DETAILED ACTION
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements submitted on 09/18/2024 have been considered by the Examiner and made of record in the application file.
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 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 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 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, 14 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Witt (US 2010/0134634 A1) in view of Karsch (US 2015/0043806 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 14 and 20, Witt discloses a method/apparatus (claim 14) of data processing, comprising:
[claim 20: A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which can be executed by at least one processor cause the at least one process to perform: (paragraphs 40-45)]
obtaining an image of a spatial object in a space, the spatial object being captured in the image by a camera component, (paragraphs 5, 40-44: Witt teaches a camera capturing an image or video of a calibration surface and providing the captured image to an image processor.) the image comprising one or more captured planar regions corresponding to one or more planes of the spatial object, (paragraphs 5, 40 and 43-45: Witt’s calibration surface is a planar surface in the scene that appears as a planar region in the captured image.) a first captured planar region of the one or more captured planar regions comprising an array of first captured identification codes that are individually identifiable (paragraphs 52, 55, 189-190: Witt teaches a checkerboard calibration pattern providing a structured array of features and additionally discloses uniquely identifiable corner features and colored markers, which are identifiable features on the pattern.) and comprising first captured straight lines, (paragraphs 5 and 45: Witt teaches that detected checkerboard corners define groups of straight lines on the calibration surface that are parallel and orthogonal.) the first captured straight lines being associated with the first captured identification codes according to a first mapping relationship, paragraphs 55 and 106-110: Witt teaches that the pattern’s detected features (corners and markers) have known relationships within the checkerboard structure and are used to construct and group lines.) the first captured straight lines in the image being associated with a first vanishing point; (paragraph 45: Witt teaches extrapolating each group of parallel lines to find a vanishing point (intersection point) for that group.)
identifying the first captured identification codes from the image; (paragraphs 74-105 and 189-193: Witt teaches detecting identifiable pattern features in the image, including detecting checkerboard corners and detecting uniquely identifiable colored markers and features on the calibration pattern.)
identifying the first captured straight lines in the image based on the first mapping relationship; (paragraphs 106-113: Witt teaches identifying straight lines by constructing lines between detected corners and organizing them into parallel line groups based on the pattern’s expected structure, which operationally uses the known relationships among detected pattern features.)
determining first equations of the first captured straight lines in the image based on coordinates of captured points on the first captured straight lines in the image; (paragraph 109: Witt teaches generating a line of best fit for each line using the coordinates of detected corners and provides an explicit minimization form over point coordinates.)
determining, based on the first equations of the first captured straight lines, coordinates of the first vanishing point; and (paragraph 137: Witt teaches computing line intersections from the fitted lines and using a weighted averaging scheme over those intersections to obtain the vanishing point location.)
Witt fails to specifically disclose determining one or more intrinsic parameters of the camera component based on at least the first vanishing point.
In related art, Karsch discloses determining one or more intrinsic parameters of the camera component based on at least the first vanishing point. (paragraphs 34-36: Karsch teaches that from vanishing points one can compute pinhole camera intrinsics including focal length f and camera center (c0x, c0y) and extrinsic parameters from three orthogonal vanishing points.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Karsch into the teachings of Witt to effectively recover camera parameters from an image for realistic rendering of virtual objects into real imagery.
Claims 2-3 and 15-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Witt in view of Karsch and in further view of Fiala (US 2020/0090338 A1).
Regarding claims 2 and 15, Witt, as modified by Karsch, discloses the claimed invention except for wherein the first captured identification codes in the array correspond to two-dimensional codes with bounding rectangles on a plane of the one or more planes and the identifying the first captured identification codes comprises: detecting an identification code corresponding to a two-dimensional code to determine an identifier for the identification code; and detecting, in the image, coordinates of corners of edges of the identification code, the edges corresponding to a bounding rectangle of the two-dimensional code in the plane.
In related art, Fiala discloses first captured identification codes in the array correspond to two-dimensional codes with bounding rectangles on a plane of the one or more planes and the identifying the first captured identification codes comprises: detecting an identification code corresponding to a two-dimensional code to determine an identifier for the identification code; and detecting, in the image, coordinates of corners of edges of the identification code, the edges corresponding to a bounding rectangle of the two-dimensional code in the plane. (paragraphs 4-6, 14-16, 189 and 215-216)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Fiala into the teachings of Witt and Karsch to improve image measurement for graphics in augmented reality applications.
Regarding claims 3 and 16, Witt, as modified by Karsch, discloses the claimed invention except for wherein obtaining a first table for representing the first mapping relationship.
In related art, Fiala discloses obtaining a first table for representing the first mapping relationship. (paragraphs 14, 40-41 and 216)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Fiala into the teachings of Witt and Karsch to improve image measurement for graphics in augmented reality applications.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-13 and 17-19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BOBBAK SAFAIPOUR whose telephone number is (571)270-1092. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 5:00pm.
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/BOBBAK SAFAIPOUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665