Acknowledgements
This communication is in response to applicant’s response filed on 02/26/2026.
Claims 1-4 have been amended.
Claims 1-4 are pending and have been examined.
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 .
Response to Arguments
Regarding applicant’s arguments:
Applicant’s arguments, see pgs. 6-8, filed 02/26/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claims 1 and 4 under Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 that Abe (WO2017169748A1) does not teach the amended limitations “wherein the virtual game space is captured by a virtual camera based on one or more operations to a touchscreen to perform display control” and “changing the orientation of the virtual camera based on an operation direction of the second operation that is input to the second operation region” and “wherein, in response to the second operation being input to the second operation region while the movement operation is being input to the first operation region, the orientation of the virtual camera and the motion mode are changed” and “wherein the orientation of the virtual camera is changed to the operation direction of the second operation” of the claims have been considered, and the arguments are persuasive. The Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Yee (US 20190083885).
Priority
Applicant's claim for the benefit of PCT Application No. PCT/JP22/21933 filed on 05/30/2022 is acknowledged. Applicant's claim for the benefit of Japan Application No. JP2021-108635 filed on 06/30/2021 is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/21/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102(a)(1)
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 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yee (US 20190083885).
Regarding Claims 1 and 4, Yee teaches setting a first operation region that accepts a movement operation for moving a game object displayed in a virtual game space, wherein the virtual game space is captured by a virtual camera based on one or more operations to a touchscreen to perform display control (Paragraphs 0098, 0101, and 0113 teach a method begins at an identifying step, where an orientation of the electronic device is identified under execution of the processor; for example, the electronic device may be held in an orientation by a user, and the device orientation is identified; the orientation is typically identified passively through use of sensors such as accelerometer, camera, gravity sensor, etc.; the orientation may be identified relative to the direction of gravity, or relative to the orientation of the user, or relative to surrounds of the user, and so on, or to a combination of these methods; any input from the user is detected under execution of the processor; detecting user input may take the form of detecting touch gestures on a touchscreen; FIG. 3A shows the device held at a particular orientation at an angle a from the vertical, which may imply the direction of gravity, in accordance with one example arrangement; the orientation of the device; a top-down view of a sports arena is shown on the video display of the device; objects on the arena are shown in miniature; such objects may include players, a ball, a goal zone, sports field markings, etc.; bird's eye views of the arena as shown in FIG. 3A are useful for navigation purposes, such as when a sports coach is reviewing a game or another situation where large scale motion of people or objects is important to see; the top-down view displayed on the display screen of the device is an example of one mode of the device and allows meaningful user inputs to be detected); setting, at a position different from the position of the first operation region, a second operation region that accepts a first operation for changing a motion mode of a movement of the game object and a second operation that is different from the first operation (Paragraphs 0099 and 0102 teach the method continues at a detecting step, where user input at a user interface of the device is detected under execution of the processor; the step typically incorporates several useful properties; typically, the device displays a relevant view of a scene when the device is in a first orientation; for example, when the device is oriented substantially parallel to the ground (i.e., perpendicular to the direction of gravity where the direction of gravity is determined either from the accelerometer, image sensor, gravity sensor or other sensors), a top-down view (or helicopter view) of a scene may be displayed on the display; the scene may be a pre-recorded three-dimensional recording of a scene, or a live view of a scene, or some other representation of a scene such as a two dimensional (2D) diagram, an architectural rendering, a schematic, a graphic, or some other visual abstraction; in another arrangement, the orientation of the device relative to a longitude axis of a user's face may be used to select a relevant view of the scene; a path may be defined by the user, using any of several methods. For example, a start and stop point may be indicated; one or more freehand lines may be traced; a shape may be indicated, such as a circle or a rectangle; an area may be swept out using one or more fingers; a sequence of such methods may be specified one after another or concurrently using multiple fingers; the inputs detected are used to determine, through association with the view of the scene, one or more locations within the scene); moving and displaying the game object in the virtual game space on the basis of based on the movement operation that is input to the first operation region, the first operation being input to the second operation region, and an orientation of the virtual camera (Paragraph 0108 teaches a detecting step, a change in the orientation of the device is detected under execution of the processor; the change may be detected using any of the same means used originally when identifying the orientation of the device as described above; typically, the change in orientation of the device is initiated by the user; in one arrangement, the user angles the device from