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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/9/2025, 12/31/25 and 3/18/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Double Patenting
Examiner notes that the parent application (17/941,292, now US Patent No. 12,380,925) recites a different set of gestures applying different sets of actions into sequence once hand gestures are detected. However, should the scope of the instant application change and potentially overlap, examiner reserves the right to make a Obviousness Type Double Patenting rejection in the future.
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 of this title, 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, 3-4, 6, 9-11, 13-14, 16 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2022/0408164) in view of Xiong (US 2014/0198031).
Regarding claims 1 and 11, Lee teaches a system (Figs. 1-2, system) comprising:
a processor (Fig. 1, processor 120/121/123); and
a memory (Fig. 1, Memories 130/134/136/138) including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
receiving real world video frame data from a camera of a client device, the real world video frame data including hand location video frame data and hand position video frame data of hands as a user makes movements with the hands (paragraphs 9 and 65 teaches generating a hand gesture data … including hand gesture categorization information indicating one or more hand gestures being made by the user);
generating, by a gesture intent recognition engine, hand gesture data from the hand location video frame data and hand position video frame data, the hand gesture data including hand gesture categorization information indicating one or more hand gestures being made by the user (paragraphs 9 and 65 teaches generating a hand gesture data … including hand gesture categorization information indicating one or more hand gestures being made by the user. Paragraphs 53 and 67-69 teaches comparing the acquired recorded hand gesture against stored reference data for each of the plurality of defined gestures and determines a match to identify which gesture, if any, was performed by the user);
detecting a start recording gesture from the hand gesture data, the start recording gesture corresponding to a gesture where a hand has been raised and has opened to show a palm of the hand (paragraphs 56, 90, 93 and Figs. 2 and 9 teaches “a single clap gesture input by … both hands” I mapped, according to function information, to “the restart of recording of the paused video”, a start type function triggered by a specific recognized hand gesture);
initiating a recording process in response to detecting the start recording gesture, the recording process capturing frames using the camera of the client device (paragraphs 9, 56, 90, 93 and Figs. 2 and 9 teaches “a single clap gesture input by … both hands” I mapped, according to function information, to “the restart of recording of the paused video”, a start type function triggered by a specific recognized hand gesture);
detecting a stop recording gesture from the hand gesture data, the stop recording gesture corresponding to a same gesture where the hand has been raised and has opened to show a palm of the hand (paragraphs 9, 56, 90, 93 and Figs. 2 and 9 teaches that the identical single clap gesture, the same gesture, is alternatively mapped to pause/stop type trigger for stopping recording); and
stopping the recording process in response to detecting the stop recording gesture (paragraphs 9, 56, 90, 93 and Figs. 2 and 9 teaches “the pause of a recorded video”).
However, while Lee teaches the claimed same gesture triggers fails to explicitly teach the gesture being specific to a “palm of the hand”.
Lee itself it shares that while a particular gesture may be used to trigger a specific action, the gestures themselves may be changed as recited in paragraph 56: “the gesture input applicable to various embodiments of the present invention is not limited as described above, and in addition to this, may support other gesture inputs proposed in Fig. 2 or various other types of gesture inputs that may be implemented by a user motion, which may not be depicted herein”.
Xiong teaches a similar gesture recognition system including a gesture shape of an open palm of a raised hand, which is a known camera recognizable alternative gesture for triggering a mapped device function.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the current application to incorporate Xiong’s gesture shape of an open palm of a raised as the trigger for Lee’s already disclosed start/stop toggling function. This is a simple substitution of one known, camera recognizable hand gesture (open palm, per the Xiong reference) for another already disclosed identical general purpose human machine interaction role (clap, per Lee), as openly invited by Lee's own statement that other, undepicted gesture types are supported (Lee: paragraph 56), and yields nothing more than the predictable result of triggering Lee's already disclosed toggle behavior with a different well known hand shape.
As to claim 1’s “in a messaging system” is presented in the preamble. The body of claim 1 does not appear to breathe life into the preamble with its language and thus examiner addresses the “messaging system” explicitly when life is breathed into claim 1 by way of the language recited in dependent claim 5 (see below).
Regarding claims 3 and 13, Lee teaches the claimed wherein the selectable graphical item is a graphical representation of a start recording button or a stop recording button (Lee teaches the claimed in Figs. 4 and 8, button 411/811 depicted as a circular record icon that toggles in appearance between recording and paused states across Fig. 8, states 821/841).
Regarding claims 4 and 14, Lee teaches the claimed wherein the selectable graphical item is textual information indicating start or stop functionality (Lee teaches the claimed in Figs. 5-7, elements 530/533, 630/633 and 730/733) and Figs. 4 and 8, button 411/811 depicted as a circular record icon that toggles in appearance between recording and paused states across Fig. 8, states 821/841. The textual information is presented in associated with the recognized gesture’s function).
Regarding claims 6 and 16, Lee teaches the claimed wherein the recording process captures new subsequent frames from preceding frames using the camera of the client device (Lee in paragraph 56 and Figs. 5-9, wherein pause/restart sequence continues the capturing of new subsequent frames from preceding frames).
