DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-30 are pending.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 5/26/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-5, 7-14, 16-23 and 25-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Ellis et al (US 2004/0194131) in view of Strasman et al. (US 8516517), and further in view of Noll et al. (US 2008/0060002).
Regarding Claims 1, 10 and 19, Ellis discloses a system (see Fig. 1) with one or more non-transitory computer-readable media (such as memory) storing instructions (inherent in a computing device) to perform a corresponding method, comprising a computing device (see Fig. 1; such as a main computer 60) configured to
send, at a first time during content, an interactive advertisement exclusively to a first portion of a plurality of user devices (see Para 140; such as sending an interactive advertisement exclusively to the time zone A user devices); and
“send, at a second time during the content, the interactive advertisement exclusively to a second portion of the plurality of user devices” (see Para 140; such as sending an interactive advertisement exclusively to the time zone B user devices);
“the first portion of the plurality of user devices configured to receive the interactive advertisement at the first time” (see Para 140; such as time zone A user devices receive at 8:00-11:00 PM Pacific time); and
“the second portion of the plurality of user devices configured to receive the interactive advertisement at the second time” (see Para 140; such as time zone B receive at 8:00-11:00 PM Eastern time)
“wherein the first time and the second time occur at different times relative to the output of the content” (i.e. multiple time zones and assigned dayparts) (p. 0140).
Ellis is not entirely clear in teaching the specific feature of:
determining, from a plurality of user devices rendering content, a first portion of the plurality of user devices and a second portion of the plurality of user devices as non-overlapping subsets of the plurality of user devices;
“sending, at a first time during output of the content to a plurality of user devices, an advertisement”;
“sending, at a second time during output of the content to a plurality of user devices, an advertisement”.
Strasman teaches the specific feature of:
“sending, at a first time during output of the content to a plurality of user devices, an advertisement” (i.e. group 1 receives first program and a first advertisement) (col. 7, lines 23-60);
“sending, at a second time during output of the content to a plurality of user devices, an advertisement” (i.e. group 2 receives first program and a second advertisement) (col. 7, lines 23-60).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided advertising groups as taught by Strasman to the system of Ellis to allow for different groups to be displayed different ads ((col. 7, lines 23-60).
Noll teaches the specific feature of:
determining, from a plurality of user devices rendering content, a first portion of the plurality of user devices (i.e. first sub group) and a second portion of the plurality of user devices (i.e. second sub group) as non-overlapping subsets (i.e. unique groups) of the plurality of user devices (p. 0034-0038).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided subgroups of device as taught by Noll to the system of Ellis to provide unique groups to send advertisement data (p. 0038).
Regarding Claims 2, 11 and 20, Ellis further discloses wherein the interactive advertisement is associated with a particular merchant (see Fig. 24b; Para 140; such as Pacific time is different from Eastern time, a particular merchant such as Coke).
Regarding Claims 3, 12 and 21, Ellis further discloses the first portion of the plurality of user devices and the second portion of the plurality of user devices each comprise one or more user devices (see Para 139-140; one or more user devices such as set-top boxes in various time zone television distribution facilities).
Regarding Claims 4, 13 and 22, Ellis further discloses the interactive advertisement comprises a selectable element configured to cause initiation of a communication session (see Para 80; Para 153).
Regarding Claims 5, 14 and 23, Ellis further discloses the communication session comprises a two-way communication session initiated over an internet protocol communication path (see Para 80).
Regarding Claims 7, 16 and 25, Ellis further discloses the first portion of the plurality of user devices is associated with a first geographical region and the second portion of the plurality of user devices is associated with a second geographical region (see Fig. 24b; Para 140; such as the first portion associated with Pacific Coast region, second portion associated with Central or Eastern region).
Regarding Claims 8, 17 and 26, Ellis further discloses receiving, based on the interactive advertisement, a first request from a user device of the first portion of the plurality of user devices; and based on the first request, initiating a first communication session with the user device of the first portion of the plurality of user devices (see Para 80; Para 140; such as receiving a first request based on the interactive advertisement from a user device of Pacific time region).
Regarding Claims 9, 18 and 27, Ellis further discloses receiving, based on the interactive advertisement, a second request from a user device of the second portion of the plurality of user devices; and based on the second request, initiating a second communication session with the user device of the second portion of the plurality of user devices (see Para 80; Para 140; such as receiving a second request based on the interactive advertisement from a user device of Central or Eastern time region).
Regarding Claims 28, 29 and 30, Ellis further discloses comprising a network device (see Para 8; Para 88; such as a national customer computer 86) configured to determining the/a first portion of the/a plurality of user devices rendering content (such as determine time zone A user devices rendering content at 8:00-11:00 PM Pacific time); and determining the/a second portion of the/a plurality of user devices rendering the content (and determine time zone B user devices rendering the content at 8:00-11:00 PM Pacific time; see Para 140).
Claims 6, 15 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Ellis et al (US 2004/0194131) in view of Strasman et al. (US 8516517), and further in view of Noll et al. (US 2008/0060002), and further and further in view of Ullah et al (US 2008/0109307).
Regarding Claims 6, 15 and 24, Ellis is silent about the communication session is established using one or more of Voice Over IP (VoIP), Short Message Service (SMS), or chat.
In an analogous art, Ullah equally discloses the communication session is established using one or more of Voice Over IP (VoIP), Short Message Service (SMS), or chat (see Para 103; such as using chat service for communication session).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to modify the systems of Ellis to include the communication session is established using one or more of Voice Over IP (VoIP), Short Message Service (SMS), or chat, as taught by Ullah to take advantage of different types of communication techniques to improve advertisement coverage, thus more effective.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-30 have been considered but are moot in view of new grounds of rejection.
Conclusion
Claim 1-30 are rejected.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20070270166 A1 Hampel; Karl Georg et al. – separate groups of mobile device based on location
US 9767221 B2 Bangalore; Srinivas et al. – clustering of user devices
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Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MUSHFIKH I ALAM whose telephone number is (571)270-1710. The examiner can normally be reached 1:00PM-9:00PM.
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MUSHFIKH I. ALAM
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2426
/MUSHFIKH I ALAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426 6/30/2026
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