DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the amendments filed 3/11/2026.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 18-20 are pending. Claims 1, 19 and 20 are currently amended.
All prior rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are maintained.
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, 4, 6, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gurney, U.S. PGPUB No. 2003/0231184 (“Gurney”), in view of Bederson, et al., U.S. PGPUB No. 2003/0159113 (“Bederson”), and in view of Imoto, et al., U.S. PGPUB No. 2014/0304655 (“Imoto”).
With regard to Claim 1, Gurney teaches an information processing apparatus comprising: a processor configured to: in a case where a new text that does not fit in a text input field with a fixed size is input, not change a size of a text within a preset range and reduce a size of a text other than the text within the preset range, based on an input position at which the text is input, to display all the texts input in the text input field.
Gurney teaches at [0037] that an entry is read from a file as input text with an initial formatting. [0039] describes that the input text is processed in a horizontal compaction step. [0043] describes that horizontal compaction includes a horizontal scaling step, where [0050]-[0051] describe that an initially formatted entry might not fit in a column. Certain fields or parts of fields can be protected from scaling, thereby insuring that parts of the entry entered at these locations is not scaled, while other portions can be scaled smaller in order that the text can fit in the column field as desired.
Gurney also teaches that the processor is configured to: not change a size of a text within a preset range immediately before the input position and reduce a size of a text other than the text within the preset range to display all the texts input in the text input field. [0051] describes that the text within a phone number field can be determined not to be scaled, such that only the text in the column located before the input position of the phone number is scaled.
Gurney does not teach wherein the processor is configured to, in a case of a language in which sentences are separated by a specific symbol including a punctuation mark and a pause mark, wherein the punctuation mark and the pause mark comprise a Japanese punctuation, not change a size of texts included in a sentence being input and reduce a size of texts other than the texts included in the sentence to display all the texts input in the text input field. However, the combination of Bederson and Imoto teaches this limitation.
Bederson teaches at [0104] that multiple sentences can be entered by a user, and a reduction carried out thereon in response to a further user input. [0103] describes that when a paragraph of text is entered into a reduced field, a selected sentence can be restructured while other text is reduced. This is shown at Fig, 7, where a paragraph 600 entered into a container of a smaller size causes the selected sentence 610 to remain its original size while the other text is reduced.
Imoto teaches at [0060] that candidate text can be extracted from around selected text, where in the case of Japanese or Chinese characters, text can be a morpheme or a character string of morphemes extracted by morpheme analysis, where Fig. 7 shows that text within a range of selected text can be displayed in a different size from surrounding text. Therefore, Imoto teaches selective text resizing “in a case of a language in which sentences are separated by a specific symbol including a punctuation mark and a pause mark, wherein the punctuation mark and the pause mark comprise a Japanese punctuation,” as the selective resizing is performed in the case that the language is Japanese.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time this application was filed to combine Bederson with Imoto. One of skill in the art would have sought the combination, to improve the functioning of the system of Bederson by enabling the analysis and processing of text scripts other than the Latin alphabet, thereby allowing for the beneficial aspects of text size alteration described in Bederson to be realized by users who use such text.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time this application was filed to then combine Bederson and Imoto with Gurney. One of skill in the art would have sought the combination, to improve user experience by enabling text adaptation that includes additional types of text such as multi-sentence paragraphs, thereby ensuring more types of displayed text are properly adapted to the size of their container.
Claim 19 recites a medium storing a program that executes to create the apparatus of Claim 1, and is similarly rejected. Claim 20 recites a method carried out by the apparatus of Claim 1, and is likewise rejected.
With regard to Claim 3, Gurney teaches that the processor is configured to: not change a size of a text within a preset number of texts immediately before the input position and reduce a size of a text other than the text within the preset number of texts to display all the texts input in the text input field. [0051] describes that a phone number field can be determined as input positions not to be scaled, and any text outside of the phone number field can be scaled, thereby reducing the text objects outside of the preset text that corresponds to the phone number field.
