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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/01/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/17/2025 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
The amended claims and associated applicant arguments/ remarks filed on 11/12/2025 were received and considered.
Claims 1 and 7 have been amended.
Claims 1-12 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed 11/12/2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-12 under USC 103 have been fully considered. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Cheng et al. (A Hierarchical Approach to Color Image Segmentation Using Homogeneity).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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, 2, 5, 7, 9, and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sung et al. (US 20110102579 A1) referred to as Sung hereinafter and further in view of Stess (US 11092444 B2) and Cheng et al. (A Hierarchical Approach to Color Image Segmentation Using Homogeneity) referred to as Cheng hereinafter.
Regarding claim 1, Sung teaches A method for determining a position of at least one lane, comprising: (“generating current coordinate data and current travelling lane data” Sung, para. [0018], figs. 1 and 4)
recording at least one image of the surroundings of a vehicle by a camera of the vehicle; (“The photographing apparatus 301 receives the images photographing the landmark 300” Sung, para. [0036]) and (“The photographing apparatus 301 may include a general purpose camera.” Sung, para. [0030])
evaluating the image of the surroundings by an evaluation device; (“a lane controller that compares the targeted coordinate data of the car with the current coordinate data received from the coordinate controller to determine whether a car is normally driven and generate data indicating whether the car is normally driven;” Sung, para. [0012])
establishing at least one landmark in the image of the surroundings; (“a photographing apparatus installed in a car that photographs the landmark installed on a road when a car travels” Sung, para. [0012])
segmenting the at least one landmark into at least two segments; (“a photographing apparatus (no reference numeral) is installed at a portion having a predetermined height `h` inside or outside the car, wherein the photographing apparatus photographs a landmark 200 having a predetermined height `H` to determine whether the car travels on the road while maintaining the central line 202 of the lane based on the photographing images of the landmark 200.” Sung, para. [0027], fig. 2, Examiner’s note: portion is the claimed segmenting. The reference mentions portion of predetermined height and fig. 2 shows portion of height as well, since the claim states segmenting the landmark into at least two segments, and the reference teaches one portion is the height that means the landmark is segmented into two (one portion is height and the second is the rest of the landmark. A secondary reference (Stess) has been brought to supplement the rejection regarding “segmenting”))
establishing an alignment of the at least two segments of the at least one landmark; (“any method capable of setting a line that is parallel with a ground on which a car is positioned, such as a line that is parallel with a line connecting between points where the front and rear wheels contacts the ground and passes through the original point 0, etc., can be used. If the X-axis on the coordinate plane 304 is set, the orthogonal coordinate system can be easily set by setting a line making Y-axis vertical to the X-axis and passing through the original point 0.” Sung, para. [0035], and fig. 2)
establishing a position of the at least one lane based on the established alignment of at least one of the at least two segments. (“The photographing apparatus 301 receives the images photographing the landmark 300, the coordinate controller 302 uses the pre-stored information of the photographing apparatus 301 to calculate the distance D between the focus f0 of the photographing apparatus 301 and the landmark 300. In order to calculate D, the coordinate controller 302 can store the magnification of the photographing apparatus 301 and uses the stored magnification information of the photographing apparatus 301 to analyze a point where the line connecting the top end U of the landmark 300 from the focus meets the photographing apparatus 301, that is, the orthogonal coordinate system, thereby generating data having the value of the current coordinate u (Xs, Ys).” Sung, para. [0036] and fig. 2)
However, Sung does not teach an ego vehicle, Stess teaches an ego vehicle (“automatic driving functions in modern vehicles” col. 1, lines 19-20)
Sung teaches dividing the landmark into at least two portions in fig. 2, and Stess teaches segmenting as well.
