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 .
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.
Claim(s) below is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mammou (20190075320) in view of Ferreira (20200284883).
Referring to claims 1 and 11, Mammou shows a computer program product, the computer program product being tangibly embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and comprising instructions that, when executed by at least one computing device (see figure 1A note the encoder Ref 104 and sensor Ref 102 also see paragraph 36), are configured to cause the at least one computing device to:
receive lidar sensor data from at least one lidar sensor disposed on a vehicle (see figure 1A note the sensor Ref 102 also see paragraph 27) and characterizing vehicle movement of the vehicle (see paragraph 27);
collect a subset of the lidar sensor data in a
compress the subset of the lidar sensor data from the compression buffer using a lossless compression algorithm to obtain compressed lidar sensor data (see paragraph 39 note the compression based on a lossless compression algorithm); and
transmit the compressed lidar sensor data from the vehicle for remote processing of the lidar sensor data to characterize the vehicle movement (see figure 1A note the transmission of the compressed point cloud through network to the decoder also see paragraph 92).
However Mammou fails to specifically show the sub-sampled point cloud is collected in a compression buffer.
Ferreira shows a similar computer program product that includes a subset of data that is collected in a compression buffer (see buffer shown in figure 177A Ref 17708). It would have been obvious to include the compression buffer as shown by Ferreira because this allows for efficient storage of the subset of data for the compression algorithm and is extremely well known and adds no new or unexpected results.
Referring to claim 17, Mammou merely shows the compression of data and fails to specifically show the vehicle as claimed in claim 17.
Ferreira shows a similar data compression that includes A vehicle comprising:
a chassis (see paragraph 104 and 2497 as well as figure 26);
a frame mounted on the chassis (see paragraph 104 and 2497 as well as figure 26);
a motor mounted within the frame (see paragraph 104 and 2497 as well as figure 26);
a plurality of sensors mounted on the vehicle and configured to generate sensor data characterizing an environment of the vehicle (see paragraph 3);
at least one memory including instructions; and
at least one processor that is operably coupled to the at least one memory and that is arranged and configured to execute instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one processor to perform point cloud subdivision compression to determine vehicle movement (see paragraph 3538 and 3542-3559). It would have been obvious to include the LIDAR data compression in a vehicle borne application because this is an extremely well known application for LIDAR point cloud compression and transmission.
Referring to claim 2, Mammou shows the lidar sensor data includes network data packets (see paragraph 25 note the transmission in real time of the compressed data over a network).
Referring to claims 3 and 12, Mammou shows validation data is collected with the subset of lidar sensor data (see paragraph 75 note the validation performed on the subdivision of data).
Referring to claim 4, Mammou shows the validation data is transmitted with the compressed lidar sensor data (see paragraph 75 note the validation data is inherently transmitted based on the subdivision being valid, compressed, and transmitted through the network, invalid data would not be transmitted).
Referring to claims 5, 13, and 18, Mammou fails to specifically show but Ferreira shows the lidar sensor data is collected in the compression buffer in response to a detected event. (see paragraph 5408 note the transmission of traffic events this data is collected, compressed, and transmitted based on a collision).
Referring to claim 6, Mammou shows the lidar sensor data is converted to point cloud format at the vehicle and used for navigation of the vehicle (see paragraph 3).
Referring to claim 9, Mammou shows the compressed lidar sensor data is received for remote processing and decompressed using validation data transmitted with the compressed lidar sensor data (see the transmission of the compressed data over the network to the decoder as shown in figure 1A also see the decoder shown in figure 2B that will receive only valid sub-sample data).
Referring to claim 10, Mammou shows the decompressed lidar sensor data is converted to point cloud format during the remote processing (see the decoder figure 2b Ref 222 and 226 also see paragraph 57 note the decoding and evaluating of the subdivision points).
Referring to claim 19, the combination of Mammou and Ferreira shows the lidar sensor data is converted to point cloud format at the vehicle and used for navigation of the vehicle (see paragraph 5064). It would have been obvious to include the navigation as shown by Ferreira because this is extremely well known in vehicle borne applications for a LIDAR device.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 8, 15, 16, and 20 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 LUKE D RATCLIFFE whose telephone number is (571)272-3110. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00AM-5:00PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Isam Alsomiri can be reached at 571-272-6970. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LUKE D RATCLIFFE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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