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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 2/5/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 9/17/2025, with respect to claims 1, 2, 4-11, 13-19 and 21-23 have been fully considered but are moot in view new ground(s) of rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 1-7, 9-16 and 18-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Le Chevalier (PGPUB Document No. US 2023/0162420, herein after referred to as “Chevalier”) in view of Golbeck et al. (“Predicting Personality with Social Media” URL: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1979742.1979614) in view of Bryant et al. (PGPUB Document No. US 2023/0177776) in view of Childs (PGPUB Document No. US 2020/01443000).
Regarding claim 1, Cheval teaches a computer-implemented method, the method comprising:
Presenting a first extended reality (XR) environment using a first XR device associated with a person (virtual studying companionship utilizing one or more user devices 140a and display devices 140b (VR/AR glasses), wherein both devices may be implemented as one device (Chevalier: 0036, 0038));
Providing, in the first XR environment, one or more user interfaces to the person (user interface provided by the avatar production system (Chevalier: 0044));
And receiving, from the person via the one or more user interfaces in the first XR environment, one or more preferences of the person (the user by selecting one or more properties (Chevalier: 0044))
Generating a second XR environment in accordance with at least one of the one or more preferences; and presenting the second XR environment using a second XR device (repeating the steps above for different/second virtual studying companion session corresponds to the second XR environment using a second XR device. Note the Applicant’s Specification states that the second XR devices may be the first XR device (Applicant’s Specification: 00218)).
However, Chevalier does not expressly teach but Golbeck teaches predicting, based upon data associated with the person, a preferred virtual experience setting of the person (Golbeck teaches the concept of predicting personality traits from user’s Facebook profiles (Golbeck: Language Features, pg.256). Golbeck discloses personality type showed that users preferred interfaces designed to represent personalities that most closely matched their own (Golbeck: Discussion, pg.260)).
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of an ordinary skill in the art to modify the combined teachings above such as to adjust interface preferences of the AR system of Chevalier according to the teachings of Golbeck. The combination of the teachings is beneficial, because this enables a more user friendly/tailored user experience.
Further, the combined teachings above do not expressly teach but Bryant teaches wherein the preferred virtual experience setting of the person includes a preferred virtual place in which a virtual experience can occur (receiving one or more user preference selections for an augmented environment (Bryant: 0009)).
Further, the combined teachings above do not expressly teach the data use for prediction user preference include social media posts.
Childes teaches predicting user preferences from social media posts (Childs: 0060).
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of an ordinary skill in the art to modify the combined teachings above such as to include social media posts as part of the data of the combined teachings above, because this enables a larger type of data to utilized in improving the accuracy when predicting user personality/preference.
Regarding claim 2, the combined teachings teach the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more preferences includes one or more XR preferences (selecting avatar preferences for the virtual studying companionship (Chevalier: 0044)), and the method further comprises:
Generating the second XR environment in accordance with at least one of the one or more XR preferences (repeating the steps above for different/second virtual studying companion session corresponds to the second XR environment using a second XR device as stated in the rejection claim 1 above).
Regarding claim 4, the combined teachings teach computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the one or more XR preferences include one or more metaverse preferences including one or more of a metaverse identifier or a preferred avatar (Chevalier teaches the avatar being a part of the metaverse (Chevalier: 0037)),
And wherein generating the second XR environment includes generating the second XR environment to represent a metaverse environment in accordance with the one or more metaverse preferences (the resulting virtual scene based on a second user preferences for a second virtual study companion session).
Regarding claim 5, the combined teachings teach the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more preferences represents one or more of a virtual interaction preference (user preferences for avatar activity (interaction) (Chevalier: 0051)), a preferred XR device, a preferred XR device type, an XR device identifier, or a willingness to hold virtual meetings.
Regarding claim 6, the combined teachings teach the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more preferences represents one or more of personal data (avatars created based on physiology, or motion information associated with the user (Chevalier: 0035, 0067), and social media data.
Regarding claim 7, the combined teachings teach the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the second XR device is the first XR device (the user submits any of the disclosed devices of Chevalier in para 0036 maybe a first or second XR device as presently claimed).
Regarding claim 9, the combined teachings teach the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first XR device includes at least one of (i) an augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), or virtual reality (VR) headset, (ii) AR, MR, or VR smart glasses (virtual reality or augmented reality glasses (Chevalier: 0036)), (iii) an audio input device configured to enable the person to interact with a voice bot, or (iv) a text input device configured to enable the person to interact with a chatbot.
Regarding claim 21, the combined teachings teach the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein predicting the preferred virtual experience setting of the person is based upon social media posts associated with the person.
Claim(s) 10, 11 and 13-16 are corresponding system claim(s) of claim(s) 1, 2 and 4-7. The limitations of claim(s) 10, 11 and 13-16 are substantially similar to the limitations of claim(s) 1, 2 and 4-7. Therefore, it has been analyzed and rejected substantially similar to claim(s) 10, 11 and 13-16. Further, Chevalier teaches a system (system 600 (Chevalier: 0108)) and one or more processors (processor 602 (Chevalier: 0108)), as presently claimed.
Claim(s) 18, 19 and 23 are corresponding computer-readable medium claim(s) of claim(s) 1, 3 and 21. The limitations of claim(s) 18, 19 and 23 are substantially similar to the limitations of claim(s) 1, 3 and 21. Therefore, it has been analyzed and rejected substantially similar to claim(s) 18, 19 and 23. Further, Chevalier teaches a computer-readable medium (Chevalier: 0027) as presently claimed.
Claim(s) 8 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chevalier in view of Golbeck in view of Bryant in view of Childs as applied to the claim(s) above, and further in view of Yerli (PGPUB Document No. US 2022/0070236).
Regarding claim 8, Chevalier teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first XR environment includes a virtual meeting of avatars of the person (plurality of student avatars in a classroom (Chevalier: 0097, FIG.4B)).
However, Chevalier does not expressly teach but Yerli teaches the virtual meeting further including a third person via respective XR devices (virtual classroom with a plurality of graphical representation of students (Yerli: 0258, FIG.10A)).
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of an ordinary skill in the art to modify the virtual classroom of Chevalier such that a plurality of avatars of other users are also present (taught by Yerli), because this enables a virtual environment with improved collaboration and social connections.
Claim 17 is similar in scope to claim 8.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David H Chu whose telephone number is (571)272-8079. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:30 - 1:30pm, 3:30-8:30pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Daniel F Hajnik can be reached at (571) 272-7642. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DAVID H CHU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2616
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