DETAILED ACTION
1. Claims 1-17 have been presented for examination.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
PRIORITY
3. Acknowledgment is made that this application is a CIP of PCT/IN2021/050051 filed 01/19/2021.
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) to INDIA 202041019454 filed 05/07/2020.
Drawings
4. The drawings are objected to because Figure 4 contains a box to the right with what is either an element number or crossed out information to the bottom right of the word computer and it’s unclear how the box relates to the elements in the flowchart to the left, also as to what is presumed to be Figure 6 the figure is not labeled and the terms such as Haptic and Computer should be more clearly written so as to be appropriately presented and legible on any issued patent. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Information Disclosure Statement
5. The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 9/9/24 and 12/16/24 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the Examiner has considered the IDS’ as to the merits.
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.
6. Claims 1-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e. abstract idea) without anything significantly more.
i) In view of Step 1 of the analysis, claim(s) 1 is directed to a statutory category as a process, and claim 17 is directed to a statutory category as a machine which each represent a statutory category of invention. Therefore, claims 1-17 are directed to patent eligible categories of invention.
ii) In view of Step 2A, Prong One, claims 1 and 17 recite the abstract idea of calculating the movement of particles which constitutes an abstract idea as Mental Processes based on concepts performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper as well as and alternatively as Mathematical Concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations.
As to claim 1, and similarly recited in claim 17, the limitation of “modelling the interior area or volume of the geometric elements with non-linear interpolation functions that use the positions of the particles of the respective geometric elements as inputs to compute position and/or strain of interior points of the geometric elements;” would be analogous to a person calculating the non-linear interpolation functions and thus fall under Mental Processes. In addition, the steps would constitute Mathematical Concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations pertaining to the claimed non-linear interpolation functions.
As to claim 1, and similarly recited in claim 17, the limitation of “computing an energy summed on the interior region of the element, the energy computation based on (a) position and/or stress of the geometric element computed by the non-linear interpolation functions and/or (b) non-linear material parameters that depend on position and/or strain at the interior points of the geometric elements;” would be analogous to a person calculating the energy computation functions and thus fall under Mental Processes. In addition, the steps would constitute Mathematical Concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations pertaining to the claimed energy computation functions.
As to claim 1, and similarly recited in claim 17, the limitation of “computing new positions of the particles based on a computation to minimize total energy of the element” would be analogous to a person calculating the position functions and thus fall under Mental Processes. In addition, the steps would constitute Mathematical Concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations pertaining to the claimed position functions.
As per claims 1 and similarly recited in claim 17, other than reciting “in the memory of a computer”, “in the computer”, and “in a processor of the computer,” nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed in the mind.
Dependent claims 2-16 further narrow the abstract ideas, identified in the independent claims.
iii) In view of Step 2A, Prong Two, the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In Claim 1, the additional element of “in the memory of a computer”, “in the computer”, and “in a processor of the computer,” and in claim 17, the additional element of “in the processor” and “in the processor of the computer” merely uses a computer device as a tool to perform the abstract idea. (MPEP 2106.05(f)) The limitation in claim 1, and similarly recited in claim 17 of “in the memory of a computer, storing a model of an elastic body as (a) a plurality of models of particles, each particle model having a position attribute, and (b) a plurality of models of geometric elements, the geometric elements forming an exhaustive and mutually exclusive partition of the elastic body, each geometric element having a boundary defined at least in part by two or more of the particles as nodes of the geometric element, nodes being particles shared with neighbouring geometric elements;” are mere instructions to implement an abstract idea using a computer in its ordinary capacity, or merely uses the computer as a tool to perform the identified abstract idea. See MPEP (2106.05(f)) Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a mental process) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. (MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)) Additionally the limitation of “in the memory of a computer, storing a model of an elastic body as (a) a plurality of models of particles, each particle model having a position attribute, and (b) a plurality of models of geometric elements, the geometric elements forming an exhaustive and mutually exclusive partition of the elastic body, each geometric element having a boundary defined at least in part by two or more of the particles as nodes of the geometric element, nodes being particles shared with neighbouring geometric elements;” in claim 1 and similarly recited in claim 17, alternatively can be viewed as insignificant extra-solution activity, specifically pertaining to mere data gathering/output necessary to perform the abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05(g)) and is not sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. This is akin to selecting information, based on types of information and availability of information in a power-grid environment, for collection, analysis and display, which has been identified as extra solution activity. Therefore, the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application.
