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 .
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed 06/05/2026 has been entered. Claims 1-20 remain pending in the applications. Applicant’s amendments to the claims overcome all the rejections set forth in the Non-Final Office Action dated 02/06/2026.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 06/05/2026 regarding the prior art not reading on the amended claims are fully considered and persuasive. However, the amendments necessitate new grounds of rejection, now taught by the combination of Muthler and Kim and the combination of Muthler, Kim, and Fenney.
Applicant argues the cited references do not teach of suggest the amended features of independent Claims 1, 10, and 19.
Examiner replies Applicant’s arguments have been fully considered and are persuasive. However, the amendments necessitate new grounds of rejection, the independent claims are now taught by the combination of Muthler and Kim, and the combination of Muthler, Kim, and Fenney.
Applicant argues the cited reference, CD lecture, in the rejection of Claim 9 does not teach the claim as amended. The language does not indicate whether an object has collided, but whether an object is tested for collision.
Examiner replies Applicant’s arguments and interpretation have been fully considered and are persuasive. However, the amendments necessitate new grounds of rejection, Claim 9 is now taught by the combination of Muthler and Kim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claims 7 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends. Regarding Claim 7, Claim 1 to which it depends recites “… wherein the bounding volume hierarchy includes one or more instance nodes…”, Claim 7 recites “The method of claim 1, wherein the bounding volume hierarchy includes one or more instance nodes.”, this fails to limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends. Regarding Claim 16, Claim 10 to which it depends recites “… wherein the bounding volume hierarchy includes one or more instance nodes…”, Claim 16 recites “The system of claim 10, wherein the bounding volume hierarchy includes one or more instance nodes.”, this fails to limit the subject matter of the claim to which it depends . Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
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 1-2, 5, 8-11, 14, and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Muthler et al. (US 2024/0037841 A1), hereinafter referenced as Muthler, in view of Kim et al. (US 2012/0131595 A1), hereinafter referenced as Kim. Regarding Claim 1, Muthler discloses a method comprising:
generating a bounding volume hierarchy for scene geometry, wherein the bounding volume hierarchy includes one or more instance nodes, each associated with a different object, and each including an indication of whether an associated object is tested for collision (Muthler: [0033], discloses a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) representing scene geometry <BVH is generated for scene geometry>; [0126], discloses instance nodes in the BVH; [0075], discloses each instance node including a force ray always (FRA) flag <indication of whether an object is tested for collision, the collision being between a node and a ray>, see Fig. 3 with instance nodes at reference characters 312 and 314);
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performing ray tracing operations using the bounding volume hierarchy (Muther: [0033], discloses performing ray tracing operations while traversing a BVH);
and performing collision detection operations with the bounding volume hierarchy in accordance with the indication (Muther: [0079], describes performing RayOp <collision detection operations, testing collision of a ray and a node> in accordance with the FRA flag while [0105, 0126] traversing the BVH, see Fig. 3).
While ray tracing is a type of collision detection, the claim language does distinguish the two, Muthler discloses detecting collisions between rays and nodes, however, Muthler does not disclose other forms of collision detection. However, Kim discloses
collision detection (Kim: [0022], discloses collision detection through overlaps between nodes)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the acceleration method disclosed by Muthler by the collision detection between nodes as taught by Kim. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date would have been motivated to make this modification to identify collisions between objects in large geometrical scenes.
Regarding Claim 10, it recites similar limitations to Claim 1 but as a system. As shown in the rejection the combination of Muthler and Kim disclose the method of Claim 1. The combination of Muthler and Kim further disclose
A system (Muthler: [0114], discloses a system) comprising:
a memory configured to store scene geometry (Muthler: [0116], discloses a memory storing 3D data <scene geometry>);
and a processor configured to perform operations (Muthler: [0115], discloses a processor executing an application <performing operations>) including: …
Regarding Claims 2 and 11, the combination of Muthler and Kim disclose the method and system of Claims 1 and 10 respectively. The combination of Muthler and Kim further disclose wherein the bounding volume hierarchy includes
one or more oriented bounding boxes (Kim, [0064], describes that a BVH is a tree structure that includes a bounding volume as a node; Kim, [0067], teaches that an oriented bounding box (OBB) is a bounding volume and describes two OBBs; Figs. 6A-C show collision types between OBBs, illustrating one or more OBBs).
