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 Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
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.
Regarding the independent claims 1, 13 and 18, and using claim 1 as an example, the following claim language is unclear and indefinite:
receiving user input in text form describing a sticker pack a user wants to generate,
a user interface prompting the user to enter the user input, the user interface indicating a function to generate electronic stickers based on a theme of the user input for customizing the electronic stickers of the sticker pack
More specifically, the first function is “receiving user input in text form”.
Then, the second (or next) function is “a user interface prompting the user to enter the user input”.
Accordingly, the first function is contradictory to the second function (since the system already received the user input in the receiving step) *or* the second function is redundant (why is the second function prompting the user to enter the user input since in the prior function, the system already received the user input). Applicant’s claim language is indefinite and unclear. To keep both steps/functions, suggest amending the claims to recite: “receiving user input in text form describing a sticker pack a user wants to generate via a user interface prompting the user to enter the user input …” (basically, combining both steps instead of writing as two separate steps).
For examination purposes, the examiner is interpreting the independent claims to have a user interface promoting the user to enter a user input in text form, describing a sticker pack the user wants to generate.
The dependent claims inherit the indefiniteness of their parent claims.
Clarification and correction are respectfully required.
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.
The independent claims recite “a user interface” (see e.g. claim 1, lines 6-7; similarly claims 13 and 18). However, dependent claims 4 also recite “a user interface” (similarly, dependent claims 16 and 19). Applicant should consider amending the user interfaces to either refer to the same user interface, or a “first” and a “second” user interface to distinguish between the two “a user interface” claim terms, because it is unclear when “a user interface” is recited in multiple depending claims. For examination purposes, the examiner is treating the user interfaces of the independent and dependent claims as user interfaces with claimed functionality.
The dependent claims inherit the indefiniteness of their parent claims.
Clarification and correction are respectfully 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, 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, 6, 13-15 and18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mukherjee (WO 2020148688A1) in view of Lai Z, Zhu X, Dai J, Qiao Y, Wang W. Mini-dalle3: Interactive text to image by prompting large language models. arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.07653. 2023 Oct 11. (“Lai”) and further in view of Basher (U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2025/0232500 A1) and Luo (U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2021/0312523 A1).
Regarding claim 1:
Mukherjee teaches: a data processing system (Fig. 1: 100 system) comprising: a processor (Fig. 1: 104, processing unit); and a memory in communication with the processor (Fig. 1: 106, memory unit), the memory comprising executable instructions that, when executed by the processor alone or in combination with other processors, cause the data processing system to perform functions of (page. 4, L5-18, the processing unit can execute or process instructions, which can be stored in memory):
receiving user input in text form (claim 1, receiving user input on the user device, in combination with page 5, lines 8-9, user input can be text)…
a user interface (page 6, L20-22, user interface for user interaction with system) prompting the user to enter the user input (page 6, L20-22, user can enter input via interface), the user interface indicating a function to generate electronic stickers (claim 3, the assembled “one or more stickers” (i.e. a sticker pack being more than one sticker) are displayed at a GUI. This teaches/suggests that the user interface indicates a function to generate electronic stickers, which is the subject of the method of Mukerjee’s claims and inventive disclosure) based on a theme of the user input for customizing the electronic stickers of the sticker pack (claim 1, ” Deriving at least one of a phrase, language and a theme based on the received input data using a machine learning module”).
Mukherjee does not specify that the user input in text form is describing a sticker pack a user wants to generate. Consider the following.
In analogous art, Lai teaches that it is known that input prompts describing a sticker pack a user wants to generate is known in the art (Lai, Fig. 1: “Cool! Could you make me a sticker?” prompt, in combination with Fig. 6: “User: Can your design some stickers?” (stickers plural being a sticker pack), both figures also have descriptions of requested images (i.e. cute dog, cute cat, stickers from images, stickers from text to image).
Modifying Mukherjee, in view of Lai, such to have included the above, would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention. See MPEP §2143(A). Motivation can be further found to enhance the system/methods of Mukherjee, such to tailor stickers (taught by both references) to user requests.
Regarding the remaining features of claim 1, consider the following.