Dependent claims 2-16 further narrow the abstract ideas, identified in the independent claims and do not introduce further additional elements for consideration beyond those addressed above.
iv) In view of Step 2B, claims 1 and 17 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Claim 1, the additional element of “in the memory of a computer”, “in the computer”, and “in a processor of the computer,” and in claim 17, the additional element of “in the processor” and “in the processor of the computer” merely uses a computer device as a tool to perform the abstract idea. (MPEP 2106.05(f)) The limitation in claim 1, and similarly recited in claim 17 of “in the memory of a computer, storing a model of an elastic body as (a) a plurality of models of particles, each particle model having a position attribute, and (b) a plurality of models of geometric elements, the geometric elements forming an exhaustive and mutually exclusive partition of the elastic body, each geometric element having a boundary defined at least in part by two or more of the particles as nodes of the geometric element, nodes being particles shared with neighbouring geometric elements;” are mere instructions to implement an abstract idea using a computer in its ordinary capacity, or merely uses the computer as a tool to perform the identified abstract idea. See MPEP (2106.05(f)) Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a mental process) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. (MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)) Additionally the limitation of “in the memory of a computer, storing a model of an elastic body as (a) a plurality of models of particles, each particle model having a position attribute, and (b) a plurality of models of geometric elements, the geometric elements forming an exhaustive and mutually exclusive partition of the elastic body, each geometric element having a boundary defined at least in part by two or more of the particles as nodes of the geometric element, nodes being particles shared with neighbouring geometric elements;” in claim 1 and similarly recited in claim 17, alternatively can be viewed as an insignificant extra-solution activity, specifically pertaining to mere data gathering/output necessary to perform the abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05(g)) and is not sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. This is akin to selecting information, based on types of information and availability of information in a power-grid environment, for collection, analysis and display, which has been identified as extra solution activity. Therefore, the claim as a whole does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements, when considered alone or in combination, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As stated in Section I.B. of the December 16, 2014 101 Examination Guidelines, “[t]o be patent-eligible, a claim that is directed to a judicial exception must include additional features to ensure that the claim describes a process or product that applies the exception in a meaningful way, such that it is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.”
The dependent claims include the same abstract ideas recited as recited in the independent claims, and merely incorporate additional details that narrow the abstract ideas and fail to add significantly more to the claims.
Dependent claim 2 recites the display of information which are mere instructions to implement an abstract idea using a computer in its ordinary capacity, or merely uses the computer as a tool to perform the identified abstract idea. See MPEP (2106.05(f)) Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a mental process) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. (MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)) Alternatively the limitation can be viewed as an insignificant extra-solution activity, specifically pertaining to mere data gathering/output necessary to perform the abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05(g)) and is not sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Dependent claim 3 recites an additional mathematical computation which merely narrows the abstract idea identified as a mental process and/or mathematical concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations.
Dependent claims 4-6 recites additional types of computer devices which are mere instructions to implement an abstract idea using a computer in its ordinary capacity, or merely uses the computer as a tool to perform the identified abstract idea. See MPEP (2106.05(f)) Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a mental process) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. (MPEP 2106.05(f)(2))
Dependent claims 7-8 recites the display of information which are mere instructions to implement an abstract idea using a computer in its ordinary capacity, or merely uses the computer as a tool to perform the identified abstract idea. See MPEP (2106.05(f)) Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a mental process) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. (MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)) Alternatively the limitation can be viewed as an insignificant extra-solution activity, specifically pertaining to mere data gathering/output necessary to perform the abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05(g)) and is not sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Dependent claim 9 recites an additional mathematical computation which merely narrows the abstract idea identified as a mental process and/or mathematical concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations.
