DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the RCE filed on 02/09/2026.
Claims 1-6, 9-11, 13-20 are amended.
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 02/09/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 35 USC 103 rejections to the claims in Remarks pg 8-14 on 02/09/2026 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.
Applicant further argues in essence:
[a] “The cited portions of the applied reference are not understood to teach or suggest all of the features of independent claim 1, particularly with respect to at least the features of "concurrently providing the first version of the frame for display locally on the electronic device while providing the second version of the frame for at least one of: inclusion in a recorded video stream or for display on another electronic device."
The Office Action cites Ayers for a pipeline where a video capture device and processors feed a video modifier to obscure content and then output to display/recording. Ayers discloses that "[v]ideo of the environment is processed in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity in the environment. It is determined if the identified entity is to be censored based on entity information of a received VLC signal. Based on the identified entity being determined to be censored, the video recording is modified to replace at least a portion of the identified entity with a graphical element adapted to obscure the portion of the identified entity in the video stream." Ayers further states that "the sharing of the video may be implemented via an IP-based video call, a dedicated video communication link, or a video broadcast channel."
Neither of these passages of Ayers teaches or suggests "concurrently providing the first version of the frame for display locally on the electronic device while providing the second version of the frame... as recited in claim 1. Ayers describes modifying "the video recording" after an entity is identified for censorship, but does not disclose or suggest generating two different versions of the same frame, nor concurrently displaying one version locally while providing another version externally.”
In response to [a], examiner respectfully disagrees. While a different combination of references is used for the rejection of the independent claims in view of the captured frame being displayed locally, the concept of the video of the live environment being displayed concurrently with the frame of that environment being displayed remotely is taught by Ayers.
Similar to applicants’ specification that describes this process in para.0047 “may stream the video stream to one or more devices and/or displays for viewing in real-time” and para.0052 “The obfuscation may operate on a per-frame basis, ensuring that frames tagged as privacy-sensitive are effectively obfuscated. The blurring is applied, providing a real-time guarantee of privacy protection.”, wherein the by concurrently providing the frames refers to the process of displaying the obfuscated stream in real time, Ayers discloses the same process in para.0072 “Thus, it will be understood that the system 300 of FIG. 3 may automatically and dynamically censor a video recording of an environment containing protected content. It is also noted that, by leveraging a VLC signal comprising predefined information about content to be censored along with information generated from the video recording 302, the system 300 may process and modify the video stream 302 in real time, so as to provide a modified (e.g. censored) real-time (e.g. live) video stream 370 wherein protected content of environment which are present in the video stream 305 is replaced or obscured by a graphical element or graphical effect 360, thereby preventing a viewer of the modified video recording 370 from viewing the protected content. By processing each frame of the video stream 370, the system may track the position of protected content in a video recording so that it remains blurred or masked at all times that it is within the video's view.” Wherein each frame of the live stream is processed in real time for privacy protection.
Regarding the term “video recording”, this refers to the idea that the video content is captured, therefore recorded, as multiple sections of Ayers describes this process being a real time, live streaming environment such as in para.0010 that uses the term recording, however it is in view of a real time live streaming event: “It is noted that, by leveraging information received via a VLC signal about a protected entity to be censored along with information from a video recording, the video recording may be processed and modified in real-time so that it can be broadcast in a live manner (e.g. streamed) to one or more remote viewers without compromising (e.g. exposing or making visible/viewable) private or copyright-protected content in the videoed environment.”
Ayers discloses a live streaming virtual reality system wherein the current view of the user is communicated and displayed in real time to a separate viewer. Therefore Ayers discloses concurrently displaying the current version, i.e. not obfuscated version of an environment while providing the obfuscated version to a separate viewer as seen below. However, while Ayers discloses all of these processes to occur using a VR headset as in para.0003, and para.0044, therefore implied that the video being displayed is the captured environment augmented with VR elements, Ayers does not explicitly state that what is being displayed, i.e. not pass through. Examiner relies upon Smith that shows the processing of the VR headset to create the VR reality frames in at least para.0025.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine such that the video stream that is displayed to the local user such as in para.0003 of Ayers are the video frames as generated in Smith, and obfuscated in real time as described in applicants specification.
Ayers: Para.0001 “ by augmenting a live video-stream of an environment with additional display information.”
para.0003 “ A video stream displayed to a user of a VR head-mounted display system may therefore be shared with another person so that the other person can see what the user (i.e. wearer of the VR head-mounted display) is seeing.”
Para.0010 “It is noted that, by leveraging information received via a VLC signal about a protected entity to be censored along with information from a video recording, the video recording may be processed and modified in real-time so that it can be broadcast in a live manner (e.g. streamed) to one or more remote viewers without compromising (e.g. exposing or making visible/viewable) private or copyright-protected content in the videoed environment.”
Para.0070-0073 “The video modification unit 340 may then output the modified video 370 for display to an unknown or un-trusted viewer (via a display unit 390 for example)…. the system 300 may process and modify the video stream 302 in real time, so as to provide a modified (e.g. censored) real-time (e.g. live) video stream 370 wherein protected content of environment which are present in the video stream 305 is replaced or obscured by a graphical element or graphical effect 360… The modified video stream 370 may therefore be communicated (e.g. sent, or broadcast) in a live manner to remote viewers”
Para.0057 “ Such VLC signal-based censoring features can be applied to live video streams thus enabling real-time censoring of live video broadcast, and, in some embodiments, such censoring may be adapted according to individual viewers of the video stream.”
Para.0103 “A proposed embodiment of a system may therefore use information from a received VLC signal to censor a video stream in real-time so as to avoid unnecessary time delays caused by extensive and/or conventional post-processing of the video stream prior to be transmitted or broadcast.”
