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 .
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it does not “enable the Office and the public generally to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and gist of the technical disclosure.” 37 CFR 1.72(b). The issue is that abstract is not specific enough, rather, there are many, many applications relating to creating point clouds around a vehicle.
A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
Claim Objections
Claims 12-15 reference claim 1 (including indirectly), but do not properly depend from claim 1 because the instructions or components can exist without performance of any of the method steps. Here, claim 1 is a method but claims 12-15 are for, variously, a computer, a vehicle, and a computer readable medium, (i.e., “apparatuses”), and these apparatuses can be met without necessarily practicing the method. MPEP 608.01(n)(III) addresses the “test for proper dependency.”
MPEP 607(III) states:
Any claim which is in dependent form but which is so worded that it, in fact, is not a proper dependent claim, as for example it does not include every limitation of the claim on which it depends, will be required to be canceled as not being a proper dependent claim; and cancellation of any further claim depending on such a dependent claim will be similarly required. The applicant may thereupon amend the claims to place them in proper dependent form, or may redraft them as independent claims, upon payment of any necessary additional fee.
Claims 12-15 are each such a claim because they are directed to apparatuses rather than a method as in referenced claim 1. MPEP 608.01(n)(III). While, in the interest of compact prosecution, claims 12-15 has been examined, claims 12-15 are required to be cancelled.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 1-15 (all claims) are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over the claims of U.S. Patent No. US 12118797 B2 in view of the prior art as applied below.
Both the pending claims and the conflicting patent are all directed to semantic segmentation of point clouds around vehicles. Therefore, all of the conflicting patents are directed to the same problem as the present application. Further, any differences between the present claims and the claims in the conflicting patent are obvious in view of the prior art as applied below. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the below prior art with the conflicting patent for implementation details (especially as the patent claims lack implementation details). Based on the findings herein, this is an example of “(A) Combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results.” MPEP 2143.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-15 (all claims) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 recites “determining respective features for each point of the point cloud,” but this is unlimited functional claiming. MPEP 2173.05(g). The issue is that because the claim does not specify what the features are, they could be an overly wide range of possible features. However, the specification does not provide support for determining literally any possible feature. This rejection can be overcome by limiting the claim to the features disclosed in the specification.
Claim 1 recites “using an artificial neural network,” but this is also unlimited functional claiming because of the wide variety of different neural networks. This rejection can be overcome by limiting the claim to the disclosed neural networks, such as those detailed in the figures. Note that US practice does not import limitations from the specification. MPEP 2111.01(II) “II. It Is Improper To Import Claim Limitations From The Specification.”
Dependent claims are likewise rejected.
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.
Claims 1-15 (all claims) 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites “determining a point cloud based on measurement data,” but it is unclear what this means because a point cloud is, itself, measurement data. Clarifying what the measurement data is expected to overcome this rejection. Claim 7 overcomes this rejection.
Claim 1 recites “a grid structure based on the point cloud,” but it is unclear how to determine whether or not a given grid structure is “based on” a point cloud. The same issue arises for the “processed grid structure” and the “final grid structure.”
Claim 1 recites “processed grid structure,” but this is new terminology. MPEP 2173.05(a). While US practice prohibits importing limitations from the specification (e.g., to define a claim), reciting a definition in the claim is expected to overcome this rejection.
Claim 1 recites “final grid structure,” but this is new terminology. MPEP 2173.05(a).
Claim 2 recites “the information related to the environment of the vehicle comprises a first kind of information and a second kind of information.” However, the preamble of claim 1 is not entitled to patentable weight because it is a mere statement of use. MPEP 2111.02(II). As such, it is improper to rely on it for antecedent basis. In other words, which information from claim 1 has the two kinds?
Claim 2 recites a first or second “kind of information is determined based on” a final grid structure, but it is unclear how to determine whether a kind of information was determined based on a grid structure or not.
Claim 11 recites “supplementing the respective features … with features,” but it is unclear what this means.
Dependent claims are likewise rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-7 and 11-15 (all claims except those rejected under 103, below) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Zhang Y, Chen M, Ao S, Zhang X, Guo Y. SurfaceNet: A Surface Focused Network for Pedestrian Detection and Segmentation in 3D Point Clouds. In2020 16th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (ICARCV) 2020 Dec 13 (pp. 874-879). IEEE. (“Zhang”). References are listed in the Notice of Cited References when they were first cited. If a reference is not identifiable (e.g., due to a typo), it can be identified by searching for the quoted text.
