the length of the cycle, as a sum, is greater than the length of any respective individual cycle within the minimum cycle basis).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the minimum cycle basis (MCB) of Tewari with the invention of Guerra.
The motivation for doing so would have been that "The advantage in using the MCB is that if the sample is dense enough, the two longest cycles are guaranteed to be non-trivial, and the rest trivial" (Tewari, pg. 921 col. 1 para. 1). In order to obtain non-trivial cycles, it would have been obvious to combine the invention of Tewari.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tewari with Guerra.
Guerra in view of Tewari does not disclose expressly that the cycle path is based on the minimum cycle basis.
Gulsun discloses:
wherein the detection component detects the cycle path based on the minimum cycle basis ([0066] the optimization of the minimum cycle finds a contour which is understood as a path)
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the determination of a contour of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been "They are important for clinical applications, including: (1) quick diagnosis via visualizing tubular structures in curved multi-planar reformatting (MPR); (2) quantification of pathologies in cross-sectional views such as determination of a degree of a stenosis; and (3) path planning for interventional operations" (Gulsun, [0003]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Gulsun with Guerra in view of Tewari to obtain the invention as specified in claim 17.
Regarding claim 18, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 10.
Guerra in view of Tewari does not disclose expressly that the cycle path traverses all nodes in the second undirected graph to determine an irregular annular shape is a closed ring.
Gulsun discloses:
The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising: detecting, by the system, whether the cycle path traverses all nodes in the second undirected graph ([0066] and Fig. 9(a), the optimized cycle path is a closed contour which connects "each vertex" to other vertices which is understood as traversing all nodes), to determine whether the irregular annular shape is a closed ring shape ([0066] and Fig. 9(b), the optimized cycle path is determined around a carotid artery which has an irregular annular shape and is closed).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the determination of a contour of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been "They are important for clinical applications, including: (1) quick diagnosis via visualizing tubular structures in curved multi-planar reformatting (MPR); (2) quantification of pathologies in cross-sectional views such as determination of a degree of a stenosis; and (3) path planning for interventional operations" (Gulsun, [0003]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Gulsun with Guerra in view of Tewari to obtain the invention as specified in claim 18.
Regarding claim 19, Guerra discloses:
filter, by the processor, a first undirected graph (pg. 2 para. 5, a simplicial complex is a collection of connected geometrically independent points, therefore, the examiner understands a simplicial complex as an undirected graph)
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by eliminating one or more edges of the first undirected graph that are longer than an adaptive threshold (pg. 4 para. 2, a simplicial complex is filtered by the distance between points being less than a value epsilon, which is understood as a threshold. The value epsilon may be varied which the examiner understands as an adaptive threshold. See also pg. 9 para. 3 and Fig. 4 (a), which refers to the change in epsilon values as steps of filtration),
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wherein filtering the first undirected graph produces a second undirected graph (pg. 4 para. 2, the resulting simplicial complex(es) after applying the filtering limit of epsilon is understood as the second undirected graph);
and detect, by the processor, a minimum cycle basis of the second undirected graph (pg. 7 para. 3, the minimal bases of cycles is computed. Pg. 9 para. 3, the minimal bases is applied to different filtration levels which is understood as the second undirected graph)
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Guerra does not disclose expressly that a first undirected graph is of a 3D point cloud.
Tewari discloses:
a first undirected graph of the three-dimensional (3D) point cloud (pg. 920 col. 1 para. 3, the point of the point cloud are connected together into a graph, which is understood as a undirected graph of a 3D point cloud. See pg. 921 col. 2 para. 4 for explicit teaching that the point cloud is 3D),
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It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the creation of an undirected graph from a 3D point cloud of Tewari with the invention of Guerra.
The motivation for doing so would have been "This is a key feature of the parameterization, and guarantees that ‘‘pieces’’ of the mesh may be parameterized locally and independently, yet they will all fit together seamlessly at the global level," (Tewari, pg. 919 col. 2 para. 4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tewari with Guerra.
Guerra in view of Tewari does not disclose expressly a computer implemented system and detecting a minimum cycle basis to determine a cycle path that traverses an irregular annular shape in the 3D point cloud.