In analogous art, Basher teaches:
generating a prompt using the user input and a prompt template that is specific to sticker pack generation (para. 141, 206 and/or 207, generating prompt using input text and a prompt engineering template is known. Basher is not limited to what types of models the prompts can be applied, and even teaches image generation models and generative AI (see paras. 76-77). Therefore, prompts specific to sticker generation, per Mukherjee and/or Lai, as a generative image generation model, per Basher (paras. 76-77), would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill);
submitting the prompt to a generative artificial intelligence (GAI) to generate an image for the sticker pack (Basher, paras. 76-77, submit prompt to one or more generative AI systems, including “Image Generation Models”, as listed in para. 77 of Basher) See also para. 141 for additional teaching)).
In analogous art, Luo teaches:
segmenting and filtering the image from the GAI with a post-processing system to produce a completed pack of stickers usable by the user (para. 118, sub-processing of image processing and/or enhancement of image processing can include segmentation and filtering).
Modifying the applied references, such to include the prompt features of Basher, and processing of Luo, to both enable and facilitate user command and input with a generative model (per Basher), and to enhance image processing, per Luo, for stickers, as taught by both Mukherjee and Lai, is all of taught, suggested and motivated by the prior art, and the results of the modification would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention. See MPEP §2143(A).
The prior art included each element recited in claim 1, although not necessarily in a single embodiment, with the only difference being between the claimed element and the prior art being the lack of actual combination of certain elements in a single prior art embodiment, as described above.
One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods, and in that combination, each element merely performs the same function as it does separately. One of ordinary skill in the art would have also recognized that the results of the combination were predictable as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 2:
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have further modified the applied reference(-s), in view of same, to have obtained: the system of claim 1, wherein the user interface comprises a text box to receive text describing the sticker pack with a prompt to the user to enter a description of the sticker pack, and the results of the modification would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention. See MPEP §2143(A).
Basher teaches that textboxes to receive text is known (para. 112); Lai also teaches that textboxes to receive text is known (Fig. 1: “Enter text to ask me” at bottom left). Lai also teaches a text prompt to the user to enter (here, a question or command prompt) is known. See Fig. 1. Modifying the applied references, such that the interface design features of Basher and Lai are used to prompt the user, per Lai, to enter a description, per Lai, here of a sticker pack (such as ones that are generated by Mukherjee, while Lai also teaches sticker generation, see mapping to claim 1), is all of taught, suggested and motivated by the prior art, and the results of the modification would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art.
One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods, and in that combination, each element merely performs the same function as it does separately. One of ordinary skill in the art would have also recognized that the results of the combination were predictable as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 3:
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have further modified the applied reference(-s), in view of same, to have obtained: the system of claim 2, wherein the user interface further comprises a generate button to initiate generation of the prompt, and the results of the modification would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention. See MPEP §2143(A).
Buttons as actionable interface items are known (Basher,para.193) (Luo, para. 169). Luo, at para. 169, also teaches that the button can cause display of further information in the interface. Modifying the applied references, per Luo, such to have a generate button, per Luo, to generate initiation of the prompt (mapped in claim 2, as additional information or a separate interface display), is all of taught, suggested and motivated by the prior art, and the results of the modification would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art.
One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods, and in that combination, each element merely performs the same function as it does separately. One of ordinary skill in the art would have also recognized that the results of the combination were predictable as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 4:
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have further modified the applied reference(-s), in view of same, to have obtained: the system of claim 1, further comprising a user interface to display the completed pack of stickers to the user (Luo. Fig. 12, interfaces to display results to users are known), the user interface including a control to allow the user to expand and inspect the sticker pack in a pop-up view (Luo: Fig. 13: functionality to select items and expand/open new window is known) (Likewise, Mukherjee teaches that pop-ups are known. Fig. 3: 312. Here it also teaches to show stickers in a separate view, such as for inspection), and the results of the modification would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention. See MPEP §2143(A).
Modifying the applied references, in view of Luo, such to include the interface functionality to the stickers, as mapped in claim 1, is all of taught and suggested by the prior art, and would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art.
