Prosecution Insights
Last updated: August 14, 2026
Application No. 18/881,308

ANIMATION PLAYING METHOD AND APPARATUS, AND ELECTRONIC DEVICE, AND COMPUTER-READABLE STORAGE MEDIA

Non-Final OA §102§112
Filed
Jan 06, 2025
Priority
Jul 06, 2022 — CN 202210797483.7 +1 more
Examiner
HARRISON, CHANTE E
Art Unit
Tech Center
Assignee
Huizhou TCL Mobile Communication Co., Ltd.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
69%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
1y 6m
Est. Remaining
98%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 69% — above average
69%
Career Allowance Rate
506 granted / 738 resolved
+8.6% vs TC avg
Strong +29% interview lift
Without
With
+28.9%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 2m
Avg Prosecution
26 currently pending
Career history
766
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
9.6%
-30.4% vs TC avg
§103
40.7%
+0.7% vs TC avg
§102
31.6%
-8.4% vs TC avg
§112
15.0%
-25.0% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 738 resolved cases

Office Action

§102 §112
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 . 1. This action is responsive to communications: Preliminary Amendment, filed on 01/06/2025. 2. Claims 1-12 and 19-25 are pending in the case. Claims 1, 19 and 20 are independent claims. Claims 19-25 are newly added. Claims 13-18 are cancelled. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 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. Claims 1-12 and 20 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. Claims 1-12 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential elements, such omission amounting to a gap between the elements. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted elements are: a processor, an input unit, and a memory that operate to receive instruction, obtain and process animation instructions as disclosed by Applicant’s Specification (Fig. 11). Accordingly, claims 3 and 5-9 are rejected based on dependency from a rejected base claim. 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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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)(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, 2, 4, 10-12, 19-21 and 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Xu Chen et al., WO 2022/247541 A1. Independent claim 1, Chen discloses a method of playing animations, comprising: monitoring a target startup animation that is being played (i.e. The operation performed by part of the communication is to let the UI rendering thread update the UI of the system. The console event monitoring thread is to monitor the sleep/wake state switching event of the hardware frame buffer. Once the hardware frame buffer is going to sleep or wake up, the console event monitoring thread needs to notify the UI rendering thread, so that the UI rendering thread can perform the operation of closing or starting the display. – Fig. 5A); when an exit instruction for the target startup animation is detected (i.e. the electronic device 100 receives the user's operation of exiting the application program – sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 2), acquiring a playback progress of the target startup animation (i.e. When the starting motion effect is played to the Nth frame, N is less than M, and the electronic device 100 receives the user’s operation to exit the application program, the electronic device 100 starts the exiting motion effect, and stops playing the image frame in the starting motion effect, and the electronic device 100 100 Start playing from the Mth frame of the exit animation, and play until the first image frame in the exit animation – sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 7); according to the playback progress of the target startup animation, playing an exit animation (i.e. the electronic device 100 starts the exiting motion effect, and stops playing the image frame in the starting motion effect, and the electronic device 100 100 Start playing from the Mth frame of the exit animation, and play until the first image frame in the exit animation – sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 7); and when the exit animation is completely played, executing an interruption to display an interface before the target startup animation is played (i.e. when the center point of the first image frame in the start animation effect moves to the final position of the motion track, the electronic device 100 exits the application program and display the main interface. – sec 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 16; Fig. 4B). Claim 2, Chen discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising following steps before acquiring the playback progress of the target startup animation: acquiring an animation playback instruction (i.e. When the electronic device pauses the playback of the start-up animation and starts to play back the exit animation -abstract; Fig. 5); and activating an animation playback process according to the animation playback instruction to play the target startup animation, and the animation playback process comprises a playback code for the target startup animation and a playback code for the exit animation (i.e. the electronic device includes a processor/controller that implements instruction opcodes – Fig. 6); and wherein the step of playing an exit animation according to the playback progress of the target startup animation comprises: playing an exit animation through the animation playback process according to the playback progress of the target startup animation (i.e. The exit motion effect includes M frames of image frames, and the playback sequence of the exit motion effect is the M-th image frame, the M-1-th image frame, ... the N-th image frame, ..., the first image frame.; When starting the animation to play to the eighth frame, the electronic device 100 receives the user's operation to exit the application program, then the electronic device 100 starts the exit animation, and the electronic device 100 starts to play from the eighth frame of the exit animation, Play until the first image