Dependent claim 10 recites an additional mathematical computation which merely narrows the abstract idea identified as a mental process and/or mathematical concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations.
Dependent claim 11 recites an additional mathematical computation which merely narrows the abstract idea identified as a mental process and/or mathematical concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations.
Dependent claim 12 recites an additional mathematical computation which merely narrows the abstract idea identified as a mental process and/or mathematical concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations.
Dependent claim 13 recites an additional mathematical computation which merely narrows the abstract idea identified as a mental process and/or mathematical concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations.
Dependent claim 14 merely recites types of shapes used in the calculation which merely narrows the abstract idea identified as a mental process and/or mathematical concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations.
Dependent claim 15 merely recites types of shapes used in the calculation which merely narrows the abstract idea identified as a mental process and/or mathematical concepts including mathematical formulas or equations as well as calculations.
Dependent claim 16 merely recites the aspect of parallel computation which are mere instructions to implement an abstract idea using a computer in its ordinary capacity, or merely uses the computer as a tool to perform the identified abstract idea. See MPEP (2106.05(f)) Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a mental process) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. (MPEP 2106.05(f)(2))
v) Accordingly, claims 1-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e. an abstract idea) without anything significantly more.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
7. 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.
i) Claim 1 recites “neighbouring” The term “neighbouring” in claim 1 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. It is unclear how to determine the scope, metes, and bounds of the term. The term “neighbouring” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. Specifically how far would elements no longer be considered “neighbouring”? As such the claim is rendered vague and indefinite. This analysis further applies to the analogous recitation in claim 17.
Appropriate correction is required.
All claims dependent upon a rejected base claim are rejected by virtue of their dependency.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
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 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.
8. Claims 1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 13-15, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being clearly anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 6603484, hereafter Frisken.
Regarding Claim 1: The reference discloses A method comprising the steps of:
in the memory of a computer, storing a model of an elastic body as (a) a plurality of models of particles, each particle model having a position attribute, (Frisken. Column 16, Lines 34-44, “(106) A bottom-up generation starts by recursively partitioning the space within the bounding box into equal sized cells until a predetermined level of resolution is reached. The cells are appropriately labeled interior, exterior, or surface cells. Next, grouped of neighboring cells are recursively combined when the surface representation error of the combined cell is less than a specified error tolerance. The specified error tolerance can be different depending on the application and whether the combined cell is an exterior, interior, or surface cell. When adjacent cells cannot be combined, the cells remain as leaf cells in the tree.”) and (b) a plurality of models of geometric elements, the geometric elements forming an exhaustive and mutually exclusive partition of the elastic body, (Frisken. FIG. 2 is a bounding box enclosing partitioned cells of the HDF according to the invention) each geometric element having a boundary defined at least in part by two or more of the particles as nodes of the geometric element, nodes being particles shared with neighbouring geometric elements; (Frisken. Column 19, Lines 1-14, “((134) Step 1630 changes the location and number of the seed points to reduce the total surface energy. This means points can be moved, points can be added at locations of high surface detail (e.g. high curvature) and points can be removed from locations of low surface detail (e.g. low curvature). The surface energy is typically a function 1632 of inter-particle spacing and the energy contribution from interacting points is typically non-zero only over a limited region of inter-force influence 1631. This region determines how far out the energy function influences neighboring points. The output 1633 of step 1630 is surface cells annotated with new seed point locations and a measure of the change in the surface energy, surface energy delta, that resulted from step 1630.”)
