DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1-20 of the present application are the same claims 1-20 as originally filed and examined in earlier application number 17/721,596, which were rejected in at least the Non-Final Office Action mailed July 2, 2024. Accordingly, this action is being made FINAL, even though it is the first action in the present application based on MPEP 706.07(b). The following rejection is identical to the rejection as presented in the July 2, 2024 Non-Final Office 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
The present application claims benefit of priority to prior non-provisional application numbers 17/721,596, 16/862,753 and 16/445,893 and to provisional application number 62/687,393. The provisional application fails to set forth sufficient disclosure to support the presently claimed invention. That is, the totality of the specification, drawings, and abstract of the provisional application fails to describe at least “determining an object flow associated with the player from the video by detecting one or more key points of the player, determining an affinity field map and determining a pose of the player based on the key points and the affinity field map” as recited in independent claim 1 and similarly recited in independent claims 11 & 20. The Examiner is unable to locate any discussion of object flows, key points, or affinity maps. Accordingly, the claims as presently filed are being examined herein below with the earliest effective filing date of June 19, 2019 as being the filing date of the 16/445,893 non-provisional application, which appears to have the requisite support for the presently claimed invention.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception as discussed below.
Step 1 of the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter
More specifically, regarding Step 1, of the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, the claims are directed to eligible statutory categories of invention.
Step 2a-1 of the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance
Next, the claims are analyzed to determine whether they are directed to a judicial exception.
Independent Claim 1 recites:
A method for physical gaming with a mobile computing device, comprising: joining a game comprising at least a player; capturing a video of the player in the game using a camera of the mobile computing device; determining an object flow associated with the player from the video by detecting one or more key points of the player; determining an affinity field map; and determining a pose of the player based on the key points and the affinity field map.
These process steps as underlined in claim 1, and as applicable to independent claims 11 & 20, being treated herein the same as claim 1 for brevity, above are acts of mental processes amounting to concepts performed in the human mind, such as, but not limited to, observation, judgement, evaluation and/or opinion.
A human appears capable of performing the process steps underlined in claim 1. A human can join a game, determine an object flow associated with a player by detecting key points of the player (from watching a video, visually or the like), determine an affinity field map, and determine a pose of the player based on the key points and the affinity field map, as a mental exercise utilizing one or more of observation, judgement, evaluation, and/or opinion.
Thus, the processes steps as underlined in claim 1 above are abstract, whereby these processes are recited in conjunction with generic computing elements recited at a high level of generality that merely implement the abstract idea using a generic well-established tool that merely performs the abstract idea (discussed in further detail below with respect to practical applicable of the abstract idea; see also MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Regarding dependent claims 2-10 & 12-19:
Each claim is dependent either directly or indirectly from at least one of the independent claims identified above and includes all the limitations of said independent claim. Therefore, each dependent claim recites the same abstract idea as identified above. Each of the dependent claims further describe additional mental process aspects to the abstract idea or merely further define aspects already deemed a mental process as detailed above, such as, generating analytics, specificities of players/locations, or generating / providing feedback. Accordingly, these limitations further the abstract idea rather than provide significantly more than the abstract idea.
Step 2a-2 of the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance
The second prong of step 2a is the consideration if the claim limitations are directed to a practical application.
Limitations that are indicative of integration into a practical application:
-Improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field - see MPEP 2106.05(a)
-Applying or using a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition – see Vanda Memo
-Applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine - see MPEP 2106.05(b)
-Effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing - see MPEP 2106.05(c)
-Applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception - see MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo
Limitations that are not indicative of integration into a practical application:
-Adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea - see MPEP 2106.05(f)
-Adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception - see MPEP 2106.05(g)
-Generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use – see MPEP 2106.05(h)
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claimed computing elements include mobile device with a camera to effectively apply the abstract idea. These elements are recited at a high level of generality. The process steps as underlined above are no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using the claimed structure Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(e). The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claimed invention merely applies the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea through human activity or implement the abstract idea on a “computer”, or merely uses a “computer” as a tool to perform the abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05 (f)) and/or generally links the use of the judicial exception to a particular technology or field of use (MPEP 2106.05 (h)). Simply implementing the abstract idea on generic structure and/or a generic computer is not a practical application of the abstract idea. For the reasons as discussed above, the claims are not integrated to a practical application.
Step 2b of the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance
Next, the claims as a whole are analyzed to determine whether any element, or combination of elements, is sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the exception.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because no element or combination of elements claimed is sufficient to ensure any claim of the present application as a whole amounts to significantly more than one or more judicial exceptions, as described above. For example, the recitations of utilization of generic structure and generic computing elements to apply the abstract idea merely implements the abstract idea at a low level of generality and fails to impose meaningful limitations to impart patent-eligibility (the use of a generic structure to implement a process or a generic computer to implement the process is merely illustrating the environment in which the abstract idea is practiced). The recited generic elements are a mere means to implement the abstract idea. Thus, they cannot provide the “inventive concept” necessary for patent-eligibility. “[I]f a patent’s recitation of a computer amounts to a mere instruction to ‘implement]’ an abstract idea ‘on ... a computer, ’... that addition cannot impart patent eligibility.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358 (quoting Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1301). As such, the significantly more required to overcome the 35 U.S.C. 101 hurdle and transform the claimed subject matter into a patent-eligible abstract idea is lacking. Accordingly, the claims are not patent-eligible.
In this case, utilizing a camera of a mobile device to capture video represent routine, conventional use of a generic mobile device with a generic camera capturing video. The claims do not recite any technological improvement to the mobile device, the camera, or any data processing techniques, assuming the recitations underlined above are “data processing”, as there is no specificity as to what structure performs the underlined process steps above.
The dependent claims do not add “significantly more” for at least the same reasons as directed to their respective independent claims, at least based on the position, as discussed above, that each of the dependent claims merely provides additional mental processes to further the abstract idea of the
Furthermore, the claimed generic structure set forth in the claims are analogous to a general purpose structure and general purpose computing elements in that they represent old, well understood conventional elements that do not add significantly more to the claims. See Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. at 2358-59. The machine or apparatus limitations should make clear that the use of the machine or apparatus in the claimed process imposes a meaningful limit on the claim's scope, and does use a machine involving more than insignificant extra-solution activity. MPEP 2106.05(g).
Also, there is no transformation in these method claims. The above claimed underlined process steps do not transform the generically claimed computing elements into a different state or thing. These additional elements physically remain the same and do not transform into a different state or thing.
Consequently, consideration of each and every element of each and every claim, both individually and as an ordered combination, leads to the conclusion that the claims are not patent-eligible under 35 USC §101.
Conclusion
This is a CONTINUATION of applicant's earlier Application No. 17/721,596. All claims are identical to, patentably indistinct from, or have unity of invention with the invention claimed in the earlier application (that is, restriction (including lack of unity) would not be proper) and could have been finally rejected on the grounds and art of record in the next Office action if they had been entered in the earlier application. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL even though it is a first action in this case. See MPEP § 706.07(b). 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See attached Notice of References Cited (PTO-892).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MILAP SHAH whose telephone number is (571)272-1723. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:30-6PM.
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, KANG HU can be reached on 571-270-1344. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
/MILAP SHAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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