Prosecution Insights
Last updated: October 04, 2026
Application No. 18/815,870

INTERACTION CONTROL METHOD FOR DETECTING A SETTING OBJECT IN A REAL-TIME IMAGE, ELECTRONIC DEVICE AND TERMINAL DEVICE CONNECTED THERETO BY COMMUNICATION, AND NON-TRANSITORY COMPUTER-READABLE RECORDING MEDIUM

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Aug 27, 2024
Priority
Sep 23, 2023 — provisional 63/540,050 +1 more
Examiner
DEBROW, JAMES J
Art Unit
Tech Center
Assignee
Compal Electronics Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
70%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
1y 2m
Est. Remaining
96%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 70% — above average
70%
Career Allowance Rate
364 granted / 520 resolved
+10.0% vs TC avg
Strong +26% interview lift
Without
With
+25.7%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 3m
Avg Prosecution
24 currently pending
Career history
537
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
10.5%
-29.5% vs TC avg
§103
59.5%
+19.5% vs TC avg
§102
22.3%
-17.7% vs TC avg
§112
4.5%
-35.5% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 520 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . This Office Action is responsive to: Application filed 27 Aug. 2024 Claims 1-15 are pending in this case. Claims 1, 9, 10, 14 and 15 are independent claims 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 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Publicover et al. (Pat. No.: US 11,941,185 B1; Filed: Dec. 29, 2022) (hereinafter “Publicover”) in view of Woody (Pub. No.: US 2008/0070682 A1; Filed: Aug. 15, 2007). Regarding independent claims 1, 9 and 15, Publicover disclose an interaction control method for detecting a setting object in a real-time image, executed by an electronic device reading an executable code, and executing the following steps: image recognition: recognizing a default object, a reference object and a setting object at the same time by artificial intelligence in the real-time image taken by a photographic unit of the electronic device (col 3 lines 20-36; col 4 lines 24-40; col 10 lines 1-13 & 50-63; col 21 line 25-col 22 line 6); interaction area setting: setting a plurality of interaction areas according to the range occupied by the reference object in the real-time image by the electronic device, and each interaction area corresponds to an interaction content (col 3 lines 20-36; col 4 lines 24-40; col 10 lines 1-13; col 21 line 25-col 22 line 6). Publicover does not expressly disclose movement detection: recognizing the default object holding the setting object in the real-time image with artificial intelligence, and detecting the movement of the setting object between the plurality of interaction areas on the reference object, and when the movement meets a preset condition, the electronic device triggers a preset instruction corresponding to the interaction content; and playing execution: executing the preset instruction by the electronic device for playing a sound response. Woody teach movement detection: recognizing the default object holding the setting object in the real-time image with artificial intelligence, and detecting the movement of the setting object between the plurality of interaction areas on the reference object, and when the movement meets a preset condition, the electronic device triggers a preset instruction corresponding to the interaction content (0063; 0073; 0082; 0106; 0123; 0135 ); and playing execution: executing the preset instruction by the electronic device for playing a sound response (0089-0091; 0137). Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Woody with Publicover for the benefit of providing interactive, educational, and entertaining games that young children and/or persons with disabilities can play easily and learn from effectively. Regarding dependent claim 2, Publicover disclose the interaction control method according to claim 1, wherein in the step of image recognition, a first target frame covering the default object is defined, and a second target frame covering the setting object is defined; in the step of movement detection, when the first target frame and the second target frame intersect, the default object is confirmed to hold the setting object in the real-time image, and the movement of the setting object is detecting a movement trajectory of a center point of the second target frame, and comprises detecting a relative change in the area size of the second target frame (col 16 line 16-24; col 18 lines36-50). Regarding dependent claim 3, Publicover in view of Woody disclose the interaction control method according to claim 2, wherein in the step of movement detection, when the setting object is detected to have a movement from one of the interaction areas to another one of the interaction areas, or is detected to move from one of the interaction areas to another one of the interaction areas and stay for a predetermined time, it is regarded to meet the preset condition (0063; 0073; 0082; 0106; 0123; 0135). Regarding dependent claim 4, Publicover in view of Woody disclose the interaction control method according to claim 3, further comprising a step of event setting, the step of event setting is setting an interaction event to connect a plurality of interaction contents with relevance in series, the preset instructions corresponding to the plurality of interaction contents with relevance are triggered sequentially or randomly according to the setting of the interaction event, and the sound response played by the previous interaction content after executing the corresponding instruction guides the default object to move the setting object to the interaction area corresponding to the latter interaction content (0089-0091; 0137). Regarding dependent claim 5, Publicover in view of Woody disclose the interaction control method according to claim 4, wherein the reference object is a physical pad, the physical pad is one or more, the one or more physical pad comprises an access code corresponding to the interaction event, the electronic device recognizes the access code to access the position information corresponding to each interaction area on the physical pad and sound information of each interaction content (0140; Fig. 20). Regarding dependent claim 6, Publicover in view of Woody disclose the interaction control method according to claim 3, wherein in the step of playing execution, when the electronic device executes the preset instruction to play the sound response, if the setting object is detected to move according to a preset trajectory, the electronic device generates a playing control signal, the electronic device controls the playing of the sound response according to the playing control signal, and/or switches the interaction event (0089-0091; 0137). Regarding dependent claim 7, Publicover in view of Woody disclose the interaction control method according to claim 5, wherein the physical pad has a plurality of visible lattices on the surface, the position of each lattice corresponds to one of the interaction areas, and the corresponding interaction content is displayed in each lattice (0140; Fig. 