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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
In response to applicant’s amendment received on 7/6/2026, all requested changes to the claims have been entered.
Response to Argument
Applicant’s arguments filed on 7/6/2026 have been considered but they are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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 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 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.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim 1 rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over ID.me (“What is Knowledge-Based Verification?”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT543SC0amk, Oct 14, 2020) in view of Cleveland et al. (US 20130265231).
With respect to claim 1, ID.me teaches perform first processing of causing a screen that can be chosen at by the target person to display a question and also causing the screen to display direction information indicating one specific direction to be chosen at by the target person when the target person answers the question (time line 0:20-0:30, users are asked a series of multiple-choice questions about their life history — things like prior home addresses, monthly mortgage payments, and vehicle registrations. );
performs second processing of determining one direction being chosen by the target person (time line 0:31, Users that answer); and
perform third processing of, by the one specific direction to be chosen at by the target person when the target person answers the question and the direction determined to be chosen at by the target person, authenticating the person ((time line 0:31-0:36, Users that answer correctly are considered to be identity proofed and granted access.).
ID.me teaches does not expressly teach that at least one memory storing instructions; and at least one processor configured to execute the instructions to :
acquire a facial image of a target person being a person to be a target of authentication;
perform first processing of causing a screen that can be looked at by the target person to display a question and also causing the screen to display direction information indicating one specific direction to be looked at by the target person when the target person answers the question;
performs second processing of determining one direction being looked at by the target person by using the facial image; and
perform third processing of, by the one specific direction to be looked at by the target person when the target person answers the question and the direction determined to be looked at by the target person.
Cleveland et al. teach that at least one memory storing instructions (Fig. 2); and
at least one processor configured to execute the instructions to (Fig. 1 and 2):
acquire a facial image of a target person being a person to be a target of authentication (Fig. 1, para [0032]) ;
perform first processing of causing a screen that can be looked at by the target person to display a question and also causing the screen to display direction information indicating one specific direction to be looked at by the target person when the target person answers the question (Fig. 6, para [0045]);
performs second processing of determining one direction being looked at by the target person by using the facial image (Fig. 6, para [0045]); and
perform third processing of, by the one specific direction to be looked at by the target person when the target person answers the question and the direction determined to be looked at by the target person(Fig. 6, para [0045]).
At the time of effective filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use eye gaze to answer question on screen in the method of ID.me.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to substitute a well-known hand-free intuitive user interface.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Cleveland et al. with ID.me to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
With respect to claim 2, ID.me teaches a standard answer to the question is preset for each of a plurality of persons, and the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to: in the first processing, cause the screen to display the question and also cause the screen to display the direction information based on the standard answer; and in the third processing (time line 0:20-0:30, users are asked a series of multiple-choice questions about their life history — things like prior home addresses, monthly mortgage payments, and vehicle registrations);
determine validity of an answer to the question by the target person by using the standard answer for the target person and the one direction being chosen at by the target person and perform authentication of the target person, based on the validity ((time line 0:31-0:36, Users that answer correctly are considered to be identity proofed and granted access.)
Cleveland et al. teach determine validity of an answer to the question by the target person by using the standard answer for the target person and the one direction being looked at by the target person and perform authentication of the target person (Fig. 6, para [0045]).
At the time of effective filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use eye gaze to answer question on screen in the method of ID.me.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to substitute a well-known hand-free intuitive user interface.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Cleveland et al. with ID.me to obtain the invention as specified in claim 2.
With respect to claim 3, ID.me teaches teach determine the one specific direction related to the standard answer for the target person as a standard direction and determine the validity of the answer to the question by the target person by using the determined standard direction and a direction determined being chosen at by the target person (((time line 0:31-0:36, Users that answer correctly are considered to be identity proofed and granted access.)).
Cleveland et al. teach determine the one specific direction related to the standard answer for the target person as a standard direction and determine the validity of the answer to the question by the target person by using the determined standard direction and a direction determined being looked at by the target person (Fig. 6, para [0045]).
At the time of effective filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use eye gaze to answer question on screen in the method of ID.me.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to substitute a well-known hand-free intuitive user interface.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Cleveland et al. with ID.me to obtain the invention as specified in claim 3.
With respect to claim 4, ID.me teaches determine the answer to the question by the target person, the answer being indicated by the one direction determined to be chosen at by the target person, and determine the validity of an answer to the question by the target person by using the determined answer and the standard answer for the target person(((timeline 0:31-0:36, Users that
Cleveland et al. teach determine the answer to the question by the target person, the answer being indicated by the one direction determined to be looked at by the target person, and determine the validity of an answer to the question by the target person by using the determined answer and the standard answer for the target person (Fig. 6, para [0045]).
