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 1-4 and 6-9 have been considered but are moot in view of new grounds of rejection.
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, 3-4, 6, and 8-9 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sakai et al. (US Publication 2023/0317309) in view of Sasaki et al. (English Translation of the Japanese Publication JP2023124051 08-2023) and further in view of Li et al. (English Translation of the Chinese Publication CN113238470 08-2021).
Regarding claim 1, Sakai discloses a hologram generation method for generating a hologram to be presented on an input plane in order to form a target intensity image on an output plane by optically propagating a complex amplitude distribution of light on the input plane (Sakai, fig’s 1-4, para. 0011, light beam generation method), the method comprising:
performing a pattern setting of setting a candidate pattern to be a candidate of the hologram (Sakai, fig’s 1-4, para’s 0042-0044, the optical stimulation application apparatus 1 includes a control unit 10, a light source 11, a beam expander 12, a spatial light modulator 15, and a lens 16. The light source 11 outputs light. The beam expander 12 is optically coupled to the light source 11, and outputs the light output from the light source 11 after enlarging a beam diameter. The spatial light modulator 15 is of a phase modulation type, and has a settable modulation distribution of a phase. The spatial light modulator 15 is optically coupled to the beam expander 12, inputs the light which is output from the light source 11 and has a beam diameter expanded by the beam expander 12, spatially modulates the input light according to the modulation distribution, and outputs the modulated light. The lens 16 inputs the light output from the spatial light modulator 15, and causes the light to enter the inside of the chamber 2 through the second window 22. The lens 16 is a reproducing optical system which reproduces an optical stimulation pattern in the inside of the chamber 2 by the light incident into the inside of the chamber 2. The control unit 10 may set a computer-generated hologram obtained based on a two-dimensional pseudo random number pattern (preferably further based on a correlation function) as the modulation distribution of the spatial light modulator 15);
performing an intensity image calculation on a complex amplitude distribution acquired when the candidate pattern is presented on the input plane (Sakai, para’s 0044-0045, the set computer generated hologram is obtained based on a two-dimensional pseudo random number pattern (preferably further based on a correlation function) as the modulation distribution of the spatial light modulator 15; the photodetector 5 may detect an intensity of the light received from the light source 11 via the spatial light modulator 15 and the mirror 51, or may detect a spectrum (for example, a fluorescence spectrum or an absorption spectrum) of the received light. Further, the photodetector 5 may be a CCD camera capable of detecting two-dimensional images; para. 0063, the spatial light modulator 44 inputs the light output from the light source 41, spatially modulates the input light according to a modulation distribution, and outputs the modulated light. The spatial light modulator 44 spatially phase-modulates or amplitude-modulates the light input to a modulation plane on which a plurality of pixels are arranged two-dimensionally, and outputs the modulated light. The modulation distribution of a phase or an amplitude on the modulation plane is settable).
Sakai does not explicitly disclose:
obtaining, by calculation, a complex amplitude distribution acquired by laser light illumination when the candidate pattern is presented on the input plane, performing zero padding of adding pixels having a pixel value of 0 in a region around the complex amplitude distribution, and generating a candidate intensity image based on a result of a propagation calculation of the complex amplitude distribution after the zero padding; and
performing an evaluation value calculation of obtaining an evaluation value based on an intensity correlation between the candidate intensity image and the target intensity image, wherein by using an optimization method, while changing the candidate pattern set in the pattern setting, respective processes of the pattern setting, the intensity image calculation, and the evaluation value calculation are repeatedly performed, and any one candidate pattern is selected as a hologram to be presented on the input plane based on the evaluation value obtained in the evaluation value calculation.
Sasaki discloses:
obtaining, by calculation, a complex amplitude distribution acquired by laser light illumination when the candidate pattern is presented on the input plane, performing zero padding of adding pixels having a pixel value of 0 in a region around the complex amplitude distribution, and generating a candidate intensity image based on a result of a propagation calculation of the complex amplitude distribution after the zero padding (Sasaki, para. 0016, obtaining, by extracting, a complex amplitude distribution from the digital hologram information; after that, performing, on the extracted complex amplitude distribution information, using either the nearest neighbor or zero padding data interpolation method; diffusing the noise components into the high-frequency region using propagation calculation or Fourier transform; removing the noise present in the high-frequency region; removing the noise components by performing backpropagation calculation or inverse Fourier transform).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine or incorporate Sasaki’s features with or into Sakai’s invention to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim. The motivation would have been to provide high quality hologram images.
