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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed December 8th, 2025 has been entered. Claims 1 and 11 have been amended. Claim 1-20 remain pending and rejected in the application. Applicant’s amendment to the specification has overcome each and every objection previously set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed July 16th, 2025 and have therefore been withdrawn.
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.
Claims 1-20 are 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 independent claims 1 and 11 contain 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 amendments incorporate new matter in regards to the limitation “accumulating the plurality of blended meshes to generate a final blended mesh, wherein the plurality of blended meshes is a sequence of smoothed versions of a mesh with successively wider spectral bandwidths”. Regarding this limitation, applicant states that paragraphs [0042], [0050], [0051] and [0053] explain this technical feature, however they appear to point out the opposite when referring to a smoothed version of a mesh with successively wider spectral bandwidths. The specifications instead explain, for example in paragraph [0042] that “In one example, the sequence of low pass spatial filters Lk(p) are indexed by k = 1, 2, 3, ... and successively have narrower spectral bandwidths Bk. and “In one example, a narrower spectral bandwidth corresponds to an increase in smoothing of the mesh M(r). That is, the narrower spectral bandwidth results in a smoother version of the mesh M(r).” One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the narrower the spectral bandwidth becomes, the smoother that the mesh should also become but associating wider spectral bandwidths with the concept of creating smoother mesh versions seems to teach the opposite and the phrasing leads to potential confusion and indefiniteness.
The dependent claims inherit and do not remedy the deficiency.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1 and 11 recite the limitation "wider spectral bandwidths" in line 5 of each claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. The term and/or phrase of “wider spectral bandwidths” does not appear to be properly explained within the specifications and perhaps would be better suited if the term and/or phrase of “narrower spectral bandwidths” would be implemented within the claim language instead.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 11 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Wampler (Pub. No.: US 2018/0130256 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Wampler discloses a method (FIG. 11 and paragraph 30 teach that FIG. 11 illustrates a flowchart of a series of acts in a method of manipulating a digital model utilizing a plurality of input meshes in accordance with one or more embodiments) comprising:
generating a plurality of blended meshes (FIG. 2B and paragraph 71 teach that as shown in FIG. 2B, the stylized mesh deformation system also generates a shape-space deformation measure 230. In particular, the stylized mesh deformation system generates the shape-space deformation measure 230 by blending the input meshes 202-206. Specifically, the stylized mesh deformation system blends the input meshes 202-206 according to the set of weights 220-224 to generate a blended mesh 226);
and accumulating the plurality of blended meshes to generate a final blended mesh (Paragraph 72 teaches that the stylized mesh deformation system generates the blended mesh 226 by applying a blending algorithm. In particular, the stylized mesh deformation system can utilize a shape-space blending algorithm. A shape-space blending algorithm can blend a plurality of input shapes (i.e., input meshes) to generate a deformed shape (i.e., a deformed mesh). Specifically, a shape-space blending algorithm can determine a shape space defined by input meshes. The shape space is a reflection of all the different meshes that could result from a combination of the input meshes. A blended mesh within the shape space, is, thus, a blended shape that is a combination of the input meshes according to a set of weights).
Regarding claim 2, Wampler discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition, Wampler discloses blending a plurality of smoothed version base meshes and a plurality of smoothed version morph meshes using a plurality of blend regional masks to generate the plurality of blended meshes (Paragraph 80 teaches that as shown, upon optimizing the combined shape-space, deformation interpolation measure 232, the stylized mesh deformation system can generate the modified mesh 234. Specifically, the stylized mesh deformation system can blend the input shapes according to the optimized weights and deform the blended shape in accordance with the location of the control points 208a-208c. Indeed, in one or more embodiments, upon optimization of the set of weights 220-224, the stylized mesh deformation system utilizes the modified mesh 226a as the modified mesh 234).
Regarding claim 11, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 1 (see claim 1 above).
Regarding claim 12, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 2 (see claim 2 above).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 3-7 and 13-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wampler in view of Hutchinson (Pub. No.: US 2019/0035129 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Wampler discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 2), however, Wampler fails to disclose generating the plurality of smoothed version base meshes from a base mesh.