At the time of effective filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use eye gaze to answer question on screen in the method of ID.me.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to substitute a well-known hand-free intuitive user interface.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Cleveland et al. with ID.me to obtain the invention as specified in claim 4.
With respect to claim 5, ID.me teaches that accept the standard answer for each of the plurality of persons and store the standard answer into a storage unit in association with the person (timeline 0:20-0:30, users are asked a series of multiple-choice questions about their life history — things like prior home addresses, monthly mortgage payments, and vehicle registrations. );
With respect to claim 6, ID.me teaches cause the screen to display a plurality of alternatives related to the question, cause the screen to display, as the direction information, a plurality of directions, each of the plurality of directions corresponding to one of the plurality of alternatives and to be looked at by the target person when the target person selects one of the plurality of the alternative, and perform the third processing by using the one specific direction to be looked at by the target person, the one specific direction being one of the plurality of directions that is related to an alternative indicating a correct answer to the question, and the one direction being looked at by a target person (Fig. 6, para [0045], yes and no).
Claim 15 is rejected as same reason as claim 1 above
Claim 16 is rejected as same reason as claim 1 above.
Claim 17 is rejected as same reason as claim 1 above.
With respect to claim 18, Cleveland et al. teach the question asks whether a statement is true or false, and the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to: in the first processing, cause the screen to display, as the direction information, a first direction corresponding to true and a second direction corresponding to false, wherein the one specific direction to be looked at by the target person is one of the first direction and the second direction that corresponds to an answer to the question by the target person. (Fig. 6, para [0045], yes and no).
With respect to claim 19, ID.me teaches the question includes content regarding a countersign preregistered by the target person, and the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to in the third processing, determine a correct direction corresponding to the countersign as the one specific direction to be chosen at, and perform authentication of the person by comparing the correct direction with the one direction being chosen at by the target person (time line 0:20-0:30, users are asked a series of multiple-choice questions about their life history — things like prior home addresses, monthly mortgage payments, and vehicle registrations. );
Cleveland et al. teach perform comparing the correct direction with the one direction being looked at by the target person (time line 0:20-0:30, users are asked a series of multiple-choice questions about their life history — things like prior home addresses, monthly mortgage payments, and vehicle registrations. );
At the time of effective filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use eye gaze to answer question on screen in the method of ID.me.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to substitute a well-known hand-free intuitive user interface.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Cleveland et al. with ID.me to obtain the invention as specified in claim 19.
Claim 7-10 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over ID.me (“What is Knowledge-Based Verification?”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT543SC0amk, Oct 14, 2020) in view of Cleveland et al. (US 20130265231) in further view of Hoanca et al. (US Patent 7,986,816).
With respect to claim 7, ID.me and Cleveland et al. teach all the limitations of claim 1 as applied above from which claim 4 respectively depend.
ID.me and Cleveland et al. do not teach expressly execute authentication processing using a facial image of the person (Fig. 6, preform iris recognition for user authentication); and respectively execute the first processing, the second processing, and the third processing at a predetermined timing after successful authentication of the target person
Hoanca et al. teach authentication processing using a facial image of the person; and respectively execute the first processing, the second processing, and the third processing at a predetermined timing after successful authentication of the target person (Fig. 6; col. 15 lines 27-35, there must be time between iris recognition and eye tracking).
At the time of effective filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have other authentication method using facial image in the method of ID.me and Cleveland et al.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to make the system more secure.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Hoanca et al. with ID.me and Cleveland et al. et al. to obtain the invention as specified in claim 7.
With respect to claim 8, Hoanca et al. teach that the predetermined timing is regularly or irregularly (Fig. 6; col. 15 lines 27-35, there must be time between iris recognition and eye tracking, it can be regular or irregular ).
With respect to claim 9, Hoanca et al. teach that the predetermined timing is when a facial image of the target person satisfies a predetermined criterion in the authentication processing (Fig. 6; col. 15 lines 27-35, authenticating, by the authentication system, the user upon successful authentication at 601-603).
With respect to claim 10, Hoanca et al. teach execute authentication processing using a facial image of the target person at an initial login (Fig. 6, preform iris recognition for user authentication); and
respectively execute the first processing, the second processing, and the third processing after successful authentication of the target person (Fig. 6; col. 15 lines 27-35, authenticating, by the authentication system, the user upon successful authentication at 601-603).
