DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . It is responsive to the submission dated 08/28/2026. Claims 1, 3-7, 9, 13-14, 17-21 and 23 are presented for examination of which, claims 1, 7, and 13 are independent claims.
Response to Arguments/Amendments
2. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-10, 13-14 and 16-23 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
3. 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.
4. Claims 1, 3-7, 9, 13-14, 17-21 and 23 are 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.
In claim 1, the limitation reciting “presenting the virtual resource object on a video acquisition page by way of shooting effects” renders the claim indefinite, because the subject-matter for which protection is sought by the applicant is not made clear in the claim. Particularly,
the phrase "video acquisition page" is broadly vague and appears to be a machine-translated technical jargon. As formulated, it is unclear as to whether said phrase refers to:
a screen/surface of a display device that is coupled to the server for presenting the virtual resource object previously processed by the server;
a screen/surface of a display device that is coupled to the client [computer]; or
the screen/page of a camera, a video capturing device and/or video recording device on which a user records or upload video(s) of the virtual resource object. Or does it refer to:
a web page on the internet, a page in a web browser, a virtual page, a video page/memory or a video displayed in a webpage?
The phrase "by way of" is also broadly vague and merely presents a phrasal preposition that, instead of simplifying the claimed language, makes the limitation less fluid.
The phrase "shooting effects" is broadly vague, as it is unclear as to whether the term refers to visual effects, visual filters, special effects or other animation schemes being used during a video recording and representation.
Thus, the limitation: “presenting … by way of shooting effects” renders the claim indefinite, as the limitation does not enable the skilled person to determine which technical features the applicants regard as the invention.
In addition, claim 1 is indefinite because the limitation reciting “generating a first multimedia resource by applying the virtual resource object to a user material” fails to limit the claim. It is unclear how “applying the virtual resource object to a user material” causes a “multimedia resource” to be generated when the term “user material” is not clearly defined by the original disclosure. It is unclear as to whether the term “user material” refers to a custom CAD/software design being used by a user. Or, if said "user material" refers to a custom texture, shader, or data type created by a user using a graphics processing device.
Due to its broad meaning, it is also unclear as to whether the phrase “applying the virtual resource object to a user material” actually means that a user is: “applying a material to an object” or “assigning a 3D property the object”; and/or the phrase means "binding an object to a user material" or "assigning an object to the user's material."
Independent claim 7 recites limitations that are indefinite for citing broadly functional claimed features that fail to describe how the receiving step and the determining steps and sending step are being carried out to yield the stated result.
Furthermore, the limitation of claim 1 is rendered indefinite, because it is unclear, from the limitations reciting: “receiving the virtual resource object sent by the server, and presenting the virtual resource object on a video acquisition page by way of shooting effects; and generating a first multimedia resource by applying the virtual resource object to a user material”, as to what functional features that are used to perform the functions of receiving and presenting the virtual resource object on a video acquisition page and also the function of generating the first multimedia. It is also unclear as to whether the “video acquisition page” operates in conjunction with a display device connected to the “client” [computing device], the “server” or a “camera/recording device” connected to the client, server or a remote terminal?
Claim 7 contains features that are analogous to those of claim 1. Claim 7 is, therefore, rendered indefinite under the same rationales disclosed above with respect to the claim 1 rejections.
Claim 7 is also rendered indefinite, because the detail(s) of how the samples containing the historical event information and the virtual resource object with a correspondence relationship are trained to obtain the “model”. A particular non-generic training mechanism is required for training the samples, rather than a model result divorced from any means of achieving it. As such, the claim fails to limit what the applicants regard as the invention.
Claim 13 is indefinite for reasons similar to claim 1.
Claims 3 and 17 are indefinite for lacking insufficient antecedent basis for selecting a user material amongst a plurality of user materials. The limitation reciting: “a selection operation for a user material among the at least one user material” implies that a plurality of user materials was pre-established and is made available for a selection. But, only one user material is defined by the claims.
Therefore, the lack of a clear and precisely defined metes and bounds of the claimed invention leave the reader in doubt as to the meaning of the technical features to which they refer, thereby rendering the definition of the subject-matter of said claims indefinite.
The claims not specifically cited in this rejection are rejected as being dependent upon their rejected base claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
6. Claims 1, 4, 13-14 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhu (CN 107230237 A) in view of Liu et al. (CN 108614733 A).
