DETAILED ACTION
*Note in the following document:
1. Texts in italic bold format are limitations quoted either directly or conceptually from claims/descriptions disclosed in the instant application.
2. Texts in regular italic format are quoted directly from cited reference or Applicant’s arguments.
3. Texts with underlining are added by the Examiner for emphasis.
4. Texts with
5. Acronym “PHOSITA” stands for “Person Having Ordinary Skill In The Art”.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 14 April 2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
This is in response to applicant’s amendment/response file on 14 April 2026, which has been entered and made of record. Claims 1, 3-9, 13 and 15-24 has/have been amended. Claims 2, 10-12, 14 and 25-27 have been cancelled. No Claim has been added. Claims 1, 3-9, 13 and 15-24 are pending in the application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see p.6-8, filed on 14 April 2026, with respect to 35 U.S.C. §103 rejection to independent Claim 1/13 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding Claim 1/13 and reference Oz, Applicant argues Oz does not disclose receiving parameters such as distance from the user to the final visual appearance and a viewing angle under which the user is viewing the final visual appearance at the processing circuitry to generate 3D image. Moreover, the cited portions of prior art Oz discloses creation of view of a 3D model from the inputs of a camera such as image and position of new point of view to the system and rendering of 3D model's according to the view of the user, whereas the feature of Claim 2 discloses reception of parameters such as distance from the user to the final visual appearance and a viewing angle of the user towards the final visual appearance are provided by the extended reality device to the processing circuitry, which is working in opposite manner to the cited prior art (p.8 paragraph 3-4). The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Oz discloses updating a panoramic view of a virtual meeting at runtime based on a 3D model and texture maps according to a user’s pose ([0135]-[0136]: Tracking the user's eyes and gaze direction may also be used to determine the direction in which the user is looking (direction of gaze) and at which person or object the user is looking. This information can be used to rotate the avatar's head and eyes so that in the virtual space it also appears as if the user is looking at the same person or object as in the real world. Tracking the user's head pose and eye gaze may also be used to control the virtual world's appearance on the user's screen. For example, if the user looks at the right side of the screen, the point of view of the virtual camera may move to the right, so that the person or object at which the user is looking is located at the center of the user's screen. [0138]: In one embodiment, a 3D model and texture maps are created before the beginning of the meeting and this model is then animated and rendered at run time according to the user's pose and expressions that are estimated from the video images).
Oz describes FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a process for amending a direction of view of an avatar of a part of a participant according to a direction of gaze of the participant. The upper part of FIG. 5 is a virtual 3D conference environment—represented by a panoramic view 41 of five participants 51, 52, 53, 54 and 55 sitting near table 60. All participants face the same direction—the screen. In the lower image the avatar of the fifth participant faces the avatar of first participant—as the fifth participant was detected to look at the 3D model of the first participant within the environment as presented to the fifth participant ([0133]-[0134]).
Firstly based on above citation, it is clear that Oz discloses a detection of a change of viewing direction results in a change of a visual appearance of a user (in Fig.5 it is user 55). A skilled person would have recognized that a change of viewing direction usually also results in a distance change as shown in Fig.5 annotated by d1 and d2 in addition to a viewing angle change.
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Since Oz teaches updating visual appearance according to a direction of an participant’s viewing direction change, Oz teaches or suggests generating a final visual appearance of the participant according to information regarding a distance and a viewing angle change. Therefore it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA before the effective filing date to incorporate the teaching of Oz and to include a distance and a viewing angle as parameters to adjust visual presentation of a human in order to provide interactive virtual video conference to all virtual meeting participants.
In addition, Sugihara et al. (US 2022/0291744 A1) discloses a skilled person had already known to display an enlarged version of a virtual object when a user with a HMD moves close to the virtual object ([0115]-[0116]: FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of the presentation mode of the head mounted display 10 according to the first embodiment. In a scene C31 illustrated in FIG. 10, the HMD 10 displays the reduced spatial object 500 on the display unit 150 such that the reduced spatial object is visually recognized in front of the user U. In a scene C32, the user U moves in the real space in the direction M1 from the position of the scene C31 toward the spatial object 500. In the first embodiment described above, when the HMD 10 detects the approach of the user U to the spatial object 500 on the basis of the detection result of the sensor unit 110, the spatial object 500 is displayed to become larger as the distance between the spatial object 500 and the user U is shorter).
