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 Arguments
The arguments are persuasive. See the rejection below incorporating Boriah (20140212055) which teaches time series changes in images in pars. 70-74.
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) 1 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang (“An automatic change detection method for monitoring newly constructed building areas using time-series multi-view high-resolution optical satellite images”) in view of Boriah (20140212055).
Regarding claim 1, Huang teaches a method, comprising: detecting a building within a set of measurements using an object detector (see the abstract and section 3.2, looking for building areas, distinguishing these areas from non-building areas);
determining a timeseries of building representations for the detected building (sections 3.3 and 3.4);
determining building parameters of each building representation based on the building detection (section 3.2 and 3.3, vertical features to delineate the NCBA’s. This is used to distinguish building areas);
determining a building segment for each of the building representations, based on the building parameters, using a segmentation model (section 3.3, segmentation algorithm); and
generating a timeseries of changes for the building based on the building segments for the building representations (section 3.3 and 3.4, multi temporal change detection of the NCBAs).
Boriah teaches determining a relationship between each pair of consecutive building representations within the timeseries based on the building segments of the building representations (see pars. 43 and 70-74);
the relationships between the pairs of consecutive representations, wherein the timeseries of changes comprises a relationship classification indicating a type of change for each pair of consecutive building representations (see pars. 43 and 70-74).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Huang the ability to determine the relationship between consecutive timepoints as taught by Boriah. The reason is to allow the system to model changes over time.
Regarding claim 9, see the rejection of claim 1.
Claim(s) 2-8, 10-16 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang in view of Boriah in further view of Kottenstette (20170076438).
Regarding claim 2, Huang uses high definition images in section 3.1, pansharpening.
Kottenstette teaches segmenting the segments using the segmentation model (see pars. 95-98, 161-162).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Huang and Boriah the ability to segment specific objects as taught by Kottenstette. The reason is to allow specific ROI extraction as taught by Kottenstette.
Regarding claim 3, wherein the building parameters comprise a geographic extent, wherein the higher resolution image depicts the geographic extent (see pars. 112 and 119 of Kottenstette and section 3.1 of Huang, polygon foot print of the terrain.
Regarding claim 4, section 3.1 of Huang has high resolution RGB image and prs. 34 of Kottenstette.
Regarding claim 5, see section 3.2-3.3 of Huang, planar vertical bulding features.
Regarding claim 6-8, see pars. 28 and 113 of Kottenstette.
Regarding claims 10-16, see the rejection of claims 2-8.
Regarding claim 19, see section 3.2 of Huang and pars. 30-32 of Kottenstette.
Claim(s) 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang in view of Boriah in further view of Szegedy (20150170002).
Regarding claim 17, Szegedy teaches wherein the object detector is trained on a set of bounding boxes drawn around building segments identified within training images, wherein the building segments are determined using a segmentation model (see pars. 35-48, using bounding boxes to train. The rejection of claim 1 already teaches building segmetns).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective fling date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Huang and Boriah the ability train based on ROIs in bounding boxes as taught by Szegedy. The reason is to specify a region for training.
Regarding claim 18, see pars. 66-78 of Szegedy, picking only the best bounding boxes.
Claim(s) 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang in view of Boriah in further view of Kim (20070115284).
Regarding claim 20, Kim teaches wherein the building component comprises a shadow, wherein the height parameter is determined based on a length of the detected shadow, the geolocation of the measurement, and a sampling time for the measurement (see pars. 21-25 and pars. 40-41).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective fling date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Huang the ability to measure building height as taught by Kim. The reason is to measure building height.
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.
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/HADI AKHAVANNIK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2676