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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1-11, 13-15, 22-27 are pending; of which claims 13-15 are withdrawn from consideration. Claims 12, 16-21 are cancelled.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-11, 13-15, 22-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Claim 1 recites “for each of the plurality of competitors of the first content provider, determining whether the competitor of the first content provider is a content provider of dynamic content of the at least one identified website”. This subject matter cannot be found in the specification and claims as originally filed. The nearest subject matter from the specification appears to be found in [0053]:
That is, the content analyzer 512 can determine whether the advertisement content provided to the A profile when visiting the third-party webpage 509 corresponds to competitors of the original content provider or other content providers interested in the A profile’s interaction with the target webpage 505.
Further, from [0058]:
The process 600 further includes retrieving data corresponding to advertisement content on the third-party websites that were provided to the category profiles (process portion 610). The retrieved data can include details on the advertisement content, including (i) the category of goods or services that the advertisement contents corresponds to, (ii) the content provider of the advertisement content, and/or (iii) the intermediary that supplied the advertisement content.
However, this is not the same as “for each of the plurality of competitors of the first content provider, determining whether the competitor of the first content provider is a content provider of dynamic content of the at least one identified website”. In the specification, the content is received, and then it is determined whether the information happens to correspond to any competitors. However, in the claim, the existence of competitors is predetermined, and then active steps are performed to determine, for each of the predetermined competitors, whether the dynamic content corresponds to the competitor. The specification does not support this. Therefore, claim 1 fails to comply with the written description requirement. Claim 9 contains corresponding subject matter, and is therefore rejected for corresponding reasons. None of the dependent claims fix this and are therefore rejected for the same reasons.
Claims 1-8, 22-25 are further rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Claim 1 additionally recites “determining a first number of competitors of the first content provider whose dynamic content was received by the first group, [and] determining a second number of competitors of the first content provider whose dynamic content was received by the second group”. This subject matter cannot be found in the specification and claims as originally filed, nor can any similar subject matter be found in which separate counts of competitors are determined. Therefore, for this additional reason, claim 1 fails to comply with the written description requirement. None of the dependent claims fix this and are therefore rejected for the same reasons.
Allowable Subject Matter
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Regarding claim 1, none of the prior art of record, individually or in combination, teaches each and every limitation of the claim, in particular the limitations “determining a first number of competitors of the first content provider whose dynamic content was received by the first group, [and] determining a second number of competitors of the first content provider whose dynamic content was received by the second group”.
Claim 1, as well as the dependent claims depending therefrom, would therefore be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 1st paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
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) 9, 26-27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Laoutaris et al (WO 2019/020812), and further in view of Hall et al (PGPUB 2022/0141297).
Regarding Claim 9:
Laoutaris teaches a computing system for evaluating consent management related to online content, the computing system comprising (page 12 line 22-31, once the algorithm detects online behavioral advertising (OBA) toward a certain persona, it can launch, either in parallel or in tandem, a replica of the experiment with Do Not Track (DNT) and AdChoices Opt-Out set, collect the results to be compared against the original experiment and thus reveal whether the involved companies truly implement these opt-out initiatives or not (see the Self-Regulation use case)):
one or more processors (page 5 line 21-26, system comprises a server having a computer processing unit);
one or more memories (page 3 line 16-19, profiles stored in memory);
a component configured to generate a synthetic-user profile (page 12 line 2-17, an operator gives inputs to the system of the present invention selects the demographic types ("Personas") for which he wishes to test a number of Audited domains (news portals, kids related web-sites, etc.) to verify whether the domains target said personas or not; the operator selects from predefined Personas that follow different standardized taxonomies of the AdTech sector (e.g., IAB taxonomy); such taxonomies are used in the actual definition of advertising campaigns by brands and their ad delivery partners; in addition, the invention allows the operator to define his own Personas by providing a list of URLs that this Persona visits) including a consent property indicating an opt-out status with respect to tracking user behavior for one or more target websites (page 12 line 22-31, in the present invention, the cookie is preferably set programmatically when the user selects AdChoices opt-out during the setup phase; the present invention makes use of the features mentioned above to offer the operator the possibility to perform more complex experiments and, thus, to be able to compare results from the same "Personas" but using different countermeasures facing the OBA; for example, once the algorithm detects OBA toward a certain persona, it can launch, either in parallel or in tandem (i.e. first group in parallel with second group), a replica of the experiment with DNT and AdChoices Opt-Out set, collect the results to be compared against the original experiment and thus reveal whether the involved companies truly implement these opt-out initiatives or not; page 13 line 19-26, during the collection or training phase, the Container starts visiting the web- pages in the definition of the Persona; for example, for a Persona corresponding to an underage kid, the Container will be visiting web-sites of popular children's TV shows, computer games, video distribution sites, etc.), each target website having a content provider (page 22 line 26-page 23 line 15, landing page, e.g. www.economist.com, the publisher of the website);
