REISSUE OFFICE ACTION
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
This is a reissue office action for US Patent 9,235,988, which included original patent claims 1–29. This patent has been reissued twice, as RE48,914 and RE50,261. Applicant requested amendment of the claims on 10/24/2024. Claims 1–43 are pending.
Declaration and Reason for Reissue
This Reissue has been filed pursuant to the original patent being at least partly inoperative or invalid by reason of “claiming more or less than he had the right”, specifically:
“The pending claims (*e.g., independent claim 26 and the associated dependent claims) fail to include a claim directed to a system includes a processor "adapted to fit a first line to a first subset of the vehicle measurements" to estimate the length of the given vehicle (see, e.g., new claim 32).” (10/24/2024 declaration p. 2).
The reissue oath/declaration filed 10/24/2024 is defective (see 37 CFR 1.175 and MPEP § 1414) because of the following:
It fails to comply with 37 CFR 1.175(c) which requires signatures of the joint inventors or the assignee if the conditions of 37 CFR 1.175(c)(1) or (2) are met.
Consent of Assignee
The consent by assignee filed 10/24/2024 is not accepted. This consent was signed on 4/17/2018 and represents a copy of the consent filed in a parent reissue (15/867,995), yet was accompanied by a new declaration. This new declaration indicates pursuit of a different error to be corrected and requires a new consent. See MPEP 1451(II)(A) which states:
“Generally, where a continuation reissue application is filed with a copy of the assignee consent from the parent reissue application but with a newly executed reissue oath/declaration, the copy of the assignee consent from the parent reissue application is not acceptable. A copy of the assignee consent is only acceptable if the continuation reissue application corrects an error for which consent was made. Submission of a new oath or declaration is indicative of correction of a different error. Under such circumstances, OPAP will accord the continuation reissue application a filing date, and the examiner should reject the claims under 35 U.S.C. 251 and require a new consent. See MPEP § 1410.02.”
Specification
The amendment to the specification filed 10/24/2024 has been approved for entry.
Claim Objections
The claim numbering in this reissue is not compliant with 37 CFR 1.177(b) and MPEP 1451. Because RE48,914 has already issued, claim numbers 1–29 should be presented in this reissue as canceled claims. Pending claim numbers in this reissue should start with claim 30.
See MPEP 1451(II):
“As is true for the case of multiple divisional reissue applications, all of the claims of the patent to be reissued must be presented in both the parent reissue application and the continuation reissue application in some form, i.e., as amended, as unamended, or as canceled. The same claim of the patent cannot, however be presented for examination in both the parent reissue application and the continuation reissue application, as a pending claim, in either its original or amended versions. See the discussion in subsection I. above for treatment of this situation. Further, any added claims must be numbered beginning with the next highest number following the past original patent claims” (MPEP 1451(II)).
See also MPEP 1451 (I):
“Pursuant to 37 CFR 1.177(b) all of the claims of the patent to be reissued must be presented in each reissue application in some form, i.e., as amended, as unamended or as canceled. Further, any added claims must be numbered beginning with the next highest number following the last patent claim. It is noted that the same claim of the patent cannot be presented for examination in more than one of the divisional reissue applications, as a pending claim, in either its original or amended versions. If a patent claim is presented in one of the divisional reissue applications of a reissue application “family,” as a pending claim, then that patent claim must be presented as a canceled claim in all the other reissue applications of that family. Once a claim in the patent has been reissued, it does not exist in the original patent; thus, it cannot be reissued from the original patent in another reissue application.”
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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 1–43 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claims 1, 25 and 29, the terms “wide and deep” are relative terms for the field of view which render the claim indefinite. The terms are not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The specification provides examples of wide and deep at 3:21–24, 7:67–8:2 and 8:31–37 (one exemplary set being claimed in claim 12), yet these examples fail to define when a field of view would minimally qualify as “wide” or “deep”.
Claim 1, last line, there is no antecedent basis for “the x axis”.
Claims 16 and 26, there is no antecedent basis for said 2D detection zone.
