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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
1. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 04/15/2026 has been considered by the examiner.
Double Patenting
2. 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.
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3. Claim 1 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 10,592,765 B2 (herein referred to as Fathi). Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because
Regarding claim 1, Fathi discloses "A method of generating information about an object of interest in a scene comprising: generating two-dimensional (2D) image information from a plurality of overlapping 2D images of a scene, wherein at least some of the plurality of overlapping 2D images include at least a portion of an object of interest (claim 1 - col. 39, lines 6-13);
generating, by a computer, three-dimensional (3D) object information generated from the 2D image information, where the 3D information incorporates information about all or part of the object of interest (claim 1 - col. 39, lines 14-16); and,
generating, by the computer, an information set associated with the object of interest using projective geometry information based at least in part upon the 2D image and 3D object information (claim 1 - col. 39, lines 17-54).
4. Claim 1 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1, 14, 18 and 22 of U.S. Patent No. 9,904,867 B2 (herein referred to as Fathi). Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because
Regarding claim 1, claim 1 has been analyzed and rejected as per claim 14 and 22 of Fathi.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Brostow et al., 2008, "Segmentation and Recognition using structure from motion point clouds". (pp. 44-57).
Regarding claim 1, A method of generating information about an object of interest in a scene (Brostow - page 44 - Abstract - "We introduce features that project the 3D cues back to the 2D image plane while modeling spatial layout and context. A randomized decision forest combined many such features to achieve a coherent 2D segmentation and recognize the object categories"; page 45- Figure 1 shows a plurality of objects as considered including structures such as buildings, sidewalk, road, etc.) comprising:
generating two-dimensional (2D) image information from a plurality of overlapping 2D images of a scene, wherein at least some of the plurality of overlapping 2D images include at least a portion of an object of interest (page 46 - Section 2 - "We start by tracking 2D image features. Specifically, we use Harris-Stephens corners with localized normalized cross correlation to track 20x20 pixel patches through time in a search window 15% of the image dimensions. In practice, this produced reliable 2D trajectories that usually spanned more than 5 frames. To reduce the number of mis-tracks, each initial template is tracked only until its correlation falls below 0.97" - where tracked features across video frames correspond to overlapping portions of 2D images and tracking feature pixels in portions correspond to portion of an object of interest; tracked 20x20 patches have an overlapping image area, and tracked feature point in at least 2 frames corresponds to a part of the same object);
generating, by a computer, three-dimensional (3D) object information generated from the 2D image information, where the 3D information incorporates information about all or part of the object of interest (page 46 - section 2 - "We use standard structure from ego-motion techniques to automatically generate a 3D point cloud from video sequences filmed from moving cars…We assume, for purposes of 3D reconstruction, that changes between images are the result of only ego-motion. This allows us to compute a single world-point W = (x,y,z,1)ᵀ for each point tracked in 2D space, (uₜ, vₜ)"; and
generating, by the computer, an information set associated with the object of interest using projective geometry information based at least in part upon the 2D image and 3D object information (section 3.2 - "We extend the features suggested in [29] to project our cues form the 3D point cloud to the 2D image plane, illustrated in Figure 3. A classifier is trained to compute a segmentation output for each pixel in turn, scanning across the image").
8. Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Liu at al., 2006, "Multiview Geometry for Texture Mapping 2D Images Onto 3D Range Data". (pp. 1-8).
Regarding claim 1, A method of generating information about an object of interest in a scene (Liu - page 1 - Abstract - photorealistic modeling of large-scale scenes, such as urban structures, where structures are considered here as objects; figure 1 shows building as an object of interest in a scene; page 4 - section 5 - Multiview pose estimation and 3D structure reconstruction) comprising:
generating two-dimensional (2D) image information from a plurality of overlapping 2D images of a scene, wherein at least some of the plurality of overlapping 2D images include at least a portion of an object of interest (page 4 - Section 5 - right column - After the initial motion and structure is computed from first pair, the remaining pairs are used to further augment the SFM computation. For each image Iᵢ, I = 3...N the following operations are performed: A set of common features are found between the three images Iᵢ 2, Iᵢ 1, and Iᵢ. These are features that have been tracked from frame I₁₋₂ to frame L₁₋₁ and to frame I₁ via the SIFT algorithm; where tracked common features across images correspond to overlapping portions of 2D images.);
generating, by a computer, three-dimensional (3D) object information generated from the 2D image information, where the 3D information incorporates information about all or part of the object of interest (page 4 - Section 5 - right column - The 3D points associated with the matched features between L₁₋₂ and I₁₋₁ are recorded as well)"; and
generating, by the computer, an information set associated with the object of interest using projective geometry information based at least in part upon the 2D image and 3D object information (page 4 - Section 5 - right column - From the 2D features and 3D points collected in the previous step, the pose (R,Tᵢ) of image Iᵢ is computed using the Direct Linear Transform (DLT) with RANSAC for outlier detection).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Manav Seth whose telephone number is (571) 272-7456. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Sumati Lefkowitz, can be reached on (571) 272-3638. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Manav Seth/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672
August 5, 2026
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