DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 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.
Claims 1-2, 8-11, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ferguson et al. (US 9,043,069), hereinafter Ferguson.
In re. claim 1, Ferguson teaches an object detection method of a vehicle LiDAR system, comprising: calculating, based on LiDAR point data of a previous time point (t1) and LiDAR point data of a current time point (t2) of an object to track (figs. 3A-3B), a representative vector value (306) representing a movement variation of the LiDAR point data from the previous time point to the current time point (fig. 3D); and extracting heading information of the object to track based on the representative vector value (to revised transformation (310)) (col. 7, ln. 21-26).
In re. claims 2 and 11, Ferguson teaches wherein the calculating of, based on the LiDAR point data of the previous time point and the LiDAR point data of the current time point of the object to track, the representative vector value representing the movement variation of the LiDAR point data from the previous time point to the current time point comprises: collecting the LiDAR point data of the previous time point and the current time point of the object to track (captured point clouds (302, 304)); sampling, based on the LiDAR point data, data of an outline of the object to track of the previous time point and an outline of the object to track of the current time point (object classified as certain type of object) (col. 4, ln. 53-59); and calculating a vector value capable of fitting sampling data of the previous time point based on sampling data of the current time point, as the representative vector value (306) (fig. 3C).
In re. claims 8 and 17, Ferguson teaches wherein the extracting of the heading information of the object to track based on the representative vector value comprises: setting the heading information to a direction the same as the representative vector value (when error metric is less than threshold) (step (408)) (fig. 4).
In re. claim 9, Ferguson teaches a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium recorded with a program for executing an object detection method of a vehicle LiDAR system (col. 8, ln. 58-62), implementing: a function of calculating, based on LiDAR point data of a previous time point (t1) and LiDAR point data of a current time point (t2) of an object to track (figs. 3A-3B), a representative vector value (306) representing a movement variation of the LiDAR point data from the previous time point to the current time point (fig. 3D); and extracting heading information of the object to track based on the representative vector value (to revised transformation (310)) (col. 7, ln. 21-26).
In re. claim 10, Ferguson teaches a vehicle LiDAR system comprising: a LiDAR sensor (732) (col. 12, ln. 7-9); and a LiDAR signal processing device (712) (fig. 7) configured to calculate, based on LiDAR point data of a previous time point (t1) and LiDAR point data of a current time point (t2) of an object to track (figs. 3A-3B) obtained through the LiDAR sensor, a representative vector value (306) representing a movement variation of the LiDAR point data from the previous time point to the current time point (fig. 3D); and extracting heading information of the object to track based on the representative vector value (to revised transformation (310)) (col. 7, ln. 21-26).
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 3-7 and 12-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ferguson as applied to claims 2 and 11 respectively above, and further in view of Feser et al. (US 2021/0046940).
In re. claims 3 and 12, Ferguson teaches wherein the collecting of the LiDAR point data of the previous time point and the current time point of the object to track comprises: obtaining contour information of a three-dimensional coordinate system associated with the shape box of the three-dimensional coordinate system (contours of the truck shown in figure 3A).
Ferguson fails to disclose obtaining information on a shape box of a three-dimensional coordinate system of the object to track.
Feser teaches obtaining information on a shape box of a three-dimensional coordinate system of the object to track (bounding box (16)) (para [0027]) (fig. 2).
Therefore, it would have been prima facie obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have modified Ferguson to incorporate the teachings of Feser to have the recited shape box, for the purpose of providing a simplified version of the data set for processing.
In re. claims 4 and 13, Ferguson as modified by Feser (see Ferguson) teach wherein the sampling of, based on the LiDAR point data, the data of the outline of the object to track of the previous time point and the outline of the object to track of the current time point comprises: converting the contour information of the three-dimensional coordinate system of each of the previous time point and the current time point into contour information of a two-dimensional coordinate system (fig. 3A); and sampling the data of the outline based on the contour information converted into the two- dimensional coordinate system (fig. 3C).
In re. claims 5 and 14, Ferguson as modified by Feser (see Feser) teach wherein the sampling of the data of the outline based on the contour information converted into the two-dimensional coordinate system comprises: sampling the data of the outline by performing Graham scan for the contour information.
In re. claims 6 and 15, Ferguson as modified by Feser (see Ferguson) teach the calculating of the vector value capable of fitting the sampling data of the previous time point based on the sampling data of the current time point, as the representative vector value comprises: fixing the data of the outline of the current time point as reference data (data at t1) (Fig. 3A); and calculating a vector value enabling the data of the outline of the previous time point to be fitted to the data of the outline of the current time point while having a minimum error, as the representative vector value (via ICP technique) (col. 5, ln. 58-67).
In re. claims 7 and 16, Ferguson as modified by Feser (see Ferguson) teach wherein the calculating of the vector value capable of fitting the sampling data of the previous time point based on the sampling data of the current time point, as the representative vector value comprises: inputting the data of the outline of the current time point and the data of the outline of the previous time point, as inputs of an iterative closest point (ICP) filter (col. 7, ln. 35-38) (fig. 4); and applying an output of the ICP filter as the representative vector value (at determination block (408)) (fig. 4).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Christopher D. Hutchens whose telephone number is (571)270-5535. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/C.D.H./
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3647
/Christopher D Hutchens/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3647