Claims 26–28 are indefinite because the claimed invention is not particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed. These claims present one coverage in RE48,914 and another in the present reissue application. This is inconsistent. The pending claims in this reissue should be numbered starting with claim 30.
Claim 27, there is no antecedent basis for “the instances of the repeating step”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 251
Claims 1–43 are rejected as being based upon a defective reissue declaration under 35 U.S.C. 251 as set forth above. See 37 CFR 1.175.
The nature of the defect(s) in the declaration is set forth in the discussion above in this Office action.
Claims 1–43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 251 as lacking consent of the assignee. See MPEP 1451(II)(A) and “Consent of Assignee”, above.
Claims 1–29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 251 as not correcting an error in the original patent. Because claim numbers 1–29 were reissued in RE48,914 as either canceled or amended claims, they no longer exist in the original patent; thus, they have been superseded and cannot be reissued from the original patent in this reissue application. The pending claims in this reissue should be numbered starting with claim 30. See MPEP 1451(I) and (II).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 26–27 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over US 2011/0026008 (Gammenthaler), US 2007/0181810 (Tan) and US 2012/0038902 (Dotson).
26. A system for tracking and characterizing a plurality of vehicles simultaneously in a traffic control environment, the system comprising:
“A Lidar measurement device for vehicular traffic surveillance and method for use of same are disclosed” (Gammenthaler at Abstract).
“The Doppler radar system measures the frequency differential and scales the measurement to miles per hour, for example, in order to display the velocity of the target vehicle to a policeman or other Doppler radar system operator” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0003).
a 3D optical emitter provided at an installation height and oriented to allow illumination of a 3D detection zone in the environment; a 3D optical receiver provided and oriented to have a wide and deep field of view within the 3D detection zone, the 3D optical receiver having a plurality of detection channels in said field of view; a controller for driving the 3D optical emitter into emitting short light pulses toward the detection zone, the light pulses having an emitted light waveform; the 3D optical receiver receiving a reflection/backscatter of the emitted light on the vehicles in the 3D detection zone,
“A patrol vehicle 30 equipped with the Lidar measurement device 10” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0017).
“Lidar measurement device 10 progressively transmits short pulses of infrared light” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0020).
“a small portion of this light pulse is reflected back towards the Lidar measurement device 10. This return energy is collected and focused on a sensitive detector” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0021).
“The Lidar measurement device 10 acquires an image 36 of the field of view 32 which includes vehicles 24, 26, and 28” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0018).
Gammenthaler’s Lidar receiver is taken to meet the broadly-claimed “wide and deep” limitations, at least because the FOV is wide enough and deep enough to capture the presence of three vehicles, namely 24, 26 and 28.
Gammenthaler does not specify that the Lidar receiver (detector) is a multi-channel receiver, but rather a laser that is scanned across a wider field of view. Tan also teaches a vehicle-based Lidar detection system and teaches the known use of a single Lidar beam that is scanned across a wider field of view as well as an alternative Lidar arrangement having an array of multiple fixed laser sources that are combined together to achieve an aggregated wider field of view (see ABSTRACT, ¶ 0003, 0005). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to have provided such a multi-channel Lidar receiver with that of Gammenthaler as an obvious substitution providing predictable results and further in order to simplify the mechanical/scanning nature of Gammenthaler in order to cover the field of view desired by Gammenthaler.
“One or more photodetectors (as will be described in greater detail below) can be placed in proximity to laser array 110 to collect the light from an activated laser that is reflected by objects” (Tan at ¶ 0017).
“multiple lasers can be in use at the same time, and other techniques are used to distinguish the received reflections” (Tan at ¶ 0018).