Smith: para.0025 “In one example, an AR-VR headset captures an image of the real-world environment, detects the selected real world objects in the image, creates a composite image that replaces the other portions of the image with content from the selected virtual environment, and displays the User experience in the AR-VR headset. This process can be continually repeated so that the user effectively sees a live video stream of the selected real world object with other content replaced from the selected virtual environment.”
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 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, 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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6, 8, 13, 14, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayers et al. (hereinafter Ayers, US 2018/0091856 A1) in view of Smith (US 2018/0173404 A1).
Regarding Claim 1 Ayers discloses A method comprising: capturing, at an electronic device (Ayers: para.0076 virtual or augmented reality system), a first version of a frame of a video stream from one or more sensors of the electronic device (Ayers: Para.0076 “One or more aspects of the system 300 of FIG. 3 may be integrated into a video capture system, and thus may employed within virtual reality systems and/or augmented reality systems, such as Hololens®, virtual reality headsets, head-mounted display systems, Oculus Rift® systems, and the like. For instance, such systems may be adapted to capture a video of an environment containing protected content and then censor the video (e.g. by obscuring a portion of the video that would otherwise display the protected content) prior to displaying the video to an external viewer.” A Virtual Reality device captures a video of an environment, the sensor being the camera used in Fig. 7, para.0116 used to capture the video.);
obfuscating, by the electronic device, at least a portion of content of the frame to generate a second version of the frame (Ayers: para.0095 “A portion (e.g. a frame, a section of a frame, multiple sequential frames, etc.) of the received video is then processed in step 640. More specifically, the received video may be processed in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity in the environment.” Para.0098 “If, on the other hand, the identified entity is determined in step 650 to be censored, the method proceeds to step 670 wherein the video stream is modified to replace at least a portion of the identified entity with a graphical element adapted to obscure the portion of the identified entity in the video.” The frame is analyzed to identify the entity to be censored, and in step 670 of Fig. 6, the frame is modified to replace the entity to be censored, thereby generating a second version of the frame. This is performed by the video modifier 340 in para.0069-0070.); and
concurrently providing the live video stream for display locally on the electronic device while providing, the second version of the frame for at least one of: inclusion in a recorded video stream or for display on another electronic device (Ayers: abstract “By modifying a video stream to obscure an entity, protected content in the environment may be prevented from being displayed to a viewer of the video recording.” Para.0001 “ by augmenting a live video-stream of an environment with additional display information.” para.0003 “ A video stream displayed to a user of a VR head-mounted display system may therefore be shared with another person so that the other person can see what the user (i.e. wearer of the VR head-mounted display) is seeing.” Para.0070-0073 “The video modification unit 340 may then output the modified video 370 for display to an unknown or un-trusted viewer (via a display unit 390 for example)…. the system 300 may process and modify the video stream 302 in real time, so as to provide a modified (e.g. censored) real-time (e.g. live) video stream 370 wherein protected content of environment which are present in the video stream 305 is replaced or obscured by a graphical element or graphical effect 360… The modified video stream 370 may therefore be communicated (e.g. sent, or broadcast) in a live manner to remote viewers” Para.0057 “ Such VLC signal-based censoring features can be applied to live video streams thus enabling real-time censoring of live video broadcast, and, in some embodiments, such censoring may be adapted according to individual viewers of the video stream.” The obfuscated frames are both included in a recorded video stream, as well as presented to another device, i.e. the untrusted viewers device display 390 in Fig. 3. The invention provides the video stream to the local virtual reality headset as in para.0003, and shares an obfuscated version of the stream in a live stream, i.e. concurrently, to remote viewers, or as in the abstract also provides a video recording version of the stream for display later.).
While Ayers discloses the process of displaying the current video stream to the user via the VR headset and streaming a separate version of the stream to another viewer in para.0003 and para.0070-0073 as set forth above which would typically display the captured video and modified to a VR environment and displayed to the user, Ayer does not explicitly disclose the first version of the frame being what is displayed, i.e. the frame captured by the sensor instead of pass through technology, therefore Ayers does not explicitly disclose concurrently providing the first version of the frame for display locally on the electronic device while providing, the second version of the frame for at least one of: inclusion in a recorded video stream or for display on another electronic device.
Smith discloses providing the first version of the frame for display locally on the electronic device (Smith: para.0025 “In one example, an AR-VR headset captures an image of the real-world environment, detects the selected real world objects in the image, creates a composite image that replaces the other portions of the image with content from the selected virtual environment, and displays the User experience in the AR-VR headset. This process can be continually repeated so that the user effectively sees a live video stream of the selected real world object with other content replaced from the selected virtual environment.” The captured images of the real world environment, i.e. frames, are displayed to the user).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers with Smith in order to incorporate providing the first version of the frame for display locally on the electronic device, such that the frames of the video stream being displayed in Ayers are that of the ones captured by the sensors in that of Smith used to obtain the image of the real world environment, and are the ones modified in Ayers when being censored and sent to the audience.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of improved user experience from the VR headset based on real world objects as described in Smith (Smith: para.0025).
Regarding Claim 2, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 1 as set forth above.
Ayers further discloses receiving, by a first process on the electronic device and from a second process on the electronic device, the first version of the frame (Ayers: para.0063 “The video processing unit 310 may be adapted to process a video stream 302 of the environment (received from a video capture device 350, for example) in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity or protected content in the environment.” The censoring system 300 in para.0058 and Fig. 3 performs the first process of censoring, and obtains the video stream from second process video capturing device 350);
providing, by the second process, the live video stream for display on the electronic device concurrently with the receiving of the first version of the frame by the first process (Ayers: para.0036 “Furthermore, one or more embodiments may enable real-time censoring of a live video-stream provided to a public audience, wherein the public audience is prevented from seeing particular items (such as copyright-protected content for example) in the displayed video-stream.” Para.0038 “Illustrative embodiments may therefore provide for protected zones or areas within an environment used in an augmented reality system/method.” para.0099 “Based on information provided by a received VLC signal received, the embodiment may apply blurs and/or masks in real-time (in a similar fashion to other augmented reality systems) so as to render protected content imperceptible in the final (e.g. broadcast) video” para.0103 “A proposed embodiment of a system may therefore use information from a received VLC signal to censor a video stream in real-time so as to avoid unnecessary time delays caused by extensive and/or conventional post-processing of the video stream prior to be transmitted or broadcast.” The invention is a real time stream of augmented reality content. The frames are processed as soon as possible to give the audience without a delay. After the second process in Fig. 3 of the video capture. The augmented reality headset immediately displays the captured video on the headset, and substantially concurrently begins to process the frames by the first process in Fig. 3 340 so the protected version of the frames may be transmitted to a secondary viewer in real time without any delays.)
