DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final action is responsive to the IDS and application filed 2/14/2023.
In the application Claims 1-16 are pending. Claim 1 is the independent claim.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
4. The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 2/14/2023 has been entered, and considered by the examiner.
Priority
5. Acknowledgement is made to applicant’s claim for foreign priority to 22158187.9 (EP), filed 2/23/2022.
Drawings
6. The Drawings filed on 2/14/2023 have been approved.
Specification
7. The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because of minor grammatical informalities. The abstract recites “A method for localizing and/or mapping during operation of a vehicle an environment is provided…”. However, for clarity it should recite “…vehicle in an environment is provided…”. A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
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.
8. Claims 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention does not fall within one of the four statutory categories of invention.
The determination of whether a claim recites patent ineligible subject matter is a two-step inquiry.
STEP 1: the claim does not fall within one of the four statutory categories of invention (process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter), see MPEP 2106.03, or
STEP 2: the claim recites a judicial exception, e.g. an abstract idea, without reciting additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, as determined using the following analysis: see MPEP 2106.04
STEP 2A (PRONG 1): Does the claim recite an abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon? see MPEP 2106.04(II)(A)(1)
STEP 2A (PRONG 2): Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application? see MPEP 2106.04(II)(A)(2)
STEP 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception? see MPEP 2106.05
101 Analysis – Step 1
Claim 15 is directed to a computer program, i.e. “software per se”. “Software per se”, when claimed without any structural limitations, does not have a physical or tangible form. Therefore, it does not fall within one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter and is ineligible under 35 USC 101. see MPEP 2106.03.
If support is found within the specification, Applicant is advised to amend the claim(s) to recite “A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising a computer program comprising machine readable instructions that, when executed by a processor, performs: [the claimed functions]”, or equivalent language. see MPEP 2106.03 (I). A claim directed toward a non-transitory computer readable medium would comprise an article of manufacture and thus fall within one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter.
Claim 16 is directed toward a computer readable medium. The claim does not recite, and the specification does not define, that the computer readable medium is limited to non-transitory embodiments. A claim encompassing both transitory and non-transitory embodiments, such as applicant’s claimed computer readable medium, does not fall within one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter. See In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1356-57 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (“A transitory, propagating signal like Nuitjen’s is not a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.’ … Thus, such a signal cannot be patentable subject matter.”).
The claim may be amended to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 by adding the limitation “non-transitory” to the claim. Such an amendment would not raise the issue of new matter because the specification supports a claim drawn to at least one non-transitory embodiment.
9. Claims 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e. abstract idea) without significantly more.
101 Analysis – Step 1
Claim 1 is directed to “A method for localizing…” (process). Therefore, the claim is within at least one of the four statutory categories.
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong I
Regarding Prong I of the Step 2A analysis, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether they recite subject matter that falls within one of the follow groups of abstract ideas: a) mathematical concepts, b) certain methods of organizing human activity, and/or c) mental processes. see MPEP 2106(A)(II)(1) and MPEP 2106.04(a)-(c)
Independent claim 1 includes limitations that recite an abstract idea (emphasized below [with the category of abstract idea in brackets]). Furthermore, dependent claims 13-16 recite similar subject matter has in claim 1 and are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 1. A method for localizing and/or mapping during operation of a vehicle in an environment, wherein the vehicle comprises at least one environment perception sensor for the localizing and/or mapping, the method comprising:
obtaining at least one measurement of the environment from the environment perception sensor [MPEP 2106.05(g) Insignificant Extra-Solution Activity, data gathering via generic sensors],
searching for and identifying a plurality of objects in the at least one measurement which correspond to a predefined pattern in response to determining that the plurality of objects correspond to the predefined pattern, filtering the at least one measurement so that only the plurality of objects which correspond to the predefined pattern are used for the localizing and/or mapping [mental process] & [mathematical concept], and
localizing and/or mapping based on the filtered at least one measurement [MPEP 2106.05(f) Mere Instructions to Apply an Exception]
The Examiner submits that the foregoing bolded limitation(s) above: constitute a “mathematical concept” and a “mental process” because under its broadest reasonable interpretation, the claim covers performance of the limitation in the human mind.