With regard to Claim 4, Gurney teaches that the processor is configured to: not change a size of texts within a preset number of words immediately before the input position including a word being input and reduce a size of texts other than the texts within the preset number of words to display all the texts input in the text input field. [0051] describes that certain fields can be designated to be scaled or not within the column, thereby ensuring that the number of words present in a particular field designated not to be scaled are not made smaller.
With regard to Claim 6, Bederson teaches that the processor is configured to: in a case of a language in which a part of the sentence is separated by the specific symbol, not change the size of the texts included in a part of the sentence being input and reduce the size of texts other than the texts included in the part of the sentence to display all the texts input in the text input field. [0104] that multiple sentences can be entered by a user, and a reduction carried out thereon in response to a further user input. [0103] describes that when a paragraph of text is entered into a reduced field, a selected sentence can be restructured while other text is reduced. This is shown at Fig, 7, where a paragraph 600 entered into a container of a smaller size causes the selected sentence 610 to remain its original size while the other text is reduced.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time this application was filed to combine Bederson with Gurney and Imoto. One of skill in the art would have sought the combination, to improve user experience by enabling text adaptation that includes additional types of text such as multi-sentence paragraphs, thereby ensuring more types of displayed text are properly adapted to the size of their container.
Claims 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gurney, in view of Bederson, and in view of Markiewicz, et al., U.S. PGPUB No. 2009/0161958 (“Markiewicz”).
With regard to Claims 7, 9, 10 and 12, Markiewicz teaches that the processor is configured to: perform emphasis processing on the text that is not changed in size. Fig. 10 shows text that is selected for correction; emphasis of the text to be corrected is applied in the form of character delineation as well as a different color. [0090] describes that words are displayed larger relative to other words when selected, thereby indicating emphasis processing for selected words displayed larger than other words, such as those described in Bederson and Gurney.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time this application was filed to combine Markiewicz with Gurney, Imoto and Bederson. Markiewicz provides selective word sizing to provide users additional control over text entry by enabling direct editing of input text. One of skill in the art would have therefore sought the combination, to improve user experience by enabling additional user operations, such as editing and correction, on text that is being prepared for publishing.
With regard to Claim 13, 15, 16 and 18, Markiewicz teaches wherein in the emphasis processing, any one or both of a display color and typeface of the text that is not changed in size is different from the text that is changed in size. Fig. 10 shows text that is selected for correction; emphasis of the text to be corrected is applied in the form of character delineation as well as a different color for the text being corrected.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time this application was filed to combine Markiewicz with Gurney, Imoto and Bederson. Markiewicz provides selective word sizing to provide users additional control over text entry by enabling direct editing of input text. One of skill in the art would have therefore sought the combination, to improve user experience by enabling additional user operations, such as editing and correction, on text that is being prepared for publishing.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues with regard to Claims 1, 19 and 20 that because punctuation marks and pause marks are not a type of morpheme, that the Imoto reference does not cure the deficiency of Bederson with regard to teaching the recited not changing and reducing of text sizes “in a case of a language in which sentences are separated by a specific symbol including a punctuation mark and a pause mark, wherein the punctuation mark and the pause mark comprise a Japanese punctuation.”
While it is true that punctuation and pause marks are not morphemes, this is not particularly relevant to the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim. The claim recites that the processor is configured to not change a size of text being input and reduce a size of other texts “in a case of a language in which sentences are separated by a specific symbol including a punctuation mark and a pause mark, wherein the punctuation mark and the pause mark comprise a Japanese punctuation.” (Emphasis added). The claim does not require any specific identification or recognition of Japanese language punctuation and pause marks, rather the claim only requires that the claimed text resizing be carried out “in a case of” a language that meets the description.
As Imoto teaches selective resizing of text which is written in Japanese, i.e., carries out resizing in a case of a language in which sentences are separated by Japanese punctuation and pause marks, Imoto is properly relied upon for curing the deficiency of Bederson with regard to this particular aspect of the claim. Claims 1, 19 and 20 therefore remains properly rejected under the cited art of record. As the dependent claims are not separately argued, those claims likewise remain properly rejected under the cited art of record.
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.
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/KEITH D BLOOMQUIST/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2171
4/6/2026