DETAILED ACTION
1. Applicant’s amendment filed on April 14, 2026 in which claim 20 was amended, and claim 31 canceled, has been fully considered and entered, but the arguments are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
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
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Claims 20-21, 23-25, 26-38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bleyer et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2019/0012835) in view of Wu et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2017/0180754).
Regarding claim 20, Bleyer discloses a head mounted display system (See Bleyer Fig. 1, HMD 102) configured to project light to an eye of a user to display augmented reality image content in a vision field of said user and to image at least a portion of an environment in front of the user wearing the head mounted display system (See Bleyer Fig. 17, HMD 1702. [0032], [0040]), said head-mounted display system comprising: a frame configured to be supported on a head of the user (See Bleyer HMD 102 of Fig. 1, and frame of HMD 1702, and [0114]); a head-mounted display disposed on the frame, said display configured to project light into said user's eye to display augmented reality image content to the user' s vision field (See Bleyer [0114]), at least a portion of said display being transparent and disposed at a location in front of the user's eye when the user wears the frame such that said transparent portion transmits light from a portion of the environment in front of the user and said head- mounted display to the user's eye to provide a view of said portion of the environment in front of the user and said head-mounted display (See Bleyer [0032] “the user 104 views the partially-transparent device, while the HMD projects virtual objects onto the partially-transparent display device”); a camera configured to obtain images (See Bleyer [0038] with camera system 210); a non-transitory computer readable medium storing computer executable instructions (See Bleyer [0005]); and a hardware processor in communication with the camera and the computer readable medium, the hardware processor configured to execute the computer executable instructions (See Bleyer [0024], and [0027]-[0028]) in order to: determine a search region within a field of view of the camera (See Bleyer [0088]); and identify one or more features within the search region (See Bleyer [0088]).
It is noted that Bleyer is silent about wherein a size of the search region varies during operation of the head mounted display system.
However, Wu teaches a head mounted display system wherein a size of the search region varies during operation of the head mounted display system (See Wu [0007], [0118]-[0119]).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying Bleyer’s head mounted display system to incorporate Wu’s teachings wherein a size of the search region varies during operation of the head mounted display system. The motivation for performing such a modification in Bleyer is to increase the accuracy of the initial motion vector as taught by Wu (See Wu [0119]).
As per claim 21, Bleyer further discloses wherein determining the search region within the field of view of the camera comprises determining a property of relative motion between the head-mounted display and one or more features in the environment (See Bleyer [0085]-[0086]).
As per claim 24, Bleyer further discloses wherein determining the search region within the field of view of the camera comprises determining a frame rate of the camera (See Bleyer [0072]-[0073]).
As per claim 26, Bleyer further discloses wherein the system further comprises a second camera (See Bleyer’s Abstract, one or more cameras and [0038]).
As per claim 27, Bleyer further discloses wherein determining the search region within the field of view of the camera is based at least in part on an image received by the second camera (See Bleyer [0067]-[0069]).
As per claim 28, Bleyer further discloses wherein determining the search region within the field of view of the camera is based at least in part on a field of view of the second camera (See Bleyer [0067]-[0069]).
As per claim 29, Bleyer further discloses wherein, wherein the search region is smaller than the field of view of the camera (See Bleyer [0067]-[0069]).
As per claim 30, Bleyer further discloses wherein determining a search region within a field of view of the camera comprises changing the search region (See Bleyer [0067]-[0069]).
As per claim 31, Bleyer further discloses wherein determining a search region within a field of view of the camera comprises changing a size of the search region (See Bleyer [0067]-[0069]).
As per claim 32, Bleyer further discloses wherein determining a search region within a field of view of the camera comprises changing a position of the search region (See Bleyer [0067]-[0069]).
As per claim 33, Bleyer further discloses wherein the system is configured to reduce a frame rate of the camera as a result of decreased relative movement of the head mounted display with respect to the environment that is detected by the system (See Bleyer [0072]-[0073]).
As per claims 34-35, Bleyer further discloses wherein the system is configured to reduce a frame rate of the camera as a result of decreased movement of the head mounted display that is detected by the system (See Bleyer [0072]-[0073]).
As per claim 36, Bleyer further discloses wherein the system is configured to increase a frame rate of the camera as a result of increased relative movement of the head mounted display with respect to the environment that is detected by the system (See Bleyer [0072]-[0073]).
As per claims 37-38, Bleyer further discloses wherein the system is configured to increase a frame rate of the camera as a result of increased movement of the head mounted display that is detected by the system (See Bleyer [0072]-[0073]).
Regarding claims 23 and 25, it is noted that Bleyer is silent about wherein the system is configured to set a size of the search region directly proportional to the property of relative motion or inversely proportional to the frame rate.
However, Wu teaches setting a size of the search region directly proportional to the property of relative motion or inversely proportional to the frame rate (See Wu [0123] and [0125] “when searching for a motion vector, a modified search area may be expanded in a horizontal direction so as to search a relatively comparable amount of area in a lower part of the optical flow field, where objects of the same size may appear to be larger, than in a higher part of the optical flow field, where objects of the same size may appear to be smaller.”).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, would recognize the advantage of modifying Bleyer to incorporate Wu’s teachings to set a size of the search region directly proportional to the property of relative motion or inversely proportional to the frame rate. The motivation for performing such a modification in Bleyer is to modify the size and shape of search areas used to identify connecting information between blocks across video frames.
5. Claims 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bleyer et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2019/0012835) in view of view of Wu et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2017/0180754) as applied to claim 20 above, and further in view of Biffle et al. (US Patent no. 8970495).
As per claim 22, it is noted that the combination of Bleyer and Wu is silent about wherein the property of relative motion comprises at least one of the following: a velocity, an acceleration, a time.
However, Biffle teaches a head mounted display system wherein the property of relative motion comprises at least one of the following: a velocity, an acceleration, a time (See Biffle col. 4, lines 17-31).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying the combination of Bleyer and Wu to incorporate Biffle’e teachings wherein the property of relative motion comprises at least one of the following: a velocity, an acceleration, a time. The motivation for performing such a modification in Bleyer is solve color distortion problem when there is relative motion since the perceived position of the color subframes on a color sequential display might change in the time interval as taught by Biffle (See Biffle col. 4, lines 17-31).
6. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GIMS S PHILIPPE whose telephone number is (571)272-7336. The examiner can normally be reached Maxi Flex.
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/GIMS S PHILIPPE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2424
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