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
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/30/26 has been entered.
This office action is in response to correspondence 01/30/26 regarding application 18/471,568, in which claims 1-3, 6, 8, 9, 14, and 17 were amended. Claims 1-20 are pending in the application and have been considered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s request on page 8 that the Examiner indicate that the 11/25/25 amendments to the specification and Fig. 10 are entered is acknowledged. The 11/25/25 amendments to the specification and Fig. 10 have been entered. Applicant’s attention is directed to the miscellaneous communication to Applicant 02/06/26 in which these amendments were entered via a correction to the 12/19/25 Office Action.
The examiner agrees with Applicant on page 8 that no new matter is added via the amendments to claims 1-3, 6, 8, 9, 14, and 17.
Amended claim 14 overcomes the objection for an informality, and so the objection is withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments on pages 8-10 regarding the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections based on Wang, Cohen, and Paul have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds for rejection, based in part on the newly discovered reference to Browy et al. (US 20220375177), which discloses a head mounted device which alters format of both original text between font size, italics, underlining, alignment, justification, etc., [0221], [0242], translated text from one language to another, which is displayed to the user as format modified text, [0244], by e.g. changing the font size, [0247].
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.
Claims 1-4, 6-10, 12, 14-17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (US 8886518) in view of Cohen (US 20150120279), in further view of Browy et al. (US 20220375177).
Consider claim 1, Wang discloses:
a machine translation model stored on a memory (memory is inherent in translation server 106, Col 2 lines 29-31, which stores a phrase based statistical automatic translation model, Col 3 lines 1-2);
one or more processors configured to provide one or more commands (inherent in laptop or desktop computer, Col 2 lines 21-28), wherein the one or more commands comprise:
obtaining first text in a first language (receiving the capitalized input sentence F in the source language, Col 2 lines 29-31);
instructing the machine translation model to i) format the first text (case remover module receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence in the source language, Col 2 lines 55-7) and ii) translate the first text from the first language to a second text in a second language different from the first language (automatic translator module receives lowercase source sentence f and translates to a lowercase sentence e in the target language, Col 2 lines 63-67).
Wang does not specifically mention a head-mounted display comprising:
an image sensor; and
obtaining, from the image sensor, one or more images;
and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising associated formatted text in the second language.
Cohen discloses a head-mounted display (head-mounted display 652, [0045], Fig. 6B) comprising:
an image sensor (image capturing sensor of device 604, [0044]); and
obtaining, from the image sensor, one or more images (image of text, [0036], [0044]);
and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising a second text in the second language (displaying a user interface element, i.e. image, that includes a translation of the content items, [0045], Fig 6B).
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 invention of Wang by including a head-mounted display comprising:
an image sensor; and obtaining, from the image sensor, one or more images; and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising associated formatted text in the second language in order to avoid the user having to access a web browser application executing on a smartphone and inputting a word or phrase, as suggested by Cohen ([0003]). Doing so would have led to predictable results of making translation more accurate and less cumbersome to the user, as suggested by Cohen ([0004]). The references cited are analogous art in the same field of machine translation.
Wang and Cohen do not specifically mention format the first text based on a plurality of different text formats corresponding to different modifications associated with the first text;
the second text in the second language comprises a second text format associated with a text format of the plurality of different text formats;
outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising the second text in the second language in the second text format.
Browy discloses formatting a first text based on a plurality of different text formats corresponding to different modifications associated with the first text (altering format of the original text between font size, italics, underlining, alignment, justification, etc., [0221], [0242]);
the second text in the second language comprises a second text format associated with a text format of the plurality of different text formats (in addition to modifying the display characteristics of the text, the wearable system also translates the text from one language to another and displays the modified text, [0244], by e.g. modifying the font size, [0247]);
outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising the second text in the second language in the second text format (translating the Chinese characters to English text and formatting the font size for output on the HMD, [0242]-[0248]).
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 invention of Wang and Cohen by formatting the first text based on a plurality of different text formats corresponding to different modifications associated with the first text; the second text in the second language comprises a second text format associated with a text format of the plurality of different text formats; and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising the second text in the second language in the second text format in order to overcome the complexities of the human visual perception system, predictably resulting in an AR technology that facilitates a comfortable, natural-feeling rich presentation of virtual image elements against other virtual or real-world imagery elements, as suggested by Browy. The references cited are analogous art in the same field of machine translation.
