DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Claim Interpretation
In view of the amendment replacing “processing unit” in claim 12 with “processor,” no limitation of claim 12 is being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) in this action. The term “processor” connotes sufficient structure to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 1-13 and 15 are provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable
over claims 1-12 and 14 of copending Application No. 18569013 (reference application); and/or
over claims 1-12 and 14 of copending Application No. 18569013 (reference application) in view of cited prior art below including Chan (US 20170364737), Yamaji (US 20160371536), Lee (US 20100238191), and Moha (US 20120182316). Motivation to combine these references with reference patent is similar to those found throughout the office action below.
Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims at issue are broader in scope and/or are encompassed in the claims of the reference application and/or encompassed in the claims of the reference application in view of the cited prior art.
Instant claims
Reference claims
1
1+7 in view of (Yamaji and Chan to the extent necessary)
2
2+7 in view of (Yamaji, Lee, and Chan to the extent necessary)
3
3+7 in view of (Yamaji and Chan to the extent necessary)
4
4+7 in view of (Yamaji and Chan to the extent necessary)
5
5+7 in view of (Yamaji and Chan to the extent necessary)
7
1+7 in view of (Lee, Yamaji, and Chan to the extent necessary)
8
8 in view of (Yamaji and Chan to the extent necessary)
9
8 in view of (Yamaji and Chan to the extent necessary)
10
9 in view of (Lee, Yamaji, and Chan and Moha to the extent necessary)
11
10 in view of (Yamaji and Chan and Moha to the extent necessary)
12
11 in view of (Yamaji and Chan to the extent necessary)
13
12 (Yamaji and Chan to the extent necessary)
15
14 (Yamaji and Chan to the extent necessary)
This is a provisional nonstatutory double patenting rejection because the patentably indistinct claims have not in fact been patented.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-5, 8, 12-13, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chan (US 20170364737) in view of Yamaji (US 20160371536).
Regarding claim 1:
Chan discloses: a method for operating an electronic device to browse a collection of images (FIGS. 2 and 4; ¶ [0011] “FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example method for ranking images and/or groups of images”) wherein said method comprises:
wherein said method is implemented by the electronic device and comprises: storing the collection of images in a storage medium of the electronic device (Chan discloses computing device 101 including processors 107, system memory 109, mass storage devices 104/110, and display device 102 (¶¶ [0016]-[0020]));
sorting a subset of said collection of images (¶ [0009] “FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example system configured for recognizing faces in a set of images, and grouping and ranking the images and/or the groupings of the images”; ¶ [0011] “FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example method for ranking images and/or groups of images.”; ¶ [0060] “The ranking of images or groups of images may be in the form of a relative rank between the images or groups. In another example, the ranking may be in the form of a score or priority assigned to each image or group”);
based on a sorting of people represented in said images (¶ [0005] “…ranking the images and the groupings, based on entities shown in the images… Such rankings may also be influenced by adjacent data that indicates family and friends and the like, and that can be used to identify such entities in the images”; ¶ [0042] “…Ranking engine 240 may rank images that include one or more faces based on face scores of the faces detected in the image… Such scores may be weighted to reflect the relative importance of various faces and/or face aspects in the image… faces of entities that are determined to be friends or family or the like of a person providing the set of images may be weighted higher than faces of entities that are not so determined.”);
wherein the people are determined using a face recognition process applied to the images (¶ [0029] “…system 200 is configured for detecting faces in input images 211, generating a face identifier for each detected face in the set of images, grouping images that include faces of the same entity, and ranking images and/or groups of images based on the faces detected in the images. A set of images is typically provided by one or more sources as input 212 to the system. Such sources include camera phones, digital cameras, digital video recorders (“DVRs”), computers, digital photo albums, social media applications, image and video streaming web sites, and any other source of digital images.”; ¶ [0030] “Facial recognition engine 210 is a module that accepts an image as input 212, detects one or more faces in the image, and detects various features in recognized faces”; ¶ [0033] “Another output 212 of facial recognition engine 210 may be in the form of a face signature that, across the images in the set, uniquely identifies an entity that the face represents”; ¶ [0033] further disclosing that if various face shots of Adam appear in several images, “each of Adam’s face shots will have the same face signature that uniquely identifies the entity ‘Adam’”); and
displaying, on an interface of the electronic device, said subset of said collection of images, the displayed subset of images being arranged according to said sorting (¶ [0044] “Rankings of images produced by ranking engine 240 may be provided as output 242. Such provided rankings may comprise the images themselves, or may be comprised of references to the images, or any combination of the foregoing. Such rankings may be automatically provided, such as being presented in photo albums, shared via social media applications, or the like.”; ¶ [0020] “Output components or devices, such as display device 102, may be coupled to computing device 101, typically via an interface such as a display adapter 111”.).
