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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
This office acknowledges receipt of the following item(s) from the applicant:
Information Disclosure Statement(s) (IDS) filed on 07 February 2025. The references have been considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 3-6, 8-12, 14 and 16-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Cooper et al. (Cooper, US PGPub 2020/0021011).
Referring to Claim 1, Cooper teaches a housing (Fig. 1 #10; [0022-0024]) comprising a first surface in a first plane; a first antenna and a second antenna disposed within the housing and distributed along a first axis parallel to the first plane, wherein: the first antenna and the second antenna are a same type; and the first antenna and the second antenna are mirror oriented across a second axis perpendicular to the first axis and parallel to the first plane (Fig. 8 #40-1, 40-2, 40-3; [0081-0089]); a processing system (Fig. 2 #28; [0045]), comprising one or more processors, disposed within the housing, and in communication with the first antenna and the second antenna, wherein the processing system is configured to: detect an arrival of a radio signal at the first antenna and the second antenna, wherein the radio signal is received from a remote device; determine a phase difference of arrival (PDoA) between the arrival of the radio signal at the first antenna and the second antenna ([0073-0074] and [0102-0103]); determine an angle of arrival (AoA) for the radio signal from the remote device to the computerized device ([0073-0075] and [0102-0104]); determine a relative orientation of the remote device with respect to the computerized device using the PDoA and the AoA (Fig. 6, [0065], [0069] and [0073-0075]); and output an indication of the relative orientation; [0063].
Referring to Claim 3, Cooper teaches wherein the first antenna and the second antenna are planar inverted-F antennas (PIFA); [0023].
Referring to Claim 4, Cooper teaches wherein: the first antenna and the second antenna are ultra-wideband (UWB) antennas; and the radio signal is a UWB message; [0044].
Referring to Claim 5, Cooper teaches wherein: the first surface comprises an electronic display; the housing further comprises a bezel joining the first surface to a second surface of the housing; and the first antenna and the second antenna are disposed adjacent to the first surface between the electronic display and the bezel; [0026] and [0031].
Referring to Claims 6, 14 and 19, Cooper teaches wherein determining the relative orientation comprises identifying an orientation entry in a lookup table using the PDoA and the AoA as lookup keys; [0110] and Claim 19.
Referring to Claims 8 and 16, Cooper teaches wherein the processing system is further configured to: determine a type of the remote device, a distance from the computerized device to the remote device, or both; and wherein determining the relative orientation further comprises using the type of the remote device, the distance from the computerized device to the remote device, or both; [0062], [0064] and [0069].
Referring to Claim 9, Cooper teaches wherein the relative orientation comprises a rotation angle about a third axis perpendicular to the second axis and extending from the computerized device to the remote device; [0065].
Referring to Claim 10, Cooper teaches wherein the computerized device is selected from the group consisting of: a tablet computer; a laptop computer; a hand-held gaming device; and a smartphone; [0026].
Referring to Claim 11, Cooper teaches detecting an arrival of a radio signal transmitted by a remote device at a first antenna and a second antenna of a computerized device, wherein: the first antenna and the second antenna are a same type; the first antenna and the second antenna are distributed along a first axis; and the first antenna and the second antenna are mirror oriented across a second axis perpendicular to the first axis; determining a phase difference of arrival (PDoA) between the arrival of the radio signal at the first antenna and the second antenna; determining an angle of arrival (AoA) for the radio signal from the remote device to the computerized device; determining a relative orientation of the remote device with respect to the computerized device using the PDoA and the AoA; and outputting an indication of the relative orientation of the remote device; see citations of Claim 1 above.
Referring to Claim 12, Cooper teaches wherein the computerized device is in communication with a virtual reality display, and the method further comprises: rendering, at the virtual reality display using the indication of the relative orientation, a virtual reality object with a same virtual orientation with respect to a perspective of the virtual reality display as the relative orientation of the remote device with respect to the computerized device; [0062].
Referring to Claim 17, Cooper teaches a non-transitory processor-readable medium, comprising processor- readable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to: detect an arrival of a radio signal transmitted by a remote device at a first antenna and a second antenna of a computerized device; determine a phase difference of arrival (PDoA) between the arrival of the radio signal at the first antenna and the second antenna; determine an angle of arrival (AoA) for the radio signal from the remote device to the computerized device; determine a relative orientation of the remote device with respect to the computerized device using the PDoA and the AoA; and output an indication of the relative orientation of the remote device; see citations of Claim 1 and [0045-0046].
Referring to Claim 18, Cooper teaches wherein: the first antenna and the second antenna are a same type; the first antenna and the second antenna are distributed along a first axis; and the first antenna and the second antenna are mirror oriented across a second axis perpendicular to the first axis; see Fig. 8 as cited in Claim 1.
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) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cooper in view of Alwood et al. (Alwood, US PGPub 2021/0208232).
Referring to Claim 2, Cooper teaches the first antenna and the second antenna, but does not explicitly disclose nor limit both have a linear polarization; the linear polarization of the first antenna is parallel with the linear polarization of the second antenna; and the linear polarization is parallel to the first plane.
However, Alwood teaches first and second antenna with linear polarization; [0164-0165].
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Cooper with the linear polarization as taught by Alwood as it is well known in the art that the simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results such as improving location and orientation tracking is an obvious modification.
Claim(s) 7, 15 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cooper in view of Schober et al. (Schober, US PGPub 2023/0266422).
Referring to Claims 7, 15 and 20, Cooper teaches determining the relative orientation but does not explicitly disclose nor limit it comprises executing a machine learning model using the PDoA and the AoA as inputs.
However, Schober teaches wherein determining the relative orientation comprises executing a machine learning model using the PDoA and the AoA as inputs; [0045] and [0083].
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Cooper with the MLM as taught by Schober so as to predictably facilitate accurate and reliable determination of an angle of arrival at a communication device.
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cooper in view of Castagnoli et al. (Castagnoli, US PGPub 2023/0013301).
Referring to Claim 1, Cooper teaches the limitations of claim 11 but does not explicitly disclose nor limit outputting instructions to a user of the computerized device to adjust the relative orientation of the remote device to achieve a second relative orientation; and determining, by the computerized device, that the remote device is in the second relative orientation.
However, Castagnoli teaches outputting instructions to a user of the computerized device to adjust the relative orientation of the remote device to achieve a second relative orientation; and determining, by the computerized device, that the remote device is in the second relative orientation; [0084].
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Cooper with the adjustment instructions as taught by Castagnoli as the adjustments predictably allow for location accuracy to be increased in different environments.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WHITNEY T MOORE whose telephone number is (571)270-3338. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday from 7am-4pm.
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/WHITNEY MOORE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3646
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