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 § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 7, 9, 11-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Janardhan et al (US 20190295304, hereinafter Janardhan)
Regarding Claim 1, Janardhan teaches:
1. A method of controlling an electronic device (see at least "At least one example embodiment relates to a method for generating a vaping simulation." in par. 0041) , the method comprising:
predicting a virtual smoke implementation timepoint based on a smoking pattern learned using a pressure sensor and a button included in the electronic device (see at least “For example, according to at least one example embodiment, the e-vaping device 200 may include a Bluetooth transmitter (e.g., Bluetooth and/or Bluetooth Low Energy (LE), etc.), or other wired and/or wireless transmitter (e.g., USB, NFC, ZigBee, WiFi, etc.), that communicates with a computing device, such as the simulation device 300, or a dedicated vapor simulator device, etc., the time that the adult vaper has engaged the heater of the e-vaping device (e.g., through the engagement of a ON/OFF button or by starting a puff, etc.), the time that the adult vaper has disengaged the heater of the e-vaping device (e.g., through the disengagement of the ON/OFF button, or by ending a puff, etc.), the generated vapor flow volume (e.g., determined based on readings from the puff sensor, pressure sensor, and/or flow sensor), the generated vapor flow rate, etc.” in par. 0087 and “In operation S504, vapor ejection audio signals and/or other data related to the ejection of the vapor by the adult vaper is collected and/or recorded using the microphone 340, the camera 360, and/or sensors located on the simulation device 300, vapor simulator 500, and/or the e-vaping device 200. In operation S505, the simulation device 300 and/or vapor simulator 500 may analyze the collected vapor ejection audio signals to determine ejection information of the vapor ejection operation, such as a start time of the ejection of the vapor, an end time of the ejection of the vapor, an ejected vapor volume, an ejected vapor velocity (or speed), and/or ejected vapor direction (absolute or relative), ejected vapor density, the adult vaper's mouth shape, size, etc., when ejecting the vaper, vapor ejection strength, etc. The calculation of the ejection information may be performed using the collected vapor ejection audio signals and previously recorded audio signatures associated with the personal profile of the adult vaper (e.g., the personal profile generated in S409 of FIG. 4). For example, the adult vaper may have previously recorded vapor ejection audio in a test environment and/or controlled environment to generate an audio signature and/or audio template related to the adult vaper's vaping style that is used by the simulation device 300 and/or the vapor simulator 500 to determine the ejection information of the ejected vapor.” In par. 0147) ;
adjusting a volume and concentration of virtual smoke based on the learned smoking pattern (see at least "Once the drawing information related to the adult vaper's drawing operation has been obtained by the simulation device 300, in operation S502, the simulation device 300 may determine and/or calculate drawing statistics related to the vaping operation, such as the length of time, volume of vapor, etc., of the actual vapor drawn by the adult vaper." in par. 0145 and “The parameters for each vapor particle may be set to a desired factor (e.g., velocity factor, scaling factor, etc.), set within a desired range (e.g., ejection angle, ejection rate, particle lifetime, ejection density, etc.), and/or calculated based on a generated function (e.g., a graph, curve, etc.) from experiential data associated with observed vapor characteristics. Additionally, various parameters (e.g., vapor particle size, vapor particle size change over time, density over scale/distance, gravity over scale/distance, rotation over scale/distance, etc.) may be input into a function (e.g., fit to a curve, etc.) based on the experiential data, such as recorded audio templates and/or audio signatures associated with the adult vaper, experiential data obtained through scientific observations of vapor characteristics, etc.” in par. 0165) ; and
transmitting a control signal comprising the virtual smoke implementation timepoint and the volume and concentration of virtual smoke to a device for displaying a virtual image. (see at least "Next, in operation S508, the 3D vapor simulator 321 provides and/or transmits the generated 3D vapor particle model to the AR simulator 323 and/or the VR simulator 324 based on the operation mode and/or hardware capabilities of the simulation device 300 for display by the simulation device 300." in par. 0168)
Regarding Claim 7, Janardhan teaches:
7. The method of claim 1, wherein
the predicting of the virtual smoke implementation timepoint comprises:
determining whether the electronic device satisfies a predetermined operating condition and predicting the virtual smoke implementation timepoint based on a determination that the electronic device satisfies the operating condition. (see at least " In addition, the e-vaping device may include various sensors, such as a wireless transmitter (e.g., a Bluetooth transmitter), a microphone, a puff sensor, a flow sensor, a pressure sensor, etc., and/or input/output (I/O) indicators, such as a heater activation light, etc., that may provide information regarding the time at which the adult vaper has started and stopped the drawing of vapor from the e-vaping device 200, the start and stop of the heater activation and/or the heating of the substance, the amount of vapor produced by the e-vaping device, the amount of vapor drawn from the e-vaping device, etc." in par. 0087)
