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 . The present office action is responsive to communication received 4/27/2026.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Amendments to the claims obviate the 112(b) issues
Amendments to the claims obviate the 101 issues
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 11, and 19 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. The examiner brings in reference Gopalakrishnan to disclose the embedding of an IR security mark in the amended document.
Claim objections:
Claim 1 objected to because of the following informalities:
The term “IR” must be defined in the claim.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1, 7-11, and 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over by Riise et al. (US 20240273236) in view of Gopalakrishnan et al. (US 11652941).
Regarding claim 1,
Riise discloses A method for securing and accessing confidential content of an original document, the method comprising:
receiving the original document in a computing device by a computer application executing on the computing device;
[the computing system 100 receives one or more raw reference images each depicting a face of a human being, such as by depicting an image of a person including the person's face. (Riise et al., paragraph 42)]
receiving, by the computer application, an indication of the confidential content in the original document;
[an issue with this system and process may be that the raw images stored in the data storage 102 might fall into the wrong hands, and the faces depicted by those images may be used for undesired purposes. By editing the images to obfuscate the depicted faces and insert corresponding graphical objects possibly as the obfuscation, the computing system 100 could help to reduce or minimize the risk that that would happen. (Riise et al., paragraph 49)]
automatically generating a code corresponding to the confidential content;
[an example of a graphical object that the computing system could generate based on a face depicted by an image is a bar-code object, such as a Quick-Response (QR) code (Riise et al., paragraph 17)]
amending, by the computer application, the original document by removing the confidential content in the original document and replacing the confidential content with the code in the original document at a location of the removed confidential content;
[the act of obfuscating the face depiction while inserting the graphical object that correlates with the face depiction could involve editing the image by superimposing the graphical object over the depicted face sufficiently to obfuscate the face, replacing pixels that define at least a portion of the face image with pixels that define the graphical object, transforming the face image into the graphical object, or otherwise rendering the face depiction unrecognizable while inserting the graphical object in the image in proximity to or otherwise in association with a position in the image of the face (Riise et al., paragraph 15)]
[For instance, a depiction of a human face could be replaced with an animal face, a code number, or other object that correlates with the human face. Other examples could be possible as well. (Riise et al., paragraph 14)]
[The computing system could then insert that generated QR code into the image in a manner that obfuscates the depicted face or is positioned in the image in correlation with the obfuscated face. (Riise et al., paragraph 17)]
storing, by the computer application, the removed confidential content over a cloud location;
[the local processing system 300 may transmit each edited reference image to the cloud-based processing system 302 after editing the image. And at step 3D, the cloud-based processing system 302 then stores these edited reference image in the data storage 102, possibly in connection with associated provisioning data, for later reference. (Riise et al., paragraph 62)]
and outputting, by the computer application, the amended document to an electronic printing device.
[At step 3C, the local processing system 300 transmits the edited reference images, along with any associated provisioning data, to the cloud-based processing system 302. (Riise et al. ,paragraph 62)]
Riise fails to explicitly disclose embedding an IR security mark in the amended document.
However in an analogous art Gopalakrishnan discloses embedding an IR security mark in the amended document.
[Then, an infrared (IR) mark is embedded in the document while printing. While embedding the IR mark in the document, the one or more coordinates of the confidential area including the confidential content in the document is embedded in the IR mark. (Gopalakrishnan et al., column 2, lines 18-22)]
Riise and Gopalakrishnan are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of content modification. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Riise to incorporate the teachings of Gopalakrishnan et al. to include embedding an IR security mark in the amended document, in order to secure the content of the document as the IR mark indicated that the document or portion of the document is confidential. (Gopalakrishnan et al., column 11, lines 25-32)]
Regarding claim 10,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
receiving the original document and the amended document by an image capturing module.
[the example computing system 100 may carry out to receive, store, and analyze images in a representative process that does not involve the present obfuscation and graphical-object insertion. (Riise et al., paragraph 41)]
Regarding claim 11,
Riise teaches A computer system for executing an augmented reality (AR) application, the AR application securing and accessing confidential content of an original document, the computer system comprising:
a hardware processor;
[This computing system 100, which may or may not be distributed as noted above, may include at least one processor (e.g., one or more general purpose processors and/or dedicated processors) (Riise et al., paragraph 40)]
a non-volatile storage medium storing instructions that when executed by the hardware processor perform operations comprising
[as well as non-transitory data storage (e.g., one or more volatile and/or non-volatile storage components such as magnetic, optical, flash, ROM, RAM, EPROM, EEPROM, etc. (not shown), possibly separate from data storage 102) that stores program instructions executable by the at least one processor to carry out various computing-system operations described herein. (Riise et al., paragraph 40)]
The claim recites substantially the same content as claim 1 and is rejected with the rationales set forth for claim 1.
