DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s response to the last Office Action, filed on 12/16/2025 has been entered and made of record.
Applicant’s amendments necessitated the new ground of rejection set forth herein; therefore, this action is made Final.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 12/16/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The Pereira reference has been added in response to amendments to the independent claims.
In the field of image-based search Pereira teaches comparing a first query fingerprint and a second query fingerprint. (Pereira teaches a video image-based search in which content of a video query generated on a user device is classified and used for image and information retrieval. Pereira recognizes that multiple user devices will often submit queries which match each other, see for example ¶ 0045, 0053 and 0061 which teach a tiered search system in which a query is searched within higher tier databases first, in order to improve search efficiency. ¶ 0085 and Fig. 6 teach an embodiment in which popular queries from previous query submissions are cached as FQ (found query) and UIQ (unidentified query) caches and are made to reside on tier 1 databases. These cached queries are previous/first queries which are compared with second/incoming client queries. ¶ 0098 and Fig 8A also teach similar ‘not identified queries (NID) queries’ cached on a database for comparison to incoming queries.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined Moraleda’s image-based search with Pereira’s image-based search. Moraleda already teaches matching first and second queries to one another in order to improve efficiency by removing need for a full database search when the second query matches the first. This is done by elevating the image fingerprint associated with a first query for prioritized matching. The second query is compared to this prioritized image fingerprint. The architecture of Moraleda’s system does not expressly compare the second query to the first query itself, but rather to the image content associated with first query. Pereira teaches expressly comparing the first and second queries. This cannot be considered a non-obvious improvement in view of the relevant prior art here. Using known engineering design, no “fundamental” operating principle of the teachings are changed; they continue to perform the same functions as originally taught prior to being combined.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 20, 21, 26, 27, 30, 31, 36, and 37 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-19 of U.S. Patent No. 10,929,671 in view of Moraleda (US PGPub 2009/0070302). Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other:
Regarding claims 20 and 30, U.S. Patent No. 10,929,671 discloses a method, comprising: obtaining a first query fingerprint associated with a first user device; (claim 1)
obtaining a second query fingerprint associated with a second user device; (claim 1)
comparing the first query fingerprint to the second query fingerprint to determine that the first query fingerprint matches the second query fingerprint; (claim 1, ‘determining, within an address space associated with the plurality of first addresses at a reference image database, a number of duplicate reference image feature descriptors’)
identifying a reference image stored in a reference database, identification comprising: (claim 1, ‘a candidate images retrieval module’.)
matching the first query fingerprint with a candidate fingerprint using, at least in part, a first image feature index generated for the reference database; and (claim 1, ‘determining, within an address space associated with the plurality of first addresses at a reference image database, a number of duplicate reference image feature descriptors’)
identifying the reference image based on an association between the candidate fingerprint and the reference image; and (‘determining information associated with the selected reference image feature descriptors’)
in response to the identification of the reference image stored in the reference database and based at least in part on the determination that the first query fingerprint matches the second query fingerprint, providing additional information associated with the reference image to the second user device for display to a second user. (claim 1, ‘providing the same information associated with the selected reference image feature descriptors to the second mobile device’)
In the field of image querying and retrieval Morelada provides a teaching of determining said the first query fingerprint matches the second query fingerprint (¶ 0108, 0119 and 0147 teach that initial image queries are used to organize the order of the query fingerprints and their associated documents according to recent timestamps and counts of image queries. In this way, subsequent queries from second user devices will find the frequently searched for documents more quickly to provide more efficient document matching, see Fig. 6A. Thus, the second image queries are matched to the first image query based on the timestamp, see ¶ 0119. Also ¶ 0123-0125 provides a direct teaching for the determination of a match between first and second image queries based on building the HPI (high priority index) from the first queries and determining a match of the second query to the HPI.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have combined the teaching of U.S. Patent No. 10,929,671 with Moraleda’s teaching for matching second queries to earlier queries. As noted above, U.S. Patent No. 10,929,671 already provides a claim limitation for explicitly returning the same result when the queries from a second device match an earlier query from a first device, but there is no explicit claim requirement for determining that match. The combination constitutes the repeatable and predictable result of simply applying Moraleda’s teachings for the purpose of accomplishing returning the same result with the second query based on the match, and also doing so in the efficient way in which Moraleda describes when a second device is used after the first. This cannot be considered a non-obvious improvement in view of the relevant prior art here. Using known engineering design, no “fundamental” operating principle of the teachings are changed; they continue to perform the same functions as originally taught prior to being combined.
