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 .
Specification
Abstract
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it is not relevant to the current set of claims.
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 § 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 21-28 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 claim 21 is directed to “a method for identifying candidate changes...comprising:” the steps of aligning, computing, selecting, determining, determining, defining, defining and outputting which are nothing more than software instructions. Software instructions are non-statutory under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 22-28 depend from claim 21 and comprise additional software instructions, for example claim 22 comprises the step of computing. Therefore claims 22-28 have the same problem as claim 21 and are rejected under the same rationale.
Double Patenting
A rejection based on double patenting of the “same invention” type finds its support in the language of 35 U.S.C. 101 which states that “whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process... may obtain a patent therefor...” (Emphasis added). Thus, the term “same invention,” in this context, means an invention drawn to identical subject matter. See Miller v. Eagle Mfg. Co., 151 U.S. 186 (1894); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Ockert, 245 F.2d 467, 114 USPQ 330 (CCPA 1957).
A statutory type (35 U.S.C. 101) double patenting rejection can be overcome by canceling or amending the claims that are directed to the same invention so they are no longer coextensive in scope. The filing of a terminal disclaimer cannot overcome a double patenting rejection based upon 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 21, 28-29 and 36 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 3-5 and 16-18 of U.S. Patent No. 12,223,748 in view of XU et. al., “Detection and Classification of Changes in Buildings from Airborne Laser Scanning Data;” Remote sensing 7.12 (2015): 17051-17076.
Regarding claims 21 and 29, the patent teaches most limitations, but doesn’t teach, however the analogous prior art XU teaches:
defining a bounding box for each candidate change, the bounding box encompassing the identified candidate change (XU: pg. 17074, sec. 6 “Conclusions,” 3rd par.; “Larger changes can be correctly assessed…”); and
outputting the candidate changes (XU: pg. 17074, sec. 6 “Conclusions,” 3rd par.; “was evaluated by overlaying the 3D bounding boxes…”; the overlaying of 3D bounding boxes strongly suggests that the candidate changes were outputted).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine defining a bounding box for each candidate change, the bounding box encompassing the identified candidate change; outputting the candidate changes as shown in XU with the patent for the benefit of addressing a shortcoming in the prior art in that the difficulty associated with the Lidar data change detection method is lack of data, which is mainly caused by occlusion or pulse absorption by the surface material, e.g., water. To address this challenge, we present a new strategy for detecting buildings that are “changed”, “unchanged”, or “unknown”, and quantifying the changes. The designation “unknown” is applied to locations where, due to lack of data in at least one of the epochs, it is not possible to reliably detect changes in the structure. The process starts with classified data sets in which buildings are extracted. Next, a point-to-plane surface difference map is generated by merging and comparing the two data sets. Context rules are applied to the difference map to distinguish between “changed”, “unchanged”, and “unknown”. Rules are defined to solve problems caused by the lack of data. (XU see abstract lines 1-9)
Claims of 19/005,806 Claims of US12,223,748 B2
21. A method for identifying candidate changes in a space based on representations of the space, the method comprising:
aligning a previous representation of the space and a current representation of the space to produce aligned representations;
computing a structural similarity between the aligned representations to identify a plurality of potential changes;
for each of the plurality of potential changes:
selecting the potential change for evaluation;
determining whether the structural similarity of the potential change is above a predetermined threshold, and if so, discarding the potential change;
determining whether the potential change corresponds to an edge in at least one of the previous representation or the current representation, and if so, discarding the potential change;
defining the potential change as a candidate change if it is neither discarded based on the structural similarity nor the edge correspondence…
28. The method of claim 21, further comprising combining candidate changes that are within a threshold distance of one another into a single candidate change.