Chan further teaches that its face recognition and ranking system operates on a selectable input set of images. Specifically, Chan ¶ [0029] states that “a set of images is typically provided by one or more sources as input 212 to the system,” including digital photo albums, camera phones, computers, and other sources of digital images. Thus, Chan expressly contemplates applying its face recognition and ranking operations to an image set that is less than every image available to the electronic device.
Chan doesn’t specifically teach selecting a subset of the collection of images by filtering based on at least one criterion other than people represented in the images from among the stored collection of images, and that the filtering reduces the number of images processed in the sorting step.
However, Yamaji teaches: selecting a subset of the collection of images by filtering based on at least one criterion other than people represented in the images from among the stored collection of images; and the filtering reduces the number of images processed in the sorting step (Yamaji teaches selecting a reduced subset from a higher level image collection based on a criterion other than people. Yamaji discloses an image group selection unit that “selects a second image group, which has a smaller number of images than a first image group, from the first image group in response to the instruction.” Yamaji expressly characterizes the first image group as a higher level “population” and the second image group as a lower level image group selected from that population. Yamaji further teaches selecting the second image group based on an imaging-date range, an imaging location range, or a folder range. These are criteria other than the people represented in the images. See Yamaji, FIGS. 1, 3, and 7A-7B; ¶¶ [0036]-[0038] and [0056]-[0058]. For example, Yamaji discloses acquiring an instruction “to select a second image group imaged on an imaging date within a predetermined range from a first image group that is hierarchically classified according to imaging dates, such as year, season, month, day, and time range.” Yamaji then discloses that image group selection unit 14 selects the second image group, “which has a smaller number of images than the first image group,” from the first image group. Yamaji’s example selects an image group for February 2014 from an image group for the year 2014. See FIGS. 7A-7B and ¶¶ [0056]-[0058]. This expressly teaches filtering a common higher-level image collection to generate a smaller subset and is not merely accessing an unrelated image collection. Yamaji also expressly teaches the claimed processing order. In FIG. 3: at step S1, an instruction to select a second image group from a first image group is acquired; at step S2, the second image group is selected from the first image group; at step S3, the images of the second image group are analyzed and relationships between persons represented in those images are calculated; at step S4, an image-extraction reference is determined according to the relationships between the persons; and at step S5, images are extracted from the second image group according to the person-based extraction reference. Yamaji further states that its image analysis includes “face detection/expression detection” and “person recognition.” See FIG. 3 and ¶¶ [0059]-[0060] and [0074]-[0078]. Thus, Yamaji independently supports selecting the smaller second image group before applying person-based image analysis to that second image group);
Therefore, It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply Chan’s face recognition-based sorting/ranking process to Yamaji’s selected second image group. Yamaji expressly teaches selecting a second image group having fewer images than the first image group before analyzing persons represented in the second image group and performing subsequent person-based image extraction. Chan provides a known face-recognition and ranking technique for determining the identities of persons represented in an input image set and arranging the images based on those determined persons. A person of ordinary skill would have been motivated to use Chan’s face signature based recognition and ranking process as the face recognition and person based ordering process in Yamaji’s expressly disclosed reduced image group workflow, thereby accurately determining the represented people and presenting the reduced image group in a people based order. This constitutes applying Chan’s known technique for its established purpose to Yamaji’s method, which is ready for that improvement, and would have produced the predictable result of sorting the selected second image group based on recognized people.
Regarding claim 3:
Chan in view of Yamaji discloses the limitations of claim 1.
