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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-9 are 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.
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.
Claim(s) 1 –3, 5- 6 and 10-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sills, patent number: US 9 679 179 in view of Krishnamurthi (KRIS), publication number: US 2013/0159939.
As per claims 1, 12 and 20, Sills teaches a method, comprising:
receiving, at a first device, sensor data of a scene comprising a plurality of hands (capturing image of hands, col. 32, lines 48-51);
obtaining, for a first hand of the plurality of hands, a first set of hand features based on the sensor data (extracting biometrics, col. 32, lines 57-67); and
determining, based on the first set of hand features, a first user identity associated with the first hand (determining user identity, col. 33, lines 25-28, col. 6, lines 38-50, col. 20, lines 15 - 44).
obtaining, for a second hand of the plurality of hands, a second set of hand features based on the sensor data;
determining, based on the second set of hand features, a second user identity associated with the second hand: (detecting gestures performed by different users, determining the dominant user, triggering a response associated with gestures of the dominant user while ignoring gestures by non-dominant users, col. 3, lines 34-47, col. 5, lines 21-30, col. 35, lines 8-19, Fig. 13).
Sills does not teach in response to receiving additional sensor data after a first frame of sensor data,
Tracking the first hand in accordance with authorization data for the first user identity and
Ignoring the second hand based on authorization data for the second user identity.
In an analogous art, KRIS teaches in response to receiving additional sensor data after a first frame of sensor data,
Tracking the first hand in accordance with authorization data for the first user identity and
Ignoring the second hand based on authorization data for the second user identity (identifying and authenticating users based on gestures, allowing identified users to control associated avatars in an interactive game context wherein each user gestures only control their avatar, Fig. 5A and B, [0038][0040][0065][0067-0068]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sills’ gesture recognition system to include continuous tracking as described in KRIS’s authentication system for the advantage of having an improved system that allows multi user interaction while also maintaining system security by constantly verifying user identity.
As per claim 2, the combination teaches further comprising: determining, based on the first user identity, a first user profile; and providing access to a functionality of the device in accordance with the first user profile (Sills: determining user authorization, col. 33, lines 64- col. 34, line 3).
As per claim 3, the combination teaches wherein providing access to the functionality of the device further comprises:
detecting a user input action performed by the first hand;
determining, based on the authorization data, that the first user profile is authorized for a predetermined action associated with the user input action; and
in accordance with a determination that the first user profile is authorized for the predetermined action, causing the predetermined action to be performed (Sills: determining user authorization, col. 33, lines 64- col. 34, line 3, Fig. 12, dominant and non-dominant users, col. 3, lines 34-47, col. 5, lines 21-30, col. 35, lines 8-19, Fig. 13).
As per claim 5, the combination teaches further comprising, generating an attempted unauthorized access notification (Sills: reporting, col. 28, lines 39-47).
As per claim 6, the combination teaches further comprising:
appending the first user identity to a list of active users in the scene;
extracting, for each additional hand of the plurality of hands, additional hand features;
determining one or more additional user identities based on the additional hand features; and
generating additional user records for the one or more additional user identities in the list of active users in the scene (Sills: dominant and non-dominant users, Fig.13, col. 35, lines 8 - 19).
As per claim 10, the combination teaches wherein determining the first user identity further comprises:
comparing the first set of hand features with a set of registered hand features stored in a user feature store;
comparing the second set of hand features with the set of registered hand features stored in the user feature store;
determining, based on comparison of the second set of hand features with the set of registered hand features, that the second hand does not belong to a known user; and
generating a first anonymous user record for the second hand based on the second set of hand features (Sills: reporting unverified hand, col. 28, lines 39-47).
As per claim 11, the combination teaches further comprising:
appending the anonymous user record to a list of active users in the scene (Sills: dominant and non dominant users, Fig.13, col. 35, lines 8 - 19).
As per claim 13, the combination teaches wherein obtaining a first set of hand features further comprises:
applying the sensor data to a network trained to predict hand features based on provided sensor data, wherein the network is further trained to predict hand features based on provided enrollment data (Sills: learning, col. 21, lines 62- col. 22, line 42, col. 2, lines 12 - 20).
As per claim 14, the combination teaches wherein the provided enrollment data comprises a bone length (Sills: measurement, col. 2, lines 10-20).
As per claim 15, the combination teaches wherein the first set of hand features comprises at least one selected from a group consisting of a bounding box, a set of keypoints, a hand center, and a chirality (Sills: Scars, col. 2, lines 10-20).
As per claim 16, the combination teaches wherein the first set of hand features further comprises a confidence value for the first user identity (Sills: identity matrix, col. 31, lines 22-23).
As per claim 17, the combination teaches wherein the computer readable code to determine the first user identity further comprises computer readable code to:
apply a set of identity heuristics to the first set of hand features (Sills: normalizing, col. 6, lines 4 - 6).
As per claim 18, the combination teaches further comprising computer readable code to:
determine that the first user identity is associated with a user of the first device; and in accordance with the determination, track the first hand (Sills: dominant and non-dominant users, Fig.13, col. 35, lines 8 - 19).
As per claim 19, the combination teaches further comprising computer readable code to:
Wherein the second hand is ignored further based on a determination that the second user identity is associated with a person different than a user of the first device (Sills: Ignoring, col. 28, lines 17-27, dominant and non-dominant users, Fig.13, col. 35, lines 8 - 19).
Conclusion
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/OLUGBENGA O IDOWU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2494