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DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejections of claims 1-2, and 4-9 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Therefore, the rejections of claims 1-2 and 4-9 are hereby maintained.
Applicant argues that Kuribayashi in view of Takayoshi does not disclose “wherein a plurality of positions that are different in the optical path length of the video light includes a first position and a second position having a longer optical path length of the video light than the optical path length of the video light at the first position, and wherein at a position of the video based on the input video, for a video sharpness/detail processing at a position corresponding to the second position, the video processing circuit uses a video sharpness/detail processing stronger having a video sharpness/detail effect than a video sharpness/detail effect of a filter processing at a position corresponding to the first position”.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Kuribayashi discloses:
wherein a plurality of positions that are different in the optical path length of the video light includes a first position and a second position having a longer optical path length of the video light than the optical path length of the video light at the first position (Kuribayashi, para. 0055, a distance between each position among a plurality of positions of the icons on the display surface of the display unit 11 and the midair image 30 indicated by the dotted line in FIG. 1(c) may be different from each other; para’s 0128-0132, icons 30A1a, 30A1b and 30A1c are respectively displayed by adjusting the display mode for the icons 30Aa, 30Ab and 30Ac in the initial display; the different locations and the sizes of the icons implicitly indicate a plurality of positions that are different in the optical path length of the video light includes a first position and a second position having a longer optical path length of the video light than the optical path length of the video light at the first position; also para. 0069, a configuration in which a mid-air image is formed as a stereoscopic image, and the display positions of a plurality of icons are offset from each other in the Z direction, that is, in the vertical direction, and as such, in a display device having both of these configurations, the optical path length from the display unit to the display positions of the plurality of icons via the retroreflective member will differ depending on the position in the Z direction of the icons; it is also noted that variation in optical length among various image positions on the display device is well known in the art, see SUGINOHARA, US 2017/0227928, para. 0050, a cause of the blurring of the floating image 17 is a deviation of the retroreflection direction in the retroreflective sheet 13. It is difficult for the retroreflective sheet 13 to reflect every ray of the incident light towards the direction of incidence and rays of light having slight angles from the direction of incidence are also caused by the reflection. These rays of light having slight angles from the direction of incidence converge around a reconvergence point to which the optical paths 21 reach, for example, and thereby the blurring of the floating image 17 occurs. This is also related with the length of the optical path through which the light of the display image 11 reconverges as the floating image 17. With increase in the length of the optical path, the reconvergence takes place in a larger region compared with the reconvergence point and the blurring of the floating image 17 increases); and
wherein at a position of the video based on the input video, for a video sharpness/detail processing at a position corresponding to the second position, the video processing circuit uses a video sharpness/detail processing having a video sharpness/detail effect compared to video processing at a position corresponding to the first position (Kuribayashi, para’s 0166-0176 disclose a method for controlling the sense of how far away the user is from an icon by varying the sharpness of the plurality of icons or altering the color and/or the luminance of the icons, and also suggests that the display positions of the icons may be varied in addition to varying in the sharpness, the color or the luminance of the icons. Thus, it would have been obvious for a person skilled in the art to conceive the idea of increasing the sharpness of an icon when the display position of the icon is in the upward direction closer to the user, and decreasing the sharpness of the icon when the display position of the icon is in the downward direction farther away from the user, i.e., performing a different video sharpness/detail processing to a plurality of positions of a video corresponding to positions that are different in the optical length of the video light, so as to thereby obtain a display in which the display position of the icons is highlighted so as to be more easily identified by the user).
Kuribayashi does not explicitly disclose but Takayoshi discloses the video processing circuit uses a video sharpness/detail processing having a stronger video sharpness/detail effect than a video sharpness/detail effect of a filter processing at a position corresponding to the first position (Takayoshi, para’s 0038-0039, the correction processing unit 33 enhances the edges of the image data A by applying a sharpening filter F, such as by performing unsharp masking; enhancing the sharpening effect of sharpening filter F by increasing the coefficient k and/or increasing the size of the filter; the correction processing unit 33 sets the coefficient k and/or filter size of the sharpening filter F according to the intensity determined in step S14, thereby realizing edge enhancement processing according to that intensity; as such, for a second position, a stronger video sharpness/detail processing can be used than a video sharpness/detail effect of a filter processing at a position corresponding to the first position).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Takayoshi’s features into Kuribayashi’s invention for enhancing user’s viewing experience by improving quality of the displayed content using highly effective image sharpening filter for particular positions in the video image.
