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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-8, 10-16 and 21 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With regards to claims 2, 10 and 21, several of the features of these claims were known in the art as evidenced by Hübner et al, “Pose Normalization of Indoor Mapping Datasets Partially Compliant with the Manhattan World Assumption” which discloses obtaining the 3D point cloud at p. 5, sec. 2; pp. 7-8, sec. 2.1 and FIG. 1. Hübner further discloses determining a view based on normal vectors with symmetrical directions for points of the 3D point cloud at pp. 7-8, sec. 2.1; to wit: “Thus, the task at hand is to determine an angle of rotation around the vertical axis
z
→
that leads to the largest positive fraction of normal vectors being aligned with the horizontal axes
x
→
and
y
→
.” See, also, p. 5, sec. 2 and FIG. 1. And, for a point of the 3D point cloud, Hübner calculating an angle
ϒ
between the point's normal vector n and determining the view based on the angle
ϒ
at pp. 7-8, sec. 2.1; in particular, see, equations 4-5 on p. 8. However, Hübner does not disclose the angle
ϒ
measures the angle between the point's normal vector n and a vector c pointing to a center point of the 3D point cloud from the point.
With regards to claims 3-6 and 11-14, these claims depend from claims 2 and 10, respectively, and therefore incorporate the features of those claims that were found allowable.
With regards to claims 7 and 15, several of the features of these claims were known in the art as evidenced by Hübner et al, “Pose Normalization of Indoor Mapping Datasets Partially Compliant with the Manhattan World Assumption” which discloses obtaining the 3D point cloud at p. 5, sec. 2; pp. 7-8, sec. 2.1 and FIG. 1. Hübner further discloses determining a view based on normal vectors with symmetrical directions for points of the 3D point cloud at pp. 7-8, sec. 2.1; to wit: “Thus, the task at hand is to determine an angle of rotation around the vertical axis
z
→
that leads to the largest positive fraction of normal vectors being aligned with the horizontal axes
x
→
and
y
→
.” See, also, p. 5, sec. 2 and FIG. 1. However, Hübner does not disclose determining the view based on estimated normal vectors with symmetrical directions for points of the 3D point cloud comprises computing a sum of estimated normal vectors
∑
m
=
1
M
n
^
m
, where
n
^
m
is an estimated normal vector for point m, and M is a number of points of the 3D point cloud.
With regards to claims 8 and 16, these claims depend from claims 7 and 15, respectively, and therefore incorporate the features of those claims that were found allowable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
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 19 is 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. In particular, claim 19 recites a “carrier” containing the computer program of parent claim 18, wherein the carrier may comprise an, “electronic signal, an optical signal, a radio signal”. The recited carriers read upon transitory signals. However, parent claim 18 recites the computer program comprises a “non-transitory computer
readable medium”. Incorporating this limitation of parent claim 18 into claim 19 produces a claim that literally recites a transitory signal carrying a computer program comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium. This contradictory language leaves the metes and bounds of the claim in doubt.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(d)
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends. In particular, parent claim 18 recites a computer program comprising a “non-transitory computer readable medium”. However, the non-transitory computer readable medium of parent claim 18 is not incorporated into dependent claim 19 which recites a transitory signal “carrier containing the computer program”. Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
DUPLICATE CLAIM WARNING
Applicant is advised that should claim 18 be found allowable, claim 20 will be objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate thereof. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
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)(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, 9, 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hübner et al, “Pose Normalization of Indoor Mapping Datasets Partially Compliant with the Manhattan World Assumption”
With regards to claim 1, Hübner discloses obtaining the 3D point cloud at p. 5, sec. 2; pp. 7-8, sec. 2.1 and FIG. 1.
Hübner discloses if a normal vector is available for each point of the 3D point cloud, determining the view based on directions of normal vectors for points of the 3D point cloud otherwise estimating a normal vector for each point of the 3D point cloud at p. 5, sec. 2; to wit: “The presented method is applicable to all kinds of indoor mapping point clouds… However, we assumed the individual geometric primitives comprising the input data to have normal vectors. While these are intrinsically given for the individual triangles comprising a triangle mesh, the individual points of indoor mapping point clouds do not generally have normal vectors. These can however be easily determined by means of established methods…, which we assumed in this work as a necessary preprocessing step.” See, also, pp. 7-10, sec. 2.1 and FIG. 1; in particular, see p. 8, par. 2.
Hübner discloses determining the view based on estimated normal vectors with symmetrical directions for points of the 3D point cloud at pp. 7-8, sec. 2.1; to wit: “Thus, the task at hand is to determine an angle of rotation around the vertical axis
z
→
that leads to the largest positive fraction of normal vectors being aligned with the horizontal axes
x
→
and
y
→
.” See, also, p. 5, sec. 2 and FIG. 1.
With regards to claims 18 and 20, Hübner discloses implementing its method using a non-transitory computer readable medium including program code to be executed by processing circuitry of a computing device at p. 22, sec. 3 (“a system with a i7-8550U CPU with 24GB RAM”); see, also, p. 29, sec. 5 (“CPU-parallelized implementation of the proposed method along with the code…”). The steps of the program code stored in the computer readable medium of these claims are anticipated by Hübner for the same reasons as were provided in the discussion of claim 1, which recites a method performing these same steps.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID F DUNPHY whose telephone number is (571)270-1230. The examiner can normally be reached 9 am - 5 pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chineyere Wills-Burns can be reached at (571) 272-9752. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/DAVID F DUNPHY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2673
Prosecution Insights