Re 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
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6 and 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Watanabe et al. (US 2013/0201457 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 6 and 7, Watanabe teaches first projector (100, figure 1) including a first display panel (paragraph 0054) having a first side orthogonal to a first axis (inherent to all 2D modulating projectors using rectangular modulators such as 50B-R shown in figure 2);
A sensor (300, figure 1, paragraph 0047) configured to measure a three-dimensional shape of a projection surface onto which the first projector projects a first projection image; and
An information processing apparatus configured to calculate (200, 250, figure 3).
Calculate, based on measurement data acquired from the sensor, a parameter related to the three-dimensional shape (paragraph 0105),
Acquire, based on the parameter, a normal direction of the projections surface (paragraph 0106),
Acquire, based on the parameter, a first direction corresponding to the first axis and parallel to a second axis in the first projection image (this would be the vertical direction at the display surface and this is implicitly contained in the rotation and translation elements in paragraph 0102-0103),
Acquire a second direction orthogonal to the normal direction and the first direction (this is the horizontal direction at the display surface and is likewise known from the rotation and translation in 0102-0103),
Adjust on the projection surface a shape of a second projection image including a portion of a rectangular first display image having a second side orthogonal to the first direction and a third side orthogonal to the second direction (paragraph 0111), and
Project the second projection image from the first projector onto the projection surface (280, figure 3, paragraph 0115).
Regarding claim 2, Watanabe teaches the second projection image is projected onto the projection surface via a lens (110, figure 2),
The first display panel has a fourth side forming a right angle with the first side, a fifth side forming a right angle with the fourth side, and a sixth side forming a right angle with the fifth side, and forming a right angle with the first side (this is just describing a rectangular display panel which is shown in figure 2), and
The first axis is an axis that passes an intersection between an optical axis of the lens and the first display panel and is parallel to the fourth side and the sixth side (the axes of the panels shown in figure 2 are 50G the vertical axis in figure 2 which would be the horizontal axis of the panel and the axis into the plane of the page which would be the vertical axis of the display panel, either one being suitable for defining this relationship).
Regarding claim 3, Watanabe teaches the first projection image has a seventh side, an eighth side coupled to the seventh side , a ninth side coupled to the eighth side, and a tenth side coupled to the ninth side and the seventh side (see figure 4 showing a rectangular image with four sides or figure 6 which also shows a rectangular image enclosing a rhombus in the middle, and
The second axis (the axis formed by the line between P_S1 and P_S3, figure 6) is an axis passing a midpoint of the seventh side and a midpoint of the night side of the first projection image on the projection surface.
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.
Claim(s) 4-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Watanabe et al. (US 2013/0201457 A1) in view of Kim et al. (US 2015/0055099 A1).
Regarding claim 4, Watanabe does not specify the keystone correction of two overlapping images.
Kim teaches using multiple image projectors to project overlapping images (figure 2, figure 8), wherein the a homography matrix is calculated specifically for the overlap region for two of the overlapping projectors (paragraph 0061).
Extending the overlapping image projection to Watanabe would yield the claimed projecting a third projection image onto the projections surface from a second projector including a rectangular second display panel having an eleventh side orthogonal to a third axis (this a duplication of the first projector of Watanabe described above with regard to the rejection of claim 1, just claiming that the second projector also has a rectangular modulator); similarly for the second projector one would use Watanabe’s method to acquire based on the parameter, a third direction toward one of a fourth axis corresponding to the third axis in the third projection image, inasmuch as this would be the vertical direction again at the projection surface for the second projector. Furthermore Kim teaches projecting two images overlapping in the horizontal direction wherein the vertical direction of the overlapping region is perpendicular to the normal of the screen and the horizontal direction of the screen, which is equivalent to ‘when an image is projected onto the projection surface by the first projector and the second projector, the second direction is orthogonal to the normal direction and the fourth direction.’
The claimed ‘calculating a fourth direction that is an intermediate direction between the first direction and the third direction’ is an extension of Kim calculating the homography matrix information for the overlapping region specifically to the teaching of Watanabe, inasmuch as the fourth ‘intermediate’ direction is the direction used for the overlapping projection in the current case.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the display method of Watanabe to overlap such as taught in Kim in order to make the projection image larger while still retaining image quality.
Regarding claim 5, Kim further teaches adjusting on the projection surface, a shape of a fourth projection image including a portion of a rectangular second display image having a second side orthogonal to the fourth direction and a third side orthogonal to the second direction (leftward image of 100, figure 8), and a shape of a fifth projection image including a remaining portion of the second display image (middle image of 100, figure 8); and when an image is projected onto the projections surface by the first projector and the second projector (figure 8), projecting the fourth projection image from the first projector and projecting the fifth projection image from the second projector (left and middle projectors 100, respectively).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the display method of Watanabe to overlap such as taught in Kim in order to make the projection image larger while still retaining image quality.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RYAN D HOWARD whose telephone number is (571)270-5358. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5:00.
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/RYAN D HOWARD/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2882 1/22/2026