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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendment to claim 17 in the Amendment filed July 8, 2026 (herein “Amendment”) with respect to the rejection of claim 17, and claims depending therefrom under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claim 17, and claims depending therefrom under 35 U.S.C. 101 has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments and amendments to the independent claims in the Amendment regarding the rejection of the independent claims and claims depending therefrom under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive to the extent they have changed any constructive rejection of combinations of art previously set forth in the Non-Final action issued January 8, 2026.
First, on pages 6–7 of the Amendment, Applicant sets forth remarks regarding independent claim 1, now amended to recite the limitations from previously pending claim 10. For the limitations of claim 10, now recited in claim 1, Applicant focuses their arguments on the application of secondary reference Latychevskaia. Specifically, Applicant appears to argue on page 7 that because Latychevskaia’s higher-order fringes (which were set forth in the rejection rationale as corresponding to the claimed “artifacts”) serve a useful purpose, that they cannot therefore be “artifacts”—suggesting that the plain meaning of artifacts includes that they are undesirable or not useful. Although these arguments have been fully considered, they are not persuasive. First, the plain and ordinary meaning of “artifacts” by the PHOSITA would not be so narrow and limited as to require that artifacts are not useful or not desirable in any way. Indeed, the digital processing art field is full of examples where processing exploits otherwise useless artifacts to some purpose or end, precisely because by the nature of the physics involved processing frequency based signals, artifacts are understood to be an unavoidable part of the result, but one that has distinct clues or signatures to a main signal.
Further, Applicant argues on page 7 of the Amendment that Latychevskaia’s noisy peaks suppressed in the center but the higher order fringes that emerge in the expanded area (set forth in the rejection rationale as corresponding to the claimed “propagation of artifacts into the expanded portion instead of reflection of the artifacts off the boundary and back into the area of the initial hologram”) are not explicitly taught to be boundary-reflection artifacts, and that Latychevskaia’s boundary expansion is the cause of the artifacts to propagate into an expanded portion. However, the claim merely recites “the expansion of the initial hologram … allows for propagation of artifacts” (note, artifacts has no antecedence – these can be any kind of artifacts – those from noisy peaks as well as those from higher order fringes). Accordingly, Latychevskaia teaches the allowance of the higher order fringe artifacts to propagate into the expanded portion, while also suppressing (avoiding) the accumulation of noisy peaks in the center (which is not allowing/ “instead of” the “noise” from the peaks to be reflected (appearing) back into the area of the initial hologram (the center area) defined by the central part boundary. Therefore, given the breadth of how “artifacts” is recited in the claims, the teachings of Latychevskaia do properly apply, and are constructively maintained in this Action.
Applicant next argues on pages 8–9 regarding the limitations from previously pending claim 14 into independent claim 11, and previously pending claim 18 into claim 17, that relied upon Hu does not teach or suggest generates the apodization filter by copying pixels from a border of the initial hologram and applying those pixels external to the initial hologram, at the boundary, resulting in the expanded portion of the expanded hologram, because Hu teaches “boundary replication expansion” and “apodization operations” as separate subjects of study. However the cited portions of Hu include the following passage:
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Accordingly, within the same paragraph (not in disparate teachings, or different subjects as study), Hu teaches expanding the hologram by boundary replication by using a two-dimensional Tukey window function as an apodization processing filter. Accordingly, Hu does teach the limitations of claim 14 and 18, now recited in independent claims 11 and 17 respectively.
Therefore, in view of the above, while all of Applicant’s arguments have been fully considered, they are not persuasive and the claims as constructively rejected by way of the combinations articulated for claims 10, 14 and 18, now amended, are maintained in this Final action.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1–6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Leister et al., US Patent No. US 11,397,406 B2 (herein “Leister) in view of Hu et al., "Research on object-plane constraints and hologram expansion in phase retrieval algorithms for continuous-wave terahertz inline digital holography reconstruction," Appl. Opt. 53, 7112-7119 (2014) (herein “Hu”), cited in the IDS filed 6/19/2025, further in view of Latychevskaia et al., “Resolution enhancement in digital holography by self-extrapolation of holograms,” Optics Express, Vol. 21, No. 6, March 25, 2013 (herein “Latychevskaia”).
