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 .
Applicant's Response
In Applicant's Response dated 1/2/2026, Applicant amended the Claims and argued against all objections and rejections set forth in the previous Office Action.
All objections and rejections not reproduced below are withdrawn.
The rejection of the Claims under 35 U.S.C. 101 previously set forth are withdrawn.
The prior art rejections of the Claims under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 previously set forth are partially maintained and partially withdrawn.
The examiner appreciates the applicant noting where the support for the amendments are described in the specification.
The Application was filed on 11/21/2023.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-21 are pending for examination. Claim(s) 1, 12, 16 is/are independent claim(s).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 21 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
The claim recites in part:
“the GUI comprises one or more visual indications of differences between the modified and unmodified paragraphs based on the modified one or more spacing characteristics”
The specification does not support the GUI displaying “visual indications of differences”. As far as can be understood by the examiner the specification shows the two text segments side by side in the drawings but this is never shown to the user in a GUI. That is, Fig 2 of the drawings are shown as an example and not something that is displayed to the user.
The specification recites:
[0037] Following optimization of the spacing characteristics for each justified paragraph of the justified paragraphs 102 and application of the optimized modifications to each paragraph, the enhanced paragraph justification subsystem 110 causes the modified first justified paragraph to be displayed in a GUI 160. For example, the GUI 160 may display the enhanced justified paragraphs 104. The type color and uniformity of enhanced justified paragraphs 104 is apparent alongside justified paragraphs 102.
[0038] FIG. 2 shows a detail view of example text 200 formatted using techniques for enhancing paragraph justification across multiple paragraphs, according to some aspects of the present disclosure. Justified paragraphs 210 are shown with shaded boxes corresponding to word spacing before the application of the techniques disclosed herein. Enhanced justified paragraphs 220 are shown with shaded boxes corresponding to word spacing after the application of the techniques disclosed herein.
The specification does state the differences are noticeable “alongside” each other, but those differences are never displayed to the user, they are only shown in the applicant’s drawings. Because these differences are not displayed to a user the subject matter of claim 21 is new matter which was not described in the specification.
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, 4, 5, 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wormley; Matthew A. US Pat. No. 7,444,586 (Wormley) in view of Donald E. Knuth, Michael F. Plass “Breaking paragraphs into lines” Software-Practice and Experience, Vol. 11, 1119-1184, 1981 (Knuth).
Claim 1:
Wormley teaches:
A method performed by one or more processing devices [Col. 5, Ln. 56-64] (computer system), comprising:
determining a first spacing metric for a first justified paragraph of text in a digital document and a second spacing metric for a second justified paragraph of text in the digital document [Col. 2, Ln. 30-49] (multiple alternate paragraphs would include at least a “first” and “second”) [Col. 3, Ln. 54 – Col. 4, ln. 17] (creates a possibility tree of potential text line combinations. A text line can optionally be included in the tree if the line includes words that can be fit within the specified margins, or baseline width);
determining an aggregate spacing metric for the first justified paragraph and the second justified paragraph based on the first spacing metric and the second spacing metric [Col. 4, Ln.17- Col. 5, Ln. 20] (justification penalty is assessed to each text line that is a candidate for inclusion in an optimized paragraph layout) [Col. 3, Ln. 30-41] (Each line is assessed a justification penalty equal to the square of the quotient of the total space expansion or compression divided by the number of inter-word spaces. The justification penalty is combined with other format related penalties assessed against the text line, e.g., penalties associated with hyphenation clustering. Each of the penalties is weighted according to selected factors and then summed to arrive at an aggregate penalization value for the line. This process is repeated for other potential text lines that are considered candidates for an optimized paragraph layout. The program then selects the paragraph layout that consists of the combination of potential lines having the lowest aggregate penalty. A revised paragraph is created by allocating the aggregate spacing or compression necessary to justify each text line among inter-word spaces, inter-character spaces, and font width according to selected weighting factors);
based on a difference between the first spacing metric and the aggregate spacing metric, modifying one or more spacing characteristics of the first justified paragraph based on a first penalty value, wherein the one or more spacing characteristics of the first justified paragraph comprise at least one of word spacing, letter spacing, or glyph scaling [Col. 4, Ln. 30-54] (calculates the total space expansion or space compression necessary to fit the words to predetermined margins, inter-word spacing, inter-character spacing, and font widths); and
… ; and
causing the modified first justified paragraph to be displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) [Col. 5, Ln. 56-64] (display device such as a monitor or LCD screen for displaying information to the user and a keyboard and a pointing device such as a mouse or a trackball, a mouse is used for a GUI).
Wormley does not appear to explicitly disclose “modifying one or more spacing characteristics of the second justified paragraph based on a second penalty value”.
