DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-18 and 33 and 35 are currently pending.
Claims 19-32 and 34 have been canceled.
Examiner notes previously claim 34 was erroneously indicated as pending, this is corrected this action as claim 35.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/28/2023 has been considered by the Examiner.
Response to Arguments
I. 35 U.S.C. 112(b)
Examiner agrees the current amendment to claim 8 overcomes the previous rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b). The rejection is withdrawn.
II. 35 U.S.C. 101
Examiner agrees the current amendment overcomes the previous rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101. The rejections are withdrawn.
III. 35 U.S.C. 103
Examiner agrees the current amendment overcomes the previous rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 of Hoating in view of Forbes. However, upon further search and consideration, the claims remain rejected with new reference Chung, as detailed below.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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 1-4, 8, 33 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haoting (“The Design of Air-space Integrative Calamity Information Analysis and Rescue System”) in view of Chung (“Rapid Response to a Typhoon-Induced flood with an SAR-Derived Map of Inundated Areas: Case Study and Validation”) .
Regarding claim 1, Haoting teaches:
A disaster investigation assistance device comprising:
a memory storing map information; (Haoting, See Figure 1, Ground Command Center and Ground Center with data processing computers… See also section III B, other GIS application such as UAV route planning and rescue plan simulation will also be implemented in that software)and
at least one processor coupled to the memory, the processor performing operations, the operations comprising: (Haoting, See Figure 1, Ground Command Center and Ground Center with data processing computers)
extracting an investigation region based on the disaster range; (Haoting page 2000, When a calamity happens, for example an earthquake broken out, the road, the railway, and the river may all be destroy; thus we can use the RSS to capture the remote image of the area and use the remote image change detection technique to find the destroy level of these lines)
acquiring an image acquired by an image acquisition device in the investigation region; (Haoting, page 2000, After that, the fixed wing UAV will make a flight task along these lines by the navigation method of the GPS or Beidou satellite system.)
Haoting fails to teach:
determining a disaster range using a change in a ground surface that is a result of an analysis using a measurement result by a synthetic aperture radar;
determining a first water level in the investigation region using the acquired image;
automatically identifying one or more areas where the first water level exceeds a predetermined threshold;
automatically generating a visual alert display including the identified areas overlaid on the map information with alert indicators; and
automatically transmitting the visual alert display to a display device of a disaster assistance system.
Chung teaches:
determining a disaster range using a change in a ground surface that is a result of an analysis using a measurement result by a synthetic aperture radar; (Chung page 11958, Table 1 step include “acquired SAR image, SAR image download, Image processing with SARscape, Derive flood region”)
determining a first water level in the investigation region using the acquired image; (Chung, page 11960, To reduce the possible errors and to help interpreters determine the flooded areas quickly and accurately, we developed the Expert Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery Waterbody Delineation System (ESARIWDS) to detect the flood extent)
automatically identifying one or more areas where the first water level exceeds a predetermined threshold; (Chung, page 11961, ESARIWDS divides the whole image into many scenes and calculates a regional threshold value of dark regions for each individual scene by search the inflection point of histogram. Figure 4 gives the flowchart of the flood extent detection using ESARIWDS. )
automatically generating a visual alert display including the identified areas overlaid on the map information with alert indicators;(Chung, page 11962, Figure 7 (e) overlaying the SAR image and boundary of dark regions onto the corresponding DEM to visually examine the topographical relationship of each dark region… See also Figure 9 close up photo of water level gauge and inundated areas (red shaded polygons interpreted from the SAR imagery of twelve stations)) and
automatically transmitting the visual alert display to a display device of a disaster assistance system. (Chung , Abstract, The SAR-derived map of inundated areas was published on a web-based platform powered by Google Earth within 24 hours, with the aim of supporting the decision-making process of disaster prevention and mitigation)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the SAR determination of Chung with the disaster investigation of Haoting. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to improve the rapid response to flash flood events. See Chung, Abstract.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Haoting and Chung teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:
extracting the investigation region using map information. (Haoting page 2000, When a calamity happens, for example an earthquake broken out, the road, the railway, and the river may all be destroy; thus we can use the RSS to capture the remote image of the area and use the remote image change detection technique to find the destroy level of these lines)
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Haoting and Chung teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:
extracting investigation region through which a vehicle is configured to pass. (Haoting page 2000, When a calamity happens, for example an earthquake broken out, the road, the railway, and the river may all be destroy; thus we can use the RSS to capture the remote image of the area and use the remote image change detection technique to find the destroy level of these lines)
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Haoting and Chung teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to any one of claims claim 1,wherein the operations further comprise:
extracting investigation region related to a predetermined facility. (Haoting page 2000, When a calamity happens, for example an earthquake broken out, the road, the railway, and the river may all be destroy; thus we can use the RSS to capture the remote image of the area and use the remote image change detection technique to find the destroy level of these lines)
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Haoting and Chung teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 1,wherein:
the image acquisition device is at least one of a fixed image acquisition device and an image acquisition device mounted on a vehicle. (Haoting, page 2000, After that, the fixed wing UAV will make a flight task along these lines by the navigation method of the GPS or Beidou satellite system.)
