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 .
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.
Claims 1, 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hall (US 11,236,993 B1, Filed on June 6, 2018) in view of Cho (US 2021/0149041 A1, Filed on June 25, 2020).
As to claim 1, Hall discloses a distance measuring device comprising:
a light receiving unit that has a plurality of pixels that receive reflected light obtained from irradiation light reflected by an object (Hall at Figs. 3, 5-7; col. 12, ll. 4-9, in particular);…
a position determination unit that determines an active pixel in which a light receiving operation is performed in the light receiving unit at on a basis of edge information (Hall at col. 12, ll. 17-45 discloses “hence, the region of interest comprises a subset of the SPAD pixels included in the detector. In the preceding example, a size of the region of interest of SPAD pixels is determined based on an expected maximum or minimum range of the DCA 340 so the region of interest of SPAD pixels is sufficient for analog signal processing or digital histogram processing…. The controller 360 is configured to determine depth information for the one or more objects in the local area 345 based at least in part on the captured portions of the one or more reflected light beams.” Col. 14, l. 64 to col. 15, l. 36 discloses “As further described below in conjunction with FIGS. 6-7B, the analog signal from the SPAD pixels 505A-F of the specific set 510A-C corresponding to the specific region is provided to edge detection circuitry (e.g., a level threshold comparator or a constant fraction discriminator), which converts the analog signal to a digital timestamp signal and is coupled to the controller 360…. If the SNR of the combined digital timestamp signal exceeds the threshold value, the controller 360 determines the depth information for an object in a local area surrounding a HMD 105 including the detector 500 from which light emitted by a depth camera assembly 340 of the HMD 105 was reflected and captured by the detector 500 from the combined digital timestamp signal.”)1…
Hall does not disclose a high-resolution processing unit that generates a high-resolution depth image from a sparse depth image acquired by the light receiving unit; and that the active pixel is determined based on a high resolution depth image.
However, Cho does disclose generating a high-resolution depth image from a sparse depth image acquired by the light receiving unit (Cho at Figs. 7-8, 13-17; ¶ [0073]-[0074]).
The combination of Hall and Cho results in the active pixel is determined based on a high resolution depth image (Hall at Figs. 5-7).
Hall discloses a base light receiving system upon which the claimed invention is an improvement. Cho discloses a comparable light receiving system which has been improved in the same way as the claimed invention. Hence, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify or add to Hall the teachings of Cho for the predictable result of detecting a distance to an object (Cho at ¶ [0055]).
As to claim 17, the combination of Hall and Cho discloses the distance measuring device according to claim 1, wherein the position determination unit determines the active pixel also on a basis of a size and a position of the irradiation light (Hall at Figs. 3-4).2
As to claim 18, Hall discloses a method for controlling a distance measuring device, the method comprising: by the distance measuring device including a light receiving unit that has a plurality of pixels that receive reflected light obtained from irradiation light reflected by an object (Hall at Figs. 3, 5-7; col. 12, ll. 4-9, in particular),…
determining an active pixel in which a light receiving operation is performed in the light receiving unit on a basis of edge information (Hall at col. 12, ll. 17-45 discloses “hence, the region of interest comprises a subset of the SPAD pixels included in the detector. In the preceding example, a size of the region of interest of SPAD pixels is determined based on an expected maximum or minimum range of the DCA 340 so the region of interest of SPAD pixels is sufficient for analog signal processing or digital histogram processing…. The controller 360 is configured to determine depth information for the one or more objects in the local area 345 based at least in part on the captured portions of the one or more reflected light beams.” Col. 14, l. 64 to col. 15, l. 36 discloses “As further described below in conjunction with FIGS. 6-7B, the analog signal from the SPAD pixels 505A-F of the specific set 510A-C corresponding to the specific region is provided to edge detection circuitry (e.g., a level threshold comparator or a constant fraction discriminator), which converts the analog signal to a digital timestamp signal and is coupled to the controller 360…. If the SNR of the combined digital timestamp signal exceeds the threshold value, the controller 360 determines the depth information for an object in a local area surrounding a HMD 105 including the detector 500 from which light emitted by a depth camera assembly 340 of the HMD 105 was reflected and captured by the detector 500 from the combined digital timestamp signal.”)3…
Hall does not disclose generating a high-resolution depth image from a sparse depth image acquired by the light receiving unit; and that the active pixel is determined based on a high resolution depth image.
