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 § 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.
Claims 1-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fix et al. (US 2017/0161951, hereinafter “Fix”) in view of Edwards (US 2025/0044919) and Ellis et al. (US 10,466,780, hereinafter “Ellis”).
With respect to Claim 1, Fix teaches an electronic device (Fix, Fig. 1, VR headset 100) comprising:
one or more sensors (Fix, Para. [0025]);
one or more displays (Fix, Para. [0025]);
one or more processors (Fix, Para. [0025]); and
memory storing instructions configured to be executed by the one or more processors (Fix, Para. [0043]), the instructions for:
displaying, via the one or more displays, a virtual object at a first depth (Fix, Para. [0060], Fig. 8A-B, rendering object 806 at distance d.sub.i);
using a first subset of the one or more sensors, determining that an eye focus depth is different than the first depth (Fix, Para. [0033], [0052], triangulating gaze lines 504 to identify intersection);
while displaying the virtual object, shifting the virtual object from the first depth towards the eye focus depth (Fix, [0060] – [0061], Fig. 8A-B, moving optic block from p.sub.i to p.sub.f; Para. [0066], changing lens shape to s.sub.2 to provide accommodation).
Fix fails to expressly disclose locking the virtual object at the current depth.
However, Edwards teaches:
a user interface that locks onto a virtual object in accordance with a first criterion associated with a fixation time (Edwards, Para. [0029], eye gaze vector fixated for a locking threshold of 1-2 seconds; Para. [0005], detecting an internal trigger or locking of an object).
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the device, as taught by Fix, to incorporate the locking and unlocking, as taught by Edwards, in order to improve visual stability in a varifocal HMD (Edwards, Para. [0007] – [0010]).
The combination of Fix and Edwards fails to teach the specific logic for the locking function based on vergence stability, including:
determining that the first criterion… is met;
associated with a current depth… relative to eye focus depth.
However, Ellis teaches:
determining the first criterion… is met (Ellis, Col. 12, lines 26-44, Col. 14, lines 39-50, determining if fixation is maintained for a threshold amount of time or threshold distance);
associated with a current depth… relative to eye focus depth (Ellis, Col. 12, lines 26-44, assessing if the focal point is within a threshold distance of the target position); and
locking the virtual object at the current depth (Ellis, Col. 3, lines 36-49, Col. 4, lines 1-15, breaking the feedback loop to put the object into a “selected state” to prevent instability).
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the device, as taught by Fix and Edwards, to incorporate the filtering logic, as taught by Ellis, to ensure the input to the depth shifting of Fix is sufficiently filtered, thereby preventing unwanted target instability (Ellis, Col. 3, lines 45-49).
With respect to Claim 2, the combination of Fix as modified by Edwards and Ellis teaches the electronic device defined in claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions for:
after locking the virtual object at the current depth, determining if a second criterion is met (Edwards, Para. [0006], [0031], detecting head movement from the headset after the lock is secured); and
in accordance with determining that the second criterion is not met, continuing to display the virtual object at the current depth while the first subset of the one or more sensors indicates a change in the eye focus depth (Ellis, Col. 13, lines 34-44, ignoring small ocular fluctuations during a refractory period following a pulse; Col. 14, lines 39-50, maintaining the current display state until satisfying a vergence change threshold).
With respect to Claim 3, the combination of Fix as modified by Edwards and Ellis teaches the electronic device defined in claim 2, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions for:
in accordance with determining that the second criterion is met (head move or vergence pulse), shifting the virtual object from the current depth towards an updated eye focus depth indicated by the first subset of the one or more sensors (Edwards, Para. [0031], adjusting/exaggerating shift in proportion to movement; Ellis, Col. 13, lines 45-55, moving the object along the line of sign as if subject to a virtual impulse).
With respect to Claim 4, the combination of Fix as modified by Edwards and Ellis teaches the electronic device defined in claim 2, wherein determining if the second criterion is met comprises determining if the second criterion is met using the first subset of the one or more sensors or using a second subset of the one or more sensors (Fix, Para. [0031], [0036], Fig. 1, eye tracker 110, IMU 116 / head tracking sensors 118; Edwards, Para. [0006], head movement from AR headset is detected after locking to initiate the display adjustment, Para. [0031], adjustments occur in response to detecting the AR headset moving).
With respect to Claim 5, the combination of Fix as modified by Edwards and Ellis teaches the electronic device defined in claim 1, wherein displaying the virtual object at the first depth, determining that the eye focus depth is different than the first depth, shifting the virtual object from the first depth towards the eye focus depth, and locking the virtual object at the current depth comprises displaying the virtual object at the first depth, determining that the eye focus depth is different than the first depth, shifting the virtual object from the first depth towards the eye focus depth, and locking the virtual object at the current depth in accordance with a determination that the virtual object is a first type of virtual object that has a location defined relative to a location corresponding to the electronic device or a user of the electronic device (Edwards, “para. [0030], selectively exaggerating the parallax shift of an object of interest like a tiger while an unselected object like a jeep shifts normally).
With respect to Claim 6, the combination of Fix as modified by Edwards and Ellis teaches the electronic device defined in claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions for:
receiving data from the first subset of the one or more sensors (Fix, Para. [0031], [0062]); and
filtering the data to obtain filtered data, wherein determining that the eye focus depth is different than the first depth comprises determining that the eye focus depth is different than the first depth using the filtered data (Fix, Para. [0052] – [0055], generating a filtered vergence depth, verifying and adjusting estimated vergence depth against scene geometry), wherein filtering the data comprises time-averaging the data (Ellis, Col. 3, lines 55-67, Col. 8, lines 45-44, measuring vergence against a rolling average as a relative reference), and wherein filtering the data comprises removing one or more outliers from the data (Ellis, Col. 8, lines 55-59, using median values in place of averages).
With respect to Claim 7, the combination of Fix as modified by Edwards and Ellis teaches the electronic device defined in claim 1, wherein the first subset of the one or more sensors comprises a gaze tracking system that is configured to measure eye vergence (Fix, Para. [0033], calculating “vergence depth” based on a n estimated intersection of gaze lines; Ellis, Col. 2, lines 22-33, gaze gestures based on changes in eye vergence).
Method claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 & 21) are drawn to the method of using the corresponding apparatus claimed in claims (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7). Therefore method claims () correspond to apparatus claims (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7) and are rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
Apparatus claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14) are drawn to CRM mirror the apparatus as claimed in claims (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7). Therefore apparatus claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14) correspond to the apparatus claims (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7), and are rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRYAN EARLES whose telephone number is (571)272-4628. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday at 7:30am - 5:00pm.
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/BRYAN EARLES/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2625