an orientation that is substantially perpendicular to the direction of gravity into a new orientation that is substantially parallel to the direction of gravity; such a change in orientation of the device is used to indicate to the device that a change in mode is to occur; in another arrangement, a virtual camera viewfinder is displayed on the video display as a result of the detection); and changing the orientation of the virtual camera based on an operation direction of the second operation that is input to the second operation region, wherein, in response to the second operation being input to the second operation region while the movement operation is being input to the first operation region, the orientation of the virtual camera and the motion mode are changed, and wherein the orientation of the virtual camera is changed to the operation direction of the second operation (Paragraphs 0109, 0112, and 0114 teach a configuring step, in response to detecting an orientation of the device has changed from a first orientation to a second orientation, the virtual camera controls are configured under execution of the processor; attributes and properties of the virtual camera are controlled by these virtual camera controls; such attributes and properties of the virtual camera may include the position, orientation, field of view, timecode, focal length, zoom, shutter speed, sensitivity, or other camera properties of the virtual camera, or any subset of position, orientation, field of view, timecode, focal length, zoom, shutter speed, sensitivity for the virtual camera; furthermore, changes in the values of the attributes of the virtual camera may be controlled in various ways; for example, controlling how the position of the virtual camera may change can affect minimum or maximum speed of the virtual camera; controlling how the position of the virtual camera may change can also affect acceleration, apparent mass or inertia of the virtual camera through controlling the smoothness of the motion, despite the fact it is a virtual camera with no explicitly modelled mass; configuration of the virtual camera controls occurs and is performed in accordance with the determined locations; in response to detecting user input, the video display is updated through synthesis of an updated virtual camera image; the updating of the display occurs due to the user input being detected, causing changes to one or more attributes or properties of the virtual camera; for example, if the user touches a virtual camera control that has been configured, and this causes the virtual camera to move in space, synthesis of a new image would occur, showing to the user the newly updated point of view of the virtual camera; the synthesis of virtual camera imagery uses a three-dimensional (3D) model of the scene generated from multiple physical cameras and the position of the virtual camera (usually three spatial dimensions) in scene space as well as the orientation of the virtual camera (usually another three rotational dimensions), and zoom; an image that corresponds to the seven dimensional data for that virtual camera and the corresponding eighth dimension (i.e., the time in the scene which is being visualized) is produced; in FIG. 3B, the device has been reoriented to a different orientation from the orientation shown in FIG. 3B; in FIG. 3B, the device is at an angle from the vertical; the change in orientation of the device as shown in FIG. 3B is detected; in the example arrangement shown in FIG. 3A and 3B, in response to the change in orientation, the view presented to the user on the video display shows that the virtual camera has changed to a front-on view so that the objects can be seen closer and in a more normal way; the view presented to the user in FIG. 3B is one form that a virtual camera viewfinder might take and is an example of another mode of the device; such front-on views, as shown for example in FIG. 3B, are useful for entertainment or identification purposes, as in sports broadcasts, surveillance views, etc; in the example of FIG. 3B, the virtual camera controls are configured, and user inputs may be detected, in accordance with the configured virtual camera controls).
Regarding Claim 1, Abe teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program, the program, when executed by a computer, causes causing the computer to perform a method (Paragraphs 0097 and 0087 teach a method may be implemented as one or more software code modules of the software application program resident in the ROM and/or RAM of the device and being controlled in its execution by the processor; the method will be described with reference to controlling a virtual camera; however, the method and other methods described below may be used for controlling any remote device which may take the form of a virtual camera or a physical camera; the software application program may be read by the processor from the network, or loaded into the processor or the portable storage medium from other computer readable media; computer readable storage media refers to any non-transitory tangible storage medium that participates in providing instructions and/or data to the controller for execution and/or processing).
Regarding Claim 4, Abe teaches an information processing method (Paragraph 0097 teaches a method of controlling a virtual camera will now be described with reference to FIG. 2).
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 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 2-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yee (US 20190083885) in view of Kanemori (US 20180353858).
Regarding Claim 2, Yee teaches all the limitations of claim 1 above; however, Yee does not explicitly teach wherein the movement operation includes a specific operation for instructing continuation of the movement of the game object, and moving and displaying the game object in the virtual game space includes continuously moving the game object in a fixed direction with respect to the orientation of the virtual camera on the basis of based on an input of the specific operation to the first operation region.
