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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1, 13, and 17 are independent.
Claims 2-12 depend from Claim 1.
Claims 14-16 depend from Claim 13.
Claims 18-20 depend from Claim 17.
This Application was published as U.S. 2024/0338171.
Response to Amendment
Examiner thanks Applicant for response filed on 22 Jan 2026 which has been correspondingly accepted and considered in this office action. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, with respect to the rejections of claims 1, 13, and 17 under 35 USC § 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of previously cited prior art. This action withdraws the previous office action of 22 Oct 2025 and as a result this action is a non-final action.
With regards to applicant arguments received 22 Jan 2026 pages 6-9, applicant argues that first and second feature are not taught by Wang. This reference is withdrawn and a new reference Anderson et al. (US2023/0359422) will replace it instead. The base reference Wu et al. (US 2020/0121288) remains as no arguments were presented against this reference.
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.
Claims 1-9, 11, and 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu et al. (US2022/0121288 hereinafter Wu) in view of Anderson et al. (US2023/0359422 hereinafter Anderson)
With regards to claim 1, Wu teaches:
A non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium including instructions that, [Wu teaches “upper-limb-mounted computing-device further includes a processor that is configured by software instructions (e.g., stored on a non-transitory computer-readable memory)” (Par [0005])]
when executed by a wrist-wearable device worn by a user [Wu Fig 1 teaches “upper-limb-mounted computing-device 120 can be worn on a finger, a hand, a wrist, or an arm of a user” (Par [0030])]
and communicatively coupled with a head-wearable device, [Wu Fig 1 teaches “head-mounted computing-device 110 can be configured to communicate wirelessly (e.g., via radio frequencies (RF)) with the one or more other devices via a wireless communication link 118” (Par [0028])]
cause the wrist-wearable device to: detect an in-air gesture performed by the user; [Wu Fig 3 teaches “ULMCD 340 is configured with a gesture sensor (e.g., inertial measurement unit) to measure gesture data (e.g., velocity, acceleration, position, orientation, etc.) of the portion of the upper limb 330 of a user” (Par [0039])]
in response to a determination that the in-air gesture is associated with a control command to be performed at a head-wearable device: (i) provide instructions to the head-wearable device to perform at least one operation, and [Wu Fig 3 teaches “movement 350 (e.g., raising a hand) is detected as an AR-gesture the ULMCD 340 may transmit (e.g., wirelessly) a trigger signal 360 to the head-mounted AR-device 320 to cause a transition from a lower-power consumption (and higher privacy) mode to a higher-power consumption (and lower privacy) mode. In other words, the trigger signal 360 may wake a sleeping head-mounted AR device for AR operation” (Par [0039]) where a trigger signal is a control command and instructions were provided to change power modes]
With regards to claim 1, Wu fails to teach:
(ii) initiate an assistant associated with the head-wearable device and the wrist wearable device;
in response to a user voice input, determine, based on the control command, an additional operation to be performed at the head-wearable device; provide instructions to the head-wearable-device that cause the head-wearable device to perform the additional operation; and
provide an indication via the wrist-wearable device and/or the head-wearable device that the additional operation was performed.
With regards to claim 1, Anderson teaches:
(ii) initiate an assistant associated with the head-wearable device and the wrist wearable device; [Anderson Fig 5c teaches recognizing a user hand gesture that “cause activation of a microphone for allowing the user to provide a voice command to a digital assistant.” (Par [0119])]
in response to a user voice input, [Anderson teaches that a user provides voice inputs via microphone to a digital assistant (Par [0119])]
determine, based on the control command, an additional operation to be performed at the head-wearable device; [Anderson teaches “other additional in-air hand gesture is not a camera-control gesture, forgo causing presentation of camera data via the display of the head-wearable device” (Par [0119]) where it is determined that the gesture is not a camera control command, where “other in-air hand gestures can command other actions at the head-wearable device.” (Par [0119])]
provide instructions to the head-wearable-device that cause the head-wearable device to perform the additional operation; and provide an indication via the wrist-wearable device and/or the head-wearable device that the additional operation was performed. [Anderson teaches providing instructions for performing additional operations, such as “opening and closing one or more applications, initiating an audio call, and/or other device and application specific controls” (Par [0093]) where the user is provided an visual or audio indication such as seeing the application open or close, or hearing initiation of an audio call and the “microphone of the head-wearable device 510 is deactivated” (Par [0093], which is a further indication that the additional operation was performed.