However, the disclosure of Knuth teaches:
based on a difference between the second spacing metric and the aggregate spacing metric, modifying one or more spacing characteristics of the second justified paragraph based on a second penalty value, wherein the one or more spacing characteristics of the second justified paragraph comprise at least one of word spacing, letter spacing, or glyph scaling [pg. 1134] (combining paragraphs, treating the two paragraphs as one, i.e., appending the second to the first) [pg. 1121-1122] (dividing the text into a stream of three kinds of objects: boxes, which are non-resizable chunks of content, glue, which are flexible, re-sizeable elements, and penalties, which represent places where breaking is undesirable (or, if negative, desirable). The loss function, known as "badness", is defined in terms of the deformation of the glue elements, and any extra penalties incurred through line breaking);
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of justification in Wormley and the method of word justification by line breaking in Knuth, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of combining paragraphs in Knuth could be applied to the justification in Wormley. Knuth and Wormley are similar devices because each describe justification. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, to “improve the appearance of the resulting output” [Knuth: ¶ 1146].
Claim 4:
Wormley teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising:
responsive to a difference between the second spacing metric and the aggregate spacing metric, modifying one or more spacing characteristics of the second justified paragraph based on a second penalty value, wherein the one or more spacing characteristics of the second justified paragraph comprise at least one of word spacing, letter spacing, or glyph scaling [Col. 4, Ln.17- Col. 5, Ln. 20] (justification penalty is assessed to each text line that is a candidate for inclusion in an optimized paragraph layout) [Col. 4, Ln. 30-54] (calculates the total space expansion or space compression necessary to fit the words to predetermined margins, inter-word spacing, inter-character spacing, and font widths); and
causing the modified second paragraph to be displayed in the GUI [Col. 5, Ln. 56-64] (display device such as a monitor or LCD screen for displaying information to the user and a keyboard and a pointing device such as a mouse or a trackball, a mouse is used for a GUI).
Claim 5:
Wormley teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the one or more spacing characteristics of the first justified paragraph based on the first penalty value comprises:
determining an initial penalty value for the first justified paragraph [Col. 3, Ln. 30-41] (Each line is assessed a justification penalty equal to the square of the quotient of the total space expansion or compression divided by the number of inter-word spaces. The justification penalty is combined with other format related penalties assessed against the text line, e.g., penalties associated with hyphenation clustering. Each of the penalties is weighted according to selected factors and then summed to arrive at an aggregate penalization value for the line. This process is repeated for other potential text lines that are considered candidates for an optimized paragraph layout. The program then selects the paragraph layout that consists of the combination of potential lines having the lowest aggregate penalty. A revised paragraph is created by allocating the aggregate spacing or compression necessary to justify each text line among inter-word spaces, inter-character spaces, and font width according to selected weighting factors);
establishing a set of spacing characteristics modifications;
for each spacing characteristics modification in a subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications:
selecting a spacing characteristics modification [Col. 3, Ln. 54 – Col. 4, ln. 17] (creates a possibility tree of potential text line combinations. A text line can optionally be included in the tree if the line includes words that can be fit within the specified margins, or baseline width);
modifying the first justified paragraph using the spacing characteristics modification [Col. 4, Ln.17- Col. 5, Ln. 20] (justification penalty is assessed to each text line that is a candidate for inclusion in an optimized paragraph layout);
determining a modified penalty value for the first justified paragraph [Col. 4, Ln. 30-54] (calculates the total space expansion or space compression necessary to fit the words to predetermined margins, inter-word spacing, inter-character spacing, and font widths); and
comparing the initial penalty value with the modified penalty value [Col. 5, Ln. 28-37] (selects the combination of text lines having the lowest total penalty);
based on the comparing the initial penalty value with the modified penalty values, identifying the spacing characteristics modification of the subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications associated with an optimized modified penalty value, wherein the optimized modified penalty value is the first penalty value [Col. 5, Ln. 39-49] (allocate the aggregate spacing or compression among inter-word spaces); and
modifying the first justified paragraph using the spacing characteristics modification of the subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications associated with the optimized modified penalty value [Col. 5, Ln. 39-49] (optimize and display to user).
Claim 7:
Wormley teaches:
The method of claim 5, wherein the optimized modified penalty value corresponds to a minimum penalty value for the first justified paragraph [Col. 5, Ln. 29-34] (lowest total penalty) [Col. 1, Ln. 31-43] (lowest aggregate penalty).