Regarding claims 9 and 19, Lee teaches the claimed wherein detecting the start recording gesture and the stop recording gesture eliminates a need for the user to return to the client device and perform touch or tap gestures on a screen of the client device (Lee in 4 “ a gesture input performed during a recording of a video by a mounted electronic device can facilitate a user to control the recording of a video, without a direct tough between the user and the electronic device”).
Regarding claim 10, Lee teaches the claimed wherein the real world video frame data is captured and processed in real-time during user movements (See Figs. 5-9 and paragraph 56 of Lee).
NTCRM medium claim 20 is rejected for the same reasons as discussed above in system claim 20 with reference to the medium storing computer executable instructions.
Claims 2 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2022/0408164) in view of Xiong (US 2014/0198031) and further in view of Loorak et al. (US 2022/0382377).
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Lee teaches the claimed as discussed in claim 1 above, however fails to, but Loorak teaches wherein the user can perform the start recording gesture to position the palm of the user's hand over a selectable graphical item shown in an interface (see paragraph 87).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the current application to incorporate the teachings of Loorak into Lee’s gesture controlled recording system, adapted with the open palm gesture teachings of Xiong, to incorporate Loorak’s technique of positioning of recognized midair hand gesture over a graphical/virtual widget to select and trigger it (See paragraph 70-72, 82-84, 87 and claim 1 of Loorak). Both Lee and Loorak are directed to the same field of endeavor, which are camera based touch free recognition of a user's hand gesture to control a function of an electronic device, and are therefore analogous art. Loorak in paragraph 71 identifies the specific benefit (hygiene) of dispensing with physical contact the same touch free objective that motivates Lee's gesture based control scheme in the first place. A person of ordinary skill in the art seeking to let the user aim Lee’s open palm start/stop gesture at a specific selectable control on the display, rather than merely performing the gesture anywhere in the camera's field of view, would have looked to Loorak widget interaction region and hover-trigger technique as a known solution to the same problem. Applying Loorak’s position/mapping technique to Lee’s gesture recognition architecture amounts to the combination of prior art elements (Lee’s gesture to function control toggling and Xiong reference open palm gesture classification) with a known technique (Loorak’s gesture to widget spatial mapping) to yield the predictable result of gesture that both performs the recording function and is anchored to a displayed selectable item, with a reasonable expectation of success since Loorak’s mapping technique is expressly designed to be layered onto any camera based gesture recognition pipeline that already classifies hand shape and gesture type, which is what Lee and Xiong references already to. See KSR Int’l Col. V. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
Claims 5, 7-8, 15 and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2022/0408164) in view of Xiong (US 2014/0198031) and further in view of in view of Puri (US 2015/0286361).
Regarding claims 5 and 15, Lee and Xiong teaches the claimed as discussed above, however fails to, but Puri teaches the claimed wherein the operations further comprise: generating a message including recorded content from the recording process; and sending the message including the recorded content to a different user (abstract and paragraph 36 teaches the claimed).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the current application to incorporate Puri’s messaging capability by allowing user generated video and contact based transmission of the captured video into Lee’s gesture based video recording system because doing so was a recognized design goal in gesture and single action capture system prevalent at the time of the filing of the instant application and merely applies Lee’s general purpose recording system to the known predictable context of a messaging client, consistent with Lee’s own disclosure that its host device may be a smartphone (Lee: paragraph 130).
Regarding claims 7 and 17, Lee and Xiong teaches the claimed as discussed above, however fails to, but Puri teaches the claimed wherein the hands-free recording control is provided in a messaging client application (abstract and paragraph 36 teaches the claimed).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the current application to incorporate Puri’s messaging capability by allowing user generated video and contact based transmission of the captured video into Lee’s gesture based video recording system because doing so was a recognized design goal in gesture and single action capture system prevalent at the time of the filing of the instant application and merely applies Lee’s general purpose recording system to the known predictable context of a messaging client, consistent with Lee’s own disclosure that its host device may be a smartphone (Lee: paragraph 130).
Regarding claims 8 and 18, Lee and Xiong teaches the claimed as discussed above with respect to wherein the gesture intent recognition engine communicates the hand gesture data (see claims 1 and 11 above), and while Lee and Xiong teaches the hand gesture being used as an input from a user interface (as discussed above), but Puri teaches a messaging client application (abstract and paragraph 36 teaches the claimed).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the current application to incorporate Puri’s messaging capability by allowing user generated video and contact based transmission of the captured video into Lee’s gesture based video recording system because doing so was a recognized design goal in gesture and single action capture system prevalent at the time of the filing of the instant application and merely applies Lee’s general purpose recording system to the known predictable context of a messaging client, consistent with Lee’s own disclosure that its host device may be a smartphone (Lee: paragraph 130).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GELEK W TOPGYAL whose telephone number is (571)272-8891. The examiner can normally be reached M-F (9:30-6 PST).
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/GELEK W TOPGYAL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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