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the head and wrist wearable devices taught by Wu with the system of controlling wearable devices with the wearable device using gestures, assistant, and user voice input as taught by Anderson. The motivation to combine the teachings Wu and Anderson is because Anderson teaches using different hand gestures for camera control and “another (non-camera related) operation of the head-wearable device … [and the] non-camera-control gesture activates the microphone to allowing the user to provide a voice command to a digital assistant” (Par [0093]) which increases the capabilities of the invention of Wu to have different gestures and to allow for user control of non-camera gestures]
With regards to claim 2, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 1
wherein the control command includes instructions for capturing image data via the head-wearable device. [Anderson Fig 5B teaches camera control command indicates the “hand gesture is a camera-control gesture for capturing camera data, the wrist-wearable device 170 causes the head-wearable device 510 to capture a captured image 565 of the virtual environment as seen by the user 115's character 521” (Par [0092])]
With regards to claim 3, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 1
wherein the control command includes instructions for initiating an application on one or more of the head-wearable device and the wrist-wearable device. [Wu Fig 2A-2C outline control of the one or more head-wearable devices, and Fig 6 teaches a smart watch that has gesture sensor and “processor configured to analyze the measured gesture data to detect an AR-initiation gesture” (Par [0055])]
With regards to claim 4, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 1
wherein the control command includes instructions for activating the head-wearable device. [Wu Fig 3 teaches “movement 350 (e.g., raising a hand) is detected as an AR-gesture the ULMCD 340 may transmit (e.g., wirelessly) a trigger signal 360 to the head-mounted AR-device 320 to cause a transition from a lower-power consumption (and higher privacy) mode to a higher-power consumption (and lower privacy) mode. In other words, the trigger signal 360 may wake a sleeping head-mounted AR device for AR operation” (Par [0039])]
With regards to claim 5, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 1
wherein the control command includes instructions for performing one or more operations on a user interface presented at the head-wearable device. [Wu teaches “head-mounted computing-device may include one or more interfaces to display portions of an AR environment to the user. For example, the head-mounted computing-device can include an audio interface 113 (e.g., speaker) to display sounds to a user and/or a visual interface 115 (e.g., display) to display images to a user”]
With regards to claim 6, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 1
wherein the control command includes instructions for causing the head-wearable device to operate in a first mode, and the instructions, when executed by the wrist-wearable device, further cause the wrist- wearable device to: detect, by the wrist-wearable device worn by the user, another in-air gesture performed by the user; and [Anderson Fig 5C teaches control command for hand gesture in camera control mode in a first mode, and detecting by the wrist-wearable device another in-air or “hand gesture is not a camera-control gesture” (Par [0093]) performed by the user]
in response to a determination that the other in-air gesture is associated with another control command to be performed at the head-wearable device, provide instructions to the head- wearable device to perform at least one second operation. [Anderson teaches second operations such as “opening and closing one or more applications, initiating an audio call, and/or other device and application specific controls” (Par [0093])]
With regards to claim 7, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 1
wherein the in-air gesture is a contact between at least two phalanges of the user. [Anderson Fig 5b]
With regards to claim 8, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 7
wherein the contact is a single tap. [Anderson Fig 1C teaches “user 115 could define a camera-control gesture for capturing camera data to be a single tap instead of a double tap by any two phalanges” (Par [0034])]
With regards to claim 9, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 7
wherein the contact is a double tap. [Anderson Fig 1C teaches “user 115's thumb (phalange 140) and pointer finger (phalange 150) performing a double tap action which ultimately results in the capture of the camera data.” (Par [0034])]
With regards to claim 11, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 7
wherein the contact is one of a plurality of force-based contacts, each force-based contact of the plurality of force-based contacts associated with a respective force threshold. [Anderson teaches multi-step gesture such that in the first gesture captures the image and in the second gesture” (e.g., a pressing force between the thumb (phalange 140) and index finger (phalange 150) exceeding a force threshold) can cause sharing of the image with a specific contact (e.g., different contacts can be associated with different force thresholds to allow for easy sharing of images using such multi-step in-air gestures.” (Par [0060]))
With regards to claim 13, Wu teaches:
A method, comprising: detecting, by a wrist-wearable device worn by a user, [Wu Fig 1 teaches “upper-limb-mounted computing-device 120 can be worn on a finger, a hand, a wrist, or an arm of a user” (Par [0030])]
an in-air gesture performed by the user, [Wu Fig 3 teaches “ULMCD 340 is configured with a gesture sensor (e.g., inertial measurement unit) to measure gesture data (e.g., velocity, acceleration, position, orientation, etc.) of the portion of the upper limb 330 of a user” (Par [0039])]
wherein the wrist-wearable device is communicatively coupled with a head-wearable device; [Wu Fig 1 teaches “head-mounted computing-device 110 can be configured to communicate wirelessly (e.g., via radio frequencies (RF)) with the one or more other devices via a wireless communication link 118” (Par [0028])]
in response to a determination that the in-air gesture is associated with a control command to be performed at the head-wearable device: (i) providing instructions to the head-wearable device to perform at least one operation, and [Wu Fig 3 teaches “movement 350 (e.g., raising a hand) is detected as an AR-gesture the ULMCD 340 may transmit (e.g., wirelessly) a trigger signal 360 to the head-mounted AR-device 320 to cause a transition from a lower-power consumption (and higher privacy) mode to a higher-power consumption (and lower privacy) mode. In other words, the trigger signal 360 may wake a sleeping head-mounted AR device for AR operation” (Par [0039])]
With regards to claim 13, Wu fails to teach:
(ii) initiating an assistant associated with the head-wearable device and the wrist wearable device;
in response to a user voice input, determining, based on the control command, an additional operation to be performed at the head-wearable device;
providing instructions to the head-wearable-device that cause the head-wearable device to perform the additional operation;
providing an indication via the wrist-wearable device and/or the head-wearable device that the additional operation was performed.