Chan further discloses: further comprising performing on at least one of said images a face recognition algorithm (FIG. 2, ¶ [0030] “ Facial recognition engine 210 is a module that accepts an image as input 212, detects one or more faces in the image, and detects various features in recognized faces.”);
in order to recognize at least one person in said at least one of said images (¶ [0030] “…facial recognition engine 210 may provide facial recognition data as one or more outputs, each of which may be stored in data store 220. One output may be in the form of a face identifier that identifies a detected face in an image 212. Given multiple detected faces in an image, a unique face identifier is typically provided for each face detected in the image… Any face identifier(s) that are output 212 may be accepted as input by data store 220, grouping engine 230, and/or ranking engine 240”; ¶ [0031] “Another output 212 of facial recognition engine 210 may be in the form of a set of facial feature descriptors that describe facial features detected in a face corresponding to the face's identifier”; ¶ [0032] “…may be in the form of a face score corresponding to a face identifier”; ¶ [0033] “…may be in the form of a face signature that, across the images in the set, uniquely identifies an entity that the face represents, at least within the scope of the detected features”).
Regarding claim 4:
Chan in view of Yamaji discloses the limitations of claim 3.
Chan further discloses: wherein performing on the at least one of said images said face recognition algorithm comprises determining parameters characterizing a face of a person represented in said image (¶ 0031] “Another output 212 of facial recognition engine 210 may be in the form of a set of facial feature descriptors that describe facial features detected in a face corresponding to the face's identifier. Given multiple face identifiers as input, a corresponding set of facial feature descriptors is typically provided for each face identifier. In one example, the set of facial feature descriptors may be in the form of coordinates for each detected facial feature, such as the eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth of the face.”; ¶ [0033] “…may be in the form of a face signature that, across the images in the set, uniquely identifies an entity that the face represents…if various face shots of Adam appear in several images in a set, then each of Adam's face shots will have the same face signature that uniquely identifies the entity “Adam””).),
the sorting of the people represented in the images of the subset being performed based on said parameters (¶ [0030] “…facial recognition engine 210 may provide facial recognition data as one or more outputs, each of which may be stored in data store 220. One output may be in the form of a face identifier that identifies a detected face in an image 212. Given multiple detected faces in an image, a unique face identifier is typically provided for each face detected in the image… Any face identifier(s) that are output 212 may be accepted as input by data store 220, grouping engine 230, and/or ranking engine 240”; ¶ [0005] “…ranking the images and the groupings, based on entities shown in the images… Such rankings may also be influenced by adjacent data that indicates family and friends and the like, and that can be used to identify such entities in the images”).
Regarding claim 5:
Chan in view of Yamaji discloses the limitations of claim 4.
Chan further discloses: wherein contact details of at least one known person are associated, in the electronic device, with a reference face of said known person and/or with parameters characterizing said reference face (¶ [0033] “…may be in the form of a face signature that, across the images in the set, uniquely identifies an entity that the face represents…if various face shots of Adam appear in several images in a set, then each of Adam's face shots will have the same face signature that uniquely identifies the entity “Adam””; ¶ [0049] “For example, if the face signature indicates the entity “Adam”, and no group for images with faces of Adam exists, then a group is created for images with faces of Adam, and the image is added. If a group for faces of Adam already exists, then the image with Adam's face is added to the Adam group (step 350)”);
the sorting of the people represented in the images of the subset being performed based on said reference face and/or said parameters (¶ [0030] “…facial recognition engine 210 may provide facial recognition data as one or more outputs, each of which may be stored in data store 220. One output may be in the form of a face identifier that identifies a detected face in an image 212. Given multiple detected faces in an image, a unique face identifier is typically provided for each face detected in the image… Any face identifier(s) that are output 212 may be accepted as input by data store 220, grouping engine 230, and/or ranking engine 240”).
Regarding claim 8:
Chan in view of Yamaji discloses the limitations of claim 1.