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thereby acquiring an individual digital full-waveform LIDAR trace for each channel of the 3D optical receiver;
Gammenthaler does not describe the use of full waveform Lidar. Dotson however describes that known “[f]ull waveform LIDAR sensors are capable of recording a signal that represents the distribution of distances measured from the sensor to the region” (Dotson at ¶ 0006). Rather than providing a single “return” (Dotson at FIG. 1) representing a single distance value, full waveform Lidar can return a more full distribution of distances, allowing the sensor data to more accurately reflect surface variability/shape (Dotson at FIG. 2). See Dotson at ¶ 0006.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to have employed full-waveform Lidar so that the collected data is more complete, allowing the system to better identifier the surface variability/shape of the detected objects.
a processor for detecting a presence of a plurality of vehicles in the 3D detection zone using the individual digital full-waveform LIDAR trace and the emitted light waveform,
“reflected laser-range finding signals and pixels P1-1, P1-2, and P1-3 correspond to target vehicles 26, 24, and 28, respectively . . . the laser frame data array may store the following data as shown in Table I” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0022).
“Using the known speed of light, an onboard processor determines the ranges as the time of flight is known” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0021).
detecting a position of at least part of each the vehicle in the 3D detection zone, recording a time at which the position is detected, assigning a unique identifier to each vehicle of the plurality of vehicles detected and tracking and
“Table I indicates that a reflected laser range-finding signal was received for pixel P1-1 having a pixel location of (45, 27) within the x'', y'' laser frame 46 . . . the reflected laser-finding signal had a time of flight (not shown) indicating a range of 2,460.002 feet” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0023).
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recording an updated position of each vehicle of the plurality of vehicles detected and an updated time at which the updated position is detected, with the unique identifier;
“Following the first scan of the field of view 32, the Lidar measurement device 10, performs additional scans. At a time t.sub.n, which may be the initialization of a second scan, a laser frame 50 is acquired and laser frame data array 52 is built which reflects the receiving reflected laser range-finding signals at pixels P.sub.2-1, P.sub.2-2, and P.sub.2-3. The laser frame data array 52 may include the information shown in the following table, Table II” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0024).
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a 2D optical receiver, wherein the 2D optical receiver is an image sensor adapted to provide images of the 2D detection zone; and a driver for driving the 2D optical receiver to capture a 2D image;
“video circuitry acquires video of a field of view having a target therein” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0005).
“The video circuitry portion 80 includes video equipment 88, video circuitry 90, and a video digitizer 92” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0044).
the processor being further adapted for using image registration to correlate corresponding locations between said 2D image and said detection channels and extracting vehicle identification data from the 2D image at a location corresponding to the location for the detected vehicle; and assigning the vehicle identification data to the unique identifier.
“display image 36, which includes both the video and associated target data, furnishes positive target identification by law enforcement or other user of the Lidar measurement device 10. For example, by viewing display 34, the operator can positively identify that the vehicle 24 is traveling at 50 mph away from the patrol vehicle 30 at a distance of 2,470 feet. Similarly, the vehicle 26 can be positively identified as traveling at 75 mph” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0018).
“The display 34 presents the image 36 of the field of view 32 to the operator with the vehicles 24, 26, 28 and associated target data such as speed, range, and heading relative to the Lidar measurement device 10. The target data is presented in target data boxes 38, 40, and 42” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0018).
“By way of example, there is a pixel position of (46, 26) at time t1 at 0.02 seconds and there is a pixel position of (45, 27) at time tn at 0.27 seconds. These pixel positions are within the Δ(x", y") of 5 pixels and 0.25 seconds apart. This analysis suggests a target. The presence of the target is then verified by noting that the range in feet closed from 2.60.002 feet 2,432.502 feet in 0.25 seconds. Accordingly, the target is added to the target list 54 as target T 1 with the appropriate target data 56 including the speed, following the calculation thereof. Similar analysis identifies targets T 2, which is the vehicle 24, and T 3, which is the vehicle 28. Exemplary target data 56 is presented in Table III” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0026).
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The displayed image 36 which includes content from the 2D video source represents “vehicle identification data” for multiple reasons. First, Gammenthaler describes the image as accomplishing “positive target identification by law enforcement”. Second, applicant describes that a “picture of a vehicle” qualifies as vehicle identification data (US Patent 9,235,988 at 3:50–51).
27. The system as claimed in claim 26, wherein said processor is further for determining and recording a speed for each the vehicle using the position and the updated position of one of the instances of the repeating step and an elapsed time between the time of the position and the updated time of the updated position, with the unique identifier.
