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 .
Response to Amendment
Claims 26, 28-36, 38-42, 44 and 45 are pending. Claims 27, 37 and 43 have been cancelled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed September 04, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding rejections under 35 U.S.C 101
Claims 42-45
Claims 42-45 have been amended to include “non-transitory machine readable medium”, hence, overcome the 101 rejections for signal per se.
Claims 26-45
On page 14, applicant argues that claim 26 recites “output a virtual camera view based on the identification of the one or more key persons by the classifier” and that the human mind is certainly not equipped to output a virtual camera view…”. Examiner respectfully disagrees. First, it’s not clear what “a virtual camera view” is. Is it a kind of picture viewed from a camera? Second, where “a virtual camera view” comes from. Further, the claim does not direct to where “output a virtual camera view” to and what to do with the virtual camera view. There is no process how the “at least one programmable circuit” obtains “a virtual camera view” nor how it can be outputted. Neither, how, at least one programmable circuit outputting a virtual camera view can’t be a mental process. It’s not a real process that the human mind could not think of. It's just simply in the human mind that just “output a virtual camera view”. The claims do not include other additional elements that are beyond what is well understood, routine, conventional activities in the field and sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Indeed, furthermore, claims 36 and 38-41 are method claims and have no any elements tie to the method to implement the method.
Therefore, the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections will be maintained.
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 26, 28-36, 38-42, 44 and 45 are 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.
Regarding independent claims 26, 36 and 42, the specification fails to support the amended limitations “output a virtual camera view based on the identification of the one or more key persons by the classifier”. Fig. 14 shows nothing after apply classifier to the feature vectors to indicate key persons in the person formation. A few places in the specification describes a virtual view of the key person(s) can be generated, but fails to describe “output a virtual camera view based on the identification of the one or more key persons by the classifier”.
Claims 28-35, 38-41, 44 and 45 are rejected because they depend from the rejected claims 26, 36 and 42.
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 26, 28-36, 38-42, 44 and 45 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract idea without significantly more.
Regarding claims 26, 28-36, 38-42, 44 and 45, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the terms of the claims are presumed to have their plain meaning consistent with the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skilled in the art. See MPEP 2111.
The claimed invention related to key person recognition in multi-camera immersive video attained for a scene. It includes detecting predefined person formations in the scene based on an arrangement of the persons in the scene, generating a feature vector for each person in the detected formation, and applying a classifier to the feature vectors to indicated one or more key persons in the scene.
The claims are directed mental processing and do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea).
The claims do not have any limitations that are indicative of integration of the judicial exception into a practical application such as improvements to functioning of a computer or a technical field, using any particular machine, effect a transformation of a particular article to a different state or thing, or apply the judicial exception in any meaningful way beyond generally linking the use to a particular technological environment. Therefore, the claims as a whole do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
A patent may be obtained for “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof," 35 U.S.C. § 101, but “laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable.”
Step 1
Claims 26, 28-36, 38-42, 44 and 45 are directed to one of the four statutory categories of eligible subject matter: thus, the claims pass Step 1 of the Subject Matter Eligibility Test.
Step 2A, prong 1 analysis
Claims 26, 28-36, 38-42, 44 and 45 recite a judicial exception in terms of a mental process. Steps in claims 26, 28-36, 38-42, 44 and 45 can be performed by a human being watching a video to “detect a plurality of persons in the video picture, divide the plurality of persons into a first group and a second group, determine whether the first group and the second group overlap spatially with respect to an axis applied to the scene; detect predefined person formations in the scene based on an arrangement of the persons in the scene, generate a feature vector for each person in the detected formation, applying a classifier to the feature vectors to indicated one or more key persons in the scene, and output a virtual camera view based on the identification of the one or more key persons by the classifier”.
Step 2A, prong 2 analysis
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application for improving technological field as there is no additional element claimed other than the judicial exception.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because additional elements of:
“a memory to store... one or more processors coupled to the memory...” are generically recited computer elements that do not add a meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because they amount to simply implementing the abstract idea on a computer.
Step 2B
Further, the claims do not include other additional elements that are beyond what is well-understood, routine, conventional activities in the field and sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Conclusion:
The claims do not include additional elements amount to significantly more in terms of improving functionalities of a computer/device itself, improving another technology or technical field, effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, adding unconventional steps that confine claim to a particular useful application or by use of a particular machine that is unconventional. In conclusion, the claims 26-45 do not comply with the current standards for patent eligible subject matter under 35 USC § 101.
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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/BENNY Q TIEU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2682
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