Ex Parte Bell et al

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardJun 28, 2019

14070427 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jun. 28, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/070,427 11/01/2013 23623 7590 07/02/2019 AMIN, TUROCY & WATSON, LLP 200 Park A venue Suite 300 Beachwood, OH 44122 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Matthew Bell UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www .uspto.gov ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. MPORP105USC 3592 EXAMINER DOBBS, KRISTIN SENSMEIER ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2486 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/02/2019 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): hmckee@thepatentattomeys.com rveri@thepatentattomeys.com docket@thepatentattomeys.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MATTHEW BELL, DAVID GAUSEBECK, and MICHAEL BEEBE Appeal 2018-007317 Application 14/070,4271 Technology Center 2400 Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, IRVINE. BRANCH, and PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's final rejection of claims 2-16 and 18-30. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants' Brief ("App. Br.") identifies Matterport, LLC as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2018-007317 Application 14/070,427 RELATED APPEALS Appellant identifies Appeal No. 2018-007317 (Application No. 14/070,427) and Appeal No. 2018-007640 (Application No. 14/070,429) as related proceedings. 2 We decide each of these related appeals in separate decisions issued on this day. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to capturing and aligning three-dimensional scenes. Claim 2, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 2. A system, comprising: a memory that stores computer executable instructions; and a processor, coupled to the memory, that facilitates execution of the computer executable instructions to perform operations, comprising: generating an alignment between sets of three- dimensional data corresponding to different perspectives of an environment or object by aligning the sets of three- dimensional data to one another relative to a three- dimensional coordinate space based on position information for points respectively associated with the sets of three-dimensional data; identifying planar surfaces respectively included within the sets of three-dimensional data based on the position information; determining spatial relationships between the planar surfaces, including determining relative orientations of the planar surfaces to one another and identifying two or more planar surfaces of the planar surfaces having relative 2 The identification of related appeals was made in the related appeals, which were filed subsequent to this appeal. 2 Appeal 2018-007317 Application 14/070,427 orientations that are close to a common architectural angle; and optimizing the alignment between the sets of three- dimensional data relative to the three-dimensional coordinate space based in part on the spatial relationships. App. Br. 55 (Claims Appendix). REJECTION Claims 2-16 and 18-30 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Ninan et al. (US 2012/0162366 Al, published June 28, 2012) ("Ninan") in view of Rosenstein et al. (US 2012/0185094 Al, published July 19, 2012) ("Rosenstein"). ISSUE Has the Examiner erred in finding Rosenstein teaches or suggests "determining spatial relationships between the planar surfaces, including determining relative orientations of the planar surfaces to one another and identifying two or more planar surfaces of the planar surfaces having relative orientations that are close to a common architectural angle," as recited in claim 2? ANALYSIS In rejecting claim 2, the Examiner relies on Ninan and Rosenstein. The Examiner generally finds that Ninan teaches the "generating an alignment ... " and the "optimizing the alignment ... " steps of claim 2. Final Act. 3-4 (citing Ninan ,i,i 56-57). The Examiner finds Ninan deficient in that it does not teach the recited "identifying planar surfaces ... " and "determining spatial relationships ... " limitations of claim 2. Final Act. 4. 3 Appeal 2018-007317 Application 14/070,427 The Examiner turns to Rosenstein, finding that it teaches the "identifying planar surfaces" limitation (Final Act 4-5 (citing Rosenstein Figs. 14, 15; ,i 146), and also teaches "determining spatial relationships" limitation. Final Act. 5-6 ( citing Rosenstein Figs. 17 A, 17B, 18A, 18B; ,i,i 146-156, 190- 192, and 196-197). Appellants dispute the Examiner's findings with respect to Rosenstein. App. Br. 19-25. More specifically, Appellants argue Rosenstein does not teach various aspects of the "determining spatial relationships ... " limitation, including "determining relative orientations of the planar surfaces to one another" and "identifying two or more planar surfaces having relative orientations that are close to a common architectural angle." App. Br. 19 ( emphasis omitted). Appellants assert that Rosenstein is limited to teaching generating a robot map with walls and other objects having planar surfaces. App. Br. 20-21. Appellants further argue "the speckle pattern emission method discussed in Rosenstein merely discloses an active stereo process for deriving depth information for a surface of an object and employing the depth information to optionally create a three- dimensional map of the surface of the object. App. Br. 21. Appellants argue the cited portions of Rosenstein are further deficient because: The Final Office Action thus merely suggests, in a very roundabout manner piecing different and unrelated aspects of Rosenstein together, that Rosenstein teaches a mechanism ( e.g., 3D depth mapping techniques based on active stereo involving speckle emission and cross-correlation) that could be used by a robot navigating about a room to detect an object, generate a 3D map of the object and/or determine the location of the object relative to the robot, wherein the object can have planar surfaces that have an "architectural angle" between them (such as walls in a room and the alleged planar surfaces of the example object 4 Appeal 2018-007317 Application 14/070,427 12a in Fig. 17B). However, the concept of detecting, creating a 3D map of, and/or determining the location relative to a robot, of objects in a scene that may have planar surfaces which have an architectural angle between, has nothing to do with the features recited in claim 2 .... On the contrary, the claimed subject matter is directed to determining spatial relationships between planar surfaces identified in sets of three-dimensional data. App. Br. 22 ( emphasis omitted). We are persuaded by Appellants' arguments. Rosenstein relates to a mobile robot system equipped with a mapping capability which uses an imaging device with a three-dimensional speckle emitter/camera to create a three-dimensional image mappings of a target area. Rosenstein, Abstract. While Rosenstein arguably identifies planar surfaces during its three- dimensional mapping process, we do not identify any teaching or suggestion in Rosenstein that planar surfaces having "relative orientations that are close to a common architectural angle" are identified during this process. The Examiner's analysis seems to suggest that the mere scanning and processing of planar surfaces such as walls and table tops is sufficient to teach this limitation. The Examiner does not, however, provide any explanation for how the scanning and processing of the surfaces corresponds to "identifying two or more planar surfaces of the planar surfaces having relative orientations that are close to a common architectural angle." In fact, we discern in Rosenstein no discussion whatsoever of identifying correspondences between planar surfaces. Without such an explanation, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner has failed to show this limitation would have been obvious in view of the teachings of Rosenstein. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103, nor its dependent claims which stand therewith. For the same 5 Appeal 2018-007317 Application 14/070,427 reasons, we also do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 16 and 30, which recite similar limitations, nor of their respective dependent claims. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 2-16 and 18-30 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a). REVERSED 6