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 .
Continued Examination under 37 C.F.R. § 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 C.F.R. § 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 C.F.R. § 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on February 16, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
This Non-Final Office action is responsive to the Request for Continued Examination filed on February 16, 2026 (hereafter “Response”). The amendments to the claims are acknowledged and have been entered.
Claims 1, 12, and 17 are now amended.
Claims 1–20 are pending in the application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 12, and 17 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 Objections
The Office objects to claims 3, 4, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, and 19 for having the following informalities:
Claims 3, 4, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, and 19
The Office objects to claims 3, 13, and 18 as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. This objection also applies to any claim that depends from claims 3, 13, and/or 18—including claims 4, 11, 14, 16, and 19—but please note that those claims are not independently allowable; they are only allowable by virtue of their dependency from allowable claims 3, 13, 18.
The Applicant is advised that simply tacking each of these claims onto the end of their parent claims will not put the application into condition for allowance, as this would result in an informally drafted claim. Please refer to the Final Office Action dated December 18, 2025, pages 2–3, for a suggested format. Similar changes are proposed for properly rewriting claims 13 and 18 into their respective parent claims, mutatis mutandis.
Claims 11 and 16
The previous Office Action objected to claims 11 and 16 for their ordering. While the objection is held in abeyance until the application is otherwise placed into condition for allowance, it will nevertheless be reproduced below as a reminder:
MPEP § 608.01(n) provides that a claim which depends from a dependent claim should not be separated by any claim which does not also depend from said dependent claim. It should be kept in mind that a dependent claim may refer to any preceding independent claim. See MPEP § 608.01(n).
Claim 11 depends from dependent claim 3, but claim 11 is separated from claim 4 (the only other claim that depends from dependent claim 3) by several claims that do not depend from dependent claim 3. Claim 16 has the same informality with respect to its sister claim 14.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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 of this title, 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.
I. Momchilov I and Hiraki teach claims 1, 2, 6, 7, 12, and 17.
Claims 1, 2, 6, 7, 12, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2020/0310834 A1 (“Momchilov I”) in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0042545 A1 (“Hiraki”).
Claim 1
Momchilov I teaches:
A method, comprising:
Reference is made to FIGS. 3 and 4, which illustrate “a method for operating a client computing device 210.” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
receiving a keystroke input associated with a virtual desktop application window on a client device that is entered via the client device;
Method 250 includes “applying [a] user input to a local virtual UI element in focus (Block 258).” Momchilov I ¶ 67. The user input “could be from a user input device 229 such as a keyboard, mouse, touch pad, pen or other user input device.” Momchilov I ¶ 66.
transmitting the keystroke input associated with the virtual desktop application window to a host computing system
Method 250 further includes “sending that user input to the virtualization server.” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
that processes the keystroke input to provide a ground truth text rendering associated with the keystroke input for presentation by the client device via the virtual desktop application window;
The virtualization server 215 “applies the received user input to the hosted application and processes the data and generates a set of data, which corresponds to an updated UI element graphics 230, corresponding to an actual response to the user input.” Momchilov I ¶ 66.
based on applying a
Method 250 also includes “receiving UI elements at the client computing device 210 after accessing the hosted application having UI elements during one of the virtual machine sessions,” Momchilov I ¶ 67, including, among other things “rich font information” such as “FontSizeAttribute; FontNameAttribute; MixedAttributeValue; FontWeightAttribute (thin, light, normal, medium, bold, heavy, etc.); IsItalicAttribute,” etc. Momchilov I ¶ 95.
generating, based on the detected font of the preceding text, a predicted text rendering associated with the keystroke input prior to receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system,
Method 250 further includes client computing device 210 performing the step of “generating a local virtual UI element graphics overlay for display corresponding to a predicted response to the user input from the virtualization server.” Momchilov I ¶ 67. The predicted response may be a prediction about the rendering of text associated with the keyboard input, “and with the font consistent with the received font attributes.” Momchilov I ¶ 96.
causing the client device to present the predicted text rendering via the virtual desktop application window prior to receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system.
“As the user types on the input device 229, the client computing device 210 provides immediate text response in the overlay field.” Momchilov I ¶ 96. Thus, “a displayed predicted response 228 will be shown based on user input.” Momchilov I ¶ 66.
Therefore, the only difference between Momchilov I and the claimed invention is that Momchilov I does not explicitly use optical character recognition to detect the font of the machine, since Momchilov I only contemplates arrangements where the server is willing to share the font properties of the application it is hosting.
