DETAILED ACTION
Case Status
This office action is in response to remarks and amendments of 24 June 2026. Claims 1-20 have been examined and are pending.
Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 20230418293
Pars. 28-33
Autonomous vehicle navigation by generating field boundaries using spectral image data, geolocation data, machine learning and computer vision.
US 20140002489
Pars. 3-6, 28, 31, 52-54
Creating soil map boundary files for yield optimization, different soil types
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over G. Georgiou, Pub. No.: US 20200402303 A1, hereinafter Georgiou in view of Petousis et al., Pub. No.: US 20180261020 A1, hereinafter Petousis, and further in view of M. Young, Pub. No.: US 20210103728 A1, hereinafter Young.
As per claim 1, Georgiou discloses a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed, cause processor circuitry to:
[…]
cause compression of the first data and the second data responsive to a query to compress data for a plot of land using a compression technique, the compression of the first data and the second data to generate a first compressed data set and a second compressed data set, (par. 31 discloses multiple point cloud data records are representative of a particular region; pars. 33-35, 39-41 disclose offset, vector and tile-based compression of data in subsets of point cloud data - all of this being done in response to the need to facilitate effectuating appropriate motion of an autonomous vehicle by performing mathematical operations on compressed versions of sensor-obtained point cloud data records as described in at least pars. 20, 25, 31, 46-47 (i.e. cause compression of first data and second data responsive to a query to compress data for a plot of land)) […]
Georgiou does not expressly disclose, however Petousis discloses assign a first weight to first data and a second weight to second data, the first weight and the second weight determined based on a process by which the first data and the second data were, respectively, collected from a first data source and a second data source and wherein the compression of the first data and the second data is based on the first weight and the second weight (Petousis pars. 27-28 disclose receiving vehicle data from different sensor sources and prioritizing signal streams or sources including signals from specific sensors; pars. 30-33, 37 disclose determining an importance or priority value for respective vehicle sensor data including ranking data based on characteristics such as the originating sensor type and a prioritization scheme that uses a weight function; pars. 54, 62, 70-72 disclose assigning importance to specific sensor data before the data is compressed).
Thus, 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 teachings of the cited references because Petousis would have allowed Georgiou to assign respective weights to its first and second data based on the source from which the data was collected and use the assigned weights for compression purposes. This would help to prioritize and efficiently compress differently sourced sensor data according to an importance or priority value.
extract features from the first compressed data set and the second compressed data set; combine the features from the first compressed data set and the second compressed data set to generate a set of geospatial features, the set of geospatial features to correspond to the plot of land (Georgiou , see pars cited above including at least pars. 33-35 disclose generating multiple cubic lattice 3D tiles as well as coordinate system-based point cloud data corresponding to respective 3D tiles in the lattice representation; additionally, and/or alternatively, pars. 48, 58 disclose scene registration, alignment between the data/features of two or more compressed point cloud records, PCA, SVD, ICP all of which are examples of geospatial features generated by combining extracted features of multiple compressed datasets, the compressed point cloud data records being used without decompression thereof);
cause performance of an […] operation by an […] vehicle within a boundary of the plot of land, wherein the performance of the […] operation within the boundary is based on the set of geospatial features (Georgiou fig. 1, pars. 20, 24, 26, 28, 30, 33, 46, 47, 55, 58).
Georgiou as modified does not explicitly disclose that the operation and vehicle are agricultural which is a mere field of use. However, Young in the related field of endeavor of autonomous vehicles discloses this in pars. 37-38 and 44.
Thus, 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 teachings of the cited references because Young would have allowed Georgiou as modified to be used for agricultural purposes. Georgiou, par. 28 suggests that the invention can be used in any application: “The structures can include inanimate objects and other types of objects that can move relative to the autonomous vehicle 100, within or across the region. Inanimate objects can include, for example, buildings, signage, utility equipment (such as telephone poles, electric grid poles, base station towers, or the like), and so forth. Objects that can move relative to the autonomous vehicle 100 can include, for example, pedestrians, animals (wildlife and domesticated), bikes, cars (autonomous or otherwise), trucks, buses, and the like.” Young par. 33 discloses “autonomous vehicles with global positioning systems (GPS) are used for field inspection to reduce fuel and labor costs and improve reliability with increased consistency in field crop inspection.”
