CLUSTERING-BASED RECOGNITION OF TEXT IN VIDEOS

Application No. 18/910,867

• Filed: Oct 09, 2024
• Priority: Jan 19, 2022 — provisional 63/300,912
  • May 27, 2022 — continuation of 12/141,200
• Examiner: PARK, EDWARD
• Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
• OA Round: 1 (Non-Final)

Office Action

DETAILED ACTION

Contents
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 2
Double Patenting 2
Conclusion 4

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 .

This action is responsive to applicant’s claim set received on 1/9/25. Claims 21-40 are currently pending.

Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the "right to exclude" granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. See In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent is shown to be commonly owned with this application. See 37 CFR 1.130(b).
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).

Claims 21-40 are rejected under the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,141,200 B1. The conflicting claims are not identical because application claims 21-40 are more broad in scope than those of ‘200 patent as indicated below:

Regarding claims 21, 34, 40, the conflicting claims are not identical because patent claims 12, 1, 12 requires the additional elements which are not required by application claims 21, 34, 40. Therefore, any patent granted on the current application would result in the unjustifiable timewise extension of the monopoly granted on patent claims 12, 1, 12.
Regarding claims 22-33, the limitations are substantially equivalent to patent claims 12, 19, 19, 19, 19, 12, 18, 13, 18, 19, 19, 19, respectively.
Regarding claims 35-39, the limitations are substantially equivalent to patent claims 19, 20, 19, 19, 20, 20, respectively.

The conflicting claims are not patentably distinct from each other because:
Claims 21-40 and patent claims 1-20 recite common subject matter;
Whereby claims 21-40, which recites the open ended transitional phrase “comprising”, does not preclude the additional elements recited by patent claims 1-20.

Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Horner et al (US 2023/0042611 A1) is cited to teach enhancing trainable OCR performance. Pavani et al (US 2014/0193075 A1) is cited to teach local scale, rotation and position invariant
word detection for OCR.

Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EDWARD PARK. The examiner’s contact information is as follows:
Telephone: [phone] | Fax: [phone] | [e-mail]
For email communications, please notate MPEP 502.03, which outlines procedures pertaining to communications via the internet and authorization. A sample authorization form is cited within MPEP 502.03, section II.
The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9-6 CST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, John M. Villecco, can be reached on [phone]. 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). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.

/EDWARD PARK/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2675

Prosecution Timeline

• Oct 09, 2024: Application Filed
• Jul 02, 2026: Non-Final Rejection mailed — §DP (current)