DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending in the application.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the following limitations:
“the first digital media” line 9; it is unclear if this is referencing “one or more digital media,” “one or more digital media files” or “a first digital media object” recited earlier in the claim;
"the Home Space" in line 9; it is unclear if this is referencing the “Space” recited earlier in the claim; and
“the data” in lines 10 and 11; it is unclear if this is referencing the “information data” recited earlier in the claim;
There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claims 2-20 depend upon rejected claim 1. Therefore, claims 2-20 inherit the deficiencies of the claim from which it depends.
Claim 6 additionally recites the following limitations:
“the first Sub-Space” line 3;
"the data" in line 4; it is unclear if this is referencing the “text-based data” recited earlier in the claim;
“the steps” in line 7;
“the selected Sub Space” in lines 7-8; and
“the existing Cards” in line 8
There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 7 additionally recites the following limitations:
“the selected Sub-Space” lines 2 and 7-8;
“the steps” in line 7; and
“the existing Cards” in line 8
There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 8 additionally recites the following limitations:
"the Home Space" in line 2;
“the selected Sub-Space” in line 2; and
“the new digital media” in line 3
There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 9 additionally recites the limitation “the digital media” lines 1-2. It is unclear if this is referencing the “new digital media” recited in claim 8. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 10 additionally recites the following limitations:
“the at least one digital media” line 1; it is unclear if this is referencing the “one or more digital media” recited in claim 1; and
“the group” in line 2
There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 17 additionally recites the limitation “the selected concept” line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 19 additionally recites the limitation “the word cloud” line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
The lack of antecedent basis makes the scope of the claims indeterminate. To expedite a complete examination of the instant application, the claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112 above are further examined below as best understood by the Examiner.
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.
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(s) 1-8, 10-11 and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meyerzon et al. U.S. Publication 2022/0019740 (hereinafter “Meyerzon”) and further in view of Karwan et al. U.S. Publication 2020/0081934 (hereinafter “Karwan”).
Referring to claim 1, Meyerzon teaches a method of identifying associations and connections between one or more digital media, said method comprising:
providing a directory structure having a Space as a root directory (providing a topic page with a knowledge graph page mapped with a subset of topics) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0041], [0064]-[0066], [0139], [0175]-[0176]);
assigning a function to the Space such that one or more digital media files stored there will be immediately processed in preparation for analysis according to the assigned function (access controlled curation clustering/mining the documents, making them available for quick retrieval from analysis generated from the clustering/mining) (Meyerzon: paragraphs: [0035], [0055]-[0057], [0064]-[0066], [0152], [0168]-[0171]);
identifying a first digital media object and a second digital media from which information data can be extracted (identifying documents that knowledge can be mined/extracted from) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0149]-[0150], [0172]-[0174], [0216]);
storing the first digital media and the second digital media in the Home Space (storing the documents) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0071], [0149]-[0154], [0172]-[0175], [0216]-[0217]);
creating a first Card that contains the data of the first digital media and a second Card that contains the data of the second digital media (developing a card that represents data and is related to another card) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0047], [0081], [0149], [0175]);
processing the first Card and the second Card by parsing text-based data to identify words, phrases and entities in each Card and storing them as an index in their respective first and second Cards (processing the cards by parsing strings of text names and storing them as objects in an index mapping/linking the first and second cards) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0037], [0040]-[0045], [0064]-[0065], [0071], [0192]);
selecting the first Card and the second Card (selecting the cards) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0047]-[0048], [0066], [0139]);
performing an operation on the selected Cards to thereby identify associations between words, phrase or entities of the selected Cards (aggregating a semantic clustering representation on the cards identifying/displaying relationships between the text phrases and entities of the selected cards) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0041]-[0044], [0071], [0139]-[0144]);
and visually rendering the first Card and the second Card to thereby display the identified associations between the first Card and the second Card in terms of words, phrases and entities common to both of the Cards (displaying the cards identifying the relationships) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0057], 0139], [0144]-[0149], [0174]-[0175], [0184], [0218]).
