DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Objections
Claim 19 objected to because of the following informalities: claim 19 depends on a cancelled claim, for purposes of examination the examiner will assume claim 19 depends on claim 1. 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.
Claims 6 and 19 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.
Claim 6 recites the limitation " the iToF camera" in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Note claim 2 depends on claim 1.
Claim 19 recites the limitation " the ground truth device" in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-16, 19, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) an AI algorithm that unwraps the phase of a phase image. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because there is nothing more than simply unwrapping the phase of the phase image. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because this is not rendered into a practical application.
Pertaining to claim 1 and a similar analysis for claim 21
BELOW IS AN THE 101 ANALYSIS
STEP 1: Is the claim to a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter?
Answer: YES, the claim is directed to a machine.
STEP 2A prong 1: Does the claim recite an abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon?
Answer: YES, the claim is directed to the abstract idea of an AI algorithm with little to no detail of what that abstract idea is.
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes generic “circuitry” and includes the abstract idea (AI algorithm) that creates an unwrapped depth image with no details of the algorithm or how the resultant unwrapped depth map is integrated into a practical application.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 2 (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim includes determining wrapping indexes from the depth map or phase image, this is merely another step in the abstract idea.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 3, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim includes determining wrapping indexes and an unambiguous range of an iToF camera.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry. The claim also includes an iToF camera however this element is not positively recited as part of the device.
Referring to claim 4, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes the origin of the data for the device.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry. The claim also includes an iToF camera however this element is not positively recited as part of the device.
Referring to claim 5, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim includes “user-side information”, this amounts to additional data for the generic device and AI algorithm to process.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 6, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes the origin of the data for the device.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry. The claim also includes an iToF camera however this element is not positively recited as part of the device.
Referring to claim 7, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes the origin of the data for the device.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 8, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes the origin of the data for the device.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 9, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes generic “circuitry” and includes the abstract idea (AI algorithm) that creates an unwrapped depth image with no details of the algorithm or how the resultant unwrapped depth map is integrated into a practical application.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry. The claim also includes an iToF however this is extremely generically recited with no structural elements, one of ordinary skill in the art of determining unwrapped phase depth images would have known to include.
Referring to claim 10, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes what the generic algorithm is applied to.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 11, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes pre-processing.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 12, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes pre-processing.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 13, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes data for the pre-processing.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 14, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes data for the pre-processing.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 15, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim merely includes data for the pre-processing.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 16, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim includes a generic limitation on the AI algorithm.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry.
Referring to claim 16, (note the similar analysis for steps 1-2A prong 1 of claim 1 and below is a streamlined analysis:
STEP 2A prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Answer: NO, the claim includes a generic limitation on the AI algorithm.
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Answer: No, the only element recited in the claim is generic “circuitry” and one of ordinary skill in the art that any device that unwraps a phase of a phase image would include some form of circuitry. The claim includes a ground truth device that is a LIDAR scanner, it is unclear how the ground truth device is included in the electronic device, even if it is included in the electronic device of claim 1 it is a generic recitation of a LIDAR scanner with no supporting structure.
Claim 20 includes limitations drawn to how the AI algorithm is trained and therefore is not rejected under 101.
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.
Claim(s) below is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Su, Shuochen, et al. "Deep end-to-end time-of-flight imaging." Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 2018.
Referring to claims 1 and 21, Suochen shows an electronic device comprising circuitry (see introduction) configured to unwrap a depth map or phase image by means of an artificial intelligence algorithm to obtain an unwrapped depth map (see abstract).
Referring to claim 2, Suochen shows the artificial intelligence algorithm is configured to determine wrapping indexes from the depth map or phase image in order to obtain an unwrapped depth map (see page 6389 left column note the effect of inpus as well as page 6385 right column equation 4).
Referring to claim 3, Suochen shows the circuitry is configured to perform unwrapping based on the wrapping indexes and an unambiguous operating range of an indirect Time-of-Flight (iToF) camera to obtain the unwrapped depth map (see the abstract note the use of iToF cameras inherently have an unambiguous range).
Referring to claim 4, Suochen shows a depth map or phase image is obtained by an indirect Time-of-Flight (iToF) camera (see abstract).
Referring to claim 5, Suochen shows the artificial intelligence algorithm further uses side-information to obtain an unwrapped depth map (see page 6386 right column last paragraph to section 4.1).
Referring to claim 6, Suochen shows the side-information is an amplitude image obtained by the iToF camera (see page 6386 right column last paragraph to section 4.1).
Referring to claim 7, Suochen shows the side-information is obtained by one or more other sensing modalities (see section 5 page 6387).
Referring to claim 8, Suochen shows the side information is a color image (see page 6383 note the left column under introduction).
Referring to claim 9, Suochen shows the electronic device comprises an iToF camera (see abstract).
Referring to claim 10, Suochen shows the artificial intelligence is applied on a stream of depth maps and/or amplitude images (see figure 5).
Referring to claim 11, Suochen shows the circuitry is further configured to perform pre-processing on the depth map or phase image (see page 6385 note section 3 the depth acquisition).
Referring to claim 12, Suochen shows the circuitry is further configured to perform pre-processing on the side information (see abstract, note the normalization).
Referring to claim 13, Suochen shows the pre-processing comprising segmentation colorspace changes, denoising, normalization, filtering, and/or contrast enhancement (see abstract, note the normalization).
Referring to claim 15, Suochen shows the artificial intelligence algorithm is implemented as an artificial neural network (see abstract).
Referring to claim 16, Suochen shows the artificial neural network is a convolutional neural network (see abstract).
Referring to claim 20, Suochen shows the artificial intelligence algorithm is trained with reference data obtained by an iToF simulation (see page 6387 under section 5.1).
Referring to claim 24, Suochen shows a method of generating an unwrapped depth map comprising:
obtaining a depth map from an iToF camera (see page 6385 under depth acquisition);
obtaining an amplitude image from the iToF camera (see page 6386 left column);
performing denoising on the depth map and the amplitude image to obtain denoised depth map and denoised amplitude image (see page 6386 left column under section 4.1);
apply, by circuitry an artificial neural network on the denoised depth map and the denoised amplitude image to obtain wrapping indexes (see abstract);
performing unwrapping based on the wrapping indexes to obtain an unwrapped depth map (see page 6386 right column third paragraph under 4.1).
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.
Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Su, Shuochen, et al. "Deep end-to-end time-of-flight imaging." Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 2018 in view of Tanaka (20140340515). Referring to claim 14, Shuochen fails to show but Tanaka shows performing colorspace changes, image segmentation on a color image, or applying color or contrast equalization to an amplitude image (see paragraph 67). It would have been obvious to include the pre-processing as shown by Tanaka because Shuochen shows the use of a color iTof camera and one of ordinary skill in the art would realize that pre-processing of the color images is needed.
Claim(s) 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Su, Shuochen, et al. "Deep end-to-end time-of-flight imaging." Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 2018 in view of Cossairt (20190301857).
Referring to claim 19, Shuochen shows a ground truth device (see page 6384 left column above related work). However fails to specifically show a ground truth device is a LIDAR.
Cossairt shows a similar device that includes ground truth device is a LIDAR scanner (see paragraph 93 and 111). It would have been obvious to include the ground truth device is a LIDAR scanner because this is extremely well known and adds no new or unexpected results.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LUKE D RATCLIFFE whose telephone number is (571)272-3110. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00AM-5:00PM EST.
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/LUKE D RATCLIFFE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645