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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendment filed on 01/23/2026 has been entered. Claims 1-11 are still pending in this application
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 and 9-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vaananen (US 9953092).
Regarding claim 1, The structural elements of apparatus claim 9 perform all of the steps of method claim 1. Thus, claim 1 is rejected for the same reasons discussed in the rejection of claim 9.
Regarding claim 9, Vaananen teaches a device for acquiring a textual context of a user, wherein the device comprises: at least one processor; and at least one non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon which when executed by the at least one processor configure the device to acquire the textual context by: obtaining at least one character originating from at least one input peripheral device of an electronic device (col. 5 Lines:45-55: The input can take place by typing text for example with a keyboard or other computer peripheral and fig. 1);
performing an optical character recognition over all or part of an image representative of a content displayed by at least one display peripheral device of said electronic device (fig. 3 300-310: recognize both text and text as image)
and making it possible to obtain a character sequence associated with said optical character recognition performed (col. 15, lines 1-6: image data by character recognition, for example OCR (Object Character Recognition), or similar recognition algorithm); searching for said at least one character in said character sequence; acquiring, from said character sequence, said textual context (col. 16, lines:60-65 and claim 1).
Vaananen explicitly disclose search the current displayed OCR text. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Vaananen’s display OCR text with the teaching of user entering search string for effectively improving computerised search queries from data and computerised language translations from one language to the next.
Regarding claim 10, claim 10 recited similar limitations as claim 9, therefore it is rejected for the same reason as claim 9.
Claim 11 has been analyzed and rejected with regard to claim 1 and in accordance with Vaananen’s further teaching on: A computer-readable memory that contains instructions, which when executed by a processor perform steps in a method (col. 7 and line 45-60).
Claims 2-3 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vaananen as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Hull (US 9405751).
Regarding claim 2, Vaananen teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the acquiring is followed by suggesting a multimedia content as a function of said textual context, said multimedia content being displayed by said display peripheral device in proximity to a point of interest positioned as a function of a position datum associated with at least one character of said character sequence corresponding to said at least one character obtained.
Hull teaches wherein the acquiring is followed by suggesting a multimedia content as a function of said textual context, said multimedia content being displayed by said display peripheral device in proximity to a point of interest positioned as a function of a position datum associated with at least one character of said character sequence corresponding to said at least one character obtained (col. 25 Line: 20-25: If a match is found, the existence of a hot spot 506 is highlighted to MMR user 110 on).
Vaananen and Hull are combinable because they both deal with management servers with a printing apparatus. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Vaananen with the teaching of Hull for purpose of for producing a mixed media document that is formed from at least two media types.
Regarding claim 3, Vaananen in view of Hull teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein said textual context comprises a subset of said sequence subsequent and/or preceding said at least one character of said sequence corresponding to said at least one character obtained (Hull: col. 32, Lines: 40-45: horizontal word pair is then used to form a search query to database 3400 for determining all the documents that contain the identified horizontal word pair).
The rational applied to the rejection of claim 2 has been incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 5, Vaananen in view of Hull teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein said optical character recognition is applied to a part of said image whose coordinates correspond to those of an active graphic window displayed by said display device (Vaananen: fig. 3 300-310: recognize both text and text as image and Hull: fig. 3 300-310: recognize both text and text as image)
The rational applied to the rejection of claim 2 has been incorporated herein.
Claim 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vaananen as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Hull (US 9405751) and Santoro et al. (US 12125297).
Regarding claim 4, Vaananen in view of Hull The method according to claim 1, wherein said optical character recognition is applied to a part of said image whose coordinates are determined as a function of at least one position datum associated with a part of said displayed content (Hull: col 65 lines: 1-10: an OCR imaging operation is performed, and the x-y locations of characters and/or words are indexed accordingly), watched by a user.
