DETAILED ACTION
In Applicant’s Response dated 7/1/2026, Applicant amended claims 1 to 9, 16-26; and argued against all rejections previously set forth in the Office action dated 4/10/2026.
In view of Applicant’s amendments and remarks, the 35 USC 101 and 112 rejections are withdrawn.
Response to Argument
Applicant’s arguments were considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim1-9, 21-26 are allowed.
With regard to claims 1 and 21, the prior arts do not specifically teach the limitation of generating a machine-readable reconstruction of at least a portion of the region to include the landmark, based at least on the identification of the landmark as corresponding to both the first set of track data and the second set of track data. More specifically while the prior arts do teach the aspect of determine identification of the landmark based the match of a first set and set of track data, the prior arts do not teach the aspect of using that data to generate a machine-readable reconstruction of at least a portion of the region to include the landmark.
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) 16, 17, 18, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oshea et al., Pub. No.: 2019/0368877A1, in view of Wang Pub. No.: 2023/0213351A1.
With regard to claim 16:
Oshea discloses a system comprising: one or more processors to determine and align corresponding landmarks between a plurality of landmark graphs based, at least, on a threshold number of correlated landmark pair segments, extending from a selected landmark within the plurality of landmark graphs (see fig. 7 and 8 and paragraph 38 for landmark pair segments extending from the selected landmark segment.), exceeding a correspondence threshold (See paragraph 42 wherein the matches is determined based on threshold value.).
Oshea does not disclose the aspect of automatically generate a machine-readable reconstruction of at least a portion of a region, associated with the corresponding landmarks, to perform one or more navigation or control operations by an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine.
However Wang discloses the aspect automatically generate a machine-readable reconstruction of at least a portion of a region, associated with the corresponding landmarks (see paragraph 51 and fig. 4 for reconstruction of at least a portion of a region, associated with the corresponding landmarks wherein the landmark is added to landmark database correspond to the region that can be later retrieved during navigation) , to perform one or more navigation or control operations by an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine (see fig. 6 and paragraph 58 wherein the stored landmark and its corresponding region is retrieved during navigation). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the filing was made to apply Wang to Oshea so the landmark data can be used to help automatic navigation where identified landmark can provide accurate and updated information to the automatic driving system.
With regard to claim 18:
Oshea and Wang discloses the system of claim 16, wherein the corresponding landmarks are transformed to align to a common frame of reference (Oshea paragraph 40:” Next the pattern matching blocks including generating potential local-to-global tree hypotheses to determine hypothesized position of the observer, 605, for example, by taking the difference between locally observed position of a potential tree match and the position of the globally identified tree. FIG. 9A shows how this can be based on using a fit line for the first element of the feature vector for the k-vector search algorithm. Then as shown in FIG. 9B, a small portion of the feature vectors can be compared when determining a pass list using the k-Vector search algorithm; for example, using a fifth order best fit for the Gaussian CDF relationship between distance between trees and their index.”).
With regard to claim 17:
Oshea and Wang discloses the system of claim 16, wherein the plurality of landmark graphs correspond to a plurality of tracks of sensor data (Oshea paragraph 7: “The local sensor device may specifically be a LiDar device, a laser range finding device or a camera. The global terrain feature location data may be derived from overhead imaging data, lidar data and/or radar data. And the distinctive terrain features may be trees. ”) captured in a region of an environment (Oshea paragraph 31: “FIG. 5 shows an example of an overhead image of a portion of a forest illustrating the pattern of crown delineation. Publicly accessible high-resolution (0.6 m resolution) satellite imagery previously has been used to show tree crown detection and identification for cataloging forests. Similar methods can be extended to detect and locate trees across defined terrain regions. In specific embodiments this may include classifying the trees by specific features such as color, shape, etc. For example, shape may be used to classify an object as a tree, building or statue. Length of shadow may be used to estimate height of the terrain feature, which may assist in the classification. Shape of the shadow also may be used to infer a profile shape of the terrain feature, which may assist in the classification. This all may be represented as a two-dimensional location of the tree in a North-East reference frame and a tree ID number, so that millions of trees could be stored on a single compact flash drive memory. Previous studies have shown accuracies of tree crown detection of up to 75% with satellite imagery and 85% with aerial imagery. Embodiments of the invention can incorporate these errors and still accurately determine the user's position. See Skurikhin, et al., “Unsupervised individual tree crown detection in high-resolution satellite imagery,” Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, Vol. 10, Iss.1, p. 010501, Jan. 26, 2016, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein, for all purposes.”).