With regards to claim 13, Anderson teaches:
(ii) initiating an assistant associated with the head-wearable device and the wrist wearable device; [Anderson Fig 5c teaches recognizing a user hand gesture that “cause activation of a microphone for allowing the user to provide a voice command to a digital assistant.” (Par [0119])]
in response to a user voice input, [Anderson teaches that a user provides voice inputs via microphone to a digital assistant (Par [0119])]
determining, based on the control command, an additional operation to be performed at the head-wearable device; [Anderson teaches “other additional in-air hand gesture is not a camera-control gesture, forgo causing presentation of camera data via the display of the head-wearable device” (Par [0119]) where it is determined that the gesture is not a camera control command, where “other in-air hand gestures can command other actions at the head-wearable device.” (Par [0119])]
providing instructions to the head-wearable-device that cause the head-wearable device to perform the additional operation; providing an indication via the wrist-wearable device and/or the head-wearable device that the additional operation was performed. [Anderson teaches providing instructions for performing additional operations, such as “opening and closing one or more applications, initiating an audio call, and/or other device and application specific controls” (Par [0093]) where the user is provided an visual or audio indication such as seeing the application open or close, or hearing initiation of an audio call and the “microphone of the head-wearable device 510 is deactivated” (Par [0093], which is a further indication that the additional operation was performed.
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the head and wrist wearable devices taught by Wu with the system of controlling wearable devices with the wearable device using gestures, assistant, and user voice input as taught by Anderson. The motivation to combine the teachings Wu and Anderson is because Anderson teaches using different hand gestures for camera control and “another (non-camera related) operation of the head-wearable device … [and the] non-camera-control gesture activates the microphone to allowing the user to provide a voice command to a digital assistant” (Par [0093]) which increases the capabilities of the invention of Wu to have different gestures and to allow for user control of non-camera gestures]
Claim 14 is a method claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of non-transitory computer readable-storage medium Claim 2 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 15 is a method claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of non-transitory computer readable-storage medium Claim 3 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 16 is a method claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of non-transitory computer readable-storage medium Claim 4 and is rejected under similar rationale.
With regards to claim 17, Wu teaches:
A wrist-wearable device, comprising: [Wu Fig 1 teaches “upper-limb-mounted computing-device 120 can be worn on a finger, a hand, a wrist, or an arm of a user” (Par [0030])]
one or more sensors; [Wu Fig 1 teaches gesture sensor (122) (Par [0030])]
one or more processors; and [Wu Fig 1 teaches ULMCD processor (121) which may be the “first processor” (Par [0030])]
memory including instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the wrist-wearable device to: [Wu Fig 1 teaches memory (124) (Par [0129])]
detect an in-air gesture performed by the user; [Wu Fig 3 teaches “ULMCD 340 is configured with a gesture sensor (e.g., inertial measurement unit) to measure gesture data (e.g., velocity, acceleration, position, orientation, etc.) of the portion of the upper limb 330 of a user” (Par [0039])]
in response to a determination that the in-air gesture is associated with a control command to be performed at a head-wearable device: (i) provide instructions to the head-wearable device to perform at least one operation, and [Wu Fig 3 teaches “movement 350 (e.g., raising a hand) is detected as an AR-gesture the ULMCD 340 may transmit (e.g., wirelessly) a trigger signal 360 to the head-mounted AR-device 320 to cause a transition from a lower-power consumption (and higher privacy) mode to a higher-power consumption (and lower privacy) mode. In other words, the trigger signal 360 may wake a sleeping head-mounted AR device for AR operation” (Par [0039])]
With regards to claim 17, Wu fails to teach:
(ii) initiate an assistant associated with the head-wearable device and the wrist wearable device;
in response to a user voice input, determine, based on the control command, an additional operation to be performed at the head-wearable device;
provide instructions to the head-wearable-device that cause the head-wearable device to perform the additional operation; and
provide an indication via the wrist-wearable device and/or the head-wearable device that the additional operation was performed.