in the computer, modelling the interior area or volume of the geometric elements with non-linear interpolation functions that use the positions of the particles of the respective geometric elements as inputs to compute position and/or strain of interior points of the geometric elements; (Frisken. Column 19, Lines 1-14, “((134) Step 1630 changes the location and number of the seed points to reduce the total surface energy. This means points can be moved, points can be added at locations of high surface detail (e.g. high curvature) and points can be removed from locations of low surface detail (e.g. low curvature). The surface energy is typically a function 1632 of inter-particle spacing and the energy contribution from interacting points is typically non-zero only over a limited region of inter-force influence 1631. This region determines how far out the energy function influences neighboring points. The output 1633 of step 1630 is surface cells annotated with new seed point locations and a measure of the change in the surface energy, surface energy delta, that resulted from step 1630.”)
in a processor of the computer, computing an energy summed on the interior region of the element, the energy computation based on (a) position and/or stress of the geometric element computed by the non-linear interpolation functions and/or (b) non-linear material parameters that depend on position and/or strain at the interior points of the geometric elements; and (Frisken. Column 19, Lines 1-14, “((134) Step 1630 changes the location and number of the seed points to reduce the total surface energy. This means points can be moved, points can be added at locations of high surface detail (e.g. high curvature) and points can be removed from locations of low surface detail (e.g. low curvature). The surface energy is typically a function 1632 of inter-particle spacing and the energy contribution from interacting points is typically non-zero only over a limited region of inter-force influence 1631. This region determines how far out the energy function influences neighboring points. The output 1633 of step 1630 is surface cells annotated with new seed point locations and a measure of the change in the surface energy, surface energy delta, that resulted from step 1630.”)
in a processor of the computer, computing new positions of the particles based on a computation to minimize total energy of the element. (Frisken. Column 19, Lines 1-14, “((134) Step 1630 changes the location and number of the seed points to reduce the total surface energy. This means points can be moved, points can be added at locations of high surface detail (e.g. high curvature) and points can be removed from locations of low surface detail (e.g. low curvature). The surface energy is typically a function 1632 of inter-particle spacing and the energy contribution from interacting points is typically non-zero only over a limited region of inter-force influence 1631. This region determines how far out the energy function influences neighboring points. The output 1633 of step 1630 is surface cells annotated with new seed point locations and a measure of the change in the surface energy, surface energy delta, that resulted from step 1630.”)
Regarding Claim 2: The reference discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of: computing a display of the modeled elastic body based on the computed new positions of the particles. (Frisken. Column 22, Lines 6-7, “The values 1961 are composited in step 1970 to generate an image 1971 that can be sent to a display 1980”)
Regarding Claim 7: The reference discloses The method of claim 1: wherein the elastic body is an article under design or evaluation by a computer aided design (CAD) tool and/or computer aided design and/or engineering (CAD/E) tool, and further comprising the step of displaying modelled objects on a display in real time. (Frisken. Column 1, Lines 15-20, “A representation of "shape" of an object or model is required in many fields such as computer-aided design and manufacturing, computational physics, physical modeling, and computer graphics. Three common representations for shape are parametric surface models, implicit surfaces, and sampled volume data.”)
Regarding Claim 8: The reference discloses The method of claim 1: wherein the elastic body may be an article or character in a game, virtual reality world, or animation world, and further comprising the step of displaying modelled objects on a display in real time. (Frisken. Column 4, Lines 40-47, “(32) Editing parametric surfaces is a challenging problem. The most commonly used parametric surfaces in engineering design are non-uniform rational B-spline (NURB) surfaces, for which surface editing is performed by a process called trimming. However, as stated by DeRose et al., in "Subdivision surfaces in character animation," Proc. SIGGRAPH'98, pp. 85-94, 1998, this process "is expensive and prone to numerical error."”)
