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 § 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) below is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith (20240402304) in view of Jamali (20210092351).
Referring to claims 1, 9, and 10, Smith shows an illumination unit for a three-dimensional depth-sensing device, including:
a light source for emitting an illumination light (see figure 8 and 9 Ref 16);
a diffuser configured to diffuse the illumination light into diffused illumination light (see figure 8 and 9 Ref 46); and
a dual-layer
wherein the dual-layer
wherein the first
wherein the second
However Smith fails to specifically show the dual liquid crystal layer includes multiple ferroelectric liquid crystal layers.
Jamali shows a similar beam steering device that includes multiple LC layers (see figure 7 Ref 712 and 714) and teaches the use of a dual layer ferroelectric LC unit (see paragraph 69). It would have been obvious to include the ferroelectric LC layers as shown by Jamali because this allows for faster switching times that allow for higher frame rates as shown by Jamali.
Referring to claims 9 and 10 Smith shows an electronic device comprising the three-dimensional depth-sensing device (see figure 1).
Referring to claim 2, Smith shows a control unit that is coupled directly or indirectly to the dual-layer Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal unit,
wherein the control unit sends control signals to the dual-layer Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal unit to control at least one of the first ferroelectric liquid crystal layer and the second ferroelectric liquid crystal layer, to steer the illumination light to desired regions of interest (see figure 11 note the controller Ref 22 also see paragraph 43).
Referring to claim 5, Smith shows the first ferroelectric liquid crystal layer adjusts the direction of the diffused illumination light by altering a phase of the illumination light (see paragraph 19 note the use of the OPA also see paragraph 46).
Referring to claim 6, the combination of Smith and Jamali shows time period for steering the illumination light to desired regions of interest by the dual-layer Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal unit is less than 1 ms (see paragraph 69 of Jamali).
Referring to claim 7, Smith shows a tunable lens unit, positioned after the dual-layer Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal unit and directly or indirectly coupled to the control unit, wherein the tunable lens unit adjusts an optical characteristic of the illumination light to a desired status (see figure 10 also see paragraph 22 note the lens after the beam steering device Ref 14).
Referring to claim 8, Smith shows a lens unit, positioned between the light source and the diffuser and adjust an optical characteristic of the illumination light to be adapted to the diffuser (see paragraph 22).
Claim(s) 3 and 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith (2024042304) in view of Jamali (20210092351) and Lewis (20200271277).
Referring to claim 3, Smith fails to show wherein the control signals are generated directly or indirectly by the AI component.
Lewis shows a similar device that includes a control unit that includes control signals that are generated directly or indirectly by an AI component (see paragraph 46). It would have been obvious to include the AI component as shown by Lewis because this can allow the scanning to be performed based upon a risk assessment based on continuously collected data as shown by Lewis (see paragraph 41).
Referring to claim 4, the combination of Smith and Lewis shows the AI component generates the control signals to control the dual-layer Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal unit to steer the illumination light to desired regions of interest, based on input parameters or a real-time image analysis of an image from a receiver for the three-dimensional depth-sensing device (note the control as shown by Smith in figure 11 Ref 22 and paragraph 43 also note the AI control of the scanning as shown by Lewis in paragraph 46). It would have been obvious to include the AI component as shown by Lewis because this can allow the scanning to be performed based upon a risk assessment based on continuously collected data as shown by Lewis (see paragraph 41).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LUKE D RATCLIFFE whose telephone number is (571)272-3110. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00AM-5:00PM EST.
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/LUKE D RATCLIFFE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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