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 .
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 1-14, 16-21 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.
Claims 1, 16, and 21 recites the limitation "the virtual event". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. It is noted that later within the claim applicant claims “a virtual event”, it is believed that these events are the same.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-8, 11, 13, 14, and 16-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kaji (US 7027600).
In claims 1, 16, and 21, Kaji discloses
Obtaining bulk properties (column 9 lines 45-67 discloses determining the medium of the spatial object, such as water, soil, sand, clay, etc, as well as air) and a virtual domain of a virtual fluid medium (column 7 lines 2-67, column 8 lines 1-3, the virtual domain is set via various shapes such as sphere, cone, pyramid, prism, rectangular parallelepiped, as well as combining these shapes together to make more complex shapes)
Obtaining physical properties and kinematic properties of a first virtual object moving in the virtual domain of the virtual fluid medium (column 5 lines 4-11, object data includes its shape of the object, as well as its direction, which would be kinematic properties)
Obtaining a physics model based at least on the bulk properties, the virtual domain, the physical properties, and the kinematic properties (column 7 lines 2-67, column 8 lines 1-3, column 5 lines 4-11, column 9 lines 45-67. All this data is fed into the physics model for the audio transmission. The entirety of the prior art is related to the specifics of the physics model used for audio transmission thru spatial objects (fluid medium) )
Obtaining one or more outputs from the physics model and determining a diegetic audio originating from the virtual event based at least on the one or more outputs from the physics model and generating the diegetic audio for a virtual event (column 6 lines 36-67, the model determines the sound and then performs audio processing, and then outputs the results of the audio processing to the speakers)
In claims 2 and 17, Kali discloses the physics model comprises a computational fluid dynamics model (the BRI of this claim only requires that computation is used to determine information about dynamics of the fluid. As kali discloses calculating based on the particulars of the fluid, this limitation's BRI is taught)
In claims 3 and 18, Kali discloses the one or more outputs from the physics model comprise virtual fluid perturbations that are represented by at least one of: a sound wave speed (it is noted by examiner that this limitation is a Markush group and thus only 1 of the limitations is required to be found. In this case, column 12 lines 40-60 discloses sound wave speed)
In claims 4 and 19, Kali discloses mapping, by a wave generation function, the virtual fluid perturbations output from the physics model to an audio signal (column 12 lines 40-60 discloses use of the sound wave speed in the wave generation function which gets ouput to the audio signal after all processing is completed)
In claims 5 and 20, Kali discloses determining and generating the diegetic audio are performed when at least one of the properties of at least one of the first virtual object or the virtual fluid medium reaches a threshold value (The determining and generating occurs when an audible sound is made, thus the threshold would be when the sound becomes audible, although it is noted by examiner that the threshold may simply be anything >0, thus whatever threshold that the audio is generated in Kali would teach the invention as claimed.)
In claim 6, Kali discloses determining the diegetic audio and generating the diegetic audio are omitted when at least one of the properties of at least one of the first virtual object or the first virtual fluid medium does not reach a threshold value (when the object does not make a sound, no audio is made)
In claim 7, Kali discloses applying a head related transfer function to the diegetic audio event and generating 3D diegetic audio (the BRI of this is that some sort of function is applied to allow for the audio to be generated as it is heard, which is what the entire invention is Kali is directed towards)
In claim 8, Kali discloses obtaining one or more acoustic properties of the virtual domain of the virtual field medium and obtaining a physics model based at least on the acoustic properties the bulk properties, the virtual domain, the physical properties, and the kinematic properties (column 9 lines 45-67)
In claim 11, Kali discloses before obtaining outputs from a physics model in a current iteration, obtaining one or more outputs from the physics model from a previous iteration, and obtaining a physics model based at least on the obtained outputs from the physics model from the previous iteration, the bulk properties, the virtual domain, the physical properties, and the kinematic properties (column 14 lines 32-53, the sound is continuous, and thus the prior iterations are taken into consideration)
In claim 13, Kali discloses generating the diegetic audio originating from the virtual event is performed bay an audio generation device column 6 lines 36-67)
In claim 14, Kali discloses the diegetic audio is generated dynamically during gameplay (column 14 lines 32-53)
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) 9, 10, and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kali
In claims 9 and 12, Kali discloses the claimed invention except dividing the virtual domain into a mesh, the mesh comprising a plurality of cells, however Kali discloses taking into consideration various virtual objects within the domain such as buildings, trees, and other objects positioned therebetween (column 11 lines 7-35) and Official notice is taken that use of mesh and cells to represent virtual objects was notoriously well known in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to combine Kali with this well known technique in order to allow for easier storing and/or displaying and/or mapping of the virtual world
In claim 10, Kali discloses the claimed invention except implementing the physics model for each cell of at least a relevant subset of the plurality of cells, the relevant subset of cells corresponding to an auditory filed of a user avatar, however use of user avatars which represents the location that sound would be heard from was notoriously well known in the art, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Kali with this well known technique in order to allow for the user to understand their location within the virtual world.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THOMAS HAYNES HENRY whose telephone number is (571)270-3905. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10-6.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Peter Vasat can be reached at 571-270-7625. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/THOMAS H HENRY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715