DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
2. A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on June 4, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
3. The amendment filed June 4, 2026 has been entered. Claims 1-20 remain pending in the application. Applicant’s amendments to the Claims have overcome the 35 U.S.C. 112(a) rejection previously set forth in the Final Office Action mailed April 7, 2026.
Response to Arguments
4. Applicant's arguments filed June 4, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that Specht ("A Precise Algorithm to Detect Voids in Polydisperse Circle Packings") fails to disclose the amendments to claim 1 directed towards “determining the attitude information of a Voronoi bounding box corresponding to the available space, the attitude information indicating a horizontal attitude or a vertical attitude” and determining a movable object that has the same attitude as the Voronoi bounding box.
Examiner replies that Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Instead, Krishnamurthy et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0011393 A1) is used to teach determining a horizontal or vertical attitude of the Voronoi bounding box and determining a movable object with the same attitude as the Voronoi bounding box as rejected below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
6. The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
7. Claim(s) 1-2, 14-15, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Specht ("A Precise Algorithm to Detect Voids in Polydisperse Circle Packings") in view of Krishnamurthy et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0011393 A1), hereinafter referred to as Krishnamurthy.
8. Regarding claim 1, Specht teaches an object processing method, comprising: placing a plurality of objects into a container according to an initial packing algorithm to obtain an initial filling result of the container(Abstract teaches starting a simulation with an initial random configuration or packing of N circles in a container; Section 3 Paragraph 1 teaches analyzing an existing or initial packing result which teaches that the objects have already been packed in an algorithm according to another packing algorithm),
wherein the objects and the container are two-dimensional polygons (Abstract teaches the objects and containers are circles which are two-dimensional polygons; Section 1 Paragraph 8 teaches that the method detects voids in two-dimensional circle packings which indicates the objects are two-dimensional polygons; Section 3(a) and Figure 2 teach the objects are two-dimensional circles and the container is also a two-dimensional circle);
and obtaining, by processing circuitry, a repacked filing result of the container based on performing one or more iterations of an adjustment operation (Section 3(e) Paragraph 2 teaches “repeat until one list is empty or no void is available anymore”. This teaches repeating the method of determining a void and object to place into the void until the object list is empty or until no voids are available. This creates and obtains a repacked filling result when an object is moved into a void), each iteration of the adjustment operation including:
determining an available space in the container based on a target filing result for the respective iteration that is the initial filling result for a first iteration or a previously updated filling result from a previous iteration for a second or subsequent iteration (Section 3(b) and Section 3(c) teaches detecting voids through a contact graph based on an initial packing result. The claim recites “or” so the prior art does not need to teach a previously updated filling result from a previous iteration);
determining whether a movable object is available from the plurality of objects based on the available space (Section 3(e) teaches selecting objects from a list to place into a void where the object will fit. This teaches determining whether a movable object is available based on the available space. The occupied space can be interpreted as the movable object’s size. If the movable object is small enough to fit into the void then the movable object occupies a space smaller than the available space. For example, Figure 7 shows through the un-numbered circles the maximum radius of a circle that could fit in the available space or void which does not fill the entire space available space. Thus, the movable object will have a smaller space than the available space);
when the movable object is determined to be available, obtaining an updated filling result for the respective iteration based on moving the movable object to the available space, and enlarging the movable object in the plurality of objects based on the available space to obtain an enlarged movable object (Section 3(e) teaches selecting objects from a list to place into a void where the object will fit and iteratively moving objects into voids or available spaces detected. Paragraph 1 teaches multiple operations of moving an object into any void, interior voids, and more. Paragraph 3 also teaches an option of applying one of the operations with “expansion steps between consecutive movements”. The expansion step teaches an enlarged movable object; Section 3(f) Paragraph 1 teaches that the expansion step involves increasing the size of all objects by a constant factor. Thus, if an expansion step is run after moving one of the objects into an available space, that teaches enlarging the first object based on the available space);
and when the movable object is determined to be unavailable, determining the target filling result as the repacked filling result (Section 3(e) Paragraph 2 teaches repeating the method of determining a void and object until the object list is empty or until no voids are available to fit the object. This creates a final repacked filling result at the last iteration).
