Harman International Industries, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 1, 2020

14954597 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 1, 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.
14/954,597 11/30/2015 Jaime Elliot Nahman HRMN/0185US
(P150103US)
9997
98031 7590 09/01/2020
Artegis Law Group, LLP - Harman
7710 Cherry Park Drive Suite T #104
Houston, TX 77095
EXAMINER
DSOUZA, JOSEPH FRANCIS A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2632
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/01/2020 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):
jmatthews@artegislaw.com
kcruz@artegislaw.com
sjohnson@artegislaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
_________________

Ex parte JAIME ELLIOT NAHMAN, STEFAN MARTI,
DAVIDE DI CENSO, and MIRJANA SPASOJEVIC

_________________

Appeal 2019-003144
Application 14/954,597
Technology Center 2600
_________________

Before JASON V. MORGAN, DEBORAH KATZ, and JOHN A. EVANS,
Administrative Patent Judges.

KATZ, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 seeks our review2, under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), of the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–6, 8–10, 13, and 18–19. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM.

1 We use the word “Appellant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant
identifies the real party-in-interest as Harman International Industries.
(Appeal Br. 3.)
2 We consider the Final Office Action issued March 2, 2018 (“Final Act.”),
the Appeal Brief filed September 13, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”), the Examiner’s
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Appellant’s Specification is directed to human-machine interfaces,
specifically a center of gravity shifting force device. (Spec. ¶ 1.) The
Specification explains that force events can be used to communicate
information to a user, without overwhelming the user’s visual or auditory
channels. (See id. at ¶¶ 8, 21.) The Specification explains further that based
on sensory data, forces can be computed and exerted on the user via one or
masses to convey information such as navigation instructions, alerts, and
information associated with objects in the surrounding environment. (See
id.)
The Examiner rejects claims 1–6, 8–10, 13, and 18–19 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 over Higashino3 and Sieben.4 (See Final Act. 3–9.)
Appellant’s claim 1 is representative and recites:
A system for exerting forces on a user, the system comprising:
a user-mounted device including one or more masses;
one or more sensors configured to acquire sensor data; and
a processor coupled to the one or more sensors and configured
to:
determine, based on the sensor data, at least one of an
orientation and a position of the user-mounted device
relative to a surrounding environment;
compute a force to be exerted on the user via the one or
more masses based on (i) a force direction associated
with a force event, and (ii) at least one of the orientation
and the position of the user-mounted device relative to
the surrounding environment; and

Answer issued on January 10, 2019 (“Ans.”), and the Reply Brief filed
March 11, 2019 (“Reply Br.”).
3 U.S. Patent Application Publication 2014/0272915 A1, published
September 18, 2014.
4 U.S. Patent 5,844,674, issued December 1, 1998.
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Application 14/954,597
3
generate, based on the computed force, an actuator
control signal to change a position of the one or
more masses relative to the user-mounted device.
(Appeal Br. 16.) Thus, claim 1 recites a device with one or more masses,
one or more sensors that acquire data, and a processor coupled to the sensors
that determines an orientation and a position relative to the surrounding
environment based on the sensor data. The processor computes a force
based on (i) a force direction associated with a force event, and (ii) at least
one of the orientation and the position of the device. The processor
generates a signal to change the position of one or more of the masses
relative to the user-mounted device based on the computed force.
The Examiner rejects claims 1–6, 8–10, 13, and 18–19 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 over Higashino5 and Sieben.6 (See Final Act. 3–9.) The
Examiner indicates that claims 7, 11–12, 14–17, and 20 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. (See id. at 9.)
The Examiner finds that Higashino discloses a system for exerting
forces with a user-mounted device that includes one or more masses. (See
Final Act. 3, citing Higashino Abstract, Figs. 1–2.) According to the
Examiner, Higashino teaches one or more sensors configured to acquire
sensor data. (See Final Act. 4.) In support, the Examiner cites claim 14,
which recites:

