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 .
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)(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.
Claim(s) 1, 8-9, 12-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Su et al. (CN111324952).
To claim 1, Su teach a computer-implemented method of monitoring a liquid resource stored in a lake (Fig. 1; paragraphs 0034-0035), comprising the steps of
determining a level of the liquid resource in the lake based on a satellite image of the lake (paragraphs 0036-0049) and of determining a volume of the liquid resource in the lake based on the determined level and on a volume function of the lake which associates a volume to a given level (paragraphs 0050-0060),
wherein determining said level comprises identifying within the satellite image a contour representative of a shoreline of the liquid resource within the lake and determining a height of the contour based on an elevation model of the lake aligned with the satellite image (paragraphs 0048-0049).
To claim 12, Su teach a non-transitory computer medium having stored thereon code instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to implement the steps of the method according to claim 1 (as explained in response to claim 1 above).
To claim 13, Su teach a system for monitoring a liquid resource stored in a lake, comprising a processor configured to perform the steps of the method according to claim 1 (as explained in response to claim 1 above).
To claim 8, Su teach claim 1.
Su teach wherein the elevation model of the lake is a previously determined digital elevation model (paragraph 0013, digital elevation model).
To claim 9, Su teach claim 8.
Su teach wherein the previously determined digital elevation model is an absolute model elaborated from lidar acquisitions or from multi-view stereo acquisitions (paragraphs 0009-0010, multi-source remote sensing data; abstract, paragraphs 0010, 0051, absolute elevation).
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) 2, 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Su et al. (CN111324952).
To claim 2, Su teach claim 1.
Su teach wherein the contour comprises a plurality of points and wherein determining the height of the contour comprises determining, based on said elevation model, a height of each point of the contour (paragraphs 0013, 0021-0022, 0042, 0049, these points obviously forming a contour).
To claim 10, Su teach claim 8.
Su teach wherein the previously determined digital elevation model is a relative model elaborated based on a first area of the lake, a second area of the lake and a geometric model of the shape of the lake (obvious in abstract, paragraphs 0018, 0041, which is also well-known in practice in the art, hence Official Notice is also taken).
Claim(s) 3-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Su et al. (CN111324952) in view of Tong et al. (“Estimating water volume variations in Lake Victoria over the past 22 years using multi-mission altimetry and remotely sensed images”).
To claim 3, Su teach claim 1.
Su do not expressly disclose wherein identifying a contour and determining a height of the contour is performed in each of a plurality of regions of interest within the satellite image and wherein the level of the liquid resource in the lake is determined based on the heights determined in the plurality of regions of interest.
Tong teach identifying a contour and determining a height of the contour is performed in each of a plurality of regions of interest within the satellite image and wherein the level of the liquid resource in the lake is determined based on the heights determined in the plurality of regions of interest (pages 402-410), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the method of Su, in order to further implementation detail.
To claim 4, Su and Tong teach claim 3.
Su and Tong teach wherein identifying a contour in a region of interest comprises selecting the contour having the lowest height amongst multiple contours detected in the region of interest (Tong, pages 407-409).
To claim 5, Su and Tong teach claim 3.
Su and Tong teach further comprising evaluating a contour and discarding or not the height of a contour identified in a region of interest in the determination of the level of the liquid resource in the lake based on said evaluating (Tong, page 407, removing outliers)
Claim(s) 6-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Su et al. (CN111324952) in view of Grompone et al. (“Unsupervised Smooth Contour Detection”).
To claim 6, Su teach claim 1.
But, Su do not expressly disclose wherein identifying a contour comprises detecting a line segment.
Grompone teach identifying a contour comprises detecting a line segment (page 246-248), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the method of Su, in order to implement contour determination by design preference.
To claim 7, Su and Grompone teach claim 6.
Su and Grompone teach wherein detecting a line segment comprises performing an Unsupervised Smooth Contour Detection algorithm (Grompone, abstract).
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Su et al. (CN111324952) in view of Olson et al. (US2013/0261997).
To claim 11, Su teach claim 1.
But, Su do not expressly disclose further comprising determining an amount of a liquid energy commodity in storage in an underground cavern associated to the lake, based on the determined volume of the liquid resource in the lake.
Olson teach determining an amount of a liquid energy commodity in storage in an underground cavern (abstract, paragraphs 0003-0012), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the method of Su, in order to implement preferential application.
Conclusion
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ZHIYU . LU
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2669
/ZHIYU LU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665 November 21, 2025