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 .
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed 02/06/2026 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 02/06/2026 has been entered.
The following action is in response to the amendment and remarks of 02/06/2026.
By the amendment, claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 9-10, 12, 13, 15, 17 and 18 have been amended.
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been considered below.
Response to Arguments
The claim objection of claims 4 and 13 (Final Rejection 12/08/2025 pages 2-3) has been withdrawn in light of the amendment and corresponding remarks.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Regarding independent claims 1, 10 and 15, each claim has been amended to recite: “wherein, in response to initiating an overwrite mode, the machine learning algorithm supports recognition of the overwritten characters stacked on top of one another within a same writing area”. Applicant remarks (Remarks 02/06/2026) that support for this limitation can be found in ¶55 and ¶85 and Fig. 4 of the Specification. However, a review of the cited paragraphs does not support the “initiating” language of the claims. The cited paragraphs and corresponding figure instead discloses that a user may overwrite characters when an input window of a device is small. That is, the overwrite mode is already active on the device to recognize the overwritten characters. There is no disclosure of “in response to initiating an overwrite mode”.
Regarding dependent claims 2-9, 11-14 and 16-20, claims 2-9 and 16-19 depend from claim 1 and claims 11-14 and 20 depend from claim 10 and are rejected for at least similar reasons as their corresponding parent.
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 1-6 and 8-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wimmer et al., US 9,911,052 B2 published 03/06/2018 [“WIMMER”].
Regarding claim 1, WIMMER discloses a electronic device, comprising:
a display;
at least one processor; and
memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively (Fig. 1, col 5 line 40 – col 7 line 41), cause the electronic device to:
receive a handwriting input including overwritten characters through the display (col 7 lines 32-41: receive superimposed characters through handwriting input, Fig. 3A, col 2 lines 46-47);
extract feature information from the handwriting input (col 7 lines 42-51, col 9 lines 53-56: segmentation expert, language expert and recognition expert work in collaboration, Fig. 2, col 9 lines 4-14: recognition expert performs feature extraction);
cause a machine learning algorithm related to character separation to merge or separate a series of consecutive strokes of the handwriting input including the overwritten characters based on the feature information (col 7 lines 54-61: segmentation expert groups consecutive strokes, Fig. 3B, col 10 lines 9-19: machine learning algorithm, col 10 lines 14-19: segmentation, recognition and interpretation performed concurrently,), wherein the overwritten characters comprise a subsequently written character on top of a prior written character, wherein, in response to initiating an overwrite mode, the machine learning algorithm supports recognition of the overwritten characters stacked on top of one another within a same writing area (col 8 lines 26-35: character sequence performed in superimposed area, Fig. 3A, Fig. 4); and
perform handwriting recognition based on a result of performing the merging or the separating (col 9 lines 53-56: output recognition candidates).
Regarding claim 2, WIMMER discloses electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to enable the electronic device to extract the feature information between a predesignated number of strokes among the series of consecutive strokes (col 9 lines 6-14).
Regarding claim 3, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the feature information between the series of consecutive strokes includes at least one of a straightness of a stroke, a slope angle of the stroke, position information about a start point of the stroke, a slope angle of a virtual ligature, or a length ratio of the virtual ligature (col 9 lines 6-14).
Regarding claim 4, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the machine learning algorithm is trained (col 10 lines 9-14) using overwritten character samples and normal sentence samples to perform the character separation on overwritten characters or characters of a normal sentence (col 8 lines 15-25), the overwritten character samples comprising first characters written on top of second characters such that the first characters and the second characters are cover a portion of a same space (col 8 lines 26-35).
Regarding claim 5, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 4, wherein the instructions are configured to enable the electronic device to use at least one of a multi-layer-perceptron (MLP), a support vector machine (SVM), or deep learning for training the machine learning algorithm (col 9 lines 15-30).
Regarding claim 6, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to enable the electronic device to display a handwriting recognition result corresponding to the handwriting input on the display based on the result of performing the merging or the separating through a handwriting recognition engine (col 9 lines 55-56).
