IDETAILED 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 .
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abbas (US. Patent App. Pub. No. 2017/0080346) in view of Lee (US. Patent App. Pub. No. 2024/0181349, (foreign priority filing date)).
As per claim 1, Abbas teaches a method of enabling users to experience an extended reality-based social multiverse, comprising:
generating, by an extended reality system, a three-dimensional (3D) avatar of a user based on one of detection of the user in a camera feed associated with a camera on a user device, and auto generation using artificial intelligence (¶ [97], referring to Fig. 3-4, “The baseline avatar may be generated through capturing of a facial image via a camera within the user's electronic device upon which the SSSA is in execution”);
enabling, by the extended reality system, the user to create a virtual character, wherein the virtual character is created by overlaying at least one virtual skin on the 3D avatar of the user using one or more user-selectable options (Fig. 4C, ¶ [96-97], numeral 4400, “…the baseline avatar is generated from a user selection of a database of avatars as they wish their baseline avatar to be a character such as one from fantasy, mythical, cartoon, and anime realms. As such the user may select from other menus such as depicted in FIG. (typo) 4400”. See further Fig. 9, ¶ [105] for overlaying virtual skin on the 3D avatar);
providing, by the extended reality system, the user access to a verse of a plurality of verses (Further addressed below. See Fig. 14, ¶ [111], accessing the virtual world as depicted);
executing, by the extended reality system, an extended reality model that corresponds to the verse in response to the verse being accessed (Fig. 13-14, ¶ [110-111]).
Abbas does not expressly teach access to a verse of a plurality of verses, and modifying, by the extended reality system, the camera feed to resemble the verse thereby enabling the user to experience the extended reality-based social multiverse. Abbas does, however, teach enabling the user to experience the extended reality-based social multiverse as addressed above.
In a very similar method of generating avatar in an extended reality (see Abstract), Lee teaches the above features, i.e., access to a verse of a plurality of verses, and modifying, by the extended reality system, the camera feed to resemble the verse thereby enabling the user to experience the extended reality-based social multiverse (¶ [4-5], “…the metaverse is characterized by allowing an avatar (character) that resembles oneself to explore various virtual worlds”. See further ¶ [39-40]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the method as taught by Lee into the method as taught by Abbas as addressed above, the advantage of which is to use a metaverse system for providing an economic management system to a convergence space in which the real world and a virtual world are converged (¶ [8]).
(It is noted that the claimed “verse” above is interpreted as “virtual world” as is defined in the current specification at paragraph [0014]).
As per claim 2, the combined teachings of Abbas and Lee impliedly include wherein the 3D avatar of the user is generated based on a plurality of image processing methods and 3D rendering methods (Abbas, ¶ [239], avatar is created in three-dimensional (3D) model).
As per claim 3, as addressed, the combined Abbas-Lee also teach wherein enabling the user to create the virtual character comprises:
displaying, by the extended reality system, the one or more user-selectable options on the user device; and enabling, by the extended reality system, the user to select the one or more user-selectable options to perform one of accept the virtual character, replace a virtual skin with another virtual skin, apply additional virtual skins to the virtual character, and make alterations to the virtual character (Abbas, Fig. 4C, ¶ [96-97]).
As per claim 4, the combined Abbas-Lee also teaches wherein the alterations comprise a change in a skin tone of the virtual character (Abbas, Fig. 12, ¶ [109], “…the user has had their skin tone adjusted through the gaming software to match the characteristics of the character that they are playing”), a change in a hairstyle of the virtual character (Abbas, ¶ [5]), a change in a body shape of the virtual character, changes to a costume of the virtual character (Abbas, ¶ [5]), or addition of a plurality of cosmetic elements to the virtual character.
As per claim 5, the combined Abbas-Lee also teaches wherein the virtual skin alters one or more aspects of the 3D avatar of the user (as best understood by the examiner since the claimed aspects of the 3D avatar is not clearly defined, and thus interpreted as changing the appearance of the avatar according to the characters selected by the user as depicted in Fig. 4C by Abbas).
As per claim 6, the combined Abbas-Lee further teaches wherein the virtual character in the verse is associated with a character identifier that uniquely identifies the virtual character (Abbas, ¶ [126], avatar identifier).
As per claim 7, the combined Abbas-Lee does also impliedly teach wherein the verse comprises a plurality of characteristics and corresponds to an environment type (at best understood by the examiner as the scope of the characteristics or environment type is not clear, and therefore, the virtual environment taught by Abbas addressed above inherently includes those features).
As per claim 8, the combined Abbas-Lee also teach wherein the user is allowed to create a plurality of virtual characters corresponding to the plurality of verses (Abbas, ¶ [8], “a user may in fact have multiple avatars generated within one or more virtual environments”).
As per claim 9, the combined Abbas-Lee further teaches enabling, by the extended reality system, the user to create multiverse content in the verse with spontaneity, wherein the multiverse content comprises an act or an art performed by the user in the verse (Abbas, ¶ [101], content created within a social network, for example, link to audiovisual content posted by the user to whom the avatar relates. See also ¶ [65] for social media content that can be created by user).
As per claim 10, the combined Abbas-Lee does further teach enabling, by the extended reality system, the user to share the multiverse content to a plurality of users and form connections with other virtual characters in each of the plurality of verses, while maintaining pseudonymity (Abbas, ¶ [192]).
Although the combined Abbas-Lee does not explicitly teach enabling, by the extended reality system, the plurality of users to react to the multiverse content, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to do so since as recited in ¶ [64] by Abbas, the users can share interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections on social network, thus, implying at least exchanging of emotional thoughts or reaction via sharing content.
Claim 11 is similar in scope to claim 1 as addressed above with the exception of the communication interface, processor, and memory, which is also taught by Abbas shown in Fig. 2. Claim 11 is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 12, which is similar in scope to claim 2 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 13, which is similar in scope to claim 3 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 14, which is similar in scope to claim 4 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 15, which is similar in scope to claim 5 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 16, which is similar in scope to claim 6 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 17, which is similar in scope to claim 7 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 18, which is similar in scope to claim 8 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 19, which is similar in scope to claim 9 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 20, which is similar in scope to claim 10 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 21, which is similar in scope to claim 1 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hau H. Nguyen whose telephone number is: 571-272-7787. The examiner can normally be reached on MON-FRI from 8:30-5:30.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Tammy Goddard, can be reached on (571) 272-7773.
The fax number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HAU H NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2611