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 .
Status of Claims
Pending
1-20
Objected
1,7- 8, 14-15, and 20
Rejected
1-20
Response to Amendment
This office action is responsive to the amendment filed on 17Feburary2026. As directed by the amendment: claims 1, 3-8, 10-15, and 17-20 has (have) been amended, no claims has/have been cancelled, and no new claims has/have been added. Thus, claims 1-20 are presently pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
The amendments to the claims affected the prior scope thereby necessitating further search and consideration. The instant office action has been made FINAL.
Applicant' s amendments, filed 17Feburary2026, have overcome the rejections of claims 1-20 under 35 USC 101. Accordingly, the rejections have been withdrawn.
However the claims are replete with errors and thorough review should be conducted to address them. The attorney of record should note that some of the errors are listed below however not all are listed and prior 112b were not fully addressed.
Claim Objections
Claim(s) 1, 8, and 15 objected to because of the following informalities: The limitation "the one or more POIs" should read "the plurality of POIs" for the purpose of clarity and consistency. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim(s) 7, 14, and 20 objected to because of the following informalities: The limitation "the scenic path" should read "the plurality of scenic paths" for the purpose of clarity and consistency. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is 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.
Claims 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 15, and 19 contains the limitation "the intersection points" which is indefinite. It is unclear what the intersection points are referring to since consecutive intersection points and distance intersection points are introduced but not intersection points.
Claim 7, 14, and 20 recites the limitation "the min-max hull method". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 10 and 12 recites the limitation "the at least one route-generating processor". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim(s) 2, 4, 9, 11, and 16-18 is/are rejected due to being dependent on a rejected base claim.
Claims are replete with errors and thorough review should be conducted to address them.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 8, and 15 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: The prior art fails to teach or render obvious the invention as essentially claimed.
Johnson US 20210172753 were considered most pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Johnson discloses,
Claims 1, 8, and 15 - A system for generating and presenting scenic routes in a virtual environment, the system generating scenic views in a two-dimensional (2D) space corresponding to the virtual environment(Fig. 5 shows a virtual environment in a 2d space); and providing the scenic views via a user interface to enable interactive navigation of the generated scenic routes generating([0078] Each of the candidate routes may be used to navigate from the starting location to the destination location), comprising: a scenic route-finding unit(60) that is configured to connect with an input data source through a network(Fig. 1 shows all components are connected via the network), wherein the scenic route-finding unit comprises, a memory(Fig. 1 shows memory 64 is inside 60) that stores a set of instructions([0038] The memory 64 stores instructions executable on the processors 62 that make up a scenic route generation engine 68); and a processor(Fig. 1 shows processor 62 is inside 60) that is configured to execute the set of instructions([0038] The memory 64 stores instructions executable on the processors 62 that make up a scenic route generation engine 68) and is configured to receive input data from the input data source(Fig. 1 shows the processor 62 is connected to 20, 22, 24, 30 ,36, and 38 via the network), wherein the input data comprises at least one media content image with a plurality of points of interest (POIs)( [0062] The scenic route generation engine 68 may generate the visibility metric 212 for a landmark from the road segment by analyzing imagery from the map database 30), and a user preference comprising a desired length of a scenic route to be generated or a maximum number of bisectors([0088] The user may select a user control on the client device 12 indicating a preference for the fastest route or for the scenic route which means the user can select a desired length of a route); determine, using a condition, a plurality of scenic points in the at least one media content image based on coordinates of the plurality of POIs([0101] The scenic route generation server 60 may then obtain characteristics of the road segments within the set of candidate routes which have not been assigned scenic metrics. For example, the characteristics may be obtained from a map data server that stores map feature data, from a photo sharing server indicating locations of viewpoints for photographs, from reviews, blogs, search results, from a weather database, etc), generate a plurality of scenic paths for each scenic point by forming lines between the first point and the second point(Fig. 4 shows that lines are formed between the first and second points), and determining bisectors of each line(Fig. 4 shows the paths intersect with each other).
However, none of the prior art discloses or renders obvious the further combination of execute a random selection operation to select each pair of first-second points from the plurality of POIs, wherein the random selection of first-second pairs is iteratively performed until the desired length is achieved, wherein the condition comprises each scenic point of the plurality of scenic points that is equidistant from a first point and a second point of a pair of first-second points, plotting (i) lines between consecutive intersection points in the plurality of scenic paths to identify edges in the plurality of scenic path; (ii) optimizing a scenic graph by removing distant intersection points from the intersection points by generating a bounding box around the one or more POIs, thereby reducing memory usage; and (iii) generating the scenic graph using identified edges and the intersection points, executing a shortest path generating algorithm comprising an alpha shape or a convex hull
Claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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 John Merino whose telephone number is (703)756-4721. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 11am-7pm.
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/John C Merino/Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3669
/Erin M Piateski/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3669