Claim(s) 2, 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wormley; Matthew A. US Pat. No. 7,444,586 (Wormley) in view of Donald E. Knuth, Michael F. Plass “Breaking paragraphs into lines” Software-Practice and Experience, Vol. 11, 1119-1184, 1981 (Knuth) in view of Hassan; Tamir et al. US Pub. No. 2018/0018305 (Hassan).
Claim 2:
Wormley and Knuth teach all the elements of the claims as shown above.
Wormley and Knuth do not appear to explicitly disclose “average spacing measurement”.
However, the disclosure of Hassan teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein:
the first justified paragraph comprises a justified line comprising at least three words, including a first word, a second word, and a third word [¶ 0019-20, 32-33] (text justification) [¶ 0031-32] (Fig. 3 shows 3 adjacent words), wherein:
the first word and the second word are adjacent; and the second word and the third word are adjacent [¶ 0031-32] (Fig. 3 shows 3 adjacent words); and
determining the first spacing metric for the first justified paragraph comprises:
determining a first spacing measurement between the first word and the second word [¶ 0036] (standard value is the character spacing and/or word spacing, per the font's definition);
determining a second spacing measurement between the second word and the third word [¶ 0036] (standard value is the character spacing and/or word spacing, per the font's definition);
determining an average spacing measurement based on the first spacing measurement and the second spacing measurement ; and
designating the average spacing measurement as the first spacing metric [¶ 0036-37] (Character spacing and word spacing may be averaged across a text line).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of justification in Wormley and the method of word justification by line breaking in Knuth and the method of word spacing in Hassan, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of average word spacing in Hassan could be applied to the combining paragraphs in Knuth and justification in Wormley. Hassan, Knuth and Wormley are similar devices because each describe justification. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, “may improve readability and aesthetic quality of the text” [Hassan: ¶ 0009].
Claim 3:
The combination of Wormley, Knuth and Hassan discloses the limitations recited in the parent claim(s) for the reasons discussed above. In addition, the present claim would be further obvious using the same reason, rationale and/or motivation as used above, over the disclosure of Hassan, which teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein determining the aggregate spacing metric for the first justified paragraph and the second justified paragraph based on the first spacing metric and the second spacing metric comprises averaging the first spacing metric and the second spacing metric [¶ 0044] (Fig. 6, adjust spacing) [¶ 0034, 36-37] (average character and word spacing).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wormley; Matthew A. US Pat. No. 7,444,586 (Wormley) in view of Donald E. Knuth, Michael F. Plass “Breaking paragraphs into lines” Software-Practice and Experience, Vol. 11, 1119-1184, 1981 (Knuth) in view of Ruff; Eric J. et al. US Pub. No. 2016/0062954 (Ruff).
Claim 6:
Wormley and Knuth teach all the elements of the claims as shown above.
Wormley and Knuth do not appear to explicitly disclose “binary search”.
However, the disclosure of Ruff teaches:
The method of claim 5, wherein selecting the spacing characteristics modification is based on a binary search of the subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications [¶ 0466, 483, 1066] (binary search) [¶ 0031, 34, 809-810] (justification) [¶ 1006] (cumulative total).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of justification in Wormley and the method of word justification by line breaking in Knuth and the method of binary searching in Ruff, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of binary searching in Ruff could be applied to the combining paragraphs in Knuth and the justification in Wormley. Ruff, Knuth and Wormley are similar devices because each disclose justification. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, for “Improving the processing speed and/or flexibility of formatting” [Ruff: ¶ 0019].
Claim(s) 8-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wormley; Matthew A. US Pat. No. 7,444,586 (Wormley) in view of Donald E. Knuth, Michael F. Plass “Breaking paragraphs into lines” Software-Practice and Experience, Vol. 11, 1119-1184, 1981 (Knuth) in view of Menninga; Eric A. US Pub. No. 2006/0080081 (Menninga).
Claim 8:
Wormley and Knuth teach all the elements of the claims as shown above.
Wormley and Knuth do not appear to explicitly disclose “range for spacing characteristics modifications”.
However, the disclosure of Menninga teaches:
The method of claim 5, wherein establishing the set of spacing characteristics modifications comprises:
determining a range for spacing characteristics modifications based on the aggregate spacing metric [¶ 0083, 104] (setting values for the spacing amount (optimum 0%, minimum 0%, maximum 0% ), user sets 50% as the spacing amount for "optimum," 0% for "minimum," and 50% for "maximum" in the initial setting item "non-punctuation-> starting parenthesis" in the "middle of line" section in the dialog box in FIG. 6, that spacing amount setting is simultaneously set for the 10 combinations of previous character class and next character class indicated by "1" in FIG. 8,);
determining a plurality of values in the range for spacing characteristics modifications; and for each value in the plurality of values in the range for spacing characteristics modifications, determine a spacing characteristics modification based on the value [¶ 0080] (spacing amount between these characters can be set as 50%).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of justification in Wormley and the method of word justification by line breaking in Knuth and the method of setting ranges in Menninga, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of setting ranges in Menninga could be applied to the combining paragraphs in Knuth and the justification in Wormley. Menninga, Knuth, and Wormley are similar devices because each are directed toward justification of text. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, for a ” user can easily and quickly set inter-character spacing amounts” [Menninga: ¶ 0007].
