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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This communication is a non-Final office action on merit. Claims 1-20, are presently pending. Claims 1, 7-13, 19-20, after restriction election, have been considered below.
Restriction Election
Applicant elects Species II (claims 7-13), without traverse, for further examination.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. CN2023-11195870.4, filed on 9/15/2023 and KR10-2024-0076441 filed on 6/12/2024.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 9/13/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or
nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2022/0269344 A1, Cohen (hereinafter Cohen).
As to claim 1, Cohen discloses a gaze tracking method, performed by an electronic device (Fig 6), comprising:
obtaining glint information based on capturing, using an event camera, a glint signal corresponding to light emitted from light sources, wherein each light source operates according to a corresponding unique light source code of a light source code set (Fig 3; different light sources; pars 0005-0006, 0024, 0033, 0035, 0059, 0088, obtaining glint images captured by cameras using different light sources (can be listed in different codes/labels/listings) for classification/categorization) ;
estimating a corneal sphere center position and an eye rotation center position based on the glint information (Figs 7, 13A, 19; pars 0005, 0024, 0035, 0037, 0092, 0106-0107, 0154, 0252, a corneal sphere center position and an eye rotation center position can be estimated and analyzed from glint images using light sources); and
determining three-dimensional (3D) gaze-related information based on the corneal sphere center position and the eye rotation center position (Fig 7; pars 0104-0109, 0111, the corneal sphere center position and the eye rotation center position being represented and/or displayed in 3D form). Note, although Cohen does not expressly disclose different light sources being assigned specific codes, it would have been obvious to one of skill in the art to utilize code, label, annotation, or any commonly used meaningful naming convention to differentiate, specify, and or identify different light sources from each other.
2-6. (withdrawn)
As to claim 19. Cohen discloses a method comprising: emitting, onto an eyeball, light from light sources, wherein each light source emits light with a respective unique emission pattern of varying light intensity (Figs 3, 7-8A, 13A; pars 0024, 0033, 0059, 0104, 0123, 0133, 0154, different light intensity being applied from light sources for glint detection); detecting, asynchronously from the emitting of the light from the light sources, glints on the eyeball from the respective light sources, wherein each glint has an intensity pattern corresponding to the emission pattern of the light source from which it originates (pars 0037, 0067, 0078, 0127, 0139, different light patterns being used for the glint detection and the detection being processed separately with different exposure durations (e.g. asynchronously); determining, among the glints, a key glint based on the intensity pattern of the key glint (Fig 6; par 0133, determining and/or identifying a candidate glint (e.g. key glint) from a set of glints along with data indicative of the intensities of the light sources); and based on the determining of the key glint, determining which of the other glints come from which of the light sources (Fig 6; pars 0015, 0034-0035, 0039, 0133, the candidate glint with corresponding light intensity, exposure duration (e.g. specific light source pattern either from the same light source or different one)).
As to claim 20, it is a device claim encompassed claim 1. Rejection of claim 1 is therefore incorporated herein.
Claims 7-8, 10, 12-13, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cohen in view of US 2020/0218087 A1, GRAND-CLEMENT (hereinafter GRAND-CLEMENT).
As to claim 7, Cohen discloses the gaze tracking method of claim 1, wherein the estimating comprises: estimating a corneal sphere center position at different moments based on the glint information of each moment (Fig 7, 10B-12,19; pars 0005, 0035, 0088, 0094, 0136, estimating/determining estimating a corneal sphere center position with different exposure times); and estimating the eye rotation center position based on estimated corneal sphere center positions at respective of the moments (Figs 5, 10B-12, 13A; pars 0035, 0037-0038, 0092, 0107-0109, 0116, 0122, 0149, 0153, the eye/pupil rotation center position can be estimated/measured/calculated based on eye tracking including utilizing corneal sphere center positions with different exposure durations).
Cohen does not expressly disclose estimating the eye rotation center position based on a distance between a reference eye rotation center and the corneal sphere center. GRAND-CLEMENT, in the same or similar field of endeavor, further teaches estimating the eye rotation center position based on a distance between a reference eye rotation center and the corneal sphere center (pars 0042-0057, comparing approximate values of position of the eye rotation center with a reference value (e.g. obtaining the difference of two) and determining the eye rotation center position based on a threshold value of the difference).
Therefore, consider Cohen and GRAND-CLEMENT’s teachings as a whole, it would have been obvious to one of skill in the art before the filing date of invention to incorporate GRAND-CLEMENT’s teachings in Cohen’s method to provide more accurate estimate for a corneal sphere center position with more comprehensive information and analysis and different exposure times.
As to claim 8, Cohen as modified discloses the gaze tracking method of claim 7, wherein the glint information comprises a glint image position, the glint image position is a position of a glint from a corresponding light source among the light sources in an image coordinate system of the event camera (Cohen: Figs 5A, 8A, 14; pars 0026, 0035-0037, 0087, 0102), and the estimating comprises estimating a corneal sphere center position at each of the moments using a regressor based on the glint image position at the moment (Cohen: par 0102, an iterative algorithm (e.g. a regression process) being utilized for eye tracking image, identifying sub-pixel image coordinates, glint detection etc.).
As to claim 10, Cohen as modified discloses the gaze tracking method of claim 7, wherein the glint information comprises a glint image position, the glint image position is a position of a glint from a corresponding light source among the light sources in an image coordinate system of the event camera (Cohen: Cohen: Figs 5A, 8A, 14; pars 0026, 0035-0037, 0087, 0102), and the estimating comprises estimating a corneal sphere center position at each moment through a numerical solver based on the glint image position at the moment, the parameters of the event camera, the position of the light source, and a radius of the corneal sphere (Cohen: Figs 6-7, 10A, 12-13, 17, 19; pars 0005, 0020, 0024, 0033, 0035-0037, 0087, 0092, 0106-0107, 0154, 0252, the modules and the model of Cohen incorporates all relevant parameters and variables as recited to provide estimation of a corneal sphere center position at each moment).
As to claim 12, Cohen as modified discloses the gaze tracking method of claim 7, wherein the estimating of the eye rotation center position comprises estimating the eye rotation center position to be a position of a center of a rotating sphere determined based on a movement trajectory of the corneal sphere center positions at the moments (Cohen: Figs 14A-14B; pars 0047, 0062, 0082, 0085, 0088. 0137, 0151, the estimating of the eye rotation center position in claim 7 being tracked and determined with movement tracking of frame to frame tracking of multiple short glint exposures or high rate exposures).
As to claim 13, Cohen as modified discloses the gaze tracking method of claim 7, wherein the estimating of the eye rotation center position comprises updating the eye rotation center position if a range of the movement trajectory of the corneal sphere center positions at the plurality of moments exceeds a predetermined range threshold (Cohen: Figs 17, 19; pars 0151-0152, 0163, 0172, 0182).
14-18. (withdrawn)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9 and 11 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.
Reasons for Allowance
Prior art of record (Cohen, GRAND-CLEMENT, and Agrawal) neither discloses alone nor teaches in combination functions and features recited in claims 9 and 11, respectively.
Examiner’s Note
Examiner has cited particular column, line number, paragraphs and/or figure(s) in the reference(s) as applied to the claims for the convenience of the Applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the reference(s) in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Qun Shen whose telephone number is (571) 270-7927. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Friday from 9:00-5:00. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's Supervisor, Amandeep Saini can be reached on (571) 272-3382. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/QUN SHEN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2662
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