DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to the Applicant Arguments/Remarks dated 12/31/2025. Claims 1, 3-6, 8-11, 13-16, 18-20 and 41-44 are pending in the application.
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 . 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 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.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 2/4/2026 and 4/22/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/31/2025 have been fully considered.
Regarding the arguments on pages 8-9 of the Remarks that the cited references do not teach "determining that the secondary user is physically facing the display of the user device displaying the search query input," "analyzing speech of the secondary user to determine that the speech of the secondary user is relevant to at least a portion of the search query input" and "based at least in part on the proximity of the secondary user ... , the secondary user physically facing the display ... , and the speech of the secondary user being relevant ... providing at least one of an extension to the search query input based at least in part on the search query input, the first user profile and the second user profile, or a search result based at least in part on the search query input, the first user profile and the second user profile”, examiner respectfully disagrees.
Krahnstoever teaches at para. 35: it may be important to know if a group of individuals are facing each other (e.g., talking), facing a common direction (e.g., looking at another group before a conflict is about to happen), or facing away from each other (e.g., because they are not related or because they are in a "defense" formation); para. 61: allow the system to directly infer if a group of people are together interacting with the advertising station (e.g., is someone currently discussing with peers (revealing mutual gazes).
Mishra et al. also teaches at para. 28: determine viewing direction of the one or more users, several users may be in a close proximity (e.g., in a car, on a bus, on a train, walking nearby, etc.), wherein one or more devices may determine the viewing point of the plurality of the users; para. 40: determines at least one other user within proximity of the at least one user when performing the at least one search; para. 66: one or more devices within close proximity of one or more users may be utilized to determine viewing direction of the one or more users. One or more devices may determine one or more viewing points, objects, subjects, POIs, and the like which a plurality of users in close proximity may be looking at. For example, several users may be in a close proximity (e.g., in a car, on a bus, on a train, walking nearby, etc.), wherein one or more devices may determine the viewing point of the plurality of the users.
Kazi teaches at para. 43: a user may input any character string into a query field to search for content on the social-networking system that matches the text query. Generate search results that identify resources or content (e.g., user-profile interfaces, content-profile interfaces, or external resources) that are most likely to be related to the search query; para. 45: if a user enters the characters "pok" into a query field, the typeahead process may display a drop-down menu that displays names of matching existing profile interfaces and respective user nodes or concept nodes, such as a profile interface named or devoted to "poker" or "pokemon," which the user can then click on or otherwise select thereby confirming the desire to declare the matched user or concept name corresponding to the selected node; para. 57: search-results modules may refer to a grouping of objects (e.g. user profiles, posts, photos, webpages, etc.) or references to objects identified in response to a search query; para. 67: the social-networking system may use speech-to text software to recognize any speech within the files as text. Thus, user speeches are converted into text and user profiles of common related/relevant to the query are utilized to display to the user – See para. 5-6: the social-networking system may access a plurality of communications authored by one or more users of the online social network. As an example and not by way of limitation, in translating an audio file, the social-networking system may use speech-to-text software to recognize any speech within the files as text; para. 60: the search-results interface may also include other related items such as related user post or links to related content items/an extension. The cited references do teach the argued limitations.
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.
Claims 1, 3-6, 8-11, 13-16, 18-20 and 41-44 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kazi et al. (US 20170220652) in view of Krahnstoever et al. (US 20130054377) and further in view of Mishra (US 20150169780).
