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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in China on 1/10/2024. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the 1/10/2024 filed application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
That is to say the file seems incomplete in that the priority document for the priority application filed 1/11/2023 is in the file, but as noted immediately above, the priority document for the subsequent priority application of 1/10/2024 is missing from the file.
The pending claims seem generally supported by the priority application of 1/11/2023.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the recited point cloud with updated coordinates of the point(s) as well as recited laser(s) and angle(s) must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a) because they fail to show the point cloud with updated coordinates of the point(s) as well as laser(s) and angle(s) with elevations, angles and differentials as described in the specification. Any structural detail that is essential for a proper understanding of the disclosed invention should be shown in the drawing. MPEP § 608.02(d). Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(b) because they are incomplete. 37 CFR 1.83(b) reads as follows:
When the invention consists of an improvement on an old machine the drawing must when possible exhibit, in one or more views, the improved portion itself, disconnected from the old structure, and also in another view, so much only of the old structure as will suffice to show the connection of the invention therewith.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-11 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 2 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 2 and 16, the phrase "and/or" renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitation(s) following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Oh (US 2022/0130075).
Per the preamble of independent claim 20, claim 20 is interpreted as a product by process claim and as such reduces to a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing a bitstream of a point cloud sequence. Oh discloses the same: paragraphs 0333/0035/0336, memory stores point cloud in a bitstream per preamble.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2 and 12-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh in view of Taquet (US 2022/0398784).
Regarding claim 1, Oh discloses [a] method for point cloud coding, (paragraph 0003, method/apparatus for point cloud encoding/decoding) comprising: determining, for a conversion between a current coding unit of a point cloud sequence and a bitstream of the point cloud sequence, (paragraph 0068, point cloud data coded into bitstream of point cloud data carrying geometry and attribute for points) whether at least one condition associated with at least one coordinate of a point in the current coding unit is satisfied; (paragraphs 0077/0079, multiple conditions determined for encoding, such as user’s pov or sensor position) in accordance with a determination that the at least one condition is satisfied, updating the at least one coordinate based on a capturing [device] capturing the point; (paragraph 0079, coordinates updated based on sensor position or user pov) and performing the conversion based on the at least one updated coordinate of the point. (paragraphs 0082/0085, geometry coding, including coordinate transformation based on updated coordinates)
Oh fails to disclose the capturing device is a laser.
However, Taquet teaches the capturing device is a laser. (paragraphs 0101/0102, LiDAR-acquired point clouds are acquired by a set of spinning lasers)
It would have been obvious to one of skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application that a point cloud in a LIDAR system per the instant application may be acquired by lasers because such laser use was well known and common in the art before the effective filing date as evinced by Taquet. (paragraph 0101)
Regarding independent claims 18 and 19, claims 18 and 19 are apparatus and computer program product claims, respectively, reciting features similar to claim 1, and are therefore also obvious for reasons similar to claim 1 above. Oh discloses the further recited preamble features of a processor and a non-transitory memory with instructions thereon. (paragraphs 0333/0336, processor and memory storage)
Regarding independent claim 20, should the immediately above rejection be overcome, claim 20 is further obvious in accordance with the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 2, Oh discloses wherein the at least one coordinate comprises at least one of: a first coordinate in a first direction, a second coordinate in a second direction, or a third coordinate in a third direction, (paragraph 0260, coordinate is defined in the x/y/z directions) and/or wherein the at least one condition comprises a condition that: [EQUATION] wherein D0 denotes a minimum difference between adjacent lasers' elevation angles with an elevation angle of the capturing laser, Qs denotes a step of geometry quantization, a, b, c, d and e denotes scale factors, wherein a is 0.5, b is 1,c is 1,d is 1 and e is 1. (in the alternative; hence non-limiting)
Regarding claim 12, Oh discloses wherein the method is applied for at least one geometry coding tool, wherein the at least one geometry coding tool comprises at least one of: a geometry coding tool in geometry-based point cloud compression (GPCC), an octree coding or an octree-based coding, a predictive tree coding, or a coding tool based on predictive tree coding, a geometry coding tool in low latency low complexity lidar coding (L3C2), or a trisoup coding, or a coding tool based on trisoup coding. (paragraphs 0052/0082, geometry coding in GPCC performed)
Regarding claim 13, Oh discloses performing an attribute coding based on the at least one updated coordinate of the point, wherein the attribute coding comprises at least one of: an attribute coding tool in geometry-based point cloud compression (GPCC), a predicting transform, a coding tool based on predicting transform, a lifting transform or a coding tool based on lifting transform, or a region-adaptive hierarchical transform (RAHT) or a coding tool based on RATH. (paragraphs 0052/0082, coding in GPCC includes attribute encoding)
Regarding claim 14, Oh discloses wherein the at least one updated coordinate is further processed before the attribute coding, (paragraph 0082, geometry encoding performed before attribute encoding) wherein the at least one updated coordinate is converted into at least one form of coordinate, wherein the at least one form of coordinate comprises at least one of: a form of spherical coordinates, a form of cylindrical coordinates, or a form of scaled coordinates, or a form of shifted coordinates. (paragraph 0251, transformed into a cylindrical coordinate system)
Regarding claim 15, Oh fails to identically disclose the recited; however, Taquet teaches wherein at least one of a floating-point precision or a fixed-point precision is used by the method. (paragraph 0188, fixed-point number precision used for ease of computation)
Claim 15 is non-limiting since recited feature claims both binary options for number representation, and hence is obvious.
Regarding claim 16, Oh discloses wherein information regarding whether to and/or how to apply the method is included in at least one of: a frame, a tile, a slice, or an octree in the bitstream, or the bitstream, and/or wherein the information is based on coded information, wherein the coded information comprises at least one of: a dimension, a color format, a color component, a slice type, or a picture type. (paragraph 0268, tile or slice includes information for method of claim 1)
Regarding claim 17, Oh discloses wherein the conversion includes encoding the current coding unit into the bitstream, or wherein the conversion includes decoding the current coding unit from the bitstream. (paragraph 0082/0089, coding unit for point of attribute and geometry encoded into bitstream)
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Zhang (US 12,530,808) implicates azimuth information of point clouds.
Wang (US 2025/0336098) is Applicant’s related application.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER KINGSBURY GLOVER whose telephone number is (303)297-4401. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8-6 MT.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jay Patel can be reached at 571 272 2988. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHRISTOPHER KINGSBURY GLOVER/Examiner, Art Unit 2485
/JAYANTI K PATEL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2485 June 13, 2026
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