However, Meyerzon fails to explicitly teach that the operation performed on the selected cards is a word cloud operation. Similar to Meyerzon, Karwan also teaches a method of searching a plurality of documents (Karwan: paragraphs [0044] and [0047]). In addition, Karwan teaches performing a word cloud operation (integrating a word cloud visualization of clustered textual phrase data to optimize page structures) (Karwan: paragraphs [0068]-[0071], [083], [0118], 0152]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Meyerzon’s operation performed on the selected Cards to thereby identify associations between words, phrases or entities of the selected Card to further include the word cloud operation taught by Karwan. One would have been motivated to make such a combination in order to provide optimized visualizations; using word cloud visualization provides semantical separation based on textual data (Karwan: paragraph [0127]).
Referring to claim 2, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 1, wherein the method further comprises the step of creating one or more Sub-spaces that act as subfolders within the Space, wherein the Sub-spaces may also be created within Sub-spaces, wherein a function may be assigned to the Sub-spaces and wherein the function that is assigned to the Space and to each of the Sub-spaces may be a same or a different function (Meyerzon teaches generating a subset page display within split topic spaces and provides many types of splitting/merging cluster processing templates; Karwan teaches split sub-category pages representing tree hierarchy folders within a page) (Meyerzon: paragraph [0139]-[0141], [0175]; Karwan: paragraphs [0047], [0121]-[0123], [0150]).
Referring to claim 3, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 2, wherein the method further comprises:
performing a search for at least one word or phrase in all of the Cards stored in the Space or in a selected Sub-space (querying term strings in the cards) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0120], [0137], [0213]-[0216]);
and generating a list of Cards that contain the at least one word or phrase (generating a list of card results with the words/term strings) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0069]-[0070], [0139]-[0141]).
Referring to claim 4, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 3, wherein the method further comprises generating a plurality of links to all locations in each of the Cards where the word or phrase appears (annotating the cards with a link to the knowledge graph; for example, words can be highlighted and/or linked to the knowledge graph) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0112], [0139], [0217]-[0218]).
Referring to claim 5, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 4, wherein the method further comprises generating a visual clue in the list of Cards that identifies all of the Cards where the word or phrase appears (generating a highlighted annotation in the list linking to the cards matching the words) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0047], [0112], [0217]-[0218]).
Referring to claim 6, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 2, wherein the method further comprises:
identifying a third digital media from which text-based data can be extracted (identifying new source documents to be mined/extracted) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0111], [0153], [0173]);
storing the third digital media in the first Sub-Space (storing the documents) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0071], [0139]-[0141], [0149]-[0154], [0172]-[0175], [0216]-[0217]);
creating a third Card that contains the data of the third digital media (developing a new card that represents the data) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0047], [0081], [0149]-[0153], [0175]);
processing the third Card by parsing text-based data to identify words, phrases, or entities in the third Card and storing them as an index in the third Card (processing by parsing strings of text names in the cards and storing them as objects in an index mapping/linking the third card) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0037], [0040]-[0045], [0064]-[0065], [0071], [0192]);
and repeating the steps above each time that a new Card is stored in the Space or the selected Sub Space or when any of the existing Cards therein are modified (iterating the process for new and updated cards) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0057], [0111], [0167]-[0168], [0175]).
Referring to claim 7, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 6, wherein the method further comprises:
selecting all of the Cards in the Space or the selected Sub-Space (curating the cards) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0047]-[0048], [0066], [0139]);
performing a word cloud operation on the selected Cards to thereby identify associations between the words, phrases, or entities of the selected Cards (Meyerzon teaches aggregating a semantic clustering representation on the cards identifying/displaying relationships between the text phrases and entities of the selected cards, Karwan teaches integrating a word cloud visualization of clustered textual phrase data to optimize page structures) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0041]-[0044], [0071], [0139]-[0144]; Karwan: paragraphs [0068]-[0071], [083], [0118], 0152]);
visually rendering all of the Cards to thereby display the identified associations between all of the Cards in terms of the words, phrases, or entities common to all of the Cards (displaying the cards identifying the relationships) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0057], 0139], [0144]-[0149], [0174]-[0175], [0184], [0218]);
and repeating the steps above each time that a new Card is stored in the Space or the selected Sub Space or when any of the existing Cards therein are modified (iterating the process for new and updated cards) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0057], [0111], [0167]-[0168], [0175]).