As per claims 1, 11, Kazi et al. (US 20170220652) teaches
a search method comprising: receiving, at a user device, a search query input from a primary user in a physical area (para. 22: two or more of a client system, a social-networking system, and a third-party system may be physically or logically co-located with each other in whole or in part; fig. 4: query “vmas” in item 410 or requests between users; para. 95: the representative-communication-score may be higher if the respective communication originated from the same region as the user for whom the mentions-module is generated, as may be determined by geo-location information sent from the client system of the user; para. 105: objects that are geographically closer to each other may be considered to be more related or of more interest to each other than more distant objects. Thus, either searches or communications by a user, a physical area/location is taken into account in generating results);
accessing, from memory, a first user profile associated with the primary user (para. 38, 43: a user submits a query. The search engine may conduct a search based on the query phrase using various search algorithms and generate search results that identify resources or content (e.g., user-profile interfaces, content-profile interfaces, or external resources) that are most likely to be related to the search query; para. 34: user profile stores for storing user profiles; para. 57: search-results modules may refer to a grouping of objects (e.g., user profiles, posts, photos, webpages, etc.) or references to objects identified in response to a search query; para. 101);
determining, using control circuitry, a proximity of a secondary user in the physical area wherein the primary user is physically within a predetermined proximity to the secondary user (para. 74, 105: objects that are geographically closer to each other may be considered to be more related or of more interest to each other than more distant objects. A first user may be more interested in other users or concepts that are closer to the first user; para. 112: a first user may specify that an object is visible only to second users within a threshold distance (equivalent to “a predetermined proximity”) from the first user. If the first user subsequently changes location, the original second users with access to the object may lose access, while a new group of second users may gain access as they come within the threshold distance of the first user). Thus, there is a determination of a proximity of a secondary user that is geographically/physically come within a distance to the first user);
analyzing speech of the secondary user to determine that the speech of the secondary user is relevant to at least a portion of the search query input; and the speech of the secondary user being relevant to at least the portion of the search query input (para. 25: user device, laptop, tablets, GPS device, smartphone etc.; para. 34: user profiles; para. 43: a user may input any character string into a query field to search for content on the social-networking system that matches the text query. Generate search results that identify resources or content (e.g., user-profile interfaces, content-profile interfaces, or external resources) that are most likely to be related to the search query; para. 45: if a user enters the characters "pok" into a query field, the typeahead process may display a drop-down menu that displays names of matching existing profile interfaces and respective user nodes or concept nodes, such as a profile interface named or devoted to "poker" or "pokemon," which the user can then click on or otherwise select thereby confirming the desire to declare the matched user or concept name corresponding to the selected node; para. 57: search-results modules may refer to a grouping of objects (e.g. user profiles, posts, photos, webpages, etc.) or references to objects identified in response to a search query; para. 67: the social-networking system may use speech-to text software to recognize any speech within the files as text. Thus, user speeches are converted into text and user profiles of common related/relevant to the query are utilized to display to the user – See para. 5-6: the social-networking system may access a plurality of communications authored by one or more users of the online social network. As an example and not by way of limitation, in translating an audio file, the social-networking system may use speech-to-text software to recognize any speech within the files as text; para. 93: analyze communications
associated with other content items within a corpus of communications defined by a shared topic);
based at least in part on the proximity of the secondary user in the physical area, (para. 74, 105: objects that are geographically closer to each other may be considered to be more related or of more interest to each other than more distant objects. A first user may be more interested in other users or concepts that are closer to the first user; para. 112: a first user may specify that an object is visible only to second users within a threshold distance (equivalent to “a predetermined proximity”) from the first user. If the first user subsequently changes location, the original second users with access to the object may lose access, while a new group of second users may gain access as they come within the threshold distance of the first user);
accessing, from memory, a second user profile associated with the secondary user (para. 34: the social-networking system may include one or more user-profile stores for storing user profiles. A user profile may include, for example, biographic information, demographic information, behavioral information, …, or location. Interest information may include interests related to one or more categories; para. 38: profile interfaces may be viewable by all or a selected subset of other users; para. 57: search-results modules may refer to a grouping of objects (e.g. user profiles, posts, photos, webpages, etc.) or references to objects identified in response to a search query; para. 103: the weight or the rating for the action may be higher than if the first user simply views the user-profile interface for the second user; para. 109: identify a set of users that may access work-experience information on the user-profile page, thus excluding other users from accessing that information);
providing, at the user device, at least one of: an extension to the search query input based at least in part on the search query input, the first user profile and the second user profile, or a search result based at least in part on the search query input, the first user profile and the second user profile (para. 34: a connection store may be used for storing connection information about users. The connection information may indicate users who have similar or common work experience, group memberships, hobbies, educational history, or are in any way related or share common attributes. The connection information may also include user-defined connections between different users and content (both internal and external); para. 45: if a user enters the characters "pok" into a query field, the typeahead process may display a drop-down menu that displays names of matching existing profile interfaces and respective user nodes or concept nodes, such as a profile interface named or devoted to "poker" or "pokemon," which the user can then click on or otherwise select thereby confirming the desire to declare the matched user or concept name corresponding to the selected node; para. 50, 53, 57: search-results modules may refer to a grouping of objects (e.g., user profiles, posts, photos, webpages, etc.) or references to objects identified in response to a search query; para. 60: the search-results interface may also include other related items such as related user post or links to related content items).
