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
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 3/22/24 was acknowledged. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Specification
Applicant is reminded of the proper language and format for an abstract of the disclosure.
The abstract should be in narrative form and generally limited to a single paragraph on a separate sheet within the range of 50 to 150 words. It is important that the abstract not exceed 150 words in length since the space provided for the abstract on the computer tape used by the printer is limited. The form and legal phraseology often used in patent claims, such as “comprises”, "means" and "said," should be avoided. The abstract should describe the disclosure sufficiently to assist readers in deciding whether there is a need for consulting the full patent text for details.
The language should be clear and concise and should not repeat information given in the title. It should avoid using phrases which can be implied, such as, "The disclosure concerns," "The disclosure defined by this invention," "The disclosure describes," etc.
Currently, abstract is over 150 words.
Claim Objections
Claims 2-19 are objected to because of the following informalities: Applicant is recomme. Appropriate correction is required.
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 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter wherein the claim recites a processing program that is not claimed as embodied in a non-transitory storage medium. Because Applicant's disclosure is not limited solely to tangible embodiments, the claimed subject matter, given the broadest reasonable interpretation, may be a carrier wave comprising of instructions and is, therefore, non-statutory. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is obliged to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification during proceedings before the USPTO. See In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (during patent examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow). The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a computer readable storage medium typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable storage media, particularly when the specification is silent. (See MPEP 2111.01). When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claim must be rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter (See In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1356-57 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (transitory embodiments are not directed to statutory subject matter) and Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, Aug. 24, 2009; p. 2).
To overcome this type of rejection, the claim needs to be amended to include only the physical computer storage media unassociated with any intangible or non-functional transmission media. Examiner suggests adding the word – non-transitory – to the claim. Other word choices will be considered but the one proposed shall overcome the rejection. Appropriate attention is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4, 20-22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Short (2018/0085670) in view of Loop (2015/0022521) and Soederberg et al. (2018/0264365)
Re Claim 1,
Short discloses a data processing method based on voxel data, wherein original data of the game scene constitutes a pixel scene, and the pixel scene comprises multiple different data types of scene elements (Fig 2, ¶0031; the captured pixel game scene include plurality of data types, for example, what characters are in the scene, what scenery is in the scene, the positions and locations of characters and objects), and the method comprises:
exporting the original data of the multiple types of scene elements respectively (Fig 4, ¶0038; data is transferred to a visualization server).
Short does not explicitly disclose setting an expected side length of a unit voxel, and combined with the side length of the unit voxel, converting the original data of the multiple types of scene elements into voxel data respectively, wherein the voxel data in the voxel scene is represented as a voxel module; and according to relative positions of the voxel modules of all the scene elements in the pixel scene, splicing the voxel modules of all the scene elements to obtain the voxel scene.
However, Loop discloses setting an expected side length of a unit voxel, and combined with the side length of the unit voxel (¶¶0019, 0024; the modeling application may generate a list of initial voxels, the voxel is an array of unsigned integer triples {ix, iy, iz} corresponding to coordinates of a voxel corner within a 3D grid). Loop further teaches such a configuration improves voxelization efficiency by reducing the amount of memory required (¶¶0003-0004). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teaching of Loop into the game scene creation of Short in order to reduce the amount of memory required.
Soederberg teaches creating a virtual game environment by converting the original data of the multiple types of scene elements into voxel data respectively, wherein the voxel data in the voxel scene is represented as a voxel module, and according to relative positions of the voxel modules of all the scene elements in the pixel scene, splicing the voxel modules of all the scene elements to obtain the voxel scene (Fig 5-6, ¶¶0067-0076, 0155; a virtual game environment is created based a voxel-based representation of the real-world scene and then create a virtual construction model from the voxel-based representation, that is, each virtual construction element of the virtual construction model corresponds to a single voxel or to a plurality of voxels of the voxel-based representation). Soederberg further teaches such a configuration provides an efficient process for creating a virtual game representation (¶0067). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teaching of Soederberg into the game scene creation of Short in order to provide an efficient process for creating a virtual game representation.
Re Claim 2,
Short discloses all limitations as set forth above but does not explicitly disclose the scene element comprises at least one of terrain, vegetation, a building and an outdoor decoration, exporting 3D model file format data and coordinate information of the outdoor decoration and the building; exporting comma-separated value file format data of the vegetation; and orthogonally capturing by a depth camera to export a picture of the terrain, wherein the picture comprises surface height data of the terrain. However, Soederberg teaches the scene element comprises at least one of terrain, vegetation, a building and an outdoor decoration, exporting 3D model file format data and coordinate information of the outdoor decoration and the building; exporting comma-separated value file format data of the vegetation; and orthogonally capturing by a depth camera to export a picture of the terrain, wherein the picture comprises surface height data of the terrain (Fig 4-6, ¶¶0067-0076, 0155). See claim 1 for motivation.
Re Claim 4,
Short discloses all limitations as set forth above but does not explicitly disclose obtaining a voxel area within a target space range of a target object by clipping in the voxel scene, and using the voxel area as an input of a neural network in the form of a three-dimensional tensor, to obtain spatial features of the target object. However, Soederberg teaches obtaining a voxel area within a target space range of a target object by clipping in the voxel scene, and using the voxel area as an input of a neural network in the form of a three-dimensional tensor, to obtain spatial features of the target object (Fig 4-6, ¶¶0067-0076, 0155). See claim 1 for motivation.
Re Claims 20, 21, 22,
Claims are substantially similar to claim 1. See claim 1 for rejection and motivation.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 5-19 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JASON TAHAI YEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1777. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon - Fri 7am- 3pm PST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Dmitry Suhol can be reached on 571-272-4430. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JASON T YEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715