DETAILED 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
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.
Claim(s) 1, 8-11, 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sumner et al. (US 2017/0337723 A1) in view of West (US 2017/0091977 A1).
In regards to claim 1, Sumner teaches a computer-implemented method for automatically extracting sets of keyposes from character animations, the method comprising:
determining a plurality of trajectories for a plurality of joints associated with a character included in a character animation, wherein each trajectory includes a set of positions for a corresponding joint included in the plurality of joints across a set of poses of the character in the character animation (e.g. [0046]: for each motion skill, the process may first extract the representative keyframes from trajectories of a subset of the joints (e.g. the head, root, feet, and hands); see also [0035]: an animated character in a videogame environment or CGI animation sequence may be assigned a movement repertoire, or predefined set of motion sequences, that define physical “stunts” or “skills” that may be performed by the character; [0041]: a keyframe may have multiple body parts in contact at a time, leading to simultaneous contact poses; Examiner’s note: shows determination of a plurality of trajectories for a plurality of joints; each joint viewed to have a set of positions, a corresponding position for each keyframe/pose);
extracting the set of keyposes from the character animation based on the plurality of trajectories (e.g. as above, [0046]: for each motion skill, the process may first extract the representative keyframes from trajectories of a subset of the joints (e.g. the head, root, feet, and hands); Examiner’s note: keyframes contain poses of the character, and as such may be viewed as keyposes),
but does not explicitly teach the method, comprising:
displaying the set of keyposes within a user interface for further processing.
However, West teaches a method, comprising:
displaying the set of keyposes within a user interface (e.g. [0032]-[0034],Fig.4: animation module 210 reads an animation file (e.g. the 3D animation 304) and constructs a virtual object for the character 402 at various points in time (e.g. the pose objects 414); each displayed pose 414 of the character 402 on the time bar 412 corresponds with a point in time (an “animation time”) 416, or a frame number, with the adjacent poses 414 of the character 402 being either just forward in time or just backward in time; this view of the animation allows the user 100 to simultaneously see displays of the character 402 at various times within the animation; each displayed object (e.g., at each of the animation times 416) corresponds with a keyframe for the displayed animation) for further processing (e.g. [0035]: user 100 may interact with objects within the interactive timeline platform 410, such as the time bar 412, or any of the individual poses 414 of the character 402 shown at each particular animation time 416; interacting with any one of the pose objects 414 may cause modifications to the adjacent poses 414; the animation module 210 detects various interactions with a pose object 414 and calculates alterations to the adjacent poses 414; the animation module 210 then updates the adjacent poses 414 accordingly).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings/combination of Sumner to display set of keyframes, in the same conventional manner as taught by West as both deal with character motion. The motivation to combine the two would be that it would allow the user to view a plurality of character poses of the character corresponding to keyframes, as well as manipulate/alter the poses.
In regards to media claim 11 and system claim 20, claim(s) 11, 20 recite(s) limitations that is/are similar in scope to the limitations recited in claim 1. Therefore, claim(s) 11, 20 is/are subject to rejections under the same rationale as applied hereinabove for claim 1.
In regards to claim 8, the combination of Sumner and West teaches a method, wherein the set of keyposes represents a first motion of the character in the character animation (e.g. Sumner as above, [0046]: for each motion skill, the process may first extract the representative keyframes from trajectories of a subset of the joints (e.g. the head, root, feet, and hands); [0035]: an animated character in a videogame environment or CGI animation sequence may be assigned a movement repertoire, or predefined set of motion sequences, that define physical “stunts” or “skills” that may be performed by the character).
In regards to claim 9, the combination of Sumner and West teaches a method, wherein the set of positions for the corresponding joint included in each trajectory comprises a set of time-ordered three-dimensional (3D) positions for the corresponding joint across a set of frames included in the character animation (e.g. Sumner as above, [0046]: for each motion skill, the process may first extract the representative keyframes from trajectories of a subset of the joints (e.g. the head, root, feet, and hands); West as above, [0032]-[0034],Fig.4: animation module 210 reads an animation file (e.g. the 3D animation 304) and constructs a virtual object for the character 402 at various points in time (e.g. the pose objects 414); each displayed pose 414 of the character 402 on the time bar 412 corresponds with a point in time (an “animation time”) 416, or a frame number, with the adjacent poses 414 of the character 402 being either just forward in time or just backward in time).