One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods, and in that combination, each element merely performs the same function as it does separately. One of ordinary skill in the art would have also recognized that the results of the combination were predictable as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 6:
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have further modified the applied reference(-s), in view of same, to have obtained: the system of claim 4, wherein the pop-up view (see mapping to claim 4) comprises controls to download one or all of the stickers of the sticker pack (Luo, see Fig. 16: ADD TO MSH or SHARE button (either one) teaches this functionality, to download and share) (alternative mapping: Basher, para. 60, teaches that download as a function is known, modifying the applied references, such to include this function via buttons (see Luo, Fig. 16), would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill) for use on a platform utilized by the user for communication (Luo, Fig. 1: 104, OR Mukherjee, Page 3, L34-35, for a messaging client application) (alternatively, for the platform of Fig. 16, Luo), and the results of the modification would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention. See MPEP §2143(A).
One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods, and in that combination, each element merely performs the same function as it does separately. One of ordinary skill in the art would have also recognized that the results of the combination were predictable as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 13: see also claim 1.
Luo teaches: a data processing system (para. 100, network environment t600) comprising a data center (para. 102, date center) implementing a sticker pack generation service (see mapping to claim 1 re: sticker pack generation, and Luo para. 102 teaches services provided by its system is known), the service comprising: a network interface (Luo, para. 101) …a prompt generator (para. 100, any of the devices, servers)…a post-processing system (Luo, para. 100, any of the devices, servers).
The data processing system of claim 13 performs the same functions as the system of claim 1. The difference is that the processor and memory of the system of claim 1, are replaced by a “data center”, “network interface”, with added “prompt generator” and “post-processing system” to perform the same functions that the system of claim 1 performs. The same rationale for rejection applies.
Regarding claim 14: see claim 2.
These claims are similar; the same rationale for rejection applies.
Regarding claim 15: see claim 3.
These claims are similar; the same rationale for rejection applies.
Regarding claim 18: see claim 1.
The method of claim 18 corresponds to the functions performed by the system of claim 1. The same rationale for rejection applies.
Claim(s) 5, 16 and19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mukherjee in view of Lai, Basher and Luo and further in view of Zumbrunnen (U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2024/0364645 A1).
Regarding claim 5:
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have combined and modified the applied reference(-s), in view of same, to have obtained: the system of claim 4, wherein the pop-up view comprises an enlarged view of one of the stickers of the sticker pack and controls to move each of the stickers of the pack into the enlarged view, and the results of the modification would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention. See MPEP §2143(A).
Zumbrunnen teaches a view that comprises an enlarged view of a sticker pack and controls to move into enlarged view. See Fig. 6N and 6O (the sticker packs are of cats). Modifying the applied references, such that the pop up window, mapped in claim 4, includes the functionality of Zumbrunnen, is all of taught and suggested by the prior art, and would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art.
One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods, and in that combination, each element merely performs the same function as it does separately. One of ordinary skill in the art would have also recognized that the results of the combination were predictable as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 16: see claims 4, 5 and 6.
Claim 16 is a combination of claims 4, 5 and 6. See below.
the system of claim 13, further comprising a user interface to display the completed pack of stickers to the user, the user interface including a control to allow the user to expand and inspect the sticker pack in a pop-up view (claim 4),
wherein the pop-up view comprises an enlarged view of one of the stickers of the sticker pack and controls to move each of the stickers of the pack into the enlarged view (claim 5); and
wherein the pop-up view comprises controls to download one or all of the stickers of the sticker pack for use on a platform utilized by the user for communication (claim 6).
Modifying the applied reference(-s), in view of same, to have included the above, would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention. See MPEP §2143(A).
The prior art included each element recited in claim 16, although not necessarily in a single embodiment, with the only difference being between the claimed element and the prior art being the lack of actual combination of certain elements in a single prior art embodiment, as described above.
One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods, and in that combination, each element merely performs the same function as it does separately. One of ordinary skill in the art would have also recognized that the results of the combination were predictable as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 19: see claim 16.
These claims are similar; the same rationale for rejection applies.
Claim(s) 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mukherjee in view of Lai, Basher and Luo and further in view of Feit, Eran, "Image Segmentation in OpenCV with Python and Contours", Feb 17, 2023 (https://eranfeit.net/image-segmentation-in-opencv-with-python-and-contours/), pp. 1-4. (“Feit”).
Regarding claim 7
The applied references to claim 1 do not specify claim 7.Consider the following.
