DETAILED ACTION
This is the first Office action on the merits and is responsive to the papers filed 02/18/2025. Claims 1-20 are currently pending and examined below.
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
The information disclosure statement filed 02/18/2025 fails to comply with 37 CFR 1.98(a)(2), which requires a legible copy of each cited foreign patent document; each non-patent literature publication or that portion which caused it to be listed; and all other information or that portion which caused it to be listed. It has been placed in the application file, but the information referred to therein has not been considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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 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.
Claims 1-2, 4-12 and 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Witmer (US 20120116678) in view of Saxena et al. (US 10484822 B1; hereinafter Saxena).
Regarding claim 1, Witmer discloses:
A system for updating map data (Fig. 1: map database system), the system comprising:
one or more processors ([0101]-[0103] processor) configured to:
receive, from a mobile delivery device (Fig. 1: navigation device 200), geolocation breadcrumb data for a geographic area ([0088] “The collection facility 138 collects road characteristic and/or probe data from a plurality of navigation devices 200”, [0089] “probe data may include sequential location measurements such as probe trace points. Probe trace points identify coordinates on the surface of the Earth, which are usually expressed in latitude, longitude and, possibly, altitude (e.g., in meters above sea level).”);
generate centerlines using the geolocation breadcrumb data ([0181] “a probe path is a path traversed by one or more probe traces having the same beginning and end within a spatial threshold value and which does not deviate, in location, more than a threshold value from a reference probe trace. The probe paths may be identified or associated with a centerline derived as described above”);
segment the centerlines based at points where two or more centerlines intersect into two or more segments ([0162] “In FIG. 14, the minimum bounding rectangle (MBR) for each line segment between adjacent GPS measurements for Probe Trace 1 and Probe Trace 2 are shown.”).
Witmer does not specifically disclose:
receive delivery scan information from the mobile delivery device, the delivery scan information indicating delivery of an item to a delivery point, the scan information comprising a geolocation and an address;
identify one of the two or more segments associated with the geolocation of the delivery scan information;
attribute the one of the two or more segments with the address; and
update a map based on segmented centerlines and the attributed address.
However, Saxena teaches:
receive delivery scan information from the mobile delivery device, the delivery scan information indicating delivery of an item to a delivery point, the scan information comprising a geolocation (col. 4, lines 12-30 “micro point address”) and an address (col. 4, lines 31-50 “scan of addresses per camera”);
identify one of the two or more segments associated with the geolocation of the delivery scan information (col. 4, lines 12-30 “The geographic database 123 may include a grid system, described in more detail below, that partitions geographic areas according to a uniform grid of cells with boundaries tied to geographic coordinates. The cells may be sized to a predetermined size selected such that approximately one, or at most one, micro point address is included in each cell. One examples cell size may be 1 meter squared.”);
attribute the one of the two or more segments with the address (col. 4, lines 12-30 “The cells may be sized to a predetermined size selected such that approximately one, or at most one, micro point address is included in each cell. One examples cell size may be 1 meter squared…the collected data is transferred to the server 125 for augmenting the geographic database 123”); and
update a map based on segmented lines (col. 3, lines 54-55 “The probe 101 may include circuitry for determining the location of the mobile device 122”, col. 4, lines 12-30 “The geographic database 123 may include a grid system, described in more detail below, that partitions geographic areas according to a uniform grid of cells with boundaries tied to geographic coordinates. The cells may be sized to a predetermined size selected such that approximately one, or at most one, micro point address is included in each cell. One examples cell size may be 1 meter squared.”) and the attributed address (col. 4, lines 31-50 “scan of addresses per camera”, col. 4, lines 12-30 “the collected data is transferred to the server 125 for augmenting the geographic database 123”).
Witmer and Saxena are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of positioning. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Witmer’s positioning to further incorporate Saxena’s positioning for the advantage of micro point addressing which results in distinguishing addresses closer together (Saxena’s col. 2, line 30-col. 3, lines 15).