Hutchinson discloses generating the plurality of smoothed version base meshes from a base mesh (FIG. 13 and paragraph 60 teaches that FIG. 13 illustrates an example method to generate a refined mesh from a base mesh, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure). Since Wampler teaches the initial method steps for generating a plurality of different blended meshes and Hutchinson teaches the ability to refine a mesh to improve its smoothness based off of refining an initial base mesh, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the features together so that in addition to be able to blend meshes together, those blended meshes could be improved by utilizing a base mesh as a reference point.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Wampler to incorporate the teachings of Hutchinson, so that the combined features together would allow for blended meshes to be able to use an initial base mesh as a reference point for improving the smoothness of the meshes.
Regarding claim 4, Wampler in view of Hutchinson disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 3), in addition, Wampler in view of Hutchinson disclose determining the plurality of smoothed version morph meshes from a plurality of morph meshes (Paragraph 141 of Hutchinson teaches vertex positions for a refined mesh, as determined by the subdiv tessellator module 504, and approximate normal and tangent vectors for each vertex in the refined mesh, as calculated by the normal and tangent calculation module 506, are passed to vertex shaders where they can be consumed by the render pipeline module 132 of FIG. 1A).
Regarding claim 5, Wampler in view of Hutchinson disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 4), in addition, Wampler in view of Hutchinson disclose generating the plurality of smoothed version morph meshes (Paragraph 131 of Hutchinson teaches that the subdiv tessellator module 504 can be configured to smooth and refine character animation geometry to generate a refined mesh. In one embodiment, the subdiv tessellator module 504 can smooth character animation geometry using Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces. Stencil weights can be precomputed for all subdivided vertex positions, making the real-time calculation a simple linear combination of the hull vertex positions. In an embodiment, the subdiv tessellator module 504 can be configured to smooth and refine character animation geometry using a recursive refinement technique that produces progressively smoother versions of a mesh).
Regarding claim 6, Wampler in view of Hutchinson disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 5), in addition, Wampler in view of Hutchinson disclose generating a plurality of differences, wherein each of the plurality of differences is generated by calculating a difference between two consecutive smoothed versions of the plurality of smoothed version morph meshes (Paragraph 120 of Wampler teaches that the stylized mesh deformation system then determines the ARAP shape-space deformation measure 324 based on the difference (i.e., an as-rigid-as-possible deformation measure) between edge groups in the blended mesh 342 and edge groups in the deformed mesh 344).
Regarding claim 7, Wampler in view of Hutchinson disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 6), in addition, Wampler in view of Hutchinson disclose creating a plurality of smoothed versions of one or more blend regions from one or more blend regions (Paragraph 63 of Wampler teaches that the stylized mesh deformation system achieves this smooth transformation in relation to FIG. 2A by utilizing a combined shape-space, deformation interpolation measure. In particular, the stylized mesh deformation system minimizes a combined shape-space, deformation interpolation measure to encourage a smooth transition between input meshes. Specifically, the combined shape-space, deformation interpolation measure assists in allowing the stylized mesh deformation system to select weights for combining the input meshes 202-206).
Regarding claim 13, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 3 (see claim 3 above).
Regarding claim 14, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 4 (see claim 4 above).
Regarding claim 15, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 5 (see claim 5 above).
Regarding claim 16, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 6 (see claim 6 above).
Regarding claim 17, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 7 (see claim 7 above).
Claims 8-10 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wampler in view of Hutchinson as applied to claims 7 and 17 above, and further in view of Soulvie et al. (Pub. No.: US 2022/0028150 A1), hereinafter Soulvie.
Regarding claim 8, Wampler in view of Hutchinson disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 7), however, Wampler in view of Hutchinson fail to disclose using a last of the plurality of smoothed versions of the one or more blend regions to generate a most smoothed blend regional mask.