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Oz discloses updating visual appearance of a participant according to the participant’s viewing direction. Sugihara, in the same field of endeavor for virtual space presentation, discloses a virtual object becomes larger as a distance between the object and the viewer becomes shorter. Therefore it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA before the effective filing date to incorporate the teaching of Sugihara into that of Oz and to include the limitation of wherein the parameter comprises at least one of a distance from a user of the extended reality device to the final visual appearance as displayed to the user, and a viewing angle under which the user of the extended reality device is viewing the final visual appearance in order to provide a gesture by moving close to a visual appearance of a virtual meeting participant for a viewer to observe the participant naturally.
Based on above reasoning, the Examiner maintains the 35 U.S.C. §103 rejections.
Applicant’s argument regarding other dependent claims are based on their dependence on their perspective independent claims (p.9 first paragraph). Therefore the previous rejections are maintained.
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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 1, 13 and 22-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oz et al. (US 2021/0360196 A1) in view of Sugihara et al. (US 2022/0291744 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, Oz teaches or suggests a method (Abstract: A method for conducting a three dimensional (3D) video conference …) for processing a 3D ([0165]: If the camera is a 3D depth camera, then the depth data can be used to make the models more accurate and solve ambiguities) image data stream ([0285]: the system may decide to transmit to viewers a video stream), the method comprising at a processing entity:
receiving a first 3D image data stream comprising a preliminary visual appearance of at least a human ([0057] Step 210 may include receiving direction of gaze information regarding a direction of gaze of each participant within a representation of a virtual 3D video conference environment that is associated with the participant. Also see [0160]: The 3D models and texture maps of the users can be created on the fly from a 2D or 3D video camera or can be prepared before the beginning of the 3D video conference call. They can also be a combination of a high-quality model prepared before the meeting and a real-time model created during the meeting. For example, changes in the appearance of the participant relative to the high-quality model, such as a newly grown beard, may be adjusted using information from the on-the-fly camera. As another example, a new texture map can be created from the video during the meeting based on the current look of the person), wherein the preliminary visual appearance of the human is to be transmitted to an extended reality device for display ([0271]: If the viewer uses a 3D display such as a 3D display or a virtual reality (VR) headset or glasses, then two images corresponding to the viewpoint of the right and left eyes may be generated to create a stereoscopic image),
determining additional parts to be added to the visual appearance of the human for completing the preliminary visual appearance to a final visual appearance to be displayed at the extended reality device ([0230]-[0231]: The user's appearance may be altered and improved by manipulating the resulting 3D model or the reflectance maps. For example, different kinds of touch-ups may be applied such as removing skin wrinkles, applying makeup, stretching the face, lip filling or changing the eyes' color. The shape of the user's body may also be altered, and the user's clothes may be changed from the real clothes to other clothes according to the user's wish. Accessories such as earrings, glasses, hats, etc. may also be added to the user's model. The added glasses etc. are interpreted as additional parts),
receiving a parameter from the extended reality device influencing the final visual appearance of the human at the extended reality device ([0163]: If the video camera is a 2D camera, then computerized models, such as convolutional neural networks may be used to create a 3D model from the 2D images. These models may be parametric models where the parameters determine the shape, expression and pose of the face, body, and hands. [0171]: An image 101 is input into a neural network 103 that outputs characteristics 105 of the image (that may include texture parameters, expression parameters and/or shape parameters)—for example the neural network may expands texture parameters into a texture map. [0236]: The real-time parametric model together with the reflectance map and other maps may be used to render a visual representation of the face and body that may be very close to the original image of the face and body in the video. In addition, Oz discloses a three-dimensional video conference between multiple participants ([0055]). Oz discloses the method can be used to generate a 3D view for 3D screen or VR Headset (see Fig.10). Oz discloses the method includes a step wherein step 230 may include generating input information (such as 3D model and/or one or more texture maps) to be fed to a rendering process ([0062]) and The 3D model may have separate parameters for shape, pose and expression ([0092]). Oz further discloses If the video camera is a 2D camera, then computerized models, such as convolutional neural networks may be used to create a 3D model from the 2D images. These models may be parametric models where the parameters determine the shape, expression and pose of the face, body, and hands. Such a model can be trained by using sets of 2D images and corresponding 3D models ([0163]). Oz’s [0176] recites The 3D model may have separate parameters for shape, pose and expression. The shape parameters may depend only on the specific person and may be independent