Claim 9:
The combination of Wormley, Knuth and Menninga discloses the limitations recited in the parent claim(s) for the reasons discussed above. In addition, the present claim would be further obvious using the same reason, rationale and/or motivation as used above, over the disclosure of Menninga, which teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more spacing characteristics are modified by less than a predefined percentage value [¶ 0083, 104] (setting values for the spacing amount (optimum 0%, minimum 0%, maximum 0% ), user sets 50% as the spacing amount for "optimum," 0% for "minimum," and 50% for "maximum" in the initial setting item "non-punctuation-> starting parenthesis" in the "middle of line" section in the dialog box in FIG. 6, that spacing amount setting is simultaneously set for the 10 combinations of previous character class and next character class indicated by "1" in FIG. 8,).
Claim 10:
The combination of Wormley, Knuth and Menninga discloses the limitations recited in the parent claim(s) for the reasons discussed above. In addition, the present claim would be further obvious using the same reason, rationale and/or motivation as used above, over the disclosure of Menninga, which teaches:
The method of claim 9, wherein: a first spacing characteristic of the one or more spacing characteristics is modified by a first percentage value;
a second spacing characteristic of the one or more spacing characteristics is modified by a second percentage value; and
the first percentage value is different from the second percentage value [¶ 0083, 104] (setting values for the spacing amount (optimum 0%, minimum 0%, maximum 0% ), user sets 50% as the spacing amount for "optimum," 0% for "minimum," and 50% for "maximum" in the initial setting item "non-punctuation-> starting parenthesis" in the "middle of line" section in the dialog box in FIG. 6, that spacing amount setting is simultaneously set for the 10 combinations of previous character class and next character class indicated by "1" in FIG. 8,).
Claim 11:
The combination of Wormley, Knuth and Menninga discloses the limitations recited in the parent claim(s) for the reasons discussed above. In addition, the present claim would be further obvious using the same reason, rationale and/or motivation as used above, over the disclosure of Menninga, which teaches:
The method of claim 9, wherein the predefined percentage value is in a range bounded by 5% to 15% [¶ 0083, 104] (0%-50% would include the range or “about 5% to about 15%”, see MPEP 2144.05).
Claim(s) 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wormley; Matthew A. US Pat. No. 7,444,586 (Wormley) in view of Donald E. Knuth, Michael F. Plass “Breaking paragraphs into lines” Software-Practice and Experience, Vol. 11, 1119-1184, 1981 (Knuth) in view of Kothandapani Shanmugasundaram; Satishkumar et al. US Pat. No. 9734132 (Kothandapani).
Claim 21:
Wormley and Knuth teach all the elements of the claims as shown above.
Wormley and Knuth do not appear to explicitly disclose “justified paragraph are displayed alongside”.
However, the disclosure of Kothandapani teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein:
the modified first justified paragraph and the modified second justified paragraph are displayed alongside the first justified paragraph and the second justified paragraph, respectively [Col. 8, Ln. 53 – Col. 9, Ln. 46] (Figs. 5A-5B, determining inter-character spacing for two characters that are split across different lines in the original printed material 102 but are placed next to each other when the text is reflowed); and
the GUI comprises one or more visual indications of differences between the modified and unmodified paragraphs based on the modified one or more spacing characteristics [Col. 8, Ln. 53 – Col. 9, Ln. 46] (Figs. 5A-5B, indicators are show, ‘512, ‘514, ‘506, ‘508).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of justification in Wormley and the method of word justification by line breaking in Knuth and the method of text alignment in Kothandapani, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of providing indicators in Kothandapani could be applied to the combining paragraphs in Knuth and the justification in Wormley. Kothandapani, Knuth and Wormley are similar devices because each disclose justification. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, to “improve accuracy by minimizing the effects of individual outliers” [Kothandapani: Col. 14, Ln. 60-64].
ALTERNATE REJECTION:
Claim(s) 1 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Menninga, Eric A. US Pub. No. 2004/0205642 (Menninga ‘642) in view of Donald E. Knuth, Michael F. Plass “Breaking paragraphs into lines” Software-Practice and Experience, Vol. 11, 1119-1184, 1981 (Knuth).