Considering claim 1, Zhu discloses a virtual resource object-based interaction method (for examples, Zhu discloses an information processing method and device comprising: collecting current environment image and identifies a target object in the environment image … obtaining the rendering image and displaying the rendered image. See abstract. The rendered target object is associated with virtual object that when displayed can be interacted with by a user. See the description of step 208 from the English translation of Zhu reference), which comprises:
in response to a preset interaction trigger operation acting on a page displayed on a client, obtaining current position information and current time information, wherein the current position information is current position information determined by the client, and the current time information is system time information acquired by a clock module of the client (e.g., Zhu discloses 201: collecting the environment image. 202, sending the location information and/or time information to the server. Optionally, the transmitted location information and/or time information to the server, further comprising: displaying a plurality of time information; in response to the plurality of time information of the first selecting operation, determining said time information is selected…. Optionally, the environment image information after said collecting current environment, it can receive and display a plurality of virtual object sent by the server, the virtual object may be a virtual object service preset, also can be the service determined according to position information and/or time information and/or target object. For example, the virtual object may be a virtual guide service to a predetermined, cartoon character and the virtual guide can be can be historical knowledge corresponding to the current environment to the user according to the change of the current environmental image; the virtual object can also be determined according to position information and/or time information, such as time of selecting is Tang dynasty, then the service matching according to the time information matching the obtained , , , etc. The virtual object design history character. See the description of steps 201 to 208 from the English translation of Zhu reference);
uploading, to a server, an interaction processing request comprising the current position information and the current time information; wherein the interaction processing request is used for requesting the server to determine a virtual resource object corresponding to historical event information determined based on the current position information and the current time information (e.g., Zhu discloses 201: collecting the environment image. 202, and sending the location information and/or time information to the server. …. Optionally, the environment image information after said collecting current environment, it can receive and display a plurality of virtual object sent by the server, the virtual object may be a virtual object service preset, also can be the service determined according to position information and/or time information and/or target object. For example, the virtual object may be a virtual guide service to a predetermined, cartoon character and the virtual guide can be historical knowledge corresponding to the current environment to the user according to the change of the current environmental image; the virtual object can also be determined according to position information and/or time information…. The virtual object design history character. See the description of steps 201 to 208 from the English translation of Zhu reference);
receiving the virtual resource object sent by the server and presenting the virtual resource object [on a video acquisition page by way of shooting effects] (e.g., Zhu discloses 202, sending the location information and/or time information to the server. Optionally, the transmitted location information and/or time information to the server, further comprising: displaying a plurality of time information; in response to the plurality of time information of the first selecting operation, determining said time information is selected…. Optionally, the environment image information after said collecting current environment, it can receive and display a plurality of virtual object sent by the server. …. 209. displaying the rendered image. it can display the virtual object and the virtual object with the interactive information of the user and can randomly updating the display position in the rendered image of the virtual object in the rendered image (See the description of steps 201 to 206 and step 209 from the English translation of Zhu reference) wherein, the associated object may be a target object corresponding to the history image, so the electronic device can sends the time information and the position information to the server, the time information can be provided by the user, the position information can be obtained by the positioning. so the associated object can be historical image corresponding to time information and location information, such as environmental image of the current environment is collected by the December 3, 2016, user-provided time information is 1856, the associated object that is 1856 when the target object corresponding to the history image. See the detailed description of fig. 4 in Zhu). See also the detailed description of fig. 7 of Zhu.
Zhu fails to teach presenting the virtual resource object on a video acquisition page by way of shooting effects (interpreted as presenting the virtual resource object effects on a page); and generating a first multimedia resource by applying the virtual resource object to a user material (interpreted as generating a multimedia-based virtual resource effect based on a user action), which is disclosed by Liu.
Particularly, Liu discloses a virtual resource exchange and allocation method and device for an intelligent terminal (see para. 2) comprising: upon detecting a trigger operation acting on a operation page; and upon initiating a request for virtual resource allocation of the intelligent terminal to the server through the triggering operation, the method includes: identifying a marked image for virtual resource acquisition acquired by an intelligent terminal to obtain a mark in the marked image; acquiring virtual effect data corresponding to the mark; and causing the intelligent terminal displays the virtual effect data and displays an operation page for getting the virtual resources, wherein the virtual effect data is pre-configured multimedia playing data so as to realize virtual effect display in the intelligent terminal. See paras. 74-86. On the other hand, the virtual resource allocation request carries a trigger operation acting on the operation page, so as to instruct the server to initiate a virtual resource pickup process through the trigger operation, and further, the allocation of the virtual resources in the server can be controlled according to the trigger operation. For example, the type and amount of virtual resource allocation are affected according to the type and time of the trigger operation, including pre-stored user historical data. See paras. 160-164 of Liu.
