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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 21-30 are allowed.
Claim 37 is 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.
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) 31, 34, 35, 36, 38-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Naik et al. (US 10573067 B1) in view of Lazarow (US 20190114802 A1).
Regarding claim 31, Naik teaches a method of curating location-based virtual content for a cross reality system operable with a plurality of portable electronic devices capable of rendering virtual content in a 3D environment (See col. 1 lines 58-60, “A display apparatus and method for digital 3D model rendering based on actual lighting conditions in a real
environment, […]” See col. 3 lines 30 – 39, “In accordance with an embodiment, the control circuitry may be further configured to map (and convert) a spatial position of the centroid of the region that represents the detected at least one light source, to a 3D position of the at least one light source in the real-world environment using a
3D coordinate system which represents the real-world environment in a three-dimensional coordinate space. The plurality of lighting parameters may be further determined based on the 3D position of the at least one light source in the real-world environment.”), the method comprising, with one or more processors (See col. 11 line 23-25, “The processor 204 may comprise suitable logic, circuitry,
interfaces, and/or code that may be configured to execute a
set of instructions stored in the memory 210.”):
generating a data structure representing a region in the 3D environment in which virtual content is to be displayed (See col. 11 line 23-25, “The processor 204 may comprise suitable logic, circuitry, interfaces, and/or code that may be configured to execute a
set of instructions stored in the memory 210.” The examiner notes the logic/data/code/instructions all represent the data structure. See Fig. 6A-6C element 606 – 646. For Fig. 6A-6C, see col. 25 – col. 28 line 30.);
storing in the data structure information that indicates virtual content to be rendered in the region in the 3D environment (See Fig. 6A element 618, col. 25 line 66 – col. 26 line 3, “At 618, a user input may be received to select a 3D model from the plurality of 3D models stored in the memory 210. The control circuitry 202 may be configured to receive the user input, via the application interface using the I/O device
214.”); and
associating the data structure with a location in a map used for […] to a shared coordinate system (See “ At 630, a position of the detected light source (e.g., the first light source 112A or the light source 412) may be mapped to a first set of coordinate values in a 3D coordinate system that represents the real-world environment 106. The control circuitry 202 may be configured to map the position of the first light source in the real-world environment 106 or in the selected virtual environment. A conversion of the two dimensional (2D) spatial position of the computed centroid in the first region in the 360° image (captured in real time for AR view mode or previously stored 360° image for VR view mode) to a 3D position in the 3D coordinate system that represents the real-world environment 106, may be done to map the position of the first light source.”) but doesn’t explicitly disclose […]localizing the plurality of electronic devices […]
Lazarow teaches localizing the plurality of electronic devices (See title, “PEER TO PEER REMOTE LOCALIZATION FOR DEVICES”. See ¶24, “”For example, in one implementation, the present disclosure provides a peer-to-peer (P2P) remote localization system including techniques for aligning two or more mixed-reality devices into the same coordinate system by having a device (e.g., a querying device) that is unsure of its location relative to a shared coordinate system issue a query to another device (e.g., a sharing device). The sharing device then uses its knowledge of the environment to localize the query data relative to the shared coordinate system and return that information, e.g., a transform, to the querying device. If a successful localization is found, then the resulting relative transform (e.g., a relative position and/or pose or offset between a point in the shared coordinate system known by the sharing device and the location of a point in the query data of the querying device) can be incorporated into the querying device's environment map. In other words, the querying device can adjust the position of the point in the query data based on the relative transform, thereby aligning its coordinate system with the shared coordinate system. Thus, both devices will then know their location with respect to the shared coordinate system and can render holograms in the same physical location (or do other reasoning).”).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Naik in view of Lazarow as doing so allows the users to have a common experience in a mixed reality to interact with the same physical and virtual components, thus increasing the accuracy provided.
Regarding claim 34, Naik in view of Lazarow teaches the method of claim 31, wherein:
storing in the data structure information that indicates virtual content to be rendered in the region in the 3D environment comprises specifying an application executable on a portable electronic device to generate the virtual content (See Naik col. 11 line 23-25, “The processor 204 may comprise suitable logic, circuitry, interfaces, and/or code that may be configured to execute a
set of instructions stored in the memory 210.” The examiner notes the logic/data/code/instructions all represent the data structure. See Fig. 6A-6C element 606 – 646. For Fig. 6A-6C, see col. 25 – col. 28 line 30).
Regarding claim 35, Naik in view of Lazarow teaches the method of claim 31, further comprising:
storing the data structure in connection with a localization service that localizes the plurality of portable electronic devices using the map (See title, “PEER TO PEER REMOTE LOCALIZATION FOR DEVICES”. See ¶24, “”For example, in one implementation, the present disclosure provides a peer-to-peer (P2P) remote localization system including techniques for aligning two or more mixed-reality devices into the same coordinate system by having a device (e.g., a querying device) that is unsure of its location relative to a shared coordinate system issue a query to another device (e.g., a sharing device). The sharing device then uses its knowledge of the environment to localize the query data relative to the shared coordinate system and return that information, e.g., a transform, to the querying device. If a successful localization is found, then the resulting relative transform (e.g., a relative position and/or pose or offset between a point in the shared coordinate system known by the sharing device and the location of a point in the query data of the querying device) can be incorporated into the querying device's environment map. In other words, the querying device can adjust the position of the point in the query data based on the relative transform, thereby aligning its coordinate system with the shared coordinate system. Thus, both devices will then know their location with respect to the shared coordinate system and can render holograms in the same physical location (or do other reasoning).”).
Regarding claim 36, Naik in view of Lazarow teaches the method of claim 31, further comprising:
receiving, through a user interface, a specification of the region of the 3D environment and the virtual content (Fig. 6A-6B element 618-628, see col. 25 – col. 28 line 30).
Claim 38 recites similar limitations to that of claim 21 and thus is rejected under similar rationale as detailed above.
Regarding claim 39., Naik in view of Lazarow teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 38, wherein:
storing in the data structure information that indicates virtual content to be rendered in the region in the 3D environment comprises specifying a link to virtual content (See Fig. 6A-6C element 606 – 646. For Fig. 6A-6C, see col. 25 – col. 28 line 30.).
Regarding claim 40, Naik in view of Lazarow teaches the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 39, wherein:
the link to the virtual content comprises a link to an application supplying virtual content (See Fig. 6A-6C element 606 – 646. For Fig. 6A-6C, see col. 25 – col. 28 line 30.).
Claim(s) 32 and 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Naik et al. (US 10573067 B1) in view of Lazarow (US 20190114802 A1) in further view of Perez et al. (US 20130293468 A1)
Regarding claim 32 Naik in view of Lazarow teaches the method of claim 31, further comprising: but doesn’t explicitly disclose
setting access permissions on the data structure.
Perez setting access permissions on the data structure (See ¶2, “ A number of different types of collaboration systems exist for business users. A basic collaboration system allows users to share information and tracks user changes to the information. It may also include permissions regulating who has access to information and what actions they can take on the information.”).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Naik in view of Lazarow in further view of Perez as permissions protects sensitive information so only approved intervals and view the sensitive information.
Regarding claim 33, Naik in view of Lazarow in further view of Perez teaches the method of claim 32, wherein:
setting access permissions on the data structure comprises indicating that the data structure is accessible by a specific category or categories of users of the plurality of portable electronic devices (See Perez ¶43. Figure 19A-19C and Fig 20. ¶147, describes Figure 19A-19C, ¶148 describes Fig. 20.).
Conclusion
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/ROBERT J CRADDOCK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2618