Regarding Claim 10: The reference discloses The method of claim 1, wherein: the energy computation is based on position and/or bending of the geometric element computed by the non-linear interpolation functions. (Frisken. Column 19, Lines 1-14, “((134) Step 1630 changes the location and number of the seed points to reduce the total surface energy. This means points can be moved, points can be added at locations of high surface detail (e.g. high curvature) and points can be removed from locations of low surface detail (e.g. low curvature). The surface energy is typically a function 1632 of inter-particle spacing and the energy contribution from interacting points is typically non-zero only over a limited region of inter-force influence 1631. This region determines how far out the energy function influences neighboring points. The output 1633 of step 1630 is surface cells annotated with new seed point locations and a measure of the change in the surface energy, surface energy delta, that resulted from step 1630.” Examiner notes: This section specifically reads on the claimed position aspect)
Regarding Claim 11: The reference discloses The method of claim 1, wherein: the energy computation is based on non-linear material parameters that depend on position and/or strain at the interior points of the geometric elements. (Frisken. Column 19, Lines 1-14, “((134) Step 1630 changes the location and number of the seed points to reduce the total surface energy. This means points can be moved, points can be added at locations of high surface detail (e.g. high curvature) and points can be removed from locations of low surface detail (e.g. low curvature). The surface energy is typically a function 1632 of inter-particle spacing and the energy contribution from interacting points is typically non-zero only over a limited region of inter-force influence 1631. This region determines how far out the energy function influences neighboring points. The output 1633 of step 1630 is surface cells annotated with new seed point locations and a measure of the change in the surface energy, surface energy delta, that resulted from step 1630.” Examiner notes: This section specifically reads on the claimed position aspect)
Regarding Claim 13: The reference discloses The method of claim 1, wherein: some of the geometric elements are modeled by an energy computation based on linear interpolation functions for position and/or strain. (Frisken. Column 19, Lines 1-14, “((134) Step 1630 changes the location and number of the seed points to reduce the total surface energy. This means points can be moved, points can be added at locations of high surface detail (e.g. high curvature) and points can be removed from locations of low surface detail (e.g. low curvature). The surface energy is typically a function 1632 of inter-particle spacing and the energy contribution from interacting points is typically non-zero only over a limited region of inter-force influence 1631. This region determines how far out the energy function influences neighboring points. The output 1633 of step 1630 is surface cells annotated with new seed point locations and a measure of the change in the surface energy, surface energy delta, that resulted from step 1630.”)
Regarding Claim 14: The reference discloses The method of claim 1, wherein: some of the geometric elements are linear tetrahedra, some are quadratic tetrahedra, and some are cubic tetrahedra. (Frisken. Column 10, Lines 29-34, “(22) The reconstruction method specified by the reconstruction method identifier 530 can be one of the following 531: linear, bilinear, trilinear, quadratic, biquadratic, triquadratic, cubic, bicubic, tricubic, or an arbitrary reconstruction filter such as a weighted sum of sample values from the sampled distance field.”)
Regarding Claim 15: The reference discloses The method of claim 1, wherein: some of the geometric elements are tetrahedra, and some are triangular prisms, and some are hexahedra. (Frisken. Column 10, Lines 29-34, “(22) The reconstruction method specified by the reconstruction method identifier 530 can be one of the following 531: linear, bilinear, trilinear, quadratic, biquadratic, triquadratic, cubic, bicubic, tricubic, or an arbitrary reconstruction filter such as a weighted sum of sample values from the sampled distance field.”)
Regarding Claim 17: See rejection for claim 1.
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:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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 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.
9. Claim(s) 3-6 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Frisken in view of Avila, Ricardo S., and Lisa M. Sobierajski. "A haptic interaction method for volume visualization." Proceedings of Seventh Annual IEEE Visualization'96. IEEE, 1996, hereafter Avila.
Regarding Claim 3: Frisken does not explicitly recite The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of: computing a control value to be delivered to a haptic actuator of a physical apparatus instantiating the modeled elastic body, the computation based on the computed new positions of the particles and/or the stresses and/or the strains at the nodes and/or the interior points of one or more of geometric elements.
