DETAILED ACTION
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office 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 .
Request for Continued Examination
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 07/23/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendments and Arguments
Regarding an outstanding rejection under 35 U.S.C. §103, applicant amended independent claims 1, 11 and 20 by deleting a few limitations and adding different new limitations.
Applicant argued (Remarks, pages 8-9) that previously cited references (Tumbde in view of Joly) do not disclose the newly added limitations. Applicant argued:
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By reviewing the cited primary reference (Tumbde, US PG Pub. 2022/0350954), the examiner believed that Tumbde meets the broadly recited limitations. Tumbde is a reference by the same assignee (IBM Corp.) of the instant application. Tumbde discloses an online meeting with displayed presentation slides. The meeting system analyzes a current discussion topic between meeting participants and highlights a portion of the displayed slide based on an identified discussion topic (See Fig. 3B / 3C).
Tumbde discloses assigning “a similarity score” to each portion of displayed contents for identifying a portion of displayed content related to a discussed topic (Tumbde, [0032-0033]). A portion of displayed content with the highest score is identified as relevant to the topic. This portion of the content is highlighted. The “similarity score” assigned to each portion of displayed contents can be regarded as a claimed “a weight”. A portion of displayed content is highlighted meets the added limitation:
“utilizing the emphasis representation to prioritize applying an emphasis effect to the identified element based on the assigned weight, relative to one or more objects corresponding to the identified element;” (Tumbde, [0032-0034], Fig. 3B / 3C, highlighting a displayed content that has the highest similarity score to a discussed topic between meeting participants).
As explained above, a claimed “assigning weight to the identified element” can be interpreted as the highest similarity score that is assigned to a portion related to a discussion topic. The portion of displayed content with the highest similar score is highlighted (corresponding to a claimed: “prioritized applying emphasis effect to the identified element”).
Although Tumbde meets the broadly recited limitations, by reviewing prior art references of the record, the examiner noticed that a prior art reference (Bissex, US PG Pub. 2021/0065405, cited in a PTO-892 form before but not relied upon in a previous office action) explicitly disclosed newly added limitations.
Bissex discloses identifying an object in an augmented reality and highlighting the identified object based on an assigned weight (Bissex, [0025], [0029], [0038], [0040-0041], emphasize / highlighting an object based on assigned weights).
In the following rejection, the examiner combines Tumbde with Bissex (both by the same assignee of the instant application, i.e., IBM Corp.) to reject the amended claims. The arguments (Remarks, pages 8-9) regarding a previously cited Joly reference (US Pat. 12,243,511) have been considered but are moot because the Joly reference is no longer used in the following rejection.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 11 and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Applicant amended all independent claims by adding certain new limitations. In previously presented claims, a displayed item on the screen is referred to as “an element”. In a newly added limitation, displayed items are referred to as “one or more objects”. Even the specification ([0012]) uses both terms “object” or “element” to refer to displayed items interchangeably, recited claim limitations must use a term consistently.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 of this title, 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tumbde et al. (US PG Pub. 2022/0350954, referred to as Tumbde) in view of Bissex et la. (US PG Pub. 2021/0065405, referred to as Bissex).
Tumbde is a published patent application by the same assignee (IBM Corp.) of the instant application. Tumbde discloses monitoring conversations between meeting participants during a video conference (Tumbde, Abstract, [0003], [0017], using Webex meeting software, [0024-0025]). Tumbde further discloses highlighting displayed words / sentences on presenting slides (a claimed “applying an emphasis effect to the element”) when contents or contexts being discussed match displayed elements (Tumbde, [0028-0029], [0033-0040], Fig. 3C).
Bissex is also a published patent application by the same assignee (IBM Corp.) of the instant application. Bissex discloses identifying an object in an augmented reality. Bissex assigns a priority to an identified object based on weights and highlighting the identified object according to the priority (Bissex, [0025], [0038], [0040-0041], emphasize / highlighting an object based on assigned weights; [0029], implementing a priority system in which objects with greater interest are displayed with prominently than those that are of lesser interest).
Regarding claims 1, 11 and 20, Tumbde discloses a method, a computer program product and a system (Tumbde, [0018], Fig. 4, Fig. 5, a computer implemented system / method for highlighting displayed elements that is being discussed during a video conference), comprising:
analyzing, by a processor set and via natural language processing, a conversational input between a plurality of users to identify a description of an element (Tumbde, [0023-0027], Fig. 2, #204-#212, monitoring and analyzing discussions between meeting participants during a video conference using natural language processing, NLP, techniques; identifying keywords, context of discussions);
applying, by the processor set and via a machine learning model, a matching procedure between the conversational input and a virtual environment to identify the element in the virtual environment matching the description of the element (Tumbde, [0014], [0032-0033], comparing and matching displayed elements in slides with discussed topics; Fig. 2, #210);
generating, by the processor set, an emphasis representation in a programmatic model of the virtual environment based on the description of the element (Tumbde, [0021-0023], [0034-0039], Fig. 3C, generating highlighting displayed elements that matches discussed topics / keywords using API calls); and
wherein the generating the emphasis representation in the programmatic model comprising:
assigning a weight to the identified element in the programmatic model (Tumbde, [0032-0033], assigning scores to each portion of displayed contents; Note, an assigned score corresponds to a claimed “a weight”);
utilizing the emphasis representation to prioritize applying an emphasis effect to the identified element based on the assigned weight, relative to one or more objects corresponding to the identified element (Tumbde, [0032-0034], Fig. 3B / 3C, highlighting a displayed content that has the highest similarity score to a discussed topic between meeting participants).
