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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status
This instant application No. 18/468960 has Claims 1-12 pending.
Priority /Filing Date
This application is a bypass continuation of pending PCT International Application No. PCT/KR2021/019810, which was filed on December 24, 2021, and which claims priority from and the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2021- 0035293, filed on March 18, 2021.
Information Disclosure Statement
As required by M.P.E.P. 609(C), the Applicant’s submissions of the Information Disclosure Statements dated September 18, 2023 is acknowledged by the Examiner and the cited references have been considered in the examination of the claims now pending. As required by M.P.E.P. 609 C(2), a copy of each of the PTOL-1449s initialed and dated by the Examiner is attached to the instant Office action.
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.
4. Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 2A Prong One:
Independent claim 1 recite:
comparing previous design move information with current design move information to provide the user with feedback on the current design move information.
Independent claim 9 recite:
identifying a similarity between design element information of the target design included in the sketch drawing and the design element information included in a design reference;
Both of these limitations are a process step that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind, then it falls within the “mental processes” grouping of abstract ideas. As such claims 1 and 9 recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong Two:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application.
The Independent claim 1 recite:
storing design move information of a user for a target design; and
wherein the design move information includes at least one of a sketch drawing
generated by a design sketch, a design reference search range, and a design reference
viewed by the user.
Both of which are just data representation and data storing steps and are considered insignificant extra-solution activities.
The Independent claim 9 recite:
receiving a sketch drawing for a target design; and
providing information about the similarity.
Both of which are just data gathering and data representation/output steps and are insignificant extra-solution activities.
These additional elements of claim 1 and claim 9 do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Step 2B:
Finally, the pre-processing step of receiving, storing and representing measured values is categorized as insignificant extra solution activity under 2106.05(g), and do not result in anything significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements have been considered both individually and as an ordered combination in the significantly more consideration and cannot provide an inventive concept. Claims 1 and 9 are not patent eligible.
The dependent claims include the same abstract ideas recited in the independent claims, and merely incorporate additional details that narrow the abstract ideas and fail to add significantly more to the claims.
Dependent claim 2 recite wherein the providing of the feedback includes, from the viewpoint of each piece of design element information, providing the feedback on whether the current design move information is novel relative to the previous design move information.
This is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is a process step that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Thus, the claim is directed to the abstract idea of a mental process performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper.
Dependent claim 3 recite generating a graph including nodes representing the previous design move information and the current design move information and arranged in a linear manner, and connection lines of a triangular mesh structure that connect the nodes;
selecting a target node pair including target design element information from among the nodes.
selecting an intersection point among intersection points of the connection lines connecting the target node pairs having a similarity of the target design element information greater than or equal to a threshold value as a link; and
identifying whether the current design move information is novel using a number of the intersection points and a number of links.
This is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is a process step that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Thus, the claim is directed to the abstract idea of a mental process performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper.
Dependent claim 4 recite wherein the identifying of whether the current design move information is novel includes identifying whether the current design move information is novel depending on whether a ratio of the number of the links to the number of the intersection points increases or decreases.
This is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is a process step that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Thus, the claim is directed to the abstract idea of a mental process performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper.
Dependent claim 5 recite wherein the selecting of the target node pair includes selecting two nodes having the same design move information or two nodes having different design move information as the target node pair.
This is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is a process step that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Thus, the claim is directed to the abstract idea of a mental process performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper.
Dependent claim 6 recite wherein the target design is a plane design, and the design element information for the plane design includes a number of rooms, locations of the rooms, connectivity between the rooms, and an overall shape of a plane.
Both of which are just data representation/output steps and are insignificant extra-solution activities.
These additional elements of claim 6 do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Dependent claim 7 recite providing the user with a design reference, among design references stored in a storage device, which is included in the design reference search range..
Both of which are just data storage/representation/output steps and are insignificant extra-solution activities.
These additional elements of claim 7 do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Dependent claim 8 recite wherein the providing of the feedback includes providing the feedback whenever the current design move information is updated.
This is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is a process step that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Thus, the claim is directed to the abstract idea of a mental process performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper.
Dependent claim 10 recite classifying design references stored in a storage device according to the similarity; and
This is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is a process step that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper.
generating a histogram representing a number of the classified design references.
is a data display step and is an insignificant extra-solution activities.
Dependent claim 11 recite classifying design references stored in a storage device according to a similarity of information selected from among the design element information; and
This is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is a process step that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper.
generating a scatter plot for the classified design references.
is a data display step and is an insignificant extra-solution activities.
Dependent claim 12 recite in response to a point displayed on the scatter plot and corresponding to the design reference being selected, outputting the design reference corresponding to the point.
Which is just data representation/output steps and are insignificant extra-solution activities.
This additional element of claim 12 do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
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 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.
5. Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Brown et al. hereafter Brown (Pub. No.: US 2011/0064388 A1) in view of Fogel et al. hereafter Fogel (Pub. No.: US 2011/0087350 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, Hoon discloses a method of providing design feedback, the method comprising:
storing design move information of a user for a target design (Hoon: [0013], [0032]); and
(Hoon: [0033], [0056], [0058], [0059]),
wherein the design move information includes at least one of a sketch drawing generated by a design sketch, a design reference search range, and a design reference viewed by the user (Hoon: [0033], [0056], [0058], [0059], claim 1 , claim 2).
Although Hoon discloses generating a modified sketch for the target sketch using a reference sketch for the target product and the target sketch (wherein a comparison of target and reference sketch is implied), it doesnot explicitly disclose comparing the claimed entities, which is explicitly disclosed in Pouriki (Pouriki: abstract, [0022]: comparing an unknown image (the test image) with a library of known images (reference images) until an accurate match is found).
