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 .
The examiner acknowledges preliminary amendments dated January 15, 2025 in which, the applicants amended claims 1-3, 5, 7, 21, 25, 37 and 40, and cancelled claims 12-20, 24, 27-36, 38-39, 41-45, 47 and 49-50.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 46 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US PgPub. No. 2022/0204029 by Chen et al. (hereinafter ‘Chen’) in view of CN 111340889A by Cheng et al. (hereinafter ‘Cheng’).
In regards to claim 1, Chen teaches a key point extraction method, the method comprising the following steps of: taking in one or more point clouds; extracting one or more planes contained in each respective point cloud; identifying one or more boundaries of each respective plane, if such boundaries of each respective plane are present in the respective point cloud. (See Chen Fig. 5, Chen teaches receiving point cloud data, extracting a 2D plane and determining boundary edge of the plane.)
However, Chen does not expressly teach identifying one or more nearby points and projecting one or more points near each respective boundary to the respective plane, to form a set of projected nearby points; constructing an image based on the one or more projected points by mapping the set of projected nearby points to a set of pixels; and extracting one or more salient pixels from each respective image as one or more key points.
Cheng teaches identifying one or more nearby points and projecting one or more points near each respective boundary to the respective plane, to form a set of projected nearby points; constructing an image based on the one or more projected points by mapping the set of projected nearby points to a set of pixels; and extracting one or more salient pixels from each respective image as one or more key points. (See Cheng “Summary of Invention” Cheng teaches “ project the 3D key points of the local point cloud onto the camera image, and vote on the 3D key points of the local point cloud according to the 2D key points of the camera image to establish the matching relationship between the 2D key points and the 3D key points; Then, according to the matching relationship between the two-dimensional key points and the three-dimensional key points, the local point cloud ball and the corresponding image blocks of the local point cloud ball are obtained.”)
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Chen’s object detection method to include point projection as taught by Cheng. The determination of obviousness is predicated upon the following findings: One skilled in the art would have been motivated to modify Chen in this manner because/in order to be able to automatically and accurately extract objects within point cloud data.
Further, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as described above by known method with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Chen with Cheng to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
In regards to claim 2, Chen and Cheng teaches all the limitations of claim 1. Chen teaches wherein the steps of extracting the one or more planes and identifying the one or more boundaries each, respectively, comprise a step of region growing. (See Chen Fig. 5).
In regards to claim 3, Chen and Cheng teaches all the limitations of claim 1. Chen teaches further comprising the step of attaching to each pixel a local descriptor extracted from a set of pixel neighboring points. (See Chen Fig. 5, Chen teaches a convex hull associated with pixels.)
Claim 46 recites limitations that are similar to that of claim 1. Therefore, claim 46 is rejected similarly as claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 48 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.
Claims 5-11, 21-23, 25-26, 37 and 40 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
In regards to claims 5 and 23, the applied art does not teach or suggest stable triangle descriptor as recited in claims 5 and 23.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to UTPAL D SHAH whose telephone number is (571)272-5729. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7:30-5:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vu Le can be reached at (571) 272-7332. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/UTPAL D SHAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2668
