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 .
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) below is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schönlieb, Armin, et al. "Stray-light mitigation for under-display time-of-flight imagers." IEEE Sensors Journal 22.1 (2021): 264-278 (herein after Schönlieb) in view of Tadano (20180149752).
Referring to claims 1 and 28, Schönlieb shows a method for TOF sensing of a scene, the method comprising:
performing by a ToF sensor (see the TOF sensor in figure 1) comprising at least one a photo-sensitive sensor pixel (see figure 1 note the imager also see figure 2 ntoe the PMD pixel), a plurality of first ToF measurements using a first modulation frequency in order to obtain first measurement values (see the CM and CW measurements shown in page 266 between equation 5 and 6), wherein a respective correlation function of each of the plurality of first ToF measurements is periodic and exhibits (see the correlation function as shown in figure 6 note the two correlation functions for both the CM and CW measurements where zero correlation is calibrated to be at the display surface)
a distance to an object located in the scene based on the first measurement values, wherein performing the plurality of first ToF measurements comprises, for at least one of the plurality of first ToF measurements (see the abstract for TOF sensing of the distance of an object), controlling the photo- sensitive sensor pixel to:
selectively store, in at least two charge storages of the photo-sensitive sensor
pixel, a first part of charge carriers generated in the photo-sensitive sensor pixel by incident light during the at least one of the plurality of first ToF measurements (see the storage of the of the charges shown in page 265 second column paragraph 1 to equation 3), and
selectively prevent a second part of the charge carriers generated during
the at least one of the plurality of first ToF measurements from reaching the at least two charge storages (see the storage of the charges as shown in page 265 second column paragraph 1 to equation 3, note the storage of charges are specific to either capacitor A or capacitor B and when the charges are equally distributed the correlation function is zero).
However Schönlieb fails to show an increasing amplitude over distance within a measurement range of the ToF sensor.
Tadano shows a similar device that includes a respective correlation function of each of the plurality of first ToF measurements is periodic and exhibits an increasing amplitude over distance within a measurement range of the ToF sensor (see figure 11B also see paragraph 110). It would have been obvious to include the increasing amplitude of the correlation function as shown by Tadano because this allows for spurious reflections and highly reflective objects close to the sensor to avoid saturation of the sensors.
Referring to claim 12, Schönlieb shows wherein controlling the photo-sensitive sensor pixel to selectively store the first part of the charge carriers generated during the at least one of the plurality of first ToF measurements in the at least two charge storages comprises: controlling the photo-sensitive sensor pixel to increase a ratio of the first part of the charge carriers selectively stored in the at least two charge storages with increasing distance of the ToF sensor to an the object located in the scene causing the incident light (see page 269 column 1 first paragraph).
Referring to claim 13, Schönlieb wherein different time offsets are used respectively for the plurality of first ToF measurements between a respective sequence of modulated light pulses emitted to the scene during the a respective first ToF measurement and one or more respective drive signal signals used to drive the photo-sensitive sensor pixel during the respective first ToF measurement (see page 266 column 1 paragraph 3 where the modulation of the TOF sensor is Fmod).
Referring to claim 27, the combination of Schönlieb and Tadano shows wherein a course of a ratio of the respective correlation function of any two of the first ToF measurements is strictly monotonic decreasing or strictly monotonic increasing in the measurement range of the ToF sensor (see Tadano paragraph 109 and 110). Note the motivation of the combination for the correlation functions is shown in the rejection of claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2-11, 14-26, and 29 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.
Conclusion
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/LUKE D RATCLIFFE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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