DETAILED ACTION
Remarks
Claims 20-37 and 39 have been examined and rejected. This Office action is responsive to the amendment filed on 12/24/2025, which has been entered in the above identified application.
A 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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 20, 28, and 36 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 20, 28, and 36 recite ‘directing the user to a specific portion of the particular document’; however, they should recite - - directing the user to the specific portion of the particular document - -.
Claims 36 recites ‘generating a first feed item comprising a suggested action’; however, it should recite - - generating a first feed item comprising the suggested action - -.
Claims 36 recites ‘causing display of work feed’; however, it should recite - - causing display of a work feed - -.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 20-37 and 39 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 20, claim 20 recites “one or more input action controls that are configured to cause a user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed” and “the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed”. It is unclear whether these limitations are intended to be the same or different first controls. The “one or more input action controls that are configured to cause a user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed” are not recited to be “displayed within the first feed item of the work feed”. For the purposes of examination, these limitations are interpreted as: “one or more input controls that are configured to cause a user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed” and “one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed”
Claim 20 further recites “the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular document associated with a respective application and derived from the first notification data item and the second notification data item”. It is unclear whether “derived from the first notification data item and the second notification data item” is intended to refer to the suggested action, the future action, or the particular document. For the purposes of examination, these limitations are interpreted as: the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular document associated with a respective application, wherein suggestion data is derived from the first notification data item and the second notification data item
Claim 20 further recites “a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed”. It is unclear whether “on which the suggested action is to be performed” is intended to refer to the specific portion or the particular document. For the purposes of examination, these limitations are interpreted as: a specific portion of the particular document, wherein the suggested action is to be performed
Regarding claims 28 and 36, claims 28 and 36 contains substantially similar limitations to those found in claim 20. Consequently, claims 28 and 36 are rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claims 21-27, 29-35, 37, and 39, claims 21-27, 29-35, 37, and 39 are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for depending on an indefinite parent claim.
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 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.
Claims 20-26, 28-34, 36, 37, and 39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. (US 20130346511 A1, published 12/26/2013), hereinafter Park, in view of Goel et al. (US 20170205965 A1, published 07/20/2017), hereinafter Goel.
Regarding claim 20, Park teaches the claim comprising:
A method comprising (Park Figs. 1-12; abs., system and methods for enhancing user productivity by integrating multiple services and providing a centralized output to a user as disclosed):
receiving, at a server: a first set of notifications from a first application provided by a first software platform; a second set of notifications from a second application provided by a second software platform, the first software platform different from the second software platform (Park Figs. 1-12; [0035], an application server 107 may be used to carry out a life management service for a user; the server 107 may receive notifications from various other services in the user's life, and can organize them for presentation to the user via an Internet web page showing a notification inbox, such as an electronic email inbox; the server may receive notifications that milk in the user's refrigerator is going bad, that a drug prescription for the user is about to need refilling, that the user's home security system is armed, and any other desired type of notification; [0036], Identifying these services may involve, for example, providing the life management server with an identification of the uniform resource locator (URL) for the particular service (e.g., the URL for the user's pharmacy), as well as information identifying the user to that service (e.g., the user's login ID and password for the pharmacy server, which may be different from the user's login ID and password for the life management server). This registration may also include the life management server storing in memory, for each registered application, a set of rules governing how notifications from and to the application's server are to be handled. For example, a weather service may define rules indicating how its weather alerts should be delivered to the user (e.g., establishing a higher default priority, whether to bother with the alert if the user is already out of the home, specifying the removal of an alert if a weather condition subsides, etc.). A different application server, such as a movie review server, might have a different set of rules; [0043], transmit corresponding information between a service's server and the user's life management server; [0045], each widget communicates with its corresponding server; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; a user may also custom-modify the user interface for personal preferences; FIG. 11 shows a page where a user can select applications to appear on the main page (e.g., FIG. 6); [0057], coupon notifications; [0073], notifications from a close family member; incoming messages from a stranger or a telemarketer; incoming notifications from a home security system, local fire or police departments, weather alert service, or hospitals; [0075], incoming email messages, incoming voice mail messages);
