DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-19 are currently pending.
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 09/24/2024 has been considered by the Examiner.
Response to Arguments
I. Claim Interpretation
Examiner agrees to remove the 112(f) interpretations in light of the Remarks filed 08/05/2026.
II. Claim Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 102
a. Independent claim 1
Examiner agrees the current amendment overcomes the previous prior art of record and incorporates previously indicated allowable subject matter. The rejections are withdrawn and claim allowed.
b. Independent claim 8
Applicant argues that Beaver does not disclose or teach identifying coordinates of a bounding box for feature as the coordinates specific to the feature. Examiner disagrees. At [0055] Beaver teaches the system may compare one or more spatial aspect of a first visual annotation of a first candidate plant trait instance depicted in a first stereo image to one or more spatial aspect of a second visual annotation of a second candidate plant trait instance depicted in a second stereo image. Beaver further teaches comparing the location of a bounding box in the first stereo image to a location of a second bounding box in a second image. Therefore, Beaver teaches that the location (coordinates) of a bounding box of a candidate plant trait (feature) are compared. Claim 8 remains rejected.
Examiner notes Applicant states that claim 8 incorporates subject matter from claim 3, however, with “reference to the first and the second bounding boxes removed, and reference to the coordinates being specifically for a center of the second bounding box removed.” Therefore, the claim does not incorporate the allowable subject matter of claim 3 as discussed in the Non-Final Rejection mailed 05/05/2026.
c. Independent claim 9
Examiner agrees the current amendment overcomes the previous prior art of record and incorporates previously indicated allowable subject matter. The rejections are withdrawn and claim allowed.
III. New Claim 19
Examiner agrees claim 19 incorporates previously indicated allowable subject matter and is allowed herein.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Beaver (US 2023/0136563, effectively filed 10/28/2021).
Regarding claim 8, Beaver teaches:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including executable instructions for processing image data, which when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to: (Beaver [0073-75] computing device and memory)
access image data specific to a plant, the image data including an image of the plant and depth data indicative of a range between the plant and a camera, which captured said image; (Beaver [0044] Starting at top, a left stereo image and a right stereo image may be captured using a stereoscopic vision sensor….See also [0049] Fig 3 depicts an example of how annotations of stereo images may be used to perform sparse depth estimation. In this example, the crops at issue are wheat plants but this is not meant to be limiting. Similar techniques may be applied to other type of crops, such as corn)
identify, using a trained model, a bounding box for a feature of the plant, the trained model including convolutional neural network (CNN) model; (Beaver [0066] Accordingly, imagery captured by stereoscopic camera is processing using a machine learning model such as a CNN to detected and annotate the bottoms of wheat heads with key points. See also [0055] At block 402, the system, e.g., by way of matching module 118, may compare one or more spatial aspects of a first visual annotation of a first candidate plant trait instance depicted in a first stereo image (e.g., 226) to one or more spatial aspects of a second visual annotation of a second candidate plant trait instance depicted in a second stereo image (e.g., 228). For example, matching module 118 may compare a width, height, area, and/or location of a bounding box in the first stereo image to corresponding spatial aspects of one or more candidate bounding boxes in the second stereo image.)
identify coordinates of the bounding box for the feature as coordinate specific to the feature; (Beaver[0055] At block 402, the system, e.g., by way of matching module 118, may compare one or more spatial aspects of a first visual annotation of a first candidate plant trait instance depicted in a first stereo image (e.g., 226) to one or more spatial aspects of a second visual annotation of a second candidate plant trait instance depicted in a second stereo image (e.g., 228). For example, matching module 118 may compare a width, height, area, and/or location of a bounding box in the first stereo image to corresponding spatial aspects of one or more candidate bounding boxes in the second stereo image)
transform the coordinates specific to the feature into a height dimension of the feature of the plant; (Beaver [0066] Accordingly, imagery captured by stereoscopic camera is processing using a machine learning model such as a CNN to detected and annotate the bottoms of wheat heads with key points ([0049]Similar techniques may be applied to other type of crops, such as corn). ..[0067] the height of the second plant can be determined based on y-coordinate and a known height H of the stereoscopic camera) and
store the dimension of the feature of the plant in a memory. (Beaver [0064] the system may cause the output to be provided..[0069] storage subsystem including memory subsystem)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-7 and 9-19 are allowed.
Regarding claim 1, neither the closest known prior art, nor any reasonable combination thereof, teaches:
identifying coordinates of the second bounding box for the node as said coordinates specific to the feature.
Beaver teaches the use of bounding boxes and disparity between bounding boxes to determine matching pairs of plants. See [0019]. However Beaver fails to teach identifying the center coordinates of a bounding box as claimed.
Claims 2-7 depend from claim 1 and are therefore also allowed.
Regarding claim 9, neither the closest known prior art, nor any reasonable combination thereof, teaches:
identify coordinates of the second bounding box for the node as said coordinates specific to the feature.
Beaver teaches the use of bounding boxes and disparity between bounding boxes to determine matching pairs of plants. See [0019]. However Beaver fails to teach identifying the center coordinates of a bounding box as claimed.
Claims 10-18 depend from claim 9 and are therefore also allowed.
Regarding claim 19, neither the closest known prior art, nor any reasonable combination thereof, teaches:
identify, using a trained model, a feature of the corn plant, the feature including an ear of the corn plant and/or a node from which the ear emerges, and the trained model including a YOLOv5 (You Only Look Once Version 5) model.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 Molly K Wilburn whose telephone number is (571)272-3589. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-4pm.
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/Molly Wilburn/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2666
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