Claim 1:
Menninga ‘642 teaches:
A method performed by one or more processing devices [¶ 0022] (publishing system), comprising:
determining a first spacing metric for a first justified paragraph of text in a digital document and a second spacing metric for a second justified paragraph of text in the digital document [¶ 0012, 23] (line layout evaluation can be used to compose paragraphs, this would include a “first” and “second” paragraph);
determining an aggregate spacing metric for the first justified paragraph and the second justified paragraph based on the first spacing metric and the second spacing metric [¶ 0003, 27-28, 31-32, 35-37] (optimal line width, maximum line expansions and compressions that are available for different priorities, optimal could be “aggregate” because it incorporates multiple lines);
based on a difference between the first spacing metric and the aggregate spacing metric, modifying one or more spacing characteristics of the first justified paragraph based on a first penalty value, wherein the one or more spacing characteristics of the first justified paragraph comprise at least one of word spacing, letter spacing, or glyph scaling [¶ 0037-39] (target line width is compared with the optimal line width, and a difference .DELTA. of the two widths is calculated. The target line width describes the targeted final line width after the line is justified) [¶ 0032, 35, 41] (a composite priority parameter describing the sum of the priorities of all the spacing rules that were applied to obtain a line layout of a line); and
causing the modified first justified paragraph to be displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) [¶ 0044] (a pointing device such as a mouse or a trackball by which the user can provide input to the computer system, a mouse is used for interaction with a “GUI”).
Menninga ‘642 does not appear to explicitly disclose “modifying one or more spacing characteristics of the second justified paragraph based on a second penalty value”.
However, the disclosure of Knuth teaches:
based on a difference between the second spacing metric and the aggregate spacing metric, modifying one or more spacing characteristics of the second justified paragraph based on a second penalty value, wherein the one or more spacing characteristics of the second justified paragraph comprise at least one of word spacing, letter spacing, or glyph scaling [pg. 1134] (combining paragraphs, treating the two paragraphs as one, i.e., appending the second to the first) [pg. 1121-1122] (dividing the text into a stream of three kinds of objects: boxes, which are non-resizable chunks of content, glue, which are flexible, re-sizeable elements, and penalties, which represent places where breaking is undesirable (or, if negative, desirable). The loss function, known as "badness", is defined in terms of the deformation of the glue elements, and any extra penalties incurred through line breaking);
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of justification in Menninga ‘642 and the method of word justification by line breaking in Knuth, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of combining paragraphs in Knuth could be applied to the justification in Menninga ‘642. Knuth and Menninga ‘642are similar devices because each describe justification. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, to “improve the appearance of the resulting output” [Knuth: ¶ 1146].
Claim(s) 12, 14, 16, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wormley; Matthew A. US Pat. No. 7,444,586 Wormley.
Claim 12:
Wormley teaches:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations [Col. 5, Ln. 56-64] (computer system), including:
receiving, for a plurality of justified paragraphs of text in a digital document, an aggregate spacing metric and a spacing metric for each justified paragraph [Col. 2, Ln. 30-49] (multiple alternate paragraphs would include at least a “plurality”) [Col. 3, Ln. 54 – Col. 4, ln. 17] (creates a possibility tree of potential text line combinations. A text line can optionally be included in the tree if the line includes words that can be fit within the specified margins, or baseline width);
for each justified paragraph of the plurality of justified paragraphs, modifying at least one spacing characteristic comprising:
a step for determining a set of spacing characteristics modifications based on a difference between the spacing metric for the justified paragraph and the aggregate spacing metric [Col. 4, Ln.17- Col. 5, Ln. 20] (justification penalty is assessed to each text line that is a candidate for inclusion in an optimized paragraph layout) ;
a step for determining an optimized penalty value associated with a subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications [Col. 3, Ln. 30-41] (Each line is assessed a justification penalty equal to the square of the quotient of the total space expansion or compression divided by the number of inter-word spaces. The justification penalty is combined with other format related penalties assessed against the text line, e.g., penalties associated with hyphenation clustering. Each of the penalties is weighted according to selected factors and then summed to arrive at an aggregate penalization value for the line. This process is repeated for other potential text lines that are considered candidates for an optimized paragraph layout. The program then selects the paragraph layout that consists of the combination of potential lines having the lowest aggregate penalty. A revised paragraph is created by allocating the aggregate spacing or compression necessary to justify each text line among inter-word spaces, inter-character spaces, and font width according to selected weighting factors); and
modifying the justified paragraph using the subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications associated with the optimized penalty value [Col. 4, Ln. 30-54] (calculates the total space expansion or space compression necessary to fit the words to predetermined margins, inter-word spacing, inter-character spacing, and font widths) [Col. 5, Ln. 56-64] (display device such as a monitor or LCD screen for displaying information to the user and a keyboard and a pointing device such as a mouse or a trackball, a mouse is used for a GUI).
