Ex Parte Venkitaraman et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 1, 2017

13723176 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 1, 2017)

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.
13/723,176 12/20/2012 Narayanan Venkitaraman CS40330 1021
43471 7590 03/03/2017
ARRTS2 F.ntp.mrisp.s T ! C
EXAMINER
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GENERAL INSTRUMENT CORPORATION
Appeal 2016-006053
Application 13/723,176
Technology Center 2600
Before JEREMY J. CURCURI, GREGG I. ANDERSON, and
KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judges.
ANDERSON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1—24.1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We
reverse.
1 In this Opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed October 19,
2015), the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed May 25, 2016), the Final Office
Action (“Final Act.,” mailed May 22, 2015), and the Examiner’s Answer
(“Ans.,” mailed Mar. 25, 2016), and the original Specification (“Spec.,” filed
Dec. 20, 2012).
Appeal 2016-006053
Application 13/723,176
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
A. The Invention
Appellants’ invention relates to augmented reality (AR), a
“combination of a captured real-world environment with computer­
generated data, thus creating an ‘augmented’ view of the captured real-world
environment.” Spec. 11. An example of AR is “in a football game, the
broadcaster may overlay an image of a line that represents the first down on
a view of the football field.” Id. “As another example, video capture of an
object using a mobile device camera may provide more information about
the object overlaid on the video.” Id.
The AR system receives a media stream at a receiving device. Spec.
115. The media stream may be a live media feed or pre-recorded media. Id.
The receiving device may be a television, a monitor on a computer system,
or a display on a hand held device. Id. The AR system may communicate
with a companion device, like a smartphone or tablet. Id. at 116. The
companion device includes a video capture unit and a display unit. Id. The
video capture unit captures the neighborhood (e.g., a user’s surroundings)
and generates a captured media stream. Id. The captured media stream is
sent to the display unit and presented to the user as displayed scenes of the
user’s neighborhood. Id.
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Figure 4 of the application is reproduced below.
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FIG. 4
Figure 4 is a workflow of the AR system. Spec. 126. At block 402 first
context information is accessed “based on the content of the delivered media
stream 104 that is delivered to the receiving device 122.” Id.
The first context information may specify the activity that is
occurring in the delivered media stream 104 (e.g., a battle
scene, a baseball game, etc.), objects that are identified in the
delivered media stream (e.g., characters and weaponry in the
battle scene, players in the baseball game, etc.), events that are
taking place, and so on.
Id. At block 404, the AR system accesses second context information based
on the content of captured media stream captured by the companion device
in the form of video of the user’s neighborhood. Id. at 133.
At block 406, the AR system identifies one or more virtual objects to
be presented on the companion device, which may be “images, a sequence
of images, animations, and so on.” Spec. 137. At block 408, the AR
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Application 13/723,176
system determines a set of transformational information (transforms) for
each of the identified virtual objects. Spec. 142. The transforms specify
spatial information for the virtual objects with respect to the captured media
stream received from the companion device. Id. At block 410, the AR
system determines “one or more points in time (times) in the media captured
by the companion device 142 at which to introduce the identified virtual
objects 234.” Id. at 146. “At block 412, the AR system 100 may provide
object metadata to the companion device 142, for example, as information
114.” Id. at 149. “At block 414, the companion device 142 may render the
virtual object on its display unit 146 to create an augmented reality
experience for the user.” Id. at 151.
B. The Claims
Independent claims 1,16, and 24 are respectively a method claim, a
computer device claim, and a computer medium claim. Claims 2—15 depend
directly or indirectly from claim 1 and claims 17—23 depend directly or
indirectly from claim 16. Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A computer-implemented method for augmented reality
comprising a computer performing:
accessing first context information that is based on
content in a delivered media stream that is being delivered to a
receiving device;
accessing second context information that is based on
content in a captured media stream representative of a
neighborhood of a user device;
determining a first virtual object using at least the first
context information, wherein the first virtual object is based on
the content in the delivered media stream;
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Application 13/723,176
determining, using at least the second context
information, and based at least on the content in the captured
media stream, transformational information comprising at least
one transformation to be performed on the first virtual object;
and
providing, to the user device, information representative
of the first virtual object as transformed using the
transformational information, wherein a field of view of the
neighborhood seen using the user device is augmented with one
or more images of the first virtual object by rendering the one
or more images of the first virtual object using the information
representative of the first virtual object as transformed using the
transformational information.
C. The Rejection
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1—24 under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Soon-Shiong, U.S. Patent Publication
2012/0256954 Al, published Oct. 11, 2012 (hereinafter “Soon-Shiong”) and
Osterhout et al., U.S. Patent Publication 2014/0063055 Al, published Mar. 6,
2014 (hereinafter “Osterhout”). Ans. 2.