Consider claim 9, Wang discloses a method (method, Abstract) comprising:
obtaining a source text in a first language (receiving the capitalized input sentence F in the source language, Col 2 lines 29-31);
converting, based on a plurality of tasks, the source text into a plurality of word sequences (case remover module 202 receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence by replacing all uppercase characters with lowercase characters, Col 2 lines 55-63, and capitalizer module receives F and f and generates aligned phrases, for example, converting “The red door is closed.” into “The red door” and “is closed.”, by parsing and alignment, Col 4 lines 18-28);
generating, from the source text, a target text, comprising a version of the source text in a second language different from the first language (automatic translator module receives lowercase source sentence f and translates to a lowercase sentence e in the target language, Col 2 lines 63-67, e.g. “Die rote Tur is tzu” in German, Col 4 lines 18-28); and
formatting the source text (case remover module receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence in the source language, Col 2 lines 55-7) and translating the source text from the first language to the target text in the second language different from the first language, the target text in the second language comprises a second text format (automatic translator module receives lowercase source sentence f and translates to a lowercase sentence e in the target language, Col 2 lines 63-67);
mapping one or more word sequences of the plurality of word sequences to the target text (e.g. associating “The red door” with the phrase “Die rote Tur”, Col 4 lines 29-38).
Wang does not specifically mention obtaining from an image sensor of a head-mounted display;
mapping, by the head mounted display;
and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image, or a video, comprising the target text in the second language.
Cohen discloses obtaining from an image sensor of a head-mounted display (image capturing by sensor of device 604, [0044], which is a head-mounted display 652, [0045], Fig. 6B, an image of text, [0036], [0044]);
and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image, or a video, comprising the target text in the second language (displaying a user interface element, i.e. image, that includes a translation of the content items, [0045], Fig 6B).
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 invention of Wang by obtaining from an image sensor of a head-mounted display; mapping, as in Wang, by the head mounted display of Cohen; and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image, or a video, comprising the target text comprising the formatted version of the source text in the second language for reasons similar to those for claim 1.
Wang and Cohen do not specifically mention formatting the first text based on a plurality of different text formats corresponding to different modifications associated with the first text;
the second text in the second language comprises a second text format associated with a text format of the plurality of different text formats;
outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising the second text in the second language in the second text format.
Browy discloses formatting a first text based on a plurality of different text formats corresponding to different modifications associated with the first text (altering format of the original text between font size, italics, underlining, alignment, justification, etc., [0221], [0242]);
the second text in the second language comprises a second text format associated with a text format of the plurality of different text formats (in addition to modifying the display characteristics of the text, the wearable system also translates the text from one language to another and displays the modified text, [0244], by e.g. modifying the font size, [0247]);
outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising the second text in the second language in the second text format (translating the Chinese characters to English text and formatting the font size for output on the HMD, [0242]-[0248]).
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 invention of Wang and Cohen by formatting the first text based on a plurality of different text formats corresponding to different modifications associated with the first text; the second text in the second language comprises a second text format associated with a text format of the plurality of different text formats; and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising the second text in the second language in the second text format for reasons similar to those for claim 1.
Consider claim 17, Wang discloses a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed (non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions, Col 13 lines 4-5), cause:
obtaining a source text in a first language (receiving the capitalized input sentence F in the source language, Col 2 lines 29-31);
converting, based on a plurality of tasks, the source text into a plurality of word sequences (case remover module 202 receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence by replacing all uppercase characters with lowercase characters, Col 2 lines 55-63, and capitalizer module receives F and f and generates aligned phrases, for example, converting “The red door is closed.” into “The red door” and “is closed.”, by parsing and alignment, Col 4 lines 18-28);
generating, from the source text, a target text, comprising a version of the source text in a second language different from the first language (automatic translator module receives lowercase source sentence f and translates to a lowercase sentence e in the target language, Col 2 lines 63-67, e.g. “Die rote Tur is tzu” in German, Col 4 lines 18-28); and
formatting the source text (case remover module receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence in the source language, Col 2 lines 55-7) and translating the source text from the first language to the target text in the second language different from the first language, the target text in the second language comprises a second text format (automatic translator module receives lowercase source sentence f and translates to a lowercase sentence e in the target language, Col 2 lines 63-67);
mapping one or more word sequences of the plurality of word sequences to the target text (e.g. associating “The red door” with the phrase “Die rote Tur”, Col 4 lines 29-38).