in response to receiving a first notification of the first set of notifications: gathering a first notification data item from the first set of notifications and a second notification data item from the second set of notifications; generating, by a machine learning system, a suggested action based on the first notification data item and the second notification data item, the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular respective application and derived from the first notification data item and the second notification data item; generating a first feed item comprising the suggested action (Park Figs. 1-12; [0035], the server may receive notifications that milk in the user's refrigerator is going bad, that a drug prescription for the user is about to need refilling, that the user's home security system is armed, and any other desired type of notification; [0036], the rules may identify a criterion (e.g., email sender, time of day, movie type, message type, user location, etc.), condition (e.g., sender is movie recommender, time of day is afternoon, movie is comedy, user is away from home, etc.), and a resulting treatment upon satisfaction (or failure) of a condition (e.g., deliver message with high priority, delete message automatically, etc.); the rules for two different application services can use entirely different types of criteria; a weather application might only use weather alert status to determine treatment of weather messages, while a movie recommendation application might not use the weather alert status at all, and instead may use different criteria such as user viewing habits; [0037], if a notification is received, the life management server may proceed to step 302 and process the notification; notification processing may include various steps depending on the service; for example, processing may include steps of identifying the service from which the notification was sent, identifying the user from which the notification was sent, and identifying the content of the notification; [0038], after processing the notification 302 (e.g., a push notification), the system determines 303 what content, if any, should be presented to the user on one or more displays 304 as a response to the received notification 302; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; a user may also custom-modify the user interface for personal preferences; FIG. 11 shows a page where a user can select applications to appear on the main page (e.g., FIG. 6); [0067], applications sharing a common theme may be grouped together on a particular screen; one screen may group Fitness applications, another screen may group Finance applications, and yet another screen may group Entertainment applications; [0068], grouping of applications into themes or onto particular screens may be automatic or may be user-controlled; the system may contain a variety of default themes and an application may contain a flag, which has the effect of automatically grouping the application into a particular theme; alternatively, or in addition, the user may group one or more applications into a particular screen; [0071], to facilitate assigning rank values to notifications, a notification prioritization scheme (e.g., a database identifying prioritization and delivery parameters) may be defined to establish how notifications will be prioritized, and how prioritization will affect the delivery of a notification; [0072-0073], the prioritization scheme may also indicate how notifications are to be prioritized or classified; the prioritization classification information can use a variety of factors to arrive at a priority ranking for a given notification; one factor may be the identity of the sender and/or the recipient; notifications from a close family member might automatically be given a priority ranking of 80, while incoming messages from a stranger or a telemarketer may be given a default priority ranking of 10; [0074-0075], another factor can be the notification or message type or content; incoming email messages may be given lower priority than incoming voice mail messages; messages containing certain types of content (e.g., keywords, sounds, codes, etc.) may also be given a predetermined priority ranking; messages marked with an "urgent" identifier code can be given a higher ranking, while messages marked with a "not urgent--at your convenience" identifier code can be given a lower ranking; [0077], Another factor may be user history for prior messages having a common characteristic such as sender, recipient, content, type, etc. If a user routinely ignores incoming messages having certain characteristics (e.g., messages for an online shopping site, text messages received at 2 am, etc.), then the system may dynamically modify the prioritization scheme to reduce the default priority for future incoming messages having those characteristics; [0079], the various factors above can be weighted and combined in any desired fashion to arrive at a ranking order of pending incoming notifications);
