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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 10 recites the limitation "the light source is a light-emitting diode" in line 3 of the claim . There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 10 currently depends on claim 4, and claim 4 recites “a plurality of light sources”. As a result, it is unclear what “the light source” in claim 10 refers to. Is each of the plurality of light sources from claim 4 a light-emitting diode in claim 10? A single one of the light sources? Clarification is required. To overcome this rejection, the examiner suggests amending claim 10 to depend on claim 9, or, if the claim is to remain dependent on claim 4, ensure that the claim recites that a plurality of light sources are used.
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.
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, 2, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumoto et al (2021/0358147) in view of Watanabe (JP 6524680 B2).
Regarding claim 1, Matsumoto (Fig. 1) discloses a distance measuring device comprising a first imager 30 to capture an image of the target onto which a pattern is projected (see paragraph 0064); a projector 20 configured to project pattern light (see paragraph 0064) in which a plurality of types of light regions having wavelength bands different from each other are distributed in a predetermined pattern (see paragraph 0076, which states that a first and second region of the unit pattern may be distinguished by the wavelength bands of the light projected by the light projecting unit, with, for example, a first region having blue light and second region having red light); and a measurer 40 including a calculation unit 43 that measures a distance to an object surface onto which the pattern light is projected (see paragraph 0081, stating that the distance to the target is calculated by triangulation).
Matsumoto fails to disclose a second imager, the first and second imagers provided to be aligned such that fields of view overlap, and the measurer measures distance by performing a stereo correspondence point searching process on images respectively acquired by the first and second imagers.
Watanabe (Fig. 1) discloses a distance measuring device that includes an imaging device 110 that has a stereo camera 111 (see paragraph 0012) that includes at least two cameras with different viewpoints (see paragraph 0013) that overlap with each other (inherent to the operation of a stereo camera, but see also Fig. 1); and a measurer 112 which includes parallax calculation means 201 that measures a distance to an object surface S on to which pattern light from patterned light source 120 (see paragraph 0017) is projected by performing a stereo correspondence point searching process on images respectively acquired by the first and second imagers (see paragraphs 0024-0025, where a matching process is performed to find corresponding points based on the image captured by the first camera and the second camera, where matching is a process that finds corresponding points in the images based on the distribution characteristics of brightness values of the pixels in the images, and after performing the stereo matching, calculates the parallax which then uses this information to calculate the distance to the object from the camera in paragraph 0026).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add a second imager to the device of Matsumoto so that a stereo correspondence point searching process can be performed on the stereo images obtained by the first and second imagers with an overlapping field of view to measure a distance to an object as per Watanabe, the motivation being that stereo imaging and correspondence point searching allows for multiple, overlapping images to be used to ascertain distance, thereby increasing accuracy of measurement over a single image due to the increased information from matching images point by point.
As for claim 2, Matsumoto discloses that, between the plurality of types of light regions, maximum luminances are different from each other (see paragraph 0075, with the first and second regions being distinguished by brightness and darkness of the light projected by the light projecting unit 20).
As for claim 11, Matsumoto discloses that the pattern light includes a lightless region (see paragraph 0075, “the second region may be defined as a dark region that is not irradiated with light”).
Claims 3, 4, and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsumoto et al (2021/0358147) in view of Watanabe (JP 6524680 B2) and in further view of Zheng et al (CN 113048907).
As for claim 3, the combination of Matsumoto and Watanabe discloses the claimed invention as set forth above regarding claim 1, but fails to disclose that the projector comprises a filter in which a plurality of types of filter regions for respectively generating the plurality of types of light regions are distributed in a same pattern as the pattern of the light regions.
Zheng, in a device that uses structured light to perform imaging (see Fig. 3), discloses passing light from a broad-spectrum light source 1 through an array filter 4 to image object 6. Zheng discloses that this filter has an array filter structure (see Fig. 4) which generates the plurality of types of light regions with the filter regions being distributed in a same pattern as the pattern of light regions (see paragraph 0045, where, after an LCOS chip 2 generates structured light, the light passes through a filter in the same pattern as the LCOS filter for macro pixel segmentation and wavelength-position encoding).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add a filter to the combination of Matsumoto and Watanabe as taught by Zheng, where the filter has a plurality of types of filter regions for respectively generating the plurality of types of light regions are distributed in a same pattern as the pattern of the light regions, the motivation being to provide structured light that is able to simultaneously sample both spatial and spectral information (see paragraph 0045).