Wang does not specifically mention obtaining from an image sensor of a head-mounted display;
mapping, by the head mounted display;
and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image, or a video, comprising the target text in the second language.
Cohen discloses obtaining from an image sensor of a head-mounted display (image capturing by sensor of device 604, [0044], which is a head-mounted display 652, [0045], Fig. 6B, an image of text, [0036], [0044]);
and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image, or a video, comprising the target text in the second language (displaying a user interface element, i.e. image, that includes a translation of the content items, [0045], Fig 6B).
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 invention of Wang by obtaining from an image sensor of a head-mounted display; mapping, as in Wang, by the head mounted display of Cohen; and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image, or a video, comprising the target text comprising the formatted version of the source text in the second language for reasons similar to those for claim 1.
Wang and Cohen do not specifically mention formatting the first text based on a plurality of different text formats corresponding to different modifications associated with the first text;
the second text in the second language comprises a second text format associated with a text format of the plurality of different text formats;
outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising the second text in the second language in the second text format.
Browy discloses formatting a first text based on a plurality of different text formats corresponding to different modifications associated with the first text (altering format of the original text between font size, italics, underlining, alignment, justification, etc., [0221], [0242]);
the second text in the second language comprises a second text format associated with a text format of the plurality of different text formats (in addition to modifying the display characteristics of the text, the wearable system also translates the text from one language to another and displays the modified text, [0244], by e.g. modifying the font size, [0247]);
outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising the second text in the second language in the second text format (translating the Chinese characters to English text and formatting the font size for output on the HMD, [0242]-[0248]).
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 invention of Wang and Cohen by formatting the first text based on a plurality of different text formats corresponding to different modifications associated with the first text; the second text in the second language comprises a second text format associated with a text format of the plurality of different text formats; and outputting, by the head-mounted display, an image or a video comprising the second text in the second language in the second text format for reasons similar to those for claim 1.
Consider claim 2, Wang discloses the machine translation model is trained (using training data, Col 4 lines 1-6) based on:
obtaining a source text (receiving the capitalized input sentence F in the source language, Col 2 lines 29-31);
converting, based on a plurality of tasks, the source text into a plurality of word sequences (case remover module 202 receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence by replacing all uppercase characters with lowercase characters, Col 2 lines 55-63, and capitalizer module receives F and f and generates aligned phrases, for example, converting “The red door is closed.” into “The red door” and “is closed.”, by parsing and alignment, Col 4 lines 18-28);
generating, from the source text, a target text comprising the second text format of the source text in a second language different from the first language (automatic translator module receives lowercase source sentence f and translates to a lowercase sentence e in the target language, Col 2 lines 63-67, e.g. “Die rote Tur is tzu” in German, Col 4 lines 18-28); and
mapping one or more word sequences of the plurality of word sequences to the target text (e.g. associating “The red door” with the phrase “Die rote Tur”, Col 4 lines 29-38).
Consider claim 3, Wang discloses the machine translation model, when executed by the one or more processors, is further configured to perform the outputting by determining differences between formatting variations of the first text in the first language in relation to other formatting variations of the second text format in the second language corresponding to word sequences of the first language and the second language (aligner 304, capitalization feature component 306, and probability combiner 308 compare capitalization of original capitalized sentence F in the first language, including variations between capitalized and lower case letters, with capitalization candidate sequences in the target language via alignments, to determine a highest ranked candidate, Col 3 lines 25-45, Col 4 lines 17-38, Col 4 lines 47-59, Col 5 lines 52-63).
Consider claim 4, Wang discloses the plurality of tasks further comprises:
incorporating punctuation into the source text (capitalization feature component 306 receives source text F, Fig 3, and performs Punctuation task 512, Col 9 lines 17-32); and
capitalizing one or more letters of the source text (capitalization feature component 306 receives source text F, Fig 3, and performs Capitalization Tag task 504, Col 7-8 lines 65-14).
applying text normalization to the source text (case remover module 202 receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence by replacing all uppercase characters with lowercase characters, Col 2 lines 55-63); or
generating a copy of the source text (Capitalizer Module 206 receives source text F, considered a copy of the source text F provided to Case Remove Module 202, Fig 2, Col 3 lines 7-11).