and causing, by the server, display of a work feed on a client device, the work feed including a set of feed items that includes the first feed item, wherein the first feed item includes one or more input action controls that are configured to cause the suggested action to be performed; and in response to detecting a user input to the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed (Park Figs. 1-12; abs., a message notification server may receive various notifications, and may dynamically prioritize them for a ranked order presentation to users; [0035], the server 107 may receive notifications from various other services in the user's life, and can organize them for presentation to the user via an Internet web page showing a notification inbox, such as an electronic email inbox; [0063], alerts about daily weather and traffic reports (FIG. 9) and the like may be presented; [0064], see FIG. 12A; Route information can be supplied from the device to the system, which stores the route and later provides morning traffic reports to the user on wakening; work-related commutes; [0065], applications sharing common themes may be grouped together on the same screen; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; [0067-0068] applications sharing a common theme may be grouped together on a particular screen; [0084], a revision can be initiated by the user's request (e.g., a user can view a notification, and press a "revise priorities" button to indicate a desire to adjust the priority of the notification); the display can include a "demote" or "promote" button while viewing a notification message to decrease or increase the priority given to further notifications matching the characteristics of the current notification message; the server can normalize a decrease in priority to all of the factors that led to the viewed message receiving the priority that it received (feed items are selectable for display by the server, including options performable on the object by the user, which cause the server to perform an action); see also [0039], the user can access different application interfaces from the feed and [0066], additional pages may be displayed in response to the user selecting icons corresponding to particular applications (icons for particular applications are shown in the feed of Fig. 6))
However, Park fails to expressly disclose generating, by a machine learning system, a suggested action based on the first notification data item and the second notification data item, the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular document associated with a respective application and derived from the first notification data item and the second notification data item, wherein the first feed item includes one or more input action controls that are configured to cause a user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed; and in response to detecting a user input to the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed, directing the user to a specific portion of the particular document. In the same field of endeavor, Goel teaches:
generating, by a machine learning system, a suggested action based on the first notification data item and the second notification data item, the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular document associated with a respective application and derived from the first notification data item and the second notification data item (Goel Figs. 1-6; [0010], the electronic document's determined complexity level and the estimated review time in combination with a recipient's schedule to determine whether the recipient has enough available time in his schedule to review and sign the electronic document prior to the deadline. If a recipient does not have adequate time in his schedule, the systems and methods described herein notify the document owner of the scheduling conflict; [0011], schedule the review of an electronic document into a recipient's existing calendar and provide the recipient with scheduling notification; [0026], the term “electronic document” refers to any collection of information that can be communicated between users of the various systems disclosed herein; [0045], The electronic document management system can further tune the average review times for each complexity category past the learning period by continuing to monitor review times of users of the electronic document management system; [0046], during a learning period, the electronic document management system can utilize the average category values described above while collecting review data for the particular user (e.g., the amount of time the particular user spends in reviewing electronic documents of varying complexity levels); [0055], interface with one or more calendaring applications; the electronic document management system can access the recipient's personal calendar, business calendar, etc; [0070], in response to determining that an electronic document recipient is coming close to missing a signing deadline associated with an electronic document, the electronic document management system generates and sends a notification to the recipient. For example, as shown in FIG. 1D, in response to determining that a recipient (i.e., “Doug Jackson”) has fallen behind in reviewing an electronic document (i.e., “LEASE”) and that he likely will not meet the document's signing deadline; [0071], the electronic document management system generates the notification 142 as an email, and provides the notification 142 to the recipient via one or more email accounts specified by the recipient. In additional or alternative embodiments, the electronic document management system can generate and provide the notification 142 as a text message (e.g., SMS), a page, an automated text-to-talk phone call; [0075], a particular recipient may be performing an electronic document review on schedule until an unexpected meeting is added to the recipient's calendar. The electronic document management system can determine, in real time, that the unexpected meeting will derail the recipient's ability to complete review of the electronic document prior to the document's deadline; [0090], and as shown in FIG. 2, the server 216 includes the electronic document manager 218; [0096], the potential recipient may have additional meetings and obligations stored on a third-party calendar (e.g., an OUTLOOK™ calendar, a GOOGLE™ calendar, etc.). Accordingly, the availability manager 224 can utilize various APIs or other protocols to access this calendar information)