“the Lidar measurement device 10 determines the speed, range, and heading of a particular target based upon range and time measurements associated with the reflected laser range-finding signals. More specifically, target speed is calculated from the change in distance across an interval of time by the following velocity equation” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0027).
“The processing circuit then integrates the target data into the video such that the video may displayed with an image of the target and target data, such as a speed measurement, associated therewith” (Gammenthaler at Abstract).
“TABLE III…Target (Vehicle)…Speed (mph)” (Gammenthaler ¶ 0026).
Claim 28 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gammenthaler, Tan, Dotson and US 2002/0141618 (Ciolli).
28. The system as claimed in claim 26, further comprising a 2D illumination source provided and oriented to allow illumination of a 2D detection zone in the 3D detection zone; a source driver for driving the 2D illumination source to emit pulses; and a synchronization module for synchronizing said source driver and said driver to allow capture of said images while said 2D detection zone is illuminated.
Gammenthaler does not describe the use of a 2D illumination source for the 2D images. Ciolli teaches a traffic camera system for traffic violation monitoring and reporting (at TITLE) where a camera is coordinated with a flash to provide illumination for the 2D imaging. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to have provided such coordinated illumination for the 2D imaging of Gammenthaler, so that the recorded images were well lit, especially at night.
Claims 30–38 and 40–43 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gammenthaler, Tan, Dotson and US 2003/0114964 (Strumolo).
30. The system of claim 26, wherein the processor is adapted to estimate a length of a given vehicle in the plurality of vehicles based at least in part on vehicle measurements captured by the processor.
While Gammenthaler’s 2D imagery depicts relative vehicle sizes/dimensions, Gammenthaler does not describe estimating dimension sizes of a vehicle based on the 3D/Lidar measurements. Strumolo however also teaches a vehicle sensor system including 3D Lidar detection of multiple vehicles on a roadway (e.g. ¶¶ 0002, 0004), including boundary, velocity and distance/position data. Strumolo in particular teaches the use of bounding boxes (FIGs 2, 4 and 6) that provide estimations of length, width and height of detected obstacles/vehicles.
“A classifying system 10 for a host vehicle 12 includes a sensor 14 and a controller 24 coupled to the host vehicle 12. The sensor 14 detects boundary data of an obstacle 16, 18, 20 and 22. The sensor 14 also generates an obstacle signal, which is received by the controller 24, which then generates a bounding box 26, 28, 30 and 32 for the obstacle 16, 18, 20 and 22. The bounding box 26, 28, 30 and 32 includes a number of vertical pixels 40, corresponding to a maximum height of the obstacle 16, 18, 20 and 22, and a number of horizontal pixels 42, corresponding to a maximum width of the obstacle 16, 18, 20 and 22” (Strumolo at Abstract).
“The controller 24 correlates the pixel lengths to physical lengths based on the sensed distance to the target vehicle 16” (Strumolo ¶ 0028).
“The sensor 14 detects at least boundary data of the obstacles, however, in the current embodiment, the sensor 14 receives boundary, velocity, and distance data from the obstacle, such as the target vehicle 16, as will be understood by one skilled in the art” (Strumolo ¶ 0026).
It would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to have included the bounding boxes and estimations of length, width and height dimensions of the obstacles/vehicles detected by Gammenthaler. Doing so would have enabled Gammenthaler to more accurately model and depict the obstacles/vehicles in the roadway for the user. In addition, the sizes and classifications of the obstacles/vehicles would have been beneficial for the purposes of safety as desired by both Gammenthaler and Strumolo.
31. The system of claim 30, wherein the processor is adapted to estimate a width of the given vehicle based at least in part on the vehicle measurements captured by the processor.
See claim 30 and the teachings for length, width and height estimations.
32. The system of claim 31, wherein to estimate the length of the given vehicle, the processor is adapted to fit a first line to a first subset of the vehicle measurements.
This claim language does not specify or require “the length” to necessarily be the longest dimension of the vehicle. A broad, but reasonable interpretation of this language requires only that an estimation for a size of a dimension be present. In this manner, any distance estimation by Strumolo meets the claim language.