Consider claim 6, Wang discloses the machine translation model, when executed by the one or more processors, is further configured to output the first text in the first language and the second text in the second language in response to the first text being in the first language and the second language (output f in source language and output e in target language, Fig 2, Col 2 lines 50-54).
Consider claim 7, Wang discloses the machine translation model, when executed by the one or more processors, is further configured to: determine a first word of the text (e.g. “Cliquez”, Fig 4, Col 4-9); map the first word to a language selected from one of the first language or the second language to generate a mapped language (e.g. mapping “Cliquez” to “Click” by aligner, Fig 4, Col 4-9); and output the first word in the mapped language (target output E*, Col 2 lines 37-42).
Wang does not specifically mention output, by the head-mounted display, the first word in the mapped language (e.g. “The” which maps to “Le”, Fig 6B, [0045]).
Cohen discloses output, by the head-mounted display, the first word in the mapped language
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 invention of Wang by outputting, by the head-mounted display, the first word in the mapped language for reasons similar to those for claim 1.
Consider claim 8, Wang does not, but Cohen discloses a speaker, wherein the one or more commands further include outputting, by the speaker, the text in the second language (a textual word or phrase may be translated and presented in audio form via a speaker or headset, [0046]).
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 invention of Wang by including a speaker, wherein the one or more commands further include outputting, by the speaker, the text in the second language for reasons similar to those for claim 1.
Consider claim 10, Wang discloses converting the source text into the plurality word sequences comprises modifying, based on the plurality of word sequences, the source text to a respective word sequence of the plurality of word sequences (case remover module 202 receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence by replacing all uppercase characters with lowercase characters, Col 2 lines 55-63, and capitalizer module receives F and f and generates aligned phrases, for example, converting “The red door is closed.” into “The red door” and “is closed.”, by parsing and alignment, Col 4 lines 18-28).
Consider claim 12, Wang discloses the plurality of tasks further comprises a task comprising a copy of the source text (Capitalizer Module 206 receives source text F, considered a copy of the source text F provided to Case Remove Module 202, Fig 2, Col 3 lines 7-11).
Consider claim 14, Wang discloses performing the outputting by determining differences between formatting variations of the source text in the first language in relation to other formatting variations of the target text in the second language associated with corresponding word sequences of the first language and the second language (aligner 304, capitalization feature component 306, and probability combiner 308 compare capitalization of original capitalized sentence F in the first language, including variations between capitalized and lower case letters, with capitalization candidate sequences in the target language via alignments, to determine a highest ranked candidate, Col 3 lines 25-45, Col 4 lines 17-38, Col 4 lines 47-59, Col 5 lines 52-63).
Consider claim 15, Wang does not, but Cohen discloses the obtaining the source text comprises, obtaining, by one or more image sensors of the head-mounted display, an image that comprises the source text (image of text, [0036], [0044], obtained by image capturing sensor of device 604, [0044]).
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 invention of Wang such that obtaining the source text comprises, obtaining, by one or more image sensors of the head-mounted display, an image that comprises the source text for reasons similar to those for claim 1.
Consider claim 16, Wang discloses the converting the source text into the plurality of word sequences comprises providing a machine translation model to convert the plurality of tasks (capitalization feature component 306 receives source text F, Fig 3, and performs Punctuation task 512, Col 9 lines 17-32, Capitalization Tag task 504, Col 7-8 lines 65-14, case remover module task 202, Col 9 lines 63-66).
Wang does not specifically mention a head-mounted display.
Cohen discloses a head-mounted display (head mounted display 652, [0045], Fig. 6A).
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 invention of Wang by including a head-mounted display for reasons similar to those for claim 1.
Consider claim 20, Wang discloses the instructions, when executed, further cause: the converting the source text into the plurality word sequences by modifying, based on the plurality of word sequences, the source text to a respective word sequence of the plurality of word sequences (case remover module 202 receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence by replacing all uppercase characters with lowercase characters, Col 2 lines 55-63, and capitalizer module receives F and f and generates aligned phrases, for example, converting “The red door is closed.” into “The red door” and “is closed.”, by parsing and alignment, Col 4 lines 18-28).
