Response to RCE
This action is responsive to the RCE filed on 09/16/2025.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-3, 5-13, 15-22 are pending in the case.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 09/16/2025 has been entered.
Priority
Application 18146183 claims no priorities thus effective filing date is 12/23/2022.
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, 5-8, 10-13, 15-18, 20-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Han et al. US 20240152203 A1, (hereinafter Han) in view of Hsu et al. US 20120299852 A1, (hereinafter Hsu) in view of Bauchot et al. US 20060075359 A1, (hereinafter Bauchot).
As to independent claim 1, Han teaches:
A computer-implemented method comprising:
Responsive to receiving an activation input for initiating a gaze assist operation corresponding to an application (See Fig. 2 with [0038] – “Specifically, as shown in FIG. 2, in the present embodiment, when the first eye movement information acquired in step S1 is the first gaze information, the first operation command is the interface enlarging command. During specific operation, the initial gaze area needs to be enlarged (by 5 times in the present embodiment or other multiples) and then moved to a center of a screen;”, in other words the initial gaze area corresponding to the first eye movement information is interpreted to be the claimed receiving activation input, and this initiates an enlarge command (i.e., interpreted to be claimed gaze assist operation), receiving a point of gaze for a user on a display (See Fig. 2 with [0038] – “initial gaze area”, is seen as the claimed point of gaze.) and a first cursor location for a pointing device on the display (Han does teach an initial first cursor location, see [0060] – “Specifically, the display screen 100 may be a display screen of a computer, and may also be an LED, LCD or other liquid crystal display screens, and the display screen 100 can display a mouse cursor besides displaying images, thereby performing click or double-click operations in an image display area through the mouse cursor.”.
And then see Fig. 2 with [0038] – “then, the sight line of the user gazes at an enlarged area at the center of the screen for fine secondary operation, locks a mouse pointer operation location after continuously gazing at the interest area for 1500 ms, and then moves a mouse to the point after coordinate conversion and locks the location of the mouse.”, in other words the “mouse pointer operation location” is seen as the initial mouse pointer location thus can be interpreted as the claimed first cursor location. Whereas the “moves a mouse to the point after coordinate conversion” is seen as the transposed mouse pointer location thus is the second mouse cursor location),
the first cursor location corresponding to a first set of coordinates relative to a coordinate space of the display (See the explanation explained above, specifically see Fig. 2 with [0038] – “and then moves a mouse to the point after coordinate conversion and locks the location of the mouse”, thus the cursor/mouse location is corresponding to a coordinate space as claimed.)
generating a gaze region based on the point of gaze on the display (See Fig. 2 with [0038] – “During specific operation, the initial gaze area needs to be enlarged (by 5 times in the present embodiment or other multiples)”, in other words an initial gaze area has already been determined, thus is interpreted to be the generated gaze region based on point of gaze), the gaze reqion including an image of a portion of a display content that encompasses the point of gaze (See Fig. 2 with [0038] – “During specific operation, the initial gaze area needs to be enlarged (by 5 times in the present embodiment or other multiples) and then moved to a center of a screen;”, in other words is the claimed image that encompasses the point of gaze. In regards to claimed image of a portion of a display content, see [0040] – “and the current display interface (e.g., a picture or a certain page) can be zoomed”, in other words picture or page is seen as display content);
generating an interaction region for displayinq the imaqe (See [0038] – “then, the sight line of the user gazes at an enlarged area at the center of the screen”, in other words the enlarged area has already been generated and is interactable upon as explained in [0046-0048]. See also Fig. 2 which illustrates a generated enlarged interactable window.);
detecting an interaction event corresponding to the interaction region at a second cursor location for the pointing device on the display (See [0038] – “the sight line of the user gazes at an enlarged area at the center of the screen for fine secondary operation, locks a mouse pointer operation location after continuously gazing at the interest area for 1500 ms, and then moves a mouse to the point after coordinate conversion and locks the location of the mouse.”, in other words receiving an interaction event corresponding to the interaction region at a location, wherein the location becomes the second cursor location because the interaction event causes the initial first cursor location to be moved to the location,).
Han teaches the second cursor location as cited above and Han further teaches in [0066] – “the human-machine interaction system may partially or selectively replace functions of the conventional computer mouse hardware device”, but Han does not explicitly teach: responsive to detecting the interaction event at the second cursor location, generatinq by a system hook, a replacement interaction event for passing to the application, based on the interaction event.
