Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Nov 3, 2020

15368398 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Nov. 3, 2020)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
15/368,398 12/02/2016 Steven M. CHAPMAN 16-DIS-318-
STUDIO-US-UTL
3164
63658 7590 11/03/2020
Disney Enterprises, Inc.
c/o Dorsey & Whitney LLP
1400 Wewatta Street
Suite 400
Denver, CO 80202-5549
EXAMINER
GE, JIN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2616
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/03/2020 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
Docketing-DV@dorsey.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte STEVEN M. CHAPMAN and JOSEPH POPP
____________________

Appeal 2019-004487
Application 15/368,398
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before MARC S. HOFF, JOHN A. EVANS, and
JULIET MITCHELL DIRBA, Administrative Patent Judges.

DIRBA, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 seeks review of the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 This Decision uses the following abbreviations: “Spec.” for the original
Specification, filed December 2, 2016; “Final Act.” for the Final Office
Action, mailed July 9, 2018; “Appeal Br.” for Appellant’s Appeal Brief,
filed October 2, 2018; and “Ans.” for Examiner’s Answer, mailed
November 23, 2018. Appellant elected not to file a Reply Brief.
2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Disney
Enterprises, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.
Appeal Br. 1.
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BACKGROUND
Appellant’s disclosed embodiments and claimed invention relate to
augmented reality (AR) technology. Spec. ¶¶ 1–2. In particular, the
disclosed embodiments and claimed invention relate to capturing a visual
scene using an augmented reality device and augmenting that scene with an
augmented reality view frustum representative of a view frustum of a
physical camera. Id. ¶¶ 3–5; Abstract.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
capturing a visual scene with an augmented reality
device;
augmenting the visual scene with an augmented view
frustum associated with a physical camera, wherein the
augmented reality view frustum is smaller than a field of view
of a user of the augmented reality device;
tracking at least one of movement and positioning of the
physical camera; and
at least one of moving and positioning the augmented
reality view frustum in a manner commensurate with the at least
one of the movement and positioning of the physical camera.
Appeal Br. 19 (Claims App.) (emphasis added).
REJECTIONS
R1. Claims 1, 2, 5–11, 15–18, and 20 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over West (US 2017/0068323 A1, published
March 9, 2017) and Rochford (US 2017/0139474 A1, published May 18,
2017). Final Act. 7–21.
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R2. Claims 3, 4, 12–14, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as obvious over West, Rochford, and Kurz (US 2016/0307374 A1,
published October 20, 2016). Final Act. 21–26.
ANALYSIS
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant and in light of the arguments and evidence produced
thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).
Obviousness Rejection R1 of Claims 1, 2, 5–11, 15–18, and 20
Claims 1, 2, 5–11, 15–18, and 20 stand rejected as obvious over West
and Rochford. Final Act. 7–21. Appellant argues these claims as a group,
using independent claim 1 as the representative claim. See Appeal Br. 6–17.
Independent Claim 1
Claim 1 recites “augmenting the visual scene with an augmented
[reality] view frustum associated with a physical camera.” Appeal Br. 19
(Claims App.) (referred to herein as the “augmenting limitation”).3
In the Final Office Action, the Examiner found that West teaches the
augmenting limitation. Final Act. 16 (citing West, Fig. 2, Abstract, ¶¶ 28,
32, 35–37, 39–43). We understand the Examiner to have mapped West’s

