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
Claims 1-30 have been examined.
Information Disclosure Statement
The examiner reviewed IDS document(s) received on 9/20/24, carefully considering the art cited within the document(s).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claim(s) 19-24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. As described below (see 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection), the disclosure does not provide adequate structure of the claimed means plus function elements.
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) 19-24 invoke(s) 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. However, the written description fails to disclose the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the entire claimed function and to clearly link the structure, material, or acts to the function.
Specifically, the examiner was unable to find the description of
“means for providing, to the application, the processed image” (claim 19)
“means for retrieving the image from a storage” (claim 20)
“means for receiving, from the application, a request for the permission to access the one or more categories of image content” (claim 21)
“means for obscuring the one or more portions” (claim 23)
“means for processing the image to modify the one or more portions” (claim 19) (in light of claim 23 reciting that this means comprises “means for obscuring the one or more portions”).
The various actions corresponding to the means cited above are discussed in the specification but they are lucking details enable the reader to determine the structure of these means and, as a result, determining the metes and bounds of the claims. Thus, the examiner is unable to interpret the exact scope of claim limitations under and, therefore, the claim(s) is/are indefinite and is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph.
Applicant may:
(a) Amend the claim so that the claim limitation will no longer be interpreted as a limitation under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph;
(b) Amend the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites what structure, material, or acts perform the entire claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(c) Amend the written description of the specification such that it clearly links the structure, material, or acts disclosed therein to the function recited in the claim, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)).
If applicant is of the opinion that the written description of the specification already implicitly or inherently discloses the corresponding structure, material, or acts and clearly links them to the function so that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize what structure, material, or acts perform the claimed function, applicant should clarify the record by either:
(a) Amending the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function and clearly links or associates the structure, material, or acts to the claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(b) Stating on the record what the corresponding structure, material, or acts, which are implicitly or inherently set forth in the written description of the specification, perform the claimed function. For more information, see 37 CFR 1.75(d) and MPEP §§ 608.01(o) and 2181.
Appropriate correction/clarification is required.
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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6-8, 10-12, 15-17, 19-21, 23-27 and 29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(2) as being anticipated by Anasta (USPUB 20230087884).
Anasta teaches preventing screen shot application of a user device to captures sensitive information (see Summary).
Specifically, as per claim 1, as shown in Fig. 1C and described in the associated text, screenshot request is intercepted and hold until the sensitive information on the display and/or within the graphical user interface is masked. Fig. 1D and the associated text shows the modified image of the content including content within enabled access and not including content within the one or more categories that is provided to the screenshot.
As per claims 10, 19 and 25 a skilled in the art would readily appreciate that computing devices operate by using processors to execute instructions stored in computing media, and the computing modules (set of instructions/hardware components) offering the discussed functionalities meet the limitations of the claimed “means”. Also, the broadest reasonable interpretation of Anasta’s teaching addresses the limitations of claims 2-3, 6-8, 11-12, 15-17, 20-21, 23-24, 26-27 and 29.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6-8, 10-12, 15-16, 19-21, 23-27 and 29-30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as being anticipated by Olejnik (K. Olejnik, I. Dacosta, J. S. Machado, K. Huguenin, M. E. Khan and J. -P. Hubaux, "SmarPer: Context-Aware and Automatic Runtime-Permissions for Mobile Devices," 2017 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP), San Jose, CA, USA, 2017, pp. 1058-1076, doi: 10.1109/SP.2017.25)
As per claim 1, Olejnik teaches a method for image processing, the method comprising: receiving, from an application, a request to access an image, wherein the application is enabled access to one or more categories of image content (app request information that they need, the information may be images, e.g., see pg. 1061-1063, etc.); processing the image to modify one or more portions of the image that include content not within the one or more categories (blurring or remove detected faces or text, pg. 1061-1063, for example); and providing, to the application, the processed image (the distort images are returned. Also see Fig. 1 and System Flow on pg. 1061).
Teaching regarding camera and/or storage device on pg. 1062-1063 address the limitation of claim 2, app requests and data (images/photos etc.), obfuscation/distortion, etc. (pg. 1062-1063) address the limitation of claims 3 and 6-8; and claims 10-12, 15-17, 19-21, 23-27 and 29-30 are substantially similar (a skilled in the art would readily appreciate that computing devices operate by using processors to execute instructions stored in computing media, and the computing modules (set of instructions/hardware components) offering the discussed functionalities meet the limitations of the claimed “means”) to claims addressed above and they are similarly rejected.
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 of this title, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claim(s) 5 and 14, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Olejnik or Anasta (USPUB 20230087884).
Olejnik teaches providing image content to the application as discussed above.
Olejnik does not teach providing a list of a plurality of categories of image content to the application as required by the claim language. However, these differences are only found in the nonfunctional descriptive material and are not functionally involved in the steps recited. The image processing discussed above would be performed the same regardless of any additionally provided data, such as the list. Thus, this descriptive material will not distinguish the claimed invention from the prior art in terms of patentability, see In re Gulack, 703 F.2d 1381, 1385, 217 USPQ 401, 404 (Fed. Cir. 1983); In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 32 USPQ2d 1031 (Fed. Cir. 1994) and including any particular (additional) type of data to the application would have been obvious merely an obvious variant art at the time the application was filed while offering the predictable benefit of customization.
Claim(s) 4, 13, 22 and 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Olejnik in view of Baldwin (USPUB 20140250126).
Olejnik teaches a request for permission to access the one or more categories of image content as discussed above.
While Olejnik discusses prompting a user to grant the permission (see Fig. 2 and the associated text), this teaching is directed towards location access and not (necessarily/explicitly towards) images. However, extending prompting a user to grant the permission related to images would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed as illustrate Baldwin (see para 33 and 47, for example).Thus, even if Olejnik did not contemplated, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to extend Olejnik’ prompting user to grant permission teaching to include prompting related to images as taught by Baldwin, as a person with ordinary skill has good reason to pursue the known options within his or her technical grasp given the predictable benefit of customization and security.
Claim(s) 4, 13, 22 and 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Anasta (USPUB 20230087884) in view of Olejnik and further in view of Baldwin (USPUB 20140250126).
Anasta does not but in related art, as discussed above, Olejnik teaches prompting the user to grant permission and Baldwin suggest extend prompting related to images. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filled to extend Anasta’s invention to include Olejnik’s and Baldwin’s teaching given the predictable benefit of customization and security.
Claim(s) 9 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Olejnik in view of Edpalm (USPUB 20210092387)
Olejnik teaches the use of artificial intelligence model (see the discussion regarding machine learning, pg. 1061 and 1064, for example) but fails to expressly teach artificial intelligence being used in detecting the at least one of the portions of the image. However, in related art Edpalm teaches such solution (see para 28). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to include Edpalm teaching into Olejnik’s invention given the benefit of detecting object to be masked in images (see Edpalm, para 48), speed and efficiency.
Claim(s) 9 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 unpatentable over Anasta (USPUB 20230087884) in view of Edpalm (USPUB 20210092387)
Anasta teaching detecting as discussed above.
Anasta does not, but in related art Edpalm teaches artificial intelligence models being used in detecting the at least one of the portions of the image (see para 28). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to include Edpalm teaching into Anasta’s invention given the benefit of
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Peter Poltorak whose telephone number is (571) 272-3840. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Pwu can be reached on (571) 272-6798. 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 the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/PIOTR POLTORAK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2433