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 .
Response to Amendment and Arguments
The amendment filed 6/1/2026 has been entered. Claims 1-20 remain pending in the application. In light of the amendment the previous non-statutory double patenting rejection and rejections under 35 USC 101 are withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection(s) under 35 USC 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of US20200327343A1 (“Lund”).
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) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US20230104843A1 ("Yang") in view of US20200327343A1 (“Lund”).As per claims 1, 8, 15 Yang teaches:
A method controlling an ego vehicle in an environment, comprising: capturing at least a first three-dimensional (3D) representation of the environment at a first time and a second 3D representation of the environment at a second time via one or more sensors associated with the ego vehicle; generating a two-dimensional (2D) flow vector associated with one or more regions of the environment based on a correlation between the first 3D representation and the Yang at least the abstract, [0032]: “sensor subsystem 104 continually (i.e., at each of multiple time points) captures raw sensor data 106 which can indicate the directions, intensities, and distances travelled by reflected radiation.”, [0042-0043]: “the predicted classification generated for each of one or more agents in the environment can include scores for each of a set of stationary agent states, i.e., in addition to a score for an active agent state, with each score representing an estimated likelihood that the agent is currently in the state. For example, the set of stationary agent states can include one or more of: parked, double parked, pulled over, or stalled….predicted classifications can be provided to a planning subsystem 116 which generates planning decisions that plan a future trajectory of the vehicle.”, [0050]: “the agent’s location, heading, speed, trajectory, and so on.”, [0034]: “ for vehicle agents, the context data 110 can additionally include agent attribute information that includes the state of headlights/taillights of vehicle, door opening status of the vehicle, agent interaction with humans such as passengers, and so on.”, [002], [0039-0040])
Yang does not disclose:
warping the second 3D representation to the first 3D representation to generate a warped second 3D representation
Lund teaches the aforementioned limitation (Lund at least the abstract, [0058], [0084], [0108], [0127], [0153]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Yang with the aforementioned limitations taught by Lund with a reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine these references in order to enhance vehicle safety (Lund [0031]).
Regarding claims 2, 9, 16, Yang in combination with the other reference teaches the invention as described above. Yang additionally teaches:
wherein the contextual data includes one or more of an object type of the agent vehicle, a first distance from a center point of the agent vehicle to a road boundary, an estimated absolute speed of the agent vehicle, a second distance to a nearest intersection from the agent vehicle, a map location type, a free lane ratio, or an edge distance between an edge of the agent vehicle and the road boundary. (Yang at least [0050], [0021]: “described system can thus preserve sensitive features such as distance features (e.g., passing gap or distance to the curb) which are imperative to making stationary state classification predictions. ”)
Regarding claims 3, 10, 17 Yang in combination with the other reference teaches the invention as described above. Yang additionally teaches:
obtaining the first representation via a first LiDAR sweep; and obtaining the second representation via a second LiDAR sweep. (Yang at least [0032])
Regarding claims 4, 11, 18 Yang in combination with the other reference teaches the invention as described above. Yang additionally teaches:
the first representation is a first birds eye view (BEV) representation of the environment and the second representation is a second BEV representation of the environment. (Yang at least [0037], [0048])
Regarding claims 5, 12, 19 Yang in combination with the other reference teaches the invention as described above. Yang additionally teaches:
wherein the contextual data is based on information associated with one or more taillights of the agent vehicle. (Yang at least [0034])
Regarding claims 6, 13, 20 Yang in combination with the other reference teaches the invention as described above. Yang additionally teaches:
wherein the one or more taillights include one or more brake lights and/or one or more turn signal lights. (Yang at least [0034])
Regarding claims 7, 14 Yang in combination with the other reference teaches the invention as described above. Yang additionally teaches:
wherein the ego vehicle is an autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle. (Yang at least [0014])
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/O.T./Examiner, Art Unit 3669
/NAVID Z. MEHDIZADEH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3669
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