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 .
Response to RCE
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 04/14/2026 has been entered.
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.
Claims 1, 3, 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable by Stookey “Parallel ODETLAP for Terrain Compression and Reconstruction, from NPL” in view of Feng (US20180276884, from IDS) and Miga (US20080123927) and Masumiya (US20180307197).
Regarding claim 1, Stookey teaches a method for surface fitting of a surface of an object, comprising ([section 1, page 2 1st col, disclosing the representation using surface fitting of a surface of a terrain, section 2.2 disclosing the fitting of the surface):
receiving, at a processor, a point cloud or a mesh of the surface (section 2.2 disclosing a mesh of surface points or a point cloud of sparse points);
dividing, by the processor, the point cloud or the mesh to a plurality of overlapping sub-patches (at least abstract, section 3.1 and 3.2 disclosing the subdividing the points into overlapping patches);
determining, by the processor, a first Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of the overall surface (at least section 2.2, 3.1-4 disclosing the root mean square error of the overall surface);
in response to the first RMSE of the overall surface being greater than the user set RMSE, further dividing, by the processor, sub-patches, further dividing, by the processor, sub-patches among the plurality of overlapping sub-patches (at least section 2.2 disclosing the overall RMSE is greater than a threshold to continue on dividing the meshes);
and
determining, by the processor, a second RMSE of the overall surface (at least section 2.2 disclosing at least a second RMSE until the RMSE reaches the threshold or below);
Stookey does not teach with RMSE greater than the user set RMSE to smaller overlapping sub-patches; generating, by the processor, coefficients for characterizing the overall surface when the RMSE of the overall surface meets or below the user set RMSE. Controlling, by the processor, movement of a tool relative to the surface based on the generated coefficients.
Feng teaches with RMSE greater than the user set RMSE to smaller overlapping sub-patches ([0088]-[0089] disclosing dividing the patches with the largest RMSE, wherein the iteration of dividing into regions increases the patches in the large RMSE regions until the iteration ending at an ending criterion in which the RMSE is smaller than one of the c31 fitting, i.e., user set RMSE);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teaching of Feng which leads to arriving at the claimed invention yielding predictable results in order to reduce the error in specific patches with large errors thus improving the accuracy of the surface fitting.
Stookey as modified by Feng does not teach generating, by the processor, coefficients for characterizing the overall surface when the RMSE of the overall surface meets or below the user set RMSE. Controlling, by the processor, movement of a tool relative to the surface based on the generated coefficients.
Miga teaches generating, by the processor, coefficients for characterizing the overall surface when the RMSE of the overall surface meets or below the user set RMSE ([0199]-[202] disclosing the characterizing of the surface fitting by coefficients of polynomials based on the iterative approach, wherein [0069] discloses the iterative approach ends when the overall surface meets or below the user set RMSE).
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teaching of Miga of characterizing the surface using coefficients yielding predicable results in order to obtain a function that represents the surface and allow for mathematical representation of the surface.
Masumiya further teaches Controlling, by the processor, movement of a tool relative to the surface based on the generated coefficients (at least abstract disclosing the control of the tool relative to the surface based on the coefficient).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teaching of Masumiya of controlling the movement of the tool relative to the surface in order to accurately control the tool based on the mathematical representation of an object thus improving robotic control while enabling real time representation modification of the tool as taught by Masumiya.
Regarding claim 3, Stookey as modified by Feng and Miga and Masumiya further teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising instructing, by the processor, a scanner to generate the point cloud of the surface.
Specifically, Feng further teaches further comprising instructing, by the processor, a scanner to generate the point cloud of the surface ([0042] disclosing a 3d sensor scanning for 3d point cloud generation).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine/substitute the teaching of Feng of a 3d scanner to scan the surface yielding predictable results in order to allow the collection of point cloud via sensor data for surface representation of any object thus enabling real time object representation.
Claim 4 is rejected for similar reasons as claim 1, see above rejection.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to
applicant's disclosure. The prior art cited in PTO-892 and not mentioned above disclose related devices and methods.
US2020023676 disclosing fitting object surface for tracking.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMAD O EL SAYAH whose telephone number is (571)270-7734. The examiner can normally be reached on M-Th 6:30-4:30.
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/MOHAMAD O EL SAYAH/Examiner, Art Unit 3658B
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