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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 02/18/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply in view of newly found reference Ahmed being used in the current rejection. See the new rejection below.
Double Patenting
Claims 1-20 stand rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-3 and 7-9 of U.S. Patent No. 11,330,307. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the instant application is an obvious variation, recited similarly to the patented subject matter as shown in the previous Office Action along with current/updated rejection made below.
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.
Claims 1-2, 8, 11-12, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US PG Pub 2020/0311434 to Iyer (“Iyer”) in view of US Patent 11,748,888 to Ahmed (“Ahmed”).
Regarding claim 1, “A method comprising: accessing a video comprising a plurality of segments, wherein a first segment, from the plurality of segments, comprises depiction of a plurality of objects” reads on the method/system for summarizing multimedia content that includes plurality of objects (abstract) disclosed by Iyer and represented in Fig. 3. Iyer further discloses (¶0044-¶0045) that the device receives multimedia content comprising scenes.
As to “selecting a first object, from the plurality of objects in the first content segment” Iyer discloses (¶0023-¶0025, ¶0037-¶0041) that the device identifies the primary object from the plurality of objects from the multimedia content where the primary object is selected based on the parameter associated with the primary object such as frequency of appearance of the primary object, duration of appearance of the primary object in the multimedia content.
As to “determining that the selected first object includes a first mapping and a second mapping indicating a first time period and a second time period when the first object appears in the first content segment” Iyer discloses (¶0038-¶0042) that the system determines corresponding times associated with the primary object in the multimedia content as shown in TABLE 2 AND 3.
As to “detecting a time gap between the first mapping and the second mapping and detecting at least a portion of mapping of a second object, from the plurality of objects, overlapping at least a portion of the first mapping or the second mapping of the first object” Iyer discloses (¶0004-¶0005, ¶0024-¶0025, ¶0027-¶0029) identifying objects in frames and such objects are identified in non-contiguous frames; as each frame has a sequence, duration, and time, lack of presence of the identified object signifies time gaps between such frames/mappings; (¶0039) frames that includes secondary object are given lower weight and discarded.
As to “based at least in part on the detections: generating a new content structure comprising the first object, wherein the first mapping and the second mapping of the first object are concatenated to a) remove the time gap…” Iyer discloses (¶0041-¶0042) that the content with primary objects are concatenated/summarized; (¶0004-¶0005, ¶0024-¶0025, ¶0027-¶0029, ¶0056) the plurality of frames devoid of the primary object of interest or reference of the primary objects (time gap) are discarded to maintain continuity of the presentation of frames containing identified object and keeping only frames that include primary objects, and therefore disclosing the new content segment does not comprise a time gap.
Iyer meets all the limitations of the claim except “wherein the portion of mapping of the second object indicates when the second object appears with the first object in the first content segment; and based at least on the detections: generating a new content structure comprising the first object … b) exclude the portion of mapping of the second object.” However, Ahmed discloses (13:55-14:37) the system of semi-supervised video object segmentation to track and segment one or more objects throughout a video clip where a video segmentation mask for each respective object in the frame is defined; (14:48-50) the system resolved overlapping objects by assigning each pixel in an overlapping region to a selected object; defining a video segmentation mask includes removing pixel-wise overlap from the respective object in the current frame; (16:36-50) removing pixel-wise overlap of respective object as tracked and modify at least one frame of the video clip at a respective location of the object as tracked to provide for display. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Iyer’s system by generating a new content structure comprising th first object by excluding the portion of mapping of the second object as taught by Ahmed in order to apply an effect to an object in each frame and provide the output as an augmented reality, virtual reality or mixed reality experience (Ahmed – 1:39-41).
Regarding claim 2, “The method of claim 1, further comprising: generating a new content segment based on the new content structure; and transmitting the new content segment to an electronic device” Iyer discloses (¶0047, ¶0041-¶0042) that the summarized content is generated that includes identified object and the summarized multimedia content is rendered on the user device.
Regarding claim 8, “The method of claim 1, wherein the concatenation of the first mapping and second mapping of the first object results in one continuous mapping from the first mapping to the second mapping of the first object without any gaps in-between” Iyer discloses (¶0041-¶0042) that the content with primary objects are concatenated/summarized; (¶0004-¶0005, ¶0024-¶0025, ¶0027-¶0029) the plurality of frames devoid of the primary object of interest or reference of the primary objects are discarded to maintain continuity of the presentation of frames containing identified object, and therefore disclosing the new content segment does not comprise a time gap.
Regarding claim 11, see rejection similar to claim 1.
Regarding claim 12, see rejection similar to claim 2.
Regarding claim 18, see rejection similar to claim 8.
Claims 3 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Iyer in view of Ahmed, and further in view of US PG Pub 2019/0251364 to Park (“Park”).
Regarding claim 3, combination of Iyer and Ahmed meets all the limitations of the claim except “The method of claim 1, wherein generating the new content structure further comprises: retrieving one or more environmental templates from a data structure, wherein the one or more environmental templates comprise an environmental content structure, separate from the new content structure; retrieving one or more objects from the environmental content structure; and adding the one or more objects from the environmental content structure to the new content structure.” However, Park discloses (¶0120-¶0128) synthesizing the object layer with the background frame in the process of providing the summarized video where background frame is extracted where the device synthesizes the object layer with the background frame; car is used as environmental template and the people are used as the objects as represented in Fig. 5; (¶0024-¶0025) summarized video and the background frame obtained from the image stream are separate. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Iyer and Ahmed’s systems by adding objects to retrieved environmental template as taught by Park in order to generate a summarized video based on the object and the background frame by eliminating the unwanted objects and focus only on objects of interest without distraction (Park - ¶0007).