Regarding claim 18,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan discloses the computer system of claim 11, wherein the hardware processor comprises: one or more of a mobile device or a multi-function device.
[a portion of the computing system may be a local portion, provided at a first location such as a home or a mobile computing device, among other possibilities (Riise et al., paragraph 23)]
Regarding claim 19,
Riise teaches A computer program product for executing an augmented reality (AR) application, the AR application securing and accessing confidential content of an original document, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a computing device to cause the computing device to perform operations comprising
[Further, as shown, the data storage 1004 could store program instructions 1008, which could be executable by the processor 1002 to carry out (e.g., cause the computing system to carry out) various operations described herein. (Riise et al., paragraph 101)]
The claim recites substantially the same content as claim 1 and is rejected with the rationales set forth for claim 1.
Regarding claim 7,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan discloses the method of claim 1, determining when a user is authorized to access the computer application based on the IR security mark.
[at 616, the document is printed including the IR mark, for example, at the bottom right corner. The printed IR mark includes one or more coordinates of the confidential content for later retrieval, access and/or use. (Gopalakrishnan et al., column 19, lines 58-62)]
Riise and Gopalakrishnan are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of content modification. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Riise to incorporate the teachings of Gopalakrishnan et al. to include determining when a user is authorized to access the computer application based on the IR security mark, in order to secure the content of the document as the IR mark indicated that the document or portion of the document is confidential. (Gopalakrishnan et al., column 11, lines 25-32)]
Regarding claims 8 and 16,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan discloses the method of claim 1 and the computer system of claim 11, wherein the IR security mark indicates that the document includes confidential content
[Then, an infrared (IR) mark is embedded in the document while printing. While embedding the IR mark in the document, the one or more coordinates of the confidential area including the confidential content in the document is embedded in the IR mark. (Gopalakrishnan et al., column 2, lines 18-22)]
Riise and Gopalakrishnan are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of content modification. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Riise to incorporate the teachings of Gopalakrishnan et al. to include wherein the IR security mark indicates that the document includes confidential content, in order to secure the content of the document as the IR mark indicated that the document or portion of the document is confidential. (Gopalakrishnan et al., column 11, lines 25-32)]
Regarding claims 9 and 17,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan discloses the method of claim 1 and the computer system of claim 11, wherein outputting the amended document comprises: one or more of printing the amended document or displaying the amended document.
[at 616, the document is printed including the IR mark, for example, at the bottom right corner. The printed IR mark includes one or more coordinates of the confidential content for later retrieval, access and/or use. (Gopalakrishnan et al., column 19, lines 58-62)]
Riise and Gopalakrishnan are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of content modification. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Riise to incorporate the teachings of Gopalakrishnan et al. to include determining when a user is authorized to access the computer application based on the IR security mark, in order to secure the content of the document as the IR mark indicated that the document or portion of the document is confidential. (Gopalakrishnan et al., column 11, lines 25-32)]
Claims 2-4 and 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over by Riise et al. (US 20240273236) in view of Gopalakrishnan et al. (US 11652941) in further view of Oberstein et al. (US 20120151397).
Regarding claims 2 and 12,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan discloses the method of claim 1 and the computer system of claim 11, but fails to explicitly disclose adding a logo representing the computer application around the location.
However in an analogous art Oberstein discloses adding a logo representing the computer application around the location.
[Icons 1630 and 1640 give an indication of the document type through the use of a logo. Here these logos are indicating an application that is used to edit or display the document. (Oberstein et al., paragraph 40)]
Riise, Gopalakrishnan, and Oberstein are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of content modification. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Riise and Gopalakrishnan to incorporate the teachings of Oberstein et al. to include adding a logo representing the computer application around the location, in order to give textual information to further specify the referenced document. (Oberstein et al., paragraph 40)]
Regarding claims 3 and 13,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan in further view of Oberstein discloses the method of claim 2 and the computer system of claim 12,
wherein the operations further comprise: receiving the amended document;
[At step 3C, the local processing system 300 transmits the edited reference images, along with any associated provisioning data, to the cloud-based processing system 302. (Riise et al., paragraph 62)]
detecting the logo in the amended document;
[Icons 1630 and 1640 give an indication of the document type through the use of a logo. Here these logos are indicating an application that is used to edit or display the document. (Oberstein et al., paragraph 40), see claim 2 for motivation]
accessing the code;
[ the computing system 100 could read the QR code in the query image and search for a reference image that depicts that same QR code or a QR code that matches the QR code in the query image to a sufficient degree of certainty. (Riise et al., paragraph 57)]
and identifying and retrieving the confidential content corresponding to the code.