Regarding claim 33, the combination of Haoting and Chung teaches:
A disaster investigation assistance method comprising:
determining a disaster range using a change in a ground surface that is a result of an analysis using a measurement result by a synthetic aperture radar ; (Chung page 11958, Table 1 step include “acquired SAR image, SAR image download, Image processing with SARscape, Derive flood region”)
extracting an investigation region based on the disaster range; (Haoting page 2000, When a calamity happens, for example an earthquake broken out, the road, the railway, and the river may all be destroy; thus we can use the RSS to capture the remote image of the area and use the remote image change detection technique to find the destroy level of these lines)
acquiring an image acquired by an image acquisition device in the investigation region; (Haoting, page 2000, After that, the fixed wing UAV will make a flight task along these lines by the navigation method of the GPS or Beidou satellite system.)
determining a first water level in the investigation region using the acquired image; ( Chung, page 11960, To reduce the possible errors and to help interpreters determine the flooded areas quickly and accurately, we developed the Expert Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery Waterbody Delineation System (ESARIWDS) to detect the flood extent)
automatically identifying one or more areas where the first water level exceeds a predetermined threshold; (Chung, page 11961, ESARIWDS divides the whole image into many scenes and calculates a regional threshold value of dark regions for each individual scene by search the inflection point of histogram. Figure 4 gives the flowchart of the flood extent detection using ESARIWDS. )
automatically generating a visual alert display including the identified areas overlaid on the map information with alert indicators;(Chung, page 11962, Figure 7 (e) overlaying the SAR image and boundary of dark regions onto the corresponding DEM to visually examine the topographical relationship of each dark region… See also Figure 9 close up photo of water level gauge and inundated areas (red shaded polygons interpreted from the SAR imagery of twelve stations)) and
automatically transmitting the visual alert display to a display device of a disaster assistance system. (Chung , Abstract, The SAR-derived map of inundated areas was published on a web-based platform powered by Google Earth within 24 hours, with the aim of supporting the decision-making process of disaster prevention and mitigation)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the SAR determination of Chung with the disaster investigation of Haoting. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to improve the rapid response to flash flood events. See Chung, Abstract.
Regarding claim 35, the combination of Haoting and Chung teaches:
A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium that records a program for causing a computer to execute: (Haoting, See Figure 1, Ground Command Center and Ground Center with data processing computers)
determining a disaster range using a change in a ground surface that is a result of an analysis using a measurement result by a synthetic aperture radar; (Chung page 11958, Table 1 step include “acquired SAR image, SAR image download, Image processing with SARscape, Derive flood region”)
extracting an investigation region based on the disaster range; (Haoting page 2000, When a calamity happens, for example an earthquake broken out, the road, the railway, and the river may all be destroy; thus we can use the RSS to capture the remote image of the area and use the remote image change detection technique to find the destroy level of these lines)
acquiring an image acquired by an image acquisition device in the investigation region; (Haoting, page 2000, After that, the fixed wing UAV will make a flight task along these lines by the navigation method of the GPS or Beidou satellite system.)
