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 .
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
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, 10-11 and 13-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yasukawa (US Pub. No. 2023/0245369; “Yasukawa ‘369” hereinafter)1, in view of Yasukawa (US Pub. No. 2021/0233286; “Yasukawa ‘286” hereinafter).
Regarding claim 1, Yasukawa ‘369 discloses an information processing system for displaying an image of a three-dimensional virtual space viewed by a first user and a second user (See the Abstract. The “distribution user” corresponds to the claimed “first user”, and the “viewing user” corresponds to the claimed “second user”. Fig. 4 shows a three-dimensional (3D) virtual space comprising an avatar 400 of a distribution user (see par. 146) and gifts 410A and 410B sent to the distribution user from a viewing user), the information processing system comprising circuitry configured to acquire information transmitted from a device used by the second user, the information including (i) identification information for identifying an object selected by the second user (Par. 47 discloses “the gift API server device 20A is capable of reading at least… information relevant to the gifted first gift object (information relevant to a type, a name, a color, and a size, or the like)”) and (ii) a display request for the object (Abstract: “receiving a request signal that is generated based on a manipulation of a viewing user… and requests that a first gift object is applied to the avatar object”); and set a display position of the object based on the identification information and the display request, and display on a display a virtual space image in which the object is arranged at the display position (See par. 89 and Figs. 4 and 5).
However, Yasukawa ‘369 does not disclose that the circuitry is configured to change at least one of a position and a direction of a virtual camera in the virtual space, or that the display position of the object is set according to the position of the virtual camera in addition to the position of the character object.
In the same field of endeavor of positioning a provided/gift object within a virtual space relative to a subject and an imaging viewpoint, Yasukawa ‘286 discloses circuitry configured to change a position of a virtual camera that images a virtual subject, and to calculate a display position of an object using both information related to the position of the virtual subject and information related to the position of the virtual camera (Par. 110 discloses that “as shown in FIG. 7, gifts 71 between a subject 72 and a camera 73 may be moved by an object 74 generated between the camera 73 and the subject 72. At this time, as indicated by arrows of the camera 73, according to the movement of the camera, the object 74 may move so as to express a situation in which the camera pushes through a large number of gifts”. In particular, a display position of a gift 71 is calculated based on the position and size of a transparent object 74, which is generated based on the positions of subject 72 and virtual camera 73, as disclosed in par. 82).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA before the effective filing date to incorporate Yasukawa ‘286’s camera-and-subject-based position calculation into Yasukawa ‘369’s gift-object display system to ensure the gift object remains positioned relative to what the virtual camera is presently imaging and thus remains recognizable to the distributing user regardless of camera movement, as taught and motivated by Yasukawa ‘286, par. 8: “make it easier to recognize a subject even if there is an object between the subject and the camera”.
Regarding claim 2, Claim 2 recites the method counterpart of the system of claim 1, reciting substantially the same limitations of changing a virtual camera position/direction, outputting a virtual space image from the virtual camera’s perspective, acquiring identification/display-request information from a second-user device, and setting the object’s display position according to the virtual camera position and the character object position. Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286 discloses these limitations for the reasons discussed above with respect to claim 1.
Regarding claim 3, Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286 discloses that a display attribute is associated with the object, and a plurality of display attributes are associated with respective display areas in the virtual space, and the display position of the object is set within the display area corresponding to the display attribute associated with the identification information of the object (Yasukawa ‘369, par. 89: “in order to specify which position on the moving image the first gift object is displayed in, a position coordinate of a three-dimensional orthogonal coordinate system is set in each of the first gift objects, in the gifting. When the position coordinate is set, various objects such as the avatar object or the first gift object displayed in advance on the moving image, and position coordinates not overlapping with each other on the moving image are set”).
Regarding claim 4, Yasukawa ‘286 discloses that the display position of the object is set to be between the position of the virtual camera and the position of the character object (Fig. 7 shows the display position of a gift 71 is between the positions of virtual camera 73 and virtual character 72. See also claim 1, “cause the transparent object to move a position of at least one gift in the virtual space between a virtual subject and a virtual camera that images the virtual subject”.
Regarding claim 5, Yasukawa ‘286 discloses that the display position of the object is set such that a relative distance from the character object to the object is a specified distance (Par. 70 discloses “position information relating to objects such as a subject, a camera, a gift, and the like may be predetermined by coordinate information. The coordinate information may be absolute coordinates or relative coordinates”. Since position information relating to a gift and the virtual avatar is predetermined, it could be said that the relative distance from the virtual avatar to the gift is a specified distance).
