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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Species I (encompassing claims 3-12) in the reply filed on 12/16/2025 is acknowledged.
Claim 13 has been withdrawn by Applicant. Claims 1-12 and 14-20 are currently pending for examination.
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.
Claims 1-12 and 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Regarding claim 1, the claim recites, in part, “obtaining a second grid obstacle by preprocessing the first grid obstacle based on the road information and the first grid obstacle information; converting the second grid obstacle into a second convex hull obstacle; and making an avoidance decision for avoiding a target convex hull obstacle based on target convex hull obstacle information of the target convex hull obstacle, wherein the target convex hull obstacle comprises the first convex hull obstacle and/or the second convex hull obstacle.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. Given road information and a first grid obstacle, a human being can mentally process the first grid obstacle to get a second grid obstacle, convert that second grid obstacle to a convex hull obstacle, and make a decision for avoiding said obstacle.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claim does not purport the improvement to the function of a computer, is not applied by way of a particular machine, does not effect a tangible transformation in state of a particular article, and is not otherwise applied in some other meaningful way (see MPEP 2106.05).
The claim includes an additional element of “acquiring road information, first grid obstacle information of a first grid obstacle, and first convex hull obstacle information of a first convex hull obstacle.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is an act of data gathering. Mere data gathering for use in an abstract idea, without specifying a new source or type of data, does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (see MPEP 2106.05(g); see also Electric Power Group, LLC, v. Alstom, S.A., 830 f.3d 1350 (Fed. Circ. 2016)).
Regarding claim 2, the claim recites “filtering out the first grid obstacle outside a road based on the road information and the first grid obstacle information; and taking a remaining part of the first grid obstacle as the second grid obstacle; and/or, determining the first grid obstacle located in the road based on the road information and the first grid obstacle information; aggregating the first grid obstacle located in the road; and taking the aggregated first grid obstacle as the second grid obstacle.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally eliminate an obstacle outside the road from the gathered information to determine the second grid obstacle or aggregate the obstacles in the road together.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 3, the claim recites “generating a road bounding box along a road passing direction based on the road information; generating a grid obstacle bounding box of the first grid obstacle based on the first grid obstacle information; determining the first grid obstacle located outside the road based on the grid obstacle bounding box and the road bounding box; and filtering out the first grid obstacle located outside the road.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally place a bounding box along a road and identified obstacles, determine if the obstacle box is outside of the road box, and decide to filter out the obstacle if it is.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 4, the claim recites “discretizing a road boundary into boundary points based on the road information; and generating the road bounding box based on the boundary points.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally discretize the road boundary into a selection of points and generate the boundary box from connecting those points.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 5, the claim recites, in part, “determining the road boundary and a curvature of the road boundary based on the road information.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is a mental process in the form of a judgement capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally determine a road boundary and curvature given road information.
The claim further recites “discretizing the road boundary based on the curvature of the road boundary to obtain boundary point groups arranged at intervals along a road passing direction, wherein each boundary point group comprises left boundary points and right boundary points corresponding in a transverse direction, and the transverse direction is perpendicular to the road passing direction.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally discretize the road boundary into a selection of points as claimed.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 6, the claim recites “the generating of the road bounding box based on the boundary points further comprises: generating a rectangular frame passing through each boundary point in any two adjacent boundary point groups based on any two adjacent boundary point groups, and taking the rectangular frame as the road bounding box.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is a mental process in the form of a judgement capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally discretize the road boundary into a selection of points and generate the boundary box from connecting those points.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 7, the claim recites “taking a current position of the vehicle as an initial road point; acquiring one boundary point group corresponding to the initial road point in the transverse direction; selecting next road point along the road passing direction based on the curvature of the road boundary, wherein a distance between two adjacent road points is negatively correlated with the curvature of the road boundary; and taking the next road point as the initial road point, returning to executing the step of acquiring one boundary point group corresponding to the initial road point in the transverse direction until a distance from last next road point to the current position of the vehicle in the road passing direction is greater than a preset distance threshold, and determining all the currently acquired boundary point groups as the boundary point groups.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally discretize the road boundary into a selection of points and generate the boundary box from connecting those points in the manner claimed.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 8, the claim recites “generating a grid obstacle contour of the first grid obstacle based on the first grid obstacle information; and generating the grid obstacle bounding box based on the grid obstacle contour.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is a mental process in the form of a judgement capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally determine a contour of the obstacle and place a bounding box around it based on the contour.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 9, the claim recites “for each grid obstacle bounding box, determining a target road bounding box with a smallest Euclidean distance to the grid obstacle bounding box from the road bounding box based on the grid obstacle bounding box and the road bounding box.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is a mental process capable of being performed in the human mind and/or a mathematical operation.