However, Specht is not relied upon for the below claim language: determining attitude information of a Voronoi bounding box corresponding to the available space, the attitude information indicating a horizontal attitude or a vertical attitude; determining whether a movable object is available from the plurality of objects based on the attitude information of the Voronoi bounding box, the movable object having a same attitude as an attitude indicated by the attitude information of the Voronoi bounding box.
Krishnamurthy teaches determining attitude information of a Voronoi bounding box corresponding to the available space, the attitude information indicating a horizontal attitude or a vertical attitude (Paragraph 95 and Figure 19 and 20 teach Voronoi sites that are Voronoi bounding boxes corresponding to an open or available space. It also teaches the Voronoi sites have straight lines in Figure 20 in the X or Y dimension that depend on the orientation of the Voronoi site. This teaches the Voronoi site or Voronoi bounding box can be determined to have a horizontal attitude in the X direction and a vertical attitude in the Y direction); determining whether a movable object is available from the plurality of objects based on the attitude information of the Voronoi bounding box, the movable object having a same attitude as an attitude indicated by the attitude information of the Voronoi bounding box (Paragraph 4 teaches “the space-filling solid model comprises a plurality of repeating parts in a plurality of orientations”. The plurality of parts teaches a plurality of object and the orientations teach that the object or movable object has an orientation; Paragraph 81 teaches "space-filling model such that there are no voids formed between any adjacently positioned parts 101 oriented in the first and second orientations 102, 104". The first and second orientations are the Voronoi attitude information. The positioning of the parts in those positions depending on the orientations of the Voronoi sites teach determining a movable object from a plurality of objects based on the attitude information of the Voronoi bounding box. Thus, the movable objects are determined to have the same attitude as the Voronoi bounding box).
Specht and Krishnamurthy are considered analogous to the claimed invention as because both are in the same field of filling a space using Voronoi diagrams. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person holding ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the method of generating a repacked container taught by Specht with the attitude information of Voronoi bounding boxes taught by Krishnamurthy in order to create a space-filling model that ensures there are no voids (Krishnamurthy Paragraph 81) and enables packaging efficiency (Krishnamurthy Paragraph 72-73).
9. Regarding claim 2, Specht in view of Krishnamurthy teaches the limitations of claim 1. Specht further teaches the method wherein, for an iteration of the adjustment operation, the determining the available space in the container based on the target filling result comprises: obtaining outer boundary information of the plurality of objects (Section 3(a) Paragraph 1 and 2 teaches detecting contact pairs between the objects. This can be considered the outer boundary information of the objects as it detects whether its boundary is in contact with another object or container circle. Paragraphs 3-4 also teach a contact graph from the contact pairs, as seen in Figure 2, which can also be considered as part of the outer boundary information of the objects);
determining a complementary space of the outer boundary information of the plurality of objects relative to the container based on the target filling result (Section 3(b) teaches detecting the holes or complementary space outside of the already placed circles using the outer boundary information or contact graph. Figure 5(c) teaches the hole structure or complementary space detected and numbered in the initial filling result; Section 3(e) then teaches detecting the voids where another circle or object could fit as seen in Figure 7 where the voids are the un-numbered circles);
determining a Voronoi diagram of the complementary space; obtaining Voronoi segments in the Voronoi diagram (Section 3(a) and Figure 2(a) teaches creating a contact graph which can be considered a Voronoi diagram as it separates the complementary space into regions. The region boundaries can be considered the Voronoi segments. The Applicant does not clarify how the Voronoi diagram is creating for the complementary space so under broadest reasonable interpretation, the contact graph can be said to be a diagram in which the regions formed by the contact graph are the regions closest to the complementary space);
determining Voronoi bounding boxes corresponding to the Voronoi segments (Section 3(a) and Figure 2(a) teaches creating a contact graph which can be considered a Voronoi diagram as it separates the complementary space into regions. The region boundaries can be considered the Voronoi segments and the enclosed region a Voronoi bounding box);
and determining the available space in the container based on one of the Voronoi bounding boxes with a largest area (Section 3(e) Paragraph 2 teaches when λ is the 1 to take the largest available void to place an object into. The Voronoi bounding boxes or regions detected in Figure 5 are used to detect the voids between objects as explained in Section 3(c). The detected voids can be seen in Figure 7. The circle void with the largest area, which are in one of the bounding boxes in Figure 5, are used as an available space to move an object into. The Voronoi bounding box which has the largest void can be considered the Voronoi bounding box which the largest area, the area being the void’s size. Thus, selecting the circle void with the largest area teaches determining the available space in the container based on one of the Voronoi bounding boxes with a largest area. This is then done iteratively over the list of objects and available voids until the list is empty or no void is available anymore).
