DETAILED ACTION
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 04/21/2026 regarding the 35 USC 103 rejections with respect to the amended limitations of claims 1-20 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by the amendment.
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.
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.
Claims 1-4, 7-14, 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gulati et al (US 20180165814 A1), and further in view of Pangam et al (US 20150145875 A1).
RE claim 1, Gulati teaches A method (Fig 7, abstract, [0006]) comprising:
receiving, from one or more buffers, a frame to be displayed on a screen of the display device (Figs 2-4, 7, [0072]);
determining, (i) an expected checksum for a telltale to be included in the frame and (ii) at least a portion of the frame associated with the telltale; computing a checksum for the at least the portion of the frame (Figs 3-7, [0051], [0065], [0068]-[0072], [0023]- [0027]); and
causing an alert associated with the telltale to be generated based at least on a comparison of the computed checksum with the expected checksum (Figs 4-7, [0026]-[0027], [0060]).
Gulati is silent RE: receiving, from one or more buffers accessible to a display device, a set of commands associated with the frame and performing the determining steps based at least on the set of commands. However Pangam teaches receiving, from one or more buffers accessible to a display device, a set of commands associated with the frame in [0050]-[0051] in order to reduce/eliminate display data and associated commands utilizing a local buffer in one hop. This is readily available or can equally be applied to effectively access and process the commands generated by the software model (display driver or GPU driver) by the processor/display processor of the display subsystem for displaying the tell-tales, as readily recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include in Gulati a system and method of receiving, from one or more buffers accessible to a display device, a set of commands associated with the frame and performing the determining steps based at least on the set of commands, as suggested by Pangam, for effectively displaying the tell-tales and thereby ensuring/increasing system effectiveness and user experience.
RE claim 2, Gulati teaches further comprising: computing a second checksum for at least a second portion of the frame corresponding to a second telltale; and causing a second alert associated with the second telltale to be generated based at least on another comparison of the computed second checksum and a second expected checksum for the second telltale (Figs 3-7, [0065], [0068]-[0072], [0023]- [0027]).
RE claim 3, Gulati teaches further comprising preventing display of the frame or another frame on the screen based at least on the alert and the second alert (Figs 3-7, [0052]- [0054], [0060], [0074]-[0078] wherein the erroneous frames would not be displayed by the interruption/alert).
RE claim 4, Gulati teaches wherein the at least the portion of the frame comprises a region within the frame (Figs 4-6, [0041], [0061]).
RE claim 7, Gulati teaches wherein the causing the alert to be generated comprises causing an error to be outputted upon determining that the computed checksum does not match the expected checksum (Fig 7, [0041] [0023]- [0027]).
RE claim 8, Gulati teaches wherein the causing the alert to be generated comprises: incrementing a counter upon determining that the computed checksum does not match the expected checksum; and causing an error to be outputted upon determining that the counter meets or exceeds a threshold ([0054]).
RE claim 9, Gulati teaches further comprising performing the comparison of the computed checksum with the expected checksum after the frame is generated using a composition of image data from a plurality of input channels (Fig 2, [0032]-[0034], [0041], [0058]-[0059]).
RE claim 10, Gulati teaches wherein the telltale comprises at least one of a safety alert, a proximity alert, a weather alert, or a road condition alert (Figs 4-6, [0018] [0033]).
Claims 11-13 recite limitations similar in scope with limitations of claims 1-3 and therefore rejected under the same rationale. Claims 11-13 recite limitations similar in scope with limitations of claims 1-3 and therefore rejected under the same rationale. A processor comprising: one or more circuits (Fig 2, [0052]).
RE claim 14, Gulati as modified by Pangam teaches wherein the determining the expected checksum comprises retrieving the expected checksum from a location specified in the set of commands, wherein the expected checksum was written to the location by a component based at least on a second set of commands associated with the frame (Gulati Figs 3-5, [0051]-[0052], [0065]-[0066]. In addition Pangam [0050], [0090], [0106], [0110]).
RE claim 16, Gulati teaches wherein the processor corresponds to a display controller for the screen and the screen is included in a vehicle (Figs 1, 4, [0005]).
RE claim 17, Gulati as modified by Pangam teaches wherein the set of commands was written to the buffer by a virtual machine that controls a display pipeline that includes the display controller based on an inclusion of the telltale in one or more input channels to be composed into the frame (Gulati Fig 2, [0051]-[0052], [0066]. In addition Pangam [0050], [0090], [0106], [0110], [0247] wherein the virtual machines provide a virtualized graphics execution environment).
RE claim 18, Gulati teaches wherein the processor is comprised in at least one of: a control system for an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine; a perception system for an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine; a system for performing one or more simulation operations; a system for performing one or more digital twin operations; a system for performing light transport simulation; a system for performing collaborative content creation for 3D assets; a system for performing one or more deep learning operations; a system implemented using an edge device; a system for generating or presenting at least one of virtual reality content, augmented reality content, or mixed reality content; a system implemented using a robot; a system for performing one or more conversational AI operations; a system implementing one or more large language models (LLMs); a system implementing one or more vision language models (VLMs); a system implementing one or more multi modal language models; a system for performing one or more generative AI operations; a system implementing one or more large language models (LLMs); a system for generating synthetic data; a system incorporating one or more virtual machines (VMs); a system implemented at least partially in a data center; or a system implemented at least partially using cloud computing resources ([0029]-[0031], [0035]).
Claims 19-20 recite limitations similar in scope with limitations of claims 11 and 18 and therefore rejected under the same rationale. In addition Gulati teaches A system comprising: one or more processing units; and one or more memory units storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing units, cause the one or more processing units to execute operations (Fig 1, [0028])
Claims 5-6 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gulati as modified by Pangam, and further in view of Pinto et al (US 20230090743 A1).
RE claim 5, Gulati as modified by Pangam is silent RE: wherein the computing the checksum comprises: determining a mask associated with the at least the portion of the frame; and computing the checksum based at least on a set of pixel values that correspond to the mask within the frame. However Pinto teaches determining a mask associated with the at least the portion of the frame abstract, [0046]-[0048] for extracting a portion/object of an image for detecting anomaly in the image. This can equally be applied computing the checksum based at least on a set of pixel values that correspond to the mask within the frame to define the ROIs comprising the tell-tales, wherein Gulati teaches calculating the checksums on the set of pixels of a tile defining the ROI ([0039], [0041], [0048]), as readily recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art as an alternative design choice.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include in Gulati as modified by Pangam a system and method wherein the computing the checksum comprises: determining a mask associated with the at least the portion of the frame; and computing the checksum based at least on a set of pixel values that correspond to the mask within the frame, as set forth above applying Pinto, for utilizing the mask based segmentation and thereby increasing system effectiveness and user experience.
RE claim 6, Gulati as modified by Pangam and Pinto teaches wherein the mask is specified using a set of alpha channel values associated with the at least the portion of the frame (Pinto [0046]).
Claim 15 recites limitations similar in scope with limitations of claim 5 and therefore rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. (See attached 892).
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 SULTANA MARCIA ZALALEE whose telephone number is (571)270-1411. The examiner can normally be reached Monday- Friday 8:00am-4:30pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kent Chang can be reached at (571)272-7667. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Sultana M Zalalee/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2614
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