Regarding claims 21, 26, 27, 31, 36, and 37 the instant application is similar to the reference patent’s claims 1, 10 and 19.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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) 20-39 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moraleda (US PGPub 2009/0070302) in view of Pereira (US PGPub 2012/0095958)
Regarding claim 20, Moraleda discloses a method, comprising: (Moraleda is a system for processing image queries from a plurality of mobile devices in order to identify the contents of an image, such as a document, by matching it to a reference document image in an index table and returning related information to the user, see Abstract, ¶ 0045 and 0048.)
obtaining a first query fingerprint associated with a first user device; (¶ 0046 teaches the input image query (first query fingerprint) and matches to the candidate document fingerprint at ¶ 0047 and 0048. Also see ¶ 0092 and 0113.)
obtaining a second query fingerprint associated with a second user device; (¶ 0046 teaches that second (and third) user devices are set up to obtain image query fingerprints.)
determining the first query fingerprint matches the second query fingerprint; (¶ 0108, 0119 and 0147 teach that initial image queries are used to organize the order of the query fingerprints and their associated documents according to recent timestamps and counts of image queries. In this way, subsequent queries from second user devices will find the frequently searched for documents more quickly to provide more efficient document matching, see Fig. 6A. Thus, the second image queries are matched to the first image query based on the timestamp, see ¶ 0119. Also ¶ 0123-0125 provides a direct teaching for the determination of a match between first and second image queries based on building the HPI (high priority index) from the first queries and determining a match of the second query to the HPI, “As shown in FIG. 6C, the HPI 411 is smaller than the general index 413, and contains a subset of the data within general index 413. The operation of acquisition unit 406 shown in FIG. 6C is such that a given image query is first sent to the HPI 411 for recognition, and if the HPI 411 is unable to recognize the image query, it is sent to the general index 413 for recognition. . . For example, there could be an HPI 411 for the most common image queries of the last 24 hours that would be searched first, and if no match is found, a second HPI 411 of the most common image queries of all time that would be searched next, and if no match is found, then the general index 413 would be searched.” Also see ¶ 0128. This process is a direct teaching for determining whether the first query fingerprint matches the second query fingerprint.)
identifying a reference image stored in a reference database, identification comprising: (Reference images associated with the document location in the index table is identified, see ¶ 0048 and 0113.)
matching the first query fingerprint with a candidate fingerprint using, at least in part, a first image feature index generated for the reference database; and (¶ 0046 teaches the input image query (first query fingerprint) and matches to the candidate document fingerprint at ¶ 0047 and 0048. Also see ¶ 0092 and 0113.)
identifying the reference image based on an association between the candidate fingerprint and the reference image; and (As above, ¶ 0046 teaches the input image query (first query fingerprint) and matches to the candidate document fingerprint at ¶ 0047 and 0048. Also see ¶ 0092 and 0113.)
in response to the identification of the reference image stored in the reference database and based at least in part on the determination that the first query fingerprint matches the second query fingerprint, providing additional information associated with the reference image to the second user device for display to a second user. (As above, the match between the first query fingerprint and the second query fingerprint provides the basis for an efficient document match. ¶ 0047 teaches that information such as the document page ID and location on page of the matching image area are returned to the user mobile device.)
As noted above, Morelada provides a teaching that first, second (and third) user devices are set up to obtain image query fingerprints (¶ 0046) and also provides a teaching that second image query fingerprints are matched to earlier first image query fingerprints, in order to improve query search efficiency (¶ 0119). It does not contain an express teaching in a single embodiment these first and second image query fingerprints are specifically from first and second user devices respectively. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have combined Moraleda’s teachings for using multiple devices with its teaching for matching second images to earlier images. The combination constitutes the repeatable and predictable result of simply applying Moraleda’s teachings for the purpose of improving recognition efficiency when multiple devices are used. This cannot be considered a non-obvious improvement in view of the relevant prior art here. Using known engineering design, no “fundamental” operating principle of the teachings are changed; they continue to perform the same functions as originally taught prior to being combined.
In the field of image-based search Pereira teaches comparing a first query fingerprint and a second query fingerprint. (Pereira teaches a video image-based search in which content of a video query generated on a user device is classified and used for image and information retrieval. Pereira recognizes that multiple user devices will often submit queries which match each other, see for example ¶ 0045, 0053 and 0061 which teach a tiered search system in which a query is searched within higher tier databases first, in order to improve search efficiency. ¶ 0085 and Fig. 6 teach an embodiment in which popular queries from previous query submissions are cached as FQ (found query) and UIQ (unidentified query) caches and are made to reside on tier 1 databases. These cached queries are previous/first queries which are compared with second/incoming client queries. ¶ 0098 and Fig 8A also teach similar ‘not identified queries (NID) queries’ cached on a database for comparison to incoming queries.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined Moraleda’s image-based search with Pereira’s image-based search. Moraleda already teaches matching first and second queries to one another in order to improve efficiency by removing need for a full database search when the second query matches the first. This is done by elevating the image fingerprint associated with a first query for prioritized matching. The second query is compared to this prioritized image fingerprint. The architecture of Moraleda’s system does not expressly compare the second query to the first query itself, but rather to the image content associated with first query. Pereira teaches expressly comparing the first and second queries. This cannot be considered a non-obvious improvement in view of the relevant prior art here. Using known engineering design, no “fundamental” operating principle of the teachings are changed; they continue to perform the same functions as originally taught prior to being combined.
