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 .
Application Status
This office action is responsive to the amendments filed on 03/27/2026.
The examiner withdraws the claim objections in view of the applicant’s amendments.
This action has been made FINAL.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 03/27/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The Applicant alleges the following: “According to the Office Action, it would have been obvious for the skilled person to modify Ghosh by the teaching of Huang "to enable improved conversion to colored point cloud data, more effectively". Applicant disagrees. There is no teaching or suggestion to combine these references. The Office Action points to the abstract and paragraph [0055] of Huang. Applicant notes that, as the rest of the document, the abstract of Huang remains completely silent about improved conversion of a polygonal mesh to colored point cloud data as indicated by the Office Action. Instead, the abstract discloses generating a point cloud based on depth-perception information. In addition, paragraph [0055] of Huang only relates to a process to obtain depth information from images captured by stereo cameras. Thus, the skilled person would not have been motivated to modify Ghosh by the teaching of Huang.” The examiner is not persuaded. In this case, we find such a modification of an old process using a new source of data to be obvious. In KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007), the Supreme Court held that “if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill.” Id. at 417. “The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” Id. at 416; see also id. at 417 (“If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, § 103 likely bars its patentability.”); In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473, 1477 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (“It is well settled that the recitation of a new intended use for an old product does not make a claim to that old product patentable.” (citations omitted)). We do not find that the evidence shows having conversion of a polygonal mesh to colored point cloud data “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art.” Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418). Accordingly, we do not consider Applicant’s argument to sufficiently demonstrate the Examiner’s rejection is in error.
The Applicant alleges the following: “Even if the combination of Ghosh and Huang were proper, which it is not, the claimed invention still does not result. Paragraph [0055] of Huang, to which the Office Action refers, mentions that the "point cloud conversion and color texture association are carried out to arrive at a colored point cloud". However, this is not what is claimed in claim 1. This subject matter does not teach or suggest the claimed conversion of a textured polygonal mesh to a colored point cloud. Applicant notes that Huang remains completely silent about any kind of meshes. Thus, Huang at least fails to disclose that a textured polygonal mesh is converted to a colored point cloud as claimed. Since none of the other references teaches this feature, the claim 1 is not obvious to the skilled person.” The examiner is not persuaded. The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses the Applicant’s claim language. More specifically, GHOSH paragraph 0021 recites “The initial mesh 110 includes a hand 114 of the subject 112. As introduced above, the initial mesh 110 comprises a plurality of vertices, edges and faces. In the present example, the initial mesh 110 comprises a triangular mesh. In other examples, any other suitable shapes may be used. Other examples of suitable shapes include, but are not limited to, rectangles, pentagons, and other polygons. These faces, as well as their edges and vertices, are assembled to form the 3D structural representation of the subject.” GHOSH teachings in paragraph 0021 discloses the Applicant’s claim language. Accordingly, the examiner maintains the rejection.
The Applicant alleges the following: “The same applies to new claim 18, which comprises the feature "for each texel of the texture data that corresponds to a surface point on a surface of the first textured polygonal mesh, calculating world coordinates of the surface point, and adding, in a memory, a point-color pair to an array, thereby generating a colored point cloud, wherein each point of the colored point cloud corresponds to one texel of the texture data". Neither Huang, nor any of the other cited references (alone or in combination) teaches this feature.” The examiner is not persuaded. The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses the following:
-- for each texel of the texture data (See Barenbrug Paragraphs 0035-0038) that corresponds to a surface point on a surface of the first textured polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Abstract; Paragraphs 0040-0041),
--calculating world coordinates of the surface point, and adding, in a memory, a point-color pair to an array, (See HUANG Paragraphs 0014; 0045; 0105),
--thereby generating a colored point cloud, wherein each point of the colored point cloud (See HUANG Paragraphs 0014; 0045; 0105), corresponds to one texel of the texture data (See Barenbrug Paragraphs 0035-0038).
MPEP § 2106 states Office personnel are to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure. In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027-28 (Fed Cir. 1997). Accordingly, the examiner maintains the 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.
Claim(s) 1-14, 16 and 18-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GHOSH, US20230316652 in view of HUANG, US 20230206647 in view of Keitt -- Titled: "Compact multidimensional sorting and searching with kdtools" (2022) and in further view of Barenbrug, US 20070097141.
Claim 1:
GHOSH discloses a computer-implemented method for simplifying a textured polygonal mesh of a three-dimensional model (See GHOSH Abstract; Paragraphs 0040-0041). However, GHOSH failed to explicitly disclose “converting the first textured polygonal mesh to a colored point cloud”, “spatially sorting the points of the point cloud” and “a resampling filter”.
HUANG discloses “converting the first textured polygonal mesh to a colored point cloud” in Paragraph 0055. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified GHOSH by the teachings of HUANG to enable improved conversion to colored point cloud data, more effectively (See HUANG Abstract; Paragraph 0055).
Keitt discloses “spatially sorting the points of the point cloud” in the “Introduction” section and “Sorting” section on pages 1-4 of Keitt. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified GHOSH and HUANG by the teachings of Keitt to enable improved sorting point cloud data, thereby more effectively allowing for efficient searches once the data are sorted (See Keitt “Introduction” section and “Sorting” section on pages 1-4).
Barenbrug discloses “a resampling filter” in Paragraphs 0047-0049. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified GHOSH, HUANG and Keitt by the teachings of Barenbrug to enable improved resampling filtering, thereby more effectively allowing for efficient computer graphics processing (See Barenbrug Paragraphs 0001-0004).