5 U.S. Patent Application Publication 2014/0272915 A1, published
September 18, 2014.
6 U.S. Patent 5,844,674, issued December 1, 1998.
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The acceleration sensation presentation apparatus according to
claim 9, further comprising:
a sensor configured to detect a motion of the user is provided to
a predetermined location of the frame [worn on the head of the
user];
wherein the playing unit corrects the acceleration information
according to sensor information obtained by the sensor, and
supplies a driving signal based on the acceleration information
after correction to the vibration driving unit.
(Higashino 11.) The Examiner finds that claim 14 recites using sensors to
acquire sensor data and recites using that data to determine an orientation
and a position of the user-mounted device. (See Final Act. 4, citing
Higashino claim 14, Figs. 1 and 3, ¶¶ 12, 48.) The Examiner cites further to
Figures 1 and 3, as well as paragraphs 12 and 48, to support the finding that
Higashino teaches determining, based on the sensor data, at least one of an
orientation and a position of the masses because it teaches determining
angular positions of the device. (See Final Act. 4.) The Examiner cites
elsewhere in Higashino, finding that it teaches computing a force to be
exerted on the user through the masses mounted on the device. (See Final
Act. 4, citing Higashino ¶¶ 6, 8, 25–26, 28–29, 40, and 63.)
We agree with the Examiner’s findings and that Higashino teaches a
device that can acquire sensor data and use it to determine an orientation or
position and then generate a signal to move weights on the device and assert
pressure on the user.
The Examiner finds that Higashino does not expressly teach a
processor coupled to the one or more sensors and does not disclose that the
position or orientation is relative to a surrounding environment or that the
force to be exerted on the user is based on at least one of the orientation and
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position of the user mounted device relative to the surrounding environment.
(See Final Act. 4–5.)
Nevertheless, the Examiner finds that because the computation of
angles, vibrations, etc., performed, as taught in Higashino, would require a
processor and because Higashino teaches software, it inherently teaches a
processor. (See Final Act. 5, citing Higashino ¶¶ 39, 40, 43.)
The Examiner also cites to Sieben, which teaches a virtual reality
system with an optical position-sensing facility that provides a position or
orientation relative to a surrounding environment by reference to a fixed
reference point. (See Final Act. 5, citing Sieben, abstract, 1:11–20, 1:55–61,
3:35–39, Fig. 1.)
The Examiner determines that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to obtain position/orientation information relative to
the environment as taught in Sieben and use it with a device as taught in
Higashino in order to determine a force exerted on the user relative to the
environment. (See Final Act. 6.) The Examiner’s rejection is based on the
determination that it would have been obvious to modify the device of
Higashino to compute the force exerted on a user to change a
position/orientation relative to the surrounding environment to enhance the
user experience in a virtual reality environment in light of the teachings of
Sieben. (See id.)
Appellant argues that Higashino fails to teach or suggest that a force
to be exerted on the user is computed based on the position and/or
orientation of the headset relative to the surrounding environment, as
required by claim 1. (See Appeal Br. 10; see Reply Br. 3–4.) According to
Appellant, Higashino is silent regarding a determination of the position or
orientation of the headset relative to a surrounding environment, teaching
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instead that the weights within the headset are moved to predetermined
positions, without regard to the position or orientation of the headset relative
to the surrounding environment. (See id.)
Although Higashino teaches that movement of the masses can be
predetermined, such as through a game program (see Higashino ¶ 40), it also
provides an embodiment in which sensors on the apparatus detect the motion
of the user and provide information to correct acceleration and drive signals
after correction to a vibration driving unit. (See Higashino claim 14; see
also Final Act. 8, citing Higashino ¶ 106.) Thus, Higashino teaches
providing signals to the headset other than predetermined signals. We are
not persuaded by Appellant’s argument regarding the origin of the signal
that the Examiner erred.
We are not also persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner
erred because Higashino is silent regarding a determination of the position or
orientation of the headset relative to a surrounding environment because the
Examiner cites Sieben for a teaching of determinations of position or
orientation relative to the environment. (See Appeal Br. 10.)
Appellant argues that Sieben fails to teach computing a force based on
the position and/or orientation of the device relative to the surrounding