Liu further discloses: The implementation environment includes a server 130, which interacts with a plurality of intelligent terminals 110 to realize the exchange of virtual resources in each intelligent terminal 110, so that the virtual resources are transferred to the user name of the intelligent terminal 110 by a common user or an enterprise user under the action of the server 130 para. 63. The processing component 202 controls overall operation of the device 200, such as operations associated with display, camera operations, and recording operations, among others. The processing components 202 may include one or more processors that facilitate interaction between the processing component 202 and other components. For example, the processing component 202 can include a multimedia module to facilitate interaction between the multimedia component 208 and the processing component 202. The multimedia component 208 includes a screen that provides an output interface between the device 200 and the user, including receiving an input signal from a user. See paras. 66 and 69 of Liu. And through the trigger operation obtained by detection on the operation page, the intelligent terminal is interacted with the server, and then the server is triggered to distribute virtual resources for the user of the server. And after the server responds to the trigger operation to finish the virtual resource allocation for the intelligent terminal, generating a corresponding resource picking result and returning the resource picking result to the intelligent terminal. See paras. 97-98.
In alternative embodiment, Liu discloses the marker image is obtained by an AR marker, which is an AR-woken marker. AR markers often have images, articles, two-dimensional codes and the like which are easy to identify. The intelligent terminal photographs or scans the AR marker to obtain a marked image, and then identifies the marked image to obtain a mark corresponding to the marked image. According to the foregoing description, the page loaded by the intelligent terminal may be a page specifically set in an application program, or a page currently displayed by the intelligent terminal. Correspondingly, after the virtual scene data corresponding to the mark is requested to be obtained through the steps, page loading can be triggered, or the virtual scene data can be directly loaded in the original page, so that the virtual scene data can be displayed through embedding the page. The page displayed in the augmented reality virtual scene by the virtual scene data may be a mobile terminal page realized by a browser, or may be a page in a specific application, and is not limited herein. The augmented reality virtual scene is directly embedded into a mobile terminal page or a page in a specific application program through the virtual scene data, so that the augmented reality virtual scene display in a browser or the specific application program is realized. See paras. 108-110. And when the virtual scene display result is displayed through the virtual scene data, jumping to an operation page for getting the virtual resource. See para. 120.
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skilled in the art, before the effective filling date of the invention was made, to have modified the teachings of Zhu to include presenting the virtual resource object on a video acquisition page by way of shooting effects; and generating a first multimedia resource by applying the virtual resource object to a user material, in the same conventional manner as taught by Liu. Combining the teachings of Zhu and Liu would help solve the technical problem of poor propagation effect of virtual resources in the internet in the related art. See para. 9 of Liu.
As per claim 4, Liu, as modified by Zhu, discloses the generating the multimedia-based resource comprises: shooting the first multimedia resource based on the virtual resource object in response to a shooting trigger operation acting on the video acquisition page (e.g., Liu discloses the intelligent terminal displays the virtual effect data and displays an operation page for retrieving the virtual resources. In the virtual resource exchange process initiated in the intelligent terminal, after the intelligent terminal identifies the mark, the display of the virtual effect in the intelligent terminal can be realized through the display of the corresponding virtual effect data, and the operation page for picking up the virtual resource is displayed after the display of the virtual effect is finished. The virtual effect data is pre-configured multimedia playing data. See paras. 84-86. In the intelligent terminal, once the mark carried in the mark image is successfully identified, the corresponding virtual effect data is directly triggered to display the virtual effect, and after the virtual effect display is finished, namely the playing of the virtual effect data is finished. See para. 89).
The subject-matters of claim 13 correspond in terms of a computer-readable medium to these of independent method claim 1. The features of claim 1 are substantially the same as those of claim 1 except the invention category. Accordingly, the same reasonings applied for the rejections of claim 1 also apply to claim 13. In addition, Zhu discloses a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing therein instructions to be operated on a terminal device. See the detailed description of fig. 8 of Zhu.
As per claim 14, Zhu discloses a virtual resource object-based interaction device, comprising: a memory, a processor, and computer programs stored on the memory to be operated on the processor. See the detailed description of fig. 8 of Zhu.
Claim 18 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 4.
Allowable Subject Matter
7. Claims 7, 9, 21 and 23 have no art rejection but are rejected for formality reasons under 35 U.S.C. § 112. As the technical features of the wording of independent claim 7 are indefinite for the reasons discussed above, the technical effect of the subject-matters of these claims is indeterminate and thus, they cannot be agreed that a problem is solved by each of these diverging claims. A final determination of patentability of the claims will be made upon resolution of the above claim rejections.
8. Claims 3, 5-6, 17 and 19-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable, upon the resolution of the indefiniteness issues raised above, if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, because the prior arts of record fail to provide the teachings for the generating of the first multimedia resource in the manner as recited in the claims.
9. 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.
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WESNER SAJOUS whose telephone number is (571) 272-7791. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 10:00 TO 7:30 (ET).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Said Broome can be reached on 571-272-2931. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WESNER SAJOUS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2612
WS
09/30/2026
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