However, while Ayers discloses the process of displaying live video to the user of the headset and sending a separate version of the stream to another viewer in para.0003 and para.0070-0073 as cited in claim 1, Ayer does not explicitly disclose the details of this process, therefore does not explicitly disclose providing, by the second process, the first version of the frame for display on the electronic device concurrently with the receiving of the first version of the frame by the first process.
Smith discloses providing, by the second process, the first version of the frame for display on the electronic device (Smith: para.0025 “In one example, an AR-VR headset captures an image of the real-world environment, detects the selected real world objects in the image, creates a composite image that replaces the other portions of the image with content from the selected virtual environment, and displays the User experience in the AR-VR headset. This process can be continually repeated so that the user effectively sees a live video stream of the selected real world object with other content replaced from the selected virtual environment.” The captured images of the real world environment, i.e. frames, are sent by a second process that creates the composite image to be displayed in the VR headset.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers with Smith in order to incorporate providing, by the second process, the first version of the frame for display on the electronic device, such that the frames of the video stream being displayed in Ayers are that of the ones captured by the sensors in that of Smith used to obtain the image of the real world environment, and are the ones modified in Ayers when being censored and sent to the audience.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of improved user experience from the VR headset based on real world objects as described in Smith (Smith: para.0025).
Regarding Claim 3, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 2 as set forth above.
Ayers further discloses wherein the electronic device comprises a computer- generated reality display device configured to display the live video stream to a user (Ayers: para.0076 “One or more aspects of the system 300 of FIG. 3 may be integrated into a video capture system, and thus may employed within virtual reality systems and/or augmented reality systems, such as Hololens®, virtual reality headsets, head-mounted display systems, Oculus Rift® systems, and the like.” The first device is a reality device headset that displays the video frames to the user.), and
wherein the other electronic device comprises a display device configured to display the obfuscated at least the portion of the content of the frame to another user (Ayers: para.0070 “The video modification unit 340 may then output the modified video 370 for display to an unknown or un-trusted viewer (via a display unit 390 for example).” The other electronic device is a display device for an untrusted viewer to view the censored video on device 390.).
However, while Ayers discloses the process of displaying live video to the user of the headset and sending a separate version of the stream to another viewer in para.0003 and para.0070-0073 as cited in claim 1, Ayer does not explicitly disclose the details of this process, therefore does not explicitly disclose wherein the electronic device comprises a computer- generated reality display device configured to display the first version of the frame to a user.
Smith discloses wherein the electronic device comprises a computer- generated reality display device configured to display the first version of the frame to a user (Smith: para.0025 “In one example, an AR-VR headset captures an image of the real-world environment, detects the selected real world objects in the image, creates a composite image that replaces the other portions of the image with content from the selected virtual environment, and displays the User experience in the AR-VR headset. This process can be continually repeated so that the user effectively sees a live video stream of the selected real world object with other content replaced from the selected virtual environment.” The captured images of the real world environment, i.e. frames, are displayed on a VR headset.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers with Smith in order to incorporate wherein the electronic device comprises a computer- generated reality display device configured to display the first version of the frame to a user.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of improved user experience from the VR headset based on real world objects as described in Smith (Smith: para.0025).
Regarding Claim 6, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 1 as set forth above.
Ayers further discloses wherein the at least the portion of the content of the frame includes one or more objects that correspond to the privacy-sensitive content, wherein the one or more objects include one or more of a virtual object or a physical object (Ayers: para.0081 “Based on a VLC signal received from the VLC transmitter 405 and the identified boundary edges 420, an embodiment determines that the boundary edge 420 of the television device 400 matches that which is expected for the television device 400, and thus determines the protected entity (i.e. the television device 400) is present in the video frame, along with its location, orientation, size, shape, etc. values.” The privacy sensitive content can be a physical object, in this case a television).
Regarding Claim 8, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 6 as set forth above.
Ayers further discloses herein the at least the portion of the content of the frame corresponds to a region in the frame that includes the one or more objects, wherein the obfuscating comprises modifying pixels inside the region and refraining from modifying pixels outside of the region (Ayers: para.0081 “Based on a VLC signal received from the VLC transmitter 405 and the identified boundary edges 420, an embodiment determines that the boundary edge 420 of the television device 400 matches that which is expected for the television device 400, and thus determines the protected entity (i.e. the television device 400) is present in the video frame, along with its location, orientation, size, shape, etc. values.” Para.0082 “Based on the identified boundary edges 420, graphical elements representing a simplified 3D model of the identified object are then generated and used to replace the television device 400 in the video, as illustrated in FIG. 4C.” Fig. 4a-c and Fig. 5A, a region for obfuscating the portion of the frame is determined based on that object to be censored, and only the pixels for that region are modified, for example based on boundary edges 420.).
Regarding Claims 13-14, they teach all of the same steps as claims 1-2, but in A system comprising: a processor; and a memory device containing instructions, which when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform operations comprising (Ayers: para.0047 para.0111-0112). Therefore the supporting rationale for the rejection of claims 1-2 apply equally as well to that of claims 13-14.