Response to Amendment
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this section can be found in a prior Office action.
4. Claims 1-2, 4 and 6 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kuribayashi (US Publication US2019/0243527). As applied to claim 1 above, in view of Takayoshi (English Translation of Japanese Publication JP2016-178467 10-2016).
Regarding claim 1, Kuribayashi discloses an air floating video display apparatus for displaying an air floating video, comprising:
a video input interface (Kuribayashi, para’s 0053-0054, fig’s 1 and 2, unit for receiving video/image signal; para’s 0252-0257, fig. 27 illustrates the display device in which a midair image 30 is formed at a position above the image-forming optical system 12 of the display device 1, set apart from the image-forming optical system 12 by a distance H1, and the detection reference 40 is set at a position above the image-forming optical system 12, set apart from the image-forming optical system 12 by a distance H2 (H1<H2), as shown in FIG. 27; as FIG. 27 shows, an installation space for a TOF camera 118′ is formed so as to take up a position corresponding to the centers of a display unit 11 and an image-forming optical element 12, and the TOF camera 118′ is disposed in this installation space);
a video processing circuit processing a video, based on an input video to be input via the video input interface (Kuribayashi, fig’s 1 and 2, control unit, para’s 0139-0141, controlling the sense of how far away the user is from an icon by varying the sharpness of the plurality of icons, and also suggests, see para. 0140, that the display positions of the icons may be varied in addition to varying in the sharpness of the icons);
a video display displaying a video processed by the video processing circuit (Kuribayashi, para’s 0053-0054, fig’s 1 and 2, and para’s 0252-0257, fig. 27 illustrates the display device in which a midair image 30 is formed at a position above the image-forming optical system 12 of the display device 1); and
a retroreflector reflecting video light emitted from the video display to form the air floating video, wherein an optical path length of the video light emitted from a display surface of the video display, starting from when the video light is emitted from the display surface of the video display and then is reflected on the retroreflector to when the video light reaches a position of the air floating video, differs depending on a position on the display surface of the video display from which the video light is emitted, wherein a plurality of positions that are different in the optical path length of the video light includes a first position and a second position having a longer optical path length of the video light than the optical path length of the video light at the first position (Kuribayashi, para’s 0255-0256, a display device that makes use of a retroreflective member; para. 0055, a distance between each position among a plurality of positions of the icons on the display surface of the display unit 11 and the midair image 30 indicated by the dotted line in FIG. 1(c) may be different from each other; para. 0069, a configuration in which a mid-air image is formed as a stereoscopic image, and the display positions of a plurality of icons are offset from each other in the Z direction, that is, in the vertical direction, and as such, in a display device having both of these configurations, the optical path length from the display unit to the display positions of the plurality of icons via the retroreflective member will differ depending on the position in the Z direction of the icons; further, para’s 0128-0132, icons 30A1a, 30A1b and 30A1c are respectively displayed by adjusting the display mode for the icons 30Aa, 30Ab and 30Ac in the initial display; the different locations and the sizes of the icons implicitly indicate a plurality of positions that are different in the optical path length of the video light includes a first position and a second position having a longer optical path length of the video light than the optical path length of the video light at the first position; it is also noted that variation in optical lengths among image positions on the display device is well known in the art, see SUGINOHARA, US 2017/0227928, para. 0050, a cause of the blurring of the floating image 17 is a deviation of the retroreflection direction in the retroreflective sheet 13. It is difficult for the retroreflective sheet 13 to reflect every ray of the incident light towards the direction of incidence and rays of light having slight angles from the direction of incidence are also caused by the reflection. These rays of light having slight angles from the direction of incidence converge around a reconvergence point to which the optical paths 21 reach, for example, and thereby the blurring of the floating image 17 occurs. This is also related with the length of the optical path through which the light of the display image 11 reconverges as the floating image 17. With increase in the length of the optical path, the reconvergence takes place in a larger region compared with the reconvergence point and the blurring of the floating image 17 increases), and
wherein at a position of the video based on the input video, for a video sharpness/detail processing at a position corresponding to the second position, the video processing circuit uses a video sharpness/detail processing having a video sharpness/detail effect compared to video processing at a position corresponding to the first position (Kuribayashi, para’s 0166-0176 disclose a method for controlling the sense of how far away the user is from an icon by varying the sharpness of the plurality of icons or altering the color and/or the luminance of the icons, and also suggests that the display positions of the icons may be varied in addition to varying in the sharpness, the color or the luminance of the icons. Thus, it would have been obvious for a person skilled in the art to conceive the idea of increasing the sharpness of an icon when the display position of the icon is in the upward direction closer to the user, and decreasing the sharpness of the icon when the display position of the icon is in the downward direction farther away from the user, i.e., performing a different video sharpness/detail processing to a plurality of positions of a video corresponding to positions that are different in the optical length of the video light, so as to thereby obtain a display in which the display position of the icons is highlighted so as to be more easily identified by the user).