The claims recite pattern recognition/comparison which is a mental process that involves mathematical comparison and analysis operations that can be performed mentally or via pen and paper. The conditional determination based on comparison falls under a mental step of evaluating whether a condition is met. In addition, data filtering/selection based on criteria is a mental process that involves mathematical operations of including/excluding data points based on conditions.
Accordingly, the claim recites at least one abstract idea.
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong II
Regarding Prong II of the Step 2A analysis, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether the claim, as a whole, integrates the abstract into a practical application. see MPEP 2106.04(II)(A)(2) and MPEP 2106.04(d)(2). It must be determined whether any additional elements in the claim beyond the abstract idea integrate the exception into a practical application in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception. The courts have indicated that additional elements merely using a computer to implement an abstract idea, adding insignificant extra solution activity, or generally linking use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use do not integrate a judicial exception into a “practical application.”
In the present case, the additional limitations beyond the above-noted abstract idea are as follows (where the underlined portions are the “additional limitations”, while the bolded portions continue to represent the “abstract idea”.):
For the following reason(s), the examiner submits that the above identified additional limitations do not integrate the above-noted abstract idea into a practical application. Regarding the additional limitations of “obtaining at least one measurement”. The Examiner submits that these limitations are insignificant extra-solution activities that amount to generic data collection step that is pre-solution activity that gather information for the abstract process to operate upon.
Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Further, looking at the additional limitation(s) as an ordered combination or as a whole, the limitation(s) add nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. For instance, there is no indication that the additional elements, when considered as a whole, reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer or an improvement to another technology or technical field, apply or use the above-noted judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition, implement/use the above-noted judicial exception with a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is not more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP § 2106.05). Accordingly, the additional limitation(s) do/does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
101 Analysis – Step 2B
Regarding Step 2B of the Revised Guidance, representative claims does not include additional elements (considered both individually and as an ordered combination) that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons to those discussed above with respect to determining that the claim does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of “localizing and/or mapping” amounts to nothing more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. See MPEP 2106.05(d)(II), and the cases cited therein, including Intellectual Ventures I, LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2016), TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto. LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 610 (Fed. Cir. 2016), and OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015) in addition to -Collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis (Electric Power Group), Collecting data, recognizing certain data within the collected data set and storing the recognized data in memory (Content Extraction).
Dependent claims 2-4 and 10-12, -do not recite any further limitations that cause the claim(s) to be patent eligible. Rather, the limitations of dependent claim are directed toward additional aspects of the judicial exception and do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The claims describe observing and categorizing spatial relationships which fall under a mental process. In addition, distance calculations and thresholds are mathematical concepts. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible under the same rationale as provided for in the rejection of the Independent claims. Therefore, the claims are ineligible under 35 USC §101.
Dependent claims 5-7, -do not recite any further limitations that cause the claim(s) to be patent eligible. Rather, the limitations of dependent claim are directed toward additional aspects of the judicial exception and do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The claims describe narrowing pattern to objects with specific geometric shapes and dimensions. However, shape recognition is a mental process while the geometric shapes and dimensional measurements are mathematical concepts. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible under the same rationale as provided for in the rejection of the Independent claims. Therefore, the claims are ineligible under 35 USC §101.
Dependent claims 8-9, -do not recite any further limitations that cause the claim(s) to be patent eligible. Rather, the limitations of dependent claim are directed toward additional aspects of the judicial exception and do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The claims describe objects that include machine-readable visual identifiers (ex: barcodes or QR codes). However, these claims fall under [MPEP 2106.05(h) Field of Use and Technological Environment] as they apply barcode/QR scanning to the localization field. Thus, code reading via QR or barcode are conventional technology. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible under the same rationale as provided for in the rejection of the Independent claims. Therefore, the claims are ineligible under 35 USC §101.
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.
