DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 10/14/25 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-2, 5-8, and 11-12 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 7 include the limitations of “registering the laser scan digital image data to a canonical impairment model as a registration in object space or screen space using a similarity function computed over a region of interest (ROI)” and this was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 7 include the limitations of “extracting spectral features within an audio buffer of the processing module and determining a similarity score to a stored impairment audio profile that exceeds a threshold” and this was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 7 include the limitations of “a first sampling rate or a first pixel density stored in a render memory associated with the processing module” and this was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 7 include the limitations of “the selecting comprising comparing, in the render memory, corresponding ROI pixel regions bounding the illustrative asset using a pixel-similarity function and determining that more than a minimum threshold number of pixels within the ROI are the same” and this was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 7 include the limitations of “thereby reducing processor workload by at least 25% and reducing video graphics module memory bandwidth by at least 20%.=” and this was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-2, 5-8, and 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Claims 1-2, 5-8, and 11-12 are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite a mental process that can be performed by human being and/or recite a method of organizing human activity and/or mathematical processes.
In regard to Claims 1 and 7, the following limitations can be performed as a mental process by a human being in terms of claiming collecting data, analyzing that data, and providing outputs based on that analysis which has been held by the CAFC to be an abstract idea in decisions such as, e.g., Electric Power Group, University of Florida Research Foundation, and Yousician v Ubisoft (non-precedential); and/or recite a method of organizing human activity in terms of claiming the teaching/training/evaluation of a human subject’s which has been held by the CAFC to be an abstract idea in decisions such as, e.g., In re Noble Systems Corporation (non-precedential) in terms of the Applicant claiming:
[a] method […] to produce a [visual] environment the method comprises:
[…]
acquiring […] laser scan […] image data of an environment object […] and matching the laser scan […] image data to [an] image representation of an impairment by registering the laser scan [image] data to a canonical impairment model as a registration in object space or screen space using a similarity function computed over a region of interest (ROI), and
matching […] sound sensor information of the environment object to a […] sound representation of the impairment, by extracting spectral features […] and determining a similarity score to a stored impairment audio profile that exceeds a threshold;
obtaining […];
a first set of bullet-points for a first piece of information regarding the impairment topic, a second set of bullet-points regarding the impairment topic, wherein the second set of bullet-points are different than the first set bullet-points,
an illustrative asset that depicts an aspect regarding the impairment pertaining to the first and the second sets of bullet-points,
a first descriptive asset regarding the first set of bullet-points and the illustrative asset, and
generating […] a model of the illustrative asset…sets of bullet-points;
rendering […] the model […] of the illustrative asset to produce a set of illustrative asset [displays] at a first sampling rate or a first pixel density […];
selecting […] a common subset of the set of illustrative asset [displays] to produce a first portion of first descriptive asset [displays] of the first descriptive asset and to produce a first portion of second descriptive asset [displays] of the second descriptive asset, the selecting comprising comparing […] corresponding ROI pixel regions bounding the illustrative asset using a pixel-similarity function and determining that more than a minimum threshold number of pixels within the ROI are the same, so that subsequent utilization of the common subset of the set of illustrative asset [displays] reduces rendering of other first and second descriptive asset [displays];
rendering […] a model of the first set of bullet-points to produce a remaining portion of the first descriptive asset [displays] of the first descriptive asset, wherein the first descriptive asset [displays] includes the common subset of the set of illustrative asset [displays] and exclude re-rendering of the model of the illustrative asset by reusing the selected common subset without re-rendering the model of the illustrative asset;
rendering […] a model of the second set of bullet-points to produce a remaining portion of the second descriptive asset [displays] of the second descriptive asset, wherein the second descriptive asset [displays] includes the common subset of the set of illustrative asset [displays] and exclude re-rendering of the model of the illustrative asset by reusing the selected common subset without re-rendering the model of the illustrative asset; and
linking […] the first descriptive asset [displays] of the first descriptive asset with the second descriptive asset [displays] of the second descriptive asset to form a portion of the [visual] frames depicting the impairment for the [visual] environment […];
In regard to Claims 1-2, 5-8, and 11-12, they likewise claim mathematical concepts in regard to computing certain functions and scores.
In regard to the dependent claims, they also claim an abstract idea to the extent that they merely claim further limitations that likewise could be performed as a mental process by a human being and/or recite a method of organizing human activity and/or recite mathematical processes.
