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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed on January 2nd, 2025.
Should applicant desire to obtain the benefit of foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) prior to declaration of an interference, a certified English translation of the foreign application must be submitted in reply to this action. 37 CFR 41.154(b) and 41.202(e).
Failure to provide a certified translation may result in no benefit being accorded for the non-English application.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
37 C.F.R. 1.52(b)(6) states “the paragraphs of the specification, other than in the claims or abstract, may be numbered at the time the application is filed, and should be individually and consecutively numbered using Arabic numerals, so as to unambiguously identify each paragraph. The number should consist of at least four numerals enclosed in square brackets, including leading zeros (e.g., [0001]). The numbers and enclosing brackets should appear to the right of the left margin as the first item in each paragraph, before the first word of the paragraph, and should be highlighted in bold. A gap, equivalent to approximately four spaces, should follow the number.” Appropriate correction is recommended to facilitate navigation and reference of the Specification throughout prosecution.
Page 11 of the Specification discloses, "In step 303, the virtual space creation server 10 receives a query from the user terminal 20. In step 302, the user can transmit a query to the virtual space creation server 10 by entering a query into the input interface (I) included in the dialogue window (113) included in the virtual space provided by the virtual space creation server 10."
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite a mental process that can be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pen and paper. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because a computer is invoked merely as a tool to execute an abstract idea. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because an abstract idea is merely applied on a generic computer without any element that would otherwise preclude performance of the abstrac.
Regarding claim 1, the claim recites “A method for generating a dialogue, comprising:generating a virtual space in which a character and objects are placed in a map and providing it to a user terminal;receiving a user's query targeting the character from the user terminal;obtaining location information of the character and objects placed in the virtual space at the time of receiving the user's query;transmitting metadata including the obtained location information of the character and objects together with the user's query to an API server;receiving a response to the user's query from the API server; andproviding the received response to the user terminal, wherein the response is generated by a generative Al model that receives the user's query, the metadata, and persona information of the character from the API server, thereby being based on the location information of the character in the virtual space.”
The limitations of “generating a virtual space…” “receiving a user’s query…” “obtaining location information…” and “providing the received response…” as drafted cover mental activities which can be performed in the mind or with the aid of pen and paper. Taken individually, or as a whole, these limitations describe acts which are equivalent to human mental work of interactive theater.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the steps of the claimed invention can be performed mentally, and the recited server, generative AI model and API are well-known computer elements used merely to automate the mental work. Accordingly, the claim is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding claim 2, the claim depends from claim 1, and thus recites the limitations of claim 1, “further comprising: determining a trigger box in which the character is located based on the obtained location information of the character,wherein the internal space of the map of the virtual space is partitioned by at least one trigger box having a rectangular box shape,wherein the specialized information of the trigger box where the character is determined to be located is transmitted to the API server together with the user's query and the metadata,wherein the response is generated by the generative AI model that receives the user's query, the metadata, the persona information of the character, and the specialized information of the trigger box in which the character is located from the API server, thereby being based further on the specialized information of the trigger box in which the character is located.”
The limitation of “determining a trigger box…” “the internal space… is partitioned…” and “…the specialized information… is transmitted to the API server…” as drafted covers mental activities which can be performed in the mind or with the aid of pen and paper. Taken individually, or as a whole with claim 1, these limitations describe acts which are equivalent to human mental work of organizing the stage for interactive theater. Accordingly, the claim is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding claim 3, the claim depends from claim 2, and thus recites the limitations of claims 1 and 2, “wherein the specialized information of the trigger box includes information about invisible elements associated with the internal space of the trigger box that cannot be visually confirmed on the map of the virtual space.”
Taken individually, or as a whole with the preceding claims, these limitations describe acts which are equivalent to human mental work of creating and organizing the setting for interactive theater. Accordingly, the claim is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding claim 4, the claim depends from claim 3, and thus recites the limitations of claims 1-3, “further comprising: determining a trigger weight that indicates the extent to which the specialized information of the trigger box, in which the character is located, is reflected when generating the response by the generative AI model,wherein the determined trigger weight is transmitted to the API server together with the specialized information of the trigger box in which the character is located.”
Taken individually, or as a whole with the preceding claims, these limitations describe acts which are equivalent to human mental work of decision making for interactive theater. Accordingly, the claim is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding claim 5, the claim depends from claim 4, and thus recites the limitations of claims 1-4, “wherein the trigger weight is determined based on a ratio of the total volume of the character and the volume of the character included in the trigger box in which the character is located.”
