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.
Claims 1-4, 6, 8-10, 13, 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 9,844,119 (Mullins) in view of JP 2021092521 (Mori).
For claim 1, Mullins teaches a method, comprising of receiving, at a head mounted device (see, e.g., abstract, “A head mounted device”), information indicative of ambient lighting conditions in an environment (see, e.g., abstract, “ambient light sensor”), in accordance with a determination that the ambient lighting conditions do not satisfy a brightness criterion (see, e.g., figure 6, step 606): capturing image data of the environment (performed by IR pupil dimension sensor 304); determining a region of interest in the environment based on the captured image data (performed by eye gazer 306); and activating a second one or more illuminators to project light in a visible light spectrum (see, e.g., figure 6 step 608).
However, Mullins does not explicitly teach having its IR sensor be an active IR sensor.
Nevertheless, Mori teaches a head mounted device whose sensor 40 is an active infrared sensor that emits IR light.
Given Mori, it would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art at the time of the invention to implement the IR sensor of Mullins with an active IR sensor for the purpose of improving sensing accuracy.
For claim 2, Mullins further teaches the second one or more illuminators are selected from a plurality of outward facing illuminators (see, e.g., column 2, line 19 “lighting elements (e.g., LEDs) disposed in a front portion of the helmet to project lights.”) based on a spatial relationship between the head mounted device and the region of interest (see, e.g., column 2, line 48 “The dynamic lighting system then adjusts a position of the lighting element to direct an output of the lighting element in a direction corresponding to the position of the pupil.”) and the ambient lighting conditions (see, e.g., column 2, line 43 “the dynamic lighting system adjusts the intensity of the lighting element to maintain the size of the pupil within a predefined pupil size range.”).
For claim 3, Mullins further teaches the environment is visible through a transparent display of the head mounted device (visor 904).
For claim 4, Mullins further teaches activating the second one or more illuminators comprises:
determining a remote device comprising the second one or more illuminators based on the region of interest; and
triggering the remote device to activate the second one or more illuminators.
For claim 6, Mullins further teaches at least one of the second one or more illuminators are comprised in the head mounted device (see, e.g., figure 9B, LEDs 913).
For claim 8, Mullins teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer readable code executable by one or more processors to receive, at a head mounted device (see, e.g., abstract, “A head mounted device”), information indicative of ambient lighting conditions in an environment (see, e.g., abstract, “ambient light sensor”), in accordance with a determination that the ambient lighting conditions do not satisfy a brightness criterion (see, e.g., figure 6): capture image data of the environment (performed by IR pupil dimension sensor 304); determine a region of interest in the environment based on the captured image data (performed by eye gazer 306); and activate a second one or more illuminators to project light in a visible light spectrum (see, e.g., figure 6 step 608).
However, Mullins does not explicitly teach having its IR sensor be an active IR sensor.
Nevertheless, Mori teaches a head mounted device whose sensor 40 is an active infrared sensor that emits IR light.
Given Mori, it would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art at the time of the invention to implement the IR sensor of Mullins with an active IR sensor for the purpose of improving sensing accuracy.
For claim 9, Mullins further teaches the second one or more illuminators are selected from a plurality of outward facing illuminators (see, e.g., column 2, line 19 “lighting elements (e.g., LEDs) based on a spatial relationship between the head mounted device and the region of interest (see, e.g., column 2, line 48 “The dynamic lighting system then adjusts a position of the lighting element to direct an output of the lighting element in a direction corresponding to the position of the pupil.”) and the ambient lighting conditions (see, e.g., column 2, line 43 “the dynamic lighting system adjusts the intensity of the lighting element to maintain the size of the pupil within a predefined pupil size range.”).
For claim 10, Mullins further teaches the environment is visible through a transparent display (visor 904) of the head mounted device.
For claim 13, Mullins further teaches a first at least one of the second one or more illuminators are comprised in the head mounted device (see, e.g., figure 9B, LEDs 913).
For claim 15, Mullins teaches a system comprising: one or more processors; and one or more computer readable medium comprising computer readable code executable by the one or more processors to: receive, at a head mounted device (see, e.g., abstract, “A head mounted device”), information indicative of ambient lighting conditions in an environment (see, e.g., abstract, “ambient light sensor”), in accordance with a determination that the ambient lighting conditions do not satisfy a brightness criterion (see, e.g., figure 6): capture image data of the environment; determine a region of interest in the environment based on the captured image data (performed by IR pupil dimension sensor 304); and activate a second one or more illuminators to project light in a visible light spectrum (see, e.g., figure 6 step 608).
However, Mullins does not explicitly teach having its IR sensor be an active IR sensor.
Nevertheless, Mori teaches a head mounted device whose sensor 40 is an active infrared sensor that emits IR light.
Given Mori, it would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art at the time of the invention to implement the IR sensor of Mullins with an active IR sensor for the purpose of improving sensing accuracy.
For claim 16, Mullins further teaches the second one or more illuminators are selected from a plurality of outward facing illuminators based on a spatial relationship between the head mounted device and the region of interest and the ambient lighting conditions.
For claim 17, Mullins further teaches having the environment visible through a transparent display (visor 904) of the head mounted device.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 7, 11, 12, 14, and 18-20 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 ADAM D HOUSTON whose telephone number is (571)270-3901. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10-7 CST.
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/ADAM D HOUSTON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2842