Regarding claim 1, Leister teaches a system, comprising: a memory that stores computer executable components; and a processor that executes the computer executable components stored in the memory, wherein the computer executable components comprise (Leister col. 1, ll. 53–58, generation of holographic display carried out in a general computer, where it is understood by a person having ordinary skill in the art that a computer includes a processor and memory, and col. 13, ll. 11–20, and col. 1, ll. 18–21, and teach an apodization function encoded into the hologram by the light modulation device)}:
an obtaining component that obtains a signal of an energy-based initial hologram (Leister col. 2, ll. 18–23 and col. 3, ll. 46–49, light (energy-based) propagation to a spatial light modulation device (herein “SLM”) to generate a subhologram (initial hologram) on the SLM);
an expansion component that expands the initial hologram at a boundary of the initial hologram, resulting in an expanded hologram having an expanded portion at the boundary (Leister col. 24, ll. 16–18, 32–41, the region of encoding of object points on the SLM is extended to a region outside the subhologram, thereby widening or extending the hologram (expanded hologram) by 3.5 mm in the y direction, and 10mm in the x direction, in a neighboring region (at the boundary) but lying outside of the conventional (initial) hologram); and
a filter application component that, [based on the expanded hologram,] applies an apodization filter (Leister col. 30, ll. 27–38, an encoding region larger than the size of the subhologram (expanded hologram) is apodized) to overlap the expanded portion of the expanded hologram (Leister col. 25, ll. 14–24, amplitude apodization function is applied to a conventional hologram so that encoding regions (including expanded portions of the expanded hologram) overlap),
While Leister teaches applying an apodization filter in furtherance of “to” overlap the expanded portion of the expanded hologram, Leister does not explicitly teach that the application of the apodization filter is “based on the expanded hologram.”
Hu teaches based on the expanded hologram (Hu page 7117 right column., Tukey filtering function with apodization parameter, thus an apodization filter, is based on the expanded hologram).
Further, Leister does not explicitly teach, but Latychevskaia teaches wherein the expansion of the initial hologram by the expansion component allows for propagation of artifacts into the expanded portion instead of reflection of the artifacts off the boundary and back into area of the initial hologram (Latychevskaia section 4, fig. 5, truncated hologram (initial hologram) of 500 x 500 pixels is padded (expanded) to 1000x1000 pixels and iteratively constructed, where every five iterations the reconstructed hologram is convolved with a Gaussian filter to suppress accumulation of noisy peaks in the center (suppress artifacts in the area of the initial hologram), but allow for higher order fringes to emerge in the self-extrapolation (propagation of artifacts into the expanded portion)).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Leister and Hu together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram expansion of Leister to include the filtering disclosed in Hu at least because doing so would result in improved SNR in the reconstructed image. See Hu page 7117, right column.
Further, taking the teachings of Leister and Latychevskaia together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram expansion of Leister to include the filtering disclosed in Latychevskaia at least because doing so would result in enhanced resolution of the hologram. See Latychevskaia Abstract.
Regarding claim 2, Leister teaches wherein the expansion component expands only a portion of the initial hologram disposed at the boundary (Leister col. 25, ll. 24–31, pixel groupings for the subholograms being arranged in a set number of ways: overlapping, not overlapping, or slightly overlapping, where a slight overlap would be “only a portion”, where col. 26, ll. 20–24, 51–54 and fig. 7 teach the subhologram being extended by pixels outside of it at the boundary).
While Leister teaches a number of ways to arrange overlapping, Leister does not explicitly anticipate one particular way, including the “slightly overlapping” arrangement. However, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Leister to use only the slightly overlapping pixel grouping at least because doing so would have been obvious to try with predictable results. See MPEP 2143(I)(E).
Regarding claim 3, Leister teaches wherein the filter application component applies the apodization filter (Leister col. 25, ll. 31–34, the apodization function (apodization filter) is used on the subhologram encoding region).
Leister does not, but Hu teaches to at least the expanded portion of the expanded hologram (Hu page 7117, including equation 14, teaching the expansion of the hologram by way of a Tukey filter that performs apodization).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Leister and Hu together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram expansion of Leister to include the filtering disclosed in Hu at least because doing so would result in improved SNR in the reconstructed image. See Hu page 7117, right column.
Regarding claim 4, Leister teaches wherein the filter application component applies the apodization filter (Leister col. 25, ll. 31–34, the apodization function (apodization filter) is used on the subhologram encoding region). Leister does not, but Hu teaches only to the expanded portion (Hu page 7117, including equation 14, teaching the expansion of the hologram by way of a Tukey filter that performs apodization, where different regions of the filter and therefore the hologram have different amounts of apodization, and where the inner region comprised of the original hologram does not have apodization, whereas the other regions (expanded regions) do have apodization).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Leister and Hu together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram expansion of Leister to include the filtering disclosed in Hu at least because doing so would result in improved SNR in the reconstructed image. See Hu page 7117, right column.
