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 § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-7, 12 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 2022/0114367 A1 to Hori et al.
Regarding claim 1, Hori discloses an information processing apparatus (figure 3) comprising circuitry (microphone 518, camera 520, motion acquisition device 517, keyboard 511) configured to:
acquire, for each of a plurality of participants who participate in a gathering, unique data indicating unique information of the participant based on an activity of the participant during the gathering (figure 15, voice text, or handwritten character input by a particular user, see para 0131);
and generate, for each of the plurality of participants, a corresponding image corresponding to the acquired unique data based on the acquired unique data (a retrieved thumbnail, see 0131-0133), and a machine learning model trained using training data including the unique data indicating the unique information and an image (0110-0111).
Regarding claim 2, Hori discloses wherein the circuitry is further configured to: generate virtual unique data of a virtual participant based on the unique data of each of the plurality of participants; and generate, for the virtual participant, a corresponding image corresponding to the virtual unique data, based on the virtual unique data and the machine learning model (0196-0199, user’s gestures and reactions may be transmitted to other participants to show their reactions or virtual objects can be manipulated on screen, as these gestures and reactions are from each individual participant they are unique virtual data).
Regarding claims 3-4, Hori discloses wherein the unique data includes a first type of unique data including a first type of unique information and a second type of unique data including a second type of unique information that is based on a reaction to the first type of unique information, and the circuitry generates, based on a set of the first type of unique data of a first participant and the second type of unique data of a second participant and the machine learning model, the corresponding image for the second participant, the corresponding image corresponding to the set of the first type of unique data and the second type of unique data (0196-0198 user’s gestures and reactions may be transmitted to other participants to show their reactions or virtual objects can be manipulated on screen, as these gestures and reactions are from each individual participant they are unique virtual data, furthermore the car, human, animal and building correspond to the thumbnail display 800 which was generated based off human speech or text info as discussed with respect to claim 1 and correspond to the first type of unique data and a 2nd type for a second user, 0181-0185)
Regarding claim 5, the limitations of: wherein the circuitry further generates an integrated corresponding image corresponding to a set of unique data corresponding to the plurality of participants, based on the set of unique data and the machine learning model is met by the discussion of claims 3-4 above.
Regarding claim 6, see figure 15 which discloses receiving both voice, handwritten character images and text to select a thumbnail, furthermore see the discussion of machine learning above.
Regarding claim 7, the limitation of wherein the circuitry generates the corresponding image based on image data input in association with the gathering, in addition to the text data and the machine learning model is met by figures 31-34 where gestures captured by a camera a used to manipulate the corresponding image.
Regarding claim 12, element 800 in figure 17, shows an arrangement of thumbnails that correspond to user input (0141-0142) and thus teach:
wherein, the circuitry is further configured to: determine at least one of an arrangement, sizes, or a decoration of the plurality of corresponding images to be displayed, based on at least one of unique information corresponding to the plurality of participants or the plurality of corresponding images; and generate display information for displaying the plurality of corresponding images in at least one of the determined arrangement, the determined sizes, or the determined decoration.
Regarding claim 17, Hori discloses wherein a part of the unique data used to generate the corresponding image is changeable (0148-0149, users can add input which will change or remove a thumbnail image).
Regarding claims 18-20 see claim 1 above.
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.
Claim(s) 8 and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2022/0114367 A1 to Hori et al. in view of US 2006/0098086 A1 to Chandra et al.
Regarding claim 8, Hori fails to specifically disclose:
wherein the circuitry is further configured to generate display information for displaying, for each of the plurality of participants, participant identification information identifying the participant and the corresponding image of the participant in association with each other.
Chandra discloses a video conferencing system in figure 2, in which the respective video of each participant also includes a name or title for each respective person on the video stream (0037-0039).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to have modified the video conferencing system of Hori to utilize the display of video with corresponding names of participants for the advantage of making it easy to identify the name of each person participating and knowing who is present and who is not and better facilitate communications (0040).
Regarding claim 15, the limitations of, wherein the circuitry generates the display information for displaying the participant identification information identifying each of the plurality of participants, the plurality of corresponding images generated for the plurality of participants, and the unique data of the plurality of participants in association with each other is met by the combination of Hori and Chandra.
More specifically, the combination would display both the images generated with the inputs as taught by Hori along with the participant identification information of Chandra.
Regarding claim 16, the limitations of:
generates, based on the machine learning model and character strings obtained by dividing text data included in the acquired unique data in chronological order, the corresponding image corresponding to the character strings for each of the plurality of participants; and generates the display information for displaying the character strings in chronological order.
Is met by Hori at 0149-0151, where the thumbnail data is replaced in order from the oldest which would be a chronological order, furthermore at 0141, element 800 contains text that was inputted.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9-11 and 13-14 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.
Conclusion
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HUNTER B. LONSBERRY
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 3665
/HUNTER B LONSBERRY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3665
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