“The sensor 14 detects at least boundary data of the obstacles ... such as the target vehicle 16 ... The sensor 14 further generates an obstacle signal” (Strumolo ¶ 0026).
“The controller 24 generates a bounding box 26 for the obstacle in response to the obstacle signal, the bounding box 26 includes a number of vertical pixels 40 corresponding to a maximum height of the obstacle and a number of horizontal pixels 42 correspond to a maximum width of the obstacle. The maximum height is the outermost solid parameters of the obstacle from base to apex. The maximum width is the length from the outermost side to side portions of the obstacle ... for illustrative purposes four vertical pixels were shown for the target vehicle 16, and three horizontal pixels were shown for the target vehicle 16" (Strumolo ¶ 0027).
“The controller 24 correlates the pixel lengths to physical lengths based on the sensed distance to the target vehicle 16” (Strumolo ¶ 0028).
“detecting the horizontal and vertical lines of the target vehicle 16” (Strumolo ¶ 0029).
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[FIG. 2]
33. The system of claim 32, wherein to estimate the width of the given vehicle, the processor is adapted to fit a second line to a second subset of the vehicle measurements.
This claim language does not specify or require “the width” to necessarily be perpendicular to the longest dimension of the vehicle. A broad, but reasonable interpretation of this language requires only that an estimation for a size of a dimension be present. In this manner, any distance estimation by Strumolo meets the claim language.
See claim 32 which describes two size estimations for two different dimensions.
34. The system of claim 33, wherein the processor is adapted to identify a corner point of the given vehicle less than a threshold distance from points on both of the first and second lines.
“The sensor 14 alternately senses obstacle specific data such as at least one inside corner 38 of the target vehicle 16. This obstacle specific data provides an increased level of accuracy primarily for situations involving a target vehicle 16 at an angle with respect to the host vehicle 12” (Strumolo ¶ 0026).
“said at least one sensor detects at least one inside corner of said target vehicle” (Strumolo claim 4).
35. The system of claim 32, wherein the processor is adapted to estimate a height of a given vehicle in the plurality of vehicles based at least in part on the vehicle measurements.
This claim language does not specify or require “the height” to necessarily be perpendicular to the longest dimension of the vehicle. A broad, but reasonable interpretation of this language requires only that an estimation for a size of a dimension be present. In this manner, any distance estimation by Strumolo meets the claim language.
See claim 32 which describes two size estimations for two different dimensions.
36. The system of claim 26, wherein the processor is adapted to estimate a volume of a given vehicle in the plurality of vehicles based at least in part on vehicle measurements captured by the processor.
Given that Strumolo provides a 2D analysis with computations for a 2D bounding box, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the time of the invention to have provided computations for a 3D bounding box when employing the suggested 3D measurements and analysis. This 3D bounding box represents a determination of the volume according to length, width and height.
37. The system of claim 26, wherein the processor is adapted to define a three- dimensional bounding box corresponding to a given vehicle in the plurality of vehicles based on detection of corners.
Given that Strumolo provides a 2D analysis with computations for a 2D bounding box, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the time of the invention to have provided computations for a 3D bounding box when employing the suggested 3D measurements and analysis. This 3D bounding box represents a determination of the volume according to length, width and height.
38. The system of claim 37, wherein the three-dimensional bounding box represents an estimate of bounding dimensions of the given vehicle.
Given that Strumolo provides a 2D analysis with computations for a 2D bounding box, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the time of the invention to have provided computations for a 3D bounding box when employing the suggested 3D measurements and analysis. This 3D bounding box represents a determination of the volume according to length, width and height.
40. The system of claim 26, wherein the LIDAR trace includes reflection of the light signals from a complete side of a given vehicle of the plurality of vehicles, and wherein the processor is adapted to determine dimensions of a three-dimensional bounding box corresponding to the given vehicle based at least on full-waveform signal processing of the signal waveforms from vehicle measurements for a complete side of the vehicle.
See claim 30 for the obviousness to have included the bounding boxes and estimations of length, width and height dimensions of the obstacles/vehicles detected by Gammenthaler, given the teachings of Strumolo.