Referring to claim 8, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 2, wherein the method further comprises:
determining when a new media is stored in the Home Space or the selected Sub-Space (uploading a document stored in the space) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0068]-[0069], [0120], [0150]);
identifying the new digital media as having text-based data, video data, audio data, image date, or a combination thereof (recognition of the new media text) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0071], [0114], [0150]-[0153], [0344]).
Referring to claim 10, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 1, wherein the at least one digital media comprises one or more of the group consisting of a kBase, a document, a chapter, a page, an exception, a concept, or a note (documents) (Meyerzon: paragraph [0150]).
Referring to claim 11, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 1, wherein the one or more digital media comprises one or more digital media object files (digital document files) (Meyerzon: paragraph [0114], [0121], [0139], [0152]).
Referring to claim 16, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 1, further comprising changing a storage mode of any document between copy, link, or sync to prioritize efficiency or portability (converting/filtering formatting of a document to cached and altered/trimmed data links to deed a pipeline with quick access data) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0064], [0152]-[0153], [0214]-[0215], [0218]).
Referring to claim 17, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 1, further comprising adjusting a maximum affix, prefix or suffix distance to the selected concept in a phrase builder (filtering common or preceding/succeeding strings that are peripheral in semantic distance/degree of duplication to the concept phrases) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0081], [0144]-[0147], [0190]).
Referring to claim 18, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan, teaches the method as defined in claim 1, further comprising annotating any content or combination of content parts with highlight, tags, and comments (text, audio, or video) (annotate a document by highlighting words) (Meyerzon: paragraphs [0041], [0047], [0112], [0218]).
Claim(s) 9 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meyerzon et al. U.S. Publication 2022/0019740 (hereinafter “Meyerzon”) and further in view of Karwan et al. U.S. Publication 2020/0081934 (hereinafter “Karwan”), as applied to claims 1 and 8 above, and further in view of Cromack et al. U.S. Publication 2022/0121712 (hereinafter “Cromack”).
Referring to claim 9, Meyerzon, as modified by Karwan (hereinafter “the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan”), teaches all of the limitations as applied to claim 8 above. However, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan fails to explicitly teach transcribing audio data from the digital media when it contains video data or audio data. Similar to the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan, Cromack also teaches extracting information from a media object (extracting words or phrases from content) (Cromack: paragraphs [0005], [0019], [0051]). In addition, Cromack teaches transcribing audio data from the digital media when it contains video data or audio data (audio/video is transformed to text using transcription) (Cromack: paragraph [0010]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of identifying associations and connections between digital media taught by the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan to include Cromack’s transcription of audio data from the digital media when it contains video data or audio data. One would have been motivated to make such a combination in order to support quick and efficient content review for a variety of digital media, including audio and video media (Cromack: paragraphs [0002]-[0003]).
Referring to claim 19, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan teaches all of the limitations as applied to claim 1 above. However, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan fails to explicitly teach exploring the word cloud with pan and zoom, to alter a display of visible concepts. Similar to the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan, Cromack also teaches the display of a word cloud (Figure 2 shows the display of a word cloud) (Cromack: paragraph [0096]). In addition, Cromack teaches exploring the word cloud with pan and zoom, to alter a display of visible concepts (browsing a word cloud with scroll and zoom to animate/transform concept visualization to provide more pronounced graphics) (Cromack: paragraphs [00158], [0102], [0120]-[0123], [0128]-[0129]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the word cloud displayed by the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan to include exploring the word cloud with pan and zoom to alter a display of visible concepts, as taught by Cromack. One would have been motivated to make such a combination in order to provide editing capabilities to the word cloud to edit the automatically produced visualization (Cromack: paragraph [0115]).
Referring to claim 20, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan, as modified by Cromack, teaches the method as defined in claim 19, wherein the visible concepts comprise icons for entity types (word cloud elements include icons defining visual concepts for a participant/name) (Cromack: paragraphs [0013], [0039], [0058]-[0059], [0120]-[0123] and further shown in Figure 2).
