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 1-3 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (US 2018/0286345).
With respect to Claim 1, Lee teaches an information processing apparatus comprising:
a memory configured to temporarily store a program of an operating system (OS) and a program executed on the OS;
a first processor configured to execute processing based on the programs stored in the memory (Lee: Para. [0019], computing device 100 including CPU 102 and memory device 104 storing executable instructions and software);
a second processor configured to perform image processing on a display image displayed on a display unit based on the processing by the first processor and to output display data after the image processing in frame order (Lee: Para. [0020], GPU 108 rendering graphics frames); and
a third processor configured to detect, based on display data of a plurality of frames output from the second processor, a fluctuation amount between the frames of the display data displayed on the display unit and to control a refresh rate of the display unit in response to an instruction from the first processor (Lee: Para. [0031], [0036], [0046], a timing controller (TCON) 216 managing panel self-refresh 2 (PSR2). When under PSR2, the TCON frame buffer enables updates to selected regions of the frame. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art that to execute this disclosed selective update, the TCON logic must detect and map the boundary of the fluctuating/changed data packet received from the GPU),
wherein the first processor instructs the third processor on the refresh rate of the display unit based on an event occurring on the OS and the fluctuation amount detected by the third processor (Lee: Para. [0029], [0046], [0047], a CPU source controller determines when an image is static or undergoing partial updates, and writes a DPCD value instructing the TCON/display to transition to a low refresh rate (LRR)).
Method claim (8) is drawn to the method of using the corresponding apparatus claimed in claim (1). Therefore, method claim (1) correspond to apparatus claim (1) and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
With respect to Claim 2, Lee teaches the information processing apparatus according to claim 1,
wherein the event occurring on the OS is a user interface (UI) event including a movement of a cursor displayed on the display unit or a movement and a change of a window, and
when the event occurs on the OS, the first processor instructs the third processor on a high refresh rate as compared to when the event does not occur (Lee: Para. [0046], tracking when just a portion of the image changes, such as a flashing cursor to trigger a PSR2 partial frame update and dictate the refresh state).
With respect to Claim 3, Lee teaches the information processing apparatus according to claim 1,
wherein the first processor instructs the third processor on a lower refresh rate as the fluctuation amount detected by the third processor is smaller (Lee: Para. [0013], [0046], [0047], dynamic refresh rates adapt to the display screen pattern, and when the screen is determined to be static (a small fluctuation amount), the system drops from 60Hz to a low refresh rate (LRR) target, such as 40Hz, to save battery resources).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-7 are 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.
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
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