environment teaching, instead, a conventional virtual reality system in which
images are presented to a user. (See Appeal Br. 11; see Reply Br. 4.)
Appellant argues that Sieben is entirely silent regarding computing forces or
applying forces on a user. (See id.)
This argument, like Appellant’s argument that Higashino does not
teach changing a position or orientation relative to the environment, is
unpersuasive because it addresses the teachings of the references separately,
not as a combination as recited in the Examiner’s rejection. “The test for
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obviousness is not . . . that the claimed invention must be expressly
suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the
combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of
ordinary skill in the art.” In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981).
We are also not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments about the
combination of Higashino and Sieben for the same reasons we are not
persuaded by the arguments about the references individually. For example,
Appellant argues that combining the teachings of Higashino and Sieben
would result only in a system that includes a headset that generates
accelerations in predetermined directions and which displays conventional
virtual reality images to a user, not a system that computes forces to exert on
a user based on the orientation or position of the headset relative to the
surrounding environment. (See Appeal Br. 11; see Reply Br. 4–5.)
According to Appellant, combining the teachings of Higashino and Seiben
does not teach computing forces to exert on a user based on the orientation
or position the headset relative to the environment because neither reference
teaches a connection between forces to be exerted on the user and the
orientation or position of the user device relative to the environment. (See
id.)
As explained above, at least claim 14, as supported by paragraph 48 of
Higashino (describing Figure 3, which is an example of a method for
obtaining the center of gravity) teaches computing forces to exert on a user
based on an orientation or position of the user and Sieben teaches
determining the orientation and position of a user in relation to the
environment. (See Ans. 4.) The Examiner finds that even though Higashino
may not explicitly state that the force applied depends on the orientation and
position relative to the surrounding environment, one of ordinary skill in the
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art could have used the position of the center of gravity and the orientation
as defined by the angles with information relative to the reference point
disclosed by Sieben to compute and generate a force to change the position
of one or more weights according to the surrounding environment. (See
Ans. 12.) Appellant does not direct us to evidence that this finding is
incorrect or that one of ordinary skill would not have been able to use
information relative to a reference point in this way.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 over Higashino and Sieben.
Appellant argues separately for the patentability of claim 2. (See
Appeal Br. 13.) Claim 2 recites: “The system of claim 1, wherein the
processor is further configured to determine that at least one of the
orientation and the position has changed, and, in response, generate a second
actuator control signal to reposition at least one mass relative to the user-
mounted device.” (Appeal Br. 16.)
Appellant acknowledges that the weights in Higashino may be turned
to particular turning angles, and the center of gravity of the head-mounted
device changes depending on the angles at which the weights are positioned.
See Appeal Br. 13, citing Higashino, ¶¶ 51–59, Fig. 3.) But Appellant
argues that Higashino does not disclose or suggest determining that the
position or orientation of the head-mounted device is changed and then, in
response, moving the weights to different turning angles, as required by
claim 2. As against the rejection of claim 1, Appellant argues that Higashino
is entirely silent regarding determining the position or orientation of the
head-mounted device relative to a surrounding environment and so cannot
be properly interpreted as meeting the above limitations of claim 2. (See
Appeal Br. 13.)
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For the reasons stated above, including that the combination of
Higashino and Sieben teaches determining a position or orientation of a
head-mounted device to a surrounding environment, we are not persuaded
by Appellant’s argument. Accordingly, we are not persuaded that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 2 over Higashino and Sieben.
Appellant does not put forth separate arguments regarding any of
Appellant’s other rejected claims. Accordingly, we are not persuaded that
the Examiner erred in rejecting them.
Conclusion
Upon consideration of the record and for the reasons given, we affirm
the Examiner’s rejection.
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § References Affirmed Reversed
1–6, 8–10,
13, 18–19
103 Higashino,
Sieben
1–6, 8–10,
13, 18–19

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136.

AFFIRMED