The claim further recites “performing collision detection on the grid obstacle bounding box and the corresponding target road bounding box; and based on that the grid obstacle bounding box does not collide with the corresponding target road bounding box, determining that the first grid obstacle corresponding to the grid obstacle bounding box is located outside the road.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally predict if an obstacle will collide with their vehicle and determine through observation that the obstacle is located outside of the road.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 10, the claim recites “based on that the grid obstacle bounding box collides with the corresponding target road bounding box, judging whether the first grid obstacle corresponding to the grid obstacle bounding box is located outside the road.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is a mental process in the form of a judgement capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally determine whether an obstacle bounding box is located outside of a road.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 11, the claim recites “performing collision detection based on the boundary point of the target road bounding box and the grid obstacle bounding box through a vector cross product.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is a mental process capable of being performed in the human mind and/or a mathematical operation.
The claim additionally recites “judging whether the first grid obstacle corresponding to the grid obstacle bounding box is located outside the road.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is a mental process in the form of a judgement capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally determine whether an obstacle bounding box is located outside of a road.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 12, the claim recites “determining a boundary point vector; determining a vertex vector of the grid obstacle bounding box; and when a cross product of the vertex vector of the grid obstacle bounding box and the boundary point vector is greater than 0, determining that the first grid obstacle corresponding to the grid obstacle bounding box is located outside the road.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally determine a vector of a boundary point and a vertex point and see if the cross product is greater than zero.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 14, the claim recites “marking an avoidance-free label or a lateral avoidance-free label on the target convex hull obstacle meeting a preset filtering condition based on the target convex hull obstacle information; and/or marking an avoidance label on the target convex hull obstacle based on the target convex hull obstacle information and a guide line of the vehicle, wherein the avoidance label comprises a left passing label, a right passing label or a following label.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally determine how to or if to avoid a target obstacle upon meeting certain criteria.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 15, the claim recites “the preset filtering condition comprises at least one of the following: the target convex hull obstacle is located outside the road; a motion state of the target convex hull obstacle meets a lateral avoidance-free condition; and the target convex hull obstacle is located on the guide line of the vehicle.” As noted above in the rejection of claim 15, a human being can mentally determine how to or if to avoid a target obstacle upon meeting certain criteria, that criteria including if the obstacle is located outside of the road.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 16, the claim recites “when the target convex hull obstacle is located outside the road, marking the avoidance-free label on the target convex hull obstacle; and when the motion state of the target convex hull obstacle meets the lateral avoidance-free condition or the target convex hull obstacle is located on the guide line of the vehicle, marking the lateral avoidance-free label on the target convex hull obstacle.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally determine that an obstacle does not need to be avoided when it is outside of the road or that the obstacle does not need to be avoided laterally when the obstacle is located along the vehicle guideline.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 17, the claim recites “the lateral avoidance-free condition comprises any one of the following: the target convex hull obstacle crosses the road; the target convex hull obstacle changes lane to the lane of the vehicle; and a longitudinal velocity of the target convex hull obstacle is greater than a velocity of the vehicle.” As noted above in the rejection of claim 16, a human being can mentally determine that an obstacle does not need to be avoided laterally when it is ahead and moving faster than the own vehicle.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 18, the claim recites “based on that the target convex hull obstacle is located on the guide line of the vehicle, marking the following label on the target convex hull obstacle; and based on that the target convex hull obstacle is not located on the guide line of the vehicle, when a center of mass of the target convex hull obstacle is located at a left side of the guide line of the vehicle, marking the right passing label on the target convex hull obstacle, and when the center of mass of the target convex hull obstacle is located on a right side of the guide line of the vehicle, marking the left passing label on the target convex hull obstacle.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. A human being can mentally determine that an obstacle is being followed when it is located along the own vehicle’s guideline and determine whether to pass on the right or left based on which direction the vehicle is offset from the host vehicle’s guideline.
