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
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 06/03/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendment filed on 06/03/2026 has been entered. Claims 1-11 are still pending in this application
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
2. Claims 1, 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1: Claims 1 and 9-10 is directed to a method/system, which is a statutory category of invention.
Step 2A Prong One: Claims 1 and 9-10 recites the step of "obtaining at least one character originating .., optical character recognition applied …representative of a content displayed …; searching for said at least one character ,acquiring, from said character sequence, said textual context.” This limitation recites concepts that fall into the "mathematical concept" and/or "mental process" and/or “data analysis” groups of abstract ideas.
Step 2A Prong Two: Claims 1 and 9-10 do not recite any additional elements beyond the judicial exception. Claims 1 and 9-10 recite "obtaining at least one character originating .., optical character recognition applied …representative of a content displayed …; searching for said at least one character ,acquiring, from said character sequence, said textual context.”, but this limitation does not limit the claim. Instead, it appears to indicate an intended use for the claimed method. As such, the claim as a whole does not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application and the claim is directed to the judicial exception.
Step 2B: Since claim 1 does not recite any additional elements beyond the judicial exception as noted above with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, then likewise the claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the recited exception.
Dependent claims 2-8 do not cure the deficiencies noted above with respect to independent claim 1.
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), in view of Gauf et al. (US 8826084).
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 during use of an application by the 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); independently of the application currently being used by the device; performing an optical character recognition over all or part of an image, obtained by a screen capture, representative of a content displayed by the application on 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.
Vaananen does not performing an optical character recognition over all or part of an image, obtained by a screen capture.
Gauf teaches OCR Action may capture an image from the screen and use an Optical Character Recognition engine to convert it to a text string (col. 13 , lines 15-22: OCR Action may capture an image from the screen and use an Optical Character Recognition engine to convert it to a text string).
Vaananen and Gauf 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 Gauf for purpose of automatically generate code for a test case.
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 in view of Gauf 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 in view of Gauf 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 in view of Gauf 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 Gauf and 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 Gauf and 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 in view of Gauf as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Santoro et al. (US 12125297).
Regarding claim 4, Vaananen in view of Gauf and 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 Gauf and 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 Gauf, 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 in view of Gauf as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Tsubol (US 20110171999).
Regarding claim 6, Vaananen in view of Gauf 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 in view of Gauf 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 in view of Gauf with the teaching of Tsubol for purpose of to provide a user-friendly portable electronic device (p0007).
Regarding claim 7, Vaananen in view of Gauf and 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 Gauf and 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HELEN Q ZONG whose telephone number is (571)270-1600. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9-6.
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HELEN ZONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2683
/HELEN ZONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2683
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