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 .
Response to Amendment
In response to the Non-final Office Action mailed on 10/20/2025, Applicant has filed an amendment on 1/20/2026. In this reply Applicant has amended independent claims 1, 12, and 17 to incorporate previously indicated allowable subject matter from now cancelled dependent claim 3.
Applicant also argues that the claimed invention is allowable over the prior art of record due to the incorporation of previously indicated allowable subject matter (Remarks, Pages 16-17). These arguments have been fully considered and Claims 1, 3-11, 17-18, and 20 are found to be allowable over the prior art of record for the reasons noted in the below Allowable Subject Matter section.
In response to the amended, more specific title of the invention (Remarks, Page 15), the objection directed towards a non-descriptive title of the invention has been withdrawn.
Applicant argues that amendments to Claims 13, 16, and 18 resolve the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) (Remarks, Page 16).
In response to the correction of the antecedent basis issues in these claims, the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejections are now moot and have been withdrawn.
In regards to the patent subject matter eligibility rejection of claims 1-20 of 1-7 and 9-20 under 35 U.S.C. 101, Applicant argues that the independent claims recite an emotion prediction process that uses an emotion prediction model to determine emotion probabilities across transitions in digital audio data that cannot be practically performed in the human mind (Remarks, Pages 15-16). Furthermore, under step 2A prong 2, Applicant argues that the claims as a whole and as amended recite a practical application via generating expression rendering data that is transmitted to a user computer and lead to an improvement in computer functionality by allowing a computer to better generate and render expressions in a virtual object (Remarks, Page 16).
In response, while it is maintained that some of the steps of emotion prediction based generally on current round information for recognition and a direction can still be practically performed by a human, the instant computer-based approach yields an emotion recognition result that is then used to generate expression rendering data for a virtual object on a computer. Accordingly, the Applicant's arguments regarding a practical application in computer graphic rendering using the emotion recognition result under step 2A is found to be persuasive and the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection has been withdrawn.
It should be noted that although the rejections related to an abstract mental process have been overcome via the instant amendment, the failure of claims 12-16 to fall within the four statutory categories of invention for claiming a program per se under the BRI was not addressed nor traversed in the instant remarks. Accordingly, this aspect of the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection pertaining to claims 12-16 has been maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claims 14 and 19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends. The subject matter of claims 14 and 19 is already present in respective parent claims 12 and 17. Note that the claim 3 was cancelled in its incorporation into independent claim 1, but these similar claims in different sets were not cancelled despite incorporation of their subject matter, thus leading to this rejection. Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 12-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
As a separate matter, claims 12-16 are directed towards an embodiment of the invention in the form of a data processing apparatus comprising a number of different modules performing the functionality of claim 1. Note that claim interpretation under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) has not been invoked. Specifically, the claim lacks the term "means" so analysis begins with a presumption that 35 U.S.C. 112(f) is not being invoked. The presumption is not overcome because the three-prong analysis is not met. Specifically, the term "module" does not serve as a structural placeholder because as consistently used throughout the specification "module" refers to a software module (for example, see Paragraphs 0056 and 0062). With this interpretation in light of the specification including software per se, claims 12-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 for being directed towards software per se under the BRI that does not fall within the four statutory categories of invention under the step 1 analysis.
Allowable and Potentially Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 3-11, 17-18, and 20 are allowable over the prior art of record.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
With respect to independent Claims 1 and 17, the prior art of record taken individually or in combination fails to teach or fairly suggest a respective method or non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions, for emotion recognition set forth these independent claims, wherein the integrating the first probability and the second probability to obtain a target probability of each candidate emotion comprises: obtaining a first integration weight negatively correlated with a current round value and a second integration weight positively correlated with the current round value, the current round value representing an order of the current round of emotion prediction process in a plurality of rounds of emotion prediction processes; obtaining a first integration result of the first probability and the first integration weight; obtaining a second integration result of the second probability and the second integration weight; and determining a combination result of the first integration result and the second integration result as the target probability of the candidate emotion.
Most pertinent prior art:
Liu (U.S. PG Publication: 2020/0043514 A1) teaches the methodology of determining both individual emotional state probabilities for input speech and then identifying an emotional state sequence based upon those probabilities and emotional transition probability parameters between states (integrating "emotion state probability" for the preset emotions and the "emotion state transition probability parameter," Paragraphs 0044, 0060, and 0120). While Liu does teach integrating these probability determinations, Liu does not utilize the negatively correlated integration weight for the first probability related to emotion prediction for a current round and a positively correlated weight for the transition probability to determine the combination result for the "target probability." Thus, the manner in which the probability is determined in the claimed invention is different from that of Liu. While Quan, et al. ("Weighted high-order hidden Markov models for compound emotions recognition in text," 2015) do teach weighting state transitions between different emotions (Section 2.3, Page 585), the prior art taken individually or in combination fails to teach the claimed different integration weights applied to the first and second probabilities.
The remaining dependent claims inherit the allowable subject matter of independent claims 1 or 17, and thus, are also allowable over the prior art of record by virtue of their dependency.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Claims 12-13 and 15-16 would be potentially allowable if rewritten to overcome the preceding rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of potentially allowable subject matter:
Independent claim 12 represents an apparatus claim containing similar subject matter not taught by the prior art of record as outlined with respect to claims 1 and 17, and thus, represents potentially allowable subject matter if the preceding rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 was overcome via amendment. The remaining dependent claims 13 and 15-16 inherit such potentially allowable subject matter by virtue of their dependency.
Conclusion
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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Faizakof, et al. (U.S. PG Publication: 2021/0193169 A1)- teaches a confidence score that represents a predicted emotion with respect to an audio segment that takes contextual emotion of neighboring audio segments into account (Paragraph 0082).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMES S WOZNIAK whose telephone number is (571)272-7632. The examiner can normally be reached 7-3, off alternate Fridays.
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JAMES S. WOZNIAK
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2655
/JAMES S WOZNIAK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2655