1. A computer implemented method for determining information related to an environment of a vehicle,
the method comprising the following steps carried out by computer hardware components: (Zhang, section V.A, “Implementation Details”)
determining a point cloud based on measurement data, the point cloud comprising a plurality of points; (Zhang, abstract, “In this paper, we propose a method named SurfaceNet to detect and segment pedestrians from point clouds.”)
determining respective features for each point of the point cloud; (Zhang, abstract, “1) a grid feature encoder that can processes arbitrary number of points within each grid;”)
determining a grid structure based on the point cloud; (Zhang, abstract, “1) a grid feature encoder that can processes arbitrary number of points within each grid;”)
determining a processed grid structure based on processing the grid structure using an artificial neural network; and (Zhang, abstract “2) a surface feature convolutional module that employs a set of 2D convolutional layers to extract high level features;”)
determining at least one final grid structure based on the point cloud, the respective features for each point of the point cloud, and the processed grid structure. (Zhang, abstract “3) a view transform module that transforms features from front view to bird's eye view;”)
Claims 2-5 are rejected as per claim 6 (below).
6. The computer implemented method of claim 2,
wherein the first kind of information comprises at least one of object detection information or semantic segmentation information; and (Zhang, Fig. 2, “Anchor-free 3d Detection Head (d)”)
wherein the second kind of information comprises at least one of object detection information or semantic segmentation information. (Zhang, Fig. 2, “Point Cloud Semantic Segmentation (f)”)
7. The computer implemented method of claim 1,
wherein the measurement data comprises at least one of lidar data or radar data. (Zhang, section II, “LIDAR”)
11. The computer implemented method of claim 1,
wherein determining the at least one final grid structure comprises supplementing the respective features for each point of the point cloud with features from the processed grid structure and determining the at least one final grid structure based on the respective supplemented features. (Zhang, Fig. 3)
Claim 12 is rejected as per claim 1.
13. A vehicle, comprising the computer system of claim 12. (Zhang, section I, “Pedestrian detection and segmentation is an essential part in autonomous driving [1], [2].”)
14. The vehicle of claim 13, further comprising at least one sensor configured to acquire the measurement data. (Zhang, section I, “Pedestrian detection and segmentation is an essential part in autonomous driving [1], [2]. Current autonomous vehicles are usually equiped with both cameras and LIDARs.”)
Claim 15 is rejected as per claim 1.
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.
Claims 8-10 (the claims not rejected under 102, above) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang Y, Chen M, Ao S, Zhang X, Guo Y. SurfaceNet: A Surface Focused Network for Pedestrian Detection and Segmentation in 3D Point Clouds. In2020 16th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (ICARCV) 2020 Dec 13 (pp. 874-879). IEEE. (“Zhang”) in view of Hu C, Zheng H, Li K, Xu J, Mao W, Luo M, Wang L, Chen M, Peng Q, Liu K, Zhao Y. FusionFormer: A multi-sensory fusion in bird's-eye-view and temporal consistent transformer for 3D object detection. arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.05257. 2023 Sep 11. (“Hu”). References are listed in the Notice of Cited References when they were first cited. If a reference is not identifiable (e.g., due to a typo), it can be identified by searching for the quoted text.
8. The computer implemented method of claim 1,
Zhang is not relied on for the below claim language.
However, Hu teaches:
wherein determining the respective features for each point of the point cloud comprises temporal fusion. (Hu, abstract “we propose a plug-and-play temporal fusion module based on transformers that can fuse historical frame BEV features for more stable and reliable detection results.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the teachings of Hu to the teachings of Zheng such that Hu’s FusionFormer is added to SurfaceNet for the purpose of more stable and reliable detection results (Hu, abstract).
Based on the above, this is an example of “combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results.” MPEP 2143.
9. The computer implemented method of claim 1,
Zhang is not relied on for the below claim language.
However, Hu teaches:
wherein determining the processed grid structure comprises temporal fusion. (Hu, abstract “we propose a plug-and-play temporal fusion module based on transformers that can fuse historical frame BEV features for more stable and reliable detection results.)
The references are combined as per claim 8.
10. The computer implemented method of claim 1,
Zhang is not relied on for the below claim language.
However, Hu teaches:
wherein determining the at least one final grid structure comprises using a deformable attention for point-to-grid conversion. (Hu, section I, “In addition, FusionFormer supports temporal fusion of historical BEV features with our proposed plug-and-play temporal fusion module based on deformable attention.”)
The references are combined as per claim 8.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 12118797 B2 – this is the reference from the double patenting rejection. The pregrant publication is available as prior art and titled “Method for Determining a Semantic Segmentation of an Environment of a Vehicle”
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/DAVID ORANGE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2663
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