20). Regarding dependent claim 8, Publicover in view of Woody disclose the interaction control method according to claim 4, wherein in the step of movement detection, if the setting object stays outside the range of the interaction area for a predetermined time in the real-time image, the electronic device triggers a guiding signal, and plays a guiding sound to move to the interaction area according to the guiding signal (0089-0091; 0137). Regarding independent claim 10, Publicover disclose an electronic device for executing an interaction control detection to a setting object in a real-time image, comprising: a photographic unit, for taking images (col 3 line 65-col 4 line 40; col line 1-10; col 15 lines 23-61); an intelligent recognition unit, electrically connected with the photographic unit, and recognizing a real-time image comprising a default object, a reference object and a setting object (col 3 lines 20-36; col 4 lines 24-40; col 10 lines 1-13 & 50-63; col 21 line 25-col 22 line 6); and an intelligent processing unit, the intelligent processing unit is electrically connected with the photographic unit and/or the intelligent recognition unit to read the real-time image, and reads an executable code and executes it, the intelligent processing unit comprises : an interaction area setting module, setting a plurality of interaction areas according to the range occupied by the reference object in the real-time image, and each interaction area corresponds to an interaction content (col 3 lines 20-36; col 4 lines 24-40; col 10 lines 1-13 & 50-63; col 21 line 25-col 22 line 6); Publicover does not expressly disclose a movement detection module, recognizing the default object holding the setting object in the real-time image with artificial intelligence, and detecting the movement of the setting object between the plurality of interaction areas on the reference object, and when the movement meets a preset condition, the electronic device triggers a preset instruction corresponding to the interaction content; and a playing execution module, executing the preset instruction for playing a sound response. Woody teach a movement detection module, recognizing the default object holding the setting object in the real-time image with artificial intelligence, and detecting the movement of the setting object between the plurality of interaction areas on the reference object, and when the movement meets a preset condition, the electronic device triggers a preset instruction corresponding to the interaction content (0063; 0073; 0082; 0106; 0123; 0135 ); and a playing execution module, executing the preset instruction for playing a sound response (0089-0091; 0137). Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Woody with Publicover for the benefit of providing interactive, educational, and entertaining games that young children and/or persons with disabilities can play easily and learn from effectively. Regarding dependent claim 11, Publicover in view of Woody disclose the electronic device according to claim 10, wherein the intelligent processing unit comprises an event setting module, electrically connected with the interaction area setting module, the movement detection module and the playing execution module, the event setting module sets an interaction event to connect a plurality of interaction contents with relevance in series, the preset instructions corresponding to the plurality of interaction contents with relevance are triggered sequentially or randomly according to the setting of the interaction event, and the sound response played by the previous interaction content after executing the corresponding instruction guides the default object to move the setting object to the interaction area corresponding to the latter interaction content (0063; 0073; 0082; 0089-0091; 0137; 0106; 0123; 0135). Regarding dependent claim 12, Publicover in view of Woody disclose the electronic device according to claim 10, wherein the electronic device further comprises a preset trajectory database, the preset trajectory database can store a plurality of preset trajectories through setting, when the setting object is detected that the movement trajectory meets any one of the preset trajectories, the electronic device generates a playing control signal, the electronic device controls the playing of the sound response according to the playing control signal, and/or switches the interaction event (0089-0091; 0137). Regarding dependent claim 13, Publicover in view of Woody disclose the electronic device according to claim 10, wherein the default object comprises a child, the setting object comprises a doll, and the intelligent recognition unit further comprises a default object recognition module, a reference object recognition module and a setting object recognition module (0080-0084; 0089-0091; 0121; 0137); wherein, the reference object recognition module is used to recognize the setting object in the real-time image (0080-0084; 0089-0091; 0121; 0137). Regarding independent claim 14, Publicover in view of Woody disclose a terminal device in communication with the electronic device according to claim 10, the terminal device is equipped with an application program, the terminal device executes the application program to connect with the electronic device by communication, wherein the terminal device provides a user interface when executing the application program, and the user can set the interaction content and/or play the sound response through the user interface (0080-0086; 0089-0091; 0121; 0137). NOTE It is noted that any citations to specific, pages, columns, lines, or figures in the prior art references and any interpretation of the reference should not be considered to be limiting in any way. A reference is relevant for all it contains and may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill in the art. See MPEP 2123. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMES J DEBROW whose telephone number is (571)272-5768. The examiner can normally be reached on 09:00 - 06:00. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, William Bashore can be reached on 571-272-4088. 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 Patent Center and the Private Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from Patent Center or Private PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Patent Center or Private PAIR to authorized users only. Should you have questions about access to Patent Center or the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). 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) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated- interview-request-air-form. /James J Debrow/ Primary Patent Examiner Art Unit 2174 571-272-5768
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Prosecution Timeline

Aug 27, 2024
Application Filed
Aug 25, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
70%
Grant Probability
96%
With Interview (+25.7%)
3y 3m (~1y 2m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 520 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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