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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 7/5/2024 was filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 1, 9, 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. The listing structure of the claims make it unclear what is required and what is optional with the multiple “and”s used in the claim construction. Examiner recommends using “at least one of” language or making the language less optional and the “and”s clear on the beginning and ending of the required limitations.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
As to claim 1-20 the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
101 Analysis – Step 1
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are directed to a mental process of determining a motion trajectory (Process claims 8-14 and apparatus for claim 1-7 and 15-20).
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong 1
Regarding Prong I of the Step 2A analysis in the 2019 PEG, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether they recite subject matter that falls within one of the follow groups of abstract ideas: a) mathematical concepts, b) certain methods of organizing human activity, and/or c) mental processes.
Independent claim 15 includes limitations that recite an abstract idea – mental process (emphasized below) and will be used as a representative claim for the remainder of the 101 rejection. Claim 15 recites:
An apparatus to determine a boundary for vehicle operation in a queried plot of land, comprising:
interface circuitry;
memory; and
at least one processor circuit to be programmed by machine-readable instructions to:
generate a first boundary based on a query for a boundary of a plot of land;
compute a first probabilistic boundary for the first boundary based on an error of generation of the first boundary;
compute a second probabilistic boundary for a second boundary based on an error of generation of the second boundary; and
combine the first probabilistic boundary and the second probabilistic boundary to generate a soft boundary, the combination based on a first confidence score and a second confidence score. (where the underlined portions are the “additional limitations” while the bolded portions continue to represent the “abstract idea”)
The examiner submits that the foregoing bolded limitation(s) constitute a “mental process” because under its broadest reasonable interpretation, the claim covers performance of the limitation in the human mind. For example, “compute…” in the context of this claim encompasses a person looking at data collected and forming a simple judgement. Accordingly, the claim recites at least one abstract idea – mental process.
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong 2
Regarding Prong II of the Step 2A analysis in the 2019 PEG, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether the claim, as a whole, integrates the abstract into a practical application. As noted in the 2019 PEG, it must be determined whether any additional elements in the claim beyond the abstract idea integrate the exception into a practical application in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception. The courts have indicated that additional elements merely using a computer to implement an abstract idea, adding insignificant extra solution activity, or generally linking use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use do not integrate a judicial exception into a “practical application.”
In the present case, the additional limitations beyond the above-noted abstract idea are as follows (where the underlined portions are the “additional limitations” while the bolded portions continue to represent the “abstract idea”) See above.
For the following reason(s), the examiner submits that the above identified additional limitations do not integrate the above-noted abstract idea into a practical application. Claim 15 includes a processing apparatus. Regarding the additional limitations of “processor” and other generic computer hardware that merely describes how to generally “apply” the otherwise mental judgements in a generic or general-purpose processing environment. The processing is recited at a high level of generality and merely automates the determining process steps.
101 Analysis – Step 2B
Regarding Step 2B of the 2019 PEG, representative independent claim 1 does not include additional elements (considered both individually and as an ordered combination) that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons to those discussed above with respect to determining that the claim does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. As discussed above with respect to integration of the mental process into a practical application, the additional element of using a processor and other generic computer hardware to perform the determining amounts to nothing more than applying the exception using a generic computer component. Generally applying an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept.
Further, a conclusion that an additional element is insignificant extra-solution activity in Step 2A should be re-evaluated in Step 2B to determine if they are more than what is well understood, routine, conventional activity in the field. The additional limitations of processing with a processing apparatus are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities because the specification does not provide any indication that the processing apparatus is anything other than a conventional computer. MPEP 2106.05(d)(II), and the cases cited therein, including Intellectual Ventures I, LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2016), TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto. LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 610 (Fed. Cir. 2016), and OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015), indicate that mere collection or receipt of data over a network is a well‐understood, routine, and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner.
Dependent claim(s) 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 do not recite any further limitations that cause the claim(s) to be patent eligible. Rather, the limitations of dependent claims are directed toward additional aspects of the judicial exception and/or well-understood, routine and conventional additional elements that do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application because they merely add to the mental processing. Therefore, dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 are not patent eligible under the same rationale as provided for in the rejection of independent claims 1, 8, and 15.
