DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable (but for the double patenting rejection below) because the prior art does not teach a method comprising determining, based on images captured by a camera connected to a computing device that provides access to an automated assistant, that a user is located within a field of view of the camera and that the user is associated with an account accessible via the automated assistant, wherein the determining comprises processing an image facial recognition model stored locally at the client to generate a face embedding, comparing the generated embedding to a locally stored embedding, and determining a distance of the user from the device, and finally causing, in response to a user input, rendering personalized content if the distance satisfies a proximity threshold. These features, taken together with the rest of the claimed limitations, render the claims allowable.
Claims 5, 12, and 19 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.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Double Patenting
Claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-18 and 20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 3, and 5-7 of U.S. Patent No. 12,170,816. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the examined application claim would have been obvious over the reference claims. Both sets of claims are directed to displaying personalized content based on distance to a user, and one of ordinary skill would see the claims in question as obvious variants of each other.
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.
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement.
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).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Timothy R Newlin whose telephone number is (571)270-3015. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 Mountain Time.
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/TIMOTHY R NEWLIN/Examiner, Art Unit 2424