3 Claim 1 includes an antecedent basis mistake. After first reciting “an
augmented view frustum,” the claim includes two references to “the
augmented reality view frustum” without further mention of another view
frustum. Appeal Br. 19 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). We conclude that
the references to “the augmented reality view frustum” clearly refer back to
the recitation of “an augmented view frustum.” As a result, we have added
the term “reality” to the first recitation of this term in this Decision.
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mini-board to the claimed “augmented [reality] view frustum” and West’s
mini-board camera to the claimed “physical camera.” See id.
Appellant submits that these findings are in error. First, Appellant
argues that West fails to teach the claimed “augmented [reality] view
frustum,” contending that West’s mini-board “is not a frustum.” Appeal
Br. 8–9. Appellant submits that “‘frustum’ is a term of art that refers to the
portion of a solid, most often a cone/pyramid, that lies between one or two
parallel planes cutting it.” Id. at 8. According to Appellant, “[t]he mini-
board is merely a re-rendered representation of the entire AR/VR
environment or some portion thereof,” and West’s reference to “the view
frustum of the mini-board camera” (in paragraph 43) “does not suggest or
teach an AR view frustum that is presented to a user, i.e., used to augment an
AR device-captured visual scene,” as required by the claim. Id. at 9.
Second, Appellant contends that West fails to teach the “physical camera”
required by the augmenting limitation. Id. at 9–11. According to Appellant,
West’s viewer camera and mini-board camera are “virtualized cameras
meant to provide a simulated view [of the virtual environment] to the user.”
Id. at 10–11.
In the Answer, the Examiner responds that West “teach[es] an AR
view frustum is actually presented to a user” and “teach[es] field of view
using a physical camera.” Ans. 3, 5. In support, the Examiner quotes
passages of West describing: (1) a camera device that captures real world
video, and (2) the main viewer and mini-board cameras that provide the
primary and miniaturized views, respectively, of the virtual environment,
potentially from different perspectives. Id. at 3–4 (quoting West ¶¶ 38, 42–
43); see also id. at 5–6 (same). The Examiner further states:
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[These passages] disclose cameras could provide different
perspective view for AR scenes (not only VR [(virtual reality)],
but also AR (for rendering AR scene, the cameras should be
real to combine virtual object with captured image to generate
AR scene) . . . [Another passage of West describes] providing
VR and AR content in a HMD device and mini board module
using cameras (provide a camera view (same means tor
Frustum)) . . . .
Ans. 4 (emphases added); see also id. at 5. The Examiner also cites over a
dozen other paragraphs of West, stating only that they “disclose frustum,
camera view, point view, field of view of AR and VR.” Id. at 4.
We are persuaded of error because the Examiner has not adequately
explained (and it is unclear from our review) how West teaches or suggests
the augmenting limitation recited in claim 1—i.e., “augmenting the visual
scene with an augmented [reality] view frustum associated with a physical
camera.”
West displays both a virtual environment and a miniature
representation of the virtual environment (i.e., a mini-board). West ¶ 41.
West’s mini-board may provide a different perspective view than that
provided for the virtual environment (e.g., zoomed in, zoomed out, panned,
or cropped), and West describes these views as being provided by a main
viewer camera and a mini-board camera. Id. ¶ 42. West states that the mini-
board may show objects that are not displayed to a user in the main virtual
environment. Id. ¶ 43 (explaining that mini-board may draw objects
“outside of the frustum view of the camera”); see, e.g., id. at Fig. 3B, ¶¶ 39–
41 (mini-board shows entire tree 332, where first person perspective shows
only a portion of tree 312).
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We are persuaded of error in the Examiner’s finding that West’s mini-
board discloses the claimed “an augmented [reality] view frustum.” In
support of the finding, the Examiner quotes from West, but does not explain
why the quoted language discloses this limitation. Final Act. 16; see Ans.
3–4. In the Appeal Brief, Appellant argues that West’s “mini-board is not a
frustum” and, in support, explains that the term “‘frustum’ is a term of art
that refers to the portion of a solid, most often a cone/pyramid, that lies
between one or two parallel planes cutting it.” Appeal Br. 8–9. The
Examiner fails to directly respond to these arguments (see generally Ans. 3–
7), and Appellant’s arguments are consistent with the Specification’s
description of the term “frustum” (e.g., Spec ¶ 13) and with the disclosed
embodiments (see id. at Fig. 3B (showing AR view frustum 330 as an object
in the displayed image)). Accordingly, we are persuaded that the claimed
“augmented [reality] view frustum” is a representation of a camera’s field of
view (e.g., a polygon)—not a reproduction of the camera’s view itself (e.g.,
images or video). See Appeal Br. 9 (“West simply mentions that there is a
frustum view associated with a mini-board camera, not that an AR view
frustum is actually presented to a user.”); see also Spec. ¶¶ 13, 16, 20, 25,
Fig. 3B (item 330). West’s mini-board is a reproduction of the view of the
virtual environment provided by the mini-board camera, not a representation
of the camera’s field of view. Accordingly, the finding that West’s mini-
board teaches the claimed “augmented [reality] view frustum” is in error.
In addition, we are also persuaded of error in the Examiner’s finding
that West’s mini-board camera teaches the claimed “physical camera.” West
describes one or more physical cameras “configured to capture real-world
digital video around [a] user” for the creation of a virtual environment.
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West ¶ 32 (emphasis added). But the “mini-board camera” instead
“provides [a] view of the virtual environment” itself. Id. ¶ 42 (emphasis
added). According to the Examiner, “the camera[] should be real to
combine virtual object with captured image to generate AR scene” (Ans. 4);
however, this is not consistent with West, which derives the mini-board from
the larger virtual environment that has already been created (e.g., West
¶¶ 41–42; see also id. ¶ 44). Because West’s description indicates that the
mini-board camera is a virtual camera, not a physical one, the finding that
West’s mini-board camera teaches the claimed “physical camera” is in error.
Therefore, based upon the findings above, on this record, we are
persuaded of error in the Examiner’s reliance on the cited prior art
combination to teach or suggest the augmenting limitation of claim 1.4 As a
result, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
independent claim 1.
Independent Claim 10
Claim 10 recites an “augmented reality experience comprising the
captured visual scene and an augmented reality view frustum representative
of a view frustum of the physical camera.” Appeal Br. 20 (Claims App.)
(emphases added). This recited limitation of claim 10 includes the same
claimed features discussed above with respect to claim 1.

