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 Amendment
Examiner acknowledges receipt of Applicant’s amendments and arguments filed 09/20/2022. The arguments set forth are addressed herein below.
Applicant’s amendments necessitated the new ground of rejection set forth herein; therefore, this action is made Final.
Claims 1-13, and 15 were cancelled. Claims 16-35 were added.
Claims 14 and 16-35 are now pending.
AIA Notice
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 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.
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 14, 17, 21, 22, 24, 28, 29, 31, and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0070506 A1 to Stafford in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0046873 A1 to Black.
Regarding Claim 14, and similarly recited Claims 22 and 29, (Currently Amended) Stafford discloses a computer-implemented
obtaining that were captured by a head-mounted display (HIMD) and images of the environment that were captured by a controller device that is associated with the HMD (paras. [0007], [0053]-[0054] discloses capturing images of a physical environment in which the user wearing the HMD is present, using one or more sensors disposed on the HMD), wherein the controller device is not visible in the images of the environment that were captured by the HMD
three-dimensional map of the environment using the images of the environment that were captured by the HMD and the images of the environment that were captured by the controller device that is associated with the HMD (see Claim 1 disclosing “ capturing images of a physical environment in which the user wearing the HMD is present, using one or more sensors disposed on the HMD; processing the images to generate a three-dimensional map of the physical environment, the three-dimensional map identifying depth information of real-world objects identified in an area of the physical environment”….); and
determining a position of the controller or each second mobile electronic device with respect to a position of the HMD based at least in part based on the generated map and the received data relating to the one or more second images that were captured by the controller device (fig. 7, paras. [0069], [0082] discloses the position of the HMDs and the controllers handled by the players are tracked by one or more image sensors, inertial sensors and/or depth sensors. The images/videos capture the respective player's actions, such as movement of the hand(s) operating a controller, change in position including location, direction and orientation, of the HMD and/or the controller. The captured images/video frames are analyzed to detect position of the HMD and/or the controller of each player by determining location of the various markers, such as markers defined by LEDs (1, 2, 3, 4 (not shown), 5 and 6) on each of the HMDs).
However, Stafford does not explicitly disclose: “…, wherein the controller device is not visible in the images of the environment that were captured by the HMD”.
In a related invention, Black discloses a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD) for tracking. Black discloses … wherein the controller device is not visible in the images of the environment that were captured by the HMD (paras. [0027]-[0028] discloses two camera equipped wearable devices each tracking the other and themselves: the VR motion tracking involves at least two VR HMDs. For instance, two users are co-located in a physical environment. The first user operates a first VR HMD to access VR content. Similarly, the second user operates a second VR HMD to access the same or different VR content. Each of the VR HMDs includes an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and an optical sensor (e.g., a component of a camera of the VR HMD). The first VR HMD tracks the motion of the second VR HMD and provides information about this motion to the second VR HMD. The second VR HM can do the same with respect to the first VR HMD).
Stafford discloses a game is executed causing interactive scenes of the game to be transmitted for rendering on a display portion of the HMD. Coordinates of the HMD are determined in a three-dimensional space of a real-world environment in which the user wearing the HMD is present, to identify a current position of the user. A movement of the HMD is determined during execution of the game by identifying a change in one or more coordinates of the HMD in the three-dimensional space. Black generally discloses a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD), a computer-implemented method, and a VR tracking system, in which the VR HMD includes an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and an optical sensor. When a second VR HMD is located in a same physical environment, the VR HMD can be operated to track a motion of the second VR HMD in the physical environment. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the features of Black with the system of Stafford in order to further improve the motion tracking capabilities of the gaming system of Stafford and facilitate player movement when determining that the user is interacting in the real-world environment.
Regarding Claim 17, (New) and similarly recited Claims 24 and 31, Stafford in view of Black discloses the method of claim 14, wherein the three-dimensional map is generated using features that were generated from the images of the environment (Stafford, para. [0034] discloses “depth sensor,” as used herein, refers to any suitable electronic device capable of generating depth maps of a 3D space. Some examples of the depth sensitive device include a depth sensitive camera, stereo 3D camera, depth sensor, video camera configured to process images to generate depth maps, and so forth. The depth maps can be processed by a control device to locate a user present within a 3D space).
Regarding Claim 21, (New) and similarly recited Claims 28 and 35, Stafford in view of Black and Ramadasan method of claim 14, wherein the three-dimensional map is generated by a gaming console (Stafford, figs. 1-2, para. [0031] discloses the device may be a game console).
Claims 16, 18-20, 23, 25-27, 30, and 32-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0070506 A1 to Stafford in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0046873 A1 to Black and further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2018/0200614 A1 to Ramadasan et al.
Regarding Claim 16, (New) and similarly recited Claims 23 and 30, Stafford in view of Black discloses the method of claim 14, but it does not explicitly disclose wherein the three-dimensional map is generated using a simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) algorithm.
In a related invention, Ramadasan discloses wherein the three-dimensional map is generated using a simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) algorithm (paras. [0008], [0027], [0029] discloses usage of a SLAM system in generating a map).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the SLAM features of Ramadasan with the combination of Stafford and Black’s mapping and virtual reality system in order to improve upon the virtual reality system, as Ramadasan discloses that such a feature is widely adopted to do so (Ramadasan, para. [0004]).
Regarding Claim 18, (New) and similarly recited Claims 25 and 32, Stafford in view of Black and Ramadasan discloses the method of claim 14, wherein the obtained images of the environment that were captured by the controller device comprise a subset of the images of the environment that were captured by the controller device that have a highest feature density (Ramadasan, para. [0007] discloses a mapping process to generate a cloud of three-dimensional points associated to the descriptors of the map).
Regarding Claim 19, (New) and similarly recited Claims 26, and 33, Stafford in view of Black and Ramadasan discloses the method of claim 14, wherein the images of the environment that were captured by the HMD and the images for the environment that were captured by the controller device include at least partially overlapping views of the environment (Ramadasan, para. [0007] discloses a multi-processor structure is used for VI-SLAM. In one embodiment, the apparatus obtains overlapping image frames and sensor inputs of an apparatus).
Regarding Claim 20, (New) and similarly recited Claims 27 and 34, Stafford in view of Black and Ramadasan the method of claim 14, wherein the three-dimensional map of the environment is generated further based on metadata associated with the images (Ramadasan, para. [0007] discloses wherein the sensor inputs comprise gyrometer data, accelerometer data and magnetometer data, splits computation work onto a plurality of vector processors to obtain six degree of freedom (6DoF) outputs of the apparatus based on a splitting algorithm).
Response to Arguments/Remarks
Applicant’s arguments filed 12/29/2025 have been fully considered but they are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references used in the current rejection.
Conclusion
Claims 14, and 16-35 are examined above.
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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/S.N.H/Examiner, Art Unit 3715
/XUAN M THAI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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