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 Objections
Claim 1 objected to because of the following informality: In particular, the final limitation of this claim recites generating “a virtual object” – but “a virtual object” is previously recited in the preamble of the claim. The Examiner can understand what was meant and this appears to be a minor typographical error. This should be amended such that the final limitation reads --the virtual object--. 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 16 and 24-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Regarding claim 16, this claim is directed to a computer-readable medium. Specification paragraphs 76 and 84 describe some examples of a computer readable medium, including transitory forms of media. Because this language is exemplary, and not limiting, and includes transitory forms of media, the instant claim may be directed to signals, carrier waves, or other transitory storage media, which are non-statutory forms of computer readable media. Thus claim 16 comprises non-statutory subject matter.
Regarding claims 24-28, these claims are rejected because they inherit, and do not resolve, the deficiencies of the claim(s) from which they depend.
To overcome this rejection, the examiner suggests that any claims directed to the non-statutory computer readable media be amended such that they are directed only to statutory forms of computer readable media; for example, recitation of a “non-transitory” computer-readable medium might overcome this rejection.
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.
Claims 1, 6, 7, 15, 16, 22, 23, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Taylor (U.S. Patent No. 10,255,507), referred herein as Taylor, in view of Hou et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0351724), referred herein as Hou.
Regarding claim 1, Taylor teaches a method for generating a virtual object, comprising: acquiring position information and pose information of a virtual object box in a multi-dimensional space, and determining size information of the virtual object box in the multi-dimensional space according to the pose information (figs 3A; column 13, line 53, through column 14, line 3; column 14, lines 8-18 and 21-29; column 15, lines 18-28; location and pose of an object and its bounding box are determined);
determining a target material according to the size information, and rendering the target material into the virtual object box according to the position information and the pose information to generate a virtual object (column 15, lines 39-53; column 17, lines 23-34; column 18, lines 54-67; a target material is determined and rendered based on the location and pose information to generate a virtual object).
Taylor illustrates multi-dimensional perspective images (see, for example, figs 3A; column 13, lines 37-46), and as known in the art, perspective images – and any three-dimensional image – are necessarily two dimensional by virtue of the screen upon which they are displayed, but create the illusion of a three-dimensional scene. Nevertheless, Taylor does not explicitly teach that the virtual object box is in a three-dimensional space.
However, in a similar field of endeavor, Hou teaches a method comprising acquiring position and pose information of a virtual object, determining a virtual object box based on pose and size information, and rendering a target material into the box based on the position and pose information (paragraph 19, lines 1-4; paragraph 22, lines 1-8; paragraph 24, lines 1-10), wherein the virtual object box is in three-dimensional space (paragraph 20, lines 1-9 and the last 11 lines; paragraph 32).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the three-dimensional space bounding box determination with the bounding box determination of Taylor because this increases the accuracy of the bounding box around the object by considering all dimensions of the object, including its depth, thereby improving the object recognition efficiency and processing (see, for example, Hou, paragraph 21; paragraph 29, the last 4 lines; paragraph 30, the last 10 lines).
Regarding claim 6, Taylor in view of Hou teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein rendering the target material into the virtual object box according to the position information and the pose information to generate the virtual object comprises: acquiring depth information of the virtual object box in the three-dimensional space; scaling the target material according to the depth information; and rendering the scaled target material into the virtual object box according to the position information and the pose information (Taylor, column 18, lines 33-40 and 54-67; Hou, paragraph 22; paragraphs 32 and 33; the motivation to combine is similar to that discussed above in the rejection of claim 1).
Regarding claim 7, Taylor in view of Hou teaches the method according to claim 6, wherein scaling the target material according to the depth information comprises: determining a scaling ratio according to the depth information; and scaling the target material according to the scaling ratio Taylor, column 18, lines 33-40 and 54-67; Hou, paragraph 22; paragraphs 32 and 33; the motivation to combine is similar to that discussed above in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 15, the limitations of this claim substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 1 (except for the processing apparatus and storage storing a program, which is taught by Taylor, column 13, lines 23-30); thus they are rejected on similar grounds.
Regarding claim 16, the limitations of this claim substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 1 (except for the processing apparatus and medium storing a program, which is taught by Taylor, column 13, lines 23-30); thus they are rejected on similar grounds.
Regarding claims 22 and 23, the limitations of these claims substantially correspond to the limitations of claims 6 and 7, respectively; thus they are rejected on similar grounds as their corresponding claims.
Regarding claim 28, the limitations of this claim substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 6; thus they are rejected on similar grounds.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5 and 18-21 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.
Claims 24-27 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, and to overcome the 101 rejections above.
The following statement is the reason for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 2, the closest prior art teaches the limitations of claim 1, as shown above. Taylor and Hou also disclose utilizing pitch, roll, and yaw angles of the camera when generating the bounding boxes, determining a second height of the object box based on a first height of the object box in a pixel plane, and establishing aspect ratios of the bounding boxes, such as height-to-width.
In the particular context of claims 1 and 2 as a whole, however, the prior art does not appear to disclose the method, wherein the pose information comprises a yaw angle, a pitch angle, and a roll angle, the size information is a length-to-width ratio, and determining the size information of the virtual object box in the three-dimensional space according to the pose information comprises: determining, according to a first height of the virtual object box in a pixel plane and the pitch angle, a second height of the virtual object box in the three-dimensional space, determining, according to a first width of the virtual object box in the pixel plane and the yaw angle, a second width of the virtual object box in the three-dimensional space, and obtaining the length-to-width ratio of the virtual object box in the three-dimensional space according to the second height and the second width. Thus claim 2 comprises allowable subject matter.
Regarding claims 3-5, these claims comprise allowable subject matter insomuch as they depend from claims the comprise allowable subject matter.
Regarding claims 18-21, the limitations of these claims substantially correspond to the limitations of claims 2-5, respectively; thus they similarly comprise allowable subject matter.
Regarding claims 24-27, the limitations of these claims substantially correspond to the limitations of claims 2-5, respectively; thus they similarly comprise allowable subject matter.
Conclusion
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Waechter (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0167763); Quasi-monte carlo light transport simulation by efficient ray tracing.
Piatek (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2020/0326174); Method for estimating visibility of objects.
Shaked (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0230306); System and method for reconstructing morphology and dynamics of biological cells from holographic images.
Al Rashdan (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0383541); Unmanned vehicle navigation, and associated methods, systems, and computer-readable medium.
Chumerin (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0005525); A device and a method for representing the yaw orientation of a vehicle visible on an image.
Ali (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0277489); Modeling objects from monocular camera outputs.
Takama (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0044477); Generation apparatus, generation method, and storage medium.
Cennamo (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0120858); Method and device for detecting objects.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID T WELCH whose telephone number is (571)270-5364. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday, 8:30-5:30 EST, and alternate Fridays, 9:00-2:30 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Xiao Wu can be reached on 571-272-7761. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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DAVID T. WELCH
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2613
/DAVID T WELCH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2613