4 Because this determination resolves the § 103 rejection for all pending
claims, we need not address Appellant’s other arguments regarding
Examiner error. See, e.g., Beloit Corp. v. Valmet Oy, 742 F.2d 1421, 1423
(Fed. Cir. 1984) (explaining that an administrative agency may render a
decision based on “a single dispositive issue”).
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Accordingly, for the reasons explained above, we are persuaded of
error in the Examiner’s reliance on the cited prior art combination to teach or
suggest this limitation, and we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of independent claim 10.
Independent Claim 15
Claim 15 recites “the augmented reality experience comprising the
visual scene captured by the first camera and an augmented reality view
frustum representative of a view frustum of the second camera.” Appeal Br.
21 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). Although this limitation does not
require a physical camera, it requires the claimed “augmented reality view
frustum” discussed above with respect to claim 1.
Accordingly, for the reasons explained above with respect to that
limitation, we are persuaded of error in the Examiner’s reliance on the cited
prior art combination to teach or suggest this limitation, and we do not
sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 15.
Dependent Claims 2, 5–9, 11, 16–18, and 20
In light of our reversal of the rejections of independent claims 1, 10,
and 15, supra, we also reverse the obviousness rejections of dependent
claims 2, 5–9, 11, 16–18, and 20, as each of these claims depend (directly or
indirectly) from claims 1, 10, or 15.
Obviousness Rejection R2 of Claims 3, 4, 12–14, and 19
The Examiner rejects claims 3, 4, 12–14, and 19 as obvious over a
combination of West, Rochford, and Kurz. Final Act. 21–26. Each of these
claims depend (directly or indirectly) from independent claim 1, 10, or 15.
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On this record, the Examiner has not shown how the additionally cited
reference (Kurz) overcomes the deficiencies identified above with respect to
the West-Rochford combination.
Accordingly, in light of our reversal of the rejections of independent
claims 1, 10, and 15, we also reverse the obviousness rejection of dependent
claims 3, 4, 12–14, and 19.
CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 5–
11, 15–
18, 20
103 West, Rochford 1, 2, 5–
11, 15–
18, 20
3, 4, 12–
14, 19
103 West, Rochford, Kurz 3, 4, 12–
14, 19
Overall
Outcome
1–20
REVERSED