Regarding Claim 20, it teaches all of the same steps as claim 1 but in A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising: (Ayers: para.0123). Therefore the supporting rationale for the rejection of claim 1 applies equally as well to that of claim 20.
Claim(s) 4, 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayers et al. (hereinafter Ayers, US 2018/0091856 A1) in view of Smith (US 2018/0173404 A1) in view of Oliver (US 2015/0067717 A1).
Regarding Claim 4, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 2 as set forth above.
Ayers further discloses wherein the receiving the frame of the video stream comprises receiving a plurality of frames of the video stream including the frame having privacy-sensitive content (Ayers: para.0095 “A portion (e.g. a frame, a section of a frame, multiple sequential frames, etc.) of the received video is then processed in step 640. More specifically, the received video may be processed in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity in the environment.” Para.0098 “If, on the other hand, the identified entity is determined in step 650 to be censored, the method proceeds to step 670 wherein the video stream is modified to replace at least a portion of the identified entity with a graphical element adapted to obscure the portion of the identified entity in the video.” A plurality of frames are obtained and processed to remove sensitive content.).
While Ayers-Smith disclose a configuration step in para.0074-0075 via a user input, However Ayers does not explicitly disclose and the method further comprises: determining to obfuscate each of the plurality of frames based at least in part on a protected mode being active, wherein the protected mode becomes active based on user interaction with one or more user interface elements configured to receive at least in part the privacy-sensitive content.
Oliver discloses the method further comprises: determining to obfuscate each of the plurality of frames based at least in part on a protected mode being active, wherein the protected mode becomes active based on user interaction with one or more user interface elements configured to receive at least in part the privacy-sensitive content (Oliver: para.0015 “Consistent with embodiments described, the system herein may include a video censor toggle on the user device or an interface on (or associated with) the user device. The video censor toggle may allow the user to manually provide input to switch to or from (i.e., toggle) the censor mode (from or to the public mode) with a substantially minimal predetermined input.” The objectionable video content is censored based on user input in Fig. 2A Censor Toggle 222. By activating the censor mode to a mode other than “none”, a protected mode is activated, and frames of the objectionable content are censored.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine Ayers-Smith with Oliver in order to incorporate the method further comprises: determining to obfuscate each of the plurality of frames based at least in part on a protected mode being active, wherein the protected mode becomes active based on user interaction with one or more user interface elements configured to receive at least in part the privacy-sensitive content.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of improved user experience by being able to control the obfuscation easily during the content via a toggle feature such that other people cannot see the sensitive content (Oliver: para.0002, para.0014).
Regarding Claim 15, it does not teach nor further define over the teachings of claim 4, therefore the supporting rationale for the rejection of claim 4 applies equally as well to that of claim 15.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayers et al. (hereinafter Ayers, US 2018/0091856 A1) in view of Smith (US 2018/0173404 A1) in view of Gehler et al. (hereinafter Gehler, US 2022/0107774 A1) in view of Ren et al. (hereinafter Ren, US 2014/0259046 A1).
Regarding Claim 5, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 1 as set forth above.
Ayers further discloses wherein capturing the first version of the frame of the video stream comprises receiving a plurality of frames of the video stream including the first version of the frame with each of the plurality of frames being associated with the privacy-sensitive content (Ayers: para.0095 “A portion (e.g. a frame, a section of a frame, multiple sequential frames, etc.) of the received video is then processed in step 640. More specifically, the received video may be processed in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity in the environment.” Para.0098 “If, on the other hand, the identified entity is determined in step 650 to be censored, the method proceeds to step 670 wherein the video stream is modified to replace at least a portion of the identified entity with a graphical element adapted to obscure the portion of the identified entity in the video.” A plurality of frames are obtained and processed to remove sensitive content present in the frames.), and
the method further comprises: determining to obfuscate one of the plurality of frames, wherein the one of the plurality of frames corresponds to a first frame of the plurality of frames with the privacy sensitive content (Ayers: para.0095 “A portion (e.g. a frame, a section of a frame, multiple sequential frames, etc.) of the received video is then processed in step 640. More specifically, the received video may be processed in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity in the environment.” Para.0098 “If, on the other hand, the identified entity is determined in step 650 to be censored, the method proceeds to step 670 wherein the video stream is modified to replace at least a portion of the identified entity with a graphical element adapted to obscure the portion of the identified entity in the video.” The frame is analyzed to identify the entity to be censored, and in step 670 of Fig. 6, the frame is modified to replace the entity to be censored. This could be the first frame of the plurality of received frames.),
However Ayers-Smith does not explicitly disclose determining an associated indicator of privacy-sensitive content separate from content of the frame, with each of the plurality of frames being associated with a corresponding associated indicator of the privacy-sensitive content; wherein the one of the plurality of frames corresponds to a first frame of the plurality of frames with the corresponding associated indicator; wherein the first frame is obfuscated and held static in the recorded video stream until a last frame of the plurality of frames with the associated indicator is captured.