Soulvie discloses using a last of the plurality of smoothed versions of the one or more blend regions to generate a most smoothed blend regional mask (Paragraph 120 teaches that at step 414, the deformation engine system 104 may perform selective geometry subdivision or re-subdivision. In at least one embodiment, a subset of renderable sub-divided meshes vertex positions are calculated and updated, selectively so as to focus sub-division or sub-division updates where visual fidelity is needed most for the current iteration of the animation or rendering loop. The calculations may be based on the parts of the data (e.g., mesh data) that have been altered in the processing step). Since Wampler in view of Hutchinson teach the initial method steps for generating a plurality of smoothed versions of blended regions and Soulvie teaches a method for utilizing any part of a mesh data, including the most current iteration of that data (which would imply the last of the blended regions), it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the features together so that any of the blended regions created through the different iterations could be utilized, including the most current/last iteration.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Wampler in view of Hutchinson to incorporate the teachings of Soulvie, so that the combined features together would allow for the most current/recent iteration of data to be used, which would then provide the best and most smoothed blend of data.
Furthermore, Wampler in view of Hutchinson and Soulvie teach and using a next to last of the plurality of smoothed versions of the one or more blend regions to generate a second most smoothed blend regional mask (Paragraph 120 of Soulvie teaches that moreover, the computation expense may be decreased by reusing work from a prior frame. As a result, as described herein, at least one technical improvement may be that processing speed is improved and/or that memory requirements are reduced).
Regarding claim 9, Wampler in view of Hutchinson and Soulvie disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 8), in addition, Wampler in view of Hutchinson and Soulvie disclose creating the base mesh, the plurality of morph meshes, and the one or more blend regions on the base mesh (FIG. 5 and paragraph 125 teach that FIG. 5 illustrates an example process 500 for creating a deformable asset or model and paragraph 72 of Soulvie teaches that system 100 may include various software applications (e.g., software for creation tool 204) that facilitate in the modeling and animation of assets in animation tool 202. In some embodiments, system 100 includes creation tool 204 that is used in conjunction with animation tool 202. For example, creation tool 204 may be a creation tool and/or an exporter. In various embodiments, creation tool 204 may be a digital content creation (“DCC”) plug-in and/or a stand-alone application. In at least one embodiment, creation tool 204 includes one or more specialized tools for the creation of deformation and animation data of an asset).
Regarding claim 10, Wampler in view of Hutchinson and Soulvie disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 9), in addition, Wampler in view of Hutchinson and Soulvie disclose generating a graphical product by converting the final blended mesh (Paragraph 104 of Hutchinson teaches that the animation exporter module 204 can be configured to generate and export character animation data for use by a real-time processing engine (e.g., real-time engine module 116). In an embodiment, the animation exporter module 204 can receive at least two inputs: (1) world-space positions of all vertices of a complex character rig; and (2) a simplified character rig) to one or more of the following:
a skeletal pose, a pose space deformation and a normal map (Paragraph 104 of Hutchinson teaches that in one embodiment, the simplified character rig can include (a) a simplified skeleton representing a subset of the important deformation joints of the complex character rig with control joints excluded; (b) a full-resolution copy of the character model; (c) a set of skinning weights that provide the relationship between the skeleton and the model; and (d) a skinning model (e.g., linear blend skinning or dual quaternion skinning)).
Regarding claim 18, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 8 (see claim 8 above).
Regarding claim 19, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 9 (see claim 9 above).
Regarding claim 20, the apparatus steps correspond to and are rejected the same as the method steps of claim 10 (see claim 10 above).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to independent claims 1 and 11 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. Due to the uncertainty and confusion involving whether or not the “spectral bandwidths” claimed in each of the independent claims are supposed to be either wider or narrower, the claim language must be rewritten for proper examination purposes on determining whether or not the claim(s) is/are indeed potentially allowable.
In regards to the additional arguments regarding any of the dependent claims 2-10 and 12-20, for the virtue of their dependency are moot because the independent claims are not allowable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Mittal et al. (Mesh Smoothing for the Spectral Element Method) teaches mesh improvement and smoothing techniques that involve using spectral elements.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. 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 George Renze whose telephone number is (703)756-5811. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00am - 6:00pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Xiao Wu can be reached at (571) 272-7761. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/G.R./Examiner, Art Unit 2613
/XIAO M WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2613