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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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, 18 19 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D3 US 20150378023 in view of D02 US 20190383946 A1.
Regarding claims 1, 18 , 19 D3 teaches
A ranging systems comprising:
a lighting device(pd) configured to irradiate an irradiation area with irradiation light(fig. 1)
a control section configured to control the lighting device to irradiate at least two divided areas of multiple divided areas of the irradiation area with the irradiation light, (fig. 1 Me generates beam for different regions within Si regions)
wherein the multiple divided areas(Si divided to 9 regions esch of the regions devided to at least two but in reality 4 quadrants ) are based on division of the irradiation area(Si)
and the at least two divided areas are smaller than the irradiation area; and (Fi.g 2)
a ranging sensor(D) configured to receive reflected light,(fig. 2)
wherein the reflected light is the irradiation light reflected from an object,(fig. 2)
the ranging sensor includes a light-receiving area configured to receive the reflected light,(D includes multiple Qd regions)
the control section(Section which controls Sqr and Mr) is further configured to select specific portions o
wherein the light-receiving area corresponds to the at least two divided areas, and the light-receiving area comprises at least two unit pixels of the plurality of unit pixels;(Fig. 1 and fig. 2 different Si for different Qd)
select the at least two unit pixels of the light- receiving area(fig. 2 two light receiving areas Qd)
and the selected at least two unit pixels of the plurality of unit pixels portions of the light-receiving area are configured to receive the reflected light.(pixels are read how many unit pixels does not matter. )
but does not explicitly teach
a pixel array section that includes a plurality of unit pixels, wherein each unit pixel of the plurality of unit pixels comprises MxN pixels,each of M and N is an integer that is equal to or larger than 1,the MxN pixels comprises M rows and N columns, and a pixel of a unit pixel of the plurality of unit pixels is configured to output a detection signal based on the reflected liht a light-receiving area configured to receive the reflected light,
a plurality of analog to digital (AD) conversion sections connected to the plurality of unit pixels, wherein each AD conversion section of the plurality of AD conversion sections is connected to one unit pixel of the plurality of units pixels, and an AD conversion section, of the plurality of AD conversion sections, connected to the unit pixel is configured to execute AD conversion of the detection signal,
drive only AD conversion sections, of the plurality of AD conversion sections, corresponding to the selected at least two unit pixels of the plurality of unit pixels,
D02 teaches
a pixel array section(fig. 5) that includes a plurality of unit pixels(sensors corresponding to vertical line ), wherein each unit pixel of the plurality of unit pixels comprises MxN pixels (fig. 5),each of M and N is an integer that is equal to or larger than 1,the MxN pixels comprises M rows and N columns, and a pixel of a unit pixel of the plurality of unit pixels is configured to output a detection signal based on the reflected light a light-receiving area configured to receive the reflected light,(implicit)
a plurality of analog to digital (AD 330) conversion sections connected to the plurality of unit pixels(abstract and fig. 5), wherein each AD conversion section of the plurality of AD conversion sections is connected to one unit pixel of the plurality of units pixels(fig. 5 in current scenario is 122-n elements are unit pixel), and an AD conversion section, of the plurality of AD conversion sections, connected to the unit pixel is configured to execute AD conversion of the detection signal,(abstract)
drive only AD conversion sections, of the plurality of AD conversion sections, corresponding to the selected at least two unit pixels of the plurality of unit pixels, [0094]
(Although in D02 one uses row by row conversion of the signals it is clear that one can use single AD unit for converting RGBD group also for example in D01 US 20180143007 A1)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D3 with teaching by D02 in order to convert signals from individual group of sensor corresponding to for example to individual rows or RGBD groups and due to the fact that in D3 only certain sensors are suppose to detect the signal it is common sense to activate ad conversion only for those group of sensors to avoid unnecessary data from sensors which are not receiving any signal, saving the memory usage, further processing time to remove 0’s.
Claim(s) 2, 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D3 and D02 further in view of D4 US 20210109197 A1(claim 2) or D5 US 20200072946 A1(claim 3).
Although D3 does not explicitly teach
D4 teaches And different emission intensity(claim 14) and [0186]
D5 teaches using different modulation frequency [0007]
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D2 to use different modulation frequency or different intensity for different regions in order to decrease the interference and also satisfy eye safety standards as it is well known in the art.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D3 and D02 further in view of D5 US 20210088631 A1
D3 does not teach but D5 teaches using different duty ratio in order to identify the signals[0070,0110]
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D3 with teaching by D5 in order to identify the signals
Claim(s) 4, 6, 7 and claims bellow is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D3 and D02 further in view of D6 US 20190195990 A1.
Although D3 does not explicitly say
Different listening/integration windows D6 teaches modifying listening/integration windows in order to increase the likelihood of object detection and as Different Si correspond to different FOV some may require different listening windows such as facing the sky and facing the ground regions .
Claim(s) 8, 14, 15 and claims bellow is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D3 and D02 further in view of D1 US 20170003392 A1
Although D3 does not teach D1 teaches
[Claim 8].[0074-0074](individual gain control)
[Claim 14] [0045-0046], [0004]
[Claim 15] [0045-0046]
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D3 with teaching by D1 in order to provide individual gain control and avoid detector blinding and use A/d convertor to provide binary data..
Claim(s) 11, 12, 16, 17 and claims bellow is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D3 and D02 .
[Claim 11] The ranging system according to claim 1, wherein the lighting device includes multiple light-emitting elements, and the multiple light-emitting elements are same in light distribution characteristic.(obvious design choice to increase intensity)
[Claim 12] The ranging system according to claim 1, wherein the lighting device includes multiple light-emitting elements, and the multiple light-emitting elements are different from each other in light distribution characteristic.(obvious design choice to decrease interference)
[Claim 16] The ranging system according to claim 15, wherein the area of interest includes any of a face region of a person, a body region of the person, a region in which a moving object is present, a gaze region of the person, a saliency region, or a user specified region.(tracking human or face or fingers is well known in the art see for example US 20170003392 A1)
[Claim 17] (well known in the art see for example US 20170003392 A1 [0069-71])
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 in order to changing point resolution in the desired area.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D3 and D02 further in view of D2 US 20170155225 A1.
Although D1 does not explicitly teach
wherein two portions of the light-receiving area of the ranging sensor that correspond to two or more divided areas irradiated with irradiation light by the lighting device are different from each other in frame rate
Adjusting frame rate is well known as described in D2 [0064]
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 with teaching by D2 in order to dynamically change the resolution of the regions of interest.
Conclusion
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645