Gulsun discloses:
A computer program product for a workflow for detecting a closed ring shape in a 3D point cloud, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith (The examiner is interpreting the product as a non-transitory storage device with a program stored on it (see examiner note below). Gulsun [0068], the invention may be implemented by an application program, which is understood as a computer program, embodied on a storage device), the program instructions executable by a processor ([0069] a routine is stored which is understood as instructions and a processor executes the routine, see also [0018]) to cause the processor to:
detecting, by the processor, a minimum cycle basis of the second undirected graph ([0066] "minimum mean cycle optimization" is performed which is understood as minimum cycle basis as it computes the minimum cost for cycles) to determine a cycle path ([0066] the optimization finds a contour which is understood as a path) that traverses an irregular annular shape ([0066] a cross sectional area 91 is detected. Fig. 9(b), the cross section is annular and not perfectly circular, therefore it is irregular) that is represented by the 3D point cloud ([0010] the input data is a 3D digitized image which is a 3D lattice of point which is understood as a point cloud. [0067] cross section boundaries are associated to generate a 3D surface).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the computer implemented system of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been to combine prior art elements, the process disclosed by the combination of Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun and the program product of Gulsun, according to known methods, as shown by Gulsun it is known to use a computer-implemented program product to perform such processes, to yield predictable results such as digitized computation. Further, while Guerra in view of Tewari does not expressly disclose a computer-implemented program product, a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that such processes may be implemented by a computer implemented program product.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the annular shape analysis of Gulsun with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari.
The motivation for doing so would have been "They are important for clinical applications, including: (1) quick diagnosis via visualizing tubular structures in curved multi-planar reformatting (MPR); (2) quantification of pathologies in cross-sectional views such as determination of a degree of a stenosis; and (3) path planning for interventional operations" (Gulsun, [0003]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Gulsun with Guerra in view of Tewari to obtain the invention as specified in claim 19.
Regarding claim 20, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 19.
Guerra does not disclose expressly a graphing component that generates the first undirected graph by allocating individual distances between individual nodes.
Tewari discloses:
The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the program instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the processor to: generate, by the processor, the first undirected graph of the 3D point cloud (pg. 920 col. 1 para. 3, the point of the point cloud are connected together into a graph, which is understood as a undirected graph of a 3D point cloud. See pg. 921 col. 2 para. 4 for explicit teaching that the point cloud is 3D) wherein a graphing component allocates individual distances between individual nodes of the first undirected graph as edge weights of respective edges connecting the individual nodes (pg. 920 col. 1 para. 3, the graph is generated by connected the nodes by k-nearest neighbor, which is understood to connect neighbors as a function of proximity which may be understood as weight).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the creation of an undirected graph from a 3D point cloud of Tewari with the invention of Guerra.
The motivation for doing so would have been "This is a key feature of the parameterization, and guarantees that ‘‘pieces’’ of the mesh may be parameterized locally and independently, yet they will all fit together seamlessly at the global level," (Tewari, pg. 919 col. 2 para. 4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tewari with Guerra to obtain the invention as specified in claim 20.
Claims 3 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guerra et al. ("Homological Scaffold via Minimal Homology Bases", full reference on the PTO-892 included in the file wrapper) in view of Tewari et al. "Meshing genus-1 point clouds using discrete one-forms", full reference on the PTO-892 included in the file wrapper) in further view of Gulsun et al. (US 20090278846 A1) and Tian et al. (US 20180122137 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 1.
Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun does not disclose expressly to employ voxel downsampling or radius filtering to reduce density of an input 3D point cloud.
Tian discloses:
The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the filtering component employs at least one of voxel downsampling or radius filtering ([0180] an operation is performed by considering the radius around a point to change the definition of the cloud which is understood as radius filtering) to reduce density of an input 3D point cloud to produce the 3D point cloud ([0180] the radius filtering produces a sparse point cloud from a dense point cloud and is understood to reduce the density of the point cloud).
Tian is combinable with Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun because it is in the same field of endeavor of analyzing 3D point cloud data with graph based techniques (Tian, [0009]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the filtering of Tian with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun.
