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
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-3, 5-6, 8-10, 12-14, 16-17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Harrison et al (2019/0311480).
Consider claims 1, 10 and 12, Harrison et al teach a method, apparatus and computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions, which when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform actions for controlling a zoom level of a video stream provided by a first computing device in a communications network, which video stream is displayed at least by a second computing device operating to provide a visual digital meeting, and which video stream is provided by a camera associated with the first computing device (par. 0006; “An intelligent communication device may be used for audio/visual communications, such as live or video chats or pre-recorded audio/visual presentations. The intelligent communication device may be a dedicated communication device that resides in a user's home or office. The intelligent communication device may have a touch sensitive display screen, speakers, one or more cameras, and one or more microphones. The device may access user information in accordance with privacy settings specified by the device's owner and each user that comes within the visual field of the device”; par. 0007; “The intelligent communication device may have internal processing that enables it to make automated cinematic decisions that imitate the cinematic decisions a human would make. Such cinematic decisions may include any choice a human director would make if she were controlling the camera(s) and microphone(s) (e.g., generating cinematic cuts), as well as any decision that might be available by way of a video editor (e.g., choosing to apply visual effects on the fly). Such choices may include zooming in on a single person if that person is talking and has specified that she allows the device to zoom in on her (e.g., in a privacy settings interface associated with the social-networking system), panning or cutting to another person, zooming out on a scene that has a lot of activity, beamforming a microphone to a particular sound source if the device owner and sound source(s) allow such functionality, and other suitable decisions. To make these determinations, an intelligent director may access a descriptive model of a current audio-visual communication session (“AV communication session”) between two or more users”), the method comprising: receiving from the second computing device a request for zooming the video stream to be displayed at the second computing device (par. 0034; “the intelligent communication device is displaying a scene with two people who are talking to each other and to a user participant associated with intelligent communication device 130. The intelligent communication device 130 allows the user to interact with it in various ways, including tapping on a particular object or person on the display screen and zoom in on that person or object. As an example and not by way of limitation, the user may tap somewhere inside box 310 if the user desires to zoom in on the person inside box 310”; thus the user request by tapping on the box 310), determining a type of the visual digital meeting (par. 0028; “par. 0092; “social graph 1700 includes an edge 1706 indicating a friend relation between user nodes 1702 of user “A” and user “B” and an edge indicating a friend relation between user nodes 1702 of user “C” and user “B.” Although this disclosure describes or illustrates particular edges 1706 with particular attributes connecting particular user nodes 1702, this disclosure contemplates any suitable edges 1706 with any suitable attributes connecting user nodes 1702. As an example and not by way of limitation, an edge 1706 may represent a friendship, family relationship, business or employment relationship, fan relationship (including, e.g., liking, etc.), follower relationship, visitor relationship (including, e.g., accessing, viewing, checking-in, sharing, etc.), subscriber relationship, superior/subordinate relationship, reciprocal relationship, non-reciprocal relationship, another suitable type of relationship, or two or more such relationships. Moreover, although this disclosure generally describes nodes as being connected, this disclosure also describes users or concepts as being connected”; thus implies that the audio/visual communication between the participant as personal or business), identifying presence of a face and/or object in the video stream provided by the camera (par. 0041; “The intelligent communication device 130 may determine which people in the room have opted in to sharing their social-networking information using facial or voice recognition, or any other suitable type of recognition”), deciding whether or not the request for zooming fulfils one or more first criteria based on the determined type of the visual digital meeting and the identified presence of the face and/or object in the video stream, when the request for zooming fulfils the one or more first criteria allowing the requested zooming of the video stream to be displayed at the second computing device (par. 0028; 0034; “Such cinematic decisions may include any choice a human director would make if she were controlling the camera(s) and microphone(s) (e.g., generating cinematic cuts), as well as any decision that might be available by way of a video editor (e.g., choosing to apply visual effects on the fly). Such choices may include zooming in on a single person if that person is talking and has specified that she allows the device to zoom in on her (e.g., in a privacy settings interface associated with the social-networking system), panning or cutting to another person, zooming out on a scene that has a lot of activity, beamforming a microphone to a particular sound source, applying real-time special effects, and other suitable decisions. To make these determinations, an intelligent director may access a descriptive model of a current AV communication session between two or more users”; par. 0041; “The intelligent communication device 130 may determine which people in the room have opted in to sharing their social-networking information using facial or voice recognition, or any other suitable type of recognition. The device 130 initially accesses a privacy log that has been expressly configured by the user. It may do this without accessing the user's identity because unique identifying data associated with the user's face or voice is stored in association with the privacy log so that the system can determine which log to access, but the user's name and other personal information is not stored with the privacy log. Only when the user has expressly allowed the sharing of social networking information with the device 130 may the device access the social-networking information stored in the social graph. Here, information is only pulled from the social graph—no information about any user is sent by the device to any remote server or any other remote device. If no privacy settings exist for a particular person (e.g., because they are not a user of the social-networking system), the device will not perform access on the person. If a person appears frequently and/or prominently in an AV communication session, the intelligent director may determine that she is important to the other participants in the AV communication session. She may even be the owner of the intelligent communication device. Thus, the intelligent director may instruct the camera and microphone to focus on her more than other people in the room, who may appear less frequently or less prominently”), and when the request for zooming does not fulfil the one or more first criteria denying the requested zooming of the video stream from being displayed at the second computing device (par. 0028; 0034; “if a first user has expressly specified that he or she allows a “following feature,” a second user may tap on the screen of the device at a location corresponding to the first user, and the second user's tap may cause the intelligent communication device to follow the second user as he moves around the environment while still maintaining a tight, zoomed-in view of the second user. The first user's tap may also cause the audio coming from the person to be amplified relative to other noises in the environment, if the second user has expressly opted in to allowing his or her voice to be amplified relative to other sounds”; par. 0052; “A participant may also set various privacy preferences. For example, a participant may specify that the intelligent communication device never send visual data of the participant's bathroom (which may be visible by the intelligent communication device). As another example, a participant may specify that the intelligent director never identify her using social-networking data or by any other means. The participant may elect to block the social-networking system interface 135 from accessing information related to the user on the social graph. As another example and not by way of limitation, a user may set privacy preferences with the online social network that will be followed by the intelligent communication device”).
