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 .
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.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Objections
Claim 3 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 3 states “The distance image capturing device according to Claim 1, wherein a plurality of measurement modes that include:”, the portion of this statement following “wherein” requires a verb.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the number" in “among storage timings of which the number is larger than a number of the charge storage units included in the pixel”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For examining purposes, examiner takes “the number” as a number of storage timing slots, similar to the slots shown in Fig. 4.
Claim 1 also recites the limitation “performs control such that a total number of times, which is a sum of times the charges are stored in each of the charge storage units, becomes the same in one frame”. It is unclear what the total number of times is the same as, hence claim 1 is indefinite. For examining purposes, examiner interprets the limitation as performing control such that a sum of times the charges are stored becomes the same for each charge storage unit in one frame, similar to the timing shown in Fig. 7.
Claims 2-3 are dependent on claim 1, and are rejected for the reasons stated above.
Claim 4 recites similar limitations to claim 1, and is rejected for the reasons stated above.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1 and 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Boutaud (US 20190346540).
Regarding claim 1, Boutaud teaches:
A distance image capturing device comprising (#112 of Fig. 1, TOF Sensor):
a light source unit that irradiates a measurement space with a light pulse (#104 of Fig. 1, emitter);
a light receiving unit having a pixel including a photoelectric conversion element that generates charges according to incident light (#106 of Fig. 1, sensor, [41]) and a plurality of charge storage units that store the charges (#C0-2 of Fig. 1, measuring capacitors), and a pixel drive circuit that distributes the charges to the charge storage units and stores the charges in each of the charge storage units at a predetermined storage timing synchronized with an emission timing of emitting the light pulse (circuit shown in Fig. 5, timing shown in Fig. 12) and
a distance image processing unit that calculates a distance to an object existing in the measurement space (#408 of Fig. 4, distance determination component), based on an amount of the charges stored in each of the charge storage units [62], wherein
the distance image processing unit
provides a plurality of storage cycles in one frame [86],
performs control such that in the plurality of storage cycles, the charges are stored in each of the charge storage units at any timing among storage timings of which the number is larger than a number of the charge storage units included in the pixel (Fig. 12, there are 3 storage capacitors and 5 acquisition time slots),
performs control such that a total number of times, which is a sum of times the charges are stored in each of the charge storage units becomes the same in the one frame (Fig. 12, each gate is opened 6 times in the pattern), and
performs control such that a time difference between a first storage timing and a second storage timing is a time different from a storage time for storing the charges in each of the charge storage units (Fig. 12, the time difference (between the start times) for all gates between sequence A and sequence B is 2 * Tw [112]), the first storage timing being a storage timing for storing the charges in a specific charge storage unit among the plurality of charge storage units in a specific storage cycle among the plurality of storage cycles (Tx0a in Fig. 12, gating sequence), and the second storage timing being a storage timing for storing the charges in the specific charge storage unit in another storage cycle different from the specific storage cycle (Tx0b in Fig. 12, gating sequence).
Regarding claim 4, claim 4 is identical in scope to claim 1 and is rejected for the reasons stated above.
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.
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Boutaud in view of Mase et al. (US 20180106902)
Regarding claim 2, Boutaud teaches:
The distance image capturing device according to claim 1
Boutaud does not teach, but Mase does teach:
wherein the distance image processing unit performs control such that a total time at which the charges are stored in the one frame is larger at the storage timings with a larger difference from the emission timing than the storage timings with a smaller difference [111-112]
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the distance image capturing device of Boutaud to use more exposures for latter measurements similar to Mase with a reasonable expectation of success. This would have the predictable result of increasing accuracy by preventing saturation and increasing signal charge [Mase: 111-112]
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Boutaud in view of Viswantha et al. (US 20240045066).
Regarding claim 3, Boutaud teaches:
The distance image capturing device according to Claim 1
Boutaud does not teach, but Viswantha does teach:
wherein a plurality of measurement modes that include:
a normal mode (Fig. 5, [54]), and
a wide range mode (Fig. 5, [54]),
the normal mode is a mode that measures a distance to the object existing at a close distance, and does not measure a distance to the object existing at a far distance [54]
the wide range mode is a mode that measures a distance to the object existing in a wide range from the close distance to the far distance [54]
the distance image processing unit calculates a statistical amount of pixel values for each of the pixels that configures a distance image ([69-72], the statistical amount of pixel values being the percentage of pixels above or below thresholds) and determines whether a measurement mode at a next measurement is the normal mode or the wide range mode. based on the calculated statistical amount [72]
Additionally, Boutaud teaches:
An embodiment with a shorter range (Fig. 8)
And an embodiment with a longer range (Fig. 12)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the distance image capture device of Boutaud with multiple automatically switched ranging modes similar to Viswantha with a reasonable expectation of success. This would have the predictable increasing the sampling rate of the system and increasing the amount of data available. In the present combination, Boutaud teaches a short and long-range embodiment, where the long-range embodiment has a longer reception window. This increases the amount of time required to perform ranging. Using multiple ranging modes would make it so that this increase in ranging time is only present when necessary, increasing the average sampling rate of the device.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Mori et al. (US 20190391266) teaches a similar ranging device that uses grouped pixels with different exposure timings to improve accuracy.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AVIRAJ D SINGH whose telephone number is (571)272-9128. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8:00am-5:30pm.
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/A.D.S./Examiner, Art Unit 3645 /ISAM A ALSOMIRI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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