Sung and Stess are combinable because they are from the same filed of endeavor, image processing in line detection.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sung in light of Stess’s ego vehicle. One would have been motivated to do so because it can record as accurately as possible the landmarks in the traffic environment at any given point in time. (Stess, col. 4, lines 5-6)
However, the combination of Sung and Stess does not teach segmenting the landmark into at least two segments based on one or more homogeneity criteria, wherein each segment comprises at least one homogeneity criterion and wherein each of one or more pixels fulfilling the at least one homogeneity criterion are combined into the segment comprising the at least one homogeneity criterion;
Cheng teaches segmenting the landmark into at least two segments based on one or more homogeneity criteria, (“Homogeneity is largely related to the local information extracted from an image and reflects how uniform a region is [13]. It plays an important role in image segmentation since the result of image segmentation would be several homogeneous regions.” Cheng, p. 2072)
wherein each segment comprises at least one homogeneity criterion and wherein each of one or more pixels fulfilling the at least one homogeneity criterion are combined into the segment comprising the at least one homogeneity criterion; (“A color region merging phase is very important to combine those pixels together and produce a more concise set of regions.” Cheng, p. 2076) and (“The output of the first phase of the proposed approach is several uniform regions based on homogeneity. The second phase of the segmentation is to apply histogram analysis on the color feature hue. That is, in each uniform region obtained from the first phase, the pixels are divided into several groups with each group having similar colors. In this sense, the segmentation approach is performed hierarchically.” Cheng, p. 2074)
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sung and Stess in light of Cheng’s segmenting based on homogeneity criteria. One would have been motivated to do so because the quality of the segmentation result is much improved. (Cheng, p. 2081)
Regarding claim 2, Sung teaches wherein the landmark is a street lamp. (“the present invention use the street lamp basically installed on the road as the landmark” Sung, para. [0014])
Regarding claim 5, Stess teaches wherein establishing the street lamp comprises establishing points of light in a specific region of the image of the surroundings. (“The recording of the data sets in the first step of the method takes place in a generally known manner by a laser scanner. A recorded data set comprises in particular a single scan of the laser scanner, wherein parameters such as distances and reflection properties at points in the traffic environment can be recorded by pivoting a beam of light and detecting the reflected light within a certain recording area. The data points thereby correspond with individual measurements, in particular at different angles relative to the laser scanner.” Stess, col. 3, lines 58-67)
Regarding claim 7, refer to the explanation of claim 1.
Regarding claim 9, refer to the explanation of claim 2.
Regarding claim 12, refer to the explanation of claim 5.
Claim(s) 3, 4, 10, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sung, Stess, and Cheng as mentioned above and further in view of Rajagopalan et al. (US 20170019976 A1) referred to as Rajagopalan hereinafter.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Sung, Stess, and Cheng does not teach wherein the street lamp is segmented at least into a lamp post and a lamp head.
However, Rajagopalan teaches wherein the street lamp is segmented at least into a lamp post and a lamp head. (“In FIG. 2a, the light emitted by the luminaire(s) 4 is shown as a light cone 205, having a light footprint 207 on a surface 210 illuminated by the luminaire(s) 4. The outdoor street light 200 comprises a lighting pole 203. As shown in FIG. 2a, the photosensor 2 is positioned such that the SR 202 of the photosensor is directed onto a portion of the lighting pole 203.” Rajagopalan, para. [0035])
Sung, Stess, Cheng, and Rajagopalan are combinable because they are from the same filed of endeavor, image processing in a vehicle surroundings.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sung, Stess, and Cheng in light of Rajagopalan’s segmenting a street lamp into at least a lamp post and a lamp head. One would have been motivated to do so because it can improve detection performance. (Rajagopalan, para. [0062])
Regarding claim 4, Sung teaches wherein the position of the at least one lane is established based on the alignment of the lamp head. (“The landmark 200 means a photographing mark that is installed the roadside or the central line of the road at a predetermined interval. The exemplary embodiment of the present invention uses the street lamp 200, which can be generally installed at the roadside or the central line of the road, as the landmark. Since the street lamp 200 generates a sensible beam even in the case of night, heavy rain, and heavy snow, the photographing apparatus installed in the car 201 senses the beam to calculate the height of the street lamp 200 such that it may be an applicable apparatus as the landmark.” Sung, para. [0028], fig. 2)
Regarding claim 10, refer to the explanation of claim 3.
Regarding claim 11, refer to the explanation of claim 4.
Claim(s) 6 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sung, Stess, and Cheng as mentioned above and further in view of Ren (US 20230206500 A1).
Regarding claims 6, the combination of Sung, Stess, and Cheng does not teach wherein a neural network is used for establishing the at least one landmark.
However, Ren teaches wherein a neural network is used for establishing the at least one landmark. (“In a first step, pixel-level semantic segmentation is performed on the photographed image by using a neural network (NN) inference model, to identify and extract the road feature object (a lane line, a sign plate, a street lamp pole, and the like).” Ren, para. [0158])
Sung, Stess, Cheng, and Ren are combinable because they are from the same filed of endeavor, image processing.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sung, Stess, and Cheng in light of Ren’s neural network. One would have been motivated to do so because it can improve the calibration precision of extrinsic parameter of a camera. (Ren, para. [0018])
Regarding claim 8, refer to the explanation of claim 6.
Conclusion
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/PARDIS SOHRABY/ Examiner, Art Unit 2664
/JENNIFER MEHMOOD/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2664