Hsu teaches: responsive to detecting the interaction event at the location, generatinq by a system hook, a replacement interaction event for passing to the application, based on the interaction event (See [0029] – “The touch screen signal processing device of the computer system has a gesture hook unit. For performing the zooming, the rotating action or the translating action, the image of the application program is captured by the gesture hook to be used as a top-layer image”, in other words the gesture hook unit is the claimed system hook, and the claimed generated replacement interaction event is the capturing the image of the application program by the gesture hook in response to the zoom input. In other words, the gesture hook unit intercepts zoom inputs, and then generates the image [i.e., claimed generates a replacement interaction event] and then passes it to the application as mentioned in the paragraph).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify a system that includes gaze gestures as taught by Han to include system hooks for inputted gestures as taught by Hsu. Motivation to do so would be for “The computer system has a gesture hook unit for receiving a first type gesture event from a first gesture engine and a plurality of second type gesture events from a second gesture engine…is smoothly changed in response to a gesture of a user.” (See Hsu Abstract).
Han teaches the limitation “generating an interaction region for displayinq the imaqe” as cited above, but Han nor Hsu teaches: a center of the interaction region positioned on the display at the first set of coordinates.
Bauchot teaches: a center of the interaction region positioned on the display at the first set of coordinates (First see Abstract and Fig. 1 which describes a method of managing a floating window that is within an active window. And then see [0057] which describes a working area that can be a child window of the active window, and that this child window is an area centered around the cursor. Thus, the child window can be interpreted to be the claimed interaction region and that this interaction region is centered on the first set of coordinates (i.e., cursor location coordinates).).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the interaction region taught by Han to include a method of centering the interaction region around a cursor location as taught by Bauchot. Motivation to do so would be for eliminating the need for excessive movement of the cursor by having the interaction region positioned right at where the cursor is.
As to dependent claim 2, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as cited above.
Han further teaches: wherein generating the replacement interaction event comprises:
receiving an interaction mapping for relating a position of the gaze region on the display to a position of the interaction region on the display (See [0065] which mentions computer memory used to store the programmed instructions for executing the method taught by Han. The claim can be read as receiving programmed instructions [i.e., receiving an interaction mapping] for tracking the position of eye gaze region to correspond to stored instructions for executing a scroll command);
mapping the second cursor location to a replacement cursor location based on the interaction mapping (See [0065], claimed replacement cursor location is seen as stored programmable instructions that indicate a location on the screen that the user’s gaze cursor would need to be at, hence is a mapped programmable instruction i.e. event listener); and
generating the replacement interaction event based on the replacement cursor location (See [0065] generate a replacement screen when the screen is scrolled, based on user’s gaze cursor being at the location).
As to dependent claim 3, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as cited above.
Han further teaches: processing the replacement interaction event to execute a command operation of the application (See [0065] scroll operation on the webpage of the web browser application).
As to dependent claim 5, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 4 as cited above.
Han further teaches: wherein generating an interaction region comprises:
magnifying the image of the portion of the content of the display to generate a magnified image (See Fig. 2 Enlarged window); and
positioning the magnified image on the display corresponding to the first cursor location (Examiner notes the term “corresponding” is broad and does not necessarily mean “adjacent”. The displayed magnified/enlarged image corresponds to the first cursor location in the sense that they both are displayed within the same display screen, thus they have a correspondence with each other.).
As to dependent claim 6, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as cited above.
Han further teaches: wherein a size of the image of the portion of the display content depends on a degree of accuracy of the point of gaze (See [0033] – “For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the initial gaze area may be a 150×150 mm rectangular area formed with a point A at which the user continuously gazes as a center, or a circular area with a diameter of 150 mm formed with a point A at which the user continuously gazes as a center, and the like”, in other words the degree of accuracy is sufficient when the gaze area is determined to be a e.g. 150x150 mm rectangular area. Then see [0038] – “During specific operation, the initial gaze area needs to be enlarged (by 5 times in the present embodiment or other multiples)”, in other words the size of the enlarged image of the portion of the display content is dependent upon the size of the initial gaze area, with their relationship being 5 times the size of the initial gaze area).
As to dependent claim 7, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as cited above.
Han further teaches: wherein receiving the activation input comprises:
receiving a delimiter operation input including at least one of: a pointing device input (See Fig. 1 S3 “acquire second eye movement information of the user” is seen as the delimiter operation); a keyboard event input; a gesture input; or an audio input.
As to dependent claim 8, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as cited above.
