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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 20 recites the limitation "the tracker status" in line 5. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 20 recites the limitation "the pass-through view" in line 9. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
In claim 1, line 6, the claim limitation of the “a tracker information associated with the tracker” is unclear. For example, it is unclear whether the tracker information is claimed to be associated with a first depth map (line 5) for generating the target depth map, or is generated along with the target depth map (line 4). Further, clarify the relationships of “or” (line 5) and “and” (line 6) for definite claim scope and interpretation.
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.
Claims 1-4 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Woo (US 2017/0,140,552).
Referring to claims 1 and 20, Woo discloses a method for generating a pass-through view (figs.2A-2D; para.0041, virtual 3D view via wearable display) according to a tracker status (fig. 1, hand position from acquisition 30), applied to a host (fig. 1, wearable display 10), comprising:
in response to determining that the tracker status of a tracker (fig. 6, user’s hand from RGB-Depth camera; fig 3. RGB-D camera) satisfies a condition (fig. 6, inside viewable image coordinate system at X1,Y1), generating (fig. 6, back projection 1 to 3D hand coordinates from a space 2), by the host, a target depth map (fig. 6, virtual hand mapping Xw,Yw,Zw) based on a depth map (fig. 6, camera coordinate system at Xc,Yc,Zc; para.0049, depth map image) associated with a field of view FOV (para.0014, wearable AR first person view) of the host and a tracker information (para.0049, such as depth information Zc) associated with the tracker;
rendering (fig. 6, rendering 4), by the host, the pass-through view based on an image (fig. 2B, image) associated with the FOV of the host, a camera parameter (para.0049, camera calibration value K), and the target depth map.
As to claim 2, Woo discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the tracker is a trackable object (fig. 3, detect a hand), and the method comprises: in response to determining that the tracker is not being used (fig. 6, user’s hand not within image coordinate system), determining that the tracker status of the tracker satisfies the predetermined condition (fig. 6, determine X1,Y1).
As to claim 3, Woo discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the tracker is a wearable device (fig. 3, RGB-D camera), and the method comprises: in response to determining that the tracker is being put on or taken off (fig. 3, user wear RGB-D camera), determining that the tracker status of the tracker satisfies the predetermined condition (fig. 3, calculate hand position).
As to claim 4, Woo discloses the method of claim 1, comprising: in response to determining that a tracker distance (fig. 7, Tcamera-Torigin distance) between the tracker and the host is less than a distance threshold (para. 0051, lambda ratio), determining that the tracker status of the tracker satisfies the predetermined condition (fig. 3, calculate hand position).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-19 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The claim steps of
“generating target depth map comprising … determining scene information based on valid region with the first depth map and the tracker information, generating second depth map based on the scene information and determining the second depth map as the target depth map” as required in claims 5 and 13, and/or
“generating target depth map comprising determining the predetermined depth map as the target depth map, wherein the predetermined depth map has a uniform depth value” as required in dependent claim 19. None of the prior art on record discloses the same target depth map generating limitations as claimed.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to examiner Cheng-Yuan Tseng whose telephone number is (571)272-9772, and fax number is (571)273-9772. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday from 09:00 to 17:30 Eastern Time. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Alicia Harrington can be reached on (571)272-2330. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571)273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at (866)217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call (800)786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or (571)272-1000.
/CHENG YUAN TSENG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2615