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 .
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendments filed on 04/08/2026 have been considered. Applicant’s amendments to the specifications overcome the objections previously set forth. Applicant’s amendments to the claims have not overcome the 35 U.S.C 112 rejection previously set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed on 01/08/2026.
Claim Objections
Claims 2, 4-9, 11, 13-18, and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Regarding Claim 2, after “The method of claim 1,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 4, after “The method of claim 1,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 5, line 2 recites “wherein only the vertices and primitives bounded by the AABB which is indicated visible”, but since plural items are being indicated, it should be “are indicated visible”. Additionally after “The method of claim 1,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 6, after “The method of claim 1,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 7, after “The method of claim 1,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 8, after “The method of claim 1,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 9, after “The method of claim 1,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element. Additionally, it recites “the later fragment shader stage” in line 3, however, no previous mention of “later fragment shader stage” was previously mentioned, therefore it should read “a later fragment shader stage”.
Regarding Claim 11, after “The system of claim 10,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 13, after “The system of claim 10,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 14, line 2 recites “wherein only the vertices and primitives bounded by the AABB which is indicated visible”, but since plural items are being indicated, it should be “are indicated visible”. Additionally, after “The system of claim 10,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 15, after “The system of claim 10,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 16, after “The system of claim 10,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 17, after “The system of claim 10,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Regarding Claim 18, after “The system of claim 10,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element. Additionally, it recites “the later fragment shader stage” in line 3, however, no previous mention of “later fragment shader stage” was previously mentioned, therefore it should read “a later fragment shader stage”.
Regarding Claim 20, line 2 recites “wherein only the vertices and primitives bounded by the AABB which is indicated visible”, but since plural items are being indicated, it should be “are indicated visible”. Additionally, after “The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 19,” in line 1, there should be “further comprising:” added, as the claim recites additional steps or further narrows an element.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding Claim 1, it recites “the bounding volume” in lines 6, 7, and 8, which lacks antecedent basis because the “bounding volume” was not previously disclosed. Examiner is unclear as to what “bounding volume” means. It is unclear if the applicant means “bounding volume structure” or “bounding volume data corresponding to a bounding volume structure”.
Therefore, Claim 1 is unclear and indefinite.
Regarding Claim 2, it recites “the bounding volume” in line 1, and is unclear whether this means “bounding volume structure” or “bounding volume data corresponding to a bounding volume structure”, as in Claim 1.
Therefore, Claim 2 is unclear and indefinite.
Regarding Claim 4, it recites “the bounding volume” in line 1, and is unclear whether this means “bounding volume structure” or “bounding volume data corresponding to a bounding volume structure”, as in Claim 1.
Additionally, line 2 recites “wherein the bounding volume is an axis- aligned bounding box (AABB), wherein the invisible AABB…”, however no “invisible AABB” has been previously recited, therefore there is a lack of antecedent basis.
Additionally, the recited “wherein the invisible AABB, which has no corresponding entity or is indicated as invisible found with the corresponding entity of the AABB of the visibility stream” in line 2 is unclear, it is unclear if the applicant intends to claim that the bounding box is invisible in the image, and is thus not rendered. Thus, examiner is unsure of the intended meaning.
Therefore, Claim 4 is unclear and indefinite.
Regarding Claim 5, it recites “the bounding volume” in line 1, and is unclear whether this means “bounding volume structure” or “bounding volume data corresponding to a bounding volume structure”, as in Claim 1.
Therefore, Claim 5 is unclear and indefinite.
Regarding Claim 6, it recites “the bounding volume” in line 1, and is unclear whether this means “bounding volume structure” or “bounding volume data corresponding to a bounding volume structure”, as in Claim 1.
Therefore, Claim 6 is unclear and indefinite.
Regarding Claim 7, it recites “the bounding volume” in line 1, and is unclear whether this means “bounding volume structure” or “bounding volume data corresponding to a bounding volume structure”, as in Claim 1.
Therefore, Claim 7 is unclear and indefinite.
Claim 10 has similar recitation to Claim 1, and is therefore unclear and indefinite.
Claim 11 has similar recitation to Claim 2, and is therefore unclear and indefinite.
Claim 13 has similar recitation to Claim 4, and is therefore unclear and indefinite.
Claim 14 has similar recitation to Claim 5, and is therefore unclear and indefinite.
Claim 15 has similar recitation to Claim 6, and is therefore unclear and indefinite.
Claim 16 has similar recitation to Claim 7, and is therefore unclear and indefinite.
Claim 19 has similar recitation to Claim 1, and is therefore unclear and indefinite.
Claim 20 has similar recitation to Claim 5, and is therefore unclear and indefinite.
Claims 3, 8-9, 12, and 17-18 inherit the indefiniteness from the claims they are dependent on, and are therefore rejected.