Vaananen in view of Hull does not teach said at least one second position datum being obtained after assessing a time during which an analysis of ocular movements of said user captured by a camera of said electronic device indicates that a gaze of said user remains directed to said part of said displayed content.
Santoro teaches said at least one second position datum being obtained after assessing a time during which an analysis of ocular movements of said user captured by a camera of said electronic device indicates that a gaze of said user remains directed to said part of said displayed content (fig. 12: 1210: or gaze signals indicating the first user is looking at the textual content. And 215).
Vaananen in view of Hull and Santoro are combinable because they both deal character recognition. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Vaananen with the teaching of Hull for purpose of assist a user to obtain information or services.
Claims 6-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vaananen as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Tsubol (US 20110171999).
Regarding claim 6, Vaananen does not teach the method according to claim 1, wherein execution of the method is stopped as a function of a value of a subset of said sequence preceding said at least one character of said sequence corresponding to said at least one character obtained.
Tsubol wherein execution of the method is stopped as a function of a value of a subset of said sequence preceding said at least one character of said sequence corresponding to said at least one character obtained (p0077: input character is a prohibited character… performing second predetermined processing)
Vaananen and Tsubol are combinable because they both deal input character processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Vaananen with the teaching of Tsubol for purpose of to provide a user-friendly portable electronic device (p0007).
Regarding claim 7, Vaananen in view of Tsubol teaches the method according to claim 7, wherein the stopping of the execution of the method is followed by issuing a notification (Tsubol: p0077: caution display (or an alarm sound output).
The rational applied to the rejection of claim 6 has been incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 8, Vaananen in view of Tsubol teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein execution of the method is stopped as a function of a value of said at least one character obtained Tsubol: p0077).
The rational applied to the rejection of claim 6 has been incorporated herein.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims have been considered.
Regarding to claim rejections for 35 USC § 103:
The applicant first alleges: “Vaananen does not describe at least searching for a character originating from an input peripheral device in the sequence of characters resulting from OCR. The Office Action refers to Vaananen Fig. 3, steps 300 and 310. Col. 15, lines 1-6 states with respect to Fig. 3: On some web pages textual data is not stored in the form of text, but rather the text is in an image, which image is on the webpage. It is in accordance with the invention to recognize the text from the image data by character recognition, for example OCR (Object Character Recognition), or similar recognition algorithm. This passage merely states that translated pages may be indexed and searched; it does not disclose or suggest matching user input characters with OCR-derived text of the current display”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Vaananen teaches in fig.3: 350 and col. 16 lines 50-60: The combination of text sets with the highest contextual rank is displayed to the user as the translation in phase 350 on the webpage…some of these web pages may be indexed or even stored by search engines in accordance with the invention. In 100 in fig. 1: input search query, 130-140: rank search results).
Vaananen explicitly disclose search the current displayed OCR text. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Vaananen’s display OCR text with the teaching of user entering search string for effectively improving computerised search queries from data and computerised language translations from one language to the next.
Therefore, Vaananen teaches claimed limitations.
The applicant finally alleges: searching for said at least one character [obtained from an input peripheral device] in said character sequence [obtained from the OCR of a content displayed on the peripheral device]; acquiring, from said character sequence, said textual context.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Vaananen teaches searching for said at least one character [obtained from an input peripheral device] (col. 5 Lines:45-55: The input can take place by typing text for example with a keyboard or other computer peripheral and fig. 1) in said character sequence [obtained from the OCR of a content displayed on the peripheral device]; acquiring, from said character sequence, said textual context (col. 16 lines 50-60: The combination of text sets with the highest contextual rank is displayed to the user as the translation in phase 350 on the webpage…some of these web pages may be indexed or even stored by search engines in accordance with the invention).
Therefore, Vaananen teaches claimed limitations.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HELEN ZONG whose telephone number is (571)270-1600. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 9-6.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Merouan, Abderrahim can be reached on (571) 270-5254. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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HELEN ZONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2683
/HELEN ZONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2683