determining a first water level in the investigation region using the acquired image; ( Chung, page 11960, To reduce the possible errors and to help interpreters determine the flooded areas quickly and accurately, we developed the Expert Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery Waterbody Delineation System (ESARIWDS) to detect the flood extent)
automatically identifying one or more areas where the first water level exceeds a predetermined threshold; (Chung, page 11961, ESARIWDS divides the whole image into many scenes and calculates a regional threshold value of dark regions for each individual scene by search the inflection point of histogram. Figure 4 gives the flowchart of the flood extent detection using ESARIWDS. )
automatically generating a visual alert display including the identified areas overlaid on the map information with alert indicators;(Chung, page 11962, Figure 7 (e) overlaying the SAR image and boundary of dark regions onto the corresponding DEM to visually examine the topographical relationship of each dark region… See also Figure 9 close up photo of water level gauge and inundated areas (red shaded polygons interpreted from the SAR imagery of twelve stations)) and
automatically transmitting the visual alert display to a display device of a disaster assistance system. (Chung , Abstract, The SAR-derived map of inundated areas was published on a web-based platform powered by Google Earth within 24 hours, with the aim of supporting the decision-making process of disaster prevention and mitigation)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the SAR determination of Chung with the disaster investigation of Haoting. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to improve the rapid response to flash flood events. See Chung, Abstract.
Claims 6-7, 9, 12-14, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haoting and Chung as applied to claim 1 above, in view of Forbes (“Using Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Measuring Post-Flood High-Water Marks and Streambed Elevations”) .
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Haoting and Chung fails to teach:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 1,wherein the operations further comprise:
extracting investigation region using a type of a ground surface.
Forbes teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 1,wherein the operations further comprise:
extracting investigation region using a type of a ground surface. (Forbes, page 2, HWMS (high water marks…. a trace) left by floods are debris lines, wash lines, cut lines, and mud lines)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the water level determination of Forbes with the disaster investigation of Haoting and Chung. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to reduce the time and cost associated with acquiring flood data. See Forbes, abstract.
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Haoting, Chung, and Forbes teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 6, wherein the type of the ground surface includes at least any one of a water surface, mud, garbage, dry soil, a grassland, a forest, and snow cover. (Forbes, page 2, HWMS (high water marks…. a trace) left by floods are debris lines, wash lines, cut lines, and mud lines)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the water level determination of Forbes with the disaster investigation of Haoting. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to reduce the time and cost associated with acquiring flood data. See Forbes, abstract.
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Haoting, Chung, and Forbes teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 1,wherein the operations further comprise:
determining the first water level using a trace included in the image acquired in the investigation region. (Forbes, Section 3.1 At Underwood Creek, HWMs (high water marks) were identified along the margin of the flood on both banks by the color change caused by vegetation that had been laid down and in some locations by debris lines)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the water level determination of Forbes with the disaster investigation of Haoting. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to reduce the time and cost associated with acquiring flood data. See Forbes, abstract.
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Haoting, Chung, and Forbes teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 9,wherein the trace includes at least any one of mud, garbage, grass, driftwood, a rock, and a trace of earth and sand that have flowed out. (Forbes, Section 3.1 At Underwood Creek, HWMs (high water marks) were identified along the margin of the flood on both banks by the color change caused by vegetation that had been laid down and in some locations by debris lines)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the water level determination of Forbes with the disaster investigation of Haoting. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to reduce the time and cost associated with acquiring flood data. See Forbes, abstract.
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Haoting, Chung, and Forbes teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 9,wherein the operations further comprise:
determining the trace using image recognition. (Forbes Section 2.3, Photographs at both sites that were collected by the sUAS were processed in Agisoft Metahape to develp a three dimensional point cloud model, a DTM, an orthorectified mosaiked image)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the water level determination of Forbes with the disaster investigation of Haoting. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to reduce the time and cost associated with acquiring flood data. See Forbes, abstract.
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Haoting, Chung, and Forbes teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 13, wherein the trace includes a plurality of types of the traces, and wherein the operations further comprise:
determining traces using the image recognition related to the plurality of respective types of the traces. (Forbes, Section 3.1 At Underwood Creek, HWMs (high water marks) were identified along the margin of the flood on both banks by the color change caused by vegetation that had been laid down and in some locations by debris lines)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the water level determination of Forbes with the disaster investigation of Haoting and Chung. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to reduce the time and cost associated with acquiring flood data. See Forbes, abstract.