Regarding claim 6, Yasukawa ‘286 further discloses that the display position of the object is set to be within a field of view of the virtual camera (Par. 84 disclosing the object positioned on “a line segment of a line from a center of a field of view of the camera to a center of a face of the subject”), and such that a relative distance from the virtual camera to the object is a specified distance (Par. 70 discloses “position information relating to objects such as a subject, a camera, a gift, and the like may be predetermined by coordinate information. The coordinate information may be absolute coordinates or relative coordinates”. Since position information relating to a gift and the virtual camera is predetermined, it could be said that the relative distance from the virtual camera to the gift is a specified distance).
Regarding claim 7, Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286 discloses that the object is a first object, the first object is displayed between the position of the virtual camera and the position of the character object (Fig. 7 of Yasukawa ‘286 shows a first object 71 displayed between virtual camera 73 and character object 72), and a second object is displayed whose relative distance from the virtual camera is a specified distance, and the first object is a three-dimensional object and the second object is a two-dimensional object (Fig. 8 of Yasukawa ‘369 shows a second object 500 that visually simulates a collision between two first objects 410A and 410B. The two first objects 410A and 410B have a 3D appearance while the second object 500 has a 2D appearance; see also par. 99. Since Yasukawa ‘286 further discloses in par. 70 (see the cited text in the rejections of claims 5 and 6 above) that position information of any object (e.g. a gift, a virtual camera, a virtual character) is predetermined, it could be said that the relative distance between the second object 500 and the virtual camera is a specified distance).
Regarding claim 8, Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286 discloses that the object is a first object, the first object is displayed between the position of the virtual camera and the position of the character object (Fig. 7 of Yasukawa ‘286 shows a first object 71 displayed between virtual camera 73 and character object 72), and a second object is displayed whose relative distance from the virtual camera is a specified distance (Fig. 8 of Yasukawa ‘369 shows a second object 500 that visually simulates a collision between two first objects 410A and 410B. Since Yasukawa ‘286 further discloses in par. 70 that position information of any object (e.g. a gift, a virtual camera, a virtual character) is predetermined, it could be said that the relative distance between the second object 500 and the virtual camera is a specified distance), and a display time of the first object is set to be longer than a display time of the second object (Par. 99 of Yasukawa ‘369 discloses that the second object 500 is deleted “with a time point when the second gift object is actually displayed on the moving image”. This suggests that the second object 500 is displayed in a shorter time than the first objects (the gifts)).
Regarding claim 10, Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286 discloses that the display position of the object is set to be behind the character object in a depth direction based on the virtual camera (Par. 89 of Yasukawa ‘369 discloses: “in order to specify which position on the moving image the first gift object is displayed in, a position coordinate of a three-dimensional orthogonal coordinate system is set in each of the first gift objects, in the gifting... and... the moving image generation unit 100 sets a position coordinate relevant to a three-dimensional orthogonal coordinate (an X axis is a horizontal direction, a Y axis is a depth direction, and a Z axis is a vertical direction), in each of the first gift objects”. This suggests that if a gift object has Y-coordinate (depth direction) larger than that of the virtual character, it would be displayed behind the virtual character).
Regarding claim 11, Yasukawa ‘369 discloses that the second user is a viewing user who views a video including an image of the character object, receiving data for displaying the video sent by another device used by the first user, the first user being a distributing user who distributes the video from a server (See the Abstract, and par. 36: “each of the terminal devices 10 is capable of receiving the moving image that is distributed by the terminal device 10 of the distribution user through the server device 20”); transmitting the identification information for identifying the object selected by the viewing user and the display request for the object to the server (Par. 148: “the terminal device 10 of the viewing user transmits the request signal for requesting that the first gift object is applied to the distribution user… to the server device (the gift API server device)”); and outputting the video based on the data for displaying the video (See Fig. 4, for example).
Regarding claim 13, Yasukawa ‘286 discloses that when a second object is positioned between a first, generated object and the virtual camera, the position of the first object is maintained with priority over the second object such that the first object is positioned closer to the virtual camera than the second object (Par. 109: “The object generated by the generator may be set so that the position generated in the virtual space can be maintained with priority over the gift(s)… a gift that occupies the same space as the space occupied by the object cannot exist in the same space due to the generation of the object, and can be moved”). Claim 13 is rejected for these reasons in combination with the reasons discussed above with respect to claim 2.
