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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 18 Dec 2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 18, 20, 22, 24 and 26 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CLAVEU et al., US 20170287166 and TAO et al., US 20220164987.
In considering claim 1,
PNG
media_image1.png
405
677
media_image1.png
Greyscale
The claimed receiving…is met by cameras 44a/b/c/d (Fig 17) where the cameras have an overlapped field (para 32, 64, 77, 95, 125-129 and capture a scene of a calibration target 20, including various poses (orientation) of target 20 (para 158). As noted by CLAVEU the coupling may include wireless or wired connections, where the cameras are coupled to each other via processing unit 80 (para 158)
The claimed determining a position of the target…including capturing images of the target from the respective cameras and using information of the target for positional information of the target (para 48, 76, 89, 103, 110, 113, 118, 124, 133, 137, 146, 151-154
c/d) measuring a first and second reprojection error…is met where the reprojection error for intrinsics and extrinsic camera parameters are calculated based upon the target (checkerboard/fudicial) (para 70, 121, 122, 142-146, 149, 154) and calculating the position and orientation of each camera with respect to on another (para 124).
e) providing an indication…a quality indicator (para 31, 131, 143-146, 151-154).
Regarding e) the examiner notes CLAVEU discloses threshold and quality indicator, however does not explicitly recite great than a threshold, although well-known, the examiner provides evidence of such via Tao.
The examine incorporates TAO et al., US 20220164987 which explicitly recites (para 91) if an error is larger than a threshold providing a calibration result indicating unsuccessful or successful calibration.
The motivation to modify CLAVEU with TAO provides the conventional ability to notify the user(s) whether calibration has been met (Pass) or not (FAIL) in order to ensure the user(s) is fully aware/informed of the calibration results being performed, thereby notifying the user(s) of the status of such calibration, thus being an obvious modification to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
In considering claim 4,
As disclosed by CLAVEU, the target may take on different positions, including poses and orientations (para 20, 49, 85, 101, 109, 117, 127, 136).
In considering claim 6,
AS noted above in claim 1, CLAVEU discloses the target may be captured in multiple orientations/poses(positions) with respect to the overlapped fields of views in order to computer the reprojection error of the cameras with respect to the target and other cameras. Thus the capturing of a 3rd and 4th image would be met by a different orientation/pose of the target with respect to the 1st and 2nd camera and thus used to calculate the 2nd reprojection errors (para 80) of the respective cameras based upon a 2nd position/orientation of the calibration target.
In considering claim 7,
CLAVEU discloses the error is in pixels (para 29, 79, 113, 133, 149, 153-154)
TAO also discloses the error may be determined to be some number of pixels off the reference line.
The examiner notes the use of one or more pixels is an obvious modification to one of ordinary skill in the art wherein the smaller number of pixels used to compute an error is more precise/fine calibration and the larger number of pixels used as a threshold would be more of a coarse calibration in the combination above, thus being an obvious modification to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention as noted above.
In considering claim 8,
Refer to claim 1,
Regarding the processor (Fig 20, 80) and (memory 82) of CLAVEU.
In considering claim 11,
Refer to claim 4.
In considering claim 13,
Refer to claim 6.
In considering claim 14,
Refer to claim 7.
In considering claim 15,
Refer to claim 1 and 8. (para 52-53, 85, 158-160, computer executable instructions).
In considering claim 18,
Refer to claim 4.
In considering claim 20,
Refer to claim 6.
In considering claim 22,
Based upon applications specification disclosing features as fiducials, the claims is rejected as follows:
CLAVEU discloses that the fiducials on the target pattern are used (para 5, 58, 85-87, 89, 108, 113, 121, 131, 142) to determine the position and/or orientation of the features (fiducials) using the captured images from the cameras and the calibration data (intrinsic/extrinsic) from each camera are used to calibrate the cameras and determine the pose/orientation of the calibration target 20, where the cameras can capture multiple image(s) of the target whether the target is repositioned/moved or not in order to ensure reprojection errors of the cameras meets a quality standard.