wherein the first feed item includes one or more input action controls that are configured to cause a user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed; and in response to detecting a user input to the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed, directing the user to a specific portion of the particular document (Goel Figs. 1-6; [0070], as shown in FIG. 1D, in response to determining that a recipient (i.e., “Doug Jackson”) has fallen behind in reviewing an electronic document (i.e., “LEASE”) and that he likely will not meet the document's signing deadline; [0072], As shown in FIG. 1D, the notification 142 includes a message warning the recipient that the signing deadline for the electronic document is fast approaching. Additionally, the electronic document management system can include additional information in the notification 142 such as an estimated amount of time the recipient will have to spend before completing review of the electronic document (i.e., “5 hours”), and how much available time the recipient has before the signing deadline for the electronic document elapses (i.e., “6 total hours”). Furthermore, the electronic document management system can provide a hyperlink 144 to the electronic document. In response to the recipient clicking or tapping on the hyperlink 144, the electronic document management system can open a reviewing window within the electronic document management system and direct the recipient to the last portion of the electronic document reviewed by the recipient)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have incorporated generating, by a machine learning system, a suggested action based on the first notification data item and the second notification data item, the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular document associated with a respective application and derived from the first notification data item and the second notification data item, wherein the first feed item includes one or more input action controls that are configured to cause a user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed; and in response to detecting a user input to the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed, directing the user to a specific portion of the particular document as suggested in Goel into Park. Doing so would be desirable because due to increased interconnectivity, the use of electronic documents has become popular and commonplace. It is no longer problematic for two geographically diverse parties to enter into a signed agreement as both parties can now easily convert a document into an electronic format, and then send the converted electronic document over the Internet (see Goel [0004]). With conventional electronic document solutions, a problem exists when a document owner sends an electronic document to a reviewer who does not have enough time in his schedule to appropriately review and sign the electronic document prior to a deadline. In particular, in conventional electronic document systems, the document owner typically has no way of knowing that a reviewer's schedule does not allow adequate time for the reviewer to review the electronic document prior to the electronic document's deadline (see Goel [0005]). Additionally, with conventional electronic document systems, reviewer may not plan enough time to review an electronic document (see Goel [0006]). The inability of a document owner to understand the scheduling constraints of one or more document reviewers, and the inability of a document reviewer to understand an amount of time a document will take to review, often causes review deadlines to be missed within conventional electronic document systems (see Goel [0007]). One or more embodiments described herein provide benefits and solve one or more of the foregoing or other problems in the art with systems and methods that provide an efficient and effective user experience for managing the review of electronic documents (see Goel [0009]).
Regarding claim 28, Park teaches the claim comprising:
A system comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory including instructions, which when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to perform operations comprising (Park Figs. 1-12; abs., system and methods for enhancing user productivity by integrating multiple services and providing a centralized output to a user as disclosed; [0030], FIG. 2 illustrates general hardware elements that can be used to implement any of the various computing devices discussed herein; the computing device 200 may include one or more processors 201, which may execute instructions of a computer program to perform any of the features described herein; the instructions may be stored in any type of computer-readable medium or memory, to configure the operation of the processor 201)
receiving a first set of notifications from a first application provided by a first software platform, and a second set of notifications from a second application provided by a second software platform different from the first software platform (Park Figs. 1-12; [0035], an application server 107 may be used to carry out a life management service for a user; the server 107 may receive notifications from various other services in the user's life, and can organize them for presentation to the user via an Internet web page showing a notification inbox, such as an electronic email inbox; the server may receive notifications that milk in the user's refrigerator is going bad, that a drug prescription for the user is about to need refilling, that the user's home security system is armed, and any other desired type of notification; [0036], Identifying these services may involve, for example, providing the life management server with an identification of the uniform resource locator (URL) for the particular service (e.g., the URL for the user's pharmacy), as well as information identifying the user to that service (e.g., the user's login ID and password for the pharmacy server, which may be different from the user's login ID and password for the life management server). This registration may also include the life management server storing in memory, for each registered application, a set of rules governing how notifications from and to the