Gehler discloses determining an associated indicator of privacy-sensitive content separate from content of the frame (Gehler: para.0098 “The machine readable instructions and/or the operations 500 of FIG. 5 begin at block 502, at which the content analysis circuitry 202 of the content control circuitry 106 of FIG. 2 retrieves a portion of the labeled content 136. At block 504, the content analysis circuitry 202 analyzes (e.g., scans) the labeled content 136 to detect sensitive information identifier(s) 212 (e.g., metadata tags, flags, etc.) assigned to the labeled content 136 via, for instance, the content preparation circuitry 138.” Para.0032 “In some examples, the content includes, for instance, a video file and one or more frames of the video file are labeled with an indicator that the frame(s) should be censored (e.g., due to a violent scene in the frame(s)).” The process of circuitry 202 retrieves content to be displayed. This content may be a video file for which frames are labeled with an indicator, i.e. associated indicator being separate from the content of the frame, that indicates certain frames should be censored. Therefore determines labels that indicate privacy sensitive content),
receiving a plurality of frames each of the plurality of frames with each of the plurality of frames being associated with a corresponding associated indicator of the privacy-sensitive content (Gehler: para.0098 “The machine readable instructions and/or the operations 500 of FIG. 5 begin at block 502, at which the content analysis circuitry 202 of the content control circuitry 106 of FIG. 2 retrieves a portion of the labeled content 136. At block 504, the content analysis circuitry 202 analyzes (e.g., scans) the labeled content 136 to detect sensitive information identifier(s) 212 (e.g., metadata tags, flags, etc.) assigned to the labeled content 136 via, for instance, the content preparation circuitry 138.” Para.0032 “In some examples, the content includes, for instance, a video file and one or more frames of the video file are labeled with an indicator that the frame(s) should be censored (e.g., due to a violent scene in the frame(s)).” The process of circuitry 202 retrieves content to be displayed. This content may be a video file for which frames are labeled with an indicator, i.e. associated indicator being separate from the content of the frame, that indicates certain frames should be censored.);
determining to obfuscate one of the plurality of frames, wherein the one of the plurality of frames corresponds to a first frame of the plurality of frames with the corresponding associated indicator (Gehler: para.0101 “ at block 520, the content modification circuitry 204 applies a filter to the labeled content 136 to adjust the viewing properties of the sensitive information and to generate filtered labeled content 220 for presentation via the display screen 108 of the primary user device 102. In some examples, the content modification circuitry 204 filters the labeled content 136 by generating redacted content (e.g., the redacted content 304 of FIG. 3) to remove the sensitive information from the labeled content 136.” Para.0056 “For example, the content modification circuitry 204 can cause image data in a frame of a video file including the sensitive information identifier(s) (e.g., tag(s)) in the metadata of the frame to be blurred.” Fig. 5 520, based on the indicator, the frames may be blurred/censored).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers with that of Gehler in order to incorporate determining an associated indicator of privacy-sensitive content separate from content of the frame, with each of the plurality of frames being associated with a corresponding associated indicator of the privacy-sensitive content; wherein the one of the plurality of frames corresponds to a first frame of the plurality of frames with the corresponding associated indicator.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of improved security and safety by being able to selectively filter sensitive content for certain viewers (Gehler: para.0021).
However Ayers-Smith Gehler does not explicitly disclose wherein the first frame is obfuscated and held static in the recorded video stream until a last frame of the plurality of frames with the associated indicator is captured.
Ren discloses wherein the first frame is obfuscated and held static in the recorded video stream until a last frame of the plurality of frames of a time period (Ren: para.0023 “As another example, user 110 may select "video only" from media player 105, and the video only (i.e., the audio continues to play, but the video is blacked out) will be censored during the period between the censoring start time and the censoring stop time.” If the video is to be censored, the first frame is blacked out, i.e. obfuscated, and held static until the censoring stop time, i.e. the last frame that should be censored.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers-Smith-Gehler with Ren in order to incorporate wherein the first frame is obfuscated and held static in the recorded video stream until a last frame of the plurality of frames of a time period, and apply this concept to Ayers-Smith-Gehler that obfuscates based on content of each individual frame that is captured, and its associated indicator.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of reduced processing being able to block out whole portions of sensitive content, rather than individually censor out sections of the frame (Ren: para.0023).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayers et al. (hereinafter Ayers, US 2018/0091856 A1) in view of Smith (US 2018/0173404 A1) in view of Matsuki et al. (hereinafter Matsuki, US 2016/0316081 A1).
Regarding Claim 7, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 6 as set forth above.
However Ayers-Smith does not explicitly disclose wherein the virtual object includes one or more of a virtual keyboard or a password entry window, and wherein the physical object includes a representation of a user's hands identified in a camera image frame using one or more of a hands detection algorithm or a hands matting algorithm.
Matsuki discloses wherein the virtual object includes one or more of a virtual keyboard or a password entry window (Examiner notes the physical object mode is selected in claim 6 and not the virtual object.), and
wherein the physical object includes a representation of a user's hands identified in a camera image frame using one or more of a hands detection algorithm (Matsuki: para.0042 “As illustrated in FIG. 4, the AR processing section 35 a, upon judgment that the hand image 62 is present on the taken image 60 taken by the image-taking device 41, that is, upon detection of the hand image 62 (YES in S102), deletes the image 62 of the actual hand 90 included in the taken image 60 from the synthetic image 70 through image processing (S103).” Using a hand detection algorithm, a hand is detected in the image taken by the imagine taking device 41, and removed.)
or a hands matting algorithm.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers-Smith with Matsuki in order to incorporate wherein the virtual object includes one or more of a virtual keyboard or a password entry window, and wherein the physical object includes a representation of a user's hands identified in a camera image frame using one or more of a hands detection algorithm or a hands matting algorithm.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of removing undesired objects from the frame (Matsuki: para.0042).
Claim(s) 9, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayers et al. (hereinafter Ayers, US 2018/0091856 A1) in view of Smith (US 2018/0173404 A1) in view of Klein et al. (hereinafter Klein, US 2022/0239758 A1).
Regarding Claim 9, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 1 as set forth above.
Ayers further discloses wherein the obfuscating comprises modifying the at least the portion of the content of the frame corresponding to the location of the one or more objects based at least in part on detection information (Ayers: para.0095 “A portion (e.g. a frame, a section of a frame, multiple sequential frames, etc.) of the received video is then processed in step 640. More specifically, the received video may be processed in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity in the environment.” Para.0098 “If, on the other hand, the identified entity is determined in step 650 to be censored, the method proceeds to step 670 wherein the video stream is modified to replace at least a portion of the identified entity with a graphical element adapted to obscure the portion of the identified entity in the video.” The frame is analyzed to detect the location of the entity to be censored, and in step 670 of Fig. 6, the frame is modified to replace the entity to be censored.).
