DETAILED ACTION
Response to Arguments
The amendment filed 6/22/2026 have been entered and made of record.
The Applicant has canceled claim(s) 5-6 and 9-20.
The application has pending claim(s) 1-4 and 7-8.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 6-8, filed 6/22/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of amended claim(s) 1-4 and 7-8 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in further view of the newly found prior art reference Huang et al (CN 116164740 A, the attached English language translation is used hereinafter as the Official English language translation of this CN document). Further discussions are addressed in the prior art rejection section below. Therefore claims 1-4 and 7-8 are still not in condition for allowance because they are still not patentably distinguishable over the prior art reference(s).
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.
Claim(s) 1-4 and 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He et al (CN 112884834 A, provided by Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement IDS - the previously attached English language translation is used hereinafter as the Official English language translation of this CN document, as applied in previous Office Action) in view of Huang et al (CN 116164740 A, the attached English language translation is used hereinafter as the Official English language translation of this CN document).
Re Claim 1: He discloses a system (see He, Pages 27-28/60 at paragraph “In the above-mentioned embodiments, it may be implemented …”) comprising: an image acquisition device mounted to an object, the image acquisition device configured to acquire a query frame of an environment containing the object (see He, Page 6/60 at paragraph “In yet another implementation, the acquiring unit is used to acquire …”, Page 8/60 at paragraph “The present application provides a visual positioning method and system …”, Pages 10-11/60 at paragraph “Using the ToF depth camera on the positioning device …”); a memory device configured to store an image database (see He, Page 6/60 at paragraph “In yet another implementation, the acquiring unit is used to acquire …”, Page 14/60 at paragraph “Specifically, with regard … each picture in the database …”); and at least one processor configured to execute computer-readable instructions that direct the at least one processor to (see He, Pages 27-28/60 at paragraph “In the above-mentioned embodiments, it may be implemented …”): identify a set of data in the image database that potentially matches the query frame (see He, Page 6/60 at paragraph “In yet another implementation, the acquiring unit is used to acquire …”); identify a vision localization paradigm in a plurality of vision localization paradigms (see He, Page 8/60 at paragraph “Visual positioning methods are divided into three major positioning methods …” and paragraph “The present application provides … Different positioning methods can be selected for positioning according to the scene …”, Page 10/60 at paragraph “For rooms with rich …”, Page 11/60 at paragraph “For indoor daytime …”); and determine a pose for the object using the set of data, the query frame, and lens characteristics for the image acquisition device as inputs to the vision localization paradigm (see He, Page 7/60 at paragraph “The basic principle of visual …”, Page 9/60 at paragraph “Using the ToF depth camera …” through Page 10/60 at paragraph “The above-mentioned …”, Page 21/60 at paragraph “The first image …” through “By adopting the method for visual positioning …”, the first image, the candidate image(s), and the ToF depth camera internal parameters, are used to determine which of the three methods [direct method, indirect method, and CNN method] to use and thereby determine the pose of the object).
However He fails to explicitly disclose where Huang discloses wherein the computer-readable instructions that direct the at least one processor to identify the vision localization paradigm, further direct the at least one processor to (see Huang, Page 3/26 at lines 8-35, paragraph “The invention claims …” in Page 5/26, Page 7/26 at lines 1-13, paragraph “As shown in FIG. 3 …” in Page 10/26, navigation system based on computer and software implementation to determine which positioning navigation mode to select): detect an operational context for the object, wherein the operational context is determined from non-image information (see Huang, Page 3/26 at lines 8-35, paragraph “The invention claims …” in Page 5/26, Page 7/26 at lines 1-13, paragraph “As shown in FIG. 3 …” in Page 10/26, multi-sensor comprising a GPS [non-image based] for determining the location precision of the position), the non-image information including at least one of: performance requirements (see Huang, Page 3/26 at lines 8-35, paragraph “The invention claims …” in Page 5/26, Page 7/26 at lines 1-13, paragraph “As shown in FIG. 3 …” in Page 10/26, judging and determining that the GPS is working normally); measurements from additional sensors other than the image acquisition device (see Huang, Page 3/26 at lines 8-35, paragraph “The invention claims …” in Page 5/26, Page 7/26 at lines 1-13, paragraph “As shown in FIG. 3 …” in Page 10/26, multi-sensor comprising a GPS [from non-image information] for determining the location precision of the position); or computational resource availability (see Huang, Page 3/26 at lines 8-35, paragraph “The invention claims …” in Page 5/26, Page 7/26 at lines 1-13, paragraph “As shown in FIG. 3 …” in Page 10/26, judging and determining that the GPS is working normally); wherein the vision localization paradigm is selected based on the operational context (see Huang, Page 3/26 at lines 8-35, paragraph “The invention claims …” in Page 5/26, Page 7/26 at lines 1-13, paragraph “As shown in FIG. 3 …” in Page 10/26, the navigation mode is selected according to the GPS positioning precision of the determined current position, wherein two of the selectable navigation modes thereafter using image information).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify He’s system using Huang’s teachings by including various localization paradigm’s based on the GPS via the multi-sensor to He’s paradigm’s / visual positioning methods in order to improve the localization / pose determination accuracy (see Huang, Page 3/26 at lines 8-35, paragraph “The invention claims …” in Page 5/26, Page 7/26 at lines 1-13, paragraph “As shown in FIG. 3 …” in Page 10/26).