Taken individually, or as a whole with the preceding claims, these limitations describe acts which are equivalent to human mental work of decision making for interactive theater. Accordingly, the claim is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding claim 6, the claim depends from claim 5, and thus recites the limitations of claims 1-5, “wherein the trigger weight is determined further based on a ratio of the entire volume of the map and the volume of the trigger box in which the character is located.”
Taken individually, or as a whole with the preceding claims, these limitations describe acts which are equivalent to human mental work of decision making for interactive theater. Accordingly, the claim is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding claim 7, the claim depends from claim 4, and thus recites the limitations of claims 1-4, “wherein the internal space of the map of the virtual space is partitioned by two trigger boxes or more, at least two of which overlap each other, and in determining the trigger box in which the character is located based on the obtained character location information, if it is determined that the character is located in an overlapping area of at least two trigger boxes, the trigger weight for the specialized information of each trigger box in which the character is located is determined inversely proportional to the volume of each trigger box in which the character is located.”
Taken individually, or as a whole with the preceding claims, these limitations describe acts which are equivalent to human mental work of decision making for interactive theater. Accordingly, the claim is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding claim 8, system claim 8 and method claim 1 are related as a method and system of using the same, with each system element’s function corresponding to the method step. Accordingly, claim 8 are similarly rejected under the same rationale as applied to claim 1.
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 1-4 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2025/0022200 to Huang et al. (hereinafter, "Huang") in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2022/0366626 to Miller et al. (hereinafter, "Miller").
Regarding claims 1 and 8, Huang teaches a method and system comprising: generating a virtual space in which a character and objects are placed in a map and providing it to a user terminal (paragraph [0012], "An object of the present disclosure is to provide artificial intelligence (AI) device configured to implement a digital avatar that can enhances user interaction with the digital environment by introducing 3D interaction and visual performative instruction capabilities, which allows users to explore and manipulate the virtual world more effectively, by having the avatar demonstrating instructions through intuitive 3D visuals, while also incorporating natural gesture generation, enabling users to express themselves more authentically during virtual interactions.");
receiving a user's query targeting the character from the user terminal (paragraph [0165], "In more detail, as shown in FIG. 4, a user can ask a question to the digital avatar and a microphone in the client device can record the audio signal and transmit the audio signal to the server. Alternatively, the user can input the question as a text message and the text message can be sent to the server.");
transmitting metadata including the […] user's query to an API server (paragraph [0166], "Upon receiving the audio signal from the client device, a speech-to-text neural network model can convert the audio signal into text, and supply the text to both of an information retrieval model and a large language gesture instruction model.");
receiving a response to the user's query from the API server (paragraph [0168], "For example, the information retrieval model can output a response that includes a text answer and movement instructions for the avatar (e.g., conditioned on gestures). The information retrieval model is discussed in more detailed below with regards to FIG. 6. According to an embodiment, the large language gesture instruction model can include a neural network and be based on a transformer based architecture (e.g., such as GPT-3.5-turbo), but embodiments are not limited thereto."); and
providing the received response to the user terminal, wherein the response is generated by a generative Al model that receives the user's query, the metadata, and persona information of the character from the API server, thereby being based on the location information of the character in the virtual space (paragraph [0175], "Then, once the outputs are generated from the audio to facial animation model and the audio to conversational gesture model, the server can transmit blend shape weights, gesture instructions, high level movement/3D object manipulation instructions, and the audio response signal to the avatar.").
While Huang teaches at paragraph [0167], “The large language gesture instruction model can take the text (e.g., corresponding to the user's query) and output gesture and movement instructions, and supply the instructions to the information retrieval model. For example, the gesture instructions can be high level instructions that can include movement instructions based on the converted text from the input query, such as ‘cause the avatar to look here,’ ‘point with finger here,’ ‘carry 3D object from location X to location Y,’ ‘rotate 3D object by N degrees’ etc.,” which describes operations in virtual space that would require that the system know the position of the avatar, Huang does not explicitly teach, “obtaining location information of the character and objects placed in the virtual space at the time of receiving the user's query,” and thus, Miller is introduced.