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It would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method and system disclosed by Muthler and Kim by further including one or more OBBs in the BVH as further taught by Kim. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification because an OBB introduces an angle parameter, as opposed to a traditional axis aligned bounding box, this additional parameter reduces background noise and improves detection accuracy.
Regarding Claims 5 and 14, the combination of Muthler and Kim disclose the method and system of Claims 1 and 10 respectively. The combination of Muthler and Kim further disclose wherein
the collision detection operations include determining whether bounding volumes of the bounding volume hierarchy overlap (Kim, [0067], teaches collision detection between OBBs calculated by separating axis theorem; Fig. 6b illustrates overlapping collision status between OBBs).
It would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method and system disclosed by the combination of Muthler and Kim by further including determining whether bounding volumes of the BVH overlap as further taught by Kim. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification because checking for overlapping OBBs is a computationally inexpensive way to find pairs of objects that could be colliding.
Regarding Claims 8 and 17, the combination of Muthler and Kim disclose the method and system of Claims 1 and 10 respectively. The combination of Muthler and Kim further disclose an instance node represents an instance of an object (Muthler, see Fig. 3) and further disclose wherein the collision detection operations comprise
determining whether an instance node of the one or more instance nodes intersects with another node (Kim, [0022], teaches parallel collision detection <reads on determining intersection> between two objects, where nodes are traversed to identify collisions <an object is intersected with another object, both instances represented as nodes>; [Figs 11a-c], illustrate object intersection; [0022], further discloses determining two objects not colliding with each other).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method and system disclosed by the combination of Muthler and Kim by identifying colliding objects as further taught by Kim. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the claimed invention would have recognized this interpretation of object instances as nodes and would have been motivated to apply this method to instance nodes because this method traverses the BVH efficiently using parallel processing which reduces bottlenecks and latency by distributing computational tasks evenly across processors.
Regarding Claims 9 and 18, the combination of Muthler and Kim disclose the method and system of Claims 8 and 17 respectively. The combination of Muthler and Kim further disclose wherein
one or more instance nodes of the bounding volume hierarchy are marked as being allowed to collide (Muthler: [0105], discloses instance nodes of a BVH; [0079], discloses marking nodes with an FRA <force ray always> flag which determines whether ray operations <collisions> are performed <allowed to collide> or ignored, see Fig. 3 where instance node, at reference character 312, has FRA flag = 0, and ray tracing operations are performed <it is allowed to collide with a ray>).
Claims 3 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Muthler and Kim in view of Eberly (Eberly, David. (2001). “Dynamic Collision Detection using Oriented Bounding Boxes.”), hereinafter referenced as Eberly.
Regarding Claims 3 and 12, the combination of Muthler and Kim disclose the method and system of Claims 2 and 11 respectively. The combination of Muthler and Kim fail to disclose the limitations of Claims 3 and 12, however, Eberly discloses wherein the collision detection operations comprise
determining whether two or more oriented bounding boxes intersect (Eberly, [Section 2.1-2.2.1], describes testing for intersection between OBBs using a nonintersection test).
It would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method and system disclosed by the combination of Muthler and Kim by determining whether two or more oriented bounding boxes intersect as taught by Eberly. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to minimize the time spent determining if two objects intersect.
Claims 4 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Muthler and Kim in view of Ham et al. (“Collision detection and response of multibody systems using a position difference method and non-interpenetration constraint in shipbuilding simulation,” Ocean Engineering, Volume 195, 2020, 106673, ISSN 0029-8018), hereinafter referenced as Ham.
