DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the RCE filed February 10, 2026. Claims 1, 3-5, 7-9 and 11-14 are pending, all examined and rejected.
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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Piersol United States Patent Application Publication US 2011/0320935 in view of Wolff United States Patent US 6,833,848.
Regarding claim 1, Piersol discloses a document generation method, comprising:
receiving a first input performed by a user for selecting a type of a to-be-generated document on a photographing preview interface, wherein the photographing preview interface comprises a photo option and a document option; (Piersol, para [0093], with regards to fig 2A, new form view 734 includes multiple templates (each template interpreted as a document type). Selection of template adds it to a list maintained by the inbox; Piersol, para [0084], inbox contains forms for a user to select to open and fill); See also Fig. 2A, showing “photographing preview interface” comprising camera button 212 – photo option, document options 734.
entering a creation mode for a document of a target type and displaying at least one component of a to-be-generated target document in the creation mode, in response to the first input (Piersol, [0084, 0089], Selection of template adds it to a list maintained by the inbox which can then be selected to open form view mode; Piersol, para [0094]form view mode displays document, BRI of “input” in view of specification can include multiple “sub-inputs”);
receiving a second input performed by a user for adding a picture to the at least one component (Piersol, para [0095], with regards to fig 7, element 702, receives a capture image command by a user);
capturing a target picture and adding the target picture to the at least one component, in response to the second input (Piersol, para [0096], with regards to fig 7, element 702, captures image; Piersol, para [0097], after determining if there is a rectangle within the document available for insertion of the image, adds image to spacing of unfilled rectangle area (714 or 718)).
generating a target document in response to a third input for generating the target document (Piersol, para [0104], user can select to update an image in a rectangular area by selecting checkbox and can cancel if the current image for the rectangle is determined to not be edited).
Piersol does not disclose the additional limitations of:
wherein the receiving a second input performed by a user for adding a picture to the at least one component comprises:
receiving a first sub-input performed by the user for selecting a target component in the target document, and receiving a second sub-input performed by the user for capturing the target picture; and
the capturing a target picture and adding the target picture to the at least one component, in response to the second input comprises:
capturing the target picture and adding the target picture to the target component according to an order of photographing time, in response to the second input, wherein captured target pictures are sequentially added to their respective target component according to the order of photographing time.
Wolff discloses wherein the receiving a second input performed by a user for adding a picture to the at least one component comprises:
receiving a first sub-input performed by the user for selecting a target component in the target document, and receiving a second sub-input performed by the user for capturing the target picture (Wolff, col 8, rows 43-67, allows input to add component to corresponding track); and
the capturing a target picture and adding the target picture to the at least one component, in response to the second input comprises:
capturing the target picture and adding the target picture to the target component according to an order of photographing time, in response to the second input, wherein captured target pictures are sequentially added to their respective target component according to the order of photographing time (Wolff, col 9-10, rows 59-67 and 1-4, system has an attached image capturing device to be used to take images when video input changes by more than some predetermined threshold. The images captured by the video camera may be added to the top track and available for inclusion in authored stories; Wolff, col 4, rows 54-65, top track shows images of photographs ordered by time of creation).
Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the capturing and insertion of images into a document to include the selection from a set of images. The motivation for doing so would have been to allow a user to generate digital stories in a portable less complex manner (Wolff, col 1, rows 15-37).
Regarding claim 4, Piersol in view of Wolff discloses the method according to claim 1. Piersol additionally discloses further comprising: receiving a fourth input performed by a user for adjusting the target picture in the target document; and adjusting a position of the target picture in the target document in response to the fourth input (Piersol, para [0104], user can select to move the captured image from 1 rectangle to another within the document via “move” command).
Claims 5, 9, 13 and 14 recite substantially similar limitations to claim 1 and are thus similarly rejected.
Claims 8 and 12 recite substantially similar limitations to claim 4 and are thus similarly rejected.
Claim(s) 3, 7 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Piersol United States Patent Application Publication US 2011/0320935 in view of Wolff United States Patent US 6,833,848 further in view of Masterson United States Patent Application Publication US 2015/0277722
Regarding claim 3, Piersol in view of Wolff discloses the method according to claim 1. Piersol in view of Wolff does not explicitly disclose wherein the displaying at least one component of a to-be-generated target document in the creation mode comprises: displaying a directory list of the target document in the creation mode.
Masterson discloses wherein the displaying at least one component of a to-be-generated target document in the creation mode comprises: displaying a directory list of the target document in the creation mode (Masterson, with regards to fig 4D, powerpoint editor shows a list of pages within the document).
Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the document generation to include the steps of Masterson. The motivation for doing so would have been to allow a user to more efficiently generate documents to be sent within a workflow (Masterson, para [0002-3]).
Claims 7 and 11 recite substantially similar limitations to claim 3 and are thus similarly rejected.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments regarding the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection have been considered but are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that both “Feature A” and “Feature B” as described in the remarks filed 2/10/26 are novel and non-obvious over the cited references. With regard to “Feature A”, the examiner again notes that the term “photographing preview interface” is broad and while applicant has notably narrowed it some by requiring it to have both a “photo option” and a “document option”, the interface of Pierson has both of these features. The examiner notes that an “interface” is not limited to a single screen of an application but can include many related buttons, features and screens that combine to form an interface for performing functions. In Piersol, the camera and preview functions are part of the same interface as the inbox as shown in Fig. 2A.
Regarding “Feature B”, this argument is moot as the Masterson reference is no longer relied upon for this particular aspect. The examiner finds that the term “input” was being applied to narrowly before and that Piersol teaches this feature without any obvious modifications from other references such as Masterson.
Conclusion
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/MATTHEW ELL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2141