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 .
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.
Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The Examiner will now proceed through the two-prong test laid out in MPEP § 2106 on claims 1 and 7 to illustrate how the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims is directed toward the judicial exception. However, the other independent and dependent claims are also directed to a judicial exception for similar reasons unless otherwise specified.
Firstly, the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) of claims 1 and 7 is a mapping system that acquires a material distribution and measurement value and creates a map and travel path from this data.
Regarding Step 1, the present claim is directed to a machine because it describes various parts and their function. The analysis proceeds to Step 2A.
Regarding Step 2A, the claims recite a judicial exception because they are (1) directed to an abstract idea; and (2) they do not recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Claims 1 and 7 are (1) directed to an abstract idea, particularly a mental process. A mental process is any concept that could be interpreted as being performed by the human mind or by a human mind with a physical aid. MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(III). In the present claim, the claim limitations, when broadly interpreted, do not preclude a human from, in their mind or with a pen and piece of paper, creating a map based on distribution and measurement data (claim 1) nor from creating a travel path for mapping based on the distribution (claim 7). The claims may be broadly interpreted as a mental process because of the high level of generality with which the limitations are recited, and analysis proceeds to step (2).
The present claims also (2) fail to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. In a computing environment, a mental process may be integrated into a practical application where the claim goes “beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment . . . .” MPEP § 2106.04(d)(1). Here, the generic recitation of memories, processors, and a sensor does not appear to the Examiner as more than generally linking the mental process defined in step 2A to being generally performed by a computer. Therefore, the present claim does not integrate the mental process into a practical application.
The present claims reciting a mental process generically applied on computer hardware, the analysis proceeds to Step 2B.
Regarding Step 2B, the claims do not recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Additional elements of computer components to an abstract idea do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception when, considered as a whole, the claim appears to be “[s]imply appending well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception.” MPEP § 2106.05(I)(A). The additional elements of a generically-recited acquisition of a material distribution and measurement values of the environment in claim 1 appear to be appending the well-understood, routine, conventional activity of performing processes on a computer, at a high level of generality, to the mental process of the claim. 1 Likewise, acquiring a material distribution and providing notification about information on the travel path as disclosed in claim 7 also appears to be appending well-understood, routine, conventional activities of data gathering and presenting information to the mental process of claim 7. Therefore, the present claim does not recite significantly more than the judicial exception.
The Examiner notes that while the above analysis was applied to claims 1 and 7 in particular, further steps recited in the other independent and dependent claims all feature similar issues that bar them from being considered eligible subject matter unless specified below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
(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 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20140184749 A1 to Hilliges, Otmar et al. (“Hilliges”).
Regarding claim 1, Hilliges teaches an information processing apparatus that creates a map of an environment in which a movable apparatus moves comprising:
one or more memories storing instructions; and
one or more processors (Hilliges [0041]: “The mobile environment capture device 300 also comprises one or more processors, a memory and a communications infrastructure as described in more detail below.”) executing the instructions:
to acquire a material distribution in an environment in which the movable apparatus moves (Hilliges [0047]: “The photometric stereo system 320 uses images and data captured by the data capture system 318 to compute material properties, and/or surface normals of fine scale patches of surfaces depicted in the images.”);
to acquire a measurement value measured by a sensor disposed on the movable apparatus (Hilliges [0048]: “In examples where the coarse 3D model 326 is constructed by the 3D environment modeling system 328 the 3D model generation system 324 may aggregate information from captured depth map frames to form the coarse 3D model 326.”); and
to create a map of the environment based on the measurement value and the material distribution (Hilliges [0047]: “The computed material properties and/or surface normals may be used to refine a coarse 3D model of the environment 326.”).
Claim 9 is rejected over the same grounds as Claim 1, applied to a method.
Claim 11 is rejected over the same grounds as Claim 1, applied to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium configured to store a computer program.
Claims 7-8, 10, and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20170329347 A1 to Passot, Jean-Baptiste et al. (“Passot”).