As per claim 2, Georgiou as modified discloses the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the compression technique for the first data and the second data is based on a type of the data responsive to the query (Georgiou pars. 33-35, 39-41, 48, 58 disclose compressing multiple (i.e. first data and second data) records, the compression specifically programmed to compress data of a specific type).
As per claim 3, Georgiou as modified discloses The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the extraction of the features from the first compressed data set and the second compressed data set is performed by at least one of 2D convolution, max-min pooling, function parameters, extreme values, and graph embeddings (at least Georgiou pars. 33-35, 39-41, 48, 58 disclose compressing multiple (i.e. first data and second data) records, the compression implemented as a compression process (i.e. function with parameters), embodiments further disclose parameters as data for compression/ PCA, SVD, ICP functions).
As per claim 4, Georgiou as modified discloses the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of geospatial features is a combined feature vector representative of the first compressed data set and the second compressed data set (see Georgiou at least pars. 33-42, 45-50 which disclose multiple types of combined vectors that represent geospatial features).
As per claim 5, Georgiou as modified discloses The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions cause the processor circuitry to analyze the set of geospatial features through machine learning (see rejection of claim 1 including at least Georgiou par. 58).
As per claim 6, Georgiou as modified discloses The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions cause the processor circuitry to identify the first data and the second data responsive to the query, the first data and the second data corresponding to tabular geospatial data including georeferenced coordinates (Georgiou pars. 31, 33-35, 39-41, 56-58 disclose identifying subsets or records of point cloud data corresponding to a region, the data includes point vectors expressed in a coordinate system. Also, Young as cited in the rejection of claim 1 discloses geographic identifiers, coordinates, boundaries, etc.); and to cause the compression of the first data and the second data further includes the instructions to cause the processor circuitry to generate a first data representation corresponding to the first compressed data set and a second data representation corresponding to the second compressed data set, at least one of the first data representation or the second data representation corresponds to a desired data representation of the query (see rejection above and rejection of claim 1- note that Georgiou pars. 33-35, 39-41 disclose offset, vector and tile-based compression of data in subsets of point cloud data - all of this being done in response to the need (query) to facilitate effectuating appropriate motion of an autonomous vehicle by performing mathematical operations on compressed versions of sensor-obtained point cloud data records as described in at least pars. 20, 25, 31, 46-47. Also, Young pars. 53-55 discloses queries and result sets).
As per claim 7, Georgiou as modified discloses The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the agricultural operation is a first agricultural operation, and wherein the boundary includes an exclusion zone where the agricultural vehicle performs the first agricultural operation and does not perform a second agricultural operation (Young pars. 6, 37-38, 44, 56-59 disclose multiple agricultural functions that are, or are not performed based on multiple factors in an area).
As per claim 14, Georgiou as modified discloses The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the first data and the second data include georeferenced coordinates and agronomic conditions of the plot of land based on at least one of yield, soil moisture, soil type, elevation, pounds of nitrogen, forestry conditions, and construction conditions (see Georgiou as cited in the rejection of claim 1 and Young, pars. 44, 45, 56-59, 73-75, 79, 82, 146).
As per claims 8-13, 15-20, they are analogous to claims above and therefore likewise rejected.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 24 June 2026 have been fully considered.
The 35 USC 101 rejection is withdrawn in view of the argument that the claimed invention integrates the abstract idea into a practical application that provides an improvement to a technical field. It is noted that the claims themselves reflect the disclosed improvement. That is, the claims include the components or steps of the invention that provide the improvement described in the specification. MPEP § 2106.04(d)(1).
With respect to the prior art rejection, Petousis et al., Pub. No.: US 20180261020 A1, has been applied in response to claim amendments.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SYED HASAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5008. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am - 5 pm.
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/SYED H HASAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2154
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