Regarding claim 2, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 1, Witmer further discloses:
wherein the one or more processors are further configured to receive, from the mobile delivery device, geolocation breadcrumb data for a plurality of days ([0092] “The collected information may be used to infer changing conditions of transportation network 108 over time. In example embodiments, a system (such as the system shown in FIG. 1) may collect data from a plurality of probe vehicles traversing a transportation network 108 over a first period of time and compare this collected data to a plurality of vehicles traversing the same transportation network 108 over a second period of time”, [0092]-[0093]).
Regarding claim 4, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 1, Witmer further discloses:
wherein the one or more processors are further configured to identify the geographic area based on an evaluation criteria ([0154] “To determine if individual probe traces should be split via spatial indexing prior to further processing, a set of rules may be defined. Examples of defined rules include: the number of traces that deviate within a certain distance of one another; the permissible angle of deviation; the radius of curvature of the deviation; etc. In one embodiment, the probe traces may be spatially indexed or organized to improve the speed of the comparison. Spatial indexing is a relatively common method for storage and retrieval of data with a geographic component. A spatial index (also referred to as a key) is a number or reference associated with a grid area or grouping of relatively closely spaced spatial objects. Spatial indexing allows for grouping of geographic objects such as lines, polygons or points based on their spatial proximity to one another.”).
Regarding claim 5, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 4, Witmer further discloses:
wherein the evaluation criteria is whether the geographic area is in a location where the geolocation breadcrumb is less accurate ([0129] “the above-described central limit theorem may be exploited such that a plurality of relatively inaccurate location measurements for the same location can be utilized to infer a closer approximation to the actual location by fitting a normal distribution curve (or in the case of Cartesian coordinates—a normal distribution surface) to the location measurements and determining the location of the peak of the distribution”).
Regarding claim 6, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 4, Witmer further discloses:
wherein the one or more processors are configured to compare an area of geolocation breadcrumb data with reference map data, and to select the geographic area where the area of geolocation breadcrumb data does not have reference map data ([0065] “The unique probe path is a path traversed by one or more probe traces having the same beginning and end within a spatial threshold value and which does not deviate, in location, more than a threshold value from a reference probe trace.”, [0180] “More specifically, FIG. 19 shows the progression of deriving probe paths. In FIG. 19( a), all traces that go from along the dark black path in the direction shown are found and an average is created. In FIG. 19( b), the first path and the next path are shown, and the first path is adjusted where the two paths are merged. FIGS. 19( c) and 19(d) continue to build out along unique probe paths.”).
Regarding claim 7, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 1, Witmer further discloses:
wherein the one or more processors are further configured to remove centerlines associated with geolocation breadcrumb data generated at a last delivery of a day and an arrival at a distribution network facility ([0147] “probe traces not associated with the type of transportation network being modelled are filtered out or removed… a vehicle that is parking, rather than a vehicle traveling on a road”, thus probe traces of vehicles not making delivery and parked for the night not belonging to a certain type would be excluded).
Regarding claim 8, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 1, Saxena further discloses:
wherein the address includes a street name (Table 1: HHH street), and wherein the one or more processors are configured to attribute the one of the two or more segments with the street name (col. 4, lines 31-50 “scan of addresses per camera”, col. 4, lines 12-30 “the collected data is transferred to the server 125 for augmenting the geographic database 123”).
Regarding claim 9, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 1, Saxena further discloses:
wherein the one or more processors are further configured to identify date a street first appeared (col. 9, lines 42-43 “Example story values, which may be specific to building type, geographic region, and/or time period”) based on the geolocation breadcrumb data (col. 9, lines 14-22 “At act S117, the micro point addressing controller 121 performs floor number detection. In one example, the micro point addressing controller 121 first queries the geographic database 123 to determine whether a building model that is accessed at act S114, if applicable, includes the number of floors. If the number of floors has been determined, act S117 is omitted. Otherwise, the height module 38 calculates the number of floors based on the height (H) for the coordinates for the building.”) and the delivery scan data (col. 4, lines 31-50 “scan of addresses per camera”, col. 4, lines 12-30 “the collected data is transferred to the server 125 for augmenting the geographic database 123”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Witmer’s positioning as currently modified to further incorporate Saxena’s positioning for the advantage of noting the time period of the address which results in micro point addressing based on height (Saxena’s col. 9, lines 14-22).