10. Regarding claim 14, claim 14 is the object processing apparatus claim (Specht Section 4 teaches running the method on a Intel Xeon core which is processing circuitry) of method claim 1 and is accordingly rejected using substantially similar rationale as to that which is set for with respect to claim 1.
11. Regarding claim 15, Specht in view of Krishnamurthy teaches the limitations of claim 14. Claim 15 is similar in scope to claim 2. Therefore, similar rationale as applied in the rejection of claim 2 applies herein.
12. Regarding claim 20, claim 20 is the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim (Specht Section 4 teaches running the method on a Intel Xeon core and 324 GB of memory which is processing circuitry running with a memory or a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium) of method claim 1 and is accordingly rejected using substantially similar rationale as to that which is set for with respect to claim 1.
13. Claim(s) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Specht ("A Precise Algorithm to Detect Voids in Polydisperse Circle Packings") in view of Krishnamurthy et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0011393 A1), hereinafter referred to as Krishnamurthy, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Rocha ("Robust NFP Generation for Nesting Problems”) and Kwant et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0137674 A1), hereinafter referred to as Kwant.
Regarding claim 12, Specht in view of Krishnamurthy teaches the limitations of claim 1. However, Specht and Krishnamurthy are not relied upon for the below claim language: the method further comprising, for the iteration of the adjustment operation: obtaining information of holes of an ith object of the plurality of objects, i = 1, 2, ..., N, N being a total number of objects in the plurality of objects, and N being an integer greater than 1; selecting a reference point from an outer boundary of a jth object of the plurality of objects; determining whether the reference point is located in a hole of the ith object, j = 1, 2, ..., N, and i being not equal to j; when the reference point is located in the hole of the ith object, determining that the ith object includes the jth object, and updating inclusion relationship information of the ith object and the jth object; and when the reference point is not located in the hole of the ith object, determining that the ith object does not include the jth object.
Rocha teaches wherein the method further comprising, for the iteration of the adjustment operation: obtaining information of holes of an ith object of the plurality of objects, i = 1, 2, ..., N, N being a total number of objects in the plurality of objects, and N being an integer greater than 1 (Page 4, Paragraph 1 teaches that it is known to detect placement positions within holes of stationary pieces. Detecting placement positions within holes means knowing information of holes in an object; Section 3.2 teaches an NFP algorithm which detects intersections between two polygons or NFP components. The process outlines the NFP and also identifies a hole in the component as taught in Figure 11(b)’s description; Section 3.3 Algorithm 2 teaches detecting a hole within an object on line 10);
selecting a reference point from an outer boundary of a jth object of the plurality of objects; determining whether the reference point is located in a hole of the ith object, j = 1, 2, ..., N, and i being not equal to j (Section 3.3 and Algorithm 1 and 2 teach computing the intersections between two components. It also teaches determining perfect fit locations for one of the NFP components to be within the hole, taught by Algorithm 2, line 10. The returned information from Algorithm 2 on line 12 can be considered the inclusion relationship which has information on the holes and perfect fits for one of the components to fit within another component. For example, Figure 8 teaches two components A and B and Figures 11-12 teach detecting the intersections which also includes a perfect fit location);
when the reference point is located in the hole of the ith object, determining that the ith object includes the jth object, and updating inclusion relationship information of the ith object and the jth object; and when the reference point is not located in the hole of the ith object, determining that the ith object does not include the jth object (Section 3.3 and Algorithm 1 and 2 teach computing the intersections between two components A and B. It also teaches determining perfect fit locations for an object to be within a hole of another as seen in Algorithm 2, line 10. The return from Algorithm 2 can be considered the inclusion relationship information that has information one whether an ith object can include a jth object through the perfect fit detection).