Kuribayashi does not explicitly disclose but Takayoshi discloses the video processing circuit uses a video sharpness/detail processing having a stronger video sharpness/detail effect than a video sharpness/detail effect of a filter processing at a position corresponding to the first position (Takayoshi, para’s 0038-0039, the correction processing unit 33 enhances the edges of the image data A by applying a sharpening filter F, such as by performing unsharp masking; enhancing the sharpening effect of sharpening filter F by increasing the coefficient k and/or increasing the size of the filter; the correction processing unit 33 sets the coefficient k and/or filter size of the sharpening filter F according to the intensity determined in step S14, thereby realizing edge enhancement processing according to that intensity; as such, for a second position, a stronger video sharpness/detail processing can be used than a video sharpness/detail effect of a filter processing at a position corresponding to the first position).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Takayoshi’s features into Kuribayashi’s invention for enhancing user’s viewing experience by improving quality of the displayed content using highly effective image sharpening filter for particular positions in the video image.
Regarding claim 2, Kuribayashi-Takayoshi discloses the air floating video display apparatus according to the air floating video display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a video display region of the display surface of the video display has a rectangular shape, the video display and the retroreflector are arranged so that the optical path length of the video light at a position on the display surface of the video display is inclined in a first direction that is a direction along one side of the rectangular shape, and the video processing circuit makes the video sharpness/detail processing different to be stepwise so that an effect of the video sharpness/detail processing at a position in the video based on the input video is inclined in a direction corresponding to the first direction on the display surface of the video display (Kuribayashi, fig. 1, para’s 0051-0054, displays a rectangular surface of the display device 11; as light is emitted from the surface of the display, the optical path of each position will differ from the optical path of another position along an edge of the surface; as such an effect of sharpness will gradually change along the edge of the surface).
Regarding claim 4, Kuribayashi-Takayoshi discloses the air floating video display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of positions that are different in the optical path length of the video light includes a first position and a second position having a longer optical path length of the video light than the optical path length of the video light at the first position (Kuribayashi, para. 0055, a distance between each position among a plurality of positions of the icons on the display surface of the display unit 11 and the midair image 30 indicated by the dotted line in FIG. 1(c) may be different from each other; para. 0069, the different optical path lengths of video light emitted from different locations of the display device indicates the optical path from a second position is longer than the optical length from a first position; para’s 0166-0174, varying the sharpness of the plurality of icons or altering the color and/or the luminance of the icons corresponding to how far the user is from the icons; the display positions of the icons may be varied in addition to varying in the sharpness, the color or the luminance of the icons; controlling the sense of how far away the user is from an icon by varying the sharpness of the plurality of icons or altering the color and/or the luminance of the icons, and suggesting that the display positions of the icons may be varied),
wherein the video sharpness/detail processing performed by the video processing circuit is a video sharpness/detail processing using a sharpness/detail filter, and the different video sharpness/detail processing is a video sharpness/detail processing using a different weighting coefficient of the sharpness/detail filter (Takayoshi, para’s 0038-0039, the correction processing unit 33 enhances the edges of the image data A by applying a sharpening filter F, such as by performing unsharp masking; enhancing the sharpening effect of sharpening filter F by increasing the coefficient k and/or increasing the size of the filter; the correction processing unit 33 sets the coefficient k and/or filter size of the sharpening filter F according to the intensity determined in step S14, thereby realizing edge enhancement processing according to that intensity; as such, for a second position, a stronger video sharpness/detail processing can be used than a video sharpness/detail effect of a filter processing at a position corresponding to the first position).
The obviousness arguments and motivation for combining the references are the same as claim 1.