Furthermore, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because to the extent that additional elements are claimed either alone or in combination such as, e.g., computing entities each comprising at least one video graphics module, a visual output device, and a processing module comprising at least one processor; laser scanning and capturing sound, image and sound files, a database, employing augmented/virtual reality displays, environment sensors, employing digital video; a computing device comprising an interface, a local memory, and a processing module, wherein the memory stores a software embodiment of Applicant’s abstract idea, and/or a computer readable medium, these are merely claimed to add insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception (e.g., data gathering), to embody the abstract idea on a general purpose computer, and/or do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
Furthermore, the claims do not include additional elements that taken individually, and also taken as an ordered combination, are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because to the extent that, e.g., computing entities each comprising at least one video graphics module, a visual output device, and a processing module comprising at least one processor; laser scanning and capturing sound, image and sound files, a database, employing augmented/virtual reality displays, environment sensors, employing digital video; a computing device comprising an interface, a local memory, and a processing module, wherein the memory stores a software embodiment of Applicant’s abstract idea, and/or a computer readable medium, these are generic, well-known, and conventional elements and are claimed for the generic, well-known, and conventional functions of collecting and processing data and/or providing an analysis/outputs based on that processing. To the extent that an apparatus is claimed as an additional element said apparatus fails to qualify as a “particular machine” to the extent that it is claimed generally, merely implements the steps of Applicant’s claimed method, and is claimed merely for purposes of extra-solution activity or field of use. See MPEP 2106.05(b). As evidence that these additional elements are generic, well-known, and conventional, Applicant’s specification discloses the support for these elements in a manner that indicates that the additional elements are sufficiently well-known that the specification does not need to describe the particulars of such additional elements to satisfy 35 U.S.C. § 112(a). See, e.g., F1-4 in Applicant’s specification and text regarding same; and see, e.g., p49-50 regarding laser scanning and capturing sound.
Response to Arguments
Applicant argues on page 12 of its Remarks in regard to the rejections made under 35 USC 101
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It is unclear but it appears that Applicant is arguing that because its abstract idea when embodied as computer code would allegedly render fewer video frames than, presumably, some other abstract idea when embodied as computer code that Applicant has claimed patent eligible subject matter under the Mayo test. To the extent that this appears to be Applicant’s argument, it is unpersuasive. Applicant’s invention in this regard is not a generally applicable improvement to any of claimed computing devices in terms of the invention does not result in Applicant’s claimed computing system generally being able to, e.g., run faster in regard to executing any computer program. Instead, Applicant argues that its abstract idea when embodied as computer code essentially executes faster than some other hypothetical abstract idea when embodied as computer code, to the extent that Applicant’s abstract idea results in not having to re-render certain video frames. Following Applicant’s logic, an abstract idea that required no rendering of video frames would necessarily claim patent eligible subject matter to the extent that it would diminish the number of video frames having to be rendered to zero but that, of course, would be non-sensical. To the extent Applicant cites various case law none of it is analogous as the case law cited supra in the rejection. In terms of, Applicant’s claimed invention does not concern an improvement to self-referential database technology, nor concerns employing specific morph rule to provide improve animation of human faces, nor concerns a physical arrangement of sensors that improves their precision/accuracy, nor concerns a system and method for using "mobile code runtime monitoring" to protect against malicious downloadables, nor concerns a method of restricting use of a licensed software program on a computer that has at least two “non-volatile memory areas” and one volatile area. Instead, Applicant’s claimed invention concerns providing instructional material to human beings by collecting data, analyzing that data, and providing that instructional material based on that analysis and, thereby, is patent ineligible as an abstract idea in the form of a mental process and method of organizing human activity of teaching/training human beings. Applicant’s claims are also abstract to the extent they includes limitations concerning computing certain functions and scores.
Applicant argues on page 13 that the Berkheimer finding made in the 101 was allegedly deficient. Applicant’s argument is not persuasive because all of the limitations that Applicant references are identified in the rejection as being part of the abstract idea and not claimed in addition to that abstract idea. Therefore, no Berkheimer finding need be made in regard to these limitations.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is listed in the attached PTO-Form 892 and is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Mike Grant whose telephone number is 571-270-1545. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., except on the first Friday of each bi-week.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's Supervisory Primary Examiner, Peter Vasat can be reached at 571-270-7625. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL C GRANT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715