Regarding claim 5, Leister teaches wherein the initial hologram comprises an aggregation of a plurality of holograms (Leister fig. 1, col. 2, ll. 18–27 and 44–48, claim 1, holographic reconstruction of a scene uses generated subholograms that compose a hologram, the subholograms being initial/pre-expansion processing subholograms).
Regarding claim 6, Leister does not explicitly teach but Hu teaches a filter generation component that generates the apodization filter by copying pixels from a border of the initial hologram and applying those pixels external to the initial hologram, at the boundary, resulting in the expanded portion of the expanded hologram (Hu page 7117, hologram is expanded by boundary replication (copying pixels from a border) with the apodization processing by a Tukey window function defined as in equation (14)).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Leister and Hu together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram expansion of Leister to include the filtering disclosed in Hu at least because doing so would result in improved SNR in the reconstructed image. See Hu page 7117, right column.
Claims 11–13 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Leister in view of Hu.
Regarding claims 11 and 17, where substantive differences between the claims are noted with curly brackets {}, and with claim 11 as exemplary, Leister teaches {A computer-implemented method, comprising – claim 11 / A computer program product facilitating a process for apodization of a hologram, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, and the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to – claim 17 (Leister col. 1, ll. 53–58, generation of holographic display carried out in a general computer, where it is understood by a person having ordinary skill in the art that a computer includes a processor and memory, and col. 13, ll. 11–20, and col. 1, ll. 18–21, and teach an apodization function encoded into the hologram by the light modulation device)}:
obtains {by a system operatively coupled to a processor – claim 11 / by the processor – claim 17} a signal of an energy-based initial hologram (Leister col. 2, ll. 18–23 and col. 3, ll. 46–49, light (energy-based) propagation to a spatial light modulation device (herein “SLM”) to generate a subhologram (initial hologram) on the SLM);
expands {by the system operatively coupled to a processor – claim 11 / by the processor – claim 17} the initial hologram at a boundary of the initial hologram, resulting in an expanded hologram having an expanded portion at the boundary (Leister col. 24, ll. 16–18, 32–41, the region of encoding of object points on the SLM is extended to a region outside the subhologram, thereby widening or extending the hologram (expanded hologram) by 3.5 mm in the y direction, and 10mm in the x direction, in a neighboring region (at the boundary) but lying outside of the conventional (initial) hologram); and
[based on the expanded hologram,] applies {by the processor – claim 17} an apodization filter (Leister col. 30, ll. 27–38, an encoding region larger than the size of the subhologram (expanded hologram) is apodized) to overlap the expanded portion of the expanded hologram (Leister col. 25, ll. 14–24, amplitude apodization function is applied to a conventional hologram so that encoding regions (including expanded portions of the expanded hologram) overlap).
While Leister teaches applying an apodization filter in furtherance of “to” overlap the expanded portion of the expanded hologram, Leister does not explicitly teach that the application of the apodization filter is “based on the expanded hologram.”
Hu teaches based on the expanded hologram (Hu page 7117 right column., Tukey filtering function with apodization parameter, thus an apodization filter, is based on the expanded hologram).
Further, Leister does not explicitly teach where Hu teaches generating, by the system, the apodization filter by copying pixels from a border of the initial hologram and applying those pixels external to the initial hologram, at the boundary, resulting in the expanded portion of the expanded hologram (Hu page 7117, hologram is expanded by boundary replication (copying pixels from a border) with the apodization processing by a Tukey window function defined as in equation (14)).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Leister and Hu together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram expansion of Leister to include the filtering disclosed in Hu at least because doing so would result in improved SNR in the reconstructed image. See Hu page 7117, right column.
Regarding claim 12, Leister teaches expanding, by the system, only a portion of the initial hologram disposed at the boundary (Leister col. 25, ll. 24–31, pixel groupings for the subholograms being arranged in a set number of ways: overlapping, not overlapping, or slightly overlapping, where a slight overlap would be “only a portion”, where col. 26, ll. 20–24, 51–54 and fig. 7 teach the subhologram being extended by pixels outside of it at the boundary).
While Leister teaches a number of ways to arrange overlapping, Leister does not explicitly anticipate one particular way, including the “slightly overlapping” arrangement. However, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Leister to use only the slightly overlapping pixel grouping at least because doing so would have been obvious to try with predictable results. See MPEP 2143(I)(E).