frame that exits the animation effect. – Fig. 4A; sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 10, 12). Claim 4, Chen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the step of monitoring a target startup animation that is being played comprises: detecting the target startup animation (i.e. activity management service manages activity life cycles; electronic device receiver user operation of starting the first application program to start the animation effect – Fig. 5); and when the target startup animation is detected to be being played, registering the target startup animation to monitor the target startup animation (i.e. WMS (window management service) module manages window animation and uses a surface animator to manage the life cycle of the window animation – Fig. 5 “S507”). Claim 10, Chen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the exit animation is an animation of the same type as the target startup animation (i.e. Exemplarily, if the start-up animation of an application includes 30 image frames, the exit animation also includes 30 image frames – Sec 2, Exit special effects, Para 10); and the step of playing the exit animation, according to the playback progress of the target startup animation comprises: according to the playback progress of the target startup animation, playing back the target startup animation to play the exit animation (i.e. The exit motion effect includes M frames of image frames, and the playback sequence of the exit motion effect is the M-th image frame, the M-1-th image frame, ... the N-th image frame, ..., the first image frame.; When starting the animation to play to the eighth frame, the electronic device 100 receives the user's operation to exit the application program, then the electronic device 100 starts the exit animation, and the electronic device 100 starts to play from the eighth frame of the exit animation, Play until the first image frame that exits the animation effect. – Fig. 4A; sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 10, 12). Claim 11, Chen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the exit animation and the target startup animation are different types of animations (i.e. It should be noted that the image information of each image frame in the exit animation and the image information of each image frame in the start animation can be the same or different - sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 13) ; and the step of playing the exit animation, according to the playback progress of the target startup animation comprises: getting the exit animation (i.e. the electronic device 100 receives the user's operation to exit the application program - Fig. 4A; sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 10, 12); determining a starting playback position of the exit animation according to the playback progress of the target start-up animation (i.e. The exit motion effect includes M frames of image frames, and the playback sequence of the exit motion effect is the M-th image frame, the M-1-th image frame, ... the N-th image frame, ..., the first image frame.; When starting the animation to play to the eighth frame, Fig. 4A; sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 10, 12); and from the starting playback position, playing the exit animation (i.e. then the electronic device 100 starts the exit animation, and the electronic device 100 starts to play from the eighth frame of the exit animation, Play until the first image frame that exits the animation effect. – Fig. 4A; sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 10, 12). Claim 12, Chen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the exit instruction comprises an exit action (i.e. the electronic device 100 receives the user's operation of exiting the application program – sec 2, Exit special effects, Para 1); and the step of playing the exit animation according to the playback progress of the target startup animation comprises: determining the exit animation corresponding to the exit action (i.e. the electronic device 100 starts the exiting motion effect, and stops playing the image frame in the starting motion effect, and the electronic device 100 100 Start playing from the Mth frame of the exit animation, and play until the first image frame in the exit animation – sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 7); and according to the playback progress of the target startup animation, playing the exit animation corresponding to the exit action (i.e. The exit motion effect includes M frames of image frames, and the playback sequence of the exit motion effect is the M-th image frame, the M-1-th image frame, ... the N-th image frame, ..., the first image frame. – sec. 2, Exit Special Effects, Para 9). Independent claim 19, the claim is similar in scope to claim 1. Therefore, similar rationale as applied in the rejection of claim 1 applies herein. Independent claim 20, the claim is similar in scope to claim 1. Therefore, similar rationale as applied in the rejection of claim 1 applies herein. Claims 21 and 23, the corresponding rationale as applied in the rejection of claims 2 and 4 apply herein. Claims 3, 5-9, 22 and 24-25 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 Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHANTE HARRISON whose telephone number is (571)272-7659. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm EST. 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) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Alicia Harrington can be reached at 571-272-2330. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /CHANTE E HARRISON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2615
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Jan 06, 2025
Application Filed
Jul 21, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102, §112 (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
69%
Grant Probability
98%
With Interview (+28.9%)
3y 2m (~1y 6m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 738 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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