application's server are to be handled. For example, a weather service may define rules indicating how its weather alerts should be delivered to the user (e.g., establishing a higher default priority, whether to bother with the alert if the user is already out of the home, specifying the removal of an alert if a weather condition subsides, etc.). A different application server, such as a movie review server, might have a different set of rules; [0043], transmit corresponding information between a service's server and the user's life management server; [0045], each widget communicates with its corresponding server; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; a user may also custom-modify the user interface for personal preferences; FIG. 11 shows a page where a user can select applications to appear on the main page (e.g., FIG. 6); [0057], coupon notifications; [0073], notifications from a close family member; incoming messages from a stranger or a telemarketer; incoming notifications from a home security system, local fire or police departments, weather alert service, or hospitals; [0075], incoming email messages, incoming voice mail messages);
gathering a first notification data item from the first set of notifications and a second notification data item from the second set of notifications; generating, by a machine learning system, a suggested action based on the first notification data item and the second notification data item, the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular respective application; generating a first feed item comprising the suggested action (Park Figs. 1-12; [0035], the server may receive notifications that milk in the user's refrigerator is going bad, that a drug prescription for the user is about to need refilling, that the user's home security system is armed, and any other desired type of notification; [0036], the rules may identify a criterion (e.g., email sender, time of day, movie type, message type, user location, etc.), condition (e.g., sender is movie recommender, time of day is afternoon, movie is comedy, user is away from home, etc.), and a resulting treatment upon satisfaction (or failure) of a condition (e.g., deliver message with high priority, delete message automatically, etc.); the rules for two different application services can use entirely different types of criteria; a weather application might only use weather alert status to determine treatment of weather messages, while a movie recommendation application might not use the weather alert status at all, and instead may use different criteria such as user viewing habits; [0037], if a notification is received, the life management server may proceed to step 302 and process the notification; notification processing may include various steps depending on the service; for example, processing may include steps of identifying the service from which the notification was sent, identifying the user from which the notification was sent, and identifying the content of the notification; [0038], after processing the notification 302 (e.g., a push notification), the system determines 303 what content, if any, should be presented to the user on one or more displays 304 as a response to the received notification 302; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; a user may also custom-modify the user interface for personal preferences; FIG. 11 shows a page where a user can select applications to appear on the main page (e.g., FIG. 6); [0067] applications sharing a common theme may be grouped together on a particular screen; one screen may group Fitness applications, another screen may group Finance applications, and yet another screen may group Entertainment applications; [0068], grouping of applications into themes or onto particular screens may be automatic or may be user-controlled; the system may contain a variety of default themes and an application may contain a flag, which has the effect of automatically grouping the application into a particular theme; alternatively, or in addition, the user may group one or more applications into a particular screen; [0071], to facilitate assigning rank values to notifications, a notification prioritization scheme (e.g., a database identifying prioritization and delivery parameters) may be defined to establish how notifications will be prioritized, and how prioritization will affect the delivery of a notification; [0072-0073], the prioritization scheme may also indicate how notifications are to be prioritized or classified; the prioritization classification information can use a variety of factors to arrive at a priority ranking for a given notification; one factor may be the identity of the sender and/or the recipient; notifications from a close family member might automatically be given a priority ranking of 80, while incoming messages from a stranger or a telemarketer may be given a default priority ranking of 10; [0074-0075], another factor can be the notification or message type or content; incoming email messages may be given lower priority than incoming voice mail messages; messages containing certain types of content (e.g., keywords, sounds, codes, etc.) may also be given a predetermined priority ranking; messages marked with an "urgent" identifier code can be given a higher ranking, while messages marked with a "not urgent--at your convenience" identifier code can be given a lower ranking; [0077], Another factor may be user history for prior messages having a common characteristic such as sender, recipient, content, type, etc. If a user routinely ignores incoming messages having certain characteristics (e.g., messages for an online shopping site, text messages received at 2 am, etc.), then the system may dynamically modify the prioritization scheme to reduce the default priority for future incoming messages having those characteristics; [0079], the various factors above can be weighted and combined in any desired fashion to arrive at a ranking order of pending incoming notifications);