Regarding claim 10, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 1, Witmer further discloses:
wherein the one or more processors are configured to identify an intersection where two centerlines intersect and to segment each of the two centerlines into two segments (Figs. 14-17, [0162] “In FIG. 14, the minimum bounding rectangle (MBR) for each line segment between adjacent GPS measurements for Probe Trace 1 and Probe Trace 2 are shown.”, [0173] “A probe path may traverse one or more connected transportation segments. In one example, if two or more probe traces travel adjacent to each other over a distance greater than a threshold distance (e.g., about 1 mile) and the paths do not diverge greater than a given threshold (e.g., about 5 meters) when measured perpendicular at any location along one of the probe traces designated as the reference path, then the probe traces may be determined to represent measurements along the same probe path.”).
Regarding claim 11, Witmer discloses:
A method of updating map data (Fig. 1: map database system), the method comprising:
receiving, from a mobile delivery device (Fig. 1: navigation device 200), geolocation breadcrumb data for a geographic area ([0088] “The collection facility 138 collects road characteristic and/or probe data from a plurality of navigation devices 200”, [0089] “probe data may include sequential location measurements such as probe trace points. Probe trace points identify coordinates on the surface of the Earth, which are usually expressed in latitude, longitude and, possibly, altitude (e.g., in meters above sea level).”);
generating centerlines using the geolocation breadcrumb data ([0181] “a probe path is a path traversed by one or more probe traces having the same beginning and end within a spatial threshold value and which does not deviate, in location, more than a threshold value from a reference probe trace. The probe paths may be identified or associated with a centerline derived as described above”);
segmenting the centerlines based at points where two or more centerlines intersect into two or more segments ([0162] “In FIG. 14, the minimum bounding rectangle (MBR) for each line segment between adjacent GPS measurements for Probe Trace 1 and Probe Trace 2 are shown.”).
Witmer does not specifically disclose:
receiving delivery scan information from the mobile delivery device, the delivery scan information indicating delivery of an item to a delivery point, the scan information comprising a geolocation and an address;
identifying one of the two or more segments associated with the geolocation of the delivery scan information;
attributing the one of the two or more segments with the address; and
updating a map based on segmented centerlines and the attributed address.
However, Saxena teaches:
receiving delivery scan information from the mobile delivery device, the delivery scan information indicating delivery of an item to a delivery point, the scan information comprising a geolocation (col. 4, lines 12-30 “micro point address”) and an address (col. 4, lines 31-50 “scan of addresses per camera”);
identifying one of the two or more segments associated with the geolocation of the delivery scan information (col. 4, lines 12-30 “The geographic database 123 may include a grid system, described in more detail below, that partitions geographic areas according to a uniform grid of cells with boundaries tied to geographic coordinates. The cells may be sized to a predetermined size selected such that approximately one, or at most one, micro point address is included in each cell. One examples cell size may be 1 meter squared.”);
attributing the one of the two or more segments with the address (col. 4, lines 12-30 “The cells may be sized to a predetermined size selected such that approximately one, or at most one, micro point address is included in each cell. One examples cell size may be 1 meter squared…the collected data is transferred to the server 125 for augmenting the geographic database 123”); and
updating a map based on segmented lines (col. 3, lines 54-55 “The probe 101 may include circuitry for determining the location of the mobile device 122”, col. 4, lines 12-30 “The geographic database 123 may include a grid system, described in more detail below, that partitions geographic areas according to a uniform grid of cells with boundaries tied to geographic coordinates. The cells may be sized to a predetermined size selected such that approximately one, or at most one, micro point address is included in each cell. One examples cell size may be 1 meter squared.”) and the attributed address (col. 4, lines 31-50 “scan of addresses per camera”, col. 4, lines 12-30 “the collected data is transferred to the server 125 for augmenting the geographic database 123”).
