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 § 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 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph.
Claim 4 recites the limitation "the state information". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims. For prior art purposes, examiner interprets the claim as “wherein determining the base decision rate is based on state information”.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1: The claims recite a method, system, and non-transitory computer-readable medium, each of which are one of the four categories of eligible subject matter.
Claims 1, 10, and 19
Step 2A Prong 1: The claims recite the following limitations:
determining a base decision rate (Mental Process); monitoring for key events (Mental Process); and based on the base decision rate and the monitoring, determining a time at which to generate an action to be performed by an application entity of an application (Mental Process).
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim language, determining a base decision rate, monitoring for key events, and determining a time at which to generate an action to be performed by an application entity of an application are mental processes because a human mind can practically perform the processes with the aid of a pencil and paper. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong 2: The judicial exceptions are not integrated into a practical
application and the claims do not recite any additional elements.
The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, memory, and processor are generic computing components recited at a high level as a means to apply the judicial exception, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f). The claims are directed towards an abstract idea.
Step 2B: The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to
amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, memory, and processor are generic computing components recited at a high level as a means to apply the judicial exception, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f). The claims are not patent eligible.
Dependent Claims:
Claims 2-7, 11-16, 20: These claims recite further abstract ideas (mental
processes) and thus are ineligible.
Claims 6, 8-9, 15, 17-18: These claims recite further generally linking the abstract ideas to the technological environment of machine learning or mere data gathering and as explained above these do not provide a practical application or inventive concept and thus are ineligible.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4, 6-13, and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by TEO Ron Han (Pub. No.: US 20250217271 A1), hereafter Han.
Regarding claims 1, 10, and 19, Han teaches a method, system, and non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising (“a computer-readable medium is provided comprising program instructions, which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method any one of the embodiments described above”, P0022): determining a base decision rate (A variable corresponding to the degree of success of a non-player character of a videogame is determined, P0017); monitoring for key events (“In 307, the game engine instantiates all graphs under each graph runner and variables under the scope, and each graph instance subscribes to the events of interest”, P0070); and based on the base decision rate and the monitoring, determining a time at which to generate an action to be performed by an application entity of an application (Based on variables and events at a specific breakpoint, actions may be performed by a non-playable character, P0051-P0060).
Regarding claims 2, 11, and 20, Han teaches the limitations of claims 1, 10, and 19 as outlined above. Han further teaches wherein the base decision rate and key events are based on state information for an application (Variables corresponding to degree of success of a non-player character are dependent upon the state of a game world, P0017).
Regarding claims 3 and 12, Han teaches the limitations of claims 2 and 11 as outlined above. Han further teaches wherein the state information includes information about the application entity within the application or performance information about the application and a device executing the application (State of the game world includes information about non-playable characters, P0017, P0058-P0059).
Regarding claims 4 and 13, Han teaches the limitations of claims 1 and 10 as outlined above. Han further teaches wherein determining the base decision rate is based on the state information (Variables corresponding to degree of success of a non-player character are dependent upon the state of a game world and the state of non-player characters, P0017).
Regarding claims 6 and 15, Han teaches the limitations of claims 1 and 10 as outlined above. Han further teaches wherein the key events are events specified by the application (Game designers may customize and define specific events, P0054), and determining the time at which to generate the action includes detecting that one or more of the key events has occurred (Based on variables and events at a specific breakpoint, actions may be performed by a non-playable character, P0051-P0060).
Regarding claims 7 and 16, Han teaches the limitations of claims 6 and 15 as outlined above. Han further teaches wherein determining the time at which to generate the action includes determining that the action is to be generated in response to a key event occurring (Based on variables and events at a specific breakpoint, actions may be performed by a non-playable character. For example, a monster may execute a skill or action in response to other characters being in their vicinity such as in a battle, P0051-P0060).
Regarding claims 8 and 17, Han teaches the limitations of claims 1 and 10 as outlined above. Han further teaches wherein determining the base decision rate comprises consulting an artificial intelligence model (Game logic may be dependent upon artificial intelligence, P0003, P0045).
Regarding claims 9 and 18, Han teaches the limitations of claims 1 and 10 as outlined above. Han further teaches wherein the application is a video game and the application entity is a non-player character (The entity is a non-playable character in a game world, P0017).
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.
Claims 5 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Han in view of Khan (Pub. No.: US 20230128945 A1), hereafter Khan.
Regarding claims 5 and 14, Han teaches the limitations of claims 3 and 12 as outlined above. Han does not appear to explicitly teach “wherein determining the base decision rate is based on performance information of the state information”.
Khan teaches wherein determining the base decision rate is based on performance information of the state information (In view of P0028 of the specification of the instant application, performance information includes any technically feasible information such as frame rate, CPU idleness, GPU idleness, memory bandwidth availability, or any other information. “System analytics considers the actions from game engines and the sub-systems, such as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system, in-game events, and Non-Player Character (NPC) actions… It may include consideration of frame rate, the stability of the client execution, bandwidth, game build quality, and the number of game bugs found by QA testing”, P0533, P0535).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the
art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of
Han and Khan before them, to include Khan’s specific teaching of considering frame rate and bandwidth when determining non-player character actions in Han’s system of debugging a video game. One would have been motivated to make such a combination of considering frame rate and bandwidth when determining non-player character actions (see Khan P0533, P0535), and executing a game development environment using a CPU (see Han P0039) for improved game development and player analytics for different game contents (see Khan P0510, P0514).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20250037345 A1 (Li et al) teaches a system including synchronizing character display, motion data of a first character over a time period.
US 10576379 B1 (Wakeford et al) teaches a system including adjusting online game content.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ISHAN MOUNDI whose telephone number is (703)756-1547. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30 A.M. - 5 P.M..
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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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/I.M./Examiner, Art Unit 2141
/MATTHEW ELL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2141
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