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 .
In the response to this Office Action, the Examiner respectfully requests that support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line numbers in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the Examiner in prosecuting this application.
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.
Claim 10 is 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 10 recites a “program”. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a computer program product typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of “program”, as variations of the term “program “are not necessarily considered to limit a media claim to non-transitory embodiments because many disclosures conflate storage media and signals, particularly when the specification is silent. See MPEP 2111.01. The instant specification does explicitly state that a “program” is non-transitory.
The USPTO recognizes that applicants may have claims directed to “program”, which the USPTO must reject under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering both non-statutory subject matter and statutory subject matter. In an effort to assist the patent community in overcoming a rejection or potential rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in this situation, the USPTO suggests the following approach. A claim drawn to such a computer program that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § I01 by rewriting the claim to recite "A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a program…" to the claim. Cf. Animals -Patentability, 1 077 0ff. Gaz. Pat. Office 24 (April 21, 1987) (suggesting that applicants add the limitation "non-human" to a claim covering a multi-cellular organism to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101). Such an amendment would typically not raise the issue of new matter, even when the specification is silent because the broadest reasonable interpretation relies on the ordinary and customary meaning that includes signals per se. The limited situations in which such an amendment could raise issues of new matter occur, for example, when the specification does not support a non-transitory embodiment because a signal per se is the only viable embodiment such that the amended claim is impermissibly broadened beyond the supporting disclosure. See, e.g., Gentry Gallery, Inc. v. Berkline Corp., 134 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
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 of this title, 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 and 8-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2017/0168160 A1 to Metzler et al. (hereinafter "Metzler") in view of over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2022/0067961 A1 to Tazoe et al. (hereinafter "Tazoe").
Regarding Claims 1, 9, and 10, Metzler teaches an information processing apparatus (Figs. 6-10; Para. 84-120 of Metzler; distance measuring device 1), a method of processing information (Claim 16 of Metzler), and a program causing a computer to execute a process (Claim 36 of Metzler) comprising: a controller configured to acquire data representing a first image and data representing a second image, the first image and the second image being generated by an imaging device in respective attitudes that differ from each other (Figs. 6-10; Para. 84-120; Claim 36 of Metzler; image sensor of the distance measuring device fully automatically records 125 an image of the reference object. The image evaluation unit identifies the reference object in the image and, on the basis of the patterns of the reference object arranged in a known manner, derives 127 a first relative pose of the distance measuring device… image sensor fully automatically records 135 an image of the reference object and the evaluation unit again derives 137 a second relative pose of the distance measuring device on the basis of the patterns of the reference object in the image), wherein the controller is configured to acquire an amount of change in an attitude of a range finder based on an amount of change in the attitude of the imaging device, the attitude of the range finder being linked to the attitude of the imaging device (Figs. 6-10; Para. 84-120; Claim 36 of Metzler; evaluation unit of the distance measuring device determines a difference between the first relative pose and the second relative pose, and thus ascertains an absolute change in pose of the device, in particular a solid angle and an offset between a first emission direction and a second emission direction of the measurement radiation).
Metzler does not explicitly disclose the amount of change in the attitude of the imaging device being calculated based on positions of a same subject in the first image and in the second image.
However, Tazoe teaches an amount of change in attitude of an imaging device being calculated based on positions of a subject in a first image and in a second image (Fig. 5; Para. 82-102 of Tazoe; position and attitude estimation module 102 detects the feature points extracted from the second key frame respectively corresponding to the feature points extracted from the first key frame to perform association of feature points (feature point tracking) between the first key frame and the second key frame… position and attitude estimation module 102 estimates (calculates) the position and attitude of the mobile object 1 using the above-described corresponding points).
Therefore, at the time when the invention was filed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to include the amount of change in the attitude of the imaging device being calculated based on positions of a same subject in the first image and in the second image using the teachings of Tazoe in order to modify the device taught by Metzler. The motivation to combine these analogous arts would have been to acquire time-series images continuously captured by a capture device installed on a mobile object, estimate first position and attitude of the mobile object based on the acquired time-series images, estimate a distance to a subject included in the acquired time-series images and correct the estimated first position and attitude to a second position and attitude based on an actual scale, based on the estimated distance (Para. 37 of Tazoe).
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Metzler and Tazoe teaches that the controller is configured to acquire a difference between the positions of the same subject in the first image and in the second image by applying a template matching process to the first image and the second image, and the template matching process is configured to detect in the second image a partial image resembling a portion of the first image designated as a template picture (Fig. 5; Para. 82-102 of Tazoe; the association of feature points can be achieved using, for example, template matching).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-7 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.
None of the references, either singularly or in combination, teach or fairly suggest the information processing apparatus, wherein the controller is configured to acquire positional data indicating a position of an object located around the range finder, and calculate the amount of change in the attitude of the imaging device based on the positions of the subject in the first image and in the second image, the subject being located at a distance greater than a predetermined distance from the imaging device, the predetermined distance being a distance from which the range finder is unable to acquire the positional data.
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 ABHISHEK SARMA whose telephone number is (571)272-9887. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon - Fri 8:00-5:00.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amr Awad can be reached on 571-272-7764. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ABHISHEK SARMA/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2621
