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 .
Specification
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it does not “enable the Office and the public generally to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and gist of the technical disclosure.” 37 CFR 1.72(b). Specifically, the technology should be described in conventional English (as opposed to phrases that require reading the reference to understand what is meant).
A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
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.
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 1-20 (all claims) 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Note that many of these indefiniteness rejections appear to be due to the use of translations that are not high enough quality for US patent practice. US patent law requires precise language. See, for example, MPEP 2111 discussing how claims are interpreted. Here, for example, it appears likely that issues such as “new terminology” may be overcome with a better translation.
Claims 1, 8, and 15 recite “image acquisition position,” but this is new terminology. MPEP 2173.05(a).
Claims 1, 8, and 15 recite both “target scene” and “target point.” There are two issues. First, “target” is subjective because the claim has not provided an objective to be met (i.e., what is the target of?). MPEP 2173.05(b)(IV). Second, the claims are directed to ground surface detection, but it is unclear if the target is intended to be the ground or not.
Claims 1, 7, 8, 14, and 15 recite “related,” but this is subjective terminology because different people can have different opinions as to how this is met. MPEP 2173.05(b)(IV). One option to overcome this rejection is to specify an objective standard, such as “from.”
Claims 1-20 recite “according to,” but this raises the same issue as “related to.”
Claims 1, 8, and 15 recite “height distribution,” but this is new terminology. MPEP 2173.05(a).
Claims 2, 9, and 15 recite “preset class interval,” but this is new terminology. MPEP 2173.05(a).
Claims 4, 11, and 18 recite “indicating a relationship between a weight and a height.” While the specification suggests that “weight” is used in the sense of a scalar, the grammar suggests “weight” is meant in the sense of mass.
Claims 5, 12, and 19 recite “saturating the height distribution function,” but this is new terminology. MPEP 2173.05(a).
Claim 8 recites a “terminal device,” but while “terminal device” is understood to refer to a cell phone, claim 8 is directed to processing a point cloud, but phones are not traditionally equipped to process point clouds. Alternatively, “terminal device” could be understood in the context of a network, but no network is recited in the claims.
Dependent claims are likewise rejected.
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 15-20 (the storage medium claims) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claimed “computer-readable storage medium” does not recite “non-transitory.”
Claims 1-20 (all claims) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea (mental process) without significantly more.
Step 1: Claim 1 (and its dependents) recite a method, and processes satisfy Step 1 of the eligibility test.
Claim 8 (and its dependents) recite a device, and machines satisfy Step 1 of the eligibility test.
Claim 15 (and its dependents) fail Step 1 of the eligibility test (see above).
Step 2A, prong one: All of the elements of the claims are a mental process because a person can look at a point cloud and determine where the ground is (e.g., the recited steps are all simple enough to be computed mentally). MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(C) explains that use of a generic computer or in a computer environment is still a mental process. In particular, this section begins by citing Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 US 63 (1972). “The Supreme Court recognized this in Benson, determining that a mathematical algorithm for converting binary coded decimal to pure binary within a computer’s shift register was an abstract idea.” In Benson the Supreme Court did not separately analyze the computer hardware at issue; the specifics of what hardware was claimed is only included in an appendix to the decision.
Because there are no additional elements, no further analysis is required for Step 2A, prong two or Step 2B.
Specification, [0004] does not provide enough detail on the problem to be solved to show a technological improvement.
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 1-20 (all claims) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Vasile, Alexandru Nicolae. "Pose independent target recognition system using pulsed ladar imagery." Masters thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004. (“Vasile”).
1. A ground surface detection method, comprising:
acquiring an image acquisition position in a target scene; (Vasile, abstract, “A method for data integration was developed to register multiple scene views to obtain a more complete 3D surface signature of a target.”)
determining a target point cloud from a point cloud related to the target scene according to the image acquisition position, wherein the target point cloud is located within a preset range below the image acquisition position in the target scene; (Vasile, abstract, “We present a pose-independent Automatic Target Detection and Recognition System that uses data from an airborne 3D imaging Ladar sensor” Vasile’s airborne ladar sensor teaches the claimed preset range below. See, e.g., p. 43, Fig. 3-1.)
determining a height distribution of the target point cloud in the target scene; and (Vasile, p. 48, “A histogram is generated using the z-component of each of the 3D scene points that matched the ground plane.”)
determining a position of a ground surface in the target scene according to the image acquisition position and the height distribution of the target point cloud. (Vasile, p. 48, “A histogram is generated using the z-component of each of the 3D scene points that matched the ground plane.”)
2. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining a position of a ground surface in the target scene according to the image acquisition position and the height distribution of the target point cloud comprises:
generating a height distribution function according to the image acquisition position, the height distribution and a preset class interval, wherein an independent variable of the height distribution function is a height difference between the target point cloud and the image acquisition position, and a dependent variable of the height distribution function is a number of points of the target point cloud; and (Vasile, p. 48, “A histogram is generated using the z-component of each of the 3D scene points that matched the ground plane.”)
determining the position of the ground surface in the target scene according to the height distribution function. (Vasile, p. 48, “A histogram is generated using the z-component of each of the 3D scene points that matched the ground plane.”)
3. The method according to claim 2, wherein determining the position of the ground surface in the target scene according to the height distribution function comprises: smoothing the height distribution function to obtain a smoothed height distribution function; and (Vasile, p. 48, “A z-direction histogram is created using a moving window that scans the available height range. The window size is fixed at 2 meters and the bin spacing is set at 0.2 meters.”)
determining the position of the ground surface in the target scene according to the smoothed height distribution function. (Vasile, p. 48, “The presence of a potential peak is detected when more than 25% of all scene points fall in the window.”)
4. The method according to claim 2, wherein determining the position of the ground surface in the target scene according to the height distribution function comprises:
acquiring a weight function indicating a relationship between a weight and a height, wherein the weight of the weight function is inversely proportional to the height of the weight function; and (Vasile, p. 33, eq. 2.6. See also, p. 32, eq. 2.5)
determining the position of the ground surface in the target scene according to the weight function and the height distribution function. (Vasile, p. 48, “These remaining correspondences are used to detect the ground plane.” Vasile’s correspondences teach the claimed weights.)
5. The method according to claim 4, wherein before determining the position of the ground surface in the target scene according to the weight function and the height distribution function, the method further comprises: saturating the height distribution function. (Vasile, p. 48, “Since the peak should follow shortly, the bin spacing is reduced to 0.1 meters in order to refine the location of the peak window.” Reducing the bin spacing means collecting more data, i.e., the claimed saturating the distribution function.)
6. The method according to claim 4, wherein determining the position of the ground surface in the target scene according to the weight function and the height distribution function comprises: weighting the height distribution function according to the weight function to obtain a weighted height distribution function; and (Vasile, p. 33, eq. 2.6. See also, p. 32, eq. 2.5)
determining a height corresponding to a first peak or a second peak in the weighted height distribution function as a height of the ground surface, wherein the first peak is a highest peak, and the second peak is a peak greater than a first threshold and less than a preset percentage of the first peak. (Vasile, p. 48, Fig. 3-5 b. See also, p. 44, Fig. 3-4.)
7. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining a target point cloud from a point cloud related to the target scene according to the image acquisition position comprises:
determining a to-be-selected point cloud range from the point cloud related to the target scene according to the image acquisition position, wherein the to-be-selected point cloud range has a distance from the image acquisition position which is less than a second threshold; and (Vasile, p. 24, Fig. 2-2)
determining, from the to-be-selected point cloud range, a to-be-selected point cloud whose height is smaller than a height of the image acquisition position and whose height difference relative to the image acquisition position is within a preset height range, as the target point cloud. (Vasile, abstract, “We present a pose-independent Automatic Target Detection and Recognition System that uses data from an airborne 3D imaging Ladar sensor” Vasile’s airborne ladar sensor teaches the claimed smaller than a height of the acquisition position. See, e.g., p. 43, Fig. 3-1.)
Claims 8-20 are rejected as per their counterpart claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20220207852 A1 – title, “Generating a ground plane for obstruction detection”
US 20230222618 A1 – step S310
US 20200081096 A1 – abstract
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/DAVID ORANGE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2663
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