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 1-5 allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With respect to claim 1, US 20200288058 A1 to Ohno et al. is considered the closest prior art of record, but Ohno et al. and/or other prior art made of record fails to disclose wherein “the controller separates the image formed by the first light and the image formed by the second light on a basis that a movement direction of an arbitrary subject image in the superimposed image is different in the image formed by the first light and the image formed by the second light.” Therefore, the prior art of record, as a single reference, or as a combination, does not teach all the limitations of claim 1. Thus, claims 1-5 are found to be novel and unobvious over prior art of record.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 6 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20200288058 A1 to Ohno et al. (hereinafter “Ohno”).
Consider claim 6, Ohno discloses an imaging device (Fig. 1) comprising:
an optical system configured to form an image of incident first light on a predetermined light receiving area of an imaging element (Par. [0078]-[0082] and Fig. 5: disclosing an optical apparatus 22; Par. [0089]: disclosing polarization components of different polarization angles imaged on the polarization area sensor 54), and
a controller configured to separate an image formed by the first light and an image formed by second light from an image signal of a superimposed image captured by superimposing the image of the second light for which an angle between an optical axis of the optical system and a principal ray of the second light incident on the optical system is different from that of the first light (Par. [0101] and Fig. 6: “The right diagram in FIG. 6 is an image (referred to as a reconstructed image) showing the intensity data S.sub.1, S.sub.2, and S.sub.3 of light beams for the respective visual fields V1, V2, and V3 obtained by converting the acquired data acquired by the polarization area sensor 54 by using Equation (4). The right diagram in FIG. 6 show reconstructed images for polarization angles of 0°, 45°, and 90° arranged in this order from the top. It shows that, in the reconstructed image, particularly for the polarization angle of 45°, in the right diagram in FIG. 6, the polarization component of the polarization angle of 0° and the polarization component of the polarization angle of 90° are removed.”),
wherein a movement direction of an arbitrary subject image in the superimposed image is different in the image formed by the first light and the image formed by the second light (Par. [0066]-[0070]: “The wide-field imaging apparatus 12 or the optical apparatus 22 is used by being attached to the body 82a of the moving body 82, such as an automobile … an image can be obtained by the camera 44 from predetermined polarization components in the front direction of the moving body 82 in the first visual field V1, in the right side direction of the moving body 82 in the second visual field V2, and in the left side direction of the moving body 82 in the third visual field V3”. Note, in the vehicle example, a pedestrian or the like could be the moving object with a direction in the superimposed image being different in the image formed by the first light and the image formed by the second light in accordance with the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim).
Conclusion
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STEPHEN R. SMITH
Examiner
Art Unit 2484
/THAI Q TRAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2484
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