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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-12 are pending.
Response to Amendments/Arguments
The applicant amended the claim 1 to recite, “the server program searches using a face recognition algorithm through the database of the application containing authenticated photos or face images of users or face images taken of themselves by users when creating or completing an account to obtain an account or accounts of the candidate, to which request for making friends is sent.”
The notes examiner notes, again, the language is in the alternative, emphasis added, “the server program searches using a face recognition algorithm through the database of the application containing authenticated photos or face images of users or face images taken of themselves by users when creating or completing an account to obtain an account or accounts of the candidate, to which request for making friends is sent.” In other words, by using “or” the claim is directed to the application containing any one of “authenticated photos,” “face images,” or “face images taken of themselves by users when creating or completing an account” and only one option among three different recitations needs to be taught. For example, “face images of users” is the broadest of the three and is disclosed by Qi, see below rejection.
With regard to the arguments directed against the previously applied rejections and not related to the currently presented amendments (i.e. the combination of Qi and Petrou, arguments labeled A-C in the remarks flied 11/26/2025), the examiner reminds the applicant that these issues were settled before the examiner by the Board Decision dated, 12/28/2023.
Further, the Final Rejection dated 3/26/2025 and Examiner’s Answer dated 9/27/2022 (see, for example, “In reply to (D)” page 9 of the Examiner’s Answer which specifically address “The Graham Factual Inquires” which the applicant still contends, inaccurately, the examiner has never applied on page 9 of the remarks filed 11/26/2025) elaborated on these issues with greater specificity. The examiner will again quote, in part, the Board Decision dated, 12/28/2023:
We also agree with the Examiner’s obviousness rejection. Qi teaches using a camera on a terminal to scan the face of a stranger and the terminal uploads the scanned photo to a server to try to match that feature (i.e., searches using face recognition algorithm) with a feature of a picture pre- stored in an augmented reality (AR) business card, which teaches the limitation “searches using a face recognition algorithm” recited in claim 1. See Ans. 5-6 (citing Qi § 71); Final Act. 9 (citing Qi § 71). Petrou teaches a facial recognition search system, which also teaches the limitation “searches using a face recognition algorithm” recited in claim 1. See Ans. 5 (citing Petrou’s Title, “FACIAL RECOGNITION WITH SOCIAL NETWORK AIDING”); Final Act. 10 (citing Petrou § 44-45).
The Examiner properly determines that a PHOSITA would have combined Qi and Petrou to select the region of interest on the image, then to process that region through multiple databases using parallel searches in order to recognize the face of the person on the image. See Ans. 10 (the Examiner determines a photo of someone in front of a mountain would not need to analyze the mountain to see if it contains facial features, which would expand Qi’s system to have access to a broader range of potential facial matches); Final Act. 11 (citing Petrou § 34). Thus, the Examiner has set forth sufficient “articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.” KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (quoting /n re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)).
Appellant’s argument that its claim has facial recognition algorithm based on deep artificial intelligence, which is drastically different than Qi’s image recognition (Appeal Br. 4—11) is unpersuasive because this is not recited in the claim. “[A]ppellant’s arguments fail from the outset because ... they are not based on limitations appearing in the claims.” See In re Self, 671 F.2d at 1348 (CCPA 1982).
Similarly, Appellant’s argument there is no need for any pre-knowledge in its claims, whereas Qi requires pre-knowledge of the target augmented reality business card (Appeal Br. 12) is unavailing because the use of pre-knowledge is not precluded by the claim language.
We also disagree with Appellant’s argument that Qi does not require authentication, whereas in the present invention, an account user needs to take a picture of himself for face recognition verification for authentication (Appeal Br. 12) because authentication is not recited in the claim.
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, 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 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Qi (US20190332804A1), and further in view of Petrou (US20110038512A1).
As to claim 1, Qi discloses a method for making friends in social networking software through face recognition, comprising:
Users invoke a friend scanning function to activate a camera in a smart phone or smart device, aim at an interested candidate for friends (Qi: [0071], particularly, “As shown in FIG. 1, first, a terminal 10 scans a face, clothing, a wearing article, etc. of a stranger to be added by a camera 11 to obtain corresponding scan information (or directly take a photo containing an external feature such as the face, the clothing, the wearing article, etc. of the stranger).”), and dispatch out a command of making friends with the candidate in a social networking application (Qi: [0071], particularly, “In this embodiment, an AR business card of the stranger pre-stored in the server 20 can be obtained by scanning the external feature of the stranger, thereby avoiding an embarrassment of obtaining a contact way when making friends, and improving an efficiency of obtaining the contact way of the stranger, and the user can also freely edit the AR business card, avoiding leakage of privacy and having high flexibility.”)