Claims 5, 11, 13, 18, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (US 8886518) in view of Cohen (US 20150120279), Browy et al. (US 20220375177), in further view of Paul et al. (“Improving Data Driven Inverse Text Normalization using Data Augmentation and Machine Translation”. Interspeech 2022 18-22 September 2022, Incheon, Korea).
Consider claim 5, Wang discloses the plurality of tasks further comprises applying text normalization to the source text (case remover module 202 receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence by replacing all uppercase characters with lowercase characters, Col 2 lines 55-63).
Wang , Cohen, and Browy do not specifically mention applying inverse text normalization.
Paul discloses applying inverse text normalization (Abstract).
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 invention of Wang , Cohen, and Browy by applying inverse text normalization in order to facilitate creating training data for low resource languages, as suggested by Paul (Section 1, page 5221), predictably making preparing language specific natural language processing models less time consuming and tedious, as suggested by Paul (Section 1, page 5221). The references cited are analogous art in the same field of machine translation.
Consider claim 11, Wang discloses the plurality of tasks comprises: a first task comprising punctuation in the source text (capitalization feature component 306 receives source text F, Fig 3, and performs Punctuation task 512, Col 9 lines 17-32); a second task comprising a capitalization of one or more letters of one or more words of the source text (capitalization feature component 306 receives source text F, Fig 3, and performs Capitalization Tag task 504, Col 7-8 lines 65-14); and a third task comprising a lower case of the one or more letters of the one or more words of the source text (case remover module 202, Col 9 lines 63-66).
Wang , Cohen, and Browy do not specifically mention removal of the punctuation of the source text.
Paul discloses removal of the punctuation of the source text (e.g. converting “5.0” to “five point zero”, Section 2.1, page 5221).
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 invention of Wang , Cohen, and Browy by removal of the punctuation of the source text for reasons similar to those for claim 5.
Consider claim 13, Wang discloses a task comprising text normalization of the source text (case remover module 202 receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence by replacing all uppercase characters with lowercase characters, Col 2 lines 55-63).
Wang , Cohen, and Browy do not specifically mention applying inverse text normalization.
Paul discloses applying inverse text normalization (Abstract).
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 invention of Wang , Cohen, and Browy by applying inverse text normalization for reasons similar to those for claim 5.
Consider claim 18, Wang discloses converting the source text to the plurality of word sequences comprises: applying a first task comprising punctuation in the source text (capitalization feature component 306 receives source text F, Fig 3, and performs Punctuation task 512, Col 9 lines 17-32); applying a second task comprising a capitalization of one or more letters of one or more words of the source text (capitalization feature component 306 receives source text F, Fig 3, and performs Capitalization Tag task 504, Col 7-8 lines 65-14); and applying a third task comprising a lower case of the one or more letters of the one or more words of the source text (case remover module 202, Col 9 lines 63-66).
Wang , Cohen, and Browy do not specifically mention removal of the punctuation of the source text.
Paul discloses removal of the punctuation of the source text (e.g. converting “5.0” to “five point zero”, Section 2.1, page 5221).
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 invention of Wang , Cohen, and Browy by removal of the punctuation of the source text for reasons similar to those for claim 5.
Consider claim 19, Wang discloses the converting the source text to the plurality of word sequences further comprises: applying a first task comprising a copy of the source text (Capitalizer Module 206 receives source text F, considered a copy of the source text F provided to Case Remove Module 202, Fig 2, Col 3 lines 7-11); and applying a second task comprising text normalization to the source text (case remover module 202 receives capitalized input sentence F and generates a lowercase sentence by replacing all uppercase characters with lowercase characters, Col 2 lines 55-63).
Wang , Cohen, and Browy do not specifically mention applying inverse text normalization.
Paul discloses applying inverse text normalization (Abstract).
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 invention of Wang , Cohen, and Browy by applying inverse text normalization for reasons similar to those for claim 5.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jesse Pullias whose telephone number is 571/270-5135. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM. The examiner’s fax number is 571/270-6135.
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/Jesse S Pullias/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2655 05/22/26
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