of the pose and expression. Therefore, they remain constant even when a person moves his head and talks or makes various facial expressions. Therefore, during the modelling process of a certain person, the expression and pose of the person being modelled do not have to be static or frozen during the capturing of the video or images that may be used to create the 3D model. [0512]: In an embodiment, the faces detected in the videos may be modelled by a neural network generating a parametric model that includes parameters regarding the head pose, eye gaze direction and facial expressions…. A PHOSITA before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that OZ teaches while the parameter for shape may be a static, the parameter for expression and pose can be dynamic and the parameters for expression and pose is generated by applying convolutional neural network. Therefore Oz teaches or suggests the limitation of receiving a parameter from the extended reality device influencing the final visual appearance of the human at the extended reality device),
amending the additional parts to adapted additional parts based on the received parameter, generating the final visual appearance of the human including adding the adapted additional parts to the preliminary visual appearance of the human ([0209]: Step 1820 may include obtaining object information that represents the sensed object; and selecting, based on the at least one parameter, a neural network for generating the visual representation of the sensed object),
transmitting the final visual appearance over a communication network to the extended reality device ([0310]: The processing of this system may be performed on the user's device such as a computer, a phone or a tablet or on a remote computer such as a server on the cloud. Note Oz does not explicitly recite transmitting the final visual appearance over a communication network to the extended reality device. However it would have obvious to a PHOSITA before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the step of transmitting in order to allow the extended reality to display the updated visual appearance processed by the remote server on the cloud).
Oz discloses updating a panoramic view of a virtual meeting at runtime based on a 3D model and texture maps according to a user’s pose ([0135]-[0136]: Tracking the user's eyes and gaze direction may also be used to determine the direction in which the user is looking (direction of gaze) and at which person or object the user is looking. This information can be used to rotate the avatar's head and eyes so that in the virtual space it also appears as if the user is looking at the same person or object as in the real world. Tracking the user's head pose and eye gaze may also be used to control the virtual world's appearance on the user's screen. For example, if the user looks at the right side of the screen, the point of view of the virtual camera may move to the right, so that the person or object at which the user is looking is located at the center of the user's screen. [0138]: In one embodiment, a 3D model and texture maps are created before the beginning of the meeting and this model is then animated and rendered at run time according to the user's pose and expressions that are estimated from the video images).
Oz describes FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a process for amending a direction of view of an avatar of a part of a participant according to a direction of gaze of the participant. The upper part of FIG. 5 is a virtual 3D conference environment—represented by a panoramic view 41 of five participants 51, 52, 53, 54 and 55 sitting near table 60. All participants face the same direction—the screen. In the lower image the avatar of the fifth participant faces the avatar of first participant—as the fifth participant was detected to look at the 3D model of the first participant within the environment as presented to the fifth participant ([0133]-[0134]).
Firstly based on above citation, it is clear that Oz discloses a detection of a change of viewing direction results in a change of a visual appearance of a user (in Fig.5 it is user 55). A skilled person would have recognized that a change of viewing direction usually also results in a distance change as shown in Fig.5 annotated by d1 and d2 in addition to a viewing angle change.
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Since Oz teaches updating visual appearance according to a direction of an participant’s viewing direction change, Oz teaches or suggests generating a final visual appearance of the participant according to information regarding a distance and a viewing angle change. Therefore it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA before the effective filing date to incorporate the teaching of Oz and to include a distance and a viewing angle as parameters to adjust visual presentation of a human in order to provide interactive virtual video conference to all virtual meeting participants.
In addition, Sugihara et al. (US 2022/0291744 A1) discloses a skilled person had already known to display an enlarged version of a virtual object when a user with a HMD moves close to the virtual object ([0115]-[0116]: FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of the presentation mode of the head mounted display 10 according to the first embodiment. In a scene C31 illustrated in FIG. 10, the HMD 10 displays the reduced spatial object 500 on the display unit 150 such that the reduced spatial object is visually recognized in front of the user U. In a scene C32, the user U moves in the real space in the direction M1 from the position of the scene C31 toward the spatial object 500. In the first embodiment described above, when the HMD 10 detects the approach of the user U to the spatial object 500 on the basis of the detection result of the sensor unit 110, the spatial object 500 is displayed to become larger as the distance between the spatial object 500 and the user U is shorter).