the candidate's photo or face image taken by the camera when dispatching out the command of making friends is sent to a server program of the application together with the command, the server program searches using a face recognition algorithm through the database of the application containing authenticated photos or face images of users or face images taken of themselves by users when creating or completing an account to obtain an account or accounts of the candidate, to which request for making friends is sent, the candidate can accept the request to become friends or decline (Qi: [0071], particularly, “The server 20 extracts the external feature of the stranger from the scanned information (or the photo), and the external feature includes: a face features, a clothing feature, a wearing article feature, and the like. The server 20 matches the extracted external feature with a feature of a picture in a pre-stored augmented reality (AR) business card to obtain a target AR business card corresponding to the stranger; and sends the target AR business card to the terminal 10.” And further [0095]-[0099], particularly, “At this time, if the user A intends to add the user B as a friend, then the user A may send a request for adding the user B as a friend to the server in a way of searching for a user account according to an AR business card in a social application. The server forwards the friend request to the user B” where the “social application” includes known social network applications, such as WeChat, see [0004], which necessarily permit users to accept or deny friend requests);
if the candidate's account cannot be found, a message stating that the candidate's account cannot be found is displayed to the user (Qi: [0084], particularly, “In an optional implementation manner, if the number of the target AR business card is zero, then a prompt message indicating that the matching fails is sent to the terminal”).
However, Qi does not disclose select the candidate to dispatch out the command. That is, Qi takes pictures and sends data to the server, but does not “select” anything particularly prior to sending.
But, Petrou discloses select a candidate to dispatch out a command (Petrou: [0085] lines 5-9, the user may select a region of interest selection module 725 that detects a selection (such as a gesture on the touch sensitive display) of a region of interest in an image (i.e. select the candidate) and prepares that region of interest as visual query (i.e. command));
the candidate's photo or face image is sent to a server program of the application together with a command, the server program searches using a face recognition algorithm through the database of the application containing real photos or face images of users to obtain an account or accounts of the candidate (Petrou: [0043] lines 4-6, A visual query (i.e. command) can include an image of a person's face, whether taken by a camera embedded in the client system. Petrou further teaches ([0042] lines 5-8 from bottom) that the visual query is submitted to the server system 106 (i.e. server)), the server program searches through face recognition one or several of the database of the App (Petrou: [0044] lines 1-6, the server system sends the visual query to a plurality of parallel search systems. Petrou further teaches ([0045] lines 3-6) the search systems to which the visual query is sent for processing is a facial recognition search system)
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Qi’s teaching to use the region selection and face recognition through parallel searches as thought by Petrou. The motivation to do so would have been in order for the user to select the region of interest on the image, then to process that region through multiple databases in order to recognize the face of the person on the image (Petrou: [0034] lines 8-10).
However, Qi and Petrou do not explicitly disclose (emphasis added by examiner) the authenticated photos or face images of users or face images taken of themselves by users when creating or completing an account. That is, Qi discloses authenticated photos or face images of users or face images taken of themselves by users in a database but not necessarily
As to claim 7, Qi discloses the smart phones and other smart devices can communicate with the server through 5G or other wireless communication technology (Qi: [0071] lines 7-9, the terminal 10 uploads the scanned information (or photo) to a server 20 (i.e. it is obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art that any uploading of data from one location to another location requires wireless technology)) with the remainder of the claim being rejected by a similar rationale to that set forth in claim 1’s rejection.
As to claims 2 and 8, the teachings of Qi and Petrou as combined for the same reasons set forth in claim 1’s rejection further disclose the server program can also be connected to access the databases of cooperating social network platforms or public face image databases to search for the candidate’s accounts (Petrou: [0034] lines 8-10, face recognition search system will access a face image database 114-A to look for facial matches to the image query. Petrou further teaches ([0130] lines 1-4 from top and 1-4 from bottom) that facial image database 114-A include one or more image sources such as social network images, web album images, photo sharing images, and vendors of facial images that are legally in the public domain (i.e. public face images database)).
As to claims 3 and 9, the teachings of Qi and Petrou as combined for the same reasons set forth in claim 1’s rejection further disclose the ways for selecting the candidate and invoking the command of making friends include usual selection and command invoking actions or gestures including touching the face image of the candidate etc. (Petrou: [0085] lines 5-9, the user may select a region of interest selection module 725 that detects a selection (such as a gesture on the touch sensitive display) of a region of interest in an image (i.e. select the candidate) and prepares that region of interest as visual query (i.e. command)); the selection of candidate and activation of the command for making friends with the candidate can be directly completed with usual selection and/or command invoking actions or gestures including touching the candidate’s face image etc. (Qi: Fig. 3 S205 & [0094] lines 1-2,User A sends a friend request to user B by selecting user B augmented reality business card); the selection of candidate can also be conducted by usual selection actions or gestures including touching the candidate’s face image etc. (Petrou: [0150] lines 10-13 from bottom, the user can activate the search results corresponding to the image of the person by tapping on a bounding box surrounding the image of the person), and then the command for making friends with the candidate can be invoked by usual command invoking actions or gestures including touching the picture or the “Request to Make Friends” command etc. (Qi: Fig. 3 S205 & [0094] lines 1-2, User A sends a friend request to user B by selecting user B augmented reality business card).