Even if Kazi does not teach based at least in part on the proximity of the secondary user in the physical area, the secondary user physically facing the display of the user device displaying the search query input,
Krahnstoever teaches
determining that the secondary user is physically facing the display of the user device displaying the search query input; based at least in part on the proximity of the secondary user in the physical area, the secondary user physically facing the display of the user device displaying the search query input (para. 33: position, movement direction, body pose direction, gaze direction, and the like may be used to infer other relationships and activities of the users (e.g., that one user in a group first takes interest in the advertising station and draws the attention of others in the group to the output content); para. 35: it may be important to know if a group of individuals are facing each other (e.g., talking), facing a common direction (e.g., looking at another group before a conflict is about to happen), or facing away from each other (e.g., because they are not related or because they are in a "defense" formation); para. 61: allow the system to directly infer if a group of people are together interacting with the advertising station (e.g., is someone currently discussing with peers (revealing mutual gazes), asking them to participate, or inquiring parent's support of purchase). Examiner interprets the second user device displays the first question/search query input within a proximity of the second user.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Kazi and the user involvement score of Krahnstoever in order to effectively allow a user be notified in real-time of other users' interactions with content items or between users which encourages collaboration and responses between users.
Even if Kazi and Krahnstoever do not explicitly teach determining that the secondary user is physically facing the display of the user device displaying the search query input.
Mishra et al. teaches
determining that the secondary user is physically facing the display of the user device displaying the search query input (para. 28: determine viewing direction of the one or more users, several users may be in a close proximity (e.g., in a car, on a bus, on a train, walking nearby, etc.), wherein one or more devices may determine the viewing point of the plurality of the users; para. 40: determines at least one other user within proximity of the at least one user when performing the at least one search; para. 66: one or more devices within close proximity of one or more users may be utilized to determine viewing direction of the one or more users. One or more devices may determine one or more viewing points, objects, subjects, POIs, and the like which a plurality of users in close proximity may be looking at. For example, several users may be in a close proximity (e.g., in a car, on a bus, on a train, walking nearby, etc.), wherein one or more devices may determine the viewing point of the plurality of the users).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Kazi, Krahnstoever and the second user’s physical proximity and facing direction of Mishra in order to effectively allow interactions and/or collaborations between users to quickly provide desired outputs/services to the users.
As per claims 3, 13, Kazi et al. teaches
wherein determining relevance of the secondary user to the search query comprises analyzing one or more gestures of the secondary user (para. 28: a social graph may include multiple nodes-which may include multiple user nodes (each corresponding to a particular user) or multiple concept nodes (each corresponding to a particular concept) and multiple edges connecting the nodes. The social-networking system 160 may provide users of the online social network the ability to communicate and interact with other users... "friend" may refer to any other user of the social-networking system with whom a user has formed a connection, association, or relationship via the social-networking system; para. 112: a first user may specify that an object is visible only to second users within a threshold distance from the first user. If the first user subsequently changes location, the original second users with access to the object may lose access, while a new group of second users may gain access as they come within the threshold distance of the first user).