For the purposes of examination, Claims 1-20 will be rejected as best understood by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding Claim 1, Neff et al. (US 20230101978 A1), hereinafter referred to as Neff, teaches a method for processing graphics data with a graphics rendering pipeline comprising a mesh shader and a tiler, (Neff P[0066] “During the shading stage, mesh shaders may be used to shade certain meshlets” P[0044] “Tiled rendering GPUs may divide computer graphics images into a grid format, such that each portion of the grid, i.e., a tile, is separately rendered.” {Examiner Note: A Tiled rendering GPU implies the existence of a tiler being used.) the method comprising: outputting, by the mesh shader in response to an input of the graphics data, legacy mesh shader output parameters including vertices and primitives, and additional data with a bounding volume structure; (Neff P[0081] “Further, the pair of the texture coordinates for each of the plurality of vertices in each of the plurality of meshlets may be calculated in a mesh shader” {Examiner Notes: Calculating vertex-specific data within a mesh shader requires the simultaneous definition of the vertices themselves and the primitive topology they form. This process implies that a mesh shader output includes both vertices and primitives.} Neff P[0064] “In some aspects, the sides of a bounding box (e.g., a screen-space bounding box) may be enlarged to a certain power (e.g., the next power of two).” {Examiners Note: While a AABB and a screen space bounding box are different types of bounding volumes (3D vs. 2D), the screen space projection of the 3D AABB is an essential intermediate step used specifically to perform efficient culling and rejection tests in the rendering pipeline. A "screen-space bounding box" is considered an AABB (Axis-Aligned Bounding Box) simply because it defines a rectangle whose sides are parallel to the axes of the 2D screen coordinate system} Neff P[0059] “The meshlets may be generated to be relatively flat, so that no self occlusion within the meshlet occurs in order to avoid artifacts. As indicated herein, each of the meshlets may include one or more primitives or triangles. Moreover, meshlets may be a convenient representation for modem rendering engines. For instance, mesh shaders may significantly increase the performance of modern render pipelines.”) sending the bounding volume to the tiler as an input, and generating, by the tiler, a visibility stream according to the bounding volume, wherein each entity of the visibility stream indicates that the bounding volume is fully visible, partially visible, or invisible in the view frustum; (Neff P[0044] “Tiled rendering GPUs may divide computer graphics images into a grid format, such that each portion of the grid, i.e., a tile, is separately rendered. In some aspects, during a binning pass, an image may be divided into different bins or tiles. In some aspects, during the binning pass, a visibility stream may be constructed where visible primitives or draw calls may be identified. In contrast to tiled rendering, direct rendering does not divide the frame into smaller bins or tiles. Rather, in direct rendering, the entire frame is rendered at a single time. Additionally, some types of GPUs may allow for both tiled rendering and direct rendering.”) along with the legacy mesh shader output parameters for coming rasterization in a fragment pass. (Neff P[0006] “During a rendering pass, a GPU may input the visibility stream and process one bin or area at a time. In some aspects, the visibility stream may be analyzed to determine which primitives, or vertices of primitives, are visible or not visible.” Neff P[0042] “[0042] FIG. 2 illustrates an example GPU 200 in accordance with one or more techniques of this disclosure. As shown in FIG. 2, GPU 200 includes command processor (CP) 210, draw call packets 212, VFD 220, VS 222, vertex cache (VPC) 224, triangle setup engine (TSE) 226, rasterizer (RAS) 228“ {Examiner Note: The general processor divides the screens and renders only visible fragments, and rasterization is a core part of rendering.})
However, when considered as a whole with the other limitations and the interplay between claimed limitations, the closest prior art of record of Neff fails to teach or reasonably suggest sending the visibility stream back to the tiler as a further input. Therefore, Claim 1 is found to be allowable. Claims depending thereon are found to be allowable for at least the reason(s) set forth in the claim(s) from which they depend.
Regarding Claim 10, has recites similar limitations to Claim 1 which is taught by Neff as recited in claim 1 above, with the exception of an additional limitation of a compiler. This is taught in Decell et al. (US 20200342662 A1), hereinafter referred to as Decell. Neff and Decell are analogous to the claimed invention because they are all within the same field of computer graphics rendering and in determining the visibility of their respective bounding boxes. (Decell P[0142] “In some embodiments, user mode graphics driver contains a back-end shader compiler to convert the shader instructions into a hardware specific representation.”) However, when considered as a whole with the other limitations and the interplay between the claimed limitations, the closest prior art of record of Neff and Decell fail to teach or reasonably suggest sending the visibility stream back to the tiler as a further input. Therefore Claim 10 is allowable. Claims depending thereon are found to be allowable for at least the reason(s) set forth for the claim(s) from which they depend.
Regarding Claim 19, has recites similar limitations to Claim 1 which is taught by Neff as recited in Claim 1 above, with the exception of an additional limitation of computer readable storage medium storing instructions. This is taught in Neff (Neff P[0025] “If implemented in software, the functions may be stored on or encoded as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium. Computer-readable media includes computer storage media. Storage media may be any available media that may be accessed by a computer.“). However, when considered as a whole with the other limitations and the interplay between the claimed limitations, the closest prior art of record of Neff fails to teach or reasonably suggest sending the visibility stream back to the tiler as a further input. Therefore Claim 19 is allowable. Claims depending thereon are found to be allowable for at least the reason(s) set forth for the claim(s) from which they depend.
Claims 2-9. 11-18, and 20 contain allowable subject matter since they depend on a claim that contains allowable subject matter.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Kjoll et al. (U.S. USPAT No. US 11361400 B1) which teaches full tile primitives in tile-based graphics processing. Iqbal et al. (U.S. Pg Pub No. US 20200061811 A1) teaches a robotic control system involving computer visibility information. Shefi (WIPO International Application WO 2018146667 A1) teaches a system and method for generating images of virtual objects with bounding boxes of minimal dimensions. John Hable, Visibility Buffer Rendering with Material Graphs, 2021-07-05, Filmic Worlds (Year: 2021), teaches compressing visibility data and decompressing during later use.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID W SOON whose telephone number is (571)272-8113. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30-5:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Alicia Harrington can be reached at (571) 272-2330. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DAVID W SOON/Examiner, Art Unit 2615
/ALICIA M HARRINGTON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2615
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