Claims 4 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Qi, Petrou and further in view of Su (US20170310615) and Becker (US7991388B1).
Regarding claims 4 and 10, Qi as modified by Petrou teaches the apparatus or system of claim 7, and further wherein a user can select whether to attach a true photo or face image of the user and a message for the friend candidate to browse when invoking the command for making friends with the candidate (Qi: Fig. 3 S206 & [0096] lines 1-4, the user sends a friend request to a user corresponding to the target AR business card (i.e. candidate). The friend request can include the AR business card of the sender. Qi further teaches ([0081] lines 5-7) that the augmented reality business cards are created according to text information and picture information edited by each user); the taken photo or face image is then saved to his/her account (Qi: [0081] line 8, the augmented reality (AR) business card is stored. (i.e. it is obvious to a person of ordinary skilled in the art that the stored AR business card is associated with the user who created it)), the user can replace the taken photo or face image with a desired photo or face image of himself/herself (Qi: [0081] lines 6-9, the text or picture information on the AR business card may be updated (i.e. the user may update the picture information (i.e. taken photo) with a new picture information (i.e. desired photo) at any time by editing the AR business card)),
However, Qi nor Petrou explicitly teach if there is still no true photo or face image of the user in his/her account, the user is asked whether to take a photo or face image of himself/herself,
On the other hand Su teaches if there is still no true photo or face image of the user in his/her account, the user is asked whether to take a photo or face image of himself/herself (Su teaches ([0003] lines 1-5) a social networking site may prompt a user to upload missing attributes such as user profile images. Su further teaches ([0034] lines 5-11) a personalized descriptor engine that uses elements of social network objects related to the user to generate personalized input prompts. Social network objects may include user profile and pictures),
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teaching of Qi and Petrou to include the user prompt system as thought by Su. The motivation for doing so would have been in order to prompt a user to upload a missing profile image (Su: ([0003] lines 1-5)).
However, Qi, Petrou nor Su explicitly teach the server program will start the face recognition algorithm to verify the authenticity of the provided photo or face image.
On the other hand Becker teaches the server program will start the face recognition algorithm to verify the authenticity of the provided photo or face image (Becker teaches (Col. 6 lines 1-4) an authentication server that verifies a user by using a facial recognition software in order to authenticate the user).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teaching of Qi, Petrou, and Su to include the authentication server as thought by Becker. The motivation for doing so would have been in order to authenticate the user by using a facial recognition software (Becker: Col. 6 lines 1-4).
Claims 5 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Qi, and further in view of Petrou and Sundaresan (US20140149510A1).
Regarding claims 5 and 11, Qi teaches the apparatus or system of claim 7,
However Qi does not explicitly teach wherein the search result accounts for the friend candidate are displayed to the user for him/her to select an account to send request for making friends when one or several accounts with different social networking applications are found for the friend candidate.
On the other hand Petrou teaches wherein the search result accounts for the friend candidate are displayed to the user for him/her to select an account to send request for making friends when one or several accounts with different social networking applications are found for the friend candidate (Petrou teaches ([0163] lines 1-10) the search results for a visual query includes (Fig. 15) social network applications such as a Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, and any contact list associated with the identifies person).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teaching of Qi to use the social network search result as thought by Petrou. The motivation for doing so would have been in order to provide a user with social network results whenever the user makes a visual query ([0163] lines 1-10).
However, Petrou and Sundaresan does not teach if the selected account is with a cooperating social networking platform or with a public face image database, then the user also needs to enter his/her account with the same social networking platform or the same public image database.
On the other hand, Sundaresan teaches if the selected account is with a cooperating social networking platform or with a public face image database, then the user also needs to enter his/her account with the same social networking platform or the same public image database (Sundaresan teaches ([0051] lines 1-5 from bottom) requesting user's login information to obtain user data of an additional user. Login information refers to credentials required to access the social network profile of the user).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teaching of Qi to use the method of requesting user login information as thought by Sundaresan. The motivation for doing so would have been in order to request a user to log whenever the user is trying to access another users social network profile (Sundaresan: [0051] lines 1-5 from bottom).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 and 12 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
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THOMAS J DAILEY whose telephone number is (571)270-1246. The examiner can normally be reached on 9:30am-6:00pm.
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/THOMAS J DAILEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458