29. A server for identifying candidate changes in a space based on representations of the space, the server comprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the server to:
align a previous representation of the space and a current representation of the space to produce aligned representations;
compute a structural similarity between the aligned representations to identify a plurality of potential changes;
for each of the plurality of potential changes:
select the potential change for evaluation;
determine whether the structural similarity of the potential change is above a predetermined threshold, and if so, discard the potential change;
determine whether the potential change corresponds to an edge in at least one of the previous representation or the current representation, and if so, discard the potential change;
define the potential change as a candidate change if it is neither discarded based on the structural similarity nor the edge correspondence…
36. The server of claim 29, wherein the instructions further cause the server to combine candidate changes that are within a threshold distance of one another into a single candidate change.
1. A method comprising:
retrieving a previous representation representing a target portion of a space;
obtaining a current representation representing the target portion of the space;
3. warping the images to align the previous representation and the current representation;
3. computing a structural similarity between the previous representation and the current representation to obtain a plurality of potential changes;
3. for each potential change having a structural similarity value below a threshold similarity value, defining the potential change as a candidate change.
3. for each potential change having a structural similarity value below a threshold similarity value, defining the potential change as a candidate change.
4. detecting edges in at least one of the current representation or the previous representation; and
filtering out the potential changes corresponding to one of the detected edges.
3. for each potential change having a structural similarity value below a threshold similarity value, defining the potential change as a candidate change.
4. filtering out the potential changes corresponding to one of the detected edges.
5. The method …
combining potential changes within a threshold distance of one another.
16. A server comprising:
a memory and a communications interface; and
a processor interconnected with the memory and the communications interface, the processor configured to:
16. retrieve, from the memory, a previous representation representing a target portion of a space;
16. receive, via the communications interface, a current representation representing the target portion of the space;
17. warp the images to align the previous representation and the current representation.
17. compute a structural similarity between the previous representation and the current representation to obtain a plurality of potential changes;
17. for each potential change having a structural similarity value below a threshold similarity value, define the potential change as a candidate change.
17. for each potential change having a structural similarity value below a threshold similarity value, define the potential change as a candidate change.
18. detect edges in at least one of the current representation or the previous representation;
and
filter out the potential changes corresponding to one of the detected edges.
17. for each potential change having a structural similarity value below a threshold similarity value, define the potential change as a candidate change.
18. filter out the potential changes corresponding to one of the detected edges.
5. combining potential changes within a threshold distance of one another.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 22-27 would be objected to (except for the 101 rejection) 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 30-35 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claims 22-27 and 30-35, the prior art doesn’t teach:
22. The method of claim 21, wherein determining whether the structural similarity of the potential change is above a threshold comprises computing a similarity value based on RGB image data.
23. The method of claim 21, wherein defining a bounding box for the candidate change comprises identifying upper and lower bounds of pixel coordinates representing the candidate change.
24. The method of claim 21, wherein potential changes with a structural similarity value above the predetermined threshold are discarded as non-candidate changes.
25. The method of claim 21, wherein aligning the previous representation and the current representation comprises warping the representations using scaling and translation.
26. The method of claim 21 further comprising normalizing the previous and current representations to adjust lighting conditions, contrast, or blur.
27. The method of claim 21, wherein determining whether the potential change corresponds to an edge further comprises filtering out potential changes within a threshold distance of an edge.
30. The server of claim 29, wherein the instructions cause the server to determine whether the structural similarity of the potential change is above a threshold by computing a similarity value based on RGB image data.
31. The server of claim 29, wherein the instructions cause the server to define a bounding box for the candidate change by identifying upper and lower bounds of pixel coordinates representing the candidate change.
32. The server of claim 29, wherein the instructions cause the server to discard potential changes with a structural similarity value above the predetermined threshold as non-candidate changes.
33. The server of claim 29, wherein the instructions cause the server to align the previous representation and the current representation by warping the representations using scaling and translation.
34. The server of claim 29, wherein the instructions further cause the server to normalize the previous and current representations to adjust lighting conditions, contrast, or blur.
35. The server of claim 29, wherein the instructions cause the server to determine whether the potential change corresponds to an edge by filtering out potential changes within a threshold distance of an edge.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAURICE L MCDOWELL, JR whose telephone number is (571)270-3707. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 2pm-10pm.
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/MAURICE L. MCDOWELL, JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2612
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