Claim(s) 12 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meyerzon et al. U.S. Publication 2022/0019740 (hereinafter “Meyerzon”) and further in view of Karwan et al. U.S. Publication 2020/0081934 (hereinafter “Karwan”), as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Holzgrafe et al. U.S. Publication 2011/0060740 (hereinafter “Holzgrafe”).
Referring to claim 12, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan teaches all of the limitations as applied to claim 1 above. However, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan fails to explicitly teach flattening any space or subspace to see it as a list instead of a tree of subspaces and cards. Similar to the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan, Holzgrafe also teaches searching media objects (searches can be performed within a subject or within a document) (Holzgrafe: paragraph [0005]). In addition, Holzgrafe teaches flattening any space or subspace to see it as a list instead of a tree of subspaces and cards (formatting a flat user interface representation list) (Holzgrafe: paragraphs [0010], [0070], [0087], [0147], [0155]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the tree of subspaces and cards taught by the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan to further include flattening any space or subspace to see it as a list, as taught by Holzgrafe. One would have been motivated to make such a combination in order to provide more available display formats, such as a standard flat list (Holzgrafe: paragraphs [0010] and [0070]).
Referring to claim 15, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan teaches all of the limitations as applied to claim 1 above. However, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan fails to explicitly teach accurately identifying a type of any PDF document including text documents, images, images with hidden text or combinations thereof. Similar to the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan, Holzgrafe also teaches searching media objects (searches can be performed within a subject or within a document) (Holzgrafe: paragraph [0005]). In addition, Holzgrafe teaches accurately identifying a type of any PDF document including text documents, images, images with hidden text or combinations thereof (reading metadata describing PDF type text documents for handling a list of file types) (Holzgrafe: paragraphs [0032], [0116], [0120]-[0129]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of identifying associations and connections between digital media taught by the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan to include accurately identifying a type of any PDF document, as taught by Holzgrafe. One would have been motivated to make such a combination in order to support more types of data and allow content to be extracted, stored, searched and displayed by content type (Holzgrafe: paragraphs [0022], [0032]).
Claim(s) 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meyerzon et al. U.S. Publication 2022/0019740 (hereinafter “Meyerzon”) and further in view of Karwan et al. U.S. Publication 2020/0081934 (hereinafter “Karwan”), as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Kokemohr U.S. Publication 2013/0198602.
Referring to claim 13, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan teaches all of the limitations as applied to claim 1 above. However, although the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan teaches presentation based on a query or configuration (display results based on a query) (Meyerzon: paragraph [0120], [0136]-[0137], [0174]-[0175], [0194]-[0195]), the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan fails to explicitly teach presentation slides. Similar to the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan, Kokemohr also teaches a search tool (Kokemohr: paragraph [0198]). In addition, Kokemohr teaches presentation slides (presenting information as slides in a slide show) (Kokemohr: paragraphs [0014], [0149], [0182]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the presentation based on a query of configuration taught by the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan to include Kokemohr’s presentation slides. One would have been motivated to make such a combination in order to personalize the layout and style of the content, transforming digital media into a personal story with minimal user input (Kokemohr: paragraphs [0002]-[0004]).
Referring to claim 14, the combination of Meyerzon/Karwan, as modified by Kokemohr, teaches the method as defined in claim 13, further comprising basing the presentation slides on notes with zoomed in excerpts and related comments (formatting the slides using annotations/comments with enlarged snippets) (Kokemohr: paragraphs [0083]-[0085], [0144]-[0149], [0157]-[0161], [0173], [0187]-[0191]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record on form PTO-892 and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Applicant is required under 37 C.F.R. § 1.111(c) to consider these references fully when responding to this action. Xu et al. (US2022/0171808), Schrantz et al. (US2022/0021717) and Debique (US2019/0012381) teach similar word cloud visualizations. Desmond et al. (US2014/0181089), Straub et al. (US2006/0053169) and Statchuk (US2008/0027971) teach similar search methods that display results matching a text query based on indexed media.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TING ZHOU LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-4058. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Thursday 9AM – 1PM EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kieu Vu can be reached on (571) 27. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TING Z LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2171
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