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 amendment
The present office action is made in response to the amendment filed by applicant on 06/30/2025. It is noted that in the amendment, applicant has made changes to the drawings, the specification and the claims. There is not any change being made to the abstract.
A) Regarding the drawings, applicant has submitted five replacement sheets contained figures 2A-2D, 3D-3E, 4B-4E, 6C-6D and 14;
B) Regarding the specification, applicant has made change to page 9 on lines 20-23; and
C) Regarding the claims, applicant has amended claims 23, 27, 34 and 38; canceled claims 24-26, 28-31, 35-37 and 39-42; and added a set of claims, i.e., claims 43-44, into the application.
Response to Arguments
The amendments to the drawings, the specification and the claims as provided in the amendment of 06/30/2025, and applicant's arguments provided in the mentioned amendment, pages 7-13, have been fully considered and yielded the following conclusions.
A) Regarding the claims, the following conclusions are made:
A1) because applicant has canceled claims 24-26, 28-31, 35-37 and 39-42 and added claims 43-44 into the application, thus the pending claims are claims 23, 27, 32-34, 38 and 43-44 (Note that claims 1-22 were canceled in the pre-amendment of 03/21/2022);
A2) a review the newly-added claims 43-44 has resulted that the features of the new claims are directed to the third and fourth lasers, thus claims 43-44 are now grouped into the elected Invention I and examined in the present office action; and
A3) regarding applicant’s arguments and requested to consider claim 33 with the claims of the elected invention I, see amendment in page 7 on lines 9-11 and page 8, the first full paragraph, such arguments have been fully considered but the request to join the claim 33 into the elected invention I is denied.
Applicant is respected fully invited to review the features recited in claim 33 and the Election/Restriction mailed to applicant on 10/25/2024 in which the Election/Restriction stated that the claims 27-33 and 38-42 comprises features related to “a display having an image generator with an illumination subsystem having a plurality of lasers, projection optics having optical elements, and specific features regarding the structure and the arrangement of the image generator and the projection optics”, see Election/Restriction of 10/25/2024, page 4, lines 5-8. Because the present claim 33 recites features regarding to a scanning optical arrangement with specific structure thus the claim 33 was grouped into the invention II.
B) Regarding the objections to the drawings as set forth in the office action of 04/02/2025, the amendments to the drawings and the specification as provided in the amendment of 06/30/2025, and applicant’s arguments provided in the mentioned amendment, pages 8-9, have been fully considered and are sufficient to overcome the objections to the drawings as set forth in the mentioned office action.
C) Regarding the objections to claims 23-26 and 34-37 as set forth in the office action of 04/02/2025, the amendments to the claims as provided in the amendment of 06/30/2025, and applicant’s arguments provided in the mentioned amendment, pages 9-10, have been fully considered and are sufficient to overcome the objections to the claims as set forth in the mentioned office action.
D) Regarding Claim Interpretation as set forth in the office action of 04/02/2025, the amendments to the claims as provided in the amendment of 06/30/2025, and applicant’s arguments provided in the mentioned amendment, pages 10-11, have been fully considered and are sufficient to overcome the Claim Interpretation as set forth in the mentioned office action.
E) Regarding the rejection of claim 24 under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as set forth in the office action of 04/02/2025, the cancelation of the claim as provided in the amendment of 06/30/2025 is sufficient to overcome the rejection of claim 24 under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as set forth in the mentioned office action.
F) Regarding the rejection of claims 23-26 and 34-37 under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai et al (submitted by applicant) in view of Amitai (US Patent No. 9,804,396) as set forth in the office action of 04/02/2025, the amendments to the claims as provided in the amendment of 06/30/2025, and applicant’s arguments provided in the mentioned amendment, pages 12-13, have been fully 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 or the new interpretation of the applied art in the previous office action due to the changes/amendments to the claims as provided in the amendment filed by applicant.
Drawings
The five replacement sheets contained figures 2A-2D, 3D-3E, 4B-4E, 6C-6D and 14 were received on 06/30/2025.
As a result of the changes to the drawings, the application now contains a total of nineteen sheets of figures 1A-1B, 2A-2D, 3A-3E, 4A-4E, 5A-5D, 6A-6D, 7A-7D, 8A-8B, 9-10, 11A-11B, 12, 13A-13B, 14 and 15A-15B which include fourteen sheets of figures 1A-1B, 3A-3C, 4A, 5A-5D, 6A-6B, 7A-7D, 8A-8B, 9-10, 11A-11B, 12, 13A-13B, and 15A-15B as filed on 03/21/2022 and five replacement sheets contained figures 2A-2D, 3D-3E, 4B-4E, 6C-6D and 14 as filed on 06/30/2025. The mentioned total of nineteen sheets of figures 1A-1B, 2A-2D, 3A-3E, 4A-4E, 5A-5D, 6A-6D, 7A-7D, 8A-8B, 9-10, 11A-11B, 12, 13A-13B, 14 and 15A-15B is now approved by the examiner.
Specification
The lengthy specification which was amended by the amendment of 06/30/2025 has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
7. 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.
8. Claims 23, 34 and 43-44 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for the following reasons:
a) Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, by the feature thereof “collimating optics for collimating said illumination from said image plane to generate a collimated image” (lines 8-9).
a1) the feature thereof “said illumination from said image plane” (lines 8-9) lacks a proper antecedent basis. Application should note that claim recites/provides an antecedent basis for the illumination from the image generator, see the claim on lines 3-5, and an illumination from the image, see the claim on line 6. The claim does not provide an antecedent basis for the so-called “said illumination from said image plane” recited on lines 8-9; and
a2) how can collimation optics generate illumination from an image plane onto a collimated image (examiner’s emphasis)?