causing display of a work feed on a client device, the work feed including a set of feed items that includes the first feed item, wherein the first feed item includes one or more action input controls that are configured to cause the suggested action to be performed; and in response to detecting a user selection to the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed (Park Figs. 1-12; abs., a message notification server may receive various notifications, and may dynamically prioritize them for a ranked order presentation to users; [0035], the server 107 may receive notifications from various other services in the user's life, and can organize them for presentation to the user via an Internet web page showing a notification inbox, such as an electronic email inbox; [0063], alerts about daily weather and traffic reports (FIG. 9) and the like may be presented; [0064], see FIG. 12A; Route information can be supplied from the device to the system, which stores the route and later provides morning traffic reports to the user on wakening; work-related commutes; [0065], applications sharing common themes may be grouped together on the same screen; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; [0067-0068] applications sharing a common theme may be grouped together on a particular screen; one screen may group Fitness applications, another screen may group Finance applications, and yet another screen may group Entertainment applications; [0084], a revision can be initiated by the user's request (e.g., a user can view a notification, and press a "revise priorities" button to indicate a desire to adjust the priority of the notification); the display can include a "demote" or "promote" button while viewing a notification message to decrease or increase the priority given to further notifications matching the characteristics of the current notification message; the server can normalize a decrease in priority to all of the factors that led to the viewed message receiving the priority that it received (feed items are selectable for display by the server, including options performable on the object by the user, which cause the server to perform an action); see also [0039], the user can access different application interfaces from the feed and [0066], additional pages may be displayed in response to the user selecting icons corresponding to particular applications (icons for particular applications are shown in the feed of Fig. 6))
However, Park fails to expressly disclose generating, by a machine learning system, a suggested action based on the first notification data item and the second notification data item, the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular document associated with a respective application; wherein the first feed item includes one or more action input controls that are configured to cause a user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed; and in response to detecting a user selection to the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed, directing the user to a specific portion of the particular document. In the same field of endeavor, Goel teaches:
generating, by a machine learning system, a suggested action based on the first notification data item and the second notification data item, the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular document associated with a respective application (Goel Figs. 1-6; [0010], the electronic document's determined complexity level and the estimated review time in combination with a recipient's schedule to determine whether the recipient has enough available time in his schedule to review and sign the electronic document prior to the deadline. If a recipient does not have adequate time in his schedule, the systems and methods described herein notify the document owner of the scheduling conflict; [0011], schedule the review of an electronic document into a recipient's existing calendar and provide the recipient with scheduling notification; [0026], the term “electronic document” refers to any collection of information that can be communicated between users of the various systems disclosed herein; [0045], The electronic document management system can further tune the average review times for each complexity category past the learning period by continuing to monitor review times of users of the electronic document management system; [0046], during a learning period, the electronic document management system can utilize the average category values described above while collecting review data for the particular user (e.g., the amount of time the particular user spends in reviewing electronic documents of varying complexity levels); [0055], interface with one or more calendaring applications; the electronic document management system can access the recipient's personal calendar, business calendar, etc; [0070], in response to determining that an electronic document recipient is coming close to missing a signing deadline associated with an electronic document, the electronic document management system generates and sends a notification to the recipient. For example, as shown in FIG. 1D, in response to determining that a recipient (i.e., “Doug Jackson”) has fallen behind in reviewing an electronic document (i.e., “LEASE”) and that he likely will not meet the document's signing deadline; [0071], the electronic document management system generates the notification 142 as an email, and provides the notification 142 to the recipient via one or more email accounts specified by the recipient. In additional or alternative embodiments, the electronic document management system can generate and provide the notification 142 as a text message (e.g., SMS), a page, an automated text-to-talk phone call; [0075], a particular recipient may be performing an electronic document review on schedule until an unexpected meeting is added to the recipient's calendar. The electronic document management system can determine, in real time, that the unexpected meeting will derail the recipient's ability to complete review of the electronic document prior to the document's deadline; [0090], and as shown in FIG. 2, the server 216 includes the electronic document manager 218; [0096], the potential recipient may have additional meetings and obligations stored on a third-party calendar (e.g., an OUTLOOK™ calendar, a GOOGLE™ calendar, etc.). Accordingly, the availability manager 224 can utilize various APIs or other protocols to access this calendar information)