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Oz discloses updating visual appearance of a participant according to the participant’s viewing direction. Sugihara, in the same field of endeavor for virtual space presentation, discloses a virtual object becomes larger as a distance between the object and the viewer becomes shorter. Therefore it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA before the effective filing date to incorporate the teaching of Sugihara into that of Oz and to include the limitation of wherein the parameter comprises at least one of a distance from a user of the extended reality device to the final visual appearance as displayed to the user, and a viewing angle under which the user of the extended reality device is viewing the final visual appearance in order to provide a gesture by moving close to a visual appearance of a virtual meeting participant for a viewer to observe the participant naturally.
Regarding Claim 13, Claim 13 is/are similar to Claim 1 except in the format of processing entity. Therefore the same reason(s) for rejection is/are applied to Claim 1 are also applied to Claim 13.
Regarding Claim 22, Oz further teaches or suggests , wherein the additional parts relate to at least one of a head, neck and shoulder part of the human (Fig.7 and [0172]: A differentiable renderer 107 may renders an image 108 from the texture map, expression and shape parameters. This image may have missing parts due to occlusions of parts of the head that were not seen in the original input image. A Generative Adversarial Network 109 (GAN) may complete the rendered image into a full image 110 without any missing parts).
Regarding Claim 23, Oz teaches or suggests further being operative to transmit the final visual appearance to the extended reality device as part of a final 3D image data stream transmitted to the extended reality device ([0230]-[0231]: The user's appearance may be altered and improved by manipulating the resulting 3D model or the reflectance maps. For example, different kinds of touch-ups may be applied such as removing skin wrinkles, applying makeup, stretching the face, lip filling or changing the eyes' color. The shape of the user's body may also be altered, and the user's clothes may be changed from the real clothes to other clothes according to the user's wish. Accessories such as earrings, glasses, hats, etc. may also be added to the user's model. The added earrings, glasses, hats etc. are part of a final 3D image data stream).
Regarding Claim 24, Oz teaches or suggests wherein the additional parts comprise a 3D representation of at least one of the following: a pre-defined mesh of the human, a pre-generated avatar ([0128]-[0129]: Any user may be associated with one or more data structure of any type—avatar, 3D model, texture map, and the like. … The virtual 3D video conference environment may include one or more avatars that represents one or more of the participants. The one or more avatars may be virtually located within the virtual 3D video conference environment. One or more features of the virtual 3D video conference environment (that may or may not be related to the avatars) may differ from one participant to another. [0344]: A 3D face template mesh (templated 3D model)—may include a coarse triangular mesh of a generic human face. [0351]: In addition, the triangular mesh template may be pre-annotated with a predefined annotation of face parts (e.g. nose, eyes, ears, neck, etc.).
Claims 3-5, 7-9, 15-17 and 19-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oz et al. (US 2021/0360196 A1) in view of Sugihara et al. (US 2022/0291744 A1) as applied to Claim 1/2, 13/14 above, and further in view of Petrangeli et al. (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming for Augmented Reality Applications, 2019 IEEE Symposium on Multimedia (ISM), 2019).
Regarding Claim 3, Oz discloses allowing users to change position ([0144]: In yet another embodiment, a new view is created based on a real-time image obtained from a video camera and the position of the new point of view (virtual camera). [0329]: This real-time 3D textured model can then be used to render the view of the user from various angles and camera positions and specifically may be used to correct the viewing position of the virtual camera as if it were virtually located inside the screen of the user—for example—at a virtual location positioned at location that a height and/or lateral location coordinate of at the participant's eyes).
But Oz as modified does not explicitly recite wherein amending the additional parts comprises adapting a granularity of the additional parts.
However Petrangeli teaches it had been well-known to a PHOSITA, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to adopt a level of detail rendering to an augmented reality application (p.58 left column Section III: see below).
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Therefore it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA before the effective filing date to incorporate the teaching of Petrangeli into that of Oz as modified and to include the limitation of wherein amending the additional parts comprises adapting a granularity of the additional parts in order to take into account the available bandwidth resources to ensure a timely delivery of the AR objects as suggested by Petrangeli (Abstract) and further providing a more reality extended virtual experience to users since a user normally is able to notice more detail when he/she is closer to the observed object.
Regarding Claim 4, Oz modified by Sugihara and Petrangeli further teaches or suggests wherein the granularity is adapted to a finer granularity with a decreasing distance from the user to the final visual appearance (Petrangeli see p.58 left column Section III above). The same reason to combine as that of Claim 3 is applied.
