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 .
Notice to Applicants
This communication is in response to the Application filed on 1/26/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
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 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.
Claims 1-5, 7, 11-15 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by US 2024/0371035 to Jadhav et al. (hereinafter, “Jadhav”).
With regard to claim 1 Jadhav discloses a camera calibration apparatus (Figs. 1, 6, and 11), comprising: a monocular camera (camera 104, Fig. 1) configured to obtain an image of an environment of a vehicle (paragraph [0044, 0047, 0050]); a memory storing a trained model configured to estimate a depth map of an input image (memory 160, Fig. 1, paragraphs [0047, 0053); and a processor (processors 110, 190; paragraphs [0047, 0053]) configured to estimate a depth map of an image using the trained model (paragraphs [0156-0157] where depth output 1106 may take different forms, such as a depth map, which is generated by depth model 1104), estimate a road profile including slope information included in the image based on the depth map of the image (paragraphs [0157-0157, 0169-0171] where gradient between adjacent pixels across the image is determined and onto depth gradient loss function 1108, Fig. 11), and determine a distance to an object based on a location of the object located within the image and the road profile (paragraphs [0044, 0050, 0059, 0142, 0152-0153, and so on throughout the reference).
With regard to claim 2 Jadhav discloses wherein the processor is further configured to input the image into the trained model and estimate the depth map of the image based on the depth map output from the trained model (train depth model 1104, Fig. 11, paragraphs [0156, 0169-0171]).
With regard to claim 3 Jadhav discloses wherein the trained model includes a monocular depth estimation network model (paragraphs [0156, 0169-0171]).
With regard to claim 4 Jadhav discloses set a road area as an area of interest, among the depth map output from the monocular depth estimation network model; and estimate the road profile in the area of interest (image 300 for example is an image of a road area as an area of interest, road profile is estimated therefrom as 310 and highlighted area 320 is overlaid from a point cloud frame, paragraphs [0062-0063, 0156-0171]).
With regard to claim 5 Jadhav discloses define a road profile model in the area of interest; obtain parameters of the road profile model that minimize an error between the road profile model and the depth map of the area of interest; and estimate the road profile by applying the parameters of the road profile model to the road profile model (paragraphs [0105, 0153, 0128-0131] where objective function using one or more of the numerical optimization processes is described, yielding road profile estimation).
With regard to claim 7 Jadhav discloses obtain image coordinates of the object located within the area of interest; and obtain real world coordinates of the object that minimize projection error based on the road profile and the image coordinates of the object (coordinate of the object and minimizing error; paragraphs [0084-0105]).
With regard to claim 11, claim 11 is rejected same as claim 1 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 1 are equally applicable to claim 11, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 1 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
With regard to claim 12, claim 12 is rejected same as claim 2 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 2 are equally applicable to claim 12, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 2 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
With regard to claim 13, claim 13 is rejected same as claim 3 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 3 are equally applicable to claim 13, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 3 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
With regard to claim 14, claim 14 is rejected same as claim 4 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 4 are equally applicable to claim 14, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 4 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
With regard to claim 15, claim 15 is rejected same as claim 5 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 5 are equally applicable to claim 15, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 5 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
With regard to claim 17, claim 17 is rejected same as claim 7 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 7 are equally applicable to claim 17, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 7 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
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 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 of this title, 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 6 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2024/0371035 to Jadhav et al. (hereinafter, “Jadhav”) in view of WO 2022/214821A2 to Fubara et al. (hereafter, “Fubara”).
With regard to claim 6, Jadhav teaches the camera calibration apparatus of claim 5 including road profile model in which error is minimized. However, Jadhav does not teach to obtain the parameters of the road profile model in which the error is minimized using Least Square method. Fubara teaches obtain the parameters of the road profile model in which the error is minimized using Least Square method (page 25 lines 1-8).
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 Jadhav’s reference to have least square method of Fubara’s reference. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to reduce the processing demands of the training iteration, as suggested by Fubara on pages 24-25.
Further, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as described above by known method with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Fubara with Jadhav to obtain the invention as specified in claim 6.
With regard to claim 16, claim 16 is rejected same as claim 6 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 6 are equally applicable to claim 16, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 6 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-10 and 18-20 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.
The cited art of record fails to teach, disclose or suggest “obtain a projection error function between the image coordinates projected from the real world coordinates onto the road profile and the image coordinates of the object, using a homography matrix; obtain a Jacobian matrix for a solution vector of the projection error function; calculate an amount of change in the real world coordinates of the projection error function using the Jacobian matrix; update the real world coordinates of the projection error function by applying the change in the real world coordinates; and obtain the real world coordinates at which the projection error function converges to 0”, recited in claim 8 and corresponding claim 18. Dependent claims would be allowed for the same reasons.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHEFALI D. GORADIA whose telephone number is (571)272-8958. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 8AM-6PM, Friday 8AM-12PM.
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SHEFALI D. GORADIA
Primary Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2676
/SHEFALI D GORADIA/Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2676