Sakai-Sasaki does not explicitly disclose but Li discloses performing an evaluation value calculation of obtaining an evaluation value based on an intensity correlation between the candidate intensity image and the target intensity image, wherein by using an optimization method, while changing the candidate pattern set in the pattern setting, respective processes of the pattern setting, the intensity image calculation, and the evaluation value calculation are repeatedly performed, and any one candidate pattern is selected as a hologram to be presented on the input plane based on the evaluation value obtained in the evaluation value calculation (Li, para’s 0036-0039, after multiplying the hologram with the multiplexed code of the corresponding channel, a Fourier transform is performed to obtain the reconstructed complex amplitude information of the current iteration. The difference between the reconstructed intensity (amplitude squared) in each channel and the target image was compared. If the difference is less than the threshold, the phase distribution of the hologram is output; otherwise, the amplitude of each channel is limited according to the Fidic algorithm (equation 2), which is an iterative optimization technique used in computer-generated holography (CGH) to calculate high-quality, phase-only holograms as known in the art, and the phase is preserved to obtain the new complex amplitude distribution of each channel, which is then introduced into the next iteration until the difference meets the requirements. Finally, the encoding process yields two sets of phase distribution information for the computed hologram and where A represents the target image amplitude, represents the amplitude calculated in the (k+1)th round, represents the amplitude obtained from the reconstruction in the kth round, and α and β are adjustable optimization coefficients).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine or incorporate Li’s features with or into Sakai-Sasaki’s invention to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim. The motivation would have been to provide high quality hologram images.
Regarding claim 3, Sakai-Sasaki-Li discloses the hologram generation method according to Claim 1, wherein the target intensity image is an image including one or a plurality of focusing regions on the output plane (Sakai, fig. 7, para. 0019 and 0059, focusing spots).
Claim 4 is rejected for the same reasons as claim 1; Sakai-Sasaki-Li further discloses software program and memory medium for storing the software program (see Li, para. 0014).
Claims 6 and 8-9 are rejected for the same reasons as claims 1 and 3; Sakai-Sasaki-Li further discloses apparatuses for generating hologram, irradiating light, and distributing laser light (see Sakai, para’s 0010-0011, light beam generation apparatus; para. 0060, a laser light source), a spatial light modulator having a modulation plane (Sakai, fig’s 1-4, para’s 0042-0044, the optical stimulation application apparatus 1 includes a control unit 10, a light source 11, a beam expander 12, a spatial light modulator 15, and a lens 16. The light source 11 outputs light. The beam expander 12 is optically coupled to the light source 11, and outputs the light output from the light source 11 after enlarging a beam diameter. The spatial light modulator 15 is of a phase modulation type, and has a settable modulation distribution of a phase. The spatial light modulator 15 is optically coupled to the beam expander 12, inputs the light which is output from the light source 11 and has a beam diameter expanded by the beam expander 12, spatially modulates the input light according to the modulation distribution, and outputs the modulated light. The lens 16 inputs the light output from the spatial light modulator 15, and causes the light to enter the inside of the chamber 2 through the second window 22. The lens 16 is a reproducing optical system which reproduces an optical stimulation pattern in the inside of the chamber 2 by the light incident into the inside of the chamber 2. The control unit 10 may set a computer-generated hologram obtained based on a two-dimensional pseudo random number pattern (preferably further based on a correlation function) as the modulation distribution of the spatial light modulator 15; Sasaki, para’s 0023-0029, spatial light modulator).
5. Claims 2 and 7 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sakai-Sasaki-Li, as applied to claims 1 and 6 above, in view of Nam (US Publication 2020/0319593).
Regarding claim 2, Sakai-Sasaki-Li discloses the hologram generation method according to Claim 1.
Sakai-Sasaki-Li does not explicitly disclose but Nam discloses wherein in the pattern setting, a distortion added pattern is generated by adding a distortion pattern to the candidate pattern, in the intensity image calculation, the zero padding is performed on a complex amplitude distribution acquired when the distortion added pattern is presented on the input plane, and a distortion added intensity image is generated based on a result of a propagation calculation of the complex amplitude distribution after the zero padding, and in the evaluation value calculation, the evaluation value is obtained based on the intensity correlation between the candidate intensity image and the target intensity image and an intensity correlation between the distortion added intensity image and the target intensity image (Nam, para. 0090, FIG. 8B is an amplitude hologram measurement pattern in which the random phase is inserted into the measurement pattern data and the CGH generation is performed. In the amplitude hologram measurement pattern, significant noises are included in hologram intensity under the influence of the inserted random phase. FIG. 8C shows the result of the numerical reconstruction of the amplitude hologram measurement pattern of FIG. 8B. That is, based on Equation 6, the holographic measurement pattern showing the numerical result most similar to the original has been finally determined).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine or incorporate Nam’s features with or into Sakai-Sasaki-Li’s invention to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim. The motivation would have been to provide high quality hologram images.
Claim 7 is rejected for the same reasons as claim 2.
Conclusion
6. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
7. 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
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