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 .
DETAILED ACTION
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 1 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sugio et al. (US 20210352323) in view of Eckman et al. (US 20220335688 ).
Regarding claim 1, Sugio teaches a data processing device which processes three-dimensional (3D) point cloud data representing three-dimensional coordinates of points on a surface of an outdoor structure acquired using a three-dimensional laser scanner (p0174), comprising:
an image conversion part configured to generate an image file in which three-dimensional coordinates of each of the points of the three-dimensional point cloud data are regarded as color signals for each of the outdoor structures (p0150-151: a three-dimensional model may be generated… and p0246:the three-dimensional model may be generated in the forms of point clouds, voxels, meshes, polygons, or depth information); an image compression part which performs image compression processing on each of the image files at a compression ratio determined for each type of the outdoor structure corresponding to the image file (p0247:three-dimensional space reconstructing device 115C generates at least one depth image from a three-dimensional model, compresses the generated depth image); and a storage part which stores a compressed image file subjected to the image compression processing and parameters used in the image compression processing in association with each other (p0247:The depth image is efficiently compressed and distributed so as to suppress a network band during the distribution).
Sugio does not explicitly disclose the images are outdoor structure.
Eckman teaches the images are outdoor structure (p0006: 3D scan…. outdoor environment, such as a section of a town and/or some other environment..)
Sugio and Eckman are combinable because they both deal with 3D scans system. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Sugio with the teaching of Eckman for purpose of using point clouds to generate mappings of a physical space, such as generating blueprints (p0001).
Regarding claim 7, The structural elements of apparatus claim 1 perform all of the steps of method claim 7. Thus, claim 7 is rejected for the same reasons discussed in the rejection of claim 1.
Claim 8 has been analyzed and rejected with regard to claim 1 and in accordance with Sugio’s further teaching on: A computer-readable memory that contains instructions, which when executed by a processor perform steps in a method (p0008).
Regarding claim 2, Sugio teaches the data processing device according to claim 1, further comprising: a restoration part which converts the compressed image file into three-dimensional coordinate points using the compressed image file and the parameters stored in the storage part to generate restored point cloud data for each of the outdoor structures (fig. 21).
Claim 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sugio and Eckman as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Kim et al. (US 20160205283).
Regarding claim 3, Sugio in view of Eckman does not teach the data processing device according to claim 1, wherein the image conversion part converts a numerical value of the color signal corresponding to the three-dimensional coordinates of one point into a binary number and creates a plurality of image files for each 8 bits from the upper binary number.
Kim teaches wherein the image conversion part converts a numerical value of the color signal corresponding to the three-dimensional coordinates of one point into a binary number and creates a plurality of image files for each 8 bits from the upper binary number (p0026:image file for the original digital image 302 of the FOV 300 including the object 304 is in the form of an 8-bit grayscale image at a standard-definition resolution…datapoint having a base ten numerical value of 0 or binary value).
Sugio in view of Eckman and Kim are combinable because they both deal with 3D scans system. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Sugio in view of Eckman with the teaching of Kim for purpose of inspect an object in a field of view (p0003).
Allowable Subject Matter
8. Claims 4-6 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Sugio et al. (US 20210352323) teaches similar system. However, the closest prior art of record, namely Sugio et al. (US 20210352323), does not disclose, teach or suggest, the claim limitation, as recited in dependent claim 4-6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HELEN Q ZONG whose telephone number is (571)270-1600. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9-6.
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HELEN ZONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2683
/HELEN ZONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2683
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