Given that Strumolo provides a 2D analysis with computations for a 2D bounding box, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the time of the invention to have provided computations for a 3D bounding box when employing the suggested 3D measurements and analysis. This 3D bounding box represents a determination of the volume according to length, width and height.
Strumolo depicts forming a bounding box based upon Lidar measurements of a complete side of a vehicle.
41. The system of claim 26, wherein the processor is adapted to assign a classification to a given vehicle in the plurality of vehicles based on a dimension of the given vehicle.
Gammenthaler does not describe classifying vehicles according to their dimension(s). Strumolo however depicts forming a bounding box based upon Lidar measurements of a vehicle as well as classifying vehicles according to their estimated dimensions.
“A classifying system 10 for a host vehicle 12 includes a sensor 14 and a controller 24 coupled to the host vehicle 12… The controller 24 includes obstacle classifying logic activating in response to height and width of the obstacle 16, 18, 20 and 22 within parameters of one of a plurality of objects” (Strumolo at Abstract).
“The host vehicle classifying logic is adapted to activate in response to the height and width of the obstacle within obstacle parameters and to classify a type of obstacle based on obstacle height and the obstacle width”.
“The present invention is illustrated with respect to an obstacle classifying system for a host vehicle, particularly suited to the automotive field. However, the present invention is applicable to various other uses that may require obstacle classification as will be understood by one skilled in the art” (Strumolo ¶ 0023).
It would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to classify the vehicles of Gammenthaler according to their estimated dimension. This would provide the user with a more informative vehicle detection system/
42. The system of claim 41, wherein the classification is according to a classification scheme distinguishing two-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles.
“For situations involving the target vehicle category, it is also useful to determine the direction and angle of the target vehicle and its type, e.g., frontal view of a car, side view of an SUV, and rear view of a large truck, for proper collision avoidance and safety measure engagement” (Strumolo ¶ 0006).
43. The system of claim 26, wherein the processor is adapted to trigger an event based at least in part on a dimension of a given vehicle in the plurality of vehicles.
The classification of a detected vehicle according to its estimated dimensions is an example representing the claimed triggering of an event based on a dimension.
Claims Not Taught By The Cited Art
There is no teaching found in the cited art to provide the entire scope of claim 1, especially the limitations of “wherein said detecting said presence includes: extracting observations in the individual digital full-waveform LIDAR trace; using the location for the observations to remove observations coming from a surrounding environment; extracting lines using an estimate line and a covariance matrix using polar coordinates; removing observations located on lines parallel to the x axis”.
There is no teaching found in the cited art to provide the entire scope of claim 29, especially the limitations of “extracting observations in the individual digital full-waveform LIDAR trace and intensity data for the observations; finding at least one blob in the observations; computing an observation weight depending on the intensity of the observations in the blob; computing a blob gravity center based on the weight and a position of the observations in the blob”.
There is no teaching found in the cited art to provide the entire scope of claim 39, especially the limitations of “processor is adapted to refine the estimate of the bounding dimensions as the LIDAR trace is produced by reflection of the emitted light from an increasing number of sides of the given vehicle”.
Notification of Proceedings and Material Information
Applicant is reminded of the continuing obligation under 37 CFR 1.178(b), to timely apprise the Office of any prior or concurrent proceeding in which this patent is or was involved. These proceedings would include any trial before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, interferences, reissues, reexaminations, supplemental examinations, and litigation.
Applicant is further reminded of the continuing obligation under 37 CFR 1.56, to timely apprise the Office of any information which is material to patentability of the claims under consideration in this reissue application.
These obligations rest with each individual associated with the filing and prosecution of this application for reissue. See also MPEP §§ 1404, 1442.01 and 1442.04.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEFFREY D CARLSON whose telephone number is (571) 272-6716. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 7:30 am to 5:00 pm, off 1st Fri.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Michael Fuelling can be reached on (571) 270-1367. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JEFFREY D CARLSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3992
Conferees:
/C. Michelle Tarae/Reexamination Specialist, Art Unit 3992 /M.F/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3992
Prosecution Insights