As per claims 4, 14, Kazi et al. teaches
in response to determining that the secondary user is not relevant to the search query input: accessing the second user profile; accessing a search history of the secondary user stored in the second user profile; determining, from the search history, whether the secondary user has previously made one or more search queries relating to the search query input of the primary user (para. 43: the resources may be ranked and presented to the user according to their relative degrees of relevance to the search query. The search results may also be ranked and presented to the user according to their relative degree of relevance to the user. In other words, the search results may be personalized for the querying user based on, for example, social-graph information, user information, search or browsing history of the user, or other suitable information related to the user; para. 45, 50);
in response to determining that the secondary user has previously made one or more search queries relating to the search query input of the primary user, providing the search result based on the first user profile, the search query input and one or more search queries made by the secondary user relating to the search query input of the primary user (para. 50: a structured query "My friends who work at Facebook," where "my friends," "work at," and "Facebook" in the structured query are references corresponding to particular social-graph elements as described previously (i.e., a friend type edge, a work-at-type edge, and concept node corresponding to the company "Facebook"). By providing suggested structured queries in response to a user's text query, the social-networking system may provide a powerful way for users of the online social network to search for elements represented in the social graph based on their social-graph attributes and their relation to various social-graph elements; para. 43: the search results may be personalized for the querying user based on, for example, social-graph information, user information, search or browsing history of the user, or other suitable information related to the user. Thus, if the secondary user is not within a distance, for example or relevant, users’ browsing histories can be analyzed for similarity in interests; para. 53, 85.)
As per claims 5-6, 15-16, Kazi et al. teaches
determining whether the search query input comprises at least one of a factual query and a suggestive query; and in response to determining that the search query input comprises a suggestive query, adding the primary user to a relevant user set; in response to determining that the secondary user is relevant to the search query input, adding the secondary user to the relevant user set (para. 34: storing user profiles, relevance and ranking engine; para. 43: a user may submit a query to the social-networking system 160 by, for example, selecting a query input or inputting text into query field. A user of an online social network may search for information relating to a specific subject matter (e.g., users, concepts, external content or resource) by providing a short phrase describing the subject matter, often referred to as a "search query," to a search engine; para. 50: suggested queries; para. 57: search-results modules may refer to a grouping of objects (e.g. user profiles, posts, photos, webpages, etc.) or references to objects identified in response to a search query. Thus, any users of similar interests or search same queries are grouped in similar profiles in relating to the search topics).
As per claims 8, 18, Kazi et al. teaches
blocking the search result based on the first user profile and the second user profile (para. 57: search-results modules may refer to a grouping of objects (e.g., user profiles, posts, photos, webpages, etc.) or references to objects identified in response to a search query; para. 93: potential mention-terms that occur frequently in all communications generally, but do not appear frequently enough in the plurality of communications associated with the particular content item, may be filtered out for being not particularly unique or relevant to the particular content item.)
As per claims 9, 19, Kazi et al. teaches
filtering the search result based on the first user profile and the second user profile (para. 43: the resources may be ranked and presented to the user according to their relative degrees of relevance to the search query. The search results may also be ranked and presented to the user according to their relative degree of relevance to the user. In other words, the search results may be personalized for the querying user based on, for example, social-graph information, user information, search or browsing history of the user, or other suitable information related to the user; para. 55: a search-results module may include information from a subset of the identified communications associated with the particular content that may allow the user to quickly gauge what other users think about a particular content item).
As per claims 10, 20, Kazi et al. teaches
wherein the search input comprises a partial search query input, and the method further comprises automatically suggesting for user selection one or more options for completing the search query input based on the partial search query input, and a common interest identified from, the first user profile and the second user profile (para. 34, 45: if a user enters the characters "pok" into a query field, the typeahead process may display a drop-down menu that displays names of matching existing profile interfaces and respective user nodes 202 or concept nodes 204, such as a profile interface named or devoted to "poker" or "pokemon," which the user can then click on or otherwise select thereby confirming the desire to declare the matched user or concept name corresponding to the selected node; para. 57).