In considering claim 24,
Refer to claim 22.
In considering claim 26,
Refer to claim 22.
Claim(s) 27-32 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CLAVEU et al., US 20170287166 and TAO et al., US 20220164987 in view of BALLARD et al., US 20220217301
In considering claim 27,
The examiner notes the application used in CLAVEU/TAO does not disclose the camera being coupled to a display (the instant disclosure refers to a telepresence/teleconference/mirror display), however it is notoriously well-known in the art to couple cameras to a display, notably for a teleconferencing application, where such cameras are used to provide captured data of the user(s) to others.
The examiner incorporates BALLARD (Fig 1b) where a teleconferencing system including a display 110, includes (para 29) camera coupled to the display as shown, or can also be used as a virtual mirror (para 27, 50)
The motivation for modifying the above combination with BALLARD would provide the user the ability to use an application like videoconferencing and/or virtual mirror application, where cameras provide the ability to capture data to relay to participant(s) included in such conference/virtual application thus being an obvious modification to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
In considering claim 28,
The examiner notes claim 27 the examiner incorporated Ballard to disclose a camera coupled to a display, additionally Ballard also discloses that the display may include a “virtual mirror” applications or the use of a regular mirror (para 18, 27, 50).
The motivation to modify the above combination with Ballard with the use of a mirror (regular and/or virtual) would provide based upon the application/system requirements the option of the user/system to utilized a known display which can provide reflective (regular mirror) or virtual mirror functions to a display, thus increasing the use/application for the user/system, thus being an obvious modification to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
In considering claim 29,
Refer to claim 27.
In considering claim 30,
Refer to claim 28.
In considering claim 31,
Refer to claim 27.
In considering claim 32,
Refer to claim 28.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure—see newly cited references on attached form PTO-892.
US 20170070731 (para 66, meets reprojection error) which uses a stereo camera (2 cameras) to calibrate the cameras with respect to themselves and a checkerboard including intrinsic and extrinsic.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Brian Yenke whose telephone number is (571)272-7359. The examiner work schedule is Monday-Thursday, 0730-1830 hrs.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s Supervisor, John Miller, can be reached at (571)272-7353.
Any response to this action should be mailed to:
Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks
Washington, D.C. 20231
or faxed to:
(571)-273-8300
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or proceeding should be directed to the Technology Center 2400 Customer Service Office whose telephone number is
(703)305-HELP.
General information about patents, trademarks, products and services offered by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and other related information is available by contacting the USPTO’s General Information Services Division at:
800-PTO-9199 or 703-308-HELP
(FAX) 703-305-7786
(TDD) 703-305-7785
An automated message system is available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day providing informational responses to frequently asked questions and the ability to order certain documents. Customer service representatives are available to answer questions, send materials or connect customers with other offices of the USPTO from 8:30 a.m. - 8:00p.m. EST/EDT, Monday-Friday excluding federal holidays.
For other technical patent information needs, the Patent Assistance Center can be reached through customer service representatives at the above numbers, Monday through Friday (except federal holidays) from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST/EDT.
The Patent Electronic Business Center (EBC) allows USPTO customers to retrieve data, check the status of pending actions, and submit information and applications. The tools currently available in the Patent EBC are Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) and the Electronic Filing System (EFS). PAIR (http://pair.uspto.gov) provides customers direct secure access to their own patent application status information, as well as to general patent information publicly available. EFS allows customers to electronically file patent application documents securely via the Internet. EFS is a system for submitting new utility patent applications and pre-grant publication submissions in electronic publication-ready form. EFS includes software to help customers prepare submissions in extensible Markup Language (XML) format and to assemble the various parts of the application as an electronic submission package. EFS also allows the submission of Computer Readable Format (CRF) sequence listings for pending biotechnology patent applications, which were filed in paper form.
/BRIAN P YENKE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2422