With regard to claim 20:
Oshea and Wang discloses the system of claim 16, wherein the system comprises at least one of: a system for performing simulation operations; a system for performing simulation operations to test or validate autonomous machine applications; a system for performing digital twin operations; a system for performing light transport simulation; a system for rendering graphical output; a system for performing deep learning operations; a system for performing generative AI operations using a large language model (LLM); a system implemented using an edge device; a system for generating or presenting virtual reality (VR) content; a system for generating or presenting augmented reality (AR) content; a system for generating or presenting mixed reality (MR) content; a system incorporating one or more Virtual Machines (VMs); a system implemented at least partially in a data center; a system for performing hardware testing using simulation; a system for performing generative operations using a language model (LM); a system for synthetic data generation; a collaborative content creation platform for 3D assets; or a system implemented at least partially using cloud computing resources (Oshea paragraph 49: “Embodiments can be implemented in part as a computer program product for use with a computer system. Such implementation may include a series of computer instructions fixed either on a tangible medium, such as a computer readable medium (e.g., a diskette, CD-ROM, ROM, or fixed disk) or transmittable to a computer system, via a modem or other interface device, such as a communications adapter connected to a network over a medium. The medium may be either a tangible medium (e.g., optical or analog communications lines) or a medium implemented with wireless techniques (e.g., microwave, infrared or other transmission techniques). The series of computer instructions embodies all or part of the functionality previously described herein with respect to the system. Those skilled in the art should appreciate that such computer instructions can be written in a number of programming languages for use with many computer architectures or operating systems. Furthermore, such instructions may be stored in any memory device, such as semiconductor, magnetic, optical or other memory devices, and may be transmitted using any communications technology, such as optical, infrared, microwave, or other transmission technologies. It is expected that such a computer program product may be distributed as a removable medium with accompanying printed or electronic documentation (e.g., shrink wrapped software), preloaded with a computer system (e.g., on system ROM or fixed disk), or distributed from a server or electronic bulletin board over the network (e.g., the Internet or World Wide Web). Of course, some embodiments of the invention may be implemented as a combination of both software (e.g., a computer program product) and hardware. Still other embodiments of the invention are implemented as entirely hardware, or entirely software (e.g., a computer program product).” See also paragraph 7).
Claim 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Oshea, in view of Wang and further in view of Labbe et al., Pub. No. :2016/034180A1.
With regard to claim 19:
Oshea and Wang do not disclose the aspect wherein other landmarks are considered for inclusion in landmark pairs if the other landmarks are within a determined distance range from a selected landmark, the determined distance range determined by a minimum distance and a maximum distance from the selected landmark.
However Labbe discloses wherein other landmarks are considered for inclusion in landmark pairs if the other landmarks are within a determined distance range from a selected landmark, the determined distance range determined by a minimum distance and a maximum distance from the selected landmark (“In some embodiments, the inter-key distance rules can be based on an allowable range of inter-key distances between the variable key locations of adjacent virtual keys. This range of inter-key distances can include a minimum inter-key distance and a maximum inter-key distance to be maintained between the two keys of each pair of adjacent virtual keys. Depending on the implementation of the dynamic calibration method, the allowable range of inter-key distances may or may not be the same for each pair of adjacent virtual keys of the virtual Braille keyboard. In some cases, the pairs of adjacent virtual keys can consist only of fingers from a same hand, which in practice means that the unactivated virtual keys associated with the left and right hands are updated independently of each other.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the filing was made to apply Labbe to Oshea and Wang so the system can include landmarks that are relevant to the selected landmark that is within the preferred range which could also reduce the work load.
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.
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/DI XIAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2178
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