However, such a difference is not patentable, because the problem of remotely accessing a computer that does not separately share its underlying font data was known prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, as was the claimed solution to that problem.
Specifically, Hiraki teaches a method comprising:
based on applying an optical character recognition technique to a portion of the virtual desktop application window . . . detecting a font of preceding text to the keystroke input;
“[I]n Step S2, the screen obtaining unit 32 saves a screen-captured image of the application 1 on the mobile device 21 in a bitmap file format, for example, and the character attribute analyzing unit 33 analyzes the bitmap file to recognize the character attribute. Specifically, as depicted in FIG. 7, the character attribute analyzing unit 33 recognizes that there are two characters with 12-point Times font and 16 characters with 16-point Gothic font in the bitmap file.” Hiraki ¶ 110. Importantly, much like the claimed invention, “[t]he character attribute analyzing unit 33 uses any of optical character recognition (OCR) techniques for recognizing the character attribute.” Hiraki ¶ 65.
generating, based on the detected font of the preceding text, a predicted text rendering
“Next, in Step S4 in FIG. 5, the user of the mobile device 21 launches another application 2 (second application),” Hiraki ¶ 113, and “the character attribute setting unit 35 changes the display of characters in the application 2, based on the character attribute read in Step S4.” Hiraki ¶ 115.
causing the client device to present the predicted text rendering via the virtual desktop application window.
“In Step S6, as depicted in FIG. 12, the character size for the application 2 is changed to the character size for the application 1 and characters are displayed in the display 29.” Hiraki ¶ 116.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to supplement Momchilov I’s font-matching arrangement with Hiraki’s technique of using OCR to ascertain the matching fonts, particularly in fallback situations where the actual font data is not readily available to the client device. One would have been motivated to utilize Hiraki’s OCR technique because matching fonts across applications improves visibility and overall device usability. Hiraki ¶¶ 146 and 148.
Claim 2
Momchilov I and Hiraki teach the method of claim 1, comprising:
receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system; and
“In response, the method continues with the virtualization server 214 generating an updated UI element graphics corresponding to an actual response to the user input from the virtualization server and sending the updated UI element graphics to the at least one client computing device (Block 262).” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
causing the client device to replace the predicted text rendering with the ground truth text rendering after receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system.
“At that time, the client computing device is operative for replacing the local virtual UI element graphics overlay with at least a portion of the local virtual UI element graphics overlay that corresponds to the predicted response with the received updated UI element graphics corresponding to the actual response to the user input (Block 264).” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
Claim 6
Momchilov I and Hiraki teach the method of claim 1,
wherein the predicted text rendering comprises a font, a font size, a text color, a background color, a level of spacing, and a location within the virtual desktop application window.
In order to render the text locally, the client computing device 210 obtains “knowledge of container margins, complete font information such as line spacing, indentation and similar items with sufficient surrounding text context.” Momchilov I ¶ 97. More specifically, the client computing device obtains and uses a data item called a “TextPattern,” which comprises the following attributes: “FontSizeAttribute; FontNameAttribute; MixedAttributeValue; FontWeightAttribute (thin, light, normal, medium, bold, heavy, etc.); IsItalicAttribute; IsSuperscriptAttribute; ForegroundColorAttribute; BackgroudColorAttribute; BulletStyleAttribte; HorizontalTextAlignmentAttribute; IndentationLeadingAttribute; IndentationTrailingAttribute; MarginTopAttribute; MarginTrailingAttribute; IsHiddenAttribute; TextFlowDirectionsAttribute (Default: Top to bottom, left to right, horizontal); and similar attributes.” Momchilov I ¶ 95.
Claim 7
Momchilov I and Hiraki teach the method of claim 1,
wherein generating the predicted text rendering associated with the keystroke input comprises generating the predicted text rendering based on text that is already presented via the virtual desktop application window on the client device.
“The computing system 200 may send and cache at the client computing device 210 sufficient text context around the cursor focus to allow for local auto-correction of typed text and the proper letter capitalization, word correction or suggestions.” Momchilov I ¶ 97.
Claims 12 and 17
Claim 12 recites a general-purpose computer programmed to perform the same method as claim 1. Since claim 1 is rejected over the prior arts’ computer(s) performing such a method, claim 12 is rejected over the physical computer circuitry disclosed therein.
Claim 17 is directed to a broader version of strictly the memory portion of claim 12, and therefore fully encompassed by claim 12. Accordingly, the findings for the rejection of claim 12 apply to claim 17 as well.