applying, by the processor set, an emphasis effect to the element within the virtual environment corresponding to the emphasis representation (Tumbde, [0034-0036], Fig. 3C, highlighting elements on a displaying slide, the highlighted elements match discussed topics);
Tumbde discloses monitoring a discussion between meeting participants during a virtual meeting and highlighting certain words on a displayed slide. These words are related to a topic of the discussion (See Fig. 3A - 3C). Tumbde discloses assigning similarity scores to each portion of displayed contents and highlighting the content with the highest similarity score. Although Tumbde meets the broadly recited limitations under reasonable interpretation, Tumbde does not explicitly mention “assigning weights” / “prioritize applying”.
Bissex discloses identifying an object in an augmented reality. Bissex assigns a priority to an identified object based on weights and highlighting the identified object according to the priority (Bissex, [0025], [0038], [0040-0041], emphasize / highlighting an object based on assigned weights; [0029], implementing a priority system in which objects with greater interest are displayed with prominently than those that are of lesser interest).
Both Tumbde and Bissex are related to highlighting / emphasizing contents based on speech conversation. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to combine Tumbde’s teaching with Bissex’s teaching to emphasis certain words by assigning weights to words and prioritizing interested words with highlighting / emphasizing. One having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such a modification so that it is easy to see relevant sections in the presentation (Tumbde, [0002-0003]; Bissex, [0015]). In addition, all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately. “A combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR, 550 U.S. ___, 82 USPQ2d at 1395 (2007). One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Tumbde in view of Bissex further discloses the applying the emphasis effect comprises rendering the emphasis effect corresponding to the emphasis representation of the element within the virtual environment (Tumbde, [0036], applying highlighting, bold face or underline to certain portions in a slide that matches discussed topics / contexts during the video conference, Fig. 3C).
Regarding claims 3 and 13, Tumbde in view of Bissex further discloses the applying the matching procedure comprises:
identifying, by the processor set and via the natural language processing, the description of the element within the conversational input (Tumbde, [0025-0028], using natural language processing techniques to identify topics / context in a meeting discussions); and
identifying, by the processor set, the element within the virtual environment based on the description of the element within the conversational input (Tumbde, [0023], [0030], [0035], Fig. 3C, identifying displayed elements in presenting slides that match meeting discussions during a video conference).
Regarding claims 4 and 14, Tumbde in view of Bissex further discloses the identifying the description of the element within the conversational input comprises inferring the description of the element within the conversational input by utilizing semantic similarity analysis (Tumbde, [0028], [0031-0032], comparing semantic similarity between meeting discussions and displayed slides).
Regarding claims 5 and 15, Tumbde in view of Bissex further discloses adjusting the emphasis effect applied to the element based on an amount of time that has elapsed since the element was identified (Tumbde, [0030], [0035], displaying one slide at a time on a screen, highlighting applying previous / current slides based on context).
Regarding claims 6 and 16, Tumbde in view of Bissex further discloses:
determining a level of confidence that the emphasis representation includes the element (Tumbde, [0032-0033], [0043], determining confidence of relevant content and similarity scores); and
displaying a confidence score on a display which corresponds with the level of confidence (Tumbde, [0044], Fig. 3C, #308, displaying a thurm up showing a valid content being highlighted).
Regarding claims 7 and 17, Tumbde in view of Bissex further discloses the level of confidence is distinct from the emphasis effect (Tumbde, Fig. 3C, #306, emphasis effect is underline and bold face, #308, confidence level is showing as a thumb-up symbol).
Regarding claims 8 and 18, Tumbde in view of Bissex further discloses the conversational input comprises a voice input, and wherein the virtual environment is an immersive virtual environment comprising a virtual world environment (Tumbde, [0015], [0017], a virtual meeting environment).
Regarding claims 9 and 19, Tumbde in view of Bissex further discloses the conversational input comprises multi-modal conversational input (Tumbde, [0015], audio, video and text inputs; [0023-0024], [0038], during a video meeting, voice input using microphone, facial and body language inputs using camera).
Regarding claim 10, Tumbde in view of Bissex further discloses the machine learning model comprises generative artificial intelligence for performing the matching procedure between the conversational input and the virtual environment to identify the element matching the description of the element (Tumbde, [0025], [0028-0029], [0031], [0033], using machine learning models to compare and identify matching between discussion topics / contexts and displayed elements in presenting slides).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JIALONG HE whose telephone number is (571)270-5359. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday, 7:00AM-4:30PM, ALT. Fridays, EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Pierre Desir can be reached on (571) 272-7799. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JIALONG HE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2659
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