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over ID.me (“What is Knowledge-Based Verification?”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT543SC0amk, Oct 14, 2020) in view of Cleveland et al. (US 20130265231) and Hoanca et al. (US Patent 7,986,816).and in further view of Kalscheur et al. (US Patent 10,719,692)
With respect to claim 11, ID.me, Cleveland et al. and Hoanca et al. teach all the limitations of claim 9 as applied above from which claim 11 respectively depend.
ID.me, Cleveland et al. and Hoanca et al. do not teach expressly that the predetermined criterion includes a score indicating a result of the authentication processing using a facial image of the target person being equal to or less than a reference value.
Kalscheur et al. teach the predetermined criterion includes a score indicating a result of the authentication processing using a facial image of the target person (Fig. 7 ref label 260, Matching score) being equal to or less than a reference value (Fig. 7 ref label 276, 2nd threshold).
At the time of effective filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use matching score and threshold for follow up process in the method of ID.me, Cleveland et al. and Hoanca et al.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to make the system more secure.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Kalscheur et al. with ID.me, Cleveland et al. and Hoanca et al. to obtain the invention as specified in claim 11.
Claim 12-13 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over ID.me (“What is Knowledge-Based Verification?”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT543SC0amk, Oct 14, 2020) in view of Cleveland et al. (US 20130265231) and Hoanca et al. (US Patent 7,986,816) and in further view of Hess(“Straight Talk about Face Masks and Face Recognition”, https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/92140-straight-talk-about-face-masks-and-face-recognition, 4/14/2020).
With respect to claim 12, ID.me, Cleveland et al. and Hoanca et al. teach all the limitations of claim 9 as applied above from which claim 12 respectively depend.
ID.me, Cleveland et al. and Hoanca et al. do not teach expressly that detect at least one of a predetermined part of a face or the target person and a predetermined wearing article from a facial image of the target person, wherein the predetermined criterion includes, when the authentication processing is performed, at least one item out of inability to detect a predetermined part of a face of the target person and detection of the predetermined wearing article.
Hess teaches detect at least one of a predetermined part of a face and a predetermined wearing article from a facial image of the target person (Occlusion detection — recognizing when a face is covered — has been a feature of professional face detection platforms for some time, so it’s a natural evolution to teach an algorithm how to recognize a mask and then work with the partial face information it), wherein the predetermined criterion includes, when the authentication processing is performed, at least one item out of inability to detect a predetermined part of a face of the target person and detection of the predetermined wearing article. (6th para., If a match can’t be made).
At the time of effective filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use matching score and threshold for follow up process in the method of ID.me, Cleveland et al. and Hoanca et al.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to make the system more secure.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Hess with ID.me, Cleveland et al. and Hoanca et al. to obtain the invention as specified in claim 12.
With respect to claim 13, Hess teaches the predetermined criterion includes temporary inability to acquire the facial image of the target person (6th para., If a match can’t be made).
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over ID.me (“What is Knowledge-Based Verification?”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT543SC0amk, Oct 14, 2020) in view of Cleveland et al. (US 20130265231) , Hoanca et al. (US Patent 7,986,816).and Kalscheur et al. (US Patent 10,719,692) and in further view of Bharadwaj et al. (“Computationally Efficient Face Spoofing Detection with Motion Magnification”, 2013 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops).
With respect to claim 14, ID.me, Cleveland et al.., Hoanca et al. and Kalscheur et al. teach all the limitations of claim 9 as applied above from which claim 11 respectively depend.
ID.me, Cleveland et al. Hoanca et al., and Kalscheur et al. do not teach expressly that acquire a background image of the facial image of the target person and detect a change in the background image, and the predetermined criterion includes detection of the change in the background image.
Bharadwaj et al. teach acquire a background image of the facial image of the target person and detect a change in the background image, and the predetermined criterion includes detection of the change in the background image. (page 105 right column, Facial motions such as eye blinks and motion of head with respect to the background were also used to determine liveness.).
At the time of effective filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use change in background in the method ID.me, Cleveland et al. Hoanca et al., and Kalscheur et al.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to make the system more secure.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Bharadwaj et al. with ID.me, Cleveland et al. Hoanca et al., and Kalscheur et al. to obtain the invention as specified in claim 14.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Randolph Chu whose telephone number is 571-270-1145. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Thursday from 7:30 am - 5 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Bella can be reached on (571) 272-7778.
The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/RANDOLPH I CHU/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2667
Prosecution Insights