In addition, the same rationale/motivation of claim 1 is used for claim 9.
In regards to claim 10, the combination of Sumner and West teaches a method, wherein the plurality of joints associated with the character comprises a subset of all joints of the character (e.g. Sumner as above, [0046]: for each motion skill, the process may first extract the representative keyframes from trajectories of a subset of the joints (e.g. the head, root, feet, and hands)).
In regards to claim 17, the combination of Sumner and West teaches a media, further comprising:
receiving a modification of a first keypose in the set of keyposes via the user interface (e.g. West as above, [0035]: user 100 may interact with objects within the interactive timeline platform 410, such as the time bar 412, or any of the individual poses 414 of the character 402 shown at each particular animation time 416; interacting with any one of the pose objects 414 may cause modifications to the adjacent poses 414); and
in response, modifying the character animation based on the modification of the first keypose (e.g. West as above, [0035]: the animation module 210 detects various interactions with a pose object 414 and calculates alterations to the adjacent poses 414; the animation module 210 then updates the adjacent poses 414 accordingly).
In addition, the same rationale/motivation of claim 11 is used for claim 17.
In regards to claim 18, the combination of Sumner and West teaches a media, wherein the character animation includes a set of non-key poses and the set of keyposes (e.g. Sumner as above, [0046]: for each motion skill, the process may first extract the representative keyframes from trajectories of a subset of the joints (e.g. the head, root, feet, and hands); see also [0006]: motion sequence may be represented by a sequence of motion frames; identifying one or more keyframes in the sequence of motion frames; Examiner’s note: keyframes contain poses of the character, and as such may be viewed as keyposes; shows that other frames are included, that are not keyframes, and as such, viewed as non-keyposes), wherein the set of keyposes is representative of a motion of the character in the character animation (e.g. Sumner as above, [0046]: for each motion skill, the process may first extract the representative keyframes from trajectories of a subset of the joints (e.g. the head, root, feet, and hands); [0035]: an animated character in a videogame environment or CGI animation sequence may be assigned a movement repertoire, or predefined set of motion sequences, that define physical “stunts” or “skills” that may be performed by the character).
In regards to claim 19, the combination of Sumner and West teaches a media, wherein displaying the set of keyposes in a user interface includes displaying the set of keyposes along a timeline having frame numbers as time units (e.g. West as above, [0032]-[0034],Fig.4: each displayed pose 414 of the character 402 on the time bar 412 corresponds with a point in time (an “animation time”) 416, or a frame number, with the adjacent poses 414 of the character 402 being either just forward in time or just backward in time).
In addition, the same rationale/motivation of claim 11 is used for claim 19.
Claim(s) 2-4, 12-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Sumner and West as applied to claims 1, 11 above, and further in view of Assa et al. (“Action Synopsis: Pose Selection and Illustration”).
In regards to claim 2, the combination of Sumner and West teaches the method of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach the method, wherein each trajectory included in the plurality of trajectories includes a set of local target positions, wherein extracting the set of keyposes from the character animation is further based on the set of local target positions for each trajectory included in the plurality of trajectories.
However, Assa teaches a method, wherein each trajectory included in the plurality of trajectories includes a set of local target positions, wherein extracting the set of keyposes from the character animation is further based on the set of local target positions for each trajectory included in the plurality of trajectories (e.g. Section 3,pp.669-670: low dimensional motion curve (trajectories) is then analyzed by identifying extremum points which are not close to each other; use an iterative algorithm which selects points at local extrema (local target positions); the selected points along the motion curve define the key-poses).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings/combination of Sumner and West to de, in the same conventional manner as taught by Assa as both deal with extracting keyframes/poses. The motivation to combine the two would be that it would allow the determination/extraction of keyposes based on the analysis of the skeletal animation sequence.