Specht and Rocha are considered analogous to the claimed invention because both are in the same field of solving packing problems. Krishnamurthy is considered analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of filling a space. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person holding ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the method of generating a repacked container taught by Specht in view of Krishnamurthy with the detection of holes and inclusion relationship information taught by Rocha in order to efficiently pack objects insides containers without overlaps (Rocha Abstract).
However, Specht, Krishnamurthy, and Rocha are not relied upon for the below claim language: and when the reference point is not located in the hole of the ith object, determining that the ith object does not include the jth object.
Kwant teaches when the reference point is located in the hole of the ith object, determining that the ith object includes the jth object, and updating inclusion relationship information of the ith object and the jth object; and when the reference point is not located in the hole of the ith object, determining that the ith object does not include the jth object (Paragraph 76 and Figure 3B teaches keeping track of the edges and points of a polygon. There exists a geographic database that stores information of holes and whether a second polygon is located inside the first polygon or not. The database and list teaches an inclusion relationship information which teaches whether a polygon is inside or not inside a hole of another polygon).
Specht and Rocha are considered analogous to the claimed invention because both are in the same field of solving packing problems. Krishnamurthy is considered analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of filling a space. Kwant is considered analogous to the claimed invention because both are in the same field of analyzing polygons and detecting intersections. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person holding ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the method of generating a repacked container taught by Specht in view of Krishnamurthy and Rocha with the inclusion relationship information taught by Kwant in order to reduce computational resources and time in determining polygons that overlap with other polygons (Kwant Paragraph 2) and store a representation of a polygon for easy access.
14. Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Specht ("A Precise Algorithm to Detect Voids in Polydisperse Circle Packings") in view of Krishnamurthy et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0011393 A1), hereinafter referred to as Krishnamurthy, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Raffman et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0050337 A1), hereinafter referred to as Raffman.
Regarding claim 13, Specht in view of Krishnamurthy teaches the limitation of claim 1. However, Specht and Krishnamurthy are not relied upon for the below claim language: the method further comprising, for the iteration of the adjustment operation: obtaining segments included in an ith object of the plurality of objects and lengths of the segments; determining a target segment based on endpoint information of the segments, a first coordinate difference between two endpoints of the target segment in a horizontal direction being less than a difference threshold, or a second coordinate difference between the two endpoints of the target segment in a vertical direction being less than the difference threshold; determining a first total length of the ith object based on the lengths of the segments; determining a second total length of the ith object based on a length of the target segment; and when a ratio of the second total length to the first total length is greater than a preset ratio threshold, determining that attitude information of the ith object based on the target segment.