As for claim 4, the combination of Matsumoto, Watanabe, and Zheng discloses an optical system that guides light from the light source to the filter (see Fig. 3 of Zheng, disclosing an LCOS chip 2 and a beam splitter 3 that guides light from the light source 1 to the filter), the combined device fails to disclose a plurality of light sources configured to emit lights in wavelength bands different from each other.
However, while paragraph 0086 of Matsumoto discloses the use of “a light source”, paragraph 0076 discloses that the projected light is distinguished by wavelength bands such as blue and red in paragraph 0076. Additionally, it has been held that mere duplication of the essential working parts of a device involves only routine skill in the art. St. Regis Paper Co. v. Bemis Co., 193 USPQ 8.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have the projector of the combined device have a plurality of light sources, the motivation being, since Matsumoto discloses having projected light with a plurality of wavelengths, having individual light sources to simultaneously provide the light of different wavelengths would ensure proper formation of the structured light without needing to tune a light source or provide extra optics for wavelength specific filtering from a broadband source.
As for claim 9, the combination of Matsumoto, Watanabe, and Zheng discloses that the projector comprises a light source configured to emit light in a wavelength band including selected wavelength bands of the plurality of types of filter regions (Zheng discloses a broad-spectrum light source 1 as in paragraph 0045), and an optical system (LCOS 2 and beam splitter 3) configured to guide, to the filter, the light from the light source (see Fig. 3 of Zheng), where the light source has such a spectral output that maximum luminances of lights having been transmitted through the plurality of types of filter regions are different from each other (see Fig. 4 and paragraph 0046 of Zheng).
As for claim 10, the combination of Matsumoto, Watanabe, and Zheng discloses the use of a light-emitting diode as the light source (see paragraph 0045 of Zheng; a light emitting diode is a broad-spectrum light source).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-8 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
As to claim 5, the prior art of record, taken either alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious the further limitation of claim 4, wherein the plurality of light sources are provided so as to respectively correspond to the plurality of types of filter regions, and each of the filter regions selectively extracts light from a corresponding one of the light sources, in combination with the rest of the limitations of the above claim.
With further regard to the above claim, while Matsumoto strongly suggests using a plurality of light sources as discussed above with regard to claim 4, the prior art of record, taken either alone or in combination, does not disclose or suggest that the plurality of light sources correspond to the plurality of filter regions in Zheng, especially as Zheng only discloses a single light source. Additionally the combination would not disclose that each of the filter regions selectively extracts light from a corresponding one of the light sources, as this would require specific filter regions assigned to a corresponding light source, which goes beyond simple duplication of parts as set forth above in claim 4.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 2021/0358157 to Ohnishi et al. teaches a three-dimensional stereo imaging system using patterned light (3D projector 110; first and second cameras 210, 220 with an overlapping field of via to measure an object OB; see Fig. 1) to calculate distance (see abstract); US 2022/0222843 to Ota discloses a three-dimensional measurement system 10 that performs three-dimensional measurement of an object 12 (see paragraph 0045 and Fig. 1) using stereo matching to obtain distance information (see paragraph 0048); US 2014/0307085 to Ohsawa teaches a distance measuring apparatus using two imaging units 2A, 2B to measure distance to a target 4 irradiated with patterned light from projection unit 1 (see paragraphs 0037-0039 and Fig. 1); US 2007/0009150 to Suwa et al. discloses an apparatus for projecting a pattern to measure object MO using stereo camera 11 (see Fig. 1 and paragraph 0052) where processing device 12 performs a stereo correspondence problem with window-based matching (see paragraph 0054); and US 2018/0316909 to Tsubaki teaches a distance measuring apparatus to measure distance to object 105 using imaging units 101a, 101b (see paragraphs 0027-0030 and Fig. 1) and measures distance using a multi-baseline stereo method (see paragraph 0109).
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/Michael A Lyons/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2877 March 13, 2026