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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 5/11/26 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Please see the new combination below that uses Klotz et al. (US 7,168,036 B2) in view of Barrus et al. (US 7,536,638 B2).
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 first de 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, 2, and 5-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Klotz et al. (US 7,168,036 B2) in view of Barrus et al. (US 7,536,638 B2).
Regarding claim 1, Klotz teaches an information processing apparatus comprising a processor configured to: acquire, by an image capturer, captured data of an image captured surface that simultaneously includes all of: (i) image data of a document (Klotz, Abstract; col. 5, line 62 to col. 6, line 11, teaching that a document is placed into a scanner);
(ii) image data of a first definition portion that is physically separate from the document and is placed on the image captured surface (Klotz, col. 4, lines 36-54, teaching that glyph sticker pattern 110 serves as a paper user interface tag; col. 5, line 62 to col. 6 line 11, teaching that the user attaches a glyph sticker onto the document, places the document into a scanner, and the scanner reads the document;
wherein the first definition portion defines a first process that is to be performed on the image data of the document (Klotz, col. 5, ll. 9-23, teaching that a service code represents different possible actions, transformations; col. 6, ll. 12-30, teaching that the action processor identifies and decodes the glyph sticker and causes the desired action to be performed).
Klotz does not expressly teach image data of a second definition portion that is physically separate from the document and placed on the image captured surface, wherein the second definition portion defines a second process that differs from the first process.
Barrus teaches this limitation. Barrus teaches that a user affixes one or more action stickers to a scanned surface, that the action stickers specify actions to be performed, that the surface is scanned, and that the affixed stickers are located and read (Barrus, Abstract).
Barrus further teaches that multiple stickers may be placed on a coversheet at the same time (Barrus, col. 3, ll. 38-43).
Barrus further teaches that stickers of different kinds specify different actions/processes (Barrus, col. 3, lines 43-51).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Klotz’s document-mounted glyph sticker interface to use a plurality of physically separate stickers/definition portions as taught by Barrus. The reason is to allow a user to specify multiple different document-processing services/actions for the scanned document in one paper-based scan operation without navigating device menus and without requiring multiple separate scan operations.
Regarding claim 2, Klotz teaches services including scan to document repository, scan and send via e-mail, scan and fax, and scan and print copies (Klotz, col. 5, lines 9-23). Klotz further teaches that the action processor causes the desired action to be performed, which may include an action/transformation and output by an output device (Klotz, col. 6, lines 12-37).
Barrus teaches various action types including printing, e-mailing, faxing, deleting, grouping, modifying collections, playing audio/video files, and specifying access levels (Barrus, col. 2, lines 51-61).
Regarding claim 5, Barrus teaches that action stickers can be designed to have distinctive color, shape, and/or markings (Barrus, col. 3, lines 52-59) and may specify actions based on shape, color, orientation, position, symbol, icon, letter, word, or machine-readable code (Barrus, col. 4, lines 15-28).
Regarding claim 6, Barrus teaches multiple stickers with different appearances and different actions/processes (Barrus, col. 3, lines 38-59). Barrus further teaches that an action sticker can include a word indicating the desired action, such as “Print” (Barrus, col. 6, lines 15-40).
Regarding claims 7-8, see the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 9, Barrus teaches that the action sticker specifies what action to take and that the location and/or orientation of the sticker specifies the target document (Barrus, col. 2, lines 62-67; col. 3, lines 1-10). Barrus further teaches that an action sticker may specify an action based on its shape, color, orientation, position, symbol, icon, letter, word, or machine-readable code (Barrus, col. 6, lines 15-40).
Claims 3, 10, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Klotz et al. in view of Barrus et al., and further in view of Morita (US 2011/0188745).
Regarding claim 3, Barrus further teaches multiple action stickers placed at the same time (Barrus, col. 3, ll. 38-43), stickers of different kinds specifying different actions/processes (Barrus, col. 3, lines 43-51), and location/orientation of a sticker specifying a target (Barrus, col. 2, lines 62-67; col. 3, lines 1-10).
Morita teaches extracting position information, including start coordinates and end coordinates, and associating the position information with processing content (Morita, ¶¶ [0061]-[0063]). Morita further teaches using the start coordinate and end coordinate of processing instruction information to sequentially acquire image data of user-designated areas (Morita, ¶ [0063]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention to use Morita’s detected position information with the multiple sticker-defined processes of Klotz and Barrus to determine processing order, such as a predetermined positional order or scan/read order. The reason is to provide predictable and repeatable processing when multiple paper-based instructions are present.
Regarding claim 10, Klotz and Barrus teach the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above. Barrus further teaches that the user identifies a target by placing a sticker at a location that overlaps, is adjacent to, or points to a thumbnail/document representation, and that the location and/or orientation of the sticker specifies the target document (Barrus, col. 2, lines 62-67; col. 3, lines 1-10).
Morita teaches extracting start coordinate and end coordinate information and associating the specified position with processing content (Morita, ¶¶ [0062]-[0063]).
Regarding claim 11, Barrus teaches position-based identification of a sticker/action relative to a target document (Barrus, col. 2, lines 62-67; col. 3, lines 1-10).
Morita teaches processing instruction information including an upper-left start coordinate and a lower-right end coordinate indicated by relative coordinate information, and associating the specified position with processing content (Morita, ¶ [0062]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HADI AKHAVANNIK whose telephone number is (571)272-8622. The examiner can normally be reached 9 AM - 5 PM Monday to Friday.
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/HADI AKHAVANNIK/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2676
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