The motivation for doing so would have been "Due to limited processing capabilities, the population of points often need to be controlled. For example, a point cloud rendering device may only be able to display up to a certain number of points at a time. Or a device to extract features from a point cloud may only be able to handle a limit-sized point set because of the limited computing resources available" (Tian, [0174]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tian with Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun to obtain the invention as specified in claim 3.
Regarding claim 12, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 10.
Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun does not disclose expressly to employ voxel downsampling or radius filtering to reduce density of an input 3D point cloud.
Tian discloses:
The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising: employing, by the system, at least one of voxel downsampling or radius filtering ([0180] an operation is performed by considering the radius around a point to change the definition of the cloud which is understood as radius filtering) to reduce density of an input 3D point cloud to produce the 3D point cloud ([0180] the radius filtering produces a sparse point cloud from a dense point cloud and is understood to reduce the density of the point cloud).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the filtering of Tian with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun.
The motivation for doing so would have been "Due to limited processing capabilities, the population of points often need to be controlled. For example, a point cloud rendering device may only be able to display up to a certain number of points at a time. Or a device to extract features from a point cloud may only be able to handle a limit-sized point set because of the limited computing resources available" (Tian, [0174]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Tian with Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun to obtain the invention as specified in claim 12.
Claims 4 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guerra et al. ("Homological Scaffold via Minimal Homology Bases", full reference on the PTO-892 included in the file wrapper) in view of Tewari et al. "Meshing genus-1 point clouds using discrete one-forms", full reference on the PTO-892 included in the file wrapper) in further view of Gulsun et al. (US 20090278846 A1) and Alwaely et al. ("AGSF: Adaptive Graph Formulation and Hand-Crafted Graph Spectral Features for Shape Representation," full reference on the PTO-892 included in the file wrapper).
Regarding claim 4, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 1.
Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun does not disclose expressly that the adaptive threshold is defined as a distance between a pair of nodes of a first cluster such that an edge connecting the pair of nodes is longer that a first threshold.
Alwaely discloses:
The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the adaptive threshold is defined as being equal to a distance between a first pair of nodes (pg. 182264 col. 2 para. 3, the threshold t limits the length between nodes which is understood as defining the distance between nodes including a first pair of nodes)
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comprised in a first cluster of the first undirected graph (pg. 182264 col. 2 para. 4, the threshold is defined when the nodes are included in a single cluster understood as a first cluster) such that an edge connecting the first pair of nodes is longer than a first defined threshold (pg. 182264 col. 2 para. 4, the process to determine the threshold begins with a small distance as a threshold, the first defined threshold, and increases until the single cluster is formed. Therefore, the distance in the first node in the cluster is greater than that first defined threshold as the threshold grows in length).
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Alwaely is combinable with Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun because it is from the same field of endeavor of analyzing 3D point clouds as using graph operations (Alwaely, pg. 182261 col. 1 para. 2).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the adaptive threshold of Alwaely with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun.
The motivation for doing so would have been that "although a fully connected graph provides an efficient representation of the global outline of the shape, the major drawback of this type is that local details are not reliably captured compared to the global outline. In addition, K-Nearest Neighbour connectivity does not reflect the topology structure, especially when using a small value of K, where nodes are only connected to their neighbours. Since we aim to classify more complex shapes, an appropriate connectivity is required to represent complex shapes within the Euclidean space. Thus, in this work, we propose adaptive connectivity," (Alwaely, pg. 182263, para. last).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Alwaely with Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun to obtain the invention as specified in claim 4.
Regarding claim 13, Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun discloses the subject matter of claim 10.
Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun does not disclose expressly that the adaptive threshold is defined as a distance between a pair of nodes of a first cluster such that an edge connecting the pair of nodes is longer that a first threshold.
