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 .
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.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group II (claims 14-16) in the reply filed on July 9, 2026 is acknowledged.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged.
Claim Objections
Claim 14 is objected to because of the following informalities:
The claim appears to contain typographical and/or clerical errors (missing semicolon after the “receiving” clause, “images t” at the end of the “advancing” clause, and unnecessary space in the “determining estimated current positions …” clause.
For the purpose of further examination, the limitations have been interpreted as follows:
“receiving images, the images comprising … from a different camera;”
“advancing the state … for the previously acquired images;”
“determining estimated current … for the previously acquired images[[ ]];”
Appropriate correction(s) is/are required.
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 14-16 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 14 recites the limitation “a state of image features”. The limitation renders the claim indefinite because it is not clear whether these image features correspond to earlier-recited features or new/different features. For the purpose of further examination, the limitation has been interpreted as “a state of the image features.”
Claim 14 further recites the limitations “for each image feature”, “estimated current positions”, “current positions” and “estimated current positions”. These limitations have the same issue as discussed above and have been rejected using the same rationale. The limitations have been interpreted as follows: “for each of the image features”, “the estimated current positions.”
Claim 14 further recites the limitation “the same image features”. There is no antecedent basis for this limitation. For the purpose of further examination, the limitation has been interpreted as “corresponding image features”. For this reason, subsequent recitation of “corresponding image features” has been interpreted as “the corresponding image features.”
Claims 15-16 depend from claim 14 and inherit all of the deficiencies of claim 14 discussed above.
Claim 15 further recites the limitation “a single current image” and “a single previously acquired image.” The limitations render the claim indefinite because claim 14 recites that there are multiple current and previously acquired images. It is not clear whether these single images correspond to one of the earlier-recited images or new/different images. For the purpose of further examination, the limitations have been interpreted as “one of the current images” and “one of the previously acquired images.”
Claim 16 further recites the limitation “a single present image and estimates”. The limitation renders the claim indefinite because it is not clear whether the present image and the current image correspond to the same images or different/new images. It is further unclear what the “estimates” correspond to due to multiple “estimates” in the claims (e.g., camera projections, current state, and current positions). For the purpose of further examination, the limitation has been interpreted as “one of the current images and the estimated current positions”.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(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) 14-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Marsden et al. (US 2023/0214458 A1), hereinafter referred to as Marsden.
Regarding claim 14, Marsden teaches a system, comprising:
one or more processors (Marsden ¶¶0098: “implemented at least partially with a computer or other data processing system, e.g., by one or more processors”);
two or more cameras (Marsden ¶¶0259: “captured by two IR cameras”); and
one or more memories operatively coupled to the one or more processors, the one or more memories having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations (Marsden ¶¶0294: “Memory 5704 can be used to store instructions to be executed by processor 5702 as well as input and/or output data associated with execution of the instructions”) comprising:
receiving images, the images comprising two or more image sets, each image set acquired from a different camera (Marsden ¶¶0259 discussed above; Marsden ¶¶0298: “perform motion-capture analysis on images supplied from cameras”; Marsden ¶¶0322: “stereoscopic images with depth map information”);
determining estimates of camera projections in real space and localizing image features (Marsden ¶¶0096: “projection techniques can supplement the sensory based tracking with presentation of virtual (or virtualized real) objects”; Marsden ¶¶0200: “other distance measures such as projection statistics and Euclidean distances are used”; Marsden ¶¶0226: “the D joint locations of the twenty-eight (28) hand joints are multiplied by a hand scale (e.g., based on palm width) to project them into a world coordinate system”);
determining a state of image features, by comparing characteristics of current images to previously acquired images (Marsden ¶¶0211: “covariance matrix 2700 propagated from a prior frame 2 to a current frame 3 at time t3. In FIG. 27, the black-lined curve represents the updated covariance distribution from prior frame 2. The grey-lined-dashed curve represents the previous covariance distribution from prior-prior frame 1 shown in FIG. 25 and FIG. 26”);
advancing the state of image features for the previously acquired images based on state parameters corresponding to the previous acquired images, and determining an estimated current state of the image features for the previously acquired images t (Marsden ¶¶0211 discussed above; Marsden ¶¶0239: “the previous frame’s fitted hand model (multi-colored ellipses/ellipsoid) is extrapolated 3700 into the current frame’s timestamp (shown in FIG. 37) … followed by pose estimation by the fully connected layers or networks 118, followed by a combination of individual point estimates using outlier-robust covariance propagation, and fitting of a final hand model to the updated covariance positions”);
determining estimated current positions of the image features based on the estimated current state of the image features for the previous acquired images (Marsden ¶¶0239 discussed above; Marsden ¶¶0329: “utilize a combination of a current simulated hand position image and a series of prior estimated hand position parameters temporally linked in previous frames to generate a current set of hand position parameters”) ;
determining image disparities for each image feature by comparing current positions of the image features in an image set of the two or more image sets to estimated current positions of the same image features in a different image set of the two or more image sets (Marsden ¶¶0231: “a low or high resolution saliency map or disparity map for each of the detected stereoscopic images comprising testing data 202 is generated”);
identifying corresponding image features within images of different image sets (Marsden ¶¶0231 discussed above; Marsden ¶¶0232: “the most matching counterpart in the alternative stereoscopic image”);
determining spatial offsets of the current positions of the image features and estimated current positions of the image features of the corresponding image features in each image set (Marsden ¶¶0226: “Once the depth information of each of the twenty-eight (28) joints is determined using their respective 3D offsets from the singular ImageRect, the 3D joint locations of the twenty-eight (28) hand joints are converted from image coordinates into world coordinates using inverse transformation”; Marsden ¶¶0232: “These 1D signals are generated for each candidate ROI in both the parallax maps by summing the pixel rows of the respective candidate ROI into 1D waveforms that represent the respective 2D candidate ROI. Once the 1D waveform signals are generated from the parallax maps for each of the 2D candidate ROI, they are respectively convoluted across the alternative stereoscopic image to find the most matching counterparts of the 1D waveform signals based on the horizontal offset”);
generating a disparity map from the image disparities (Marsden ¶¶0231 discussed above; also see Marsden ¶¶0119: “the input image data 402 are pre-processed to generate one of, a combination of, or all of a grayscale map, a saliency map and a disparity map of the input image data 402”); and
generating a depth map from the disparity map (Marsden ¶¶0272: “simulator 4100 generates simulated grayscale infrared brightness images, color images and depth maps or images”; Marsden ¶¶0322: “the simulated hand position images are stereoscopic images with depth map information”).
Regarding claim 15, Marsden teaches the system of claim 14, wherein generating the disparity map comprises combining a single current image with a single previously acquired image based on the previously acquired images and the estimated current positions of the image features for the previously acquired images (Marsden ¶¶0329: “utilize a combination of a current simulated hand position image and a series of prior estimated hand position parameters temporally linked in previous frames to generate a current set of hand position parameters”).
Regarding claim 16, Marsden teaches the system of claim 14, wherein generating the disparity map comprises combining a single present image and estimates based on the previous acquired images and the estimated current positions of the image features (Marsden ¶¶0119, ¶¶0231, ¶¶0329 discussed above).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SOO J SHIN whose telephone number is (571)272-9753. The examiner can normally be reached M-F; 10-6.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Bella can be reached at (571)272-7778. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Soo Shin/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2667 571-272-9753
soo.shin@uspto.gov
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