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 Amendment
Applicant’s amendment filed on 5/5/2026 has been entered. Claims 1-3, 6-13, and 16-24 remain pending in the present application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant argued that the cited references do not teach or suggest the limitation "wherein each bounding box of the plurality of bounding boxes has an associated pointer that points to a first child node of the parent box node", as recited in the amended independent claims. The argument has been fully considered, but is moot in view of the new ground of rejection, necessitated by the present amendment.
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 1-3, 6-13, and 16-24 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.
In particular, claims 1, 11 and 20 recite “in response to the determining, traversing to the first child box node” (there are also many instances of “the first child box node” recited in other dependent claims). It is not clear whether “the first child box node” is the same as the first child node recited earlier in “wherein each bounding box of the plurality of bounding boxes has an associated pointer that points to a first child node of the parent box node”. For examining purposes, it is being interpreted as the same as the “first child node”. Clarification is required.
Other claims are also rejected under 112(b) by virtue of their dependency.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 10-13 and 20-22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Rabbani Rankouhi et al. (Pub. No. US 2022/0036652; “Rankouhi” hereinafter).
Regarding claim 1, Rankouhi discloses a method for performing ray tracing operations, the method comprising:
testing, in parallel, a plurality of bounding boxes for intersection with a ray (Par. 58: “RIA 190 includes bounding region test circuitry, which may be configured to test a ray against multiple bounding regions (e.g., boxes) in parallel”. See also Fig. 7 and the associated description), wherein each of the plurality of bounding boxes is specified within the same parent box node of a bounding volume hierarchy (See Fig. 15 and pars. 138-140. As shown in Fig. 15, a plurality of bounding boxes, e.g. bounding boxes 0-3, is specified within the same parent box node 1520 of a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH)), and wherein each bounding box of the plurality of bounding boxes has an associated pointer that points to a first child node of the parent box node (As shown in Fig. 15, each of the bounding boxes 0-3 has an associated pointer that points to primitive P0, which is a child node of the parent box node 1520. In another example illustrated in Fig. 17, bounding boxes 5(T) and 6(T) are specified within the same parent box node 2, and each of the bounding boxes 5(T) and 6(T) has a pointer pointing to box node 7, which is a child node of the parent box node 2);
determining that at least one of the plurality of bounding boxes is intersected by the ray (Par. 159: “At 1820, in the illustrated embodiment, ray intersection circuitry (e.g., RIA 190) traverses, in response to the ray intersection instruction, multiple nodes in a spatially organized acceleration data structure, where nodes of the data structure indicate coordinates corresponding to bounding regions in the graphics scene and the traversal determines whether rays intersect the bounding regions”); and
in response to the determining, traversing to the first child box node (See par. 58. In particular, it is well known in the art that when traversing a BVH, if a ray intersects a bounding box, it continues to traverse the child nodes of that bounding box).
Regarding claim 2, Rankouhi discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the parent box node has box data items that specify the bounding boxes (See Fig. 9 and pars. 101-102. The data structure of a node includes data items specifying the bounds of its child nodes).
Regarding claim 3, Rankouhi discloses the method of claim 2, wherein geometry of a second child node of the first child box node is bounded by a first bounding box of the plurality of bounding boxes , and the geometry of the second child node is not bounded by a second bounding box of the plurality of bounding boxes (See Figs. 15, 17 and par. 140).
Regarding claim 10, Rankouhi discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising generating the bounding volume hierarchy without modifying an original version (Fig. 16 – step 1620. In particular, the BVH with many-to-many mapping between bounding regions and primitives is generated directly from the scene primitives without modifying an original version of the BVH).
Claims 11-13 recite similar limitations as respective claims 1-3, but they are directed to a system. Since Rankouhi also discloses such a system (See Claim 1, for example), these claims could be rejected under the same rationales set forth in the rejections of their respective claims.
Claims 20-22 recite similar limitations as respective claims 1-3, but they are directed to a computer readable medium storing instructions programmed to implement the steps recited in their respective claims. Since Rankouhi also discloses such a medium (See Claim 14, for example), these claims could be rejected under the same rationales set forth in the rejections of their respective claims.
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) 6, 16 and 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rankouhi.
Regarding claim 6, Rankouhi discloses the method of claim 1, .
However, Rankouhi discloses in par. 141 that “[w]here a traditional ADS creation technique might have created a leaf node for primitive P0 at a higher level (e.g., as a child of a node that is an ancestor of bounding regions 0-3 and has a larger bounding region), disclosed techniques may wait to create a leaf for the primitive at a lower level such that it is a child of multiple smaller bounding regions”. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to employ Rankouhi’s technique to modify a traditional ADS (an original version of a BVH) to generate a BVH that supports many-to-many mappings between bounding regions and primitives. The motivation would have been to allow bounding regions to provide a tight fit around primitives.
Claim 16 recites similar limitation as claim 6, but it is directed to a system. Since Rankouhi also discloses such a system (See Claim 1, for example), claim 6 could be rejected under the same rationale set forth in the rejection of claim 6.
Claim 23 recites similar limitation as claim 6, but is directed to a computer-readable medium storing instructions programmed to implement the step recited in claim 7. Since Rankouhi also discloses such a computer-readable medium (See Claim 14, for example), claim 23 could be rejected under the same rationale set forth in the rejection of claim 6.
Claim(s) 7-9, 17-19 and 24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rankouhi as applied to respective claims 6, 16 and 23 above, and further in view of Wald (Pub. No. US 2018/0190013).
Regarding claim 7, Rankouhi teaches the method of claim 6, .
In the same field of ray tracing, Wald teaches using a NULL pointer to indicate a leaf node (See par. 185). A NULL pointer could be viewed as an empty box data item.
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Wald into Babu by using a NULL pointer in a parent node to indicate a leaf child node. The motivation would have been to save memory space.
Regarding claim 8, Rankouhi in view of Wald teaches the method of claim 7, wherein modifying the original version of the bounding volume hierarchy includes splitting an original box data item of the original version of the parent box node in response to the original version of the parent box node include the one or more empty box data items (Rankouhi, par. 141: “[w]here a traditional ADS creation technique might have created a leaf node for primitive P0 at a higher level (e.g., as a child of a node that is an ancestor of bounding regions 0-3 and has a larger bounding region), disclosed techniques may wait to create a leaf for the primitive at a lower level such that it is a child of multiple smaller bounding regions”).
Regarding claim 9, Rankouhi in view of Wald teaches the method of claim 8, wherein splitting the original box data item results in generating the two or more box data items, each of which includes a pointer that points to the first child box node (Par. 141 of Rankouhi suggests this limitation because when a larger bounding region is split into multiple smaller bounding regions, it is necessary to have additional pointers (box data items) to keep track of these smaller bounding regions).
Claims 17-19 recite similar limitations as respective claims 7-9, but they are directed to a system. Since Rankouhi also discloses such a system (See Claim 1, for example), these claims could be rejected under the same rationales set forth in the rejections of their respective claims.
Claim 24 recites similar limitation as claim 7, but is directed to a computer-readable medium storing instructions programmed to implement the step recited in claim 7. Since Rankouhi also discloses such a computer-readable medium (See Claim 14, for example), claim 24 could be rejected under the same rationale set forth in the rejection of claim 7.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHONG X NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1591. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8am - 5pm EST.
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/PHONG X NGUYEN/ Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2617
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