AS MODIFIED:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses the following: obtaining 3D mesh data (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) and texture data related to a first textured polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041), the first textured polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) having a first level of detail (See GHOSH Paragraph 0058), the texture data comprising a plurality of texels (See Barenbrug Paragraph 0035-0038);
generating, based on the 3D mesh data (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041), a simplified polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) for a second level of detail (See GHOSH Paragraph 0058), the second level of detail being lower than the first level of detail (See GHOSH Paragraph 0058);
generating, based on the texture data (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041), a simplified texture for the simplified polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041); and
providing a simplified textured polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) based on the generated simplified polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) and the generated simplified texture (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041),
wherein generating the simplified texture (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) comprises:
converting the first textured polygonal mesh to a colored point cloud (See HUANG Paragraph 00551), wherein each point of the colored point cloud (See HUANG Paragraphs 0044; 0055; 0066; 0069; 0070) corresponds to one texel of the texture data (See Barenbrug Paragraph 0035-0038);
spatially sorting (See Keitt “Introduction” section and “Sorting” section on pages 1-4) the points of the point cloud colored point cloud (See HUANG Paragraphs 0044; 0055; 0066; 0069; 0070);
projecting the spatially sorted points (See Keitt “Introduction” section and “Sorting” section on pages 1-4) of the colored point cloud (See HUANG Paragraphs 0044; 0055; 0066; 0069; 0070) to a surface of the simplified polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041);
and filtering the projected points using a resampling filter (See Barenbrug Paragraphs 0047-0049).
Claim 2:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein converting the first textured polygonal mesh to a colored point cloud (See HUANG Paragraph 0055) comprises, for each texel (See Barenbrug Paragraph 0035-0038) that corresponds to a surface point on a surface of the first textured polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041), calculating world coordinates of the surface point (See HUANG Paragraphs 0014; 0045; 0105), and adding a point-color pair to an array (See GHOSH 0001).
Claim 3:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein spatially sorting the points comprises using a kd-sort algorithm to achieve an ordering over the point set as implied by a k-dimensional tree (See Keitt “Introduction” section and “Sorting” section on pages 1-4); and reordering the points in-place (See Keitt “Introduction” section and “Sorting” section on pages 1-4).
Claim 4:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein a QuickSelect partial sort algorithm is used to find the median at each level of the k-dimensional tree (See Keitt “Introduction” section and “Sorting” section on pages 1-4).
Claim 5:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses the following:
wherein projecting the points (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) comprises, for each texel (See Barenbrug Paragraphs 0035-0038) of the simplified mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) and the corresponding world position (See HUANG Paragraphs 0014; 0045; 0105),
finding all nearby points of the colored point cloud (See HUANG Paragraph 0055) that are within a given radius around the respective world position (See HUANG Paragraphs 0014; 0045; 0105),
and projecting the found points to a plane of the surface of the simplified mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) that contains the texel (See Barenbrug Paragraphs 0035-0038) of the simplified mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041), along a normal vector of the plane (See GHOSH Paragraph 0027).
Claim 6:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein the resampling filter is a cubic filter (See Barenbrug Paragraphs 0047-0049).
Claim 7:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein the texture information comprises color information and the texture comprises colors (See Barenbrug Paragraph 0038).
Claim 8:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein the color information is at least 8-bit RGBA color information (See Barenbrug Paragraph 0038).
Claim 9:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses comprising receiving a user input defining the lower level of detail (See GHOSH Paragraph 0058).
Claim 10:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein at least the steps of generating the simplified polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041), generating the simplified texture (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) and providing the simplified textured polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) are performed iteratively for a plurality of different levels of detail (See GHOSH Paragraph 0058).
Claim 11:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein the simplified texture (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) comprises fewer texels than the texture data (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0024; 0042; 0044; 0046) related to the first textured polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041).
Claim 12:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein generating the simplified polygonal mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0040-0041) comprises using mesh decimation or mesh simplification, particularly Quadric Error edge-collapse simplification or a volume-preserving method (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0035-0036).
Claim 13:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein the first textured polygonal mesh is a first textured triangular mesh, and the simplified polygonal mesh is a simplified triangular mesh (See GHOSH Paragraphs 0021; 0044-0046).
Claims 14 and 16:
Claims 14 and 16 are similarly rejected on the same basis as claim 1.
Claim 18:
Claim 18 is rejected on the same basis as claim 1.
Claim 19:
Claim 19 is rejected on the same basis as claim 8.
Claim 20:
The combination of GHOSH, HUANG, Keitt and Barenbrug discloses wherein calculating world coordinates comprises calculating single-precision floating point (See HUANG Paragraphs 0057) numbers that represent normalized world coordinates (See HUANG Paragraphs 0045; 0075; 0105).
Claims 21 and 22:
Claims 21 and 22 are rejected on the same basis as claim 1.
Pertinent Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Graziosi, US-20230306643 discloses high-resolution geometry image can be used to reverse the simplification and improve the connectivity at the decoder side. Three embodiments of patch mesh simplification are described: quadric error edge collapse, border distance edge collapse, and border triangles only. The first two methods perform edge collapse but follow different criteria. The quadric error metric uses a 3D metric to check the possible distortion when moving the vertices and enforce triangle normal consistency and border preservation in the 2D projected space.
Conclusion
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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHEREE N BROWN whose telephone number is (571)272-4229. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 5:30-2:00 PM EST.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, SAID BROOME can be reached at (571) 272-2931. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHEREE N BROWN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2612 April 13, 2026
1 Paragraph 0055 of HUANG recites “point cloud conversion and color texture association are carried out to arrive at a colored point cloud.”
Prosecution Insights