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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are:
“ a position designation unit” in claim 1, the corresponding structure in defined in spec paragraph [0067] “and the user operation unit 11d is an example of a position designation unit.” and paragraph [0059] “The user operation unit 12c is a device capable of receiving various button operations and coordinate input operations by a user, such as a mouse which is a general input device”.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1, line 22, “stat position” should read as “start position”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kuroki et al. (US 20070002037 A1), hereinafter as Kuroki, in view of Tanaka et al. (JP 2005174021 A), hereinafter as Tanaka. The original and a machine translation of Tanaka are provided by the examiner.
Regarding claim 1, Kuroki teaches A communication system (paragraph [0010] “provide an image presentation system and an image presentation method which enable a user observing an image on a first display to recognize an instruction sent from a user seeing an image on a second display to the user observing the image on the first display”) comprising:
a first electronic device (Figure 1, HMD 101, paragraph [0053] “The HMD 101 is comprised of an image pickup section, a pair of display sections, and a sensor section, which are not illustrated. The image pickup section picks up an image seen from the viewpoint of a person who wears the HMD 101 (HMD wearer).”);
and a second electronic device that communicates with the first electronic device (Figure 1, Display 104, input device 105, Image synthesizing device 103 and Three-dimensional CG drawing device 102), wherein the first electronic device includes a first display unit that displays an object edited in accordance with a user operation in a virtual reality space (paragraph [0067-0068] “The three-dimensional CG drawing device 102 determines a position in the virtual world corresponding to the position indicated by the coordinate values based on the coordinate values acquired from the input device 105 as described above. The three-dimensional CG drawing device 102 then draws a CG image of, for example, the virtual world seen from the position of the HMD 101 as shown in FIG. 6 based on stored information on the virtual world and information on the position and orientation of the HMD 101 acquired from the HMD 101 (step S3 in FIG. 2). The drawn CG image includes the pointer object 601 at the determined position in the virtual world, a lead line 602 starting from the position of the pointer object 601, and an annotation character object 603 placed at an end of the lead line 602 …… sends the resultant synthesized image to the HMD 101 and the display 104.”),
the second electronic device includes: a second display unit configured to display a field of view by the first display unit of the first electronic device (Kuroki teaches the display 104 as the second display unit of the second electronic device, paragraph [0055-0056] “The three-dimensional CG drawing device 102 draws a CG image of the virtual world which can be seen from the position of the HMD 101 based on the position-and-orientation information sent from the HMD 101 and sends the drawn CG image to the image synthesizing device 103…… The image synthesizing device 103 generates a synthesized image by synthesizing the image sent from the HMD 101 and the CG image sent from the three-dimensional CG drawing device 102. The synthesized image thus generated is sent to the HMD 101 and the display 104. In the case where images with different parallaxes are sent to the HMD 101, one of those images for the right eye and the left eye is displayed on the display 104.”);
and a position designation unit configured to receive designation of a position on a screen of the second display unit (paragraph [0058] “The input device 105 inputs an input operation carried out by the non-HMD wearer so as to give an instruction to the HMD wearer and sends input information corresponding to the input operation to the three-dimensional CG drawing device 102. The input device 105 is implemented by, for example, a touch panel attached to the screen of the display 104.”),
the first display unit displays a pointer at a position in the virtual reality space corresponding to the position (paragraph [0067-0068] “The drawn CG image includes the pointer object 601 at the determined position in the virtual world…… sends the resultant synthesized image to the HMD 101 and the display 104.”),
the second electronic device calculates position information of the position received by the position designation unit in the second display unit and transmits the position information to the first electronic device (paragraph [0067-0068] “The three-dimensional CG drawing device 102 determines a position in the virtual world corresponding to the position indicated by the coordinate values based on the coordinate values acquired from the input device 105 as described above…….The drawn CG image includes the pointer object 601 at the determined position in the virtual world…… sends the resultant synthesized image to the HMD 101 and the display 104.”),
and the first electronic device sets a position based on the position information in the virtual reality space as a goal position, sets a position of the first electronic device in the virtual reality space as a start position, and displays, in the virtual reality space, the pointer …… along a vector from the stat position toward the goal position (Kuroki teaches starting a line segment from the focal position of HMD of the first electronic device as the start position, and end at the determined position from the user input as the goal position in Figure 24, and further teaches displaying a pointer object at the determined position as the goal position in Figure 6, Paragraph [0112] “Although in the fourth embodiment described above, the line segment object 2001 starts from the position of the pointing device 1506 (see FIG. 21), the present invention is not limited to this, but the line segment object 2001 may start from the focal position of the image pickup section 301 of the HMD 101 (see FIGS. 24 and 25) or may start from the focal position of the objective viewpoint camera 1501 (see FIGS. 26 and 27).”, paragraph [0069] “An image appearing in FIG. 6 is displayed on the display sections of the HMD 101 (step S5 in FIG. 2). Referring to the displayed image, the HMD wearer 301 can recognize the position indicated by the non-HMD wearer.”).
Kuroki does not explicitly teach ……formed in a dart shape in which a tip is disposed at the goal position…… Tanaka teaches ……formed in a dart shape in which a tip is disposed at the goal position…… (Tanaka teaches using an arrow shape to represent a pointing annotation in Figure 5A, the end point of the arrow shape is the tip of the arrow, located at the goal position, paragraph [0018] “the pointing annotation is displayed as an arrow (line segment) having a start point and an end point. For example, the starting point of the arrow is set to a fixed position on the user's field of view (for example, near the center or bottom of the left and right), and the ending point of the arrow is set to the pointing position of another user projected onto the user's field of view.”, paragraph [0019] “In FIG. 5A, a mountain 501 and a building 502 are CG.
User A and user B are pointing to the tip of the arrow, with user A pointing to mountain 501 and user B pointing to building 502”).
Kuroki and Tanaka are in the same field of endeavor, namely computer graphics, especially in the field of mixed reality for meetings, lectures and collaborative work. Tanaka teaches using an arrow shape in the mixed reality system to improve user interaction (paragraph [0002] “devices that present virtual information to users by superimposing virtual information on the real world or virtual world observed by a user wearing a head mounted display (HMD) are expected to improve the workability of construction and maintenance work.”). Therefore, it would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Tanaka with the method of Kuroki to improve user interaction.
Regarding claim 2, Kuroki in view of Tanaka teach The communication system according to claim 1, and further teach wherein a size of the field of view displayed on the second display unit by the first display unit is fixed (Kuroki teaches a still image captured by HMD of the first display unit, this implies a fixed field of view, paragraph [0073] “The second embodiment differs from the above described first embodiment in that an image being observed by the HMD wearer is captured as a still image at a desired time point, and the captured still image is displayed on a screen which is being seen by the non-HMD wearer.”).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Bergmann et al. (Us 20190098255 A1) teaches a collaborative virtual reality online meeting platform.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to XIAOMING WEI whose telephone number is (571)272-3831. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-5:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kee Tung can be reached at (571)272-7794. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KEE M TUNG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2611
/XIAOMING WEI/Examiner, Art Unit 2611
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