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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 7-11, filed 04/15/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-11 and 13-19 under 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Lehtiniemi et al. (US 20190369722 A1) and Syed (US 20210375049 A1).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1, 9-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lehtiniemi et al. (US 20190369722 A1) hereinafter referred to as Lehtiniemi, in view of Syed (US 20210375049 A1)
Claim 1. (Previously Presented) An object tracking method in an extended reality environment, being applied to a terminal (Lehtiniemi [0105]-[0116], figures 5 and 6 an apparatus 100 configured to, based on virtual reality content for presentation to a user in a virtual reality space for viewing in virtual reality, and an identified physical real-world object, and a virtual reality (VR) may use a VR display (equivalent to a terminal)), the method comprising:
determining whether an object in the extended reality environment appears within a screen display range of the terminal (Lehtiniemi, as shown in figure 5, the apparatus 100 provides for tracking of the locations of an object 201 and an object 400, and provides for display of a correspondingly positioned object image in a VR view, and shows the current locations of the object 201 and the object 400 by means of representations 204 and 501. In figure 5 by way of dotted arrow 500 that, in the real-world, the user's 200 view of the coffee cup 201 would be obscured by the bowl of popcorn 400 (not appearing withing sight of view of the user));
prompting a user of an orientation of the object when the object does not appear within the screen display range of the terminal (Lehtiniemi, The apparatus 100 provides for display of a guide arrow 502 (equivalent to a prompt of an object orientation) as part of an object image 203 that illustrates a suggested path for the user to take to reach the physical real-world object 201); and
Lehtiniemi does not disclose adjusting a posture of the terminal to make the object to appear within the screen display range of the terminal, in response to an adjustment operation triggered by the user according to the orientation of the object, which is prompted.
Syed discloses The AR device may move to track the virtual animal that may leave the table as part of an AR gaming application and move to a location outside the current augmented reality scene (Syed, [0037]).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art before the filing of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Lehtiniemi with the teachings of Syed since they are both analogous in object tracking related field.
One ordinary skilled in the art before the filing of the claimed invention would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Lehtiniemi with the teachings of Syed in order to properly position the virtual object.
Claim 9 recites an apparatus (Lehtiniemi, Abstract, Apparatus) executing the method of claim 1. Claim 9 essentially recites the same limitations as claim 1. Therefore, the rejection of claim 1 is applied to claim 9.
Claim 10. (Currently amended) An electronic device, comprising: a storage apparatus, having stored thereon a computer program; a processing apparatus, configured to execute the computer program in the storage apparatus to implement steps of the method according to claim 1 (Lehtiniemi, Abstract, Apparatus). Claim 10 essentially recites the same limitations as claim 1. Therefore, the rejection of claim 1 is applied to claim 10.
Claim 11. (Currently amended) A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, having stored thereon a computer program, the computer program, when executed by a processing apparatus, implementing steps of the method according to claim 1 (Lehtiniemi, [0060]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-8, 13-19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claims 2 and 13, no prior art discloses the feature “The method according to claim 1, further comprising: colliding with the object based on a ray passing through the screen of the terminal in response to the object appearing within the screen display range of the terminal; and presenting an animation effect for the object to the user in response to the ray hitting the object.
Claim 3 depends on allowable claim 2 and is therefore allowable for the same reasons as claim 2.
Claim 14 depends on allowable claim 13 and is therefore allowable for the same reasons as claim 13.
Claims 4 and 15, no prior art discloses the feature “The method according to claim 1, wherein before the prompting the user of the orientation of the object when the object does not appear within the screen display range of the terminal, the method further comprises: acquiring a first transformation matrix from a camera coordinate system to a world coordinate system; transforming coordinates of the object in the world coordinate system into coordinates of the object in the camera coordinate system according to an inverse matrix of the first transformation matrix; and determining the orientation of the object according to the coordinates of the object in the camera coordinate system.
Claims 5 and 6 directly/indirectly depend on allowable claim 4 and are therefore allowable for the same reasons as claim 4.
Claims 16 and 17 directly/indirectly depend on allowable claim 15 and are therefore allowable for the same reasons as claim 15.
Claims 7 and 18, no prior art discloses the feature “The method according to claim1, wherein the determining whether the object in the extended reality environment appears within the screen display range of the terminal comprises: determining whether the object appears within the screen display range of the terminal according to coordinates of the object in a clipping coordinate system of a camera.
Claim 8 depends on allowable claim 7 and is therefore allowable for the same reasons as claim 7.
Claim 19 depends on allowable claim 18 and is therefore allowable for the same reasons as claim 18.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARTIN MUSHAMBO whose telephone number is (571)270-3390. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday (8:00AM-5:00PM).
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/MARTIN MUSHAMBO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2615 5/29/2026
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