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
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 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, 10, 16, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ju (US 2023/0196678 A1) in view of Fitzgibbon et al. (US 2011/0228976 A1) in view of Chen (US 2023/0316688 A1) in view of Baecher et al. (US 2015/0187134 A1) and further in view of Li et al. (US 2014/0064602 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Ju discloses a computer-implemented method, comprising: obtaining a three-dimensional (3D) mesh of a virtual character, wherein the 3D mesh includes a plurality of vertices with respective positions in 3D space with one or more connections between the vertices; (Paragraph 0035, input model of a 3D avatar including a mesh with a topology where a mesh is comprised of interconnected vertices that form polygons, paragraph 0025) generating, based on the 3D mesh, an avatar body model for the virtual character (Paragraph 0024, body having a shape), wherein the avatar body model includes a skinned 3D mesh (Paragraph 0032, skinning information for meshes), a plurality of body part meshes (Paragraph 0024, body parts of the input model), wherein the generating comprises: generating a skeleton for the virtual character based on the 3D mesh, (Paragraph 0044, skeleton of the input model) and animating the avatar body model to depict motion of the virtual character in a virtual environment (Paragraphs 0026 and 0031, movement of the avatar). Ju does not clearly disclose wherein the skeleton includes a plurality of joints connected by respective bones, wherein individual joints of the plurality of joints are pre-defined joints based on a body type of the virtual character. Fitzgibbon discloses determining the location of joints of a skeleton of a model and its bones are based on a specified type of a body (Paragraph 0093). Fitzgibbon’s technique of determining the location of joints of a skeleton of a model and its bones are based on a specified type of a body would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art to be applicable to the mesh model of an avatar having a skeleton of Ju and the results would have been predictable in the determination of the location of joints of a skeleton and its bones of a mesh model of an avatar that can be animated based on a determined body type. Therefore, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Ju in view of Fitzgibbon does not clearly disclose associating each of the plurality of joints of the skeleton to at least one respective vertex of the plurality of vertices of the 3D mesh to obtain the skinned 3D mesh, wherein a respective skinning weight is assigned to each vertex of the plurality of vertices. Chen discloses that vertex positions of a model can be determined by the joint position of a skeleton with a skinning parameter indicating an influence weight of each joint on the vertex (Paragraph 0034). Chen’s technique of using skinning parameters indicating influence weights of each joint on a vertex used to determine the positions of the vertices would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art to be applicable to the movement of avatars modeled using meshes and skeletons of Ju in view of Fitzgibbon and the results would have been predictable in using skinning parameters indicating influence weights of joints on a vertex to determine the positions of vertices of a mesh of an avatar as it moves. Therefore, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Ju in view of Fitzgibbon and further in view of Chen does not clearly disclose segmenting the skinned 3D mesh, based on the skinning weights associated with the plurality of vertices, into the plurality of body part meshes that correspond to respective body parts of the virtual character. Baecher discloses segmenting a model based on skinning weights of vertices (Paragraph 0019). Baecher’s technique of segmenting a model based on skinning weights of vertices would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art to be applicable to the model of an avatar having vertices associated with skinning parameters of Ju in view of Fitzgibbon and further in view of Chen and the results would have been predictable in the segmenting of an avatar into body parts based on skinning weights associated with vertices of the model of the avatar. Therefore, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Ju in view of Fitzgibbon in view of Chen and further in view of Baecher does not clearly disclose cage meshes corresponding to respective body part meshes of the plurality of body part meshes; and determining the cage mesh for each body part mesh. Li discloses generating surface meshes for body parts of a body (Paragraph 0006). Li’s technique of generating surface meshes for body parts of a body would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art to be applicable to the segmented body parts of an avatar of Ju in view of Fitzgibbon in view of Chen and further in view of Baecher and the results would have been predictable in generating surface meshes for segmented body parts of an avatar. Therefore, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 8, Baecher discloses wherein segmenting the skinned 3D mesh into the plurality of body part meshes comprises: determining vertices of the skinned 3D mesh associated with each body part based on the skinning weights (Paragraph 0019, determining individual segments of the body based on the skinning weights of the vertices).
Regarding claims 10 and 16, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 1 is applied. Furthermore, with regard to claim 16, Ju discloses a memory with instructions stored thereon (Paragraph 0105, memory storing programs); and a processing device, coupled to the memory, the processing device configured to access the memory and execute the instructions (Paragraph 0107, processor executing programs).
Regarding claim 19, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 8 is applied.
Claim(s) 2 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ju (US 2023/0196678 A1) in view of Fitzgibbon et al. (US 2011/0228976 A1) in view of Chen (US 2023/0316688 A1) in view of Baecher et al. (US 2015/0187134 A1) in view of Li et al. (US 2014/0064602 A1) and further in view of Goorts et al. (US 2022/0230402 A1).
