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
This office action is in response to application 18/655,026 filed 5/3/24. Claims 1-20 are pending with claims 1, 12, and 20 in independent form.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Silver et al. EP 3699821 A1 (as cited by applicant).
Silver teaches:
Re: claims 1, 12 and 20, A method, electronic apparatus and non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer executable instructions configured to, when executed by at least one processor, perform a method for extracting from a two-dimensional image a one-dimensional signal along a projection line (fig. 1; [0013]), comprising: receiving the two-dimensional image, which comprises pixels arranged on a pixel grid ([0022]; fig. 2 and 5); storing the two-dimensional image using a memory hierarchy comprising a main store and a data cache, wherein non-blocking prefetch operations are configured to fetch pixels from the main store to the data cache (fig. 14, DRAM that comprises the image memory and the table memory is seen as a main store and the SRAM as a data cache; page 5, lines 25-26; [0155] and fig. 11, “image memory 1120 holds a digital image or portion thereof. Pixel position data from example module 1110 is used by address generator 1125 to supply addresses to image memory 1120 so that the appropriate pixels can be fetched”; [0171] the transfer of pixels from the digital image to working memory provides overlap of fetching and processing of pixels); receiving information describing the projection line, the information including an orientation of the projection line, wherein the orientation is one of a set of allowable orientations, the set of allowable orientations including orientations that are not parallel to the pixel grid and are not diagonal to the pixel grid ([0022]; page 3, lines 46-48; “receiving information describing the projection line, from which can be obtained an orientations of the projection line, wherein the orientations is one of a set of allowable orientations, the set of allowable orientations including a plurality of orientations that are not parallel to the pixel grid and are not diagonal to the pixel grid”); selecting, responsive to the orientation, a prefetch plan specifying a sequence of prefetch operations in a first address order, the sequence of prefetch operations comprising a sequence of rows ([0028] “apparatus 130 may select among multiple strategies to extract signal 140 from image 100 where strategies are selected depending on the orientation of projection line 120; [0015] “a repeating sequence of pixel weight temples and a sequence of relative positions are selected in response to the orientation of a projection line weights are fetched from a table memory”; fig. 3, the sequence of relative positions is seen as a sequence of rows along the projection line); selecting, responsive to the orientation, a pixel processing plan specifying a sequence of pixel operations in a second address order that is distinct from the first address order ([0015] “a repeating sequence of pixel weight templates and a sequence of relative positions are selected in response to the orientation of a projection line” wherein a pixel processing plan is seen as a repeating sequence of pixel weight templates); and using the pixel processing plan in coordination with the prefetch plan to compute the one- dimensional signal ([0019]; claims 1 and 2).
Silver fails to specifically teach selecting, responsive to the orientation, a prefetch distance and comprising executing the sequence of prefetch operations to fetch pixels from the main store to the data cache in advance of being used by the sequence of pixel operations by an amount of time that is responsive to the prefetch distance.
However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above features as it is customary to manage different levels of memories to select a prefetch distance to be large enough that pixels have had time to be brought into the cache memory, but not so large that those pixels may be evicted before use. Considering a prefetch distance that takes into account the number of pixels to be fetches implicitly depends on the orientation of the projection line and is obvious in order to manage the transfer from the main store data to the data cache.
Re: claim 2, Silver additionally teaches the method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the prefetch plan, the pixel processing plan, or the prefetch distance are precomputed and stored in a table memory ([0022], [0154], fig. 11).
Re: claims 3 and 13, wherein the pixel processing plan specifies a repeating sequence of pixel weight templates ([0038], fig. 3 and 5).
Re: claims 4 and 14, wherein the prefetch plan comprises a first phase for initialization and a second phase performed cyclically (fig. 5 and corresponding description, rows defined in blocks 500, 510. 520).
Re: claims 5 and 15, wherein the first phase specifies prefetching a partial row (fig. 5 and corresponding description, rows defined in blocks 500, 510. 520; [0167]-[0171]).
Re: claims 6 and 16, wherein the second phase specifies prefetching a complete row (fig. 5 and corresponding description, rows defined in blocks 500, 510. 520; [0167]-[0171]).
Re: claims 7 and 17, wherein the prefetch distance is a parametric function of the orientation it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above features as it is customary considering a prefetch distance that takes into account the number of pixels to be fetches implicitly depends on the orientation of the projection line and is obvious in order to manage the transfer from the main store data to the data cache.
Re: claims 8 and 18, wherein the prefetch distance is determined by measuring an execution time of the pixel processing plan it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the above features as it is customary to manage different levels of memories to select a prefetch distance by measuring an execution time to be large enough that pixels have had time to be brought into the cache memory, but not so large that those pixels may be evicted before use. Considering a prefetch distance that takes into account the number of pixels to be fetches implicitly depends on the orientation of the projection line and is obvious in order to manage the transfer from the main store data to the data cache.
Re: claim 9, The method of claim 1, wherein the prefetch plan for a plurality of allowable orientations specifies prefetching only a first and a last pixel of each row (it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine skill in the art. In re Boesch, 617 F. 2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980) where one of ordinary skill in the art would consider the trade-off between processing resources needed according to the number of pixels fetched and accuracy in the computation of the 1D signal).
Re: claim 10, The method of claim 9, wherein the prefetch plan for near-horizontal orientations specifies prefetching three pixels of each row (it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine skill in the art. In re Boesch, 617 F. 2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980) where one of ordinary skill in the art would consider the trade-off between processing resources needed according to the number of pixels fetched and accuracy in the computation of the 1D signal).
Re: claim 11, The method of claim 9, wherein the prefetch plan for near-horizontal orientations specifies prefetching exactly three pixels of each row (it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine skill in the art. In re Boesch, 617 F. 2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980) where one of ordinary skill in the art would consider the trade-off between processing resources needed according to the number of pixels fetched and accuracy in the computation of the 1D signal).
Re: claim 19, The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the prefetch plan for a plurality of allowable orientations specifies prefetching only a first and a last pixel of each row (it has been held that discovering an optimum value of a result effective variable involves only routine skill in the art. In re Boesch, 617 F. 2d 272, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980) where one of ordinary skill in the art would consider the trade-off between processing resources needed according to the number of pixels fetched and accuracy in the computation of the 1D signal).
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KRISTY A HAUPT whose telephone number is (571)272-8545 and email address is kristy.haupt@uspto.gov. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Sun 5:30 AM- 10PM; Flex during day.
If all attempts to reach the examiner by telephone and email are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Michael Lee, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-2398. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KRISTY A HAUPT/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876
KAH