Therefore, claim(s) 1-20 is/are ineligible under 35 USC §101. Examiner recommends a controlling step.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 are pending and are indicated as having allowable subject matter. If applicable, any remaining non-art rejections or formalities must be overcome prior to a notice of allowance.
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
The following is an examiner’s statement of indicating allowable subject matter:
Regarding claims 1, 8, 15 all of the prior art of record fails to teach or suggest the limitation of claim 1, a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed, cause processor circuitry to: generate a first boundary based on a query for a boundary of a plot of land; compute a first probabilistic boundary for the first boundary based on an error of generation of the first boundary; compute a second probabilistic boundary for a second boundary based on an error of generation of the second boundary; and combine the first probabilistic boundary and the second probabilistic boundary to generate a soft boundary, the combination based on a first confidence score and a second confidence score. The combination taken with the claims not listed limitations may be patentable emphasizing the underlined limitation.
The closest prior art US 20220301177 A1 is in image segmentation but lacks the combining step and being used in land. It discloses a computer-implemented method for updating a boundary segmentation, the method including receiving image data and an original boundary segmentation including a plurality of boundary points. A plurality of edges in the image data is detected and used to generate an edge map. A confidence for a boundary point in the original boundary segmentation is computed where the confidence is based on a distance between the boundary point and an edge point associated with at least one of the plurality of edges of the edge map, and based on the confidence a classification of the boundary point is determined. An updated boundary segmentation based on the classification of the boundary point is generated and then output.
The closest prior art US 20230315120 A1 that is implementation in a vehicle is used in calibration, but is not applied to boundaries or combining the boundaries. It discloses A method for calibrating a map of an autonomous robot, a trajectory of the autonomous robot, or a combination thereof includes obtaining localization data from a localization sensor of the autonomous robot and determining whether a calibration condition of the autonomous robot is satisfied based on the localization data. The method includes, in response to the calibration condition being satisfied: determining a master position coordinate of the autonomous robot based on a plurality of radio frequency (RF) signals broadcasted by a plurality of RF tags, converting the master position coordinate to a local position coordinate of the autonomous robot, and selectively updating the map, the trajectory, or a combination thereof based on the local position coordinate of the autonomous robot.
Lastly the closest prior art that forms boundaries in mapping using data segmentation but does not operate with the combining step of the application is US 20230062313 A1. It discloses a method involves transmitting scanning data in a file format to a building semantic segmentation component by processors. Semantic segmentation data corresponding to building structures defined by point clusters is generated by the processors. Instance segmentation is generated corresponding to the top surfaces of the building structures. Building boundary data for each point cluster is generated based on the semantic segmentation data and the instance segmentation. The building boundary data is processed to generate a two-dimensional building mapping comprising refined boundary lines for each of the point clusters. The scanning data is received corresponding to three-dimensional aerial light detection and ranging (LiDaR) images.
All dependent claims are allowable for at least the reasons of claim 1, 8, and/or 15.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 10937214 B2 an electronic device merges a plurality of maps, or area description files (ADFs), by representing relationships among ADFs in an undirected graph, with vertices representing maps and edges representing transformations between maps. As the electronic device generates new ADFs, the electronic device merges each new ADF to a stored collection of ADFs by adding each new ADF as a vertex and transformations between the new ADF and the collection of ADFs as edges in the undirected graph. In this way, the map merger can use the undirected graph to more accurately represent the relations between any two maps, allowing more efficient merger of new maps to a previously stored collection of maps, and allowing for the development of more flexible and efficient algorithms for manipulating the merged maps.
The examiner has pointed out particular references contained in the prior art of record in the body of this action for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. Applicant should consider the entire prior art as applicable as to the limitations of the claims. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the response, to consider fully the entire references as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Inquiry
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FREDERICK M BRUSHABER whose telephone number is (313)446-4839. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-5pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hunter Lonsberry can be reached at (571) 272-7298. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/FREDERICK M BRUSHABER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3665