Regarding claim 2, Ju in view of Fitzgibbon in view of Chen in view of Baecher and further in view of Li discloses all limitations as discussed in claim 1. Ju further discloses receiving the 3D mesh of the virtual character (Paragraph 0035, input model including the mesh for generating the 3D avatar). Ju in view of Fitzgibbon in view of Chen in view of Baecher and further in view of Li does not clearly disclose and prior to generating the avatar body model, simplifying the 3D mesh to reduce a vertex count of the 3D mesh, wherein the simplifying comprises one or more of filtering, clean-up, or mirroring. Goorts discloses mesh cleanup and simplification to reduce the number of vertices in a mesh. Goorts technique of mesh cleanup and simplification to reduce the number of vertices in a mesh would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art to be applicable to the input model including a mesh for generating a 3D avatar of Ju in view of Fitzgibbon in view of Chen in view of Baecher and further in view of Li and the results would have been predictable in the mesh cleanup and simplification to reduce the number of vertices in a mesh of a model used for generating a 3D avatar. Therefore, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 11, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 2 is applied.
Claim(s) 3-5, 12, 13, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ju (US 2023/0196678 A1) in view of Fitzgibbon et al. (US 2011/0228976 A1) in view of Chen (US 2023/0316688 A1) in view of Baecher et al. (US 2015/0187134 A1) in view of Li et al. (US 2014/0064602 A1) and further in view of Xu et al. (“RigNet: Neural Rigging for Articulated Characters”).
Regarding claim 3, Ju in view of Fitzgibbon in view of Chen in view of Baecher and further in view of Li discloses all limitations as discussed in claim 1. Ju in view of Fitzgibbon in view of Chen in view of Baecher and further in view of Li does not clearly disclose wherein generating the skeleton comprises: applying a trained machine learning model to the 3D mesh to obtain predicted joint locations of the plurality of joints of the skeleton, wherein vertex positions, topological edges, and geodesic edges of the 3D mesh are provided as input to the trained machine learning model; and building a skeleton hierarchy for the virtual character based on the predicted joint locations. Xu discloses predicting the location of joints for animating a skeleton using a neural network using an input 3D model with vertices and mesh and geodesic distances between edges (Section 3, paragraph 2 and figure 4) and using the predicted joint locations to determines probabilities of joints being connected to bones and the probabilities are used with a Minimum Spanning Tree algorithm that prioritizes the most likely bones to form a tree-structured skeleton (Section 3, paragraph 4). Xu’s technique of predicting the location of joints for animating a skeleton using a neural network to form a tree-structured skeleton for animation would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art to be applicable to an avatar’s skeleton with joints for animating the avatar of Ju in view of Fitzgibbon in view of Chen in view of Baecher and further in view of Li and the results would have been predictable in the prediction of the locations of joints for an avatar’s skeleton to form a tree-structed skeleton that can be used to animated the avatar. Therefore, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 4, Xu discloses prior to building the skeleton hierarchy, performing at least one operation from the group comprising: removing one or more vertices that lie external to a bounding box of the 3D mesh, removing one or more vertices that are isolated, mirroring the vertices across a plane of symmetry, and any combination thereof (Section 4.1, paragraph 9, symmetrizing joint prediction by reflecting points).
Regarding claim 5, Xu discloses clustering the predicted joint locations to generate the skeleton (Section 3, paragraph 2 and figure 4, clustering).
Regarding claims 12 and 17, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 3 is applied.
Regarding claim 13, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 4 is applied.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 7, 9, 14, 15, 18, and 20 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.
Regarding claim 6, the prior art does not clearly disclose The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein building the skeleton hierarchy comprises: determining whether the predicted joint locations of the plurality of joints are valid; if it is determined that the predicted joint locations are valid, connecting the plurality of joints to bones to determine the skeleton hierarchy; and if it is determined that the predicted joint locations are invalid, determining the skeleton hierarchy based on one of a procedurally generated geometric skeleton and a default skeleton.
Regarding claim 7, the prior art does not clearly disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the skinning weights are determined by: mapping the 3D mesh to a decimated 3D mesh, wherein two or more vertices of the 3D mesh correspond to a single vertex of the decimated 3D mesh; applying a trained second machine learning model to the decimated 3D mesh to determine intermediate skinning weights for the decimated 3D mesh, wherein a respective volumetric geodesic distance between individual pairs of vertices and bones are provided as input to the trained second machine learning model; and calculating the skinning weights for each vertex of the 3D mesh based on the intermediate skinning weights and the mapping.
Regarding claim 9, the prior art does not clearly disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining the cage mesh comprises, for each body part: applying a trained third machine learning model to the body part mesh of the body part to determine a point cloud that includes a plurality of cage vertices and a canonical connectivity between the plurality of cage vertices; forming a plurality of predicted cage mesh parts based on the plurality of vertices and the canonical connectivity for each vertex; and determining the cage mesh by deforming vertices in the predicted cage mesh parts that lie inside a surface of the body mesh.
Regarding claim 14, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 6 is applied.
Regarding claims 15 and 18, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 7 is applied.
Regarding claim 20, similar reasoning as discussed in claim 9 is applied.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Yang et al. (US 2024/0046566 A1) discloses a regression network for generating parameters for a morphable mesh based on skinning components.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHI HOANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3417. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8:00-5:00.
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, JASON CHAN can be reached at (571)272-3022. 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.
/PHI HOANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2619
Prosecution Insights