For the purpose of examination, the feature thereof collimating optics for collimating said illumination from said image plane to generate a collimated image” is understood as
--collimating optics for collimating said illumination from said image to generate a collimated image--.
b) Claim 34 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, by the feature thereof “said illumination subsystem … at said image” (lines 1-4).
The mentioned feature makes the claim indefinite because it is completely unclear about the location(s)/position(s) where orthogonal polarizations are formed/located. Applicant is respectfully invited to review claim 1 in which the claim recites orthogonal polarizations of the first and second lasers are formed at a location with the projection optics, see claim 27 on lines 16-19; however, in claim 34, the claim recites that the orthogonal polarizations of the third and fourth lasers are formed at the image plane, see claim 34 on lines 2-3, and the orthogonal polarizations of the fifth and sixth lasers are formed at the image (examiner’s emphasis).
Applicant should note that the image and/or the image plane is located upstream/before the projection optics having the collimating optics, see claim 27 on lines 3-9. As a result, it is completely unclear about the arrangement of the six lasers of the image generator and how the six lasers of the image generator are operated so that the locations/positions of orthogonal polarizations of three pairs of lasers, i.e., first and second; third and fourth; and fifth and sixth lasers, are so different from each other.
c) Claim 44 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, by the feature thereof “said image generator is configured to defocus said beams … said second color” (lines 2-4).
The mentioned feature makes the claim indefinite because it is completely unclear from the claimed language how the image generator is configure to warrant the function of defocus the beams so that the pointspread function of spots of the different colors are different from each other as claimed.
c) The remaining claims are dependent upon the rejected base claim and thus inherit the deficiencies thereof.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
9. 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.
10. The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
11. Claims 23, 34 and 43, as best as understood, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai et al (US Publication No. 2015/0288937) in view of Amitai (US Patent No. 9,804,396) (both of record)
Tsai et al discloses an imaging system.
a) Regarding to present claims 23, 34 and 43, the imaging system as provided by Tsai et al described in paragraphs [0016]-[0025] and shown in fig. 1 comprises the following features:
a1) an image generator having an illumination subsystem (101, 102) for generating of at least a first color, and a projection optics having a beam combiner (12) and an imaging unit (14) for receiving images provided by light beams from the illumination subsystem of the image generator, and for projecting images from spots illuminated by light beams of the illumination subsystem, see fig. 1 in which the light beams from the illumination subsystem incidents/focuses on different spots on the surface (S) of the beam combiner wherein the surface (S) acts an image plane for the images provided by light beams of the illumination subsystem. Applicant should note that the claim 27 does not recite any specific structure of the image generator and how its work to generate image at the image plane except that the image generator comprises first and second lasers arranged/deployed to generate side-by-side beams;
a2) the illumination subsystem (101, 102) comprises a first laser (101) for generating a first laser beam of the first color with a first polarization, and a second laser (102) for generating a second laser beam of the different colors or the same color as that of the first laser beam, see Tsai et al in paragraph [0017] with a second polarization wherein the first and second polarizations are orthogonal to each other, see paragraphs [0018]-[0019].
The first laser (101) and the second laser (103) are arranged/deployed to generate side-by-side beams to illuminate non-overlapping spots at the image plane, see figure 1 which shows the spot to which light beam ant is image formed by the first laser (101) are not overlapping with the spot to which light beam ant is image formed by the second laser (102)
The only feature missing from the imaging system provided by Tsai et al is that Tsai et al does not positively disclose that the projection optics having collimator and a light-guide having at least one reflective or diffractive element for guiding light of image from the illumination subsystem to a viewer. However, a display device having an image generator with light sources, collimating optics and a light-guide with at least one reflective or diffractive element for guiding light from the image provided by the image generator to a viewer is known to one skill in the art as can be seen in the display provided by Amitai.
In particular, in columns 8-9 and shown in fig. 14, Amitai discloses a display having an illuminating subsystem (78, 80, 83, 107-108, 110) for generating illumination to an image, and projection optics (86) got collimating the light from the illumination subsystem and a light-guide (20) having parallel major external surfaces for guiding the collimated image by internal reflection and coupling-out configuration having reflective elements (22a-22c) for redirecting collimated light towards a viewer (24). Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to utilize the image generator as provided by Tsai et al in a display having a projection optics as suggested by Amitai for the purpose of guiding light from the image generator to a viewer.
b) Regarding present claims 34 and 43, the first and second lasers (101, 102) are two of a set of at least three lasers for generating laser beams of the first color wherein the polarizations are mutually orthogonal at at least one location within the projection optics as can be seen in the Fourth Embodiment provided in paragraphs [0036]-[0039] and shown in fig. 4. Applicant should note that Tsai et al discloses that the second laser beam emitted by the second laser (102) can be the same as that of the first laser (101), see paragraph [0016] and the third laser (403) and the fourth laser (404) each is the same as that of the first and second laser, see paragraphs [0032] and [0036].
Conclusion
12. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
13. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THONG Q NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571) 272-2316. The examiner can normally be reached M - Th: 6:00 ~ 17:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, STEPHONE B. ALLEN can be reached on (571) 272-2434. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/THONG Q NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2872