In regards to media claim 12, claim(s) 12 recite(s) limitations that is/are similar in scope to the limitations recited in claim 2. Therefore, claim(s) 12 is/are subject to rejections under the same rationale as applied hereinabove for claim 2.
In regards to claim 3, the combination of Sumner and West teaches the method of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach the method, wherein extracting the set of keyposes from the character animation comprises computing, for each trajectory included in the plurality of trajectories, a difference between the trajectory and a smoothed form of the trajectory.
However, Assa teaches a method, wherein extracting the set of keyposes from the character animation comprises computing, for each trajectory included in the plurality of trajectories, a difference between the trajectory and a smoothed form of the trajectory (e.g. Section 5,pp.671-672,Fig.6: output of the RMDS algorithm is the low dimension motion curve denoted here by C(p); a point in C(p) is projected into C’(p) - the weighted average location of its neighboring points; sequence of all the points in C’(p) forms a smooth version of the curve C(p); algorithm selects a set of points with large values of rp such that they are temporally distant apart).
In addition, the same rationale/motivation of claim 2 is used for claim 3.
In regards to media claim 13, claim(s) 13 recite(s) limitations that is/are similar in scope to the limitations recited in claim 3. Therefore, claim(s) 13 is/are subject to rejections under the same rationale as applied hereinabove for claim 3.
In regards to claim 4, the combination of Sumner and West teaches the method of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach the method, wherein extracting the set of keyposes from the character animation comprises computing, for each trajectory in the plurality of trajectories, a weight that indicates an amount of motion of a corresponding joint included in the plurality of joints.
However, Assa teaches a method, wherein extracting the set of keyposes from the character animation comprises computing, for each trajectory in the plurality of trajectories, a weight that indicates an amount of motion of a corresponding joint included in the plurality of joints (e.g. Section 3, pp.669-670: with each joint we associate aspects which are important attributes derived from the given data; identify adequate aspects, together with appropriate weights, so that it consists of vital motion information that can be revealed; see also Section 4.1,pp.670: generate additional attributes of the skeletal motion, which together form the motion aspects; they include: (i) joint positions, (ii) joint angles, (iii) joint velocities, and (iv) joint angular velocities; to smooth motion capture data, we used the Loess method, also known as locally weighted polynomial regression).
In addition, the same rationale/motivation of claim 2 is used for claim 4.
In regards to media claim 14, claim(s) 14 recite(s) limitations that is/are similar in scope to the limitations recited in claim 4. Therefore, claim(s) 14 is/are subject to rejections under the same rationale as applied hereinabove for claim 4.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Sumner and West as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Starkey (US 2019/0046836 A1).
In regards to claim 7, the combination of Sumner and West teaches the method of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach the method, further comprising:
receiving a selection of a different plurality of joints of the character via a joint map displayed in the user interface, wherein the joint map displays a set of selectable joints representing a set of joints of the character, the set of selectable joints being arranged in a tree hierarchy that illustrates relationships between the set of joints of the character.
However, Starkey teaches a method, comprising:
receiving a selection of a joint of the character via a joint map displayed in the user interface, wherein the joint map displays a set of selectable joints representing a set of joints of the character, the set of selectable joints being arranged in a tree hierarchy that illustrates relationships between the set of joints of the character (e.g. [0124],Fig.10: joint map 1006 may allow the user to select any joint 1001 or joint displayed on of the joint map 1006 to highlight the scores that correspond to that joint; Examiner’s note: joint map in Fig.10 shows joints arranged in tree hierarchy, illustrating relationships between joints).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings/combination of Sumner and West to use a joint map, in the same conventional manner as taught by Starkey as both deal with joint motion analysis. The motivation to combine the two would be that it would allow the user to visually select joints.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 5-6, 15-16 is/are 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. To note, claims 6, 16 are included as they respectively depend on claims 5, 15.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JED-JUSTIN IMPERIAL whose telephone number is (571)270-5807. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday, 9am - 6pm.
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, Daniel Hajnik can be reached at (571) 272-7642. 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.
/JED-JUSTIN IMPERIAL/Examiner, Art Unit 2616
/DANIEL F HAJNIK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2616
Prosecution Insights