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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/11/25 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-6, 9-14, and 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Bleyer et al. (2020/0334824).
Regarding claim 1, Bleyer discloses eyewear (100), comprising: a frame (100); a plurality of cameras (130, 135) coupled to the frame and configured to generate images; and a pipeline including an image signal processor (ISP) configurable to process the images for augmented reality (AR) (note the real-world environment 1100 images captured and processed by the passive stereo cameras as described in par. 48, 58, 62) and for computer vision (CV) (note sparse spatial mapping 1105 images generated from the real-world environment image captured from passive stereo cameras as described in par. 62); wherein each of the plurality of cameras are configured to operate in a first mode (passive stereo camera capturing operation) and provide the images having a first resolution operable in AR (real-world image captured), and wherein each of the plurality of cameras are configured to operate in a second mode (note par. 62) and provide the images having a second resolution operable in CV (par. 38, 60, 61), wherein the first resolution is higher than the second resolution (note par. 68, 69); wherein the cameras are configured to capture the images in the first resolution (passive stereo camera image capturing mode), and to downscale (note par. 61, 63, 65, 68, 69) the images to the second resolution (note the sparse point cloud 1000 image generated by the images captured by the passive stereo camera system as described in par. 61 and Fig. 10); and
wherein the ISP is configured to stitch and synchronize the images from each of the plurality of cameras in the second mode in CV (note sparse spatial mapping data from multiple HMDs is aggregated/fused together as stated in par. 70).
Regarding claim 2, Bleyer discloses the pipeline has a first portion configured to process the images in the first mode, and a second portion configured to process the images in the second mode (par. 69, 116, 118).
Regarding claim 3, Bleyer discloses the ISP is configured to generate stitched, synchronized images (note par. 69, 70, 116, 118).
Regarding claim 4, Bleyer discloses the ISP is configured to match the frames from the plurality of cameras and put them in a buffer (note the object recognition in par 58).
Regarding claim 5, Bleyer inherently includes that the ISP has CPU/DDR (central processing unit/double data read) rails, wherein the ISP is configured to scale up frequencies and voltages of the CPU/DDR rails in the first mode (note par. 128-131).
Regarding claim 6, Bleyer discloses the ISP is configured to process the images and operate at a first power in the first mode and at a second power in the second mode, wherein the second power is lower than the first power (par. 68, 69).
Regarding claims 9-14, and 17-20, see similar rejections as set forth above.
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) 7-8 and 15-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bleyer et al. (2020/0334824).
Regarding claim 7, Bleyer does not disclose that the ISP is configured to selectively turn a first of the plurality of cameras off in the second mode as claimed. However, Bleyer teaches lowering the power consumption of the cameras during lower power modes (note par. 68, 69). Hence, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to turn off one of the cameras so that the lower power modes could be achieved.
Regarding claim 8, in addition of rejection to claim 1, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to configured the ISP to selectively turn the first camera back on and synchronize the plurality of cameras when the system is out of the critical event or trigger zone as described in par. 69.
Regarding claims 15-16, see similar rejections as set forth above.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL LEE whose telephone number 571-272-7349. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Thursday from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, John Miller, can be reached on 571-272-7353. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL LEE/ Primary Examiner,
Art Unit 2422