However Ayers-Smith does not explicitly disclose sending a query requesting detection of one or more objects in the at least the portion of the content of the frame that corresponds to the privacy-sensitive content; and receiving, responsive to the query, detection information indicating a location of the one or more objects within the at least the portion of the content of the frame that corresponds to privacy- sensitive content, wherein the obfuscating comprises modifying the at least the portion of the content of the frame corresponding to the location of the one or more objects based at least in part on the detection information.
Klein discloses sending a query requesting detection of one or more objects in the at least the portion of the content of the frame that corresponds to the content (Klein: para.0166 “In some embodiments, block 2107 is based at least in part on the client request and the determining of the first set of attributes and the second set of attributes at block 2105. For example, the client request may specify that it needs a particular object detected in a video stream. Responsively, the network device 116 of FIG. 1 may determine, via the resource list 120 that the only network device that has object detection functionality is network device 112. Accordingly, network device 112 is selected to route the request to.” The device sends a request for offloaded processing of object tracking in a video stream.); and
receiving, responsive to the query, detection information indicating a location of the one or more objects within the at least the portion of the content of the frame that corresponds to the content, (Klein: para.0175 “Per block 2111, some embodiments cause a transmission of data to the client device. In some embodiments, this is at least partially in response to the processing of the client request at block 2109. For example, in response to the first network device detecting and tracking an object via the client request, embodiments causes a transmission of the detected and zoomed-in object (e.g., causing a visual bounding box to appear over the object and enlarging the pixels for a zoomed-in image).” In response to the query, the object tracking information is obtained from the node).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine Ayers-Smith with Klein in order to incorporate sending a query requesting detection of one or more objects in the at least the portion of the content of the frame that corresponds to the content receiving, responsive to the query, detection information indicating a location of the one or more objects within the at least the portion of the content of the frame that corresponds to the content, and apply this concept to the privacy- sensitive content, and use the detection information indicating a location of the one or more objects from the node when obfuscating the frame in Ayers.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of reduced load at the device by offloading tasks to a different node (Klein: para.0032).
Regarding Claim 17, it does not teach nor further define over the teachings of claim 9, therefore the supporting rationale for the rejection of claim 9 applies equally as well to that of claim 17.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayers et al. (hereinafter Ayers, US 2018/0091856 A1) in view of Smith (US 2018/0173404 A1) in view of Quark et al. (hereinafter Quark, US 10,956,726 B1).
Regarding Claim 10, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 1 as set forth above.
However Ayers-Smith does not explicitly disclose wherein the frame comp rises a plurality of layers, further comprising determining at least one layer of the plurality of layers that includes privacy- sensitive content, wherein the obfuscating comprises obfuscating the at least one layer of the plurality of layers.
Quark discloses wherein the frame comprises a plurality of layers (Quark: Fig.8, foreground layer including the people, and background layer), further comprising determining at least one layer of the plurality of layers that includes privacy- sensitive content, wherein the obfuscating comprises obfuscating the at least one layer of the plurality of layers (Quark: Fig. 7-8 col. 25 lines 22-40 “ Fig. 4a 408 646 col. 23 lines 55-675 “If it is determined that none of the pixels identified in the obfuscation mask are located within a background object boundary, or after excluding any pixels from the obfuscation mask that are located within the background object boundary, the example process proceeds to decision block 464 and continues, as discussed above. While the above example discusses excluding regions or all of a foreground object determined to be an operator, in some implementations, any detected foreground object may be obfuscated.” Foreground and background of a frame are identified and the foreground may be censored, as in fig. 7-8. Examiner notes that layers in view of applicants spec para.0041 includes background layers.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers-Smith with Quark in order to incorporate wherein the frame comprises a plurality of layers, further comprising determining at least one layer of the plurality of layers that includes privacy- sensitive content, wherein the obfuscating comprises obfuscating the at least one layer of the plurality of layers.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of preserving privacy (Quark: Fig. 1 lines 18-28).
Claim(s) 11-12, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayers et al. (hereinafter Ayers, US 2018/0091856 A1) in view of Smith (US 2018/0173404 A1) further in view of Williamson et al. (hereinafter Williamson, US 2018/0232528 A1).
Regarding Claim 11, Ayers-Smith discloses claim 1 as set forth above.
However Ayers-Smith does not explicitly disclose setting, via an application process a flag corresponding to privacy-sensitive content, wherein an associated indicator of the privacy-sensitive content is added to the frame based at least in part by the flag.
Williamson discloses setting, via an application process a flag corresponding to privacy-sensitive content (Williamson: para.0080 “The machine learning trainer 306 trains the deep learning classifier 212. The machine learning trainer 306 may receive a set of training data. The training data includes multiple data portions which are labeled as sensitive data or not sensitive data. The sensitive data type may also be labeled. This training data may be received from the user and may be custom to the user's organization or may be a generic set of training data” para.0041 “New patterns may be added to the pattern matching method based on user feedback indicating certain data patterns are sensitive.” Via the processes of Data Classifier 108 in Fig. 2, flags can be set as a separate process, indicating certain data portions and data patterns to be sensitive or not sensitive.),
wherein an associated indicator of the privacy-sensitive content is added to the frame based at least in part by the flag (Williamson: para.0032 “The data classifier 108 uses pattern matching to match patterns between the data received from the data pre-processor 106 and a set of pre-defined patterns stored by the data classifier 108. If any matches are found either within the data itself or the corresponding metadata labels, then the corresponding data portions are indicated as being sensitive data. The patterns may be specified using various methods, such as regular expressions” based on matches to known patterns, i.e. based on the flags in para.0080 and para.0041, data portions are indicated to be sensitive by a second process, i.e. processes prior to the first process that obfuscates.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers-smith with that of Williamson in order to incorporate setting, via an application process a flag corresponding to privacy-sensitive content, wherein an associated indicator of the privacy-sensitive content is added to the frame based at least in part by the flag.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of improved accuracy of classification of sensitive data (Williamson: para.0040).