Chan further discloses: wherein sorting the people represented in the images of the subset of said collection of images is performed according to a given criterion about said people represented in the images (¶ [0042] “…Further, faces of entities that are determined to be friends or family or the like of a person providing the set of images may be weighted higher than faces of entities that are not so determined. In one example, such a determination may be based on adjacent information input 221, or based on other input to system 200 such as input provided by the person or other entity.”; ¶ [0059] “…the rankings may be weighted by or based on the face signature indicating an entity determined to be a friend or family or the like. In this example, images and/or groups of images with a larger number of friends or family or the like may be ranked higher that images and/or groups of images with a lesser number of such”);
said given criterion being in particular an intimacy link level representative of an intimacy link level between a person involved in an operation performed using said electronic device and people represented in the images (¶ [0042] “…Further, faces of entities that are determined to be friends or family or the like of a person providing the set of images may be weighted higher than faces of entities that are not so determined. In one example, such a determination may be based on adjacent information input 221, or based on other input to system 200 such as input provided by the person or other entity.”; ¶ [0059] “…the rankings may be weighted by or based on the face signature indicating an entity determined to be a friend or family or the like. In this example, images and/or groups of images with a larger number of friends or family or the like may be ranked higher that images and/or groups of images with a lesser number of such”);
such that sorting a subset of said collection of images is performed according to said given criterion (¶ [0042] “…Further, faces of entities that are determined to be friends or family or the like of a person providing the set of images may be weighted higher than faces of entities that are not so determined. In one example, such a determination may be based on adjacent information input 221, or based on other input to system 200 such as input provided by the person or other entity.”; ¶ [0059] “…the rankings may be weighted by or based on the face signature indicating an entity determined to be a friend or family or the like. In this example, images and/or groups of images with a larger number of friends or family or the like may be ranked higher that images and/or groups of images with a lesser number of such”).
Regarding claim 12: the claim limitations are similar to those of claim 1; therefore, rejected in the same manner as applied above.
Regarding claim 13:
Chan in view of Yamaji discloses the limitations of claim 1.
Chan further discloses: wherein the processing unit is further configured to sort said subset based on a sorting of the people represented in the images (¶ [0005] “…ranking the images and the groupings, based on entities shown in the images… Such rankings may also be influenced by adjacent data that indicates family and friends and the like, and that can be used to identify such entities in the images”; ¶ [0042] “…Ranking engine 240 may rank images that include one or more faces based on face scores of the faces detected in the image… Such scores may be weighted to reflect the relative importance of various faces and/or face aspects in the image… faces of entities that are determined to be friends or family or the like of a person providing the set of images may be weighted higher than faces of entities that are not so determined.”).
Regarding claim 15: the claim limitations are similar to those of claim 1; therefore, rejected in the same manner as applied above. Chan discloses the CRM in ¶ [0025].
Claim(s) 2, 7, and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chan (US 20170364737) in view of Yamaji (US 20160371536) and Lee (US 20100238191).
Regarding claim 2:
Chan in view of Yamaji discloses the limitations of claim 1.
Lee further teaches: further comprising detecting a trigger event performed on the electronic device by a user of the electronic device (¶ [0027] “a user may select a facial region 401 corresponding to Person B (Step 503). A signal may be received to select one of the facial regions. The selected facial region may belong to a specific cluster of faces and the specific cluster of faces may be associated with a specific album of the albums”),
sorting said subset being performed in response to said detection of the trigger event (¶ [0027] “Then, if the facial region 401 corresponds to an image located in the folder browsed in the browser window 40, an image 402 corresponding to the facial region 401 may be displayed in a central location of the photo frame 400, and facial regions associated with the album may be displayed in the people frame in response to the selected facial region (Step 504)”; displaying images associated with an album in response to selecting necessarily requires sorting the images. Moreover, Chan already teaches sorting the images based on a sorting of
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people represented in the images.
Therefore, Chan in view Yamaji teaches the storing, sorting, and display portions of claim 1, and Lee supplies the detecting a trigger event performed on the electronic device by a user of the electronic device. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Chan’s image ranking system to first limit the image collection by Lee’s known user selection trigger before applying Chan’s ranking. The motivation would have been to focus the browsing session on a relevant event, folder, album, or date range, reduce the number of images to rank and display, and improve usability and processing efficiency in a predictable manner.
Regarding claim 7:
Chan in view of Yamaji discloses the limitations of claim 1.
Chan doesn’t specifically teach comprising selecting the subset of said collection of images, each image of the subset representing at least one person.
However, Lee teaches: comprising selecting the subset of said collection of images, each image of the subset representing at least one person (¶ [0020] “…FIG. 5, which is a flow chart of a method for browsing images grouped by person”; ¶ [0025] “…As shown in FIG. 2, for example, the user may select a folder named "Travel in Italy," which may have images in which a first person (Person A) and a second person (Person B) appear”).