Kanemori from same or similar field of invention teaches wherein the movement operation includes a specific operation for instructing continuation of the movement of the game object, and moving and displaying the game object in the virtual game space includes continuously moving the game object in a fixed direction with respect to the orientation of the virtual camera on the basis of based on an input of the specific operation to the first operation region (Paragraphs 0046 and 0050 teach a movement direction of the three-dimensional character in the common operation period is determined on the basis of the operation content of the common operation portion; in this embodiment, the movement direction of the three-dimensional character in the common operation period is determined according to the movement direction of the finger from the position on the touch panel where the player placed his finger; for example, as shown in FIG. 2, when the three-dimensional character is facing in the ZW axis positive direction and video of the three-dimensional character as seen from the front is being displayed on the display component, if a finger is moved from right to left on the touch panel, the modeling processor moves the three-dimensional character in the XW axis negative direction in the common operation period, as shown in FIG. 4; FIG. 6 shows how the position of the three-dimensional character and the position and orientation of the virtual camera are changed during a slide operation; let us assume that movement in the common operation period causes the three-dimensional character to move to the position 40 b and be oriented in the XW axis negative direction; after this, if the operation detector detects a slide operation, the modeling processor moves the three-dimensional character according to the direction of the slide operation without interruption in the movement processing in the common operation period; along with this, the virtual camera setting component slowly moves the position of the virtual camera from the position 42 a at the point when the slide operation was detected toward the position 42 c, which is behind the moving three-dimensional character; the position 42 c moves with the three-dimensional character; during the movement of the virtual camera, the orientation of the virtual camera is slowly changed to maintain the direction to the three-dimensional character).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing data of the claimed invention to have modified Yee to incorporate the teachings of Kanemori for the movement operation to include a specific operation for instructing continuation of the movement of the game object, and moving and displaying the game object in the virtual game space includes continuously moving the game object in a fixed direction with respect to the orientation of the virtual camera on the basis of based on an input of the specific operation to the first operation region.
There is motivation to combine Kanemori into Yee because the system is able to move an object earlier when a first operation is accepted in an electronic game device capable of accepting a first operation that exhibits the effect of moving an object in an electronic game and a second operation that has operation content in common with the first operation for a certain length of time after the start of the operation (Kanemori Paragraph 0009). With the present invention, an object can be moved earlier when a first operation is accepted in an electronic game device capable of accepting a first operation that exhibits the effect of moving an object in an electronic game and a second operation that has operation content in common with the first operation for a certain length of time after the start of the operation (Kanemori Paragraph 0017).
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Yee and Kanemori teaches all the limitations of claim 2 above; and Yee further teaches wherein moving and displaying the game object in the virtual game space includes changing a moving speed of the game object when the first operation is input to the second operation region in a state in which the game object is moving in the fixed direction on the basis of based on the input of the specific operation (Paragraph 0145 teaches one of the navigation controls has an axis that controls time; for example, the left hand control may adjust scene time on the horizontal axis, and adjust virtual camera zoom on the vertical axis; scene time may be controlled continuously, possibly exponentially, for example, using multiple levels of fast forwarding or reversing speeds; for example, holding a finger down on one time control may begin moving time forward at a normal speed; however, the longer the finger is held down, the faster that speed becomes, producing a “fast-forward” effect until the user lets go; in another arrangement, the passage of time may be linear, such that holding down one time control only ever moves at a single speed).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Matsunaga et al. (US 20210322885) teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium stores a program causing a computer to execute: displaying a player object on a virtual game space; causing the player object to perform a first motion when a first operation has been input; causing the player object to perform a special motion when the player object is not performing the first motion and an appearance of the player object satisfies a predetermined condition, irrespective of an input operation; and changing the appearance of the player object when the player object has performed the special motion.
Suzuki et al. (US 20190366211) teaches a case where a screen is closer to vertical than a first reference is set to a first mode, and a case where the screen is closer to horizontal than the reference is set to a second mode. Then, in the first mode, a virtual camera is set to a first line-of-sight direction, and a game image in which an information image is placed in a first direction is generated. In the second mode, the virtual camera is set to be further downward than the first line-of-sight direction, and a game image in which the plurality of information images are placed in different directions is generated.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 COURTNEY JONES whose telephone number is (469)295-9137. The examiner can normally be reached on 7:30 am - 4:30 pm CST (M-Th).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Neha Patel can be reached at (571) 270-1492. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated-interview-request-air-form.
/COURTNEY P JONES/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3699
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