In analogous art, Feit teaches: the system of claim 1, wherein the post-processing system comprises intelligent binary thresholding (page 1, applying a smart binary threshold for image segmentation is known).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, as of the effective filing date of Applicant’s claims, to have further modified the applied references, in view of Feit, to have included the above, motivated to make use of known image segmentation and processing techniques.
Regarding claim 8:
Feit teaches: the system of claim 7, wherein the post-processing system further comprises hierarchical contouring (page 2, OpenCV code).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, as of the effective filing date of Applicant’s claims, to have further modified the applied references, in view of Feit, to have included the above, motivated to make use of known image segmentation and processing techniques to identify main objects/objects of interest in images.
Claim(s) 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mukherjee in view of Lai, Basher and Luo and further in view of Feit and Arbelaez, P., Maire, M., Fowlkes, C., & Malik, J. (2010). Contour detection and hierarchical image segmentation. IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence, 33(5), 898-916 (“Arbelaez”).
Regarding claim 9:
The applied references to claim 8 do not teach claim 9. Consider the following.
In analogous art, Arbelaez teaches: the system of claim 8, wherein the post-processing system further comprises non-leaf node contour filtering (Arbelaez teaches this multiple times: (1) section 2.2, to filter contours/edges based on node weights that do not require leaf nodes; (2) iteratively coarsen graphs by selecting node subsets (page 4, first column, second to last paragraph); (3) Section 4.2, hierarchy with nodes related to ultrametric contour map) or (4) section 5, interactive segmentation).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, as of the effective filing date of Applicant’s claims, to have further modified the applied references, in view of Arbelaez, to have included the above, motivated to make use of known image segmentation, contour detection and processing techniques.
Regarding claim 10:
Arbelaez teaches: the system of claim 9, wherein the post-processing system further comprises cut off filtering (page 4, first column, “Normalized Cuts (NCuts)” teaches this feature, further described in Section 3.3).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, as of the effective filing date of Applicant’s claims, to have further modified the applied references, in view of Arbelaez, to have included the above, motivated to make use of known image segmentation, contour detection and processing techniques.
Claim(s) 11, 12, 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mukherjee in view of Lai, Basher and Luo and further in view of Feit, Arbelaez and Lee (U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2016/0353165).
Regarding claim 11:
The applied references to claim 10 do not teach claim 11. Consider the following.
In analogous art, Lee teaches: the system of claim 10, wherein the post-processing system further comprises transparency and area-based filtering (par. 12, applying transparency to areas of an image frame. See also Fig. 8).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, as of the effective filing date of Applicant’s claims, to have further modified the applied references, in view of Lee, to have included the above, motivated to make use of known image segmentation, contour detection and processing techniques.
Regarding claim 12:
Lee teaches: the system of claim 11, wherein the post-processing system further comprises edge smoothing with Gaussian blur (claim 8, apply blur filtering to edges, in combination with para.108-10, blurring can e done using a Gaussian blur).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, as of the effective filing date of Applicant’s claims, to have further modified the applied references, in view of Lee, to have included the above, motivated to make use of known image segmentation, contour detection and processing techniques.
Regarding claim 17: see claims 7-12.
Claim 17 is a combination of claims 7-12 See below.
the system of claim 13, wherein the post-processing system comprises intelligent binary thresholding (claim 7), hierarchical contouring (claim 8), non-leaf node contour filtering (claim 9), cut off filtering (claim 10), transparency and area-based filtering (claim 11) and edge smoothing with Gaussian blur (claim 12).
Modifying the applied reference(-s), in view of same, to have included the above, would have been obvious and predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention. See MPEP §2143(A).
The prior art included each element recited in claim 17, although not necessarily in a single embodiment, with the only difference being between the claimed element and the prior art being the lack of actual combination of certain elements in a single prior art embodiment, as described above.
One of ordinary skill in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods, and in that combination, each element merely performs the same function as it does separately. One of ordinary skill in the art would have also recognized that the results of the combination were predictable as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 20: see claim 17.
These claims are similar; the same rationale for rejection applies.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure, relevant to machine learning for image generation.
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Sarah Lhymn
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2613
/Sarah Lhymn/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2613