Regarding Claim 12, Ayers-Smith-Williamson discloses claim 11 as set forth above.
However Ayers-Smith does not explicitly disclose detecting, via the application process, one or more user interactions with a user interface element indicative of an input corresponding at least in part to the privacy-sensitive content.
Williamson further discloses detecting, via the application process, one or more user interactions with a user interface element indicative of an input corresponding at least in part to the privacy-sensitive content (Williamson: para.0062 “The contextual analyzer 210, similar to the logical classifier 208, may provide a graphical interface, application programming interface, or may accept computer instructions to allow a user to provide specific instructions regarding whether the contextual analyzer 210 should determine that a data portion is sensitive data based on the contents, type, relationship, metadata, and other characteristics of contextual data that has been found for the data portion.” Via the processes of Data Classifier 108, the contextual analyzer provides an user interface and obtains user interaction information regarding sensitive data.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers-Smith with that of Williamson in order to incorporate setting, via an application process separate from the first process and the second process, a flag corresponding to the privacy-sensitive content, wherein the associated indicator is added to the frame by the second process based at least in part by the flag.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of improved accuracy of classification of sensitive data (Williamson: para.0040).
Regarding Claim 19, Ayers-Smith discloses Claim 13 as set forth above.
However Ayers-Smith does not explicitly disclose wherein the operations further comprise: setting, via an application process, a flag corresponding to privacy-sensitive content, wherein an associated indicator is added to the frame based at least in part by the flag; and detecting, via the application process, one or more user interactions with a user interface element indicative of an input corresponding at least in part to the privacy-sensitive content.
Williamson discloses w wherein the operations further comprise: setting, via an application process, a flag corresponding to privacy-sensitive content (Williamson: para.0080 “The machine learning trainer 306 trains the deep learning classifier 212. The machine learning trainer 306 may receive a set of training data. The training data includes multiple data portions which are labeled as sensitive data or not sensitive data. The sensitive data type may also be labeled. This training data may be received from the user and may be custom to the user's organization or may be a generic set of training data” para.0041 “New patterns may be added to the pattern matching method based on user feedback indicating certain data patterns are sensitive.” Via the processes of Data Classifier 108 in Fig. 2, flags can be set as a separate process, indicating certain data portions and data patterns to be sensitive or not sensitive.),
wherein an associated indicator is added to the frame based at least in part by the flag (Williamson: para.0032 “The data classifier 108 uses pattern matching to match patterns between the data received from the data pre-processor 106 and a set of pre-defined patterns stored by the data classifier 108. If any matches are found either within the data itself or the corresponding metadata labels, then the corresponding data portions are indicated as being sensitive data. The patterns may be specified using various methods, such as regular expressions” based on matches to known patterns, i.e. based on the flags in para.0080 and para.0041, data portions are indicated to be sensitive by a second process, i.e. processes prior to the first process that obfuscates.); and
detecting, via the application process, one or more user interactions with a user interface element indicative of an input corresponding at least in part to the privacy-sensitive content (Williamson: para.0062 “The contextual analyzer 210, similar to the logical classifier 208, may provide a graphical interface, application programming interface, or may accept computer instructions to allow a user to provide specific instructions regarding whether the contextual analyzer 210 should determine that a data portion is sensitive data based on the contents, type, relationship, metadata, and other characteristics of contextual data that has been found for the data portion.” Via the processes of Data Classifier 108, the contextual analyzer provides an user interface and obtains user interaction information regarding sensitive data.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers-Smith with that of Williamson in order to incorporate wherein the operations further comprise: setting, via an application process, a flag corresponding to privacy-sensitive content, wherein an associated indicator is added to the frame based at least in part by the flag; and detecting, via the application process, one or more user interactions with a user interface element indicative of an input corresponding at least in part to the privacy-sensitive content.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of improved accuracy of classification of sensitive data (Williamson: para.0040).
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayers et al. (hereinafter Ayers, US 2018/0091856 A1) in view of Smith (US 2018/0173404 A1) in view of Oliver (US 2015/0067717 A1) in view of Gehler et al. (hereinafter Gehler, US 2022/0107774 A1).
Regarding Claim 16, Ayers-Smith-Oliver discloses claim 15 as set forth above.
Ayers further discloses wherein the operations further comprise, wherein capturing the first version of the frame of the video stream comprises receiving a plurality of frames of the video stream including the frame with each of the plurality of frames with the privacy-sensitive content (Ayers: para.0095 “A portion (e.g. a frame, a section of a frame, multiple sequential frames, etc.) of the received video is then processed in step 640. More specifically, the received video may be processed in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity in the environment.” Para.0098 “If, on the other hand, the identified entity is determined in step 650 to be censored, the method proceeds to step 670 wherein the video stream is modified to replace at least a portion of the identified entity with a graphical element adapted to obscure the portion of the identified entity in the video.” A plurality of frames are obtained and processed to remove sensitive content, the sensitive content within the images,), and
wherein the operations further comprise: determining to obfuscate one of the plurality of frames, wherein the one of the plurality of frames corresponds to a first frame of the plurality of frames with the privacy-sensitive content (Ayers: para.0095 “A portion (e.g. a frame, a section of a frame, multiple sequential frames, etc.) of the received video is then processed in step 640. More specifically, the received video may be processed in accordance with an entity recognition process to identify the presence of at least part of an entity in the environment.” Para.0098 “If, on the other hand, the identified entity is determined in step 650 to be censored, the method proceeds to step 670 wherein the video stream is modified to replace at least a portion of the identified entity with a graphical element adapted to obscure the portion of the identified entity in the video.” The frame is analyzed to identify the entity to be censored, and in step 670 of Fig. 6, the frame is modified to replace the entity to be censored. This could be the first frame of the plurality of received frames.).
