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 .
Applicant’s Submission of a Response
Applicant’s submission of a response was received on 04/23/2026. Presently, claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-17, and 19-23 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 6-11, 13-17, and 19-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0132116 to Grant in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0232051 to Wu.
With regard to claim 1, Grant discloses a gaming controller, comprising: a plurality of input devices (0032); a plurality of haptic feedback components (0033); a wireless interface (0031); and at least one processor coupled to the wireless interface, the plurality of input devices, and the plurality of haptic feedback components (0031), wherein the at least one processor is configured to receive, through the wireless interface, [direction information] from an information handling system and to determine one or more feedback components of the plurality of haptic feedback components to activate using a mapping of a diction to one or a plurality of predefined directions, the one of the plurality of predefined directions corresponding to the one or more feedback components, to map a distance to the one or more feedback components, and to activate the one or more feedback components of the plurality of haptic feedback components based on the mapping of the direction and the distance to the one or more feedback components (0042; 0054-0055; 0080-0081).
Grant does not appear to be explicitly clear about the information being a vector. However, Wu teaches mapping of a direction of the vector to one of a plurality of predefined directions corresponding to the one or more feedback components (0043-0044; 0070).
With regard to claim 3, the combination of Grant and Wu teaches wherein a level of vibration of the one or more activated feedback components is based on the distance corresponding to the vector (Grant at 0054-0055; 0080-0081; Wu at 0043-0044; 0070).
With regard to claim 4, Grant discloses wherein the level of vibration of the one or more activated feedback components is a first level when the distance exceeds a first threshold and is a second level when the distance exceeds a second threshold (0054-0055; 0080-0081).
With regard to claim 5, Grant discloses wherein mapping the direction to the plurality of haptic feedback components comprises determining one of a plurality of predefined directions corresponds to the direction, and the one or more activated feedback components correspond to haptic feedback components associated with the one of the plurality of predefined directions (0054-0055; 0080-0081).
With regard to claim 6, the combination of Grant and Wu teaches wherein the vector corresponds to a location of a user in a virtual environment (Grant at 0054-0055; 0080-0081; Wu at 0043-0044; 0070).
With regard to claim 7, the combination of Grant and Wu teaches wherein the vector corresponds to a location of a display device relative to the gaming controller (Grant at 0054-0055; 0080-0081; Wu at 0035-0037; 0043-0044; 0070).
With regard to claim 8, Grant discloses wherein at least one of the plurality of haptic feedback components is associated with one of the plurality of input devices (0042).
Claims 9-11, 13-17, 19, and 20 contains similar limitations as claims 1 and 3-7 and are rejected in like manner.
With regard to claims 21-23 the combination of Grant and Wu teaches that the mapping of the direction of the vector to one of the plurality of predefined directions comprises adjusting the direction of the vector to match one of the plurality of predefined directions (Grant at 0042; 0054-0055; 0080-0081; Wu at 0043-0044; 0070).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Wu with the disclosure of Grant in order to provide a more realistic haptic events to the users based upon vectors and where the user is located thus making the playing of the game more enjoyable and realistic to the user.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Grant in view of Wu as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US Patent Application publication No. 2010/0085693 to Koshiishi.
With regard to claim 2, while Grant teaches various types of motors including ERMs, ERMs do not appear to be inherently coin vibration motors. However, Koshiishi teaches coin vibration motors (0013). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to substitute coin vibrators as taught by Koshiishi for the vibration motors disclosed by Grant as this would be a simple substitution of different vibration motors and would yield expected results.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 04/23/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that “the cited portions of Wu do not discloses reception of a vector by a gaming controller and used in the manner recited in the claim,” (Arguments, page 7). Applicant is reminded that this is a 103 rejection, not a 102. That is Grant already provides for receiving directional information (0042; 0054-0055; 0080-0081), thus merely adding magnitude to that direction (e.g. a vector as taught by Wu) would have been obvious. Whether Wu teaches sending that information to a control or not is irrelevant as Grant is relied upon for sending the information. The Office has already provided a reasoned explanation of why one might use the vectors of Wu rather than just the directional information of Grant in order to provide a more realistic game setting.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jay Liddle whose telephone number is (571)270-1226. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/Jay Trent Liddle/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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