Regarding Claim 5, Oz modified by Sugihara and Petrangeli further teaches or suggests wherein different representation quality levels of the additional parts are available, and one of the different representation quality levels is selected for the adapted additional parts in dependence on the distance (Petrangeli see p.58 left column Section III above). The same reason to combine as that of Claim 3 is applied.
Regarding Claim 7, Petrangeli further teaches or suggests wherein one of the different representation quality levels is selected based on a just noticeable difference indicating a difference between 2 different representation quality levels as a function of a distance from the user to the final visual appearance (p.58 right column the third last line to p.58 left column line 7: A widely used metric in computer graphics to define the objective visual contribution of a particular LOD is the Screen-Space Error (SSE) [17], which is defined as the difference in pixels ρ between rendering on screen a lower LOD rather than a higher one. The SSE ρ depends on factors such as the distance to the object, the resolution and field-of-view of the screen, and the LOD geometric error, which expresses the absolute distance between the vertices of the original high-quality object and its LOD representation (obtained through a process of decimation). Lower values of the SSE indicate higher-quality LODs). The same reason to combine as that of Claim 3 is applied.
Regarding Claim 8, Oz further teaches or suggests wherein generating the final visual appearance comprises rendering the received and amended visual appearance, wherein the rendering of the amended visual appearance is adapted in dependence on the received viewing angle ([0168]: Specifically, a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) may be trained based on many images of a certain person or on many images of multiple people to generate images of people from angles that may be different than the angle at which the camera may be currently seeing the person).
Regarding Claim 9, Petrangeli further teaches or suggests wherein the rendering is adapted when the received viewing angle changes over time by more than a threshold angle (p.58 right column).
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It is clear that, at least due to the digitization of the value of the theta, the angular distance is subjected to some form of thresholding. The same reason to combine as that of Claim 3 is applied.
Regarding Claims 15-17, Claims 15-17 is/are similar to Claims 3-5 except in the format of processing entity. Therefore the same reason(s) for rejection is/are applied to Claims 3-5 are also applied to Claims 15-17.
Regarding Claims 19-21, Claims 19-21 is/are similar to Claims 7-9 except in the format of processing entity. Therefore the same reason(s) for rejection is/are applied to Claims 7-9 are also applied to Claims 19-21.
Claims 6 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oz et al. (US 2021/0360196 A1) in view of Sugihara et al. (US 2022/0291744 A1) and Petrangeli et al. (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming for Augmented Reality Applications, 2019 IEEE Symposium on Multimedia (ISM), 2019). as applied to Claim 5, 17 above, and further in view of Fu et al. (US 2019/0028710 A1).
Regarding Claim 6, Oz as modified further teaches or suggests wherein the different representation quality levels comprise at least one of the following: (Petrangeli p.59 left column: The SSE ρ depends on factors such as the distance to the object, the resolution and field-of-view of the screen, and the LOD geometric error, which expresses the absolute distance between the vertices of the original high-quality object and its LOD representation (obtained through a process of decimation)), a mean opinion score (Oz [0245]: parameters related to the eyes and lips may have higher perceptual importance than those related to cheeks or hair. This approach would allow for a graceful degradation of the reconstructed video), .
Oz as modified does not disclose the different representation quality levels comprise a peak-signal-to-noise ratio and an encoding quantization parameter of the visual appearance.
However Fu, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, teaches the quality level may be defined by the quantization parameter (QP) or visual quality metrics such as peak-to-peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity (SSIM), visual quality metric (VQM), etc. ([0051]). Therefore it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA before the effective filing date to incorporate the teaching of Fu into that of Oz as modified and to include the limitation of wherein the different representation quality levels comprise at least one of the following: a peak signal-to-noise ratio, a structural similarity, a mean opinion score, an encoding quantization parameter of the visual appearance in order to allow the extended reality system to work under low bandwidth condition.
Regarding Claim 18, Claim 18 is/are similar to Claim 6 except in the format of processing entity. Therefore the same reason(s) for rejection is/are applied to Claim 6 is/are also applied to Claim 18.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YINGCHUN HE whose telephone number is (571)270-7218. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-5:00 MT.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Xiao M Wu can be reached at 571-272-7761. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YINGCHUN HE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2613
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