Regarding claim 9:
Chan in view of Yamaji discloses the limitations of claim 8.
While Chan clearly has a criterion about the people and it is in respect to a target person’s family and/or friend as cited in claim 8 rejection above. Chan is silent about determining the “target person” explicitly.
Therefore, Chan doesn’t specifically teach comprising wherein said given criterion about said people is with respect to a target person, the method comprising a determining said target person.
However, Lee teaches: wherein said given criterion about said people is with respect to a target person, the method comprising a determining said target person (¶ [0027] “…a user may select a facial region 401 corresponding to Person B (Step 503). A signal may be received to select one of the facial regions.”).
Claim(s) 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chan (US 20170364737) in view of Yamaji (US 20160371536), Lee (US 20100238191) and Moha (US 20120182316).
Regarding claim 10:
Chan in view of Yamaji and Lee does not teach: wherein said target person is determined as being the person currently using the device
However, in the same field of endeavor, Moha teaches: wherein said target person is determined as being the person currently using the device (¶ [0052] “…a computing device may be coupled to an image capture device. A new image may be captured using the image capture device. Facial recognition analysis may be performed on the new image to determine if the contact's face can be recognized in the new image”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention in view of Moha to implement the “target person” of claim 9 as the person currently using the device, because Moha teaches capturing an image with the device’s camera, performing facial recognition to identify the contact (target person), and using that image as an image representing the user on a login screen. Given Chan’s ranking of images with respect a person providing the set of images and Lee’s determination of the target person. A PHOSITA would have been motivated to treat the current logged-in/device user, identified by Moha’s camera/face recognition as the target person for the ranking, yielding a predicable behavior.
Regarding claim 11:
Moha further discloses: wherein determining said target person comprises acquiring a picture with a camera of the device and detecting the target person in said acquired picture (¶ [0052] “…a computing device may be coupled to an image capture device. A new image may be captured using the image capture device. Facial recognition analysis may be performed on the new image to determine if the contact's face can be recognized in the new image”).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 06/24/2026 regarding 35 U.S.C. 101 are persuasive. The 101 rejection of the claims is withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed 06/24/2026 with respect to the 103 rejection have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments have been fully considered but are not persuasive. Applicant contends that Lee merely accesses a distinct preexisting collection rather than filtering a common stored collection. Lee, however, discloses a plurality of stored images associated with a plurality of albums, each album containing one or more of the images, and selection of a folder corresponding to one of those albums. Thus, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, selecting images associated with a particular album, folder, date, month, or year limits the stored image collection to a subset satisfying a non-people criterion. The claims do not require creation of a new folder, a new physical collection, or any particular dynamic filtering algorithm.
Applicant further argues that the combination lacks the claimed sequence and is based on hindsight. Chan expressly teaches receiving a set of images for facial recognition and ranking and identifies digital photo albums as sources of the input image set (See Chan ¶ [0029]). Lee teaches selecting a particular album/folder for browsing. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to use the images of Lee’s selected album/folder as Chan’s input set and thereafter apply Chan’s facial recognition based ranking. This combines known image set selection with a known image ranking process according to their established functions and yields the predictable result of ranking the selected browsing set.
Lee does not independently need to disclose face recognition because Chan expressly teaches applying facial recognition to the input images to determine represented people/entities and using those results in ranking. In the proposed combination, images outside the selected album/folder/date criterion are excluded before Chan’s processing; consequently, Chan’s facial recognition and ranking operations are applied to fewer images than the complete stored collection. The cited combination therefore teaches or suggests the claimed filtering, sequential face recognition based sorting, and reduction in the number of images processed. The rationale is not based on Applicant’s disclosure, but on Lee’s known limitation of browsing to a selected album/folder and Chan’s express processing of an input set supplied from sources including digital photo albums.
Nonetheless, the arguments 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.
Relevant prior art not relied on
Koizumi (20190005312) teaches “the photobook may be a composite image obtained by arranging images, which are automatically selected from images in a desired period (for example, one year) that are held by the user, on a plurality of pages in an automatic layout (for example, an ear album manufactured by FUJIFILM Co., Ltd.).” ¶ [0079]
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WASSIM MAHROUKA whose telephone number is (571)272-2945. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 8:00-5:00 EST.
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/WASSIM MAHROUKA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665
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