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 § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6, 8, 13, 14, 16 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hesina et al. (“Distributed Open Inventor: A Practical Approach to Distributed 3D Graphics”, TR-186-2-99-15, May 1999, https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/1999/Hes-1999-/Hes-1999--paper.pdf).
Regarding claim 1, Hesina teaches a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising configuring a universal server to:
Transmit, to one or more universal hosts, asset and scene information (concurrent updates (transmit) reflected at each workstations (universal hosts) (Hesina: Abstract) (Hesina: 2.1, para 1)) to generate one or more local scene graphs (the multiple workstations sharing a common scene graph (Hesina: Abstract))), each local scene graph of the one or more local scene graphs replicating a scene graph associated with a simulation running at the universal server (The toolkit is extended with the concept of a distributed shared scene graph, similar to distributed shared memory (Hesina: Abstract)), each local scene graph of the one or more local scene graphs being associated with a respective local simulation running at a respective universal host of the one or more universal hosts (Local variations in the scene graph allow for a wide range of possible applications (Hesina: Abstract), wherein said local variations are run by respective workstations as they share a common scene graph as stated in the rejection above);
Upon receiving input from the one or more universal hosts (local low latency interaction mechanisms called input streams (Hesina: Abstract, section 2.2)):
Update an internal state based on the received input (the resulting local variations in the scene graph after processing input streams (Hesina: Abstract));
Generate commands encoding changes to an output state (information necessary to encode such an update can be encoded in fixed size messages and efficiently transmitted over the network (Hesina: 3, para 3) Note, the state of the common scene graph that reflects the changes corresponds to the “output state”);
And transmit the commands to the one or more universal hosts for updating each of the one or more local scene graphs at the respective universal hosts (the transmitted update as stated in the rejection above, wherein Multiple workstations in a distributed system can make concurrent updates to the system, and all updates are reflected at each workstation’s view of the scene graph (Hesina: 2, para 1))
At least one local scene graph of the one or more local scene graphs to be rendered at a local device associated with its respective universal host (An application server stores the master copy of a scene graph and performs application specific computation. A rendering client stores a replica of the scene graph and renders the image for the user (Hesina: 2.3, para 3));
Wherein the universal server and the one or more universal hosts are applications (The proposed system introduces a convenient mechanism for writing distributed graphical applications (Hesina: Abstract) that comprise of application servers (Hesina: 2.3, para 2) and workstations that function as hosts (“workstations share common scene graph” running local versions of applications (“Local variations in the scene graph allow for a wide range of possible applications”) (Hesina: Abstract)).
Regarding claim 2, Hesina teaches the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the changes to an output state are generated based on the universal server running the simulation based on the input received from the one or more universal hosts (input streams that are local low latency interaction mechanisms that make local modifications to the scene graph, which then are reflected (changes to an output state) is made by a sophisticated networking architecture (Hesina: Abstract, 2.2)).
Regarding claim 3, Hesina teaches the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein:
Asset information comprises assets or asset location information (as suggested by Hesina in disclosing an open Inventor toolkit for interactive 3D graphics (Hesina: Abstract), the nodes of the scene graph hold 3D information required for rendering);
Each asset of the assets is associated with a first granularity level of a plurality of granularity levels (the Examiner construes the common scene graph as the primary high-level structure for 3D assets);
Each command of the commands is associated with a second granularity level of the plurality of granularity levels (input streams (“commands”) that are local low latency interaction mechanisms correspond to the second lower granularity level);
And the plurality of granularity levels comprise at least a high level and a low level (as stated above, common scene graph corresponds to the primary high-level structure for 3D assets, and the input streams correspond to the lower level).
Regarding claim 6, Hesina teaches the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 3, wherein scene data comprises scene graph nodes and components associated with scene graph nodes (“scene graph is an object-oriented hierarchical structure reflecting the semantic relationships of graphical objects in the scene. It is composed of nodes, …Each node is composed of fields which store that attribute data for a particular node class” (Hesina: 3, para 1))
, each of the components comprising one or more of a property, data, or a behavior associated with a respective scene graph node of the scene graph nodes (“Each node is composed of fields which store that attribute data for a particular node class” (Hesina: 3, para 1)).
Regarding claim 8, Hesina teaches the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein input received from the one or more universal hosts comprises information associated with one or more of at least mouse clicks, pointer movement, button presses, keystrokes, detected joint positions or head transforms (interactions (e.g. dragging, camera movement) (Hesina: 2.2)).
Claim(s) 13, 14 and 16 are corresponding method claim(s) of claim(s) 1, 3 and 6. The limitations of claim(s) 13, 14 and 16 are substantially similar to the limitations of claim(s) 1, 3 and 6. Therefore, it has been analyzed and rejected substantially similar to claim(s) 13, 14 and 16.
Claim(s) 20 is a corresponding system claim(s) of claim(s) 1. The limitations of claim(s) 20 are substantially similar to the limitations of claim(s) 1. Therefore, it has been analyzed and rejected substantially similar to claim(s) 20.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 5, 7, 9-12, 15 and 17-19 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David H Chu whose telephone number is (571)272-8079. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:30 - 1:30pm, 3:30-8:30pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Daniel F Hajnik can be reached at (571) 272-7642. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DAVID H CHU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2616
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