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
Applicant's arguments filed 02/03/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
As to applicant’s argument on page 11 recites:
“Krishnamurthy does not disclose or suggest "wherein the second geometry represents an adjustment to the first geometry in representing the three- dimensional model of the object according to the amount of desired prismatification," as now recited in claim 11. Rather, Krishnamurthy describes that a "face-point curve" is a "sampled representation of the projection of a spline curve on the polygon mesh" and not the polygon mesh itself”
The claim limitation recites that the “second geometry represents an adjustment to the first geometry”, and does not require modifying the original vertices. Under broadest reasonable interpretation, the second geometry can be derived from the first geometry. Krishnamurthy teaches that a fitted spline curve is calculated from an original mesh and smooths the geometry according to a desired smoothness parameter. Accordingly, the output spline surface includes a second geometry representing an adjustment to the first geometry. In addition, Strater is relied upon to teach first geometry is defined in a data structure using a control mesh. FIG. 4B illustrates editing a T-Spline surface in the UI of FIG. 4A, and Fig. 7 illustrates that the organic body, as modified by the user input, is converted into a modified surface in the B-Rep format. The modified surface reflects the user’s modification of the original surface, thus representing an adjustment of the first geometry. Therefore, the combined teachings of Strater and Krishnamurthy are considered to suggest the second geometry represents an adjustment to the first geometry in the 3D model of the object according to the amount of desired prismatification.
As to applicant’s argument on page 12 recites:
“Arnon's "change in the angle or slope of a line tangent over a given segment of a curve or arc" does not disclose or suggest "organic features versus prismatic features between the first geometry and the second geometry," as claimed”
The rejection relies on the combined teachings of the references rather than Arnon alone to teach the entire limitation. Arnon is cited for teaching the use of a ratio based on curvature variation. Using a ratio is a well-known concept that provides a metric for distinguishing different surface features. Therefore, the combination reasonably teaches determining a ratio of organic versus prismatic features between geometries, as recited in the claim. Applicant’s argument attacking Arnon individually is not persuasive.
As to applicant’s argument on pages 12-14 recite:
“Krishnamurthy does not disclose or suggest "producing, by the shape modeling computer program, second geometry defined in the data structure by modifying one or more portions of the control mesh of the first geometry using the indication of the amount of desired prismatification," as now claimed…A POSITA would therefore not have looked to Krishnamurthy to apply its user controlled curve smoothing technique to Strater's T-spline geometry. The two references address different technical problems at different stages of a modeling pipeline….Applying Krishnamurthy's curve smoothing technique to Strater's control mesh geometry would require changing the Krishnamurthy's face-point curve purpose and feature in a manner neither discussed in Krishnamurthy nor Strater, making the combined combination inoperable”
Strater discloses editing function of the T-spline surface, including selecting an entire structure of the T-spline, moving a structure, automatically realigning moved facets, and performing erase and fill operations that enable removal of a hole by filling in it with new facets created for the T-spline. Strafter further disclose that user interface tool allows modification, addition, and deletion of portions of the organic body produced by generative design method. These functions modify the surface representation and topology of the T-spline geometry. The shape of the T-spline representation is defined by a control structure, and creating or changing shape corresponds to modifying portion of the surface control structure. Accordingly, Strater teaches modifying one or more portions of the control structure (i.e., control mesh) corresponding to the geometry.
However, Strater does not expressly disclose using an indication of the amount of desired prismatification, Krishnamurthy is relied upon to teach this concept. While the applicant argues that Krishnamurthy does not disclose or suggest resolution adjustments and that applying its curve smooth technique to Strater’s T-spline geometry would be in operable. The argument is not persuasive. Krishnamurthy describes interactive adjustment of the resolution of the B-spline to smooth a face point curve, such curve smoothing is a well-known technique for modifying spline-based geometry. One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the technique can be applied to any spline based on surface representation, including B-spline surface, to adjust the smoothness of the resulting geometry.
While Strater describes post-process of an editable T-spline surface does not preclude combining the teachings of Krishnamurthy. The references do not teach or suggest that applying curve smoothing to an editable T-spline surface would be inoperable. To the contrary, applying a known curve smoothing technique to modify the shape of one or more portions of a spline based geometry would have been predictable and within the skill of one of ordinary skill in the art.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings of Strater and Krishnamurthy to modify T-spline surface geometry using curve smooth techniques to teach the claimed limitations.
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 14 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Strater et al. (US 10,467,807) in view of Krishnamurthy et al. (Fitting Smooth Surfaces to Dense Polygon Meshes, SIGGRAPH, 1996).
Regarding claim 14, Strater discloses a system (Strater, col 15. 48-49, “FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a data processing system including a data processing apparatus 800”).