Witmer and Saxena are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of positioning. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Witmer’s positioning to further incorporate Saxena’s positioning for the advantage of micro point addressing which results in distinguishing addresses closer together (Saxena’s col. 2, line 30-col. 3, lines 15).
Regarding claim 12, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 11, Witmer further discloses:
further comprising receiving, from the mobile delivery device, geolocation breadcrumb data for a plurality of days ([0092] “The collected information may be used to infer changing conditions of transportation network 108 over time. In example embodiments, a system (such as the system shown in FIG. 1) may collect data from a plurality of probe vehicles traversing a transportation network 108 over a first period of time and compare this collected data to a plurality of vehicles traversing the same transportation network 108 over a second period of time”, [0092]-[0093]).
Regarding claim 14, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 11, Witmer further discloses:
further comprising identifying the geographic area based on an evaluation criteria ([0154] “To determine if individual probe traces should be split via spatial indexing prior to further processing, a set of rules may be defined. Examples of defined rules include: the number of traces that deviate within a certain distance of one another; the permissible angle of deviation; the radius of curvature of the deviation; etc. In one embodiment, the probe traces may be spatially indexed or organized to improve the speed of the comparison. Spatial indexing is a relatively common method for storage and retrieval of data with a geographic component. A spatial index (also referred to as a key) is a number or reference associated with a grid area or grouping of relatively closely spaced spatial objects. Spatial indexing allows for grouping of geographic objects such as lines, polygons or points based on their spatial proximity to one another.”).
Regarding claim 15, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 14, Witmer further discloses:
wherein the evaluation criteria is whether the geographic area is in a location where the geolocation breadcrumb is less accurate ([0129] “the above-described central limit theorem may be exploited such that a plurality of relatively inaccurate location measurements for the same location can be utilized to infer a closer approximation to the actual location by fitting a normal distribution curve (or in the case of Cartesian coordinates—a normal distribution surface) to the location measurements and determining the location of the peak of the distribution”).
Regarding claim 16, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 14, Witmer further discloses:
further comprising:
comparing an area of geolocation breadcrumb data with reference map data; and
selecting the geographic area where the area of geolocation breadcrumb data does not have reference map data ([0065] “The unique probe path is a path traversed by one or more probe traces having the same beginning and end within a spatial threshold value and which does not deviate, in location, more than a threshold value from a reference probe trace.”, [0180] “More specifically, FIG. 19 shows the progression of deriving probe paths. In FIG. 19( a), all traces that go from along the dark black path in the direction shown are found and an average is created. In FIG. 19( b), the first path and the next path are shown, and the first path is adjusted where the two paths are merged. FIGS. 19( c) and 19(d) continue to build out along unique probe paths.”).
Regarding claim 17, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 11, Witmer further discloses:
further comprising removing centerlines associated with geolocation breadcrumb data generated at a last delivery of a day and an arrival at a distribution network facility ([0147] “probe traces not associated with the type of transportation network being modelled are filtered out or removed… a vehicle that is parking, rather than a vehicle traveling on a road”, thus probe traces of vehicles not making delivery and parked for the night not belonging to a certain type would be excluded).
Regarding claim 18, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 11, Saxena further discloses:
wherein the address includes a street name (Table 1: HHH street), and wherein the method further comprises attributing the one of the two or more segments with the street name (col. 4, lines 31-50 “scan of addresses per camera”, col. 4, lines 12-30 “the collected data is transferred to the server 125 for augmenting the geographic database 123”).