Regarding claim 6, Kuribayashi-Takayoshi discloses the air floating video display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the video sharpness/detail processing performed by the video processing circuit is a video sharpness/detail processing using a sharpness/detail filter, and the different video sharpness/detail processing is a video sharpness/detail processing using a different filter size of the sharpness/detail filter (Takayoshi, para’s 0038-0039, the correction processing unit 33 enhances the edges of the image data A by applying a sharpening filter F, such as by performing unsharp masking; enhancing the sharpening effect of sharpening filter F by increasing the coefficient k and/or increasing the size of the filter; the correction processing unit 33 sets the coefficient k and/or filter size of the sharpening filter F according to the intensity determined in step S14, thereby realizing edge enhancement processing according to that intensity).
The obviousness arguments and motivation for combining the references are the same as claim 1.
5. Claims 5 and 7-9 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kuribayashi-Takayoshi, as applied to claims 4 and 6 above, in view of Zhao et al. (US Publication 2021/0021822).
Regarding claim 5, Kuribayashi-Takayoshi discloses the air floating video display apparatus according to claim 4.
Kuribayashi-Takayoshi does not explicitly disclose but Zhao discloses wherein the sharpness/detail filter is a sharpness/detail filter based on a moving average filter or a sharpness/detail filter based on a Gaussian filter (Zhao, para. 0014, a bilateral filter is a non-linear, edge-preserving, and noise-reducing smoothing filter for images. It replaces the intensity of each pixel with a weighted average of intensity values from nearby pixels. This weight can be based on a Gaussian distribution. The weights depend on Euclidean distances of pixels, and also on the radiometric differences, e.g., range differences, such as color intensity, depth distance, etc.; bilateral filters help preserves sharp edges).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Zhao’s features into Kuribayashi-Takayoshi’s invention for enhancing user’s viewing experience by improving quality of the displayed content using well-known image sharpening filter.
Regarding claim 7, Kuribayashi-Takayoshi discloses the air floating video display apparatus according to claim 6.
Kuribayashi-Takayoshi does not explicitly disclose but Zhao discloses wherein the sharpness/detail filter is a sharpness/detail filter based on a moving average filter or a sharpness/detail filter based on a Gaussian filter (Zhao, para. 0014, a bilateral filter is a non-linear, edge-preserving, and noise-reducing smoothing filter for images. It replaces the intensity of each pixel with a weighted average of intensity values from nearby pixels. This weight can be based on a Gaussian distribution. The weights depend on Euclidean distances of pixels, and also on the radiometric differences (e.g., range differences, such as color intensity, depth distance, etc.). Bilateral filters help preserves sharp edges).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Zhao’s features into Kuribayashi-Takayoshi’s invention for enhancing user’s viewing experience by improving quality of the displayed content using well-known image sharpening filter.
Regarding claims 8-9, Kuribayashi-Takayoshi discloses the air floating video display apparatus according to claim 1.
Kuribayashi does not explicitly disclose but Zhao discloses:
wherein the different video sharpness/detail processing performed by the video processing circuit is a video sharpness/detail processing using a different type of the sharpness/detail filter (Zhao, para. 0032, as further shown in FIG. 1, process 100 may include applying a first type of interpolation filter to reference samples included in a first reference line, of the set of reference lines, that is adjacent to the coding unit to generate a first set of prediction samples based on the first reference line being associated with a first reference line index (block 120); and applying a second type of interpolation filter to reference samples included in a second reference line, of the set of reference lines, that is non-adjacent to the coding unit to generate a second set of prediction samples based on the second reference line being associated with a second reference line index (block 130)); and
wherein the video sharpness/detail processing performed by the video processing circuit is a video sharpness/detail processing using a sharpness/detail filter, and the different video sharpness/detail processing is a video sharpness/detail processing using a type of the sharpness/detail filter different between a sharpness/detail filter based on a moving average filter and a sharpness/detail filter based on a Gaussian filter (Zhao, para. 0014, a bilateral filter is a non-linear, edge-preserving, and noise-reducing smoothing filter for images. It replaces the intensity of each pixel with a weighted average of intensity values from nearby pixels. This weight can be based on a Gaussian distribution. The weights depend on Euclidean distances of pixels, and also on the radiometric differences (e.g., range differences, such as color intensity, depth distance, etc.; bilateral filters help preserves sharp edges).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Zhao’s features into Kuribayashi-Takayoshi’s invention for enhancing user’s viewing experience by improving quality of the displayed content using variety of filters including well-known Gaussian image sharpening filter.
6. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure, including:
Suginohara, US Publication 2017/0227928
Conclusion
7. THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LOI H TRAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5645. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00AM-5:00PM PST FIRST FRIDAY OF BIWEEK OFF.
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/LOI H TRAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2484
Prosecution Insights