Regarding Claims 4 and 13, the combination of Muthler and Kim disclose the method and system of Claims 1 and 10 respectively. The combination of Muthler and Kim fail to disclose the limitations of Claims 4 and 13, however, Ham discloses wherein the collision detection operations comprise
a first phase of a two phase collision detection operation, wherein in the first phase, bounding boxes are tested for intersection and in a second phase of the two phase collision detection operation, meshes bounded by the bounding boxes are tested for intersection (Ham: [Section 2], describes collision detection composed of two stages where one is a broad phase checking collisions between two bounding boxes, and the other is a narrow phase which checks collisions between the meshes; see Fig. 2 showing collision detection between two object meshes; these meshes had been bounded by bounding boxes in the broad phase).
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It would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method and system disclosed by the combination of Muthler and Kim by a two-phase collision operation as taught by Ham. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification because the well-known technique of broad to narrow two stage collision detection yields high efficiency, precision, and performs better with complex scenes, by starting with a broad phase, it reduces the amount complex calculations computed by the narrow phase by filtering out object pairs that are obviously not colliding.
Claims 7 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Muthler and Kim in view of Laine et al. (US 2021/0012552 A1), hereinafter referenced as Laine.
Regarding Claims 7 and 16, the combination of Muthler and Kim disclose the method and system of Claims 1 and 10 respectively. The combination of Muthler and Kim fail to disclose the limitations of Claims 7 and 16, however, Laine discloses wherein the bounding volume hierarchy includes
one or more instance nodes (Laine, [0132], teaches an instance node in a BVH; Fig. 8B, reference character N7’).
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It would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method and system disclosed by the combination of Muthler and Kim by including one or more instance nodes in a BVH as taught by Laine. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification because instance nodes represent an occurrence of an object, this would simplify the traversal of a BVH if the object is found within different bounding volumes.
Claims 6 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Muthler and Kim in view of Fenney (US 2022/0020201 A1), hereinafter referenced as Fenney.
Regarding Claims 6 and 15, the combination of Muthler and Kim discloses the method and system of Claims 1 and 10 respectively. The combination of Muthler and Kim fail to disclose the limitations of Claims 6 and 15, however, Fenney discloses wherein the ray tracing operations comprise
testing one or more rays for intersection against geometry represented in the bounding volume hierarchy (Fenney, [0023], describes evaluating if a ray intersects a node <reads on bounding volume> of a bounding volume hierarchy).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method or system disclosed by the combination of Muthler and Kim by testing rays for intersections with geometries as taught by Fenney. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to identify where ray hit in an acceleration structure, optimizing computational costs.
Claims 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Muthler in view of Kim, and in further view of Fenney.
Regarding Claim 19, it recites similar limitations to Claims 1 and 10 but as a non-transitory computer-readable medium. As shown in the rejection the combination of Muthler and Kim disclose the method and system of Claims 1 and 10 respectively. The combination of Muthler and Kim fail to disclose the limitations of Claim 19, however, Fenney discloses
A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations (Fenney: [0035], describes a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer readable instructions, that when executed by a computer system cause the computer to perform methods) comprising: …
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method or system disclosed by the combination of Muthler and Kim by implementing it on a non-transitory computer-readable medium as taught by Fenney. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification for improved reliability and scalability.
Regarding Claim 20, the combination of Muthler, Kim, and Fenney disclose non-transitory computer-readable medium of Claim 19. The combination of Muthler, Kim, and Fenney further disclose wherein the bounding volume hierarchy includes
one or more oriented bounding boxes (Kim, [0064], describes that a BVH is a tree structure that includes a bounding volume as a node; Kim, [0067], teaches that an oriented bounding box (OBB) is a bounding volume and describes two OBBs; Figs. 6A-C show collision types between OBBs, illustrating one or more OBBs).
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It would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method and system disclosed by Muthler, Kim, and Fenney by further including one or more OBBs in the BVH as further taught by Kim. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification because an OBB introduces an angle parameter, as opposed to a traditional axis aligned bounding box, this additional parameter reduces background noise and improves detection accuracy.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Pankratz et al. (US 2024/0203033 A1) discloses ray tracing operations and instance nodes.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ISABELLA OCHSNER whose telephone number is (571)272-9322. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30 - 6:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Devona Faulk can be reached at (571) 272-7515. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/I.O./Examiner, Art Unit 2618
/DEVONA E FAULK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2618
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