Wormley teaches all the elements of the claim, however some of these elements are in different embodiments.
Wormley fails to expressly disclose some of the terminology used in the claims, for example Wormley uses a compression metric. Wormley discloses a penalty and a sum which is equivalent to a “difference” and Wormley does not use the term “GUI” but discloses a mouse which is used for interacting with a GUI.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the different embodiments of Wormley and that the difference in terminology is an obvious variant.
The reason, rationale, and motivation for this combination would have been to optimize text layout [Wormley: Col. 1, Ln. 54-68].
Claim 14:
Wormley teaches:
The non-transitory computer-readable medium claim 12, wherein modifying the justified paragraph using the subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications associated with the optimized penalty value comprises:
determining an initial penalty value for the first justified paragraph [Col. 3, Ln. 30-41] (Each line is assessed a justification penalty equal to the square of the quotient of the total space expansion or compression divided by the number of inter-word spaces. The justification penalty is combined with other format related penalties assessed against the text line, e.g., penalties associated with hyphenation clustering. Each of the penalties is weighted according to selected factors and then summed to arrive at an aggregate penalization value for the line. This process is repeated for other potential text lines that are considered candidates for an optimized paragraph layout. The program then selects the paragraph layout that consists of the combination of potential lines having the lowest aggregate penalty. A revised paragraph is created by allocating the aggregate spacing or compression necessary to justify each text line among inter-word spaces, inter-character spaces, and font width according to selected weighting factors);
establishing a set of spacing characteristics modifications;
for each spacing characteristics modification in a subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications:
selecting a spacing characteristics modification [Col. 3, Ln. 54 – Col. 4, ln. 17] (creates a possibility tree of potential text line combinations. A text line can optionally be included in the tree if the line includes words that can be fit within the specified margins, or baseline width);
modifying the first justified paragraph using the spacing characteristics modification [Col. 4, Ln.17- Col. 5, Ln. 20] (justification penalty is assessed to each text line that is a candidate for inclusion in an optimized paragraph layout);
determining a modified penalty value for the first justified paragraph [Col. 4, Ln. 30-54] (calculates the total space expansion or space compression necessary to fit the words to predetermined margins, inter-word spacing, inter-character spacing, and font widths); and
comparing the initial penalty value with the modified penalty value [Col. 5, Ln. 28-37] (selects the combination of text lines having the lowest total penalty);
based on the comparing the initial penalty value with the modified penalty values, identifying the spacing characteristics modification of the subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications associated with an optimized modified penalty value, wherein the optimized modified penalty value is the first penalty value [Col. 5, Ln. 39-49] (allocate the aggregate spacing or compression among inter-word spaces); and
modifying the first justified paragraph using the spacing characteristics modification of the subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications associated with the optimized modified penalty value [Col. 5, Ln. 39-49] (optimize and display to user).
Claim(s) 13, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wormley; Matthew A. US Pat. No. 7,444,586 (Wormley) in view of Hassan; Tamir et al. US Pub. No. 2018/0018305 (Hassan).
Claim 13:
Wormley teaches all the elements of the claims as shown above.
Wormley does not appear to explicitly disclose “average spacing measurement”.
However, the disclosure of Hassan teaches:
The non-transitory computer-readable medium claim 12, wherein:
the first justified paragraph comprises a justified line comprising at least three words, including a first word, a second word, and a third word [¶ 0019-20, 32-33] (text justification) [¶ 0031-32] (Fig. 3 shows 3 adjacent words), wherein:
the first word and the second word are adjacent; and the second word and the third word are adjacent [¶ 0031-32] (Fig. 3 shows 3 adjacent words); and
determining the first spacing metric for the first justified paragraph comprises:
determining a first spacing measurement between the first word and the second word [¶ 0036] (standard value is the character spacing and/or word spacing, per the font's definition);
determining a second spacing measurement between the second word and the third word [¶ 0036] (standard value is the character spacing and/or word spacing, per the font's definition);
determining an average spacing measurement based on the first spacing measurement and the second spacing measurement ; and
designating the average spacing measurement as the first spacing metric [¶ 0036-37] (Character spacing and word spacing may be averaged across a text line).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of justification in Wormley and the method of word spacing in Hassan, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of average word spacing in Hassan could be applied to the justification in Wormley. Hassan and Wormley are similar devices because each describe justification. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, “may improve readability and aesthetic quality of the text” [Hassan: ¶ 0009].