Regarding claim 7, Passot teaches an information processing apparatus that determines a path to be travelled for creating a map of an environment in which a movable apparatus moves comprising
one or more memories storing instructions (Passot FIG. 3: Memory 302.); and
one or more processors executing the instructions (Passot FIG. 3: Controller 304 and operative units 308.):
to acquire a material distribution in an environment in which the movable apparatus moves (Passot [0164]: “Robot 102 can record route 716 in map 700, as robot indicator 702 progresses along map 700 in a substantially similar way as robot 102 navigates through environment 100. Advantageously, in some implementations map 700 and route 716 are created together, wherein robot 102 maps the environment 100 and records route 716 at substantially similar times.” Mapping the environment taken as acquiring a material distribution.);
to determine a travel path for map creation based on the material distribution (Passot [0164]: “Robot 102 can record route 716 in map 700, as robot indicator 702 progresses along map 700 in a substantially similar way as robot 102 navigates through environment 100. Advantageously, in some implementations map 700 and route 716 are created together, wherein robot 102 maps the environment 100 and records route 716 at substantially similar times.” Recording the route taken as determining the travel path. The two are determined simultaneously, and as the route is created within the map, it is at least based on the material distribution. See Passot [0119]: “Map 700, created through the demonstration process, can record substantially the whole environment that robot 102 sensed in one or more demonstrations/trainings); and
to provide notification about information on the travel path (Passot [0186]: “In any case of detected error and/or determination of poor quality, robot 102 can then prompt the user to demonstrate the route again (e.g., via user interface units 322).” The prompt taken as the notification.).
Regarding claim 8, Passot teaches the information processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein if an error of a measurement value measured by a sensor disposed on the movable apparatus is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold during determination of the travel path, a path for changing an orientation of the movable apparatus is added to the travel path (Passot [0107]: “as illustrated in FIG. 1C robot 102 may avoid objects 130, 132 by turning around them when autonomously navigating route 126, which can be another rout traveled by robot 102 based at least in part on demonstrated route 116. Objects 130, 132 might not have been present (and avoided) when the user demonstrated route 116.” The robot making a determination to avoid an object that was not present when the map was created is taken as adding a path for changing an orientation of the apparatus. One of ordinary skill in the art would have interpreted the determination as occurring upon reaching a threshold amount of error, i.e., enough error between the measured map at training time and runtime to require an avoidance path. See also FIG. 1C of Passot, where additional turns (taken as changes in orientation) are added into the path to conduct the avoidance.).
Claim 10 is rejected over the same grounds as Claim 7, applied to a method.
Claim 12 Is rejected over the same grounds as Claim 7, applied to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium configured to store a computer program.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 2-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140184749 A1 to Hilliges, Otmar et al. (“Hilliges”), further in view of US 20230184949 A1 to Huang, Xinyu et al. (“Huang”).
Regarding claim 2, Hilliges teaches the information processing apparatus according to claim 1.
Hilliges does not appear to expressly teach wherein, during creation of the map, a material of an object included in a spatial region corresponding to the measurement value is identified, a magnitude of an error of the measurement value is estimated based on the identified material, and a map value related to a spatial region corresponding to the measurement value is set based on the estimated magnitude of the error.
However, Huang teaches wherein, during creation of the map, a material of an object included in a spatial region corresponding to the measurement value is identified (Huang [0026]: “Additionally, in some embodiments, the semantic labels further include labels that identify points and/or pixels of the semantic map 50 predicted to include the glass or mirror itself that caused these errors (not shown).”), a magnitude of an error of the measurement value is estimated based on the identified material (Huang [0026]: “Particularly, it will be appreciated that materials such as glass and mirrors generally do not reflect light diffusely and instead reflect light in a specular manner. Accordingly, little to none of the measurement light emitted from the LiDAR sensor may be reflected directly back to the LiDAR sensor. As a result, the 2D LiDAR scan 10 may include erroneous points and/or pixels indicating an obstruction where there was no obstruction and erroneous points and/or pixels indicating the lack of obstruction. ” One of ordinary skill in the art would have understood from this description that the error from measurements on glass or mirrors has enough importance (i.e., enough magnitude) to require additional pixel labeling.), and a map value related to a spatial region corresponding to the measurement value is set based on the estimated magnitude of the error (Huang [0026]: “The 2D semantic map 50 advantageously includes semantic labels identifying the points and/or pixels at which these measurement errors may exist.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to have combined the system that maps an environment and notes various material properties of objects in that environment on a map taught by Hilliges with the system that determines whether the measured material is glass or mirror material that causes important errors and marks those measurements with the material identity and a value representing error taught by Huang. Doing so would have improved the accuracy of the map by noting which measurements can be relied upon (i.e., not measurements of glass or mirrors) in the map.