Han further teaches: wherein receiving the activation input comprises:
receiving a delimiter operation input including:
a point of gaze at a first location on the display (See Fig. 1 S3 “acquire second eye movement information of the user”); and
a mouse event at a second location on the display (See [0039] – “During specific operation, when the sight line of the user glances at the interest area in the screen up and down for 2 or more cycles, in the process, the sight line is kept to move up and down in a vertical direction as much as possible,”);
wherein a distance between the first and second locations on the display exceeds a threshold value (See [0039] – “A maximum distance of eyes glancing at the screen cannot exceed ¾ pixel of a height of the screen, and a minimum distance cannot be less than ¼ pixel of the height of the screen”).
As to dependent claim 10, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as cited above.
Han further teaches: receiving a request to terminate the gaze assist operation (See [0020] – “Unique eye gesture operation is designed, and operation functions are locked or unlocked through the third eye movement information, so as to avoid mistaken operation command triggering when the user watches videos or works for a long time.”. See also [0038] locks).
As to independent claim 11, it is rejected under similar rationale as claim 1 as cited above.
As to dependent claim 12, it is rejected under similar rationale as claim 2 as cited above.
As to dependent claim 13, it is rejected under similar rationale as claim 3 as cited above.
As to dependent claim 15, it is rejected under similar rationale as claim 5 as cited above.
As to dependent claim 16, it is rejected under similar rationale as claim 6 as cited above.
As to dependent claim 17, it is rejected under similar rationale as claim 7 as cited above.
As to dependent claim 18, it is rejected under similar rationale as claim 8 as cited above.
As to independent claim 20, it is rejected under similar rationale as claim 1 as cited above.
As to dependent claim 21, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as cited above.
Han further teaches: wherein the replacement interaction event corresponds to a mapped location on the display in proximity to the point of gaze (See [0038] – “and then moves a mouse to the point after coordinate conversion and locks the location of the mouse”, in other words coordinate conversion suggests that specific locations on the screen corresponds to coordinates such as well-known pixels. See claim 1 above for the replacement interaction event examples and the gaze interactions that activate them.).
As to dependent claim 22, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as cited above.
Han further teaches: wherein the interaction event represents a user interaction with the pointing device at the second cursor location (See [0038] – “the sight line of the user gazes at an enlarged area at the center of the screen for fine secondary operation, locks a mouse pointer operation location after continuously gazing at the interest area for 1500 ms, and then moves a mouse to the point after coordinate conversion and locks the location of the mouse.”, in other words the interaction event in this case is a user gazing at the enlarged area’s center of screen, and this interaction event causes the pointing device’s mouse pointer location to be moved to a second cursor location i.e. center of screen).
Claims 9 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Han et al. US 20240152203 A1, (hereinafter Han) in view of Hsu et al. US 20120299852 A1, (hereinafter Hsu) in view of Bauchot et al. US 20060075359 A1, (hereinafter Bauchot) in view of Takao et al. US 20240251154 A1, (hereinafter Takao).
As to dependent claim 9, Han as modified teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as cited above.
Han teaches in [0018] an eye movement tracking apparatus, configured to acquire eye movement information of a user, but Han as modified does not explicitly teach: wherein obtaining the point of gaze for the user on the display comprises:
Obtaining eye gaze information based on a face image for the user; and
determining the point of gaze on the display based on the eye gaze information.
Takao teaches: wherein obtaining the point of gaze for the user on the display comprises: obtaining a face image for the user (See [0109] – “Then, by performing image capture using a camera 701f provided on the back surface of the image capture apparatus 1, an infrared image of the face 500 of the user is obtained. By detecting the pupil area from an image of the eyeball 501a and/or an eyeball 501b, the line-of-sight direction is detected.”);
Obtaining eye gaze information based on the face image for the user (See [0109]); and
determining the point of gaze on the display based on the eye gaze information (See [0109]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the eye movement tracking apparatus taught by Han and have it be implemented as a camera performing the face detection methods taught by Takao. Motivation to do so would be for utilizing cameras, which are conventional and ubiquitous technology for tracking eye movement.
As for dependent claim 19, it is rejected under similar rationale as claim 9 as cited above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendment to claim 5 has fixed the typographical error and thus the claim objection is withdrawn.
Applicant’s argument and amendments pertaining to the 103 rejections has been considered but are rendered moot in view of the new ground of rejections that now include the new reference Bauchot to teach the amended limitations.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication should be directed to DAVID V LUU at telephone number (571)270-0703.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID V LUU whose telephone number is (571)270-0703. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Tuesday from 11am-7pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kieu Vu, can be reached at telephone number (571) 272-4057. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from Patent Center and the Private Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from Patent Center or Private PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Patent Center and Private PAIR for authorized users only. Should you have questions about access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/DAVID V LUU/Examiner, Art Unit 2171
/KIEU D VU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2171
Prosecution Insights