Regarding claim 13, see rejection similar to claim 3.
Claims 4-7 and 14-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Iyer in view of Ahmed, and further in view of US PG Pub 2019/0163982 to Block (“Block”).
Regarding claim 4, “The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting the first object is based on the first object appearing most from among the plurality of objects in the first content segment” Iyer discloses (¶0023-¶0025, ¶0037-¶0041) that the device identifies the primary object from the plurality of objects from the multimedia content where the primary object is selected based on the parameter associated with the primary object such as frequency of appearance of the primary object, duration of appearance of the primary object in the multimedia content.
As to “the method further comprising: identifying the first object, from the plurality of objects in the first content segment, as the object appearing the most from among the plurality of objects in the first content segment” Iyer discloses (¶0023-¶0025, ¶0037-¶0041) that the device identifies the primary object from the plurality of objects from the multimedia content where the primary object is selected based on the parameter associated with the primary object such as frequency of appearance of the primary object, duration of appearance of the primary object in the multimedia content.
Combination of Iyer and Ahmed meets all the limitations of the claim except “generating a vector data structure for the identified first object.” However, Block discloses (¶0014-¶0018) that the vector feature spaces may be assigned feature vector values which are algorithmically developed values reflecting characteristics of a particular feature type determined for an object within a captured visual scene; assessment of feature vector spaces for features of objects, such as people, may include frontal images, side images, other images, sound signatures, colors, sizes, affinities to other objects, as well as other features that may be attributed to an object. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Iyer and Ahmed’s systems by generating vector data for the objects as taught by Block in order to identify/label objects with high degree of accuracy/confidence while utilizing well known mathematical vector/matrix calculations (Block - ¶0020).
Regarding claim 5, “The method of claim 4, further comprising, rendering the vector data structure on a display, wherein the rendered vector data represents the first object” Block discloses (¶0014-¶0018) that the vector feature spaces may be assigned feature vector values which are algorithmically developed values reflecting characteristics of a particular feature type determined for an object within a captured visual scene; assessment of feature vector spaces for features of objects, such as people, may include frontal images, side images, other images, sound signatures, colors, sizes, affinities to other objects, as well as other features that may be attributed to an object.
Regarding claim 6, “The method of claim 4, wherein the vector data structure includes data defining interconnected vectors or polygon” Block discloses (¶0018) that vector feature spaces may be assigned feature vector values which are algorithmically developed values reflecting characteristics of a particular feature type determined for an object within a captured visual scene. For example, a feature may be frontal image of a person and aspects of the frontal image such as spacing, size, colors, relative locations and other aspects of facial features for the person in an image view captured for a visual scene. The observed feature may have a multi-dimensional feature vector value generated for it which may be used to correlate it to other instances of captured frontal images of people or objects previously observed.
Regarding claim 7, “The method of claim 4, wherein the identifying of the first object is performed by using image recognition” Block discloses (¶0051, ¶0055) that the scene feature extractor such as image recognition system applies recognition algorithms to identify types of objects within the instance of observation for a captured scene of interest.
Regarding claim 14, see rejection similar to claim 4.
Regarding claim 15, see rejection similar to claim 5.
Regarding claim 16, see rejection similar to claim 6.
Regarding claim 17, see rejection similar to claim 7.
Claims 9-10 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Iyer in view of Ahmed, and further in view of US PG Pub 2015/0310642 to Kruglick (“Kruglick”).
Regarding claim 9, combination of Iyer and Ahmed meets all the limitations of the claim except “The method of claim 1, further comprising, generating a new content segment based on the new content structure by reconstructing the first object in a frame-by-frame manner.” However, Kruglick discloses (¶0020) that the system combines a plurality of graphic assets (objects) into one data structure where rasterization includes taking graphic assets described in a vector graphical format and converting the graphic assets into a raster image for output on a display device; (¶0046-¶0047) the system generates the atlas from graphic assets where the atlas is a partitioned graphics formatted for consumption by the client device. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Iyer and Ahmed’s systems by reconstructing first object in the frame as taught by Kruglick in order to support and capture complex details of the image with a high degree of realism.
Regarding claim 10, “The method of claim 9, wherein the reconstructing of the first object is performed by converting vectors associated with the first object to raster images” Kruglick discloses (¶0020, ¶0027) that the system combines a plurality of graphic assets (objects) into one data structure where rasterization includes taking graphic assets described in a vector graphical format and converting the graphic assets into a raster image for output on a display device.
Regarding claim 19, see rejection similar to claim 9.
Regarding claim 20, see rejection similar to claim 10.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PINKAL R CHOKSHI whose telephone number is (571)270-3317. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8am-5pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, BRIAN T PENDLETON can be reached at (571)272-7527. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/PINKAL R CHOKSHI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425
Prosecution Insights