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 .
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.
Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Specifically, representative Claim 1 recites:
“A method of dynamically estimating the pitch and roll of a motor vehicle by at least one image-acquiring sensor that is located on board said motor vehicle, which method comprises at least:
a first step of computing at least an extrinsic tilt angle of the sensor estimated by integrating the relative movement of the sensor θ.sub.int(t) at a current time t, using the following equation:
θ.sub.int(t)=θ(t−1)−θ.sub.rel(t) with: i. θ(t−1) the absolute extrinsic tilt angle of the sensor (12) at a previous time t−1, ii. θ.sub.rel(t) the relative tilt angle of the sensor at the current time t, which expresses the angle of tilt of the sensor between said previous time t−1 and the current time t,
a second step of estimating at least an absolute extrinsic tilt angle of said sensor, using the following equation
θ(t)=θ.sub.int(t)+DAC(t)*(θ.sub.calib(t)−θ.sub.int(t)) with: I. θ(t) the absolute extrinsic tilt angle of the sensor, at the current time t, ii. θ.sub.int(t) the extrinsic tilt angle of the sensor estimated by integrating the relative movement of the sensor in the course of the preceding computing first step, at the current time t, iii. DAC(t) a drift-avoidance coefficient, comprised between zero and one, at the current time t, iv. θ.sub.calib(t) the calibration extrinsic tilt angle at the current time t, which is known at all times and which corresponds to the nominal value of the tilt angle of the sensor when the motor vehicle is not moving, wherein the drift-avoidance coefficient DAC(t) depends partly on the acceleration experienced by the image-acquiring sensor in the course of the movement of the motor vehicle.”
The claim limitations in the abstract idea have been highlighted in bold above; the remaining limitations are “additional elements”.
Under the Step 1 of the eligibility analysis, we determine whether the claims are to a statutory category by considering whether the claimed subject matter falls within the four statutory categories of patentable subject matter identified by 35 U.S.C. 101: Process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. The above claim is considered to be in a statutory category (process).
Under the Step 2A, Prong One, we consider whether the claim recites a judicial exception (abstract idea). In the above claim, the highlighted portion constitutes an abstract idea because, under a broadest reasonable interpretation, it recites limitations that fall into/recite an abstract idea exceptions. Specifically, under the 2019 Revised Patent Subject matter Eligibility Guidance, it falls into the groupings of subject matter that covers mathematical concepts - mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, mathematical calculations
Next, under the Step 2A, Prong Two, we consider whether the above claims that recites a judicial exception are integrated into a practical application.
The above claims comprise the following additional elements:
In Claim 1: A method of dynamically estimating the pitch and roll of a motor vehicle by at least one image-acquiring sensor that is located on board said motor vehicle.
The additional elements in the preambles are recited in generality and represent insignificant extra-solution activity (field-of-use limitations) that is not meaningful to indicate a practical application.
The additional elements in the claims such as image-acquiring sensor that is located on board said motor vehicle represent insignificant extra-solution activity of mere data gathering. According to the October update on 2019 SME Guidance, this step is “performed in order to gather data for the (mental) analysis step, and is a necessary precursor for all uses of the recited exception. It is thus extra-solution activity, and does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application”.
Therefore, the claims are directed to a judicial exception and require further analysis under the Step 2B.
However, the above claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (Step 2B analysis) because these additional elements/steps are well-understood and conventional in the relevant art based on the prior art of record including Civera, Quian, and Franke.
The independent claims, therefore, are not patent eligible.
With regards to the dependent claims, claims 2-10 provide additional features/steps which are part of an expanded abstract idea of the independent claims (additionally comprising abstract idea steps) and, therefore, these claims are not eligible without meaningful additional elements that reflect a practical application and/or additional elements that qualify for significantly more for substantially similar reasons as discussed with regards to Claim 1.
For example, additional elements in Claims 8 and 9 (the motor vehicle is equipped with a driver's cab that is mounted so as to be able to oscillate rollwise and pitchwise with respect to the chassis of said vehicle and that bears the image-acquiring sensor., Claim 8, and at least one image-acquiring sensor that is mounted on said vehicle and a processing unit, Claim 9) are all recited in generality and not meaningful to indicate a practical application and/or qualify for significantly more.
Examiner Note with Regards to Prior Art of Record
Claims 1-10 are distinguished over prior art of record based on the reasons below.
The following references are considered to be the closest prior art to the claimed invention:
Jan Konried Schiffmann (US 6292759), hereinafter “Schiffmann ‘759’) discloses low-cost roll and pitch angle estimation for a vehicle using roll angular sensor for estimating the pitch and roll of a motor vehicle by at least one roll angular sensor that is located on board said motor vehicle, which method comprises computing at least an attitude angle and attitude angular rate using different than claimed formulas.
Jan Konried Schiffmann (US 6678631), hereinafter “Schiffmann ‘631’) discloses estimating attitude angle of a vehicle having an angular attitude rate sensor sensing angular attitude rate of a vehicle, a vertical accelerometer sensing vertical acceleration, and a lateral accelerometer sensing lateral acceleration.
Javier Civera et al., “Inverse Depth Parametrization for Monocular SLAM”, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS,VOL.24, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2008 (submitted with IDS dated 4/18/2024, hereinafter ‘Civera’, discloses constant angular and linear velocity model to model handheld camera motion.
Gang Qian et al. (US 20230128689), hereinafter “Qian’ discloses extrinsic camera calibration using a calibration object including a transformation from the calibration object centered coordinate system to a camera centered coordinate system; and determining, using the transformation, a camera tilt angle and a camera mount height of the camera for use in analyzing images captured by the camera.
Uwe Franke et al. (JP 2005136946), hereinafter ‘Franke” discloses a camera based position recognition system for a road vehicle, where the camera coordinates are calculated based on the relationship between the template image parameters that match the optical index image data and the vehicle environment coordinates, and the camera orientation is calculated.
However, in regards to Claim 1, the claims differ from the closest prior art, Schiffmann ‘759, Schiffmann ‘631, Civera, Quian, and Franke, either singularly or in combination, because the references fail to anticipate or render obvious estimating the pitch or roll angle using the claimed formulas for estimating the extrinsic angle of inclination of the sensor, in combination with all other limitations in the claim as claimed and defined by applicant.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALEXANDER SATANOVSKY whose telephone number is (571)270-5819. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F: 9 am-5 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Catherine Rastovski can be reached on (571) 270-0349. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ALEXANDER SATANOVSKY/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857
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