However Ayers-Smith-Oliver does not explicitly disclose determining an associated indicator of privacy-sensitive content separate from content of the frame, receiving a plurality of frames of the video stream including the frame with each of the plurality of frames with the associated indicator of the privacy-sensitive content; wherein the one of the plurality of frames corresponds to a first frame of the plurality of frames with the associated indicator
Gehler discloses determining an associated indicator of privacy-sensitive content separate from content of the frame (Gehler: para.0098 “The machine readable instructions and/or the operations 500 of FIG. 5 begin at block 502, at which the content analysis circuitry 202 of the content control circuitry 106 of FIG. 2 retrieves a portion of the labeled content 136. At block 504, the content analysis circuitry 202 analyzes (e.g., scans) the labeled content 136 to detect sensitive information identifier(s) 212 (e.g., metadata tags, flags, etc.) assigned to the labeled content 136 via, for instance, the content preparation circuitry 138.” Para.0032 “In some examples, the content includes, for instance, a video file and one or more frames of the video file are labeled with an indicator that the frame(s) should be censored (e.g., due to a violent scene in the frame(s)).” The process of circuitry 202 retrieves content to be displayed. This content may be a video file for which frames are labeled with an indicator, i.e. associated indicator being separate from the content of the frame, that indicates certain frames should be censored. Therefore determines labels that indicate privacy sensitive content),
receiving a plurality of frames of the video stream including the frame with each of the plurality of frames with the associated indicator of the privacy-sensitive content (Gehler: para.0098 “The machine readable instructions and/or the operations 500 of FIG. 5 begin at block 502, at which the content analysis circuitry 202 of the content control circuitry 106 of FIG. 2 retrieves a portion of the labeled content 136. At block 504, the content analysis circuitry 202 analyzes (e.g., scans) the labeled content 136 to detect sensitive information identifier(s) 212 (e.g., metadata tags, flags, etc.) assigned to the labeled content 136 via, for instance, the content preparation circuitry 138.” Para.0032 “In some examples, the content includes, for instance, a video file and one or more frames of the video file are labeled with an indicator that the frame(s) should be censored (e.g., due to a violent scene in the frame(s)).” The process of circuitry 202 retrieves content to be displayed. This content may be a video file for which frames are labeled with an indicator, i.e. associated indicator being separate from the content of the frame, that indicates certain frames should be censored.);
determining to obfuscate one of the plurality of frames, wherein the one of the plurality of frames corresponds to a first frame of the plurality of frames with the associated indicator (Gehler: para.0101 “ at block 520, the content modification circuitry 204 applies a filter to the labeled content 136 to adjust the viewing properties of the sensitive information and to generate filtered labeled content 220 for presentation via the display screen 108 of the primary user device 102. In some examples, the content modification circuitry 204 filters the labeled content 136 by generating redacted content (e.g., the redacted content 304 of FIG. 3) to remove the sensitive information from the labeled content 136.” Para.0056 “For example, the content modification circuitry 204 can cause image data in a frame of a video file including the sensitive information identifier(s) (e.g., tag(s)) in the metadata of the frame to be blurred.” Fig. 5 520, based on the indicator, the frames may be blurred/censored).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers with that of Gehler in order to incorporate determining an associated indicator of privacy-sensitive content separate from content of the frame, receiving a plurality of frames of the video stream including the frame with each of the plurality of frames with the associated indicator of the privacy-sensitive content; wherein the one of the plurality of frames corresponds to a first frame of the plurality of frames with the associated indicator.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of improved security and safety by being able to selectively filter sensitive content for certain viewers (Gehler: para.0021).
Claim(s) 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayers et al. (hereinafter Ayers, US 2018/0091856 A1) in view of Smith (US 2018/0173404 A1) in view of Klein et al. (hereinafter Klein, US 2022/0239758 A1) in view of Quark et al. (hereinafter Quark, US 10,956,726 B1).
Regarding Claim 18, Ayers-Smith-Klein discloses claim 17 as set forth above.
However Ayers-Smith -Klein does not explicitly disclose wherein the frame comprises a plurality of layers, further comprising determining at least one layer of the plurality of layers that includes privacy- sensitive content, wherein the obfuscating comprises obfuscating the at least one layer of the plurality of layers.
Quark discloses wherein the frame comprises a plurality of layers (Quark: Fig.8, foreground layer including the people, and background layer), further comprising determining at least one layer of the plurality of layers that includes privacy- sensitive content, wherein the obfuscating comprises obfuscating the at least one layer of the plurality of layers (Quark: Fig. 7-8 col. 25 lines 22-40 “ Fig. 4a 408 646 col. 23 lines 55-675 “If it is determined that none of the pixels identified in the obfuscation mask are located within a background object boundary, or after excluding any pixels from the obfuscation mask that are located within the background object boundary, the example process proceeds to decision block 464 and continues, as discussed above. While the above example discusses excluding regions or all of a foreground object determined to be an operator, in some implementations, any detected foreground object may be obfuscated.” Foreground and background of a frame are identified and the foreground may be censored, as in fig. 7-8. Examiner notes that layers in view of applicants spec para.0041 includes background layers.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Ayers-Smith -Klein with Quark in order to incorporate wherein the frame comprises a plurality of layers, further comprising determining at least one layer of the plurality of layers that includes privacy- sensitive content, wherein the obfuscating comprises obfuscating the at least one layer of the plurality of layers.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine because of the expected benefit of preserving privacy (Quark: Fig. 1 lines 18-28).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Holland et al. US 2022/0035439 A1 see para.0126 and Fig. 11 for privacy setting and obfuscation of interface.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EUI H KIM whose telephone number is (571)272-8133. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30-5 M-R, M-F alternating.
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/EUI H KIM/Examiner, Art Unit 2453
/KAMAL B DIVECHA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2453
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