Hoon and Pouriki are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor. They both relate to automated design evaluation.
Therefore, 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 above automated design generation application, as taught by Hoon, and incorporating the use of comparison technique, as taught by Pouriki.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification in order to recognize an image based on internal structure not depending on size and the azimuth of the image, as suggested by Pouriki (Pouriki: abstract).
Regarding Claim 9, Hoon discloses a method of providing design feedback, the method comprising:
receiving a sketch drawing for a target design (Hoon: [0011], claim 1);
identifying a (Hoon: [0033], [0056], [0058], [0059], claim 1, claim 2); and
providing information about the similarity (Hoon: [0033], [0056], [0058], [0059], claim 1, claim 2).
Although Hoon discloses generating a modified sketch for the target sketch using a reference sketch for the target product and the target sketch (wherein a identifying similarity between target and reference sketch is implied), it doesnot explicitly disclose identifying a similarity between the claimed entities, which is explicitly disclosed in Pouriki (Pouriki: [0072]).
Motivation to combine Hoon and Pouriki is same here as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 2, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the design move information includes at least one piece of design element information of the target design, wherein the providing of the feedback includes, from the viewpoint of each piece of design element information, providing the feedback on whether the current design move information is novel relative to the previous design move information (Hoon: [0045], [0057], [0058]).
Regarding Claim 3, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 2, wherein the providing of the feedback includes:
generating a graph including nodes representing the previous design move information and the current design move information and arranged in a linear manner, and connection lines of a triangular mesh structure that connect the nodes;
selecting a target node pair including target design element information from among the nodes;
selecting an intersection point among intersection points of the connection lines connecting the target node pairs having a similarity of the target design element information greater than or equal to a threshold value as a link; and
identifying whether the current design move information is novel using a number of the intersection points and a number of links (Pouriki: [0026], [0063], [0072], [0094]-[0097]).
Motivation to combine Hoon and Pouriki is same here as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 4, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 3, wherein the identifying of whether the current design move information is novel includes identifying whether the current design move information is novel depending on whether a ratio of the number of the links to the number of the intersection points increases or decreases (Pouriki: [0026], [0053], [0063], [0072], [0094]-[0097]).
Motivation to combine Hoon and Pouriki is same here as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 5, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 3, wherein the selecting of the target node pair includes selecting two nodes having the same design move information or two nodes having different design move information as the target node pair (Pouriki: [0053], [0057]).
Motivation to combine Hoon and Pouriki is same here as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 6, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 2, wherein the target design is a plane design, and the design element information for the plane design includes a number of rooms, locations of the rooms, connectivity between the rooms, and an overall shape of a plane (Hoon: [0044]).
Regarding Claim 7, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising providing the user with a design reference, among design references stored in a storage device, which is included in the design reference search range (Hoon: [0032]).
Regarding Claim 8, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the providing of the feedback includes providing the feedback whenever the current design move information is updated (Hoon: [0058]).
Regarding Claim 10, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 9, wherein the providing of the information about the similarity includes:
classifying design references stored in a storage device according to the similarity (Pouriki: [0067]); and
generating a histogram representing a number of the classified design references (Pouriki: [0101]).
Motivation to combine Hoon and Pouriki is same here as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 11, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 9, wherein the providing of the information about the similarity includes:
classifying design references stored in a storage device according to a similarity of information selected from among the design element information (Pouriki: [0067]); and
generating a scatter plot for the classified design references (Pouriki: [0101]).
Motivation to combine Hoon and Pouriki is same here as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 12, the combinations of Hoon and Pouriki further disclose the method of claim 11, further comprising, in response to a point displayed on the scatter plot and corresponding to the design reference being selected, outputting the design reference corresponding to the point (Hoon: [0011], claim 1).
Conclusion
6. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Paula et al. (Pub. No.: US 2018/0349415 A1) teaches an interface having a canvas for entering inputs including user generated strokes, and extracting features associated with the inputs, assigning an importance to the inputs; retrieving matches from a database based on extracted features and importance associated with the extracted features and provides real-time feedback on the canvas to suggest improved inputs for the user;
Japertas et al. (Pub. No.: US 2024/0331007 A1) teaches visual search with feedback loop based on interactive sketch for transparency and user control by presenting user with interactive sketch of product alongside the list of matching products from database, enabling user to select a part of the object in sketch, presenting user with possible modifications for the selected part of the object, enabling user to select needed modification and re-iterate the search process as many times as needed, until the wanted results are achieved.
Bhardwaj et al. (Pub. No.: US 2016/0239898 A1) conceptually presents sketch of a search item received from a user device. An item attribute corresponding to a physical attribute of the search item is extracted from the sketch. Inventory items are identified based on the extracted item attribute. The identified inventory items are presented to the user. A modification to the sketch of the search item is received and the inventory items are updated based on the received modification.
Kovashka et al. (WhittleSearch: Interactive Image Search with Relative Attribute Feedback, 2015, International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV), pp 1-26) discloses a novel mode of feedback for image search, where a user describes which properties of exemplar images should be adjusted in order to more closely match his/her mental model of the image sought. user-initiated and/or system-initiated feedback is initiated to determine which exemplar images receive feedback from the user.
7. Examiner’s Remarks: Examiner has cited particular columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner. In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Correspondence Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to IFTEKHAR A KHAN whose telephone number is (571)272-5699. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9:00AM-6:00PM (CST). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Emerson Puente can be reached on (571)272-3652. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/IFTEKHAR A KHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2187
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