Regarding claim 19, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 11, Saxena further discloses:
further comprising identifying a date a street first appeared (col. 9, lines 42-43 “Example story values, which may be specific to building type, geographic region, and/or time period”) based on the geolocation breadcrumb data (col. 9, lines 14-22 “At act S117, the micro point addressing controller 121 performs floor number detection. In one example, the micro point addressing controller 121 first queries the geographic database 123 to determine whether a building model that is accessed at act S114, if applicable, includes the number of floors. If the number of floors has been determined, act S117 is omitted. Otherwise, the height module 38 calculates the number of floors based on the height (H) for the coordinates for the building.”) and the delivery scan data (col. 4, lines 31-50 “scan of addresses per camera”, col. 4, lines 12-30 “the collected data is transferred to the server 125 for augmenting the geographic database 123”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Witmer’s positioning as currently modified to further incorporate Saxena’s positioning for the advantage of noting the time period of the address which results in micro point addressing based on height (Saxena’s col. 9, lines 14-22).
Regarding claim 20, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 11, Witmer further discloses:
further comprising identifying an intersection where two centerlines intersect and to segment each of the two centerlines into two segments (Figs. 14-17, [0162] “In FIG. 14, the minimum bounding rectangle (MBR) for each line segment between adjacent GPS measurements for Probe Trace 1 and Probe Trace 2 are shown.”, [0173] “A probe path may traverse one or more connected transportation segments. In one example, if two or more probe traces travel adjacent to each other over a distance greater than a threshold distance (e.g., about 1 mile) and the paths do not diverge greater than a given threshold (e.g., about 5 meters) when measured perpendicular at any location along one of the probe traces designated as the reference path, then the probe traces may be determined to represent measurements along the same probe path.”).
Claims 3 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Witmer, in view of Saxena and Bauer et al. (US 10559201 B1; hereinafter Bauer).
Regarding claim 3, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 2, Witmer further discloses:
wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
generate centerlines using the averaged geolocation breadcrumb data ([0182] “The geographic network generation module 3404 may merge probe paths by deriving a new path which averages the distance that separates the probe paths”).
Witmer as modified does not teach:
average the received geolocation breadcrumb data for the plurality of days.
However, Bauer teaches:
average the received geolocation breadcrumb data for the plurality of days (col. 8, lines 29-38 “a collection period may extend over a month or more. This is to improve accuracy by collecting a larger number of samples for each target period. A “target period” is typically a given day of the week and an hour of that day. Or, days may be grouped into weekdays and weekend days. There may be another group of target periods for holidays. During each day, data should be collected for each hour, for example, and averaged over the collected probe data corresponding to that particular hour.”).
Bauer is analogous to the claimed invention because it pertains to the same field of vehicle probe data. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Witmer’s vehicle probe data as currently modified to further incorporate Bauer’s vehicle probe data for the advantage of averaging a large collection of samples over a long period which results in improved data sample accuracy (Bauer’s col. 8, lines 29-38).
Regarding claim 13, Witmer as modified discloses the system of claim 12, Witmer further discloses:
further comprising:
generating centerlines using the averaged geolocation breadcrumb data ([0182] “The geographic network generation module 3404 may merge probe paths by deriving a new path which averages the distance that separates the probe paths”).
Witmer as modified does not teach:
averaging the received geolocation breadcrumb data for the plurality of days.
However, Bauer teaches:
averaging the received geolocation breadcrumb data for the plurality of days (col. 8, lines 29-38 “a collection period may extend over a month or more. This is to improve accuracy by collecting a larger number of samples for each target period. A “target period” is typically a given day of the week and an hour of that day. Or, days may be grouped into weekdays and weekend days. There may be another group of target periods for holidays. During each day, data should be collected for each hour, for example, and averaged over the collected probe data corresponding to that particular hour.”).
Bauer is analogous to the claimed invention because it pertains to the same field of vehicle probe data. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Witmer’s vehicle probe data as currently modified to further incorporate Bauer’s vehicle probe data for the advantage of averaging a large collection of samples over a long period which results in improved data sample accuracy (Bauer’s col. 8, lines 29-38).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PAYSUN WU whose telephone number is (571)272-1528. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM.
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/PAYSUN WU/Examiner, Art Unit 3665
/DONALD J WALLACE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3665
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