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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 10/01/2024 and 05/16/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, these information disclosure statements have been 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.
Claims 5 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Specifically, both claim 5 and claim 9 set forth a “specified period of time” while independent claim 1 sets forth in lines 3 and 4 a “specified condition.” It is unclear whether applicant intended the specified period of time to further define the specified condition, or if the specified period of time is unrelated to the specified condition. For purposes of examination, the examiner will assume the specified period of time set forth in claims 5 and 9 is meant to further define the specified condition set forth in claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Specifically, claim 13 does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claimed “program” is neither a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter. See MPEP 2106.03(I)
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 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by US PGPub 2020/0005468 A1 to Paul et al, hereinafter referred to as “Paul.”
With regard to claim 1, Paul discloses in Figure 3 a data generation apparatus, comprising: a subcluster formation section that forms a subcluster by classifying, according to a specified condition, events detected by a vision sensor including two-dimensionally arranged pixels [0042]-[0044], the events occurring on a basis of an intensity of incident light to be asynchronously detected in the respective pixels [0042]; and a data generator that generates information regarding the subcluster on a basis of pieces of information regarding the events classified into the subcluster ([0051] “object recognition”).
With regard to claim 2, Paul discloses the data generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein maximum dimensions of the subcluster are determined in advance ([0045] “4x4 or 8x8 pixels when the maximum is 16x16 pixels”), and the subcluster formation section classifies the events such that the subcluster has dimensions smaller than or equal to the maximum dimensions [0046].
With regard to claim 3, Paul discloses the data generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a maximum number of the events to be classified into the subcluster is determined in advance, and the subcluster formation section classifies the events such that the number of the events to be classified into the subcluster is smaller than or equal to the maximum number ([0045] and [0046] where calculation of the number of pixels (each pixel is an “event”, see [0056] for example) to form a 4x4 cluster size is inherently needed in order to limit the cluster to 4x4 pixels).
With regard to claim 4, see the combination of claims 2 and 3 above.
With regard to claim 5, Paul discloses the data generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data generator generates the information regarding the subcluster for each specified period of time ([0043] and [0044] “time window” and “purging time threshold”).
With regard to claim 6, Paul discloses the data generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data generator calculates, as the information regarding the subcluster, the number of the events classified into the subcluster [0044].
With regard to claim 7, Paul discloses the data generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data generator calculates a center position of the subcluster as the information regarding the subcluster [0044] and the “anchor coordinate of the cluster”).
With regard to claim 8, Paul discloses the data generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data generator calculates dimensions of the subcluster as the information regarding the subcluster [0045] and [0046].
With regard to claim 9, Paul discloses the data generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data generator calculate for each specified period of time, information regarding the number of the events classified into the subcluster, and calculates information other than the information regarding the number of the events for each period of time longer than the specified period of time ([0043] and purging time that drops entries beyond a certain threshold of time).
With regard to claim 10, Paul discloses the data generation apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a re-clustering section that associates a certain subcluster included in a plurality of the subclusters with another subcluster included in the plurality of the subclusters on a basis of the pieces of information regarding the associated subclusters to form a cluster ([0045] and [0046] “cluster groups” are formed from an accumulation of similar clusters, i.e. the “cluster groups” of Paul are the claimed “clusters” while the “clusters” of Paul are the claimed “subclusters”).
With regard to claim 11, Paul discloses the data generation apparatus according to claim 10, further comprising an object information generator that generates information regarding an object represented by the cluster, on the basis of the pieces of information regarding the associated subclusters associated with the cluster (see [0051] and “object recognition” and “semantic labels”).
Claims 12, 13, and 14 are rejected for reasoning, mutatis mutandis, as that of claim 1 above. Furthermore, for the claimed program of claim 13, see [0132] of Paul.
Claim 15 is rejected for reasoning, mutatis mutandis, as that of claims 10 and 11 above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. WO 2020/120782 discloses a vision sensor for detecting events and subsequent clustering of those events for further processing (object recognition and tracking).
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DAVID OMETZ
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2672
/DAVID OMETZ/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672
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