DETAILED ACTION
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 Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 3/17/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding claim 16, the applicant argues:
Claim 16 has been amended to include subject matter indicated to be allowable which recites "whereinthe mapping comprises training, using contrastive learning, the machine-learning encoder based on the plurality of qiuery point clouds and the plurality of sample point clouds."
Amended claim 16 includes limitations that cannot be practically performed in the human mind. For the above reasons, Applicant submits that claim 16 does not recite an abstract idea and is allowable.
The examiner respectfully disagrees because claim 16 in its present form is nothing more than software instructions (see the rejection below).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because claim 16 is directed to method for generating embedding vectors, with the steps of mapping, training and encoding, which amount to nothing more that software instructions. Software instructions are non-statutory under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-6, 8-15 and 17-20 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Regarding claim 1, the prior art doesn’t teach:
wherein, to map the plurality of query point clouds and the plurality of sample point clouds, the at least one processor is configured to train, using contrastive learning, the machine-learning encoder based on the plurality of query point clouds and the plurality of sample point clouds.
Regarding claims 17, the prior art doesn’t teach:
17. An apparatus for detecting objects, the apparatus comprising:
at least one memory; and
at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory and configured to:
generate, using a machine-learning model, a shape embedding based on an input point cloud representative of a scene;
compare the shape embedding to shape embeddings of an embedding space to determine a matching shape embedding of the embedding space; and
correlate an object in the scene with a model based on a relationship between the model and the matching shape embedding.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 MAURICE L MCDOWELL, JR whose telephone number is (571)270-3707. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thur & Sat: 2pm-10pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Said A. Broome can be reached at 571-272-2931. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MAURICE L. MCDOWELL, JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2612
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