Raffman teaches the method further comprising, for the iteration of the adjustment operation: obtaining segments included in an ith object of the plurality of objects and lengths of the segments (Paragraph 1 teaches a list of objects to be placed in a region. It teaches the objects have an aspect ratio and size. This means the length and width of the object is known which means the segments included which make up the object and their lengths are known for each object; Paragraph 36 and Figure 3 Step 316 teach checking if objects can fit in the remaining space of the region. This inherently includes knowing the size of the object which means knowing the length of the object’s segments);
determining a target segment based on endpoint information of the segments, a first coordinate difference between two endpoints of the target segment in a horizontal direction being less than a difference threshold, or a second coordinate difference between the two endpoints of the target segment in a vertical direction being less than the difference threshold (Paragraph 36 and Figure 3, Step 312 checks whether an object placed would extend past the bottom of the container. Thus, this can be considered checking that the vertical difference is less than a threshold to make sure the object fits. Step 316 also teaches checking if another object can fit in a remaining space. Thus, this can be determining whether the vertical difference or horizontal difference of the object is less than a threshold in order to fit in the region. The vertical or horizontal difference can be considered the target segment);
determining a first total length of the ith object based on the lengths of the segments; determining a second total length of the ith object based on a length of the target segment (Paragraph 36 and Step 316 teach checking if an object fits in a bounding region. The vertical length of the object can be considered the first total length which is based on the height segment of the object and the horizontal length of the object can be considered the second total length which is based on the width segment of the object. The width segment of the object can be considered the target segment);
and when a ratio of the second total length to the first total length is greater than a ratio threshold, determining that attitude information of the ith object based on the target segment (Paragraph 36 and Step 316 teach checking if an object fits in a bounding region. This can be considered ensuring that the aspect ratio, or ratio between the height and width, of the object is enough to fit in the open space. Paragraph 40 also teaches looking ahead for objects that will fit the current span or available space. If the object cannot fit even with the resizing option taught in Paragraph 44, the aspect ratio can be considered to be greater than the aspect ratio of the available space. The available space ratio can be considered the ratio threshold. The aspect ratio of the object can also be considered the determined attitude information based on the target segment).
Specht and Raffman are considered analogous to the claimed invention as because both are in the same field of solving packing problems. Krishnamurthy is considered analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of filling a space. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person holding ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the method of iteratively generating a repacked container taught by Specht in view of Krishnamurthy with the determining of an attitude taught by Raffman in order to pack objects in a way that reduces wasted space (Raffman Abstract).
Allowable Subject Matter
15. Claims 3-11 and 16-19 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:
The Examiner has further searched the prior art and has not discovered any prior art which fully teaches claim(s) 3 and 16. The closest prior art discovered is Specht ("A Precise Algorithm to Detect Voids in Polydisperse Circle Packings") and Krishnamurthy et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0011393 A1) as applied to claim 1 and 14 above. Specht teaches the method wherein, for an iteration of the adjustment operation, determining whether the movable object is available from the plurality of objects comprises: when the attitude information of the Voronoi bounding box indicates a first attitude, and the plurality of objects includes at least one first object in the first attitude, determining a first set of bounding boxes, including a bounding box for each first object (Section 3(e) teaches finding a suitable destination for an object such that “the largest available void in which the object will fit is taken as the corresponding destination”. The object that fits will have the same attitude as the bounding box and will have the same bounding box as the void. The voids determined are a first set of bounding boxes), determining a first set of scaling ratios, including a scaling ratio corresponding to each bounding box of the first set of bounding boxes based on the Voronoi bounding box (Section 3(d) and Equation 4 teach determining a looseness of the object which depends on the radius of surrounding void which formed from a Voronoi bounding box. The looseness can be considered the scaling ratio which is based on the bounding box. This can be done for all the objects which results in a set of scaling ratios).
However, Specht and Krishnamurthy fail to teach when, from the at least one first object, there is at least one first candidate object having a corresponding candidate bounding box smaller than the Voronoi bounding box and having a corresponding scaling ratio greater than a ratio threshold, determining a candidate object of the at least one first candidate object corresponding to a smallest scaling ratio as the movable object.
None of the prior art references cited above, nor any other prior art discovered by the Examiner, fully teach claim(s) 3 and 16, either singly or in an obvious combination. Therefore, claim(s) 3 and 16 are objected to as allowable over the prior art at least due to their respective dependencies.
Claim(s) 4-11 and 17-19 are also objected to as allowable over the prior art at least due to their respective dependencies.
Conclusion
16. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
- Allen et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0294648 A1) teaches using Voronoi diagrams to identify areas between edges with an orientation.
17. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTINE Y AHN whose telephone number is (571)272-0672. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5pm.
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/CHRISTINE YERA AHN/Examiner, Art Unit 2615
/Said Broome/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2612
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