Consider claims 2 and 13, Harrison et al teach wherein the method is performed by the first computing device, the second computing device, or a server node managing the video stream (par. 0028; “The intelligent director may reside in the intelligent communication device or it may reside in a remote server”).
Consider claims 3 and 14, Harrison et al teach wherein the determining of the type of the visual digital meeting comprises determining any one or more out of: a relation between the first computing device and the second computing device, and a relation between a user of the first computing device and a user of the second computing device (par. 0028; “par. 0092; “social graph 1700 includes an edge 1706 indicating a friend relation between user nodes 1702 of user “A” and user “B” and an edge indicating a friend relation between user nodes 1702 of user “C” and user “B.” Although this disclosure describes or illustrates particular edges 1706 with particular attributes connecting particular user nodes 1702, this disclosure contemplates any suitable edges 1706 with any suitable attributes connecting user nodes 1702. As an example and not by way of limitation, an edge 1706 may represent a friendship, family relationship, business or employment relationship, fan relationship (including, e.g., liking, etc.), follower relationship, visitor relationship (including, e.g., accessing, viewing, checking-in, sharing, etc.), subscriber relationship, superior/subordinate relationship, reciprocal relationship, non-reciprocal relationship, another suitable type of relationship, or two or more such relationships. Moreover, although this disclosure generally describes nodes as being connected, this disclosure also describes users or concepts as being connected”).
Consider claims 5 and 16, Harrison et al teach wherein the one or more first criteria based on the determined type of the visual digital meeting, and any identified presence of a face and/or object in the video stream comprise any one or more out of: whether or not presence of a face and/or object has been indicated by a first user of the first computing device to be hidden, whether or not a face identified as present belongs to a kid, whether or not a face identified as present belongs to a family member of the first user of the first computing device, whether or not the determined type of the visual digital meeting is associated with professional visual digital meeting, whether or not the determined type of the visual digital meeting is associated with private visual digital meeting, whether or not a determined relation between the first computing device and the second computing device is unknown, whether or not a determined relation between the first user of the first computing device and a second user of the second computing device is unknown (par. 0052; “A participant may also set various privacy preferences. For example, a participant may specify that the intelligent communication device never send visual data of the participant's bathroom (which may be visible by the intelligent communication device). As another example, a participant may specify that the intelligent director never identify her using social-networking data or by any other means. The participant may elect to block the social-networking system interface 135 from accessing information related to the user on the social graph. As another example and not by way of limitation, a user may set privacy preferences with the online social network that will be followed by the intelligent communication device”).
Consider claims 6 and 17, Harrison et al teach wherein the determining of the type of the visual digital meeting is based on any one or more out of: meeting-associated email addresses of the visual digital meeting, a meeting subject of the visual digital meeting, a contact list of a first user of the first computing device, any one or more out of: an on-device and/or in-cloud photo album, friend lists, social network contact entries, of the first user of the first computing device (par. 0028; “par. 0092; “social graph 1700 includes an edge 1706 indicating a friend relation between user nodes 1702 of user “A” and user “B” and an edge indicating a friend relation between user nodes 1702 of user “C” and user “B.” Although this disclosure describes or illustrates particular edges 1706 with particular attributes connecting particular user nodes 1702, this disclosure contemplates any suitable edges 1706 with any suitable attributes connecting user nodes 1702. As an example and not by way of limitation, an edge 1706 may represent a friendship, family relationship, business or employment relationship, fan relationship (including, e.g., liking, etc.), follower relationship, visitor relationship (including, e.g., accessing, viewing, checking-in, sharing, etc.), subscriber relationship, superior/subordinate relationship, reciprocal relationship, non-reciprocal relationship, another suitable type of relationship, or two or more such relationships. Moreover, although this disclosure generally describes nodes as being connected, this disclosure also describes users or concepts as being connected”).
Consider claim 8, Harrison et al teach wherein the second computing device, is a server device (par. 0125; “As example and not by way of limitation, computer system 1800 may be an embedded computer system, a system-on-chip (SOC), a single-board computer system (SBC) (such as, for example, a computer-on-module (COM) or system-on-module (SOM)), a desktop computer system, a laptop or notebook computer system, an interactive kiosk, a mainframe, a mesh of computer systems, a mobile telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a server, a tablet computer system, an augmented/virtual reality device, or a combination of two or more of these”).
Consider claims 9 and 20, Harrison et al teach wherein the request for zooming the displayed video stream to be displayed at the second computing device is a request for zooming in (par. 0028; “Such choices may include zooming in on a single person if that person is talking and has specified that she allows the device to zoom in on her”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 7, 15 and 18 are 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/Quoc D Tran/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2691
April 28, 2026
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