Claim(s) 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wormley; Matthew A. US Pat. No. 7,444,586 (Wormley) in view of Ruff; Eric J. et al. US Pub. No. 2016/0062954 (Ruff).
Claim 19:
Wormley teaches all the elements of the claims as shown above.
Wormley does not appear to explicitly disclose “binary search”.
However, the disclosure of Ruff teaches:
The system of claim 18, wherein selecting the spacing characteristics modification is based on a binary search of the subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications [¶ 0466, 483, 1066] (binary search) [¶ 0031, 34, 809-810] (justification) [¶ 1006] (cumulative total).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of justification in Wormley and the method of binary searching in Ruff, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of binary searching in Ruff could be applied to the justification in Wormley. Ruff and Wormley are similar devices because each disclose justification. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, for “Improving the processing speed and/or flexibility of formatting” [Ruff: ¶ 0019].
ALTERNATE REJECTION:
Claim(s) 12, 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Menninga, Eric A. US Pub. No. 2004/0205642 (Menninga ‘642).
Claim 12:
Menninga ‘642 teaches:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations [¶ 0022] (publishing system), including:
receiving, for a plurality of justified paragraphs of text in a digital document, an aggregate spacing metric and a spacing metric for each justified paragraph [¶ 0012, 23] (line layout evaluation can be used to compose paragraphs, this would include a “first” and “second” paragraph);
for each justified paragraph of the plurality of justified paragraphs, modifying at least one spacing characteristic comprising:
a step for determining a set of spacing characteristics modifications based on a difference between the spacing metric for the justified paragraph and the aggregate spacing metric [¶ 0003, 27-28, 31-32, 35-37] (optimal line width, maximum line expansions and compressions that are available for different priorities, optimal could be “aggregate” because it incorporates multiple lines);
a step for determining an optimized penalty value associated with a subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications;
modifying the justified paragraph using the subset of the set of spacing characteristics modifications associated with the optimized penalty value [¶ 0037-39] (target line width is compared with the optimal line width, and a difference .DELTA. of the two widths is calculated. The target line width describes the targeted final line width after the line is justified) [¶ 0032, 35, 41] (a composite priority parameter describing the sum of the priorities of all the spacing rules that were applied to obtain a line layout of a line) (GUI) [¶ 0044] (a pointing device such as a mouse or a trackball by which the user can provide input to the computer system, a mouse is used for interaction with a “GUI”).
Menninga ‘642 teaches all the elements of the claim, however some of these elements are in different embodiments.
Menninga ‘642 fails to expressly disclose some of the terminology used in the claims, for example Wormley uses a composite priority and optimal metric which is equivalent to a “aggregate”. Menninga ‘642 does not use the term “GUI” but discloses a mouse which is used for an interaction with a GUI.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the different embodiments of Wormley and that the difference in terminology is an obvious variant.
The reason, rationale, and motivation for this combination would have been to determine optimal spacing [Menninga: ¶ 0003].
Claims 16-20:
Claim(s) 16 is/are substantially similar to claim 12 and is/are rejected using the same art and the same rationale.
Claim 16 is a “system” claim and claim 12 is a “medium” claim, but the steps or elements of each claim are essentially the same.
Claim(s) 17 is/are substantially similar to claim 13 and is/are rejected using the same art and the same rationale.
Claim(s) 18 is/are substantially similar to claim 14 and is/are rejected using the same art and the same rationale.
Claim(s) 19 is/are substantially similar to claim 6 and is/are rejected using the same art and the same rationale.
Claim(s) 15, 20 is/are substantially similar to claim 9 and is/are rejected using the same art and the same rationale.
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Please See PTO-892: Notice of References Cited.
Evidence of the level skill of an ordinary person in the art for Claim 1:
Burago; Andrei et al. US 20060136818 teaches; penalty; improving the uniform distribution of white space between lines for justified paragraphs; Factors that may influence the calculation of the penalty are the amount of white space to distribute on a line as opposed to the number of good justification opportunities or the amount by which to compress as opposed to the number of compression opportunities
Schwiebert; Stephan et al. US 20220382962 teaches: original character spacing data includes an average character spacing for each line of original text.
LIN, LI-WEI et al. CN 106919548 teaches: threshold value, adjust row spacing, 120%.
Sesum; Milan et al. US 20140013215 teaches; 0046-the average or median spacing between words in the paragraph.
Deodhar; Girish US 9691086 teaches: justification of text, or placement of items in the content item. The script can determine a score for each criteria for each of the plurality of layout options; difference between the whitespace associated with the layout option and an optimal whitespace.