As per claims 41, 43, Kazi et al. teaches
wherein determining a proximity of each of a plurality of secondary users to the primary user comprises: determining a physical proximity of each of a first sub-set of the plurality of secondary users to the primary user (para. 74: the social-networking system may determine a geo-location associated with the client system of the user (primary user) and limit the total number of communications to include only communications within a geographical region based on the geo-location of the client system. Thus, at least a secondary user is determined based on a predetermined proximity; para. 105: objects that are geographically closer to each other may be considered to be more related or of more interest to each other than more distant objects. The coefficient of a user towards a particular object may be based on the proximity of the object's location to a current location associated with the user (or the location of a client system of the user). A first user may be more interested in other users or concepts that are closer to the first user);
determining a virtual proximity of each of a second sub-set of the plurality of secondary users to the primary user (para. 28, 55: the social-networking system may generate a particular search-results module if there exists a number of communications in the subset of identified communications associated with the particular content item greater than a module-specific threshold number of communications; para. 34: users share common interests/attributes; para. 40, 56: on the page of the user's online-social-network connection (e.g., a timeline or wall of the user's first-degree connection or "friend"/virtual proximity); para. 60: measuring relative levels of engagement among users of the different demographic groups; para. 112: a first user may specify that an object is visible only to second users within a threshold distance from the first user. If the first user subsequently changes location, the original second users with access to the object may lose access, while a new group of second users may gain access as they come within the threshold distance of the first user).
Mishra et al. also teaches a physical proximity of users – See para. 28: determine viewing direction of the one or more users, several users may be in a close proximity (e.g., in a car, on a bus, on a train, walking nearby, etc.), wherein one or more devices may determine the viewing point of the plurality of the users; para. 40: determines at least one other user within proximity of the at least one user when performing the at least one search; para. 66: one or more devices within close proximity of one or more users may be utilized to determine viewing direction of the one or more users. One or more devices may determine one or more viewing points, objects, subjects, POIs, and the like which a plurality of users in close proximity may be looking at. For example, several users may be in a close proximity (e.g., in a car, on a bus, on a train, walking nearby, etc.), wherein one or more devices may determine the viewing point of the plurality of the users).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Rand (US 20160036962) teaches at para. 126-128: find people nearby; para. 120: profile; para. 209-210: close proximity between users/people.
Olson et al. (US 20200312318) teaches para. 111-115: in FIG. 10, a first user A located in a living room can activate a voice agent 205 operating in multiple electronic devices 50 in or within proximity of the living room, a first request to clean the living room, determines the first request is intended for a smart vacuum V located in a laundry room, triggers/invokes the smart vacuum V to perform the first request by starting and moving to the living room, and generates and outputs a speech response in the living room for the first user A that acknowledges/confirms the first request. The second user B activates the voice agent via a second voice command that begins with a wake word and is followed by a second request to stop the cleaning. Determines the second request is intended for the smart vacuum V/relevant to the first request, triggers/invokes the smart vacuum V to perform the second request by moving back to the laundry room and stopping, and generates and outputs a speech response in the kitchen for the second user B that acknowledges/confirms the second request).
Tseng (US 8681178) teaches at col. 4, last paragraph and col. 5:1-67: viewing direction and proximity of users.
Yu (US20210058468) teaches at para. 62: provide a search feature that may use natural language processing (NLP) or other similar search function to accept user search inputs. In this way, a user may be presented with a list of recommendations, but may use the search feature to refine his or her search. For example, as the user types his or her desired interactive entertainment content and/or host systems, etc., the list of recommendations may be continuously and/or automatically refined based on the user's input.
Ballard et al. (US 20150156803) teaches at para. 72: proximity sensors; para. 81: track a viewing direction of the user. Jauck (US 20110319728) teaches at para. 17: the display device according to the invention, by means of its light signal, attracts the attention of the viewer, who now focuses his gaze on the display device.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LINH BLACK whose telephone number is (571)272-4106. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM EST M-F.
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/LINH BLACK/Examiner, Art Unit 2163 5/1/2026
/TONY MAHMOUDI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2163
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