10. Claim(s) 1-4, 8 and 10-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Holz (U.S. Pub 2018/0306589, published Oct. 25, 2018 & previously cited in the 1449 dated 2/14/2023).
Regarding Independent claim 1, Holz discloses A method for localizing and/or mapping during operation of a vehicle in an environment, wherein the vehicle comprises at least one environment perception sensor for the localizing and/or mapping, the method comprising:
obtaining at least one measurement of the environment from the environment perception sensor (see abstract & paragraphs 82-83, 91-93 and 113, discloses an environment perception sensor 602 on a robotic vehicle that obtains a measurement of the environment via landmark 604 location),
searching for and identifying a plurality of objects in the at least one measurement which correspond to a predefined pattern (see paragraphs 82 and 91-98, discloses that received signals are associated with landmarks 604 that are distributed in the environment via retroreflective markers. Signals are associated with the candidate landmarks and may correspond to a mapped landmark. Further disclosing sampling candidate landmarks and matching them to mapped landmarks (predefined pattern)),
in response to determining that the plurality of objects correspond to the predefined pattern, filtering the at least one measurement so that only the plurality of objects which correspond to the predefined pattern are used for the localizing and/or mapping (see paragraphs 103-104 and 107-109, discloses determining inliers has only candidate landmarks within threshold distance of mapped landmarks are used. Any transformed candidate landmark within the threshold distance of a neighboring mapped landmark may be considered an inlier. Furthermore, any outlier associated with the sample set may be determined to correspond to false detections that are filtered out. Thus, candidate landmark 1120 is an outlier not used for pose estimation), and
localizing and/or mapping based on the filtered at least one measurement (see paragraph 108-109, discloses determining four inliners that is indicative of a transformation that adequately aligns candidate landmarks. Further disclosing that the pose of the robotic vehicle may be estimated based on the inliers associated with the selected sample set).
Regarding Dependent claim 2, with dependency of claim 1, Holz discloses wherein the predefined pattern is defined by a plurality of static objects (see paragraphs 83 and 90-91, including the explanation provided in the Independent claim).
Regarding Dependent claim 3, with dependency of claim 1, Holz discloses wherein the predefined pattern is defined by a plurality of separate objects which are offset from each other (see paragraphs 82 and 90, including the explanation provided in the Independent claim).
Regarding Dependent claim 4, with dependency of claim 3, Holz discloses wherein the separate objects are offset from each other by a minimum distance and/or by a maximum distance (see paragraph 104, including the explanation provided in the Independent claim).
Regarding Dependent claim 8, with dependency of claim 1, Holz discloses wherein identifying the plurality of objects in the at least one measurement comprises identifying a machine-readable visual identifier on at least one of the plurality of objects which fulfils a predefined identification criterion (see paragraphs 82 and 91, including the explanation provided in the Independent claim).
Regarding Dependent claim 10, with dependency of claim 1, Holz discloses wherein the predefined pattern is defined by at least three objects (see paragraphs 96-97 and 107, including the explanation provided in the Independent claim).
Regarding Dependent claim 11, with dependency of claim 10, Holz discloses wherein the at least three objects form a triangle pattern or a substantially linear pattern (see paragraph 97, including the explanation provided in the Independent claim).
Regarding Dependent claim 12, with dependency of claim 1, Holz discloses wherein the predefined pattern is defined in that at least one object of the plurality of objects is surrounded by a free space which fulfils a predefined free space criterion (see paragraph 104, including the explanation provided in the Independent claim).
Regarding Dependent claims 13-16, recite similar subject matter has in claim 1 and are rejected under the same rationale.
It is noted that any citation [[s]] to specific, pages, columns, lines, or figures in the prior art references and any interpretation of the references should not be considered to be limiting in any way. A reference is relevant for all it contains and may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill in the art. [[See, MPEP 2123]]
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MANGLESH M PATEL whose telephone number is (571)272-5937. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 10:30 am to 7:30 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Erin D. Bishop, can be reached at telephone number 571-270-3713. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Manglesh M Patel/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3665
2/21/2026