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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 6 – 10 in the reply filed on 23 February 2026 is acknowledged.
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 6 – 10 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 6 recites the limitation "the object” and “the camera". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 6 recites the phrase “a digital twin” twice. It is unclear if these instances of “digital twin” are the same or different from each other.
Claim 6 recites the acronyms “UI” and “MR”. It is unclear what these acronyms mean.
Claim 7 recites the phrase “the interface”. It is unclear if the reference is to the “human-machine interface” or “a user-operable interface”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 6 - 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Though claims 6 - 10 recite a “MR renderer” comprising a DTaaS API, an MR visualization unit, and a three-dimensional human-interface framework, the original specification discloses “All of the components described above may be implemented as independent hardware (e.g., chips or modules), and may also be implemented as software-blocked components as needed” (paragraph 408) and does not explicitly define only hardware components to said components. One of ordinary skill can reasonably interpret the units in the system to be merely software. Therefore, the “MR renderer” is nothing more than functional descriptive material per se, and hence is nonstatutory. Descriptive material can be characterized as either “functional descriptive material” or “nonfunctional descriptive material.” In this context, “functional descriptive material” consists of data structures and computer programs which impart functionality when employed as a computer component. (The definition of “data structure” is “a physical or logical relationship among data elements, designed to support specific data manipulation functions.” The New IEEE Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronics Terms 308 (5th ed. 1993).) “functional descriptive material” is nonstatutory when claimed as descriptive material per se. Warmerdam, 33 F.3d at 1360, 31 USPQ2d at 1759. When functional descriptive material is recorded on some computer-readable medium causing a processor to perform the instructions, it becomes structurally and functionally interrelated to the medium and will be statutory in most cases since use of technology permits the function of the descriptive material to be realized.
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)(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) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Adkinson et al. (US 2021/0295599).
Regarding independent claim 6, Adkinson teaches an MR renderer (Figure 5) disposed in a vehicle (intended use) to provide a mixed reality automotive meta service (MR AMS), the MR renderer comprising:
a Digital Twin as a Service (DTaaS) API that calls a function for communicating with a DTaaS server (paragraph 32: operation 202 may be performed in whole or in part by server 114, which may include operations from methods 300 and/or 400) that provides at least one of a digital twin map and a three-dimensional polygon map (paragraph 35: Following generation of the 3D model/digital twin, in embodiments, it is made available to users remote devices in real-time, such as a user of remote device 110);
an MR visualization unit that receives UI data from an MR AMS client (paragraph 35: Following generation of the 3D model/digital twin, in embodiments, it is made available to users remote devices in real-time, such as a user of remote device 110), and visualizes an MR image using a three-dimensional polygon map received from the DTaaS API and the UI data (paragraph 38: In operation 208, the coordinate space of the 3D model/digital twin is mapped to the coordinate space of the video feed); and
a three-dimensional human-machine interface (HMI) framework that generates a three- dimensional HMI to allow a user-operable interface to be included in the MR image (paragraph 33: In operation 204, the video feed and depth data or motion data are used to construct a 3D model/digital twin with which a remote user can interact),
wherein the MR visualization unit generates a digital twin map (paragraph 33: Method 300, described below with respect to FIG. 3, is one possible process that can be implemented to create a 3D mesh and texture it using images from the video feed to result in the 3D model/3D digital twin) by matching an image extracted from the camera image (paragraph 31: a camera 104 is used to capture the video, and one or more spatial position sensors 106 may be used to capture motion data, including camera pose information) included in the UI data (paragraph 33: In operation 204, the video feed and depth data or motion data are used to construct a 3D model/digital twin with which a remote user can interact) on the three-dimensional polygon map (paragraph 33: Image information from the video feed may then be integrated with the 3D mesh to form the 3D model/digital twin, such via a texture mapping process, wherein techniques known in the art may be used to generate the 3D mesh and/or the 3D model/digital twin), and
generates the MR image by overlapping the object related to the MR service on the digital twin map (paragraph 38: In operation 208, the coordinate space of the 3D model/digital twin is mapped to the coordinate space of the video feed).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEFFREY J CHOW whose telephone number is (571)272-8078. The examiner can normally be reached 11AM-7PM.
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/JEFFREY J CHOW/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2618
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