Regarding claim 14, Claim 14 recites a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program for causing circuitry to perform substantially the same operations recited in claims 1 and 2: changing a virtual camera position/direction, outputting a virtual space image to a first-user display, acquiring identification/display-request information from a second-user device, and setting the object’s display position according to the virtual camera position and character-object position. Yasukawa ‘369, which discloses “a computer program to be executed by one or a plurality of processors” performing the corresponding gift-display operations (See par. 13), in view of Yasukawa ‘286, discloses or renders obvious this claim for the same reasons discussed above with respect to claims 1 and 2.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286 as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Fukuda (US Pub. No. 2020/0413145).
Regarding claim 9, Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286 discloses that the object is a first object, the first object is displayed between the position of the virtual camera and the position of the character object, and a second object is displayed whose relative distance from the virtual camera is a specified distance (Fig. 7 of Yasukawa ‘286 shows a plurality of gift object 71 displayed between virtual camera 73 and character object 72. Any of them could be equated to the claimed “first object”, and another one of them could be equated to the claimed “second object”. Since Yasukawa ‘286 further discloses in par. 70 that position information of any object (e.g. a gift, a virtual camera, a virtual character) is predetermined, it could be said that the relative distance between the second object and the virtual camera is a specified distance).
Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286, however, does not disclose that a price for making the display request for the first object is higher than a price for making the display request for the second object.
In the same field of endeavor, Fukuda teaches a server that stores gift objects each of which has a monetary value (Par. 55: “The gift object information 32E will now be described with reference to FIG. 2C. The gift object information 32E is stored for each user. The gift object information 32E includes identification information of the user (user ID), object identification information of a gift object, the number of gift objects, and the number of coins needed to purchase a gift object”). This implies that the price for a first gift object could be higher than that of a second object. If this is the case, it could be said the price for making the display request for the first gift object is higher than the price for making the display request for the second gift object
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Yasukawa ‘369 by assigning different prices for a first gift object and a second gift object, as taught by Fukuda, to allow a viewing user to select, among the different values, a desired value for a gift object they wish to give to a distribution user.
Claim(s) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286 as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of Watanabe (US Pub. No. 2022/0417490).
Regarding claim 12, Yasukawa ‘369 in view of Yasukawa ‘286 does not disclose a video including images of character objects corresponding to a plurality of distributing users with the virtual camera set for each character object, or transmitting to the server information identifying the distributing user to whom the object is to be provided together with the object’s identification information and display request.
In the same field of endeavor, Watanabe discloses a video distribution system in which virtual characters representing a plurality of users are displayed, and a virtual camera is set for each of the virtual characters (See Fig. 15-17 and pars. 178-180. In particular, the video distribution system of Watanabe can focus on each of the virtual characters representing user A and user B in a first-person view).
It would have been obvious to a person skilled in the art to combine Watanabe’s teaching with the combined Yasukawa ‘369/’286 system, and to have the viewing user’s device additionally transmit information identifying the particular distributing user to whom the gift object is directed together with the object’s identification information and display request — an extension of the server-relay architecture already disclosed in Yasukawa ‘369, in which the gift API server reads “identification information of the distribution user who is the avatar object as a gifting target” from the viewing user’s request — so as to cause the correct distributing user’s device to set the object’s display position using that distributing user’s associated virtual camera and character object position.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHONG X NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1591. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8am - 5pm EST.
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, King Poon can be reached at (571)272-7440. 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.
/PHONG X NGUYEN/ Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2617
1 This reference qualifies as prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1), having published on August 3, 2023 — more than seven months before the March 27, 2024 effective filing date of the instant application. Common ownership of this reference and the instant application (both assigned to GREE Holdings, Inc.) does not disqualify it as prior art: the common-ownership exception of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)(2)(C) applies only to disclosures that would otherwise qualify as prior art solely under § 102(a)(2), and has no effect on § 102(a)(1) art such as this publicly available printed publication. Because this reference’s named inventor (Yasukawa) is not a named inventor of the instant application, the grace period of § 102(b)(1)(A) is not available on the present record. Applicant may seek to overcome this rejection by filing a declaration under 37 C.F.R. § 1.130(a) establishing that the subject matter relied upon from this reference was disclosed by, or obtained directly or indirectly from, one or more of the instant application's named inventors (Yabe and/or Yamanouchi) prior to this reference's August 3, 2023 publication date — which, if established, would bring the disclosure within the § 102(b)(1)(A) grace period given the less-than-one-year interval to the March 27, 2024 effective filing date.
Prosecution Insights