D. Issue
Appellants’ arguments present the following issue, which is
dispositive of this appeal:
Has the Examiner erred in finding Soon-Shiong teaches a first context
information and a second context information that are distinguished from
one another, as recited in claim 1?
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Application 13/723,176
ANALYSIS
A. The Rejection as it Relates to First and Second Context
Information
The Examiner cites Soon-Shiong as teaching all the limitations of
claim 1 with the exception of the claimed “media streams.” Answer 3^4.
Osterhout is cited for the media stream limitations. Id. at 4. At issue here is
whether the first and second context information limitations are disclosed as
two distinct contexts. See App. Br. 7—8. For these limitations, the Examiner
relies solely on Soon-Shiong. See Ans. 10-11.
The Examiner quotes from Soon-Shiong that the hosting platform
recognizes “at least one element in a scene” and that “other elements” in the
scene “could be recognized as well.” Ans. 10 (quoting Soon-Shiong | 66).
The Examiner concludes “analyzing one or more recognized element to
determine a context that pertains to the recognized target object and multiple
contexts could pertain the recognized target objects or scene based on all
information available via digital representation, context 332A and 332B.”
Id. (citing Soon-Shiong || 66—67) (emphasis added).
Specifically as to the claimed “first context,” the Examiner cites to
Soon-Shiong “figure 5, scene 695, with context related to scene captured as
show[n] in figures 5 and 6.” Ans. 11. For the “second context information”
the Examiner cites to the “neighborhood of a user device” as “context
pertaining to a current environment or scene associated with the AR-capable
device.” Id. (citing Soon-Shiong 155).
The Examiner concludes by contending Soon-Shiong discloses
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context can ebb or flow or even shift focus, from a first context
to a second context, individuals can participate within an
augmented reality experience associated with a gaming context
and the augmented reality experience can incorporate a
shopping context, and a shift could include retaining a
previously identified context without discarding them in favor
of new context, paragraph 0077, therefore Soon-Shiong
discloses distinctly identifying a first context information and a
second context information that are distinguished from one
another.
Ans. 11.
B. Appellants ’ Argument on First and Second Context Information
Appellants summarize the Examiner’s position by pointing to the
reliance on recognition of a “target object” and the disclosure of multiple
contexts 332A and 332B in Soon-Shiong. App. Br. 8 (citing Soon-Shiong
11 66—67). Appellants point to paragraph 67 of Soon-Shiong disclosing the
“multiple contexts 332 could also pertain the recognized target objects or
scene based on all information made available via digital representation
334.” Id. Appellants conclude the preceding disclosures “fail[s] to
distinctly identify a first context information and a second context
information that are distinguished from one another.” Id.
C. Whether the Examiner has Shown that Soon-Shiong Distinguishes
First Context Information from Second Context Information
On this record, the Examiner erred in the obviousness rejection of
representative claim 1 by failing to make a prima facie case that the recited
“accessing first context information” is distinct from “accessing second
context information.” The citations the Examiner made to Soon-Shiong do
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not clearly show separate first and second contexts. As a result, the
Examiner has not shown that the cited prior art teaches all elements.
The Examiner cites to Soon-Shiong “figure 5, scene 695, with context
related to scene captured as show[n] in figures 5 and 6” for the “first context
information.” Ans. 11. For the “second context information,” the Examiner
contends that “other elements” in the scene “could be recognized as well.”
Ans. 10 (quoting Soon-Shiong | 66) (emphasis added). This statement does
not provide a rational basis upon which to conclude Soon-Shiong teaches the
“second context information.” Neither are we persuaded that the general
reference to the “neighborhood of a user device” as “context pertaining to a
current environment or scene associated with the AR-capable device” shows
the “second context information.” See id. (citing Soon-Shiong | 55).
In summary, there is an insufficient showing of where Soon-Shiong
teaches “accessing second context information” separate from “accessing
first context information.” It is unclear which of the teachings of Soon-
Shiong are relied on for which of the first two steps of claim 1.
The Examiner relies on the showing for claim 1 to reject independent
claims 16 and 24. See Ans. 8 (claim 16), 10 (claim 24). Accordingly, the
rejections of independent claims 1,16, and 24 are not sustained. As a result
of finding the Examiner erred with respect to the rejections of the
independent claims, 1,16, and 24, the rejections of dependent claims 2—15
and 17—23 are also not sustained.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1—24 under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a).
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ORDER
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—24 is reversed.
REVERSED
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