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 .
Response to Arguments/Amendments
The amendment, filed 02/18/2026 in response to the Non-Final Office Action mailed on 12/12/2025 has been entered.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending in U.S. Patent Application No. 18/418,390.
Applicant’s remarks filed 02/18/2026 have been fully considered and responded to below.
Regarding the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections, the previous rejections are withdrawn in view of the claim amendments.
Regarding the claim interpretation under 35 U.S.C. 112(f), the previous claim interpretation is removed in view of the claim amendments. The presented claims are no longer subject to interpretation under 35 U.S.C. 112(f).
Regarding the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejections, the previous rejections are withdrawn in view of the claim amendments.
Regarding the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections, the Applicant’s remarks have been fully considered but are moot because the new grounds of rejection regarding the amended limitation no longer relies on the combination of references presented in the Non-Final Rejection. A change in scope necessitated by the Applicant’s amendments has led to an updated search revealing new art.
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, 7-8, and 19-20 are rejected as being unpatentable over Nishikawa and Minamino (US 2020/0342621; hereinafter “Nishikawa”) in view of Golovanov et al. (US 11,947,122; hereinafter “Golovanov”) in view of Balan et al. (US 2017/0357334; hereinafter “Balan”).
Regarding Claim 1, Nishikawa discloses an information processing apparatus comprising: one or more processors; and one or more memories storing instructions that, upon execution by the one or more processors, configure the information processing apparatus to (see Fig. 1):
acquire an image captured of a device that includes a plurality of markers ([0027], Nishikawa discloses capturing an image of an inputting device which contains a plurality of light emitting parts.);
extract a marker image coordinate in the image ([0030], [0049-0050], Nishikawa discloses extracting marker image coordinates from an image.);
derive position information and posture information of the device from the extracted marker image coordinate and a three-dimensional coordinate of a candidate marker in a three-dimensional model of the device by performing an estimation predetermined calculation ([0050-0051], Nishikawa discloses deriving position and posture information from the extracted image coordinates, along with three-dimensional coordinate information of a marker by solving a perspective n-point (PNP) problem); and
acquire data of a posture sensor of the device ([0025], Nishikawa discloses an inputting device including a posture sensor.); and
place the three-dimensional model in a virtual three-dimensional space such that the three-dimensional model assumes a provisional posture of the device estimated using the data of the posture sensor ([0069], Nishikawa discloses estimating a provisional posture of an inputting device based on posture sensor data.),
Nishikawa does not explicitly disclose and discards or selects the candidate marker to be used for the estimation calculation, based on a basis of an angle of the device with respect to an axis in a gravity direction or an angular difference between an orientation of a surface on which the candidate marker is provided among surfaces of the three-dimensional model and an orientation of a screen surface of the captured image.
Golovanov discloses and discards or selects the candidate marker to be used for the estimation calculation (Fig. 5, Col 16, lines 4-46, Golovanov discloses a controller consisting of a plurality of light sources and a head-mounted device (HMD), wherein based on a relative pose of a controller with respect to HMD (i.e., on a basis of a difference between an orientation) a subset of visible light sources (i.e., candidate markers) are controlled/operated in order to determine a pose (i.e., calculation).),
Nishikawa and Golovanov are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention as they are in the same field of performing tracking with an HMD device and controller. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Nishikawa such that incorporated the logic disclosed by Golovanov to discard markers which are not in view of the HMD. The motivation for this combination being the ability to only utilize the visible markers for downstream calculations, as using markers with poor visibility may lead to inaccurate calculations and processing.
Nishikawa in view of Golovanov does not explicitly teach based on a basis of an angle of the device with respect to an axis in a gravity direction or an angular difference between an orientation of a surface on which the candidate marker is provided among surfaces of the three-dimensional model and an orientation of a screen surface of the captured image.
Balan discloses based on a basis of an angle of the device with respect to an axis in a gravity direction or an angular difference between an orientation of a surface on which the candidate marker is provided among surfaces of the three-dimensional model and an orientation of a screen surface of the captured image ([0075], Balan discloses eliminating erroneous marker detections based on a comparison between elevation and azimuth angles of a controller (i.e., “orientation of a surface on which the candidate marker is provided among surfaces of the three-dimensional model”) and a head mounted display (i.e., “orientation of a screen surface of the captured image”).) .
Nishikawa, Golovanov, and Balan are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention as they are in the same field of performing tracking with an HMD device and controller. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Nishikawa in view of Golovanov such that it specifically incorporated the angular difference calculation disclosed by Balan when determining which markers should be used for pose estimation. The motivation for this combination being the ability to utilize specific angular information provided by the sensors present in the device, improving accuracy of the pose calculation.
Claims 7 and 8 are the method and non-transitory computer readable medium claims corresponding to claim 1, and are similarly rejected (see Figs. 3, 9, Nishikawa).
Regarding Claim 19, Nishikawa in view of Golovanov in view of Balan teaches the information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the information processing apparatus to: storing candidate marker information and three-dimensional coordinates of the candidate markers of the device ([0051], [0056], Nishikawa discloses a candidate marker information retention unit which retains three dimensional coordinate information relation to the markers.).
Regarding Claim 20, Nishikawa in view of Golovanov in view of Balan teaches the information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the information processing apparatus to: storing candidate marker information for a right hand and candidate marker information for a left hand ([0056], Nishikawa discloses a candidate marker information retention unit storing information with regards to a right hand and with regards to a left hand.).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-6 and 9-18 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 base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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/PROMOTTO TAJRIAN ISLAM/Examiner, Art Unit 2669 /CHAN S PARK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2669
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