Miller teaches a system for rendering avatars in virtual space, including obtaining location information of the character and objects placed in the virtual space at the time of receiving the user's query (paragraph [0396], "FIG. 33 illustrates an example of identifying a target interesting impulse. The environment 3300 in FIG. 33 may be a mixed reality environment in which Alice's Avatar 1000 is rendered. This mixed reality environment can be rendered by Bob's wearable device 904. The environment 3300 can include physical interesting objects 3324 and 3322 which may be part of a physical object in the environment. For example, the physical interesting objects 3324 and 3322 may be associated with gaze boxes. The environment 3300 can also include virtual interesting objects 3312 and 3314... The environment 3300 can also include an interesting area 3336. The physical interesting objects 3324, 3322, the virtual interesting objects 3312, 3314, the social triangle 3334, and the interesting area 3336 (e.g., the location, direction, or boundary of the interesting area) can be part of the virtual avatar's 1000 knowledge base.").
Huang and Miller are considered analogous because they are each concerned with virtual spaces. 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 Huang with the spatial information of Miller for the purpose of improving system responsiveness. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claim 2, Huang does not explicitly teach “determining a trigger box in which the character is located based on the obtained location information of the character,” or “wherein the internal space of the map of the virtual space is partitioned by at least one trigger box having a rectangular box shape,” however, Miller teaches a method and system for navigating a virtual space comprising: determining a trigger box in which the character is located based on the obtained location information of the character (paragraph [0364], "Another example interesting object 3120 may be a gaze box 3114 (also shown in FIG. 31B) which can be associated with the region of an object or another person that a person (or an avatar) focuses on (e.g., gazes at) during an interaction with the environment or the object of interest."),
wherein the internal space of the map of the virtual space is partitioned by at least one trigger box having a rectangular box shape (paragraph [0371], "FIG. 31B also illustrates an example of a gaze box 3114 which can include a 3D space which can capture the saccade points while a person is looking at an object. In this example, the gaze box 3114 is represented by a 6-sided rectangular cuboid gaze surface associated with the saccade points.").
Huang and Miller are considered analogous because they are each concerned with virtual spaces. 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 Huang with the spatial partitions of Miller for the purpose of improving system navigability. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Huang has previously taught wherein the specialized information […] is transmitted to the API server together with the user's query and the metadata (paragraph [0166], "Upon receiving the audio signal from the client device, a speech-to-text neural network model can convert the audio signal into text, and supply the text to both of an information retrieval model and a large language gesture instruction model."),
wherein the response is generated by the generative AI model that receives the user's query, the metadata, the persona information of the character, and the specialized information of the trigger box in which the character is located from the API server, thereby being based further on the specialized information of the trigger box in which the character is located (paragraph [0175], "Then, once the outputs are generated from the audio to facial animation model and the audio to conversational gesture model, the server can transmit blend shape weights, gesture instructions, high level movement/3D object manipulation instructions, and the audio response signal to the avatar.").
Given that Huang and Miller are considered analogous because they are each concerned with virtual spaces, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have included the spatial partitions of Miller in the API calls of Huang for the purpose of improving response accuracy. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claim 3, Miller further teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the specialized information of the trigger box includes information about invisible elements associated with the internal space of the trigger box that cannot be visually confirmed on the map of the virtual space (paragraph [0064], "The wearable system can animate the avatar based on the impulse regardless of whether the viewer is in a telepresence session with the avatar's human counterpart. In situations where the viewer is in a telepresence session, the avatar can respond to the interesting impulse in the viewer's environment even though such interesting impulse does not appear in the human counterpart's environment. For example, Alice and Bob may be in telepresence session. Alice's avatar may initially face Bob as Bob is talking. When Bob's wearable system detects a loud noise in Bob's environment, Alice's avatar may switch its attention from Bob to the direction of the loud noise (and thus may look away from Bob)," and paragraph [0375], "Because areas of interest may not have a fixed position in the viewer's environment, interesting areas are not required to be in the virtual avatar's visual cone (e.g., when a cone or ray casting is performed from the virtual avatar's perspective) to be eligible for the avatar to respond. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 31C, the avatar can respond to a sound source coming from behind the avatar. The avatar is not limited to responding to sound sources that are in its field of view," and paragraph [0376], "In addition to or as an alternative to the general direction of a sound or light, an area of interest can also be associated with a memory of previous stimuli such that the avatar may periodically check a region in the environment to determine if the previous stimuli are present. For example, in FIG. 31C, once the sound 3152 fades, the avatar 1100 may go back to its previous pose and orientation as shown in the scene 3150a. Time decay of interesting impulses is described further below. However, the wearable system may render the avatar 1100 as periodically changing its pose or orientation back to the one shown in the scene 3150b to look in the direction of the sound source, even though there may not be a sound in the direction 3152 at that particular time. As another example, the avatar 1100 may initially be looking at an item of interest (such as, e.g., a virtual dog) in the environment. The item of interest may leave the environment (e.g., because the virtual dog has moved to another room). However, the avatar 1100 may occasionally look at the location where the item of interest last appeared and to check to see if the item of interest reappears in the environment.").