Regarding claim 21, the above combination teaches the method of claim 20, wherein: the second query fingerprint is generated from a second query image; (As above, ¶ 0046 teaches that second (and third) user devices are set up to obtain image query fingerprints.)
the method further comprises determining that the reference image matches the second query image; and (As above, subsequent queries from second user devices will find the frequently searched for documents more quickly to provide more efficient document matching, see Fig. 6A.)
the additional information is provided to the second user device based in part on the determination. (As above, ¶ 0047 teaches that information such as the document page ID and location on page of the matching image area around returned to the user mobile device.)
Regarding claim 22, the above combination teaches the method of claim 21, wherein: determining that the reference image matches the second query image further comprises determining a pose of the reference image relative to the second query image; and (¶ 0048 teaches determining the pose/location on the page corresponding to the image query.)
the pose is provided to the second user device based in part on the determination. (This location is provided the device at ¶ 0047 and 0048.)
Regarding claim 23, the above combination teaches the method of claim 20, wherein: the first query fingerprint is associated with a first query; (see rejection of claim 20)
the method further comprises registering the second user device or the second user with the first query; and (See matching of the second query from the second user device with the first query described by the combination at rejection claim 20.)
the additional information is provided to all users or devices registered with the first query. (As above, the match between the first query fingerprint and the second query fingerprint provides the basis for an efficient document match or registration. ¶ 0047 teaches that information such as the document page ID and location on page of the matching image area are returned to the user mobile device.)
Regarding claim 24, the above combination teaches the method of claim 20, wherein: the method further comprises: storing, in a cache database, the first query fingerprint and a mapping between the first query fingerprint and the reference image; (See Fig. 6A and 6B and ¶ 0108.)
obtaining a third query fingerprint; (As above, ¶ 0046 teaches that second (and third) user devices are set up to obtain second and third image query fingerprints.)
identifying the reference image using the first query fingerprint and the third query fingerprint and the mapping; and (As in rejection of claim 20 above, the second and third image queries are matched to the first image query based on the timestamp, see ¶ 0119.)
in response to the identification of the reference image using the first query fingerprint, the third query fingerprint and the mapping, providing the additional information to a third device associated with the third query fingerprint. (¶ 0047 teaches that information such as the document page ID and location on page of the matching image area around returned to the user mobile device.)
Regarding claim 25, the above combination teaches the method of claim 24, wherein: identifying the reference image using the first query fingerprint and the third query fingerprint comprises matching the first query fingerprint with the third query fingerprint using a multi-part search: a first part of the multi-part search including obtaining the first query fingerprint using a second image feature index generated for the cache database; and (As above, ¶ 0108, 0119 and 0147 teach that initial image queries are used to organize the order of the query fingerprints and their associated documents according to recent timestamps and counts of image queries, re-assigning the image feature index to a second image feature index.)
a second part of the multi-part search including determining the reference image matches a third query image, the third query fingerprint being generated from the third query image. (See rejection of claim 24.)
Regarding claim 26, the above combination teaches the method of claim 20, wherein: obtaining the second query fingerprint associated with the second user device comprises: receiving a second query from the second user device, the second query including the second query fingerprint. (As above, ¶ 0046 teaches that second (and third) user devices are set up to obtain first and second image query fingerprints.)
Regarding claim 27, the above combination teaches the method of claim 20, wherein: in response to the identification of the reference image stored in the reference database and based at least in part on the match between the first query fingerprint and the second query fingerprint, the reference image is provided to the second user device for displaying to a second user. (See rejection of claim 20 and 21)
Regarding claim 28, the above combination teaches the method of claim 20, wherein: in response to the identification of the reference image stored in the reference database and based at least in part on the match between the first query fingerprint and the second query fingerprint, an annotated version of the reference image is provided to the second user device for displaying to a second user. (See rejection of claim 20 and 21. That an annotated version of the document is provided is taught at ¶ 0083 as well as ¶ 0074.)
Regarding claim 29, the above combination teaches the method of claim 28, wherein: the annotated version of the reference image includes selectable tags linking to portions the additional information. (That a selectable tag linked document is provided is taught at ¶ 0083.)
Claims 30-39 are the non-transitory computer-readable medium claims corresponding to the method of claims 20-29. ¶ 0043 teaches using computer-readable media and ¶ 0066 teaches a processor. Remaining limitations are rejected similarly. See detailed analysis above.
Contact Conclusion
Based on these facts, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 extension fee 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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Raphael Schwartz whose telephone number is (571)270-3822. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday 9am-5pm CT.
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/RAPHAEL SCHWARTZ/ Examiner, Art Unit 2671