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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of claims 2-5 and 12-15 in the reply filed on 05/11/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that there is no serious search burdern. This is not found persuasive because of different implementations based on respective alternatives in validating the second virtual box as presented in independent claims, which leads to the species or groupings of patentably indistinct species require a different field of search (e.g., searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search strategies or search queries).
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
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) 1-3, 5, 11-13, 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Baldan (US2023/0041031) in view of Smadja (WO2023/284972) and Kim (KR20220095819).
To claim 1, Baldan teach an apparatus (abstract) comprising:
a sensor configured to obtain sensing information associated with a plurality of first points corresponding to an external vehicle (202b-c of Fig. 2; paragraphs 0032, 0035-0036); and
a processor configured to:
determine whether a distribution of first contour points included in a first virtual box associated with the plurality of first points corresponds to one of specified shapes on a plane, wherein the plane is formed by a first axis and a second axis, in a space formed by the first axis, the second axis, and a third axis (Figs. 5-6; paragraphs 0065-0068);
determine a contour point set including a global minimum contour point, wherein the global minimum contour point is one of local minimum contour points and has the smallest distance among distances between a reference line segment and the local minimum contour points, wherein the local minimum contour points are determined, from among the first contour points, based on the smallest distance among distances between the first contour points and one of line segments forming the first virtual box, wherein the reference line segment corresponds to the one of the line segments forming the first virtual box and corresponds to a rear surface or a side surface of the external vehicle (Figs. 7-11; paragraphs 0018, 0065, 0074-0076, 0085), wherein the first contour points are included in each of a plurality of first layers, and wherein the plurality of first layers are included in the first virtual box and formed in a direction of the third axis (paragraph 0065, orientation ranges);
generate a second virtual box based on second contour points (paragraphs 0001, 0019, 0076, 0112, bounding boxes), wherein the second contour points are obtained by excluding the contour point set, from among the first contour points; and
perform a validation check on the second virtual box based on at least one of:
a difference between a first width of the first virtual box and a second width of the second virtual box, a difference between a first number of times that the distribution of the first contour points included in the first virtual box is identified as being in one of the specified shapes and a second number of times that a distribution of the second contour points included in the second virtual box is identified as being in one of the specified shapes, or a difference between a number of the plurality of first points included in the first virtual box and a number of a plurality of second points included in the second virtual box (Fig. 11, paragraphs 0112, 0155, rejection of outlying data points, which would obviously be considered as a validation of second bounding box).
In furthering said obviousness, Smadja teach a system using LIDAR to provide points with high intensities, regrouping retained points, computing bounding boxes, filtering out irrelevant bounding boxes, and projecting relevant bounding boxes in image for further processing (Fig. 5; page 18 lines 1-5, if a particular projected bounding box is comparable in location in the image to bounding boxes projected on previously or subsequently recorded images the bounding box may be confirmed to be relevant), which obviously comparing difference between two generated bounding boxes.
In corresponding to Smadja, Kim teach comparing associated segment box to previous tracking box on information such width and shape (paragraphs 0005-0006, 0083, 0136).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate teachings of Smadja and Kim into the apparatus of Baldan, in order to validate candidate bounding box.
To claim 11, Baldan, Smadja and Kim teach a method (as explained in response to claim 1 above).
To claims 2 and 12, Baldan, Smadja and Kim teach claims 1 and 11.
Baldan, Smadja and Kim teach wherein the processor is configured to:
output the second virtual box based on the second virtual box being identified as being valid after the validation check; or output the first virtual box based on the second virtual box being identified as being invalid after the validation check (as explained in response to claim 1 above, for box tracking).
To claims 3 and 13, Baldan, Smadja and Kim teach claims 1 and 11.
Baldan, Smadja and Kim teach wherein the processor is configured to:
determine that a line segment of the first virtual box corresponding to a rear surface of the external vehicle is the reference line segment (Baldan, Fig. 6A; Smadja, Fig. 7), based on the distribution of the first contour points included in the first virtual box being identified as being in a first shape among the specified shapes (Baldan, paragraph 0068; Kim, paragraphs 0044, 0055, 0064, 0068); and identify the local minimum contour points on the plurality of first layers based on a width of the first virtual box exceeding a first reference width and a length of the first virtual box exceeding a first reference length (obvious in Baldan, Figs. 6C-E, paragraphs 0069, 0082, 0112, which is also a well-known practice in the art, hence Official Notice is taken).
To claims 5 and 15, Baldan, Smadja and Kim teach claims 3 and 13.
Baldan, Smadja and Kim teach wherein the processor is configured to:
based on a distance between the reference line segment and each of the local minimum contour points included in each of the plurality of first layers exceeding first reference distance, form a plurality of second layers different from the plurality of first layers by setting a layer including a minimum value of the direction of the third axis as a minimum layer based on identifying the minimum value of the direction of the third axis among the second contour points; and
generate the second virtual box based on the second contour points included in the plurality of second layers (obvious in Baldan, Figs. 6C-E, paragraphs 0069, 0082, 0112, sorting points into one or another of a first set or a second set based on a threshold distance, which is also a well-known practice in the art, hence Official Notice is taken).
Claim(s) 4, 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Baldan (US2023/0041031) in view of Smadja (WO2023/284972), Kim (KR20220095819) and Harsha et al. (DE102018127865).
To claims 4 and 14, Baldan, Smadja and Kim teach claims 3 and 13.
Baldan, Smadja and Kim teach further comprising: a memory, wherein the processor is configured to: store, in the memory, information associated with a layer, on which the global minimum contour point is identified, from among the plurality of first layers (Baldan, paragraph 0065, determine orientation ranges for which every point remains closest, which obviously would be where the global minimum resides).
Harsha further teach LIDAR capturing the reflected laser beam light in the form of scanning points in multiple layers, which are related to different distance zones from the laser scanner, determining in which layers the bounding frame is located, and counting the sampling points only in the layers where the bounding frame is located (Figs. 1-3; paragraph 0013), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the apparatus and method of Baldan, Smadja and Kim, in order to implement LIDAR data analysis.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHIYU LU whose telephone number is (571)272-2837. The examiner can normally be reached Weekdays: 8:30AM - 5:00PM.
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ZHIYU . LU
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2669
/ZHIYU LU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665 September 11, 2026
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