Regarding claim 13, Leister teaches applying, by the system, the apodization filter (Leister col. 25, ll. 31–34, the apodization function (apodization filter) is used on the subhologram encoding region). Leister does not, but Hu teaches only to the expanded portion of the expanded hologram (Hu page 7117, including equation 14, teaching the expansion of the hologram by way of a Tukey filter that performs apodization, where different regions of the filter and therefore the hologram have different amounts of apodization, and where the inner region comprised of the original hologram does not have apodization, whereas the other regions (expanded regions) do have apodization).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Leister and Hu together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram expansion of Leister to include the filtering disclosed in Hu at least because doing so would result in improved SNR in the reconstructed image. See Hu page 7117, right column.
Claims 7–8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Leister in view of Hu in view of Latychevskaia as set forth above, further in view of Dickson et al., United Stated Patent No. 5,691,830 (herein “Dickson”). Claims 15–16 and 19–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Leister in view of Hu as set forth above, further in view of Dickson et al., United Stated Patent No. 5,691,830 (herein “Dickson”).
Regarding claims 7, 15 and 19, with claim 7 as exemplary, and deficiencies of Leister as modified by Hu noted in square brackets, Leister as modified by Hu teaches [further comprising: a blurring component that blurs an internal area of] the expanded hologram, [internal to the boundary] (Leister col. 24, ll. 16–18, 32–41, the region of encoding of object points on the SLM is extended to a region outside the subhologram, thereby widening or extending the hologram (expanded hologram) by 3.5 mm in the y direction, and 10mm in the x direction, in a neighboring region (at the boundary) but lying outside of the conventional (initial) hologram).
Leister does not teach but Hu teaches prior to the application of the apodization filter by the filter application component (Hu pages 7116–7117, zero padding processing of the hologram prior to the Tukey filter being applied which realizes the apodization function).
Dickson teaches a blurring component that blurs an internal area of the hologram, internal to the boundary (Dickson col. 15, ll. 34–56, and col. 13, ll. 14–19, holographic blur filter (blurring component that blurs) is applied to a two-dimensional array of pixels defining the hologram (internal area)).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Leister and Hu together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram expansion of Leister to include the padding order before Tukey filtering disclosed in Hu at least because doing so would result in improved SNR in the reconstructed image. See Hu page 7117, right column.
Further, taking the teachings of Leister and Dickson together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram processing of Leister to include the blur filter disclosed in Dickson at least because doing so would suppress aliasing effects and thus remove noise. See Dickson col. 13, ll. 17–19.
Regarding claims 8, 16 and 20, with claim 8 as exemplary, Leister as modified by Hu does not explicitly teach, but Dickson teaches wherein the blurring component progressively increases the blurring of the internal area at distances that are progressively increased from a center of the internal area (Dickson col. 3, ll. 65–67, fig. 19, and col. 13, l. 62–col. 14, l. 12, as shown, blur filter applied to hologram 1 H1 at its center, where θ angle increases blurring from the center, diverting away from the center (increased) over distance S1 resulting in hologram 2 H2).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Leister and Dickson together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram processing of Leister to include the blur filter disclosed in Dickson at least because doing so would suppress aliasing effects and thus remove noise. See Dickson col. 13, ll. 17–19.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Leister in view of Hu in view of Latychevsakaia as disclosed above, further in view of Wang et al., United States Patent Application Publication No. US 2015/0285735 A1 (herein “Wang”).
Regarding claim 9, Leister teaches the claimed obtaining component as disclosed above in the rejection for claim 1, however, Leister as modified by Hu does not explicitly teach, where Wang teaches employs a detector having a broken pixel (Wang fig. 4A, detector 124, claim 12, ¶88, detector having dead pixels (broken pixel) which are optically inactive pixels), and wherein application of the apodization filter by the filter application component is the same whether the detector has the broken pixel or does not have the broken pixel (Wang fig. 4A, claim 12, ¶108, the apodization element (apodization filter) is part of the illumination optics, upstream of the detector, and operating agnostically to the condition of the detector, this regardless of whether the detector has a broken pixel or not, where the detector integrates over the different AOI regions with dead pixel areas to accommodate the dead pixels).
Therefore, taking the teachings of Leister as modified by Hu and Wang together as a whole, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the hologram processing of Leister to include the dark pixel integration by a detector and apodization regardless of dark pixel status as set forth in Wang at least because doing so would provide improved measurement (detection) repeatability and stability. See Wang ¶48.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHELLE M KOETH whose telephone number is (571)272-5908. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday, 09:00-17:00, Friday 09:00-13:00, EDT/EST.
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MICHELLE M. KOETH
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2671
/MICHELLE M KOETH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2671
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