However Avila discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of: computing a control value to be delivered to a haptic actuator of a physical apparatus instantiating the modeled elastic body, the computation based on the computed new positions of the particles and/or the stresses and/or the strains at the nodes and/or the interior points of one or more of geometric elements. (Avila, page 197, right column, 2nd paragraph, “One goal of the work presented in this paper is to develop a haptic interaction method for use in a volume visualization system. There are several reasons to pursue the addition of haptic cues to volume visualization. The use of a force feedback device during visualization is a natural output method for interactively conveying complex information to the user. This is particularly useful when the user attempts to precisely locate a feature within a volume, or to understand the spatial arrangement of complex three-dimensional structures.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the haptic actuator of Avila with the modeling of Frisken since the “use of a force feedback device during visualization is a natural output method for interactively conveying complex information to the user. This is particularly useful when the user attempts to precisely locate a feature within a volume, or to understand the spatial arrangement of complex three-dimensional structures.” (Avila, page 197, right column, 2nd paragraph)
Regarding Claim 4: Frisken does not explicitly recite The method of claim 3, wherein: the physical apparatus is a medical simulator.
However Avila discloses The method of claim 3, wherein: the physical apparatus is a medical simulator. (Avila. Page 197, right column, 1st paragraph, “A medical planning and training system [4] has also been developed which simulates knee palpation through the use of visual and haptic feedback.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the medical simulator of Avila with the modeling of Frisken since the “use of a force feedback device during visualization is a natural output method for interactively conveying complex information to the user. This is particularly useful when the user attempts to precisely locate a feature within a volume, or to understand the spatial arrangement of complex three-dimensional structures.” (Avila. Page 197, right column, 2nd paragraph)
Regarding Claim 5: Frisken does not explicitly recite The method of claim 3, wherein; the physical apparatus is a robotic device.
However Avila discloses The method of claim 3, wherein; the physical apparatus is a robotic device. (Avila. Page 197, right column, 1st paragraph, “Haptic interaction has been successfully applied to simulate specific tasks in several application areas. In molecular docking studies, a robotic arm was used to supply molecular interaction forces [3].”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the robotic device of Avila with the modeling of Frisken since the “use of a force feedback device during visualization is a natural output method for interactively conveying complex information to the user. This is particularly useful when the user attempts to precisely locate a feature within a volume, or to understand the spatial arrangement of complex three-dimensional structures.” (Avila. Page 197, right column, 2nd paragraph)
Regarding Claim 6: Frisken does not explicitly recite The method of claim 3 wherein; the physical apparatus is a human computer interaction (HCI) device.
However Avila discloses The method of claim 3 wherein; the physical apparatus is a human computer interaction (HCI) device. (Avila, page 197, right column, 2nd paragraph, “One goal of the work presented in this paper is to develop a haptic interaction method for use in a volume visualization system. There are several reasons to pursue the addition of haptic cues to volume visualization. The use of a force feedback device during visualization is a natural output method for interactively conveying complex information to the user. This is particularly useful when the user attempts to precisely locate a feature within a volume, or to understand the spatial arrangement of complex three-dimensional structures.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the haptic actuator of Avila with the modeling of Frisken since the “use of a force feedback device during visualization is a natural output method for interactively conveying complex information to the user. This is particularly useful when the user attempts to precisely locate a feature within a volume, or to understand the spatial arrangement of complex three-dimensional structures.” (Avila, page 197, right column, 2nd paragraph)
Regarding Claim 12: The reference discloses The method of claim 1, wherein: the energy computation based on both (a) position and/or bending of the geometric element computed by the non-linear interpolation functions, (Frisken. Column 19, Lines 1-14, “((134) Step 1630 changes the location and number of the seed points to reduce the total surface energy. This means points can be moved, points can be added at locations of high surface detail (e.g. high curvature) and points can be removed from locations of low surface detail (e.g. low curvature). The surface energy is typically a function 1632 of inter-particle spacing and the energy contribution from interacting points is typically non-zero only over a limited region of inter-force influence 1631. This region determines how far out the energy function influences neighboring points. The output 1633 of step 1630 is surface cells annotated with new seed point locations and a measure of the change in the surface energy, surface energy delta, that resulted from step 1630.”) and
Frisken does not explicitly recite (b) non-linear material parameters that depend on position and/or bending at the interior points of the geometric elements.