II. Momchilov I, Hiraki, and Momchilov II teach claims 5, 15, and 20.
Claims 5, 15, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Momchilov I and Hiraki as applied to claims 1, 12, and 17 above, and further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0084670 (“Momchilov II”).
Claim 5
Momchilov I and Hiraki teach the method of claim 1, and Momchilov I further teaches determining that a latency period associated with a network connection between the client device and the host computing system exceeds a latency threshold, but only to assist with timing the replacement text, rather than deciding whether or not to generate the prediction at the outset. See Momchilov I ¶ 65.
Momchilov II, however, teaches an improvement technique that is identical to the technique described in claim 5, including:
determining that a latency period associated with a network connection between the client device and the host computing system exceeds a latency threshold; and
A window management service 206 running on a client device 102 accessing a remote computer 501 determines when “the network latency is above a predetermined threshold.” Momchilov II ¶ 52.
generating the predicted text rendering prior to receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system responsive to determining that the latency period associated with the network connection between the client device and the host computing system exceeds the latency threshold.
If the network latency is above the predetermined threshold, “the window management service 206 or other client application can handle [a] gesture locally using graphics from a video or image buffer and by performing StretchBitBit or BitBit operations on the application window,” Momchilov II ¶ 52, instead of waiting for the server to send its true response. See Momchilov II ¶ 53.
In other words, Momchilov II teaches that when network latency is poor, we should take measures to render a predicted response of the server, rather than waiting for the actual response from the server. Then, when the server eventually does respond, the window management service 206 “updates the application window 204 to display the application's true response to the gesture input.” Momchilov II ¶ 53.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to improve Momchilov I with Momchilov II’s technique of using a latency threshold to decide whether or not to perform local speculative rendering as a prophylactic for a slow network. One would have been motivated to apply Momchilov II’s technique because in low latency environments, there is much less of a tradeoff between loss of accuracy from local speculative rendering versus the improvement of speed, and therefore, it would be useful to only perform local speculative rendering when conditions deem it necessary.
Claims 15 and 20
Claim 15 recites a general-purpose computer programmed to perform the same method as claim 5. Since claim 5 is rejected over Momchilov I and II’s combined computer performing such a method, claim 15 is rejected over Momchilov I and II’s actual combined computer.
Claim 20 is directed to a broader version of strictly the memory portion of claim 15, and therefore fully encompassed by claim 15. Accordingly, the findings for the rejection of claim 15 apply to claim 20 as well.
III. Momchilov I, Hiraki, and Robertson teach claims 8 and 9.
Claims 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Momchilov I as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0117895 A1 (“Robertson”).
Claim 8
Momchilov I teaches the method of claim 1, and further teaches caching the results of inputs in a buffer, see Momchilov I ¶ 73, but does not explicitly disclose the use of a keystroke input buffer.
Robertson, however, teaches a method comprising:
storing the keystroke input in a buffer on the client device; and
“According to one embodiment of the invention, the input buffer application 64 is configured to store characters input by a user into a input buffer 66 (FIG. 2).” Robertson ¶ 22.
at least partially clearing the buffer responsive to determining that a clear condition has been met.
The input buffer application 64 stores the characters until “the input buffer length threshold is reached (step 300-5) or the input pause time threshold reached (step 330-6),” causing the input buffer to transmit to a remote device, which also causes the input buffer application 64 to “clear[] the content of the input buffer 66.” Robertson ¶ 25.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to improve Momchilov I’s remote input arrangement with Robertson’s input buffer. One would have been motivated to combine Robertson with Momchilov I because the input buffer provides “improved performance in a high latency wireless channel” by offering a better balance between transmitting larger buffered blocks of text (which may be slower) versus smaller transmission packets (which require more overhead, due to each packet requiring separate headers and acknowledgements). See Robertson ¶¶ 4–5.
Claim 9
Momchilov I and Robertson teach the method of claim 8,
wherein determining that the clear condition has been met comprises determining that the buffer contains a maximum number of entries, determining that a timeout period has elapsed, or determining that a predetermined keystroke combination has been received.
“The microprocessor is configured to transmit the contents of the input buffer,” (and therefore also clear the buffer, as explained in the rejection of claim 8), “when a) a predetermined duration of time has passed since the last user input was entered into the buffer 66, or b) the number of characters stored in the buffer 66 reaches a predetermined size; or c) in the embodiment of FIG. 4, the user triggers a transmission by pressing a predetermined submit key or key combination.” Robertson ¶ 27.