Bever; Thomas G et al. US 8306356 teaches: paragraph, penalties, spaces, average space size for right justified text, cumulative, normalize
Evidence of the level skill of an ordinary person in the art for Claim 6:
Opstad; David G. et al. US 5416898 teaches: binary search, maximum amount of space permitted to be added on each side of each glyph in the line., justification, cumulative total, delta.
Arora; Aman et al. US 20220405469 teaches: penalty value; [0053] letter spacing 504, increasing the minimum spacing by 1% reduces the penalty by 23% and increasing the maximum letter spacing by 2% reduces the penalty by 19%
Evidence of the level skill of an ordinary person in the art for Claim 9:
Balzano; Bertrand J. et al. US 20080320386 teaches: adjustment can be optimized within a range (0-5%, 5-10%, etc.).
Citations to Prior Art
A reference to specific paragraphs, columns, pages, or figures in a cited prior art reference is not limited to preferred embodiments or any specific examples. It is well settled that a prior art reference, in its entirety, must be considered for all that it expressly teaches and fairly suggests to one having ordinary skill in the art. Stated differently, a prior art disclosure reading on a limitation of Applicant's claim cannot be ignored on the ground that other embodiments disclosed were instead cited. Therefore, the Examiner's citation to a specific portion of a single prior art reference is not intended to exclusively dictate, but rather, to demonstrate an exemplary disclosure commensurate with the specific limitations being addressed. In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332-33,216 USPQ 1038, 1039 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009, 158 USPQ 275, 277 (CCPA 1968". In re: Upsher-Smith Labs. v. Pamlab, LLC, 412 F.3d 1319, 1323,75 USPQ2d 1213,1215 (Fed. Cir. 2005); In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1264,23 USPQ2d 1780, 1782 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Merck & Co. v. Biocraft Labs., Inc., 874 F.2d 804, 807,10 USPQ2d 1843, 1846 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Fracalossi, 681 F.2d 792,794 n.1, 215 USPQ 569, 570 n.1 (CCPA 1982); In re Lamberti, 545 F.2d 747, 750, 192 USPQ 278, 280 (CCPA 1976); In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385,1390,163 USPQ 545, 549 (CCPA 1969).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-11, 21 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.
35 USC 103 Rejection in view of Wormley:
Claims 12 and 16 remain rejected over Wormley. The applicant argues that “Wormley is describing a line-level metric, not an "aggregate spacing metric for paragraph." In fact, the "paragraph layout" as described by Wormley refers only to a single paragraph and the line-level metric of Wormley is only ever applied to change the justification of a single paragraph” (response pages 11-12).
The examiner respectfully disagrees.
It is true that Wormley only applies justification to a single paragraph. However, the applicant’s claims do not recite what the relationship is between the first paragraph and the second paragraph. In addition claims 12 and 16 do not include applying the aggregate value to the second paragraph, only determining a value based on two paragraphs.
Wormley identifies a plurality of possible paragraphs, these could be considered a “first” and “second” [Col. 2, Ln. 30-49] (multiple alternate paragraphs would include at least a “first” and “second”) [Col. 3, Ln. 54 – Col. 4, ln. 17] (creates a possibility tree of potential text line combinations. A text line can optionally be included in the tree if the line includes words that can be fit within the specified margins, or baseline width).
The aggregate penalty in Wormley applies the calculated spacing to the paragraph but that calculation is based on all of the possible paragraphs, so in this way Wormley teaches a spacing metric “based on a difference between the first spacing metric and the aggregate spacing metric”.
Claims 12 and 16 should be amended similar to claim 1 to make clear that the metric is applied to both the first paragraph and the second paragraph.
35 USC 103 Rejection in view of Menninga:
Claims 12 and 16 remain rejected over Menninga ‘642. The applicant argues that Menninga is “limited to aggregating spacing across adjacent character pairs within a single line to compute line-level parameters” (response page 13).
The examiner respectfully disagrees.
The applicant’s claims do not include applying the aggregate value to the second paragraph, only determining a value based on two paragraphs.
In addition, Menninga ‘642 discloses determining an optimum, this optimal line width, maximum line expansions and compressions that are available for different priorities, optimal could be “aggregate” because it incorporates multiple lines [¶ 0003, 27-28, 31-32, 35-37].
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection for claims 1-3, 5-11 and 21 presented in this Office action. The rejection of claims 12-20 is maintained. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN J SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-3825. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 11:00 - 7:30 EST.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, ADAM QUELER can be reached on (571) 272-4140. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Benjamin Smith/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2172 Direct Phone: 571-270-3825
Direct Fax: 571-270-4825
Email: benjamin.smith@uspto.gov
Prosecution Insights