Huang and Miller are considered analogous because they are each concerned with virtual spaces. 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 Huang with the abstract spatial information of Miller for the purpose of improving user immersion. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claim 4, Miller further teaches the method of claim 3, further comprising: determining a trigger weight that indicates the extent to which the specialized information of the trigger box, in which the character is located, is reflected when generating the response by the generative AI model (paragraph [0332], "FIGS. 25C and 25D illustrate examples of determining an item of interest among a plurality of potential items of interest. An item of interest may be determined by calculating an interest value for all potential items of interest in the virtual scene. The interest value of an object may be a number representing how strongly the user is focused on the object. In FIGS. 25C and 25D specifically, the interest value for a potential item of interest is calculated by computing a dot product between a vector representing the user's line of sight (V) and a vector representing the direction to the item of interest (referred to as vector B in FIG. 25C). The resulting scalar value can be multiplied by an interest weight W for the item of interest.").
Huang has previously taught wherein the determined trigger weight is transmitted to the API server together with the specialized information of the trigger box in which the character is located (paragraph [0166], "Upon receiving the audio signal from the client device, a speech-to-text neural network model can convert the audio signal into text, and supply the text to both of an information retrieval model and a large language gesture instruction model.").
Huang and Miller are considered analogous because they are each concerned with virtual spaces. 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 included the selection weights of Miller in the API calls of Huang for the purpose of improving response accuracy. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7 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.
The combination of Huang and Miller does not teach a method for virtual target selection wherein the object of interest is selected based on “a ratio of the total volume of the character and the volume of the character included in the trigger box in which the character is located,” or “a ratio of the entire volume of the map and the volume of the trigger box in which the character is located,” or in the presence of overlapping spatial partitions.
“Gaze Modulated Disambiguation Technique for Gesture Control in 3D Virtual Objects Selection” by Deng et al. teaches methods for volumetric candidate selection, but fails to describe the particular method as described in the claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2026/0029839 to Fieldman, filed October 26th, 2023, teaches using machine learning models to respond to user queries in virtual reality environments.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2025/0036887 to Sukhija et al., filed July 15th, 2024 with priority to July 24th, 2023, teaches using a virtual assistant to respond to user queries, including API calls to a language model.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2025/0053430 to Jones et al., filed July 12th, 2024, with priority to August 10th, 2023, teaches using language models to create virtual assistants that respond to user queries.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2025/0131235 to Zangrilli et al., filed October 18th, 2024, with priority to October 20th, 2023, teaches using language models to create virtual assistants to respond to user queries, including API calls to the language model.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2025/0139162 to Fieldman, filed October 26th, 2023, teaches using machine learning models to respond to user queries in virtual reality environments.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2025/0272581 to Massie et al., filed February 28th, 2024, teaches using a virtual assistant to respond to user queries, including API calls to a language model.
U.S. Patent 11,967,033 to Pisoni et al., filed June 30th, 2023, teaches methods for natural language interaction with virtual environments.
U.S. Patent 12,536,384 to Kamiya et al., filed July 26th, 2024, teaches methods for conversation with virtual characters, including API calls to language models.
U.S. Patent 12,481,665 to Gargano et al., filed September 27th, 2024, teaches methods for virtual assistants that create customized responses to user queries, including API calls to a language model.
U.S. Patent 12,602,193 to Kurfirst et al., filed October 15th, 2024, teaches using a virtual assistant to respond to user queries, including API calls to a language model.
WIPO Publication 2019/150469 to Kondoh, published August 8th, 2019, teaches methods for user interactions with virtual reality spaces.
WIPO Publication 2024/107297 to Pichappan et al., published May 23rd, 2024, teaches methods for virtual reality assistants that respond to user queries.
China Invention Appllication 116975210 to Wang et al., published October 31st, 2023, teaches methods for conversation with virtual assistants.
"Embodied Tour Guide in An Interactive Virtual Art Gallery” by Yuan and Chee, published in 2003, teaches human-computer interaction with virtual reality assistants, wherein the assistants respond to user queries.
"Interactive Character as a Virtual Tour Guide to an Online Museum Exhibition” by De Almeida and Yokoi, published in 2003, teaches human-computer interaction with virtual reality assistants, wherein the assistants respond to user queries.
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/SEAN THOMAS SMITH/Examiner, Art Unit 2659
/PIERRE LOUIS DESIR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2659
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