Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/291,753

METHOD, APPARATUS, ELECTRONIC DEVICE AND STORAGE MEDIUM FOR DISPLAYING A TEXT EFFECT

Non-Final OA §102§112
Filed
Jan 24, 2024
Examiner
RIAZ, SAHAR AQIL
Art Unit
2424
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
BEIJING BYTEDANCE NETWORK TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
75%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
3y 2m
To Grant
91%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 75% — above average
75%
Career Allow Rate
369 granted / 492 resolved
+17.0% vs TC avg
Strong +16% interview lift
Without
With
+16.3%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 2m
Avg Prosecution
6 currently pending
Career history
498
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
8.8%
-31.2% vs TC avg
§103
51.3%
+11.3% vs TC avg
§102
19.5%
-20.5% vs TC avg
§112
8.4%
-31.6% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 492 resolved cases

Office Action

§102 §112
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 . Priority Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55. Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/24/2024, 09/05/2024, and 02/13/2025 is being considered by the examiner. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 3-10 and 17-22 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 § 112 The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b): (b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph: The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention. Claim 1 recites the limitation "determining a display path of the text to be displayed" in line 5. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 2 recites the limitation "determining the fitted target contour expansion curve" in line 15. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 15 recites the limitation "determining a display path of the text to be displayed" in line 23. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 16 recites the limitation "determining the fitted target contour expansion curve" in line 8. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 23 recites the limitation " determining a display path of the text to be displayed" in line 17. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action: A person shall be entitled to a patent unless – (a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Claims 1, 11, 15 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hwang et al. US Patent Publication No. 2018/0332265. Regarding Claim 1, Hwang discloses a method of displaying a text effect [0006], comprising: in response to determining that text information to be displayed and a text display parameter are obtained, obtaining a video image for displaying the text information to be displayed [0007; generating a broadcast signal including the video stream, and transmitting the broadcast signal, wherein the 360 subtitle SEI message includes a subtitle ID for identifying the subtitle, a region ID for identifying a subtitle region where the subtitle is overlayed in a 360 space, and subtitle region information for specifying the subtitle region in the 360 space, and wherein the subtitle region information is either fixed region information or offset region information]; identifying key location points of a target object in the video image and determining a display path of the text to be displayed based on the key location points [0426; subtitles for video may be rendered on the basis of a video object. Appropriate subtitles depending on the current viewport of a user can be rendered in consideration of position information of the video object on a 3D sphere. That is, the current viewport of the user is considered and subtitles corresponding to a video object according to the current viewport can be rendered… the 360-degree subtitle related metadata can provide signaling information in consideration of a viewport and the position of an audio object or a video object]; and displaying, based on the text display parameter, the text information to be displayed dynamically according to the display path [Figure 45]. Regarding Claim 11, Hwang discloses a method, wherein the target object comprises a character image in the video image [Figure 45 & [0430-0431] the subtitles for video objects Lucy and Michael]. Regarding Claim 15, Hwang discloses an electronic device [Figure 3], comprising: one or more processors [0665]; a storage device configured to store one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors implement acts comprising [0665]: in response to determining that text information to be displayed and a text display parameter are obtained, obtaining a video image for displaying the text information to be displayed [0007; generating a broadcast signal including the video stream, and transmitting the broadcast signal, wherein the 360 subtitle SEI message includes a subtitle ID for identifying the subtitle, a region ID for identifying a subtitle region where the subtitle is overlayed in a 360 space, and subtitle region information for specifying the subtitle region in the 360 space, and wherein the subtitle region information is either fixed region information or offset region information]; identifying key location points of a target object in the video image and determining a display path of the text to be displayed based on the key location points [0426; subtitles for video may be rendered on the basis of a video object. Appropriate subtitles depending on the current viewport of a user can be rendered in consideration of position information of the video object on a 3D sphere. That is, the current viewport of the user is considered and subtitles corresponding to a video object according to the current viewport can be rendered… the 360-degree subtitle related metadata can provide signaling information in consideration of a viewport and the position of an audio object or a video object]; and displaying, based on the text display parameter, the text information to be displayed dynamically according to the display path [Figure 45]. Regarding Claim 23, Hwang discloses a non-transitory storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by a computer processor, are configured to perform acts comprising [0665]: in response to determining that text information to be displayed and a text display parameter are obtained, obtaining a video image for displaying the text information to be displayed [0007; generating a broadcast signal including the video stream, and transmitting the broadcast signal, wherein the 360 subtitle SEI message includes a subtitle ID for identifying the subtitle, a region ID for identifying a subtitle region where the subtitle is overlayed in a 360 space, and subtitle region information for specifying the subtitle region in the 360 space, and wherein the subtitle region information is either fixed region information or offset region information]; identifying key location points of a target object in the video image and determining a display path of the text to be displayed based on the key location points [0426; subtitles for video may be rendered on the basis of a video object. Appropriate subtitles depending on the current viewport of a user can be rendered in consideration of position information of the video object on a 3D sphere. That is, the current viewport of the user is considered and subtitles corresponding to a video object according to the current viewport can be rendered… the 360-degree subtitle related metadata can provide signaling information in consideration of a viewport and the position of an audio object or a video object]; and displaying, based on the text display parameter, the text information to be displayed dynamically according to the display path [Figure 45]. Relevant Prior Art The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Homma et al. US Patent No. 10,339,955 - A method performed by an information processing system, the method comprising: reading a current playback time of content reproduced by an output device; controlling a display to display subtitle information corresponding to the content reproduced by the output device; acquiring feature information corresponding to an attribute of the content based on the read current playback time of the content; and controlling the display to apply a predetermined effect corresponding to the displayed subtitle information based on the acquired feature information, wherein the predetermined effect applied to the text characters includes changing at least one of a size, shape, color and display angle of the text characters. Kumar et al. US Patent Publication No. 2023/0401852 - Features characterizing the content of the video and extracted from the visual content, audio, text (e.g., speech-to-text translation, closed captioning, subtitles, screenplay or script, etc.), metadata, or other data corresponding to the video can be used in place of or in combination with colors. Visual features utilized for partitioning frames into shots include luminance (e.g., average grayscale luminance or the luminance channel in a color model such as hue-saturation-luminance (HSL)), color histograms, image edges, texture-based features (e.g., Tamura features, simultaneous autoregressive models, orientation features, co-occurrence matrices), features of objects in the video (e.g., faces or color, texture, and/or size of detected objects), transform coefficients (e.g., Discrete Fourier Transform, Discrete Cosine Transform, wavelet), and motion, among others. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAHAR A RIAZ whose telephone number is (571)270-3005. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9 am to 5 pm. 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. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Benjamin Bruckart can be reached at 571-272-3982. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /SAHAR AQIL RIAZ/Examiner, Art Unit 2424
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Jan 24, 2024
Application Filed
Feb 02, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §102, §112 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
75%
Grant Probability
91%
With Interview (+16.3%)
3y 2m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 492 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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