Regarding claim 3, the above combination of Hilliges and Huang teaches the information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein, during creation of the map, if the magnitude of the error is less than a predetermined threshold, a value indicating that an object is present is set as a value of a map related to a spatial region corresponding to the measurement value (Huang [0054], [0052]: Huang’s mapping system is disclosed as assigning an object type to an object without reflectivity and a type with reflectivity (that causes measurement error as discussed in the rejection of claim 2). Thus, if there is not enough reflectivity for a measurement to be tagged with reflectivity error, an object type value is set. The examiner notes that the language of claim 3 does not preclude assignment of an object value to both the measurements with error based on material type and the measurements without the error based on material type. ).
Regarding claim 4, the above combination of Hilliges and Huang teaches the information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein, during creation of the map, a value corresponding to the magnitude of the error is set as a map value related to a spatial region corresponding to the measurement value (Huang [0026]: “The 2D semantic map 50 advantageously includes semantic labels identifying the points and/or pixels at which these measurement errors may exist.” As noted in Claim 2, identification of the errors upon determining they are the result of glass or a mirror and the subsequent labeling is taken as setting a map value. This value corresponds to the magnitude of the error because it is only set if the object is reflective enough to cause serious errors, as noted in [0026].).
Claims 5-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20140184749 A1 to Hilliges, Otmar et al. (“Hilliges”), further in view of US 20200271787 A1 to You, Ganmei et al. (“You”).
Regarding claim 5, Hilliges teaches the information processing apparatus according to claim 1.
Hilliges does not appear to expressly teach wherein the one or more processors further executing the instructions to present information on an error distribution of the measurement value with respect to an orientation of the movable device.
However, You teaches wherein the one or more processors further executing the instructions to present information on an error distribution of the measurement value with respect to an orientation of the movable device (You [0051], FIG. 6: “As in block 630, error ranges for the points included in the laser point data can be determined based in part on an error distribution. For example, an error range can be calculated based in part on an angle error and a distance error associated with a point aligned to the environment map and the error range can be correlated to the error distribution, which may specify a measurement error associated with the error range.” FIG. 6 further teaches assigning error to each point based on the error distribution. Because the angle of measurement factors into the error distribution, the error distribution exists with respect to an orientation of the movable device. Lastly, the term “present information” is broadly interpreted here as meaning “providing information” or data to the system.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to have combined the system that maps an environment using laser point cloud data taught by Hilliges with the system that assigns an error to laser point measurements based on an error distribution with respect to angle taught by You. Doing so would have “provide[d] solutions to inaccurate environment mapping associated with hardware measurement errors” as taught in [0024] of You, improving mapping accuracy.
Regarding claim 6, the above combination of Hilliges and You teaches the information processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the one or more processors further executing the instructions to control a presentation content based on the material distribution, and present the presentation content (Hilliges [0030]: “A rendering system 338 is able to use the 3D model and associated data 322 to render images at a display device 336 or at a game system or augmented reality system 340. . . . For example, to superimpose virtual graphics over the real world while correctly modeling inter-shadowing, reflectivity and other material properties.” Rendering of images using data like the material distribution and display of the rendered images on a display is broadly interpreted as control and presentation of a presentation content.).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Park, Seong Ju. US 20220282977 A1. NOISE REDUCTION APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MAP OF ROBOT.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HENRY RICHARD HINTON whose telephone number is (703)756-1051. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7:30-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hunter Lonsberry can be reached at (571) 272-7298. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HENRY R HINTON/Examiner, Art Unit 3665
/HUNTER B LONSBERRY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3665