obtaining, by a shape modeling computer program, a selection of first geometry defined in a data structure used by the shape modeling computer program to represent a three-dimensional model of an object (Strater, col 12. 28-29, “the CAD program(s) 116 implement at least one generative design method”. Fig. 4B shows selection editing 450 of geometry defined in a data structure to represent a 3D model of an object. In addition, in col 5. 42-44, “the CAD program(s) 116 implement at least one generative design method”. The CAD program is considered a shape modeling computer program), wherein the first geometry is defined in the data structure using a control mesh for a smooth surface representation of the first geometry (Strater, col 7. 26-30, “the 3D model 132 includes one or more editable smooth surfaces 136, e.g., one or more T-Spline surfaces, referred to herein as an organic body, that have been constructed from a polygon mesh output of the generative design process”);
producing, by the shape modeling computer program, second geometry defined in the data structure (Strater, col 14. 41-44, “allows the user to modify how the organic body is converted into a B-Rep solid, including potentially resizing some of the geometry of the organic body”), modifying one or more portions of the control mesh of the first geometry (Strater, col 12. 28-29, “FIG. 4B shows an example of editing 450 a T-Spline surface in the UI 400 of FIG. 4A”. In addition, in col 12. 32-51, “the UI 400 can provide various editing tools that are tailored for use with the varied shapes often created by generative design processes…These types of UI elements, which take into consideration the complex topologies often created by generative design processes, facilitate the modification, addition and deletion of portions of the organic bodies that are produced by generative design methods”. The shape of the T-spline representation is defined by a control structure, and creating or changing shape corresponds to modifying portion of the surface control structure (i.e., control mesh)), wherein the second geometry replaces the first geometry in representing the three-dimensional model of the object (Strater, col 14. 41-44, "allows the user to modify how the organic body is converted into a B-Rep solid, including potentially resizing some of the geometry of the organic body". B-Rep is considered replaces the organic body as the representation of the 3D model of the object); and
providing, by the shape modeling computer program, the three-dimensional model of the object, with the second geometry included in the three-dimensional model, for use in manufacturing a physical structure corresponding to the object using one or more computer-controlled manufacturing systems, or for use in displaying the object on a display screen (Strater, col 11. 54-58, “the watertight 3D model can be provided 240, e.g., by CAD program(s) 116, for use in manufacturing a physical structure corresponding to the object using one or more computer-controlled manufacturing systems”);
Strater does not expressly disclose “an indication of an amount of desired prismatification”;
Krishnamurthy et al. (hereinafter Krishanmurthy) discloses an indication of an amount of desired smoothness (Krishnamurthy, 3 Boundary curve specification, [0002], “The resolution of the B-spline for the fit is set interactively by the user. The smoothing operation consists of attracting a face-point curve, which is constrained to lie on the surface of the polygon mesh, to a curve in space”. The resolution control amount of desired smoothness (prismatification));
producing second geometry using the indication of the amount of desired prismatification (Krishnamurthy, 3 Boundary curve specification, [0002], “The resolution of the B-spline for the fit is set interactively by the user. The smoothing operation consists of attracting a face-point curve, which is constrained to lie on the surface of the polygon mesh, to a curve in space”. The interactive process creates a smoother second representation of the original geometry).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to produce the geometry described in Strater by applying the interactively mesh-resolution adjustment disclosed in Krishnamurthy. The motivation for doing so would have been allowing the user to dynamically adjust detail level of the model according to their preference.
Regarding claim 19, Strater discloses one or more non-transitory computer storage media encoded with computer program instructions that when executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations (Strater, col 16. 38-40, “a non-transitory computer-readable medium for execution by, or to control the operation of, data processing apparatus. The computer-readable medium can be a manufactured product”).
The limitations recite in claim 19 are similar in scope to the method recited in claim 14 and therefore are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Strater et al. (US 10,467,807) in view of Krishnamurthy et al. (Fitting Smooth Surfaces to Dense Polygon Meshes, SIGGRAPH, 1996) in view of Arnon et al. (US 2022/0126518).
Regarding claim 11, Strater discloses a method (Strater, col 6. 33-34, "the CAD program(s) 116 implement at least one generative design method") comprising:
a smoothing operation applied to the first geometry (Strater, col 7. 26-30, “the 3D model 132 includes one or more editable smooth surfaces 136, e.g., one or more T-Spline surfaces, referred to herein as an organic body, that have been constructed from a polygon mesh output of the generative design process”);
the second geometry represents an adjustment to the first geometry in the representing the three-dimensional model of the object (Strater, FIG. 4B illustrates editing a T-Spline surface in the UI of FIG. 4A, and Fig. 7 illustrates that the organic body, as modified by the user input, is converted into a modified surface in the B-Rep format. The modified surface reflects the user’s modification of the original surface, thus representing an adjustment of the first geometry);
Strater as modified by Krishnamurthy with the same motivation from claim 14 discloses according to the amount of desired prismatification (Krishnamurthy, 3 Boundary curve specification, [0002], “The resolution of the B-spline for the fit is set interactively by the user. The smoothing operation consists of attracting a face-point curve, which is constrained to lie on the surface of the polygon mesh, to a curve in space”);
Strater as modified by Krishnamurthy with the same motivation from claim 14 discloses organic features versus prismatic features between the first geometry and the second geometry (Krishnamurthy, Fig. 11 illustrates multi-resolution editing of geometry using multiple displacement map images represents organic features versus prismatic features between the first geometry and the second geometry); Strater as modified by Krishnamurthy does not expressly disclose “a ratio”;
Arnon et al. (hereinafter Arnon) discloses a ratio (Arnon, [0010], ““Curvature change ratio”—as used in the current disclosure the term curvature change ratio means the ratio of the change in the angle or slope of a line tangent that moves over a given segment of a curve or arc. The first derivative defines a slope of the line tangent to the curve”. The curvature change ratio measures how much a slope changes over a segment of the surface. The higher ratio indicates more curved surface and the lower ratio indicates flatter surface).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Arnon’s ratio, which measures slope changes of the surface to determine Strater as modified by Krishnamurthy’s measure of smoothness of the 3d object. The motivation for doing so would have been allowing measuring how curved or flat a surface is, in order to improve processing efficiency.
The remaining limitations recite in claim 11 are similar in scope to the functions recited in claim 14 and therefore are rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-10 and 12-13 are allowed.
Claims 15-18 and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 KYLE ZHAI whose telephone number is (571)270-3740. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ke Xiao can be reached at (571) 272 - 7776. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KYLE ZHAI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2611