a component configured to expose the synthetic-user profile to one or more third-party websites such that dynamic content of the third-party websites is received by the synthetic-user profile, (page 13 line 27-page 14 line 10, after a number of visits, governed by the input parameters, the Container starts visiting also the Audited domains (in tandem or interchangeably); during each visit to an Audited Page, the Container identifies all advertisements included in the page as well as the URL of the advertised product or service; the details of this complex operation are defined in "Extraction of advertising landing pages without clicking on links"; once an advertisement has been detected and its URL extracted, Topics are assigned; these Topics are the means by which we compare different similarity metrics between the collected advertisements and the web-sites visited initially by the Container; the amount of the said overlap is a prime indicator of OBA as described next);
a component configured to retrieve data corresponding to dynamic content of one or more third-party websites, the dynamic content including one or more online advertisements (page 13 line 27-page 14 line 10, during each visit to an Audited Page, the Container identifies all advertisements included in the page as well as the URL of the advertised product or service; once an advertisement has been detected and its URL extracted, Topics are assigned; these Topics are the means by which we compare different similarity metrics between the collected advertisements and the web-sites visited initially by the Container; the amount of the said overlap is a prime indicator of OBA as described next), wherein the retrieved data identifies content provider of the dynamic content of the third-party websites and one or more intermediaries that supplied the dynamic content (page 22 line 26-page 23 line 15, to build the chain of intermediaries involved to serve an advertisement, the algorithm starts from the HTML element that is identified as an advertisement at the end of the advertisement detection algorithm explained above; landing page, e.g. www.economist.com, the publisher of the website); and
a component configured to, based on the retrieved data, evaluate consent management related to one or more target websites (page 12 line 22-31, once the algorithm detects online behavioral advertising (OBA) toward a certain persona, it can launch, either in parallel or in tandem, a replica of the experiment with Do Not Track (DNT) and AdChoices Opt-Out set, collect the results to be compared against the original experiment and thus reveal whether the involved companies truly implement these opt-out initiatives or not (see the Self-Regulation use case)), wherein the evaluating comprises, for each of the one or more target websites,
identifying, from among the one or more third-party websites, websites having dynamic content associated with the target website (page 13 line 27-page 14 line 10, during each visit to an Audited Page, the Container identifies all advertisements included in the page as well as the URL of the advertised product or service; once an advertisement has been detected and its URL extracted, Topics are assigned; these Topics are the means by which we compare different similarity metrics between the collected advertisements and the web-sites visited initially by the Container; the amount of the said overlap is a prime indicator of OBA as described next), and
for each of the identified websites having dynamic content associated with the target website,
for each of the plurality of [dynamic content providers] of the content provider of the target website, determining whether the [dynamic content provider] of the content provider of the target website is a content provider of dynamic content of the identified website (page 14 line 13-page 15 line 28, detection of OBA is achieved by means of evaluating various metrics such as Domain Match, Topic Match, and Frequency counts; Topic Match: if a Container pretends to be a child and visits children-related sites (i.e. “identified websites”) then under various types of behavioral targeting the Container may collect children-related advertisements from domains that do not belong to any of the domains visited during training; Topic Match is calculated by listing all the Topics obtained during the visits to different pages during training phase and then looking for recurrence of the same Topics in the landing URLs of collected advertisements (i.e. “associated with the at least one category of goods or services associated with the target website”); Detection of the involved AdTech companies: for each collected and analyzed ad, the system can also reveal the chain of AdTech companies involved in its delivery (i.e. “any content provider, other than the first content provider”); this is a very important function since it permits to know exactly which one of its AdTech partners/contracts is responsible for each incident),
wherein each component comprises computer-executable instructions stored in the one or more memories for execution by the computing system (abstract, the present invention also relates to a system and a computer program product adapted to implement the steps of the method of the invention).