[ the computing system 100 could read the QR code in the query image and search for a reference image that depicts that same QR code or a QR code that matches the QR code in the query image to a sufficient degree of certainty. (Riise et al., paragraph 57)]
Regarding claims 4 and 14,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan in further view of Oberstein discloses the method of claim 3 and the computer system of claim 13,
matching the logo before retrieving the confidential content.
[determining if the face depicted by the query image matches a reference face image of a person authorized to access the secure system and thus to facilitate associated control over that access (Riise et al., paragraph 46)]
Claims 6 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over by Riise et al. (US 20240273236) in view of Gopalakrishnan et al. (US 11652941) in further view of Belovay et al. (US 10991064).
Regarding claims 6,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan discloses the method of claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose
Wherein the computer application comprises an augmented reality application and the computing device comprises a mobile device.
However in an analogous art Belovay discloses wherein the computer application comprises an augmented reality application and the computing device comprises a mobile device.
[Other applications of the technology include Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR), whereby AR glasses, for example, Microsoft® HoloLens™ will indicate that you are looking at a watermarked picture and will display the unwatermarked on your display. This can be specific to part of the digital image or can be the entire digital image. (Belovay et al., column 12, lines 54-59)]
Riise, Gopalakrishnan, and Belovay are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of content modification. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Riise and Gopalakrishnan to incorporate the teachings of Belovay et al. to include wherein the computer application comprises an augmented reality application and the computing device comprises a mobile device, in order for region in focus to be able to be seen and the remainder of the digital image is obscured by watermarks. (Belovay et al., page 6, lines 23-25)]
Regarding claim 20,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan discloses the computer program product of claim 19, wherein the operations further comprise: receiving the amended document;
[At step 3C, the local processing system 300 transmits the edited reference images, along with any associated provisioning data, to the cloud-based processing system 302. (Riise et al., paragraph 62)]
accessing the code;
[ the computing system 100 could read the QR code in the query image and search for a reference image that depicts that same QR code or a QR code that matches the QR code in the query image to a sufficient degree of certainty. (Riise et al., paragraph 57)]
and identifying and retrieving the confidential content corresponding to the code.
[ the computing system 100 could read the QR code in the query image and search for a reference image that depicts that same QR code or a QR code that matches the QR code in the query image to a sufficient degree of certainty. (Riise et al., paragraph 57)]
Riise fails to explicitly disclose detecting the logo in the amended document.
However in an analogous art Belovay discloses detecting the logo in the outputted document;
[The result is a final digital image 32 showing the face and obscuring the remainder of the digital image with a watermark or watermarks. (Belovay et al., column 9, lines 22-25)]
Riise, Gopalakrishnan, and Belovay are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of content modification. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Riise and Gopalakrishnan to incorporate the teachings of Belovay et al. to include detecting the logo in the outputted document, in order for region in focus to be able to be seen and the remainder of the digital image is obscured by watermarks. (Belovay et al., page 6, lines 23-25)]
Claims 5 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over by Riise et al. (US 20240273236) in view of Gopalakrishnan et al. (US 11652941) in further view of Oberstein et al. (US 20120151397) and in further view of Sharifi et al. (US 20190213058).
Regarding claims 5 and 15,
Riise in view of Gopalakrishnan in further view of Oberstein discloses the method of claim 3 and the computer system of claim 13, but fails to explicitly disclose recreating the original document by merging the retrieved confidential content into the amended document.
However in an analogous art Sharifi discloses recreating the original document by merging the retrieved confidential content into the amended document.
[the filtered notification content may combine the non-obfuscated portion of the event content and the obfuscated portion of the event content, (Sharifi et al., paragraph 18)]
Riise, Gopalakrishnan, Oberstein, and Sharifi are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of content modification. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Riise, Gopalakrishnan, and Oberstein to incorporate the teachings of Sharifi et al. to include recreating the original document by merging the retrieved confidential content into the amended document, in order to rewrite the content so that the filtered content can still be informative to the owner of the phone, without revealing sensitive or private information to others that may look at or access the device. (Sharifi et al., paragraph 18)]
Conclusion
Applicant’s amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 extension fee 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL ELAHIAN whose telephone number is (703) 756-1284. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday from 7:30am to 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Catherine Thiaw can be reached at telephone number 571-270-1138. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/D.E./DANIEL ELAHIAN, Examiner, Art Unit 2407
/Catherine Thiaw/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2407 8/6/2026
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