With regards to claim 17, Anderson teaches:
(ii) initiate an assistant associated with the head-wearable device and the wrist wearable device; [Anderson Fig 5c teaches recognizing a user hand gesture that “cause activation of a microphone for allowing the user to provide a voice command to a digital assistant.” (Par [0119])]
in response to a user voice input, [Anderson teaches that a user provides voice inputs via microphone to a digital assistant (Par [0119])]
determine, based on the control command, an additional operation to be performed at the head-wearable device; [Anderson teaches “other additional in-air hand gesture is not a camera-control gesture, forgo causing presentation of camera data via the display of the head-wearable device” (Par [0119]) where it is determined that the gesture is not a camera control command, where “other in-air hand gestures can command other actions at the head-wearable device.” (Par [0119])]
provide instructions to the head-wearable-device that cause the head-wearable device to perform the additional operation; and provide an indication via the wrist-wearable device and/or the head-wearable device that the additional operation was performed. [Anderson teaches providing instructions for performing additional operations, such as “opening and closing one or more applications, initiating an audio call, and/or other device and application specific controls” (Par [0093]) where the user is provided an visual or audio indication such as seeing the application open or close, or hearing initiation of an audio call and the “microphone of the head-wearable device 510 is deactivated” (Par [0093], which is a further indication that the additional operation was performed.
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the head and wrist wearable devices taught by Wu with the system of controlling wearable devices with the wearable device using gestures, assistant, and user voice input as taught by Anderson. The motivation to combine the teachings Wu and Anderson is because Anderson teaches using different hand gestures for camera control and “another (non-camera related) operation of the head-wearable device … [and the] non-camera-control gesture activates the microphone to allowing the user to provide a voice command to a digital assistant” (Par [0093]) which increases the capabilities of the invention of Wu to have different gestures and to allow for user control of non-camera gestures]
Claim 18 is a device claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of non-transitory computer readable-storage medium Claim 2 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 19 is a device claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of non-transitory computer readable-storage medium Claim 3 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 20 is a device claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of non-transitory computer readable-storage medium Claim 4 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu et al. (US2022/0121288) and Anderson et al. (US2023/0359422) in further view of MA (US2021/0124417 hereinafter MA)
With regards to claim 10, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 7
With regards to claim 10, Wu in view of Anderson fails to teach:
wherein the contact is a long tap.
With regards to claim 10, MA teaches:
wherein the contact is a long tap. [MA teaches performing mouse type operations using a “Pinch and hold fingers” (Par [0149]) which is a long tap.
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at time of applicant’s filing to combine the wearable device that detects wrist gestures aught by Wu and Anderson with the long tap gesture as taught by MA. The motivation to combine the teachings of Wu and Anderson with MA is because MA teaches using “multiple types of sensors on a wristband may be used to detect different hand/finger gestures to perform mouse or text entry functionalities” (Par [0004]) which increases the capabilities of the wearable device as taught by Wu in view of Anderson]
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu et al. (US2022/0121288) and Anderson et al. (US2023/0359422) in further view of Beyhs et al. (US2021/0303068 hereinafter Beyhs)
With regards to claim 12, Wu in view of Anderson teaches:
All the limitations of claim 7
With regards to claim 12, Wu in view of Anderson fails to teach:
wherein the in-air gesture is a slide gesture performed by a phalange of the user moving across a portion of the user's hand.
With regards to claim 12, Beyhs teaches:
wherein the in-air gesture is a slide gesture performed by a phalange of the user moving across a portion of the user's hand. [Beyhs Fig 3A-3B teaches “directional slide gestures.” (Par [0044])
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at time of applicant’s filing to combine the wearable device that detects wrist gestures aught by Wu and Anderson with the directional slide gesture as taught by Beyhs. The motivation to combine the teachings of Wu and Anderson with Beyhs is because Beyhs teaches using “detecting skin-to-skin contact, and more particularly, to detecting contact between two hands or between two fingers for input in virtual reality or augmented reality environment” (Par [0001]) which increases the capabilities of the wearable device as taught by Wu in view of Anderson to detect different gestures]
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joseph J Yamamoto whose telephone number is (571)272-4020. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 1000-1800 EST.
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JOSEPH J. YAMAMOTO
Examiner
Art Unit 2656
/BHAVESH M MEHTA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2656
Prosecution Insights