Regarding claim 17, the combination of Haoting, Chung, and Forbes teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 1,wherein the operations further comprise:
determining the first water level using an elevation. (Forbes page 4, Imagery collected in a specific manner employing photogrammetric techniques using sUAS can be post processed to generate accurate DTMs which can be used to map the location and elevation of the visually identified HWMs and the terrain features that were inundated)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the water level determination of Forbes with the disaster investigation of Haoting and Chung. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of disaster investigation. The motivation to combine the references is to reduce the time and cost associated with acquiring flood data. See Forbes, abstract.
Claims 5 and 18 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoating and Chung as applied to claims 1 and 4, respectively, and further in view of Ridolfi (“Water Level Measurements from Drones: A Pilot Study at a Dam Site”).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Haoting and Chung fails to teach:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 4, wherein the facility includes at least any one of a water level observation station and a water gate.
Ridolfi teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 4, wherein the facility includes at least any one of a water level observation station and a water gate. (Ridolfi, Section 2.3, Images were shot at a distance of about 15m from the dam …. See also Section 2.4 The waterline can be described as the demarcation line (trace) between the water and everything else that is above the water)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the dam monitoring of Ridofli to the flood management system of Haoting and Chung. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of water monitoring. The motivation to combine the reference is to reduce risk of dam failures. See Ridolfi page 2.
Regarding claim 18, the combination of Haoting, Chung, and Ridolfi teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 1,wherein the operations further comprise:
determining the first water level using a statistical process using a plurality of the images. (Ridolfi Figure 4, boxplot of errors between estimated and observed water levels from the four control points)
Before the time of filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the statistical analysis of Ridolfi to the flood management system of Haoting and Chung . The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of water management. The motivation for the combination is to reduce the uncertainty affecting water level edge detection. See Ridolfi Section 3.
Claims 10-11 and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoating , Chung, and Forbes as applied to claims 9 above and further in view of Ridolfi (“Water Level Measurements from Drones: A Pilot Study at a Dam Site”).
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Haoting, Chung, and Forbes fails to teach:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 9, wherein at least part of the image acquired in the investigation region includes the trace on a predetermined structure.
Ridolfi teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 9, wherein at least part of the image acquired in the investigation region includes the trace on a predetermined structure. (Ridolfi, Section 2.3, Images were shot at a distance of about 15m from the dam (predetermined structure)…. See also Section 2.4 The waterline can be described as the demarcation line (trace) between the water and everything else that is above the water)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the dam monitoring of Ridolfi to the flood management system of Haoting and Forbes. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of water monitoring. The motivation to combine the reference is to reduce risk of dam failures. See Ridolfi page 2.
Regarding claim 11, the combination Haoting, Chung, Forbes and Ridolfi teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 10, wherein the predetermined structure is a structure including a vertical face. (Ridolfi, Section 2.3, Images were shot at a distance of about 15m from the dam (predetermined structure)…. See also Figure 4)
Before the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the dam monitoring of Ridofli to the flood management system of Haoting and Chung. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of water monitoring. The motivation to combine the reference is to reduce risk of dam failures. See Ridolfi page 2.
Regarding claim 15, the combination of Haoting, Chung, Forbes, and Ridolfi teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise:
determining accuracy of the image recognition. (Ridolfi Figure 4, boxplot of errors between estimated and observed water levels from the four control points)
Before the time of filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the statistical analysis of Ridolfi to the flood management system of Haoting. Chung, and Forbes. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of water management. The motivation for the combination is to reduce the uncertainty affecting water level edge detection. See Ridolfi Section 3.
Regarding claim 16, the combination of Haoting, Chung, Forbes, and Ridolfi teaches:
The disaster investigation assistance device according to claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:
determining a rank of the accuracy. (Ridolfi Figure 4, boxplot of errors between estimated and observed water levels from the four control points)
Before the time of filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add the statistical analysis of Ridolfi to the flood management system of Haoting, Chung, and Forbes. The inventions lie in the same field of endeavor of water management. The motivation for the combination is to reduce the uncertainty affecting water level edge detection. See Ridolfi Section 3.
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 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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. Refer to PTO-892, Notice of References Cited for a listing of analogous art.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Molly K Wilburn whose telephone number is (571)272-3589. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-4pm.
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/Molly Wilburn/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2666
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