Laoutaris does not explicitly teach each content provider having a plurality of competitors; and wherein [dynamic content providers] are competitors of the content provider of the target website.
However, Hall teaches the concept of each content provider having a plurality of competitors ([0032] if the provider of the sponsored content knows that the first user browsed to a first website associated with a direct competitor of the provider, the provider may invest more heavily on advertising directed to the first user than if the first user browsed to a second website associated with an indirect competitor of the provider; in this regard, the user's online activities (as obtained by, e.g., the analysis server 206a) may include an identification of sponsors (or owners) of websites, an identification of products or services advertised on or associated with the websites, etc.); and
wherein [dynamic content providers] are competitors of a content provider of a target website ([0032] if the provider of the sponsored content knows that the first user browsed to a first website associated with a direct competitor of the provider, the provider may invest more heavily on advertising directed to the first user than if the first user browsed to a second website associated with an indirect competitor of the provider; in this regard, the user's online activities (as obtained by, e.g., the analysis server 206a) may include an identification of sponsors (or owners) of websites, an identification of products or services advertised on or associated with the websites, etc.).
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 competitor detection teachings of Hall with the evaluating consent management teachings of Laoutaris, in order to improve the system of Laoutaris by incorporating improved provider detection and identification techniques; in the context of Laoutaris, detecting competitors would improve the system by improving the accuracy of domain/topic categorization, as the system would be more certain that competing providers belonged to the same category.
Regarding Claim 26:
Laoutaris in view of Hall teaches the computing system of claim 9. In addition, Laoutaris teaches the system, further comprising:
a component configured to determine, for each of a plurality of [dynamic content providers], whether the dynamic content of the first identified website corresponds to the [dynamic content providers] (page 14 line 13-page 15 line 28, Detection of the involved AdTech companies: for each collected and analyzed ad, the system can also reveal the chain of AdTech companies involved in its delivery (i.e. “dynamic content provider”); this is a very important function since it permits to know exactly which one of its AdTech partners/contracts is responsible for each incident); and
Hall teaches wherein [dynamic content providers] are competitors of the content provider of the target website ([0032] if the provider of the sponsored content knows that the first user browsed to a first website associated with a direct competitor of the provider, the provider may invest more heavily on advertising directed to the first user than if the first user browsed to a second website associated with an indirect competitor of the provider; in this regard, the user's online activities (as obtained by, e.g., the analysis server 206a) may include an identification of sponsors (or owners) of websites, an identification of products or services advertised on or associated with the websites, etc.).
The rationale to combine Laoutaris and Hall is the same as provided for claim 9 due to the overlapping subject matter between claims 9 and 26.
Regarding Claim 27:
Laoutaris in view of Hall teaches the computing system of claim 9. In addition, Laoutaris teaches wherein the evaluating comprises:
for a first identified website of the identified websites having dynamic content associated with a first target website (page 14 line 13-page 15 line 28, websites, plural),
determining whether a first [dynamic content provider] of the plurality of [dynamic content providers] of the content provider of the first target website is a content provider of one or more online advertisements of the first identified website (page 14 line 13-page 15 line 28, detection of OBA, advertisements, plural; page 22 line 26-page 23 line 15, to build the chain of intermediaries involved to serve an advertisement, the algorithm starts from the HTML element that is identified as an advertisement at the end of the advertisement detection algorithm explained above), and
determining whether a second [dynamic content provider] of the plurality of [dynamic content providers] of the content provider of the first target website is a content provider of one or more online advertisements of the first identified website (page 14 line 13-page 15 line 28, detection of OBA, advertisements, plural; page 22 line 26-page 23 line 15, to build the chain of intermediaries involved to serve an advertisement, the algorithm starts from the HTML element that is identified as an advertisement at the end of the advertisement detection algorithm explained above), and
for a second identified website of the identified websites having dynamic content associated with the first target website (page 14 line 13-page 15 line 28, websites, plural),
determining whether a first [dynamic content provider] of the plurality of [dynamic content providers] of the content provider of the first target website is a content provider of one or more online advertisements of the second identified website (page 14 line 13-page 15 line 28, detection of OBA, advertisements, plural; page 22 line 26-page 23 line 15, to build the chain of intermediaries involved to serve an advertisement, the algorithm starts from the HTML element that is identified as an advertisement at the end of the advertisement detection algorithm explained above), and
determining whether a second [dynamic content provider] of the plurality of [dynamic content providers] of the content provider of the first target website is a content provider of one or more online advertisements of the second identified website (page 14 line 13-page 15 line 28, detection of OBA, advertisements, plural; page 22 line 26-page 23 line 15, to build the chain of intermediaries involved to serve an advertisement, the algorithm starts from the HTML element that is identified as an advertisement at the end of the advertisement detection algorithm explained above), and
Hall teaches wherein [dynamic content providers] are competitors of the content provider of the target website ([0032] if the provider of the sponsored content knows that the first user browsed to a first website associated with a direct competitor of the provider, the provider may invest more heavily on advertising directed to the first user than if the first user browsed to a second website associated with an indirect competitor of the provider; in this regard, the user's online activities (as obtained by, e.g., the analysis server 206a) may include an identification of sponsors (or owners) of websites, an identification of products or services advertised on or associated with the websites, etc.).
