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.
Claim(s) below is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Viswanathan (20170068319) in view of Chan (20210209778).
Referring to claim 1, Viswanathan shows a hybrid three-dimensional sensing system (see figure 1), comprising :
a time-of-flight (ToF) projector configured to project a modulated light on an object in a ToF mode (see figure 2 Ref 112 note the IR laser diodes);
a structured light (SL) projector configured to project a structured light on the object in a SL mode (see figure 2 Ref 112 note the RGB laser diodes);
a ToF sensor configured to receive reflections from the object (see the IR photodetector) and correspondingly generate video data (see paragraph 19 note the corresponding data associated with the control of the FOV of the IR/visible camera);
a ToF processor (see figure 2 note the combination of Ref 140, 146, and 150) configured to receive the video data and generate ToF depth information according to the video data in the ToF mode (see paragraph 21 note that the TOF region can be over all of the FOV of the structured light pattern shown in figure 4d); and
a SL processor (see figure 2 note the combination Ref 138, 148 and 150) configured to receive a 2D image from the ToF 2D image in the SL mode (see paragraph 25 note the gesture recognition where the 2D skeletonized TOF image is used to extract a fine detail image of the gesture by the SL depth detector). While Viswanathan shows the SL depth detector is directed to detect range based on the skeletonized TOF 2D image Viswanathan fails to show that the SL processor receives the 2D image from the TOF processor.
Chan shows a similar device that includes a SL depth detector that receives a 2D image from a TOF processor (see figure 2 note the dot confidence that is passed to the SL depth decoder to generate the SL depth image). It would have been obvious to include the 2D image from the TOF processor as shown by Chan because this allows the SL to generate a SL depth map with high confidence of given distance and location of every pixel in an image (see paragraph 14).
Referring to claims 6, 11, and 18 Viswanathan shows the ToF processor generates the 2D image according to the video data in the SL mode (see the use of the video data for generating TOF as shown in paragraph 19 and 21).
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Viswanathan (20170068319) in view of Chan (20210209778) and Kim (20160056252).
Referring to claim 2, Viswanathan shows a controller to control the TOF projector to project the modulated light in a TOF mode and control the SL projector to project light in the SL mode (see paragraph 24 note the sequential control of the TOF projection and the SL projection). However Viswanathan does not show the use of a multiplexor that controls the projectors. It is extremely well known that multiplexors can control the operational modes of a device. Kim is being used as a teaching reference of a multiplexor that allows the control of a device to operate in multiple modes (see paragraph 67). It would have been obvious to include the use of a multiplexor because this is extremely well known when switching between multiple modes of operation and adds no new or unexpected results.
Claim(s) 7, 12, 19, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Viswanathan (20170068319) in view of Chan (20210209778) and Hseih (20200386540).
Referring to claims 7, 12, 19, and 20 Viswanathan fails to specifically show what type of light is used for each measurement mode but Hseih shows a similar device that includes the modulated light is a flood light, wherein the SL projector is a dot light source, wherein the 2D image is a dot image (see paragraph 67 and 78). It would have been obvious to include the flood and dot image as shown by Hseih because these are extremely well known projection systems for TOF and SL devices and adds no new or unexpected results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6, 9, 10, and 14-17 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 LUKE D RATCLIFFE whose telephone number is (571)272-3110. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00AM-5:00PM EST.
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/LUKE D RATCLIFFE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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