Regarding Claim 9, Janardhan teaches:
9. The method of claim 7, wherein
the operating condition comprises at least one of whether the electronic device is powered on/off and whether a suction sensor included in the electronic device operates. (see at least "In addition, the e-vaping device may include various sensors, such as a wireless transmitter (e.g., a Bluetooth transmitter), a microphone, a puff sensor, a flow sensor, a pressure sensor, etc., and/or input/output (I/O) indicators, such as a heater activation light, etc., that may provide information regarding the time at which the adult vaper has started and stopped the drawing of vapor from the e-vaping device 200, the start and stop of the heater activation and/or the heating of the substance, the amount of vapor produced by the e-vaping device, the amount of vapor drawn from the e-vaping device, etc." in par. 0087)
Regarding Claim 11, Janardhan teaches:
11. A computer program stored in a computer-readable storage medium (see at least " Software may include a computer program, program code, instructions, or some combination thereof, for independently or collectively instructing or configuring a hardware device to operate as desired. The computer program and/or program code may include program or computer-readable instructions, software modules, data files, data structures, and/or the like, capable of being implemented by one or more hardware devices, such as one or more of the hardware devices mentioned above." in par. 0078) to execute the method of claim 1 in combination with hardware. (see Claim 1 analysis )
Regarding Claim 12, Janardhan teaches:
12. An electronic device comprising:
a processor configured to (see at least "Software may include a computer program, program code, instructions, or some combination thereof, for independently or collectively instructing or configuring a hardware device to operate as desired. The computer program and/or program code may include program or computer-readable instructions, software modules, data files, data structures, and/or the like, capable of being implemented by one or more hardware devices, such as one or more of the hardware devices mentioned above." in par. 0078)
implement the method of Claim 1 (see Claim 1 analysis for rejection of the method)
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) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Janardhan et al (US 20190295304, hereinafter Janardhan) in view of Dvir et al (US 11546397, hereinafter Dvir).
Regarding Claim 10, Janardhan teaches:
10. The method of claim 1, wherein
the transmitting of the control signal to the device for displaying a virtual image comprises:
transmitting information about a type of virtual smoke (see at least "Next, in operation S508, the 3D vapor simulator 321 provides and/or transmits the generated 3D vapor particle model to the AR simulator 323 and/or the VR simulator 324 based on the operation mode and/or hardware capabilities of the simulation device 300 for display by the simulation device 300. " in par. 0168) ; and
Janardhan does not appear to explicitly teach all of the following, but Dvir does teach:
transmitting information about a delay in communication between the electronic device and the device for displaying a virtual image. (see at least "Optionally, the server 102 generates the EFOV frames according to the Quality of Service (QOS) and/or Quality of Experience (QOE) which is typically derived from the latency of the network 140. The latency, specifically the RTT may be monitored, calculated and/or reported by a QOS/QOE Control module 110. The server 102 may adjust dynamically the size of the EFOV frame, specifically, the Diff.sub.Size according to variations in the RTT. The QOS/QOE data control module 110 may obtain QoS (Quality of Service) and/or QoE (Quality of Experience) information from a QoS/QoE data collection module 126 at the client device 120." in col. 14 lines 5-17 )
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method taught by Janardhan to incorporate the teachings of Dvir wherein messages regarding communication latency are transmitted between the server providing VR video content and compensating for the latency at the client device, in order to arrive at the same communication between the e-vaping device and the VR or AR display taught by Janardhan. The motivation to incorporate the teachings of Dvir would be to improve the quality of the user’s virtual reality experience (see col. 6 lines 43-61)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-6, 8 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The closest prior art comes from Janardhan and Dvir.
For Claims 2 and dependents, the prior art does not appear to teach determining two timepoints with a pressure detection threshold and a third with button activation and using the timepoints to determine the virtual smoke implementation timepoint in combination with all of the other limitations in the claims.
For Claims 8, the prior art does not appear to teach “storing data about a comparison between an operation time of the pressure sensor and an operation time of the button; and storing the volume and concentration of virtual smoke determined based on the data about the comparison, in the learned smoking pattern.” in combination with all of the other limitations in the claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DYLAN M KATZ whose telephone number is (571)272-2776. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thurs. 8:00-6:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Abby Lin can be reached on (571) 270-3976. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DYLAN M KATZ/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3657