However Avila discloses (b) non-linear material parameters that depend on position and/or bending at the interior points of the geometric elements. (Avila, Page 200, Section 4.1, “material density” and “Essentially, the more opaque a material, the greater its stiffness and motion retarding properties”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the material properties of Avila with the modeling of Frisken in order to “simulate a realistic haptic and visual rendering of a volume.” (Avila, Page 200, Section 4.1, last paragraph)
10. Claim(s) 9 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Frisken in view of Slinn, Donald N., and J. J. Riley. "A model for the simulation of turbulent boundary layers in an incompressible stratified flow." Journal of Computational Physics 144.2 (1998): 550-602, hereafter Slinn.
Regarding Claim 9: Frisken does not explicitly recite The method of claim 1, further comprising: balancing kinetic energy introduced into a corresponding geometric element against potential energy contained within stresses (The energy within stresses is taught by Frisken. Column 19, Lines 1-14, “((134) Step 1630 changes the location and number of the seed points to reduce the total surface energy. This means points can be moved, points can be added at locations of high surface detail (e.g. high curvature) and points can be removed from locations of low surface detail (e.g. low curvature). The surface energy is typically a function 1632 of inter-particle spacing and the energy contribution from interacting points is typically non-zero only over a limited region of inter-force influence 1631. This region determines how far out the energy function influences neighboring points. The output 1633 of step 1630 is surface cells annotated with new seed point locations and a measure of the change in the surface energy, surface energy delta, that resulted from step 1630.”) among the plurality of particles in the geometric element.
However Slinn discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising: balancing kinetic energy introduced into a corresponding geometric element against potential energy … among the plurality of particles in the geometric element. (Slinn. Page 586, last paragraph, “Every simulation provides information about the balance of energy for the flow. All of the terms of the kinetic, potential, and total energy equations are calculated at each tenth time step during the simulations. The terms are summed and graphed to ensure that energy is conserved. The energy balance requirement is a more severe test of the accuracy of the model than either conservation of mass or momentum, because the energy terms are calculated using higher-order spatial derivatives.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the rule of energy conservation balance of Slinn with the modeling of Frisken since “The energy balance requirement is a more severe test of the accuracy of the model than either conservation of mass or momentum, because the energy terms are calculated using higher-order spatial derivatives” (Slinn. Page 586, last paragraph)
Regarding Claim 16: Frisken does not explicitly recite The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of: dividing the computation among cores of a processor for parallel computation.
However Slinn discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of: dividing the computation among cores of a processor for parallel computation. (Page 579, last line, “Limited testing on a multi-processor Silicon Graphics Server shows that the code runs 3.9 times faster when run concurrently on 5 processors than when run on a single processor.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to utilize the parallel processing of Slinn with the modeling of Frisken since parallel processing runs faster than a single processor. (Slinn. Page 579, last line)
Conclusion
11. All Claims are rejected.
12. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
i) Andrade, José E., et al. "Granular element method for computational particle mechanics." Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering 241 (2012): 262-274 which teaches the analysis of computational particle mechanics.
ii) Zhao, Xujun, et al. "Effects of elastic strain energy and interfacial stress on the equilibrium morphology of misfit particles in heterogeneous solids." Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 61.6 (2013): 1433-1445 which teaches the analysis of particles and its effects in conjunction with elastic strain/stress calculations.
iii) Sifakis, Eftychios, and Jernej Barbic. "FEM simulation of 3D deformable solids: a practitioner's guide to theory, discretization and model reduction." Acm siggraph 2012 courses. 2012. 1-50 which teaches FEM simulation of elastic objects focusing on stresses and forces.
13. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Saif A. Alhija whose telephone number is (571) 272-8635. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F, 10:00-6:00.
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SAA
/SAIF A ALHIJA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2186
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