The claim recites no additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application or that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 19, the claim recites, in part, “obtaining a second grid obstacle by preprocessing the first grid obstacle based on the road information and the first grid obstacle information; converting the second grid obstacle into a second convex hull obstacle; and making an avoidance decision for avoiding a target convex hull obstacle based on target convex hull obstacle information of the target convex hull obstacle, wherein the target convex hull obstacle comprises the first convex hull obstacle and/or the second convex hull obstacle.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. Given road information and a first grid obstacle, a human being can mentally process the first grid obstacle to get a second grid obstacle, convert that second grid obstacle to a convex hull obstacle, and make a decision for avoiding said obstacle.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claim does not purport the improvement to the function of a computer, is not applied by way of a particular machine, does not effect a tangible transformation in state of a particular article, and is not otherwise applied in some other meaningful way (see MPEP 2106.05).
The claim includes an additional element of “acquiring road information, first grid obstacle information of a first grid obstacle, and first convex hull obstacle information of a first convex hull obstacle.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is an act of data gathering. Mere data gathering for use in an abstract idea, without specifying a new source or type of data, does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (see MPEP 2106.05(g); see also Electric Power Group, LLC, v. Alstom, S.A., 830 f.3d 1350 (Fed. Circ. 2016)).
The claim further includes additional elements of a “memory” and “one or more processors.” When read in light of the specification, these elements amount to generic computing components. The invocation of generic computing components to perform an abstract idea does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea (see MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Regarding claim 20, the claim recites, in part, “obtaining a second grid obstacle by preprocessing the first grid obstacle based on the road information and the first grid obstacle information; converting the second grid obstacle into a second convex hull obstacle; and making an avoidance decision for avoiding a target convex hull obstacle based on target convex hull obstacle information of the target convex hull obstacle, wherein the target convex hull obstacle comprises the first convex hull obstacle and/or the second convex hull obstacle.” These limitations, when read in light of the specification, are mental processes in the form of judgements and/or evaluations capable of being performed in the human mind. Given road information and a first grid obstacle, a human being can mentally process the first grid obstacle to get a second grid obstacle, convert that second grid obstacle to a convex hull obstacle, and make a decision for avoiding said obstacle.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claim does not purport the improvement to the function of a computer, is not applied by way of a particular machine, does not effect a tangible transformation in state of a particular article, and is not otherwise applied in some other meaningful way (see MPEP 2106.05).
The claim includes an additional element of “acquiring road information, first grid obstacle information of a first grid obstacle, and first convex hull obstacle information of a first convex hull obstacle.” This limitation, when read in light of the specification, is an act of data gathering. Mere data gathering for use in an abstract idea, without specifying a new source or type of data, does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (see MPEP 2106.05(g); see also Electric Power Group, LLC, v. Alstom, S.A., 830 f.3d 1350 (Fed. Circ. 2016)).
The claim further includes additional elements of a “non-transitory computer readable storage medium” and “a computing device.” When read in light of the specification, these elements amount to generic computing components. The invocation of generic computing components to perform an abstract idea does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea (see MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Singh et al. (US 2022/0182498 A1) generally teaches:
A data communication acquires a map image, determines high- and low-risk areas in the map, determines whether to transmit data related to the high- or low-risk areas, detects objects around the system, determines a position in the map image for each of the objects detected, determines whether the objects belongs to the high- or low-risk areas, determines a data compression ratio for each of the objects detected, compresses data related to each of the objects, compresses data related to each of the objects belonging to the high-risk area when data related to the high-risk area is determined to be transmitted, compresses data related to each of the objects belonging to the low-risk area when data related to the low-risk area is determined to be transmitted, receives reply data replied in association with the compression data transmitted, and makes a decision in accordance with the reply data.
Molinari (US 2021/0358184 A1) generally teaches:
System, methods, and other embodiments described herein relate to improving a representation of objects in a surrounding environment. In one embodiment, a method includes, in response to receiving sensor data depicting the surrounding environment including a corridor that defines a left boundary and a right boundary, identifying at least one object from the sensor data. The method includes transforming segmented data from the sensor data that represents the object into a bounding box by defining the bounding box according to six points relative to the corridor. The method includes providing the six points of the bounding box as a reduced representation of the object.
Lilja et al. (US 2021/0331679 A1) generally teaches:
In one aspect, the present disclosure is directed at a computer implemented method for determining a drivable area in front of a host vehicle. According to the method, a region of interest is monitored in front of the host vehicle by at least two sensors of a detection system of the host vehicle. The region of interest is divided into a plurality of areas via a computer system of the host vehicle, and each area of the plurality of areas is classified as drivable area, non-drivable area or unknown area via the computer system based on fused data received by the at least two sensors.
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/ANSHUL SOOD/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3667