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.
Drawings
The drawing filed 11/28/2023 are approved by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 12 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Boyko et al (United States Patent No. 8,818,609).
With respect to claim 1, Boyko et al disclose: A method for detecting an object around a host vehicle [ taught by figure 6 ], the method comprising: generating an exhaust gas meta object having a same data format as a track box for tracking the object based on an information of a first object box corresponding to an exhaust gas included in a box information indicating a shape of an object [ column 3, lines 53-58 state, “…In an example embodiment, a process for identifying the exhaust of a leading vehicle for navigational purposes of an autonomous vehicle includes determining a surface of a leading vehicle and then trailing back towards the LIDAR scanner (on the autonomous vehicle) to identify a boundary of the exhaust (e.g., where the exhaust begins)…” ]; verifying a validity of the information of the first object box based on an association between the exhaust gas meta object and pre-stored track boxes [ column 4, lines 5-9 state, “…Additionally, for cases where geometry may not be useful to determine a desired result, the controller can be configured to use observations made about a given vehicle in the past to determine whether an object detected by the LIDAR is exhaust…”]; and generating and storing an exhaust gas virtual track based on the information of the first object box in response to a determination that the information of the first object box is valid [ column 4, lines 9-19 state, “…The system may determine a bounding box for a vehicle (e.g., an area in which the vehicle is present) over time. Additionally, the history of the previous exhaust decisions about the vehicle can be tracked, as well as a map of the exhaust detected in the past. When a bounding box of a vehicle is tracked over time, portions of the vehicle that do not fit into the bounding box are more likely to be exhaust because solid structures will usually be persistently present in the scans, and will cause the bounding box to take them into account…” ].
Claim 12 is taught by the subject matter of Boyko et al, as applied to claim 1.
Column 19, lines 22-48 state, “…In another embodiment, the controller 804 can be configured to use observations made about a given vehicle in the past to determine whether an object detected by the LIDAR device 802 includes solid material. In some examples, the controller 804 may determine a bounding box for a vehicle (e.g., an area in which the vehicle is present) over time. The bounding box corresponds to a predicted exterior surface of the point cloud indicated object, in this case, a vehicle located in front of the autonomous vehicle. Of course, the bounding "box" can generally take the form of a multi-sided closed shape defining the predicted outer boundaries of the object. When a bounding box of a vehicle is tracked over time, portions of the vehicle that do not fit into the bounding box are more likely to be an exhaust plume because solid structures will usually be persistently present in the scans, and will cause the bounding box to take them into account. Conversely, when, due to a sporadic event in scanning or the shape of the vehicle (e.g., a low flatbed pickup truck), the geometric features suggest that a large part of a vehicle is exhaust, the fact that those parts of the vehicle have been persistently tracked prevents them from being discarded by the navigation control systems operating the autonomous vehicle. Sometimes an exhaust plume persists in the scanning zone for long enough to be considered separate from the originating vehicle cluster in the 3-D point map. In this situation, having tracked the exhaust plume in the past produces very strong evidence in favor of discarding the entire exhaust plume cluster…”.
Tracking a bounding box over time to differentiate from the exhaust plume meets “…verifying the validity of the information of the first object box based on information of a
first track box of the pre-stored track boxes when the exhaust gas meta object is associated with the first track box…”.
The teaching reciting “…Sometimes an exhaust plume persists in the scanning zone for long enough to be considered separate from the originating vehicle cluster in the 3-D point map. In this situation, having tracked the exhaust plume in the past produces very strong evidence in favor of discarding the entire exhaust plume cluster…” meets “…determining that the information of the first object box is valid when the exhaust gas meta object is not associated with the pre-stored track boxes…”.
Therefore, claims 2 and 13 are anticipated by Boyko et al.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-11 and 14-20 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication should be directed to MARK HELLNER at telephone number (571)272-6981.
Examiner interviews are available via a variety of formats. See MPEP § 713.01. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
/MARK HELLNER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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