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 .
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 1-20 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Independent claims 1 and 12 recite “displaying, by the XR system operating in stationary mode, a VR environment to a user, wherein the dynamic boundary is automatically formed with respect to a user of the XR system”. The issue is persons of ordinary skill in the art reading the specification is not able to distinguish two of “a user”.
Further, each claim recites “in response to user movements that meet an expansion criteria of the dynamic boundary” and “in response to user movements that meet a pop criteria of the dynamic boundary after the expanding ..”. Then each claim recites “the expansion criteria comprises one or more distance thresholds” and “the pop criteria comprising a velocity threshold and/or one or more pop distance thresholds”. However, each claim does not set forth any elements involved in “distance thresholds” and “a velocity threshold and/or one or more pop distance thresholds”; and each claim just simply describes “the expansion criteria” and “the pop criteria” for performing the operating changes. The issue is persons of ordinary skill in the art reading the specification is not able to understand how this use is actually practiced. Therefore, the examiner deems the claims indefinite as they fail to particularly point out and distinctly claim what Applicant regards as the invention. Accordingly, the claims are rejected under U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph.
In additional, each claim recites “... wherein the pop criteria comprising a velocity threshold and/or one or more pop distance thresholds”. However, “and/or” is unclear how the “pop criteria” is performed.
Dependent claims 2-11 depend upon independent claim 1; dependent claims 13-18 depend upon independent claim 12. They are rejected at least due to their respective dependencies from an rejected claim.
Independent claim 19 recites “VR environment” and “VR application”. The term “VR” in claim 19 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. Accordingly, the claim is rejected under U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph.
Dependent claim 20 is rejected because it depends upon independent claim 19.
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 12-18 are rejected under 35 USC 101 for being directed to nonstatutory computer readable medium.
Claim 12 recites “A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computing system ...”. Thus, the claim falls outside the scope of patent-eligible subject matter at least because the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a computer readable medium (also called machine readable medium and other such variations) typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media, See MPEP 2106. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claim must be rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter.
See also the Official Gazette Notice 1351 OG 212 February 23, 2010 “Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer Readable Media” which states in relevant part “[i]n an effort to assist the patent community in overcoming a rejection or potential rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in this situation, the USPTO suggests the following approach. A claim drawn to such a computer readable media that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 by adding the limitation ‘non-transitory’ to the claim.”
Claims 13-18 fall together since they depend upon claim 12.
Examiner’s Comment
Claims 1-20 have not art rejection but rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 and U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph. A final determination of patentability, after further search, will be mode upon resolution of above 35 U.S.C. 101 and 35 U.S.C. 112 rejections.
The examiner has completed the prior art reference search and discovered the closest prior art references:
The prior art reference HUANG et al (U. S. Patent Application Publication 2025/0110605 A1) discloses systems and methods for displaying a boundary associated with a virtual scene. HUANG discloses an electronic device presenting an extended reality (XR) environment and displaying a virtual border and/or boundary associated with a virtual scene (As shown in FIG. 1). More specifically, the method displays a first portion of a virtual scene at a first region of the three-dimensional environment and a second portion of the virtual scene at a second region of the three-dimensional environment; detects the movement of a viewpoint of a user of the electronic device from a first viewpoint to a second viewpoint; determines the viewpoint of the user satisfies one or more first criteria; maintains display of the first portion of the virtual scene within the first region of the three-dimensional environment, and replaces display of the second portion of the virtual scene with a representation of a first portion of a physical environment of the user (As shown in FIG. 4).
The prior art reference Phillips (U. S. Patent No. 12,056,270 B1) discloses a method and a system for managing safe play areas for extended reality (XR) devices. More specifically, the system loads a safe area defining a location of the boundary for XR devices (As shown in FIGS. 3A-3C); detects coordinates of the boundary of the first safe area cross coordinates of a boundary of the second safe area; combines the two safe areas to yield a combined area and calculates the size of the combined area; determines an activity level of the two or more XR applications and weight this as a factor in allocating safe areas; calculates the reconfigured first safe area and the reconfigured second safe area; generates a virtual partition that separates the two or more safe areas (As shown in FIGS. 8 and 9).
The prior art reference DESSERO et al (U. S. Patent Application Publication 2022/0326837 A1) discloses a method and a system for changes the immersion level of a virtual environment and/or spatial effect in a three-dimensional environment based on the geometry of the physical environment around a device. More specifically, the system of the extended reality (XR) device receives an input corresponding to a request to display a first simulated environment (the first simulated environment includes a scene that at least partially veils at least a part of the respective environment such that it appears as if the user were located in the scene; the background content includes real objects (e.g., pass-through objects representing real objects in the physical environment around a viewpoint of a user that are displayed by the device such that they are visible via the display generation component and/or a visible via a transparent or translucent display generation component because the electronic device does not obscure/prevent visibility of them through the display generation component)); displays the first simulated environment; determines a physical environment around a viewpoint of the user satisfies one or more criteria; transit from displaying the respective environment to displaying the first simulated environment using a type of transition (As shown in FIGS. 7 and 8).
The prior art reference Chen (U. S. Patent Application Publication 2018/0004286 A1) discloses methods for changing a virtual reality scene displayed in a head mounted display (HMD). Chen discloses that the HMD provides “pass-through” cameras to allow the user to see pass through the real world; a real world setting for a set of boundary conditions (As shown in FIGS. 1, 4 and 5). More specifically, the method obtains data from sensors located on the HMD displaying a virtual reality scene (VRS); processes data to determine that the first criteria is met indicating disorientation of the user of the HMD; inserts a real world object (RWO) into the VRS; switches from VRS a real world view (RWV) if a second criteria is met; resume the VRS after a determination is made that neither the first nor the second criteria are still being met (As shown in FIG. 3).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Xilin Guo whose telephone number is (571)272-5786. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:00 AM-5:30 PM EST.
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/XILIN GUO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2616