The rationale to combine Laoutaris and Hall is the same as provided for claim 9 due to the overlapping subject matter between claims 9 and 27.
Claim(s) 10-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Laoutaris in view of Hall, and further in view of Wilson (PGPUB 2013/0212638).
Regarding Claim 10:
Laoutaris in view of Hall teaches the computing system of claim 9.
Neither Laoutaris nor Hall explicitly teaches the system, further comprising:
a component configured to identify at least one tracker associated with the one or more target website.
However, Wilson teaches the concept of a system, comprising:
a component configured to identify at least one tracker associated with one or more target website (paragraph 127, agent 852 may detect zombie cookies (e.g., PII and non-PII tracking cookies that respawn) and/or cross-device tracking techniques by maintaining historical record of tracking identifiers).
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 tracker detection teachings of Wilson with the evaluating consent management teachings of Laoutaris in view of Hall, in order to immediately detect non-compliance with do-not-track preferences by identifying potentially active trackers and being able to distinguish between new trackers and preexisting ones.
Regarding Claim 11:
Laoutaris in view of Hall and Wilson teaches the computing system of claim 10. In addition, Wilson teaches the system, further comprising:
a component configured to identify a tracking-consent status for the agent as reported by the at least one tracker (paragraph 34, 37, based on the opt-out options selected by a user, opt-out system 130 may then send instructions to advertising system 140 to cause advertising system 140 to create and send an opt-out cookie to user workstation 110; in response, advertising system 140 may create and send an opt-out cookie to user workstation 110); and
Laoutaris teaches wherein the agent is the synthetic-user profile (page 12 line 2-17, an operator gives inputs to the system of the present invention selects the demographic types ("Personas") for which he wishes to test a number of Audited domains (news portals, kids related web-sites, etc.) to verify whether the domains target said personas or not; the operator selects from predefined Personas that follow different standardized taxonomies of the AdTech sector (e.g., IAB taxonomy); such taxonomies are used in the actual definition of advertising campaigns by brands and their ad delivery partners; in addition, the invention allows the operator to define his own Personas by providing a list of URLs that this Persona visits).
The rationale to combine Laoutaris and Wilson is the same as provided for claim 10 due to the overlapping subject matter between claims 10 and 11.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 4/10/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding the rejection of claims under 35 USC 102/103:
Examiner’s response to applicant’s arguments, page 8 paragraph 8-page 9 paragraph 1: Examiner disagrees. Applicant argues that the relied-upon portion of Hall describes determining whether a user browsed to a website associated with a competitor. Therefore, Hall is teaching identifying that a competitor is a provider of dynamic content of a website. Laoutaris teaches, for each of the plurality of dynamic content providers of the first content provider, determining whether the dynamic content provider is a content provider of dynamic content of the at least one identified website, and Hall teaches identifying that a competitor provided the dynamic content. Thus, the combination of Laoutaris and Hall teaches “for each of the plurality of competitors of the first content provider, determining whether the competitor is a content provider of dynamic content of the at least one identified website”.
Applicant further argues that the dependent claims are allowable due to depending on an allowable independent claim. However, as shown above, the independent claims are not allowable.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 FORREST L CAREY whose telephone number is (571)270-7814. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00AM-5:30PM M-F.
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, William Korzuch can be reached at (571) 272-7589. 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.
/FORREST L CAREY/Examiner, Art Unit 2491
/WILLIAM R KORZUCH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2491
Prosecution Insights