It should be understood that the claimed “determining that the buffer contains a maximum number of entries” corresponds to condition b), the claimed “determining that a timeout period has elapsed,” corresponds to condition a), and the claimed “determining that a predetermined keystroke combination has been received” corresponds to condition c).
IV. Momchilov I, Hiraki, and Lange teach claim 10.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Momchilov I and Hiraki as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of John R. Lange, Peter A. Dinda, and Samuel Rossoff, Experiences with client-based speculative remote display, 2008 USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC 08) (2008) available at <https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/usenix08/tech/full_papers/lange/lange_html/> (HTML) and <https://users.cs.northwestern.edu/~pdinda/Papers/usenix08.pdf> (PDF)1 (“Lange”).
Claim 10
Momchilov I teaches the method of claim 1, and, depending on the scope accorded to claim 10, teaches the rest of claim 10 as well.
Under a broad reading, it could be argued that the scope of “information indicative of the predicted text rendering” simply includes the input keystrokes, since those keystrokes are used to make the prediction. Under such a reading, Momchilov I fully teaches claim 10, including:
transmitting information indicative of the predicted text rendering to the host computing system prior to receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system;
During block 260 (which is indeed prior to block 262), the client computing device 210 “send[s] that user input to the virtualization server.” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system; and
“In response, the method continues with the virtualization server 214 generating an updated UI element graphics corresponding to an actual response to the user input from the virtualization server and sending the updated UI element graphics to the at least one client computing device (Block 262).” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
causing the client device to correct the predicted text rendering presented via the virtual desktop application window based on the ground truth text rendering after receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system.
“At that time, the client computing device is operative for replacing the local virtual UI element graphics overlay with at least a portion of the local virtual UI element graphics overlay that corresponds to the predicted response with the received updated UI element graphics corresponding to the actual response to the user input (Block 264).” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
On the other hand, if claim 10 is to be read more narrowly (i.e., where “information indicative of the predicted text rendering” is limited to the prediction itself), Momchilov I does not explicitly anticipate this narrower scope. That is, under this narrower reading, Momchilov I only teaches:
transmitting information indicative of
During block 260 (which is indeed prior to block 262), the client computing device 210 “send[s] that user input to the virtualization server.” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system; and
“In response, the method continues with the virtualization server 214 generating an updated UI element graphics corresponding to an actual response to the user input from the virtualization server and sending the updated UI element graphics to the at least one client computing device (Block 262).” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
causing the client device to correct the predicted text rendering presented via the virtual desktop application window based on the ground truth text rendering after receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system.
“At that time, the client computing device is operative for replacing the local virtual UI element graphics overlay with at least a portion of the local virtual UI element graphics overlay that corresponds to the predicted response with the received updated UI element graphics corresponding to the actual response to the user input (Block 264).” Momchilov I ¶ 67.
Lange, however, teaches a method comprising:
transmitting information indicative of the predicted text rendering to the host computing system prior to receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system;
By way of background, Lange proposes “a speculative remote display system” that “reduce[s] the bandwidth demands of a remote display architecture” via a number of techniques. Lange 431. One of those techniques begins by having the client “make and apply predictions” about the result of an input operation, “and send back the event signatures to the server.” Lange 431; see also Lange 425 (defining the term “event signature”).
receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system; and
“Upon receiving the predicted signatures the server could determine the correctness of the prediction and send either a revocation containing the signature or a full correction to the client.” Lange 431.
causing the client device to correct the predicted text rendering presented via the virtual desktop application window based on the ground truth text rendering after receiving the ground truth text rendering from the host computing system.
Sending the revocation or the full correction “allow[s] the system to quickly detect and correct errors.” Lange 431.
Assuming this narrower interpretation holds, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to improve Momchilov I’s protocol in the same way that Lange proposes improving its speculative remote display system. One would have been motivated to improve Momchilov I’s protocol in this way, because sending the predictions to the server “would allow the server to avoid sending screen updates at all when a correct prediction was made,” Lange 431, thereby saving bandwidth.
Other Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
U.S. Patent No. 6,538,667 B1 discloses a method and apparatus for reducing perceived visual response to user input at a client node, which also teaches each and every element of the independent claims taught by Momchilov I, for similar reasons as outlined in the rejection above. (See FIG. 3).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Justin R. Blaufeld whose telephone number is (571)272-4372. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00am - 4:00pm ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James K Trujillo can be reached at (571) 272-3677. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Justin R. Blaufeld
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2151
/Justin R. Blaufeld/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2151
1 This PDF version is the version relied upon in the rejection (e.g., for purposes of pagination), and also attached to the last Office Action.
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