Re Claim 2: He further discloses wherein the computer-readable instructions that direct the at least one processor to identify the set of data (see He, Page 6/60 at paragraph “In yet another implementation, the acquiring unit is used to acquire …”), further direct the at least one processor to (see He, Pages 27-28/60 at paragraph “In the above-mentioned embodiments, it may be implemented …”): calculate a query general descriptor for the query frame (see He, Page 26/60 at paragraph “The visual positioning device used to obtain …” through Page 27/60 at paragraph “And calculating the final position …”); acquire general descriptors for a plurality of frames stored in the image database (see He, Page 26/60 at paragraph “The visual positioning device used to obtain …” through Page 27/60 at paragraph “And calculating the final position …”); compare the general descriptors to the query general descriptor for each of the plurality of frames (see He, Page 26/60 at paragraph “The visual positioning device used to obtain …” through Page 27/60 at paragraph “And calculating the final position …”); and designate a number of frames in the plurality of frames as the set of data (see He, Page 6/60 at paragraph “In yet another implementation, the acquiring unit is used to acquire …”, obtain one or more candidate images, Page 26/60 at paragraph “The visual positioning device used to obtain …” through Page 27/60 at paragraph “And calculating the final position …”, get candidate feature descriptors).
Re Claim 3: He further discloses wherein the computer-readable instructions that direct the at least one processor to identify the set of data (see He, Page 6/60 at paragraph “In yet another implementation, the acquiring unit is used to acquire …”), further direct the at least one processor (see He, Pages 27-28/60 at paragraph “In the above-mentioned embodiments, it may be implemented …”) to provide additional paradigm-specific information for the number of frames included in the set of data (see He, Page 9/60 at paragraphs “In this embodiment, various types …” through “The indoor and outdoor identifiers …”, indoor and outdoor scene type identification information provided by auxiliary location based service, Page 9/60 at paragraph “Using the ToF depth camera …” through Page 10/60 at paragraph “The above-mentioned …”, Page 21/60 at paragraph “The first image …” through “By adopting the method for visual positioning …”, the scene type information is used to determine which of the three methods [direct method, indirect method, and CNN method] to use and thereby determine the pose of the object).
Re Claim 4: Although He [as modified by Huang] fails to explicitly disclose a user interface, wherein the computer-readable instructions that direct the at least one processor to identify the vision localization paradigm, further direct the at least one processor to receive a paradigm selection from the user interface, the Examiner takes Official Notice that it would have been exceedingly obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify He’s system [as modified by Huang] to include a user interface that receives a paradigm selection from the user interface as is exceedingly well known and typical in the image processing and signal processing fields of endeavor in order to broaden the applicability of the system and improve the user experience, as evidenced by e.g. Humenberger et al [“Robust Image Retrieval-based Visual Localization using Kapture” – arXiv - 1/07/2022 – pages 1-21, as applied in previous Office Action] (see Humenberger, abstract, Figure 1, Section 3. Kapture description, the Kapture toolbox is an open source tool that allows the user to select the visual localization method from the list of visual localization methods).
Re Claim 7: He further discloses wherein data stored on the image database is received from a central repository, wherein the data stored on the image database was calculated by a plurality of processors at the central repository (see He, Page 16/60 at paragraph “Which solution to use …”, Page 21/60 at paragraph “The positioning algorithm requires more computing …”).
Re Claim 8: He further discloses wherein the vision localization paradigm is at least one of: a pose approximation vision localization paradigm; a two-view geometry vision localization paradigm; a landmark navigation vision localization paradigm; a structures from motion vision localization paradigm; a learned depth vision localization paradigm; or a neural rendering vision localization paradigm (see He, Page 7/60 at paragraph “The basic principle …”, Page 8/60 at paragraph “Visual positioning methods are divided into three major positioning methods …” through paragraph “The present application provides … Different positioning methods can be selected for positioning according to the scene …”, Page 10/60 at paragraph “For rooms with rich …”, Page 11/60 at paragraph “For indoor daytime …”, Page 20/60 at paragraph “For small rooms …”, e.g. CNN method to get the pose using at least depth sensors, e.g. direct method using the 3D points and the 2D image geometric relationship, e.g. trained PoseNet network using at least depth sensors).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BERNARD KRASNIC whose telephone number is (571)270-1357. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon. - Thur. and every other Friday from 8am - 4pm.
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/Bernard Krasnic/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2671 September 2, 2026
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