Regarding claim 8, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to enable the electronic device to:
perform pre-processing on the handwriting input received (col 7 lines 43-48); and
extract the feature information between the series of consecutive strokes corresponding to the handwriting input that is pre-processed (col 7 lines 48-51, col 9 lines 4-14).
Regarding claim 9, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to enable the electronic device to train the machine learning algorithm related to the character separation based on a 2-class supervised learning method that extracts a first numerical value indicating merging on a stroke with a likelihood of the same character and extracts a second numerical value indicating the separating on the stroke with a likelihood of different characters (col 9 lines 15-30: SVM algorithm used to rejection node hypothesis using probabilities and recognitions scores for each node).
Regarding claims 10-14, claims 10-14 recite limitations similar to claims 1-5, respectively, and are similarly rejected.
Regarding claim 15, claim 15 recites limitations similar to claim 1 and is similarly rejected.
Regarding claim 16, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to enable the electronic device to identify straightness and slope angle using a first point and a last point of each of the strokes constituting the handwriting input and extract the feature information including the straightness and the slope angle (col 9 lines 8-11).
Regarding claim 17, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to enable the electronic device to identify position information about a start point of each stroke based on a first point and a last points of each stroke and extract the feature information including the position information (col 9 lines 8-11).
Regarding claim 18, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to enable the electronic device to identify a feature of a virtual ligature between last points of strokes, and extract the feature information including position information about each stroke based on a first point and last point of each stroke, and extract the feature information including a slope angle of the virtual ligature and a length ratio of the virtual ligature (col 9 lines 8-11).
Regarding claim 19, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the machine learning algorithm is trained to separate the subsequently written character from being on top of the prior written character (col 8 lines 26-35: character sequence recognized in superimposed area, Fig. 3A, Fig. 4).
Regarding claim 20, claim 20 recites similar to claim 19 and is similarly rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WIMMER in view of Kienzle et al., US 9,881,224 B2 published 01/30/2018 [“KIENZLE”].
Regarding claim 7, WIMMER discloses the electronic device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to enable the electronic device to:
display the handwriting input on a first portion of the display (col 1 lines 30-51, Fig. 3A, col 3 lines 4-6);
convert a handwriting recognition result corresponding to the handwriting input into text (col 3 lines 19-30); and
display the text on the display (col 3 lines 32-33: output).
WIMMER fails to explicitly disclose wherein the displayed text is displayed on a second portion of the display.
KIENZLE discloses methods for recognizing and displaying output for overlapping handwriting inputs (col 2 lines 32-51). In particular, KIENZLE discloses the overlapping handwriting being displayed on a first portion of the display and the recognized output being displayed on a second portion of the display (col 5 lines 16-27, lines 45-54, Fig. 1). Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art and the teachings of WIMMER and KIENZLE before them before the effective filing of the claimed invention to combine the outputting of recognized overlapping handwriting in a second portion of the display, as suggested by KIENZLE, with the output of the recognized overlapping handwriting of WIMMER. One would have been motivated to make this combination in order to automatically populate form fields of the UI based on the user handwriting inputs to provide real-time visual feedback without the need or use of a virtual keyboard, as suggested by KIENZLE (col 14 lines 25-51).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Zou; Yanming et al.
US 20120299701 A1
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PASSCODE ENTRY
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Partial Overlap and Delayed Stroke Input Recognition
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INFORMATION PROCESSING DEVICE, CHARACTER RECOGNITION METHOD, AND CHARACTER RECOGNITION PROGRAM
Keysers, Daniel, et al. "Multi-language online handwriting recognition." IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence 39.6 (2016): 1180-1194.
Su, Tonghua, et al. "Novel character segmentation method for overlapped Chinese handwriting recognition based on LSTM neural networks." 2016 23rd International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR). IEEE, 2016.
Zou, Yanming, et al. "Overlapped handwriting input on mobile phones." 2011 International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition. IEEE, 2011.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW L TANK whose telephone number is (571)270-1692. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 9a-6p.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Ell can be reached at 571-270-3264. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANDREW L TANK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2141
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