Alwaely discloses:
The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the adaptive threshold is defined as being equal to a distance between a first pair of nodes (pg. 182264 col. 2 para. 3, the threshold t limits the length between nodes which is understood as defining the distance between nodes including a first pair of nodes)
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comprised in a first cluster of the first undirected graph (pg. 182264 col. 2 para. 4, the threshold is defined when the nodes are included in a single cluster understood as a first cluster) such that an edge connecting the first pair of nodes is longer than a first defined threshold (pg. 182264 col. 2 para. 4, the process to determine the threshold begins with a small distance as a threshold, the first defined threshold, and increases until the single cluster is formed. Therefore, the distance in the first node in the cluster is greater than that first defined threshold as the threshold grows in length).
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It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the adaptive threshold of Alwaely with the invention of Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun.
The motivation for doing so would have been that "although a fully connected graph provides an efficient representation of the global outline of the shape, the major drawback of this type is that local details are not reliably captured compared to the global outline. In addition, K-Nearest Neighbour connectivity does not reflect the topology structure, especially when using a small value of K, where nodes are only connected to their neighbours. Since we aim to classify more complex shapes, an appropriate connectivity is required to represent complex shapes within the Euclidean space. Thus, in this work, we propose adaptive connectivity," (Alwaely, pg. 182263, para. last).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Alwaely with Guerra in view of Tewari in further view of Gulsun to obtain the invention as specified in claim 13.
Examiner’s Comment - 35 USC § 101
The examiner notes Claim 19 meets compliance with 35 U.S.C. §101 for claiming “the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith” because the claim is directed to a computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium and as the applicant explicitly disavows, and does not avow in the alternative, transitory signals and transitory signals per se as storage medium in paragraph [00101] of their specification:
A computer readable storage medium, as that term is used in the present disclosure, is not to be construed as storage in the form of transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freely propagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagating through a waveguide, light pulses passing through a fiber optic cable, electrical signals communicated through a wire, and/or other transmission media. As will be understood by those of skill in the art, data is typically moved at some occasional points in time during normal operations of a storage device, such as during access, de-fragmentation or garbage collection, but this does not render the storage device as transitory because the data is not transitory while it is stored.
Therefore, for purposes of examination, the “computer readable storage medium” is only directed to non-transitory storage.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7 and 14-16 are 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claims 5 and 14, the closes prior art, Alwaely et al. ("AGSF: Adaptive Graph Formulation and Hand-Crafted Graph Spectral Features for Shape Representation,"), discloses forming a cluster of nodes. Alwaely does not disclose or reasonably suggest generating a plurality of clusters wherein the cluster is performed based on individual edge distances of the plurality of edges between nodes.
Therefore, claims 5 and 14 are considered to contain allowable subject matter because the prior art does not teach, suggest, or provide motivation to combine multiple prior art references before the effective filing date of this application to teach the entirety of claims 5 and 14 in a non-obvious manner.
Claim 5 in its entirety is found non-obvious over the prior art, including the following limitations:
to generate a plurality of clusters comprising at least the first cluster, wherein the clustering is performed based on individual edge distances of the plurality of edges.
Claim 14 is similarly non-obvious over the prior art. Claim 7 is dependent on claim 5 and claim 16 is dependent on claim 14 therefore claims 7 and 16 likewise contain allowable subject matter.
Regarding claims 6 and 15, the closest prior art does not disclose or reasonably suggest defining a cluster such that an average value of individual edge distances comprised in the first cluster is smaller than a second threshold, wherein the average value of individual edge distances is computed by a computation component.
Therefore, claims 6 and 15 are considered to contain allowable subject matter because the prior art does not teach, suggest, or provide motivation to combine multiple prior art references before the effective filing date of this application to teach the entirety of claims 6 and 15 in a non-obvious manner.
Claim 6 in its entirety is found non-obvious over the prior art, including the following limitations:
The computer-implemented system of claim 4, wherein the first cluster is defined such that an average value of individual edge distances of respective individual edges comprised in the first cluster is smaller than a second defined threshold, and wherein the average value of individual edge distances is computed by a computation component.
Claim 15 is similarly non-obvious over the prior art.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20160232254 A1, Chehreghani, discloses a system which considers undirected graphs to cluster data and determine the similarity between graphs.
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/JOSHUA B. CROCKETT/Examiner, Art Unit 2661
/KATHLEEN M BROUGHTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2661