However, Cho does disclose generating a high-resolution depth image from a sparse depth image acquired by the light receiving unit (Cho at Figs. 7-8, 13-17; ¶ [0073]-[0074]).
The combination of Hall and Cho results in the active pixel is determined based on a high resolution depth image (Hall at Figs. 5-7).
Hall discloses a base light receiving system upon which the claimed invention is an improvement. Cho discloses a comparable light receiving system which has been improved in the same way as the claimed invention. Hence, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify or add to Hall the teachings of Cho for the predictable result of detecting a distance to an object (Cho at ¶ [0055]).
As to claim 19, Hall discloses a distance measuring system comprising: an illumination device that performs irradiation of irradiation light; and a distance measuring device that receives reflected light obtained from the irradiation light reflected by an object (Hall at Figs. 3-4, in particular),
wherein the distance measuring device includes: a light receiving unit that has a plurality of pixels that receive the reflected light (Hall at Figs. 3, 5-7; col. 12, ll. 4-9, in particular);…
a position determination unit that determines an active pixel in which a light receiving operation is performed in the light receiving unit on a basis of edge information (Hall at col. 12, ll. 17-45 discloses “hence, the region of interest comprises a subset of the SPAD pixels included in the detector. In the preceding example, a size of the region of interest of SPAD pixels is determined based on an expected maximum or minimum range of the DCA 340 so the region of interest of SPAD pixels is sufficient for analog signal processing or digital histogram processing…. The controller 360 is configured to determine depth information for the one or more objects in the local area 345 based at least in part on the captured portions of the one or more reflected light beams.” Col. 14, l. 64 to col. 15, l. 36 discloses “As further described below in conjunction with FIGS. 6-7B, the analog signal from the SPAD pixels 505A-F of the specific set 510A-C corresponding to the specific region is provided to edge detection circuitry (e.g., a level threshold comparator or a constant fraction discriminator), which converts the analog signal to a digital timestamp signal and is coupled to the controller 360…. If the SNR of the combined digital timestamp signal exceeds the threshold value, the controller 360 determines the depth information for an object in a local area surrounding a HMD 105 including the detector 500 from which light emitted by a depth camera assembly 340 of the HMD 105 was reflected and captured by the detector 500 from the combined digital timestamp signal.”)4…
Hall does not disclose a high-resolution processing unit that generates a high-resolution depth image from a sparse depth image acquired by the light receiving unit;; and that the active pixel is determined based on a high resolution depth image.
However, Cho does disclose generating a high-resolution depth image from a sparse depth image acquired by the light receiving unit (Cho at Figs. 7-8, 13-17; ¶ [0073]-[0074]).
The combination of Hall and Cho results in the active pixel is determined based on a high resolution depth image (Hall at Figs. 5-7).
Hall discloses a base light receiving system upon which the claimed invention is an improvement. Cho discloses a comparable light receiving system which has been improved in the same way as the claimed invention. Hence, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify or add to Hall the teachings of Cho for the predictable result of detecting a distance to an object (Cho at ¶ [0055]).
As to claim 20, the combination of Hall and Cho discloses the distance measuring system according to claim 19, wherein the distance measuring device determines light emission conditions of the irradiation light including an irradiation method, an irradiation area, and an irradiation pattern, and the illumination device causes the irradiation light based on the light emission conditions to be emitted (Hall at Figs. 3-4).5
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-16 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 objected to claim and all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sanjiv D Patel whose telephone number is (571)270-5731. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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/Sanjiv D. Patel/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2625
03/04/2026
1 See also Xie and Tu, “Holistically-Nested Edge Detection,” at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.06375.
2 See also Cho at Figs. 10-12.
3 See also Xie and Tu, “Holistically-Nested Edge Detection,” at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.06375.
4 See also Xie and Tu, “Holistically-Nested Edge Detection,” at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.06375.
5 See also Cho at Figs. 10-12.
Prosecution Insights