wherein the first feed item includes one or more action input controls that are configured to cause a user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed; and in response to detecting a user selection to the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed, directing the user to a specific portion of the particular document (Goel Figs. 1-6; [0070], as shown in FIG. 1D, in response to determining that a recipient (i.e., “Doug Jackson”) has fallen behind in reviewing an electronic document (i.e., “LEASE”) and that he likely will not meet the document's signing deadline; [0072], As shown in FIG. 1D, the notification 142 includes a message warning the recipient that the signing deadline for the electronic document is fast approaching. Additionally, the electronic document management system can include additional information in the notification 142 such as an estimated amount of time the recipient will have to spend before completing review of the electronic document (i.e., “5 hours”), and how much available time the recipient has before the signing deadline for the electronic document elapses (i.e., “6 total hours”). Furthermore, the electronic document management system can provide a hyperlink 144 to the electronic document. In response to the recipient clicking or tapping on the hyperlink 144, the electronic document management system can open a reviewing window within the electronic document management system and direct the recipient to the last portion of the electronic document reviewed by the recipient)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have incorporated generating, by a machine learning system, a suggested action based on the first notification data item and the second notification data item, the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular document associated with a respective application; wherein the first feed item includes one or more action input controls that are configured to cause a user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed; and in response to detecting a user selection to the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed, directing the user to a specific portion of the particular document as suggested in Goel into Park. Doing so would be desirable because due to increased interconnectivity, the use of electronic documents has become popular and commonplace. It is no longer problematic for two geographically diverse parties to enter into a signed agreement as both parties can now easily convert a document into an electronic format, and then send the converted electronic document over the Internet (see Goel [0004]). With conventional electronic document solutions, a problem exists when a document owner sends an electronic document to a reviewer who does not have enough time in his schedule to appropriately review and sign the electronic document prior to a deadline. In particular, in conventional electronic document systems, the document owner typically has no way of knowing that a reviewer's schedule does not allow adequate time for the reviewer to review the electronic document prior to the electronic document's deadline (see Goel [0005]). Additionally, with conventional electronic document systems, reviewer may not plan enough time to review an electronic document (see Goel [0006]). The inability of a document owner to understand the scheduling constraints of one or more document reviewers, and the inability of a document reviewer to understand an amount of time a document will take to review, often causes review deadlines to be missed within conventional electronic document systems (see Goel [0007]). One or more embodiments described herein provide benefits and solve one or more of the foregoing or other problems in the art with systems and methods that provide an efficient and effective user experience for managing the review of electronic documents (see Goel [0009]).
Regarding claim 36, claim 36 contains substantially similar limitations to those found in claim 28, the only difference being A non-transitory computer-readable medium (CRM) comprising instructions, which when executed by one or more processors of a server, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising (Park Figs. 1-12; abs., system and methods for enhancing user productivity by integrating multiple services and providing a centralized output to a user as disclosed; [0030], FIG. 2 illustrates general hardware elements that can be used to implement any of the various computing devices discussed herein; the computing device 200 may include one or more processors 201, which may execute instructions of a computer program to perform any of the features described herein; the instructions may be stored in any type of computer-readable medium or memory, to configure the operation of the processor 201; [0035], an application server 107 may be used to carry out a life management service for a user) and a third set of notifications from a third application different from the first and second applications (Park Figs. 1-12; [0035], the server 107 may receive notifications from various other services in the user's life, and can organize them for presentation to the user via an Internet web page showing a notification inbox, such as an electronic email inbox; the server may receive notifications that milk in the user's refrigerator is going bad, that a drug prescription for the user is about to need refilling, that the user's home security system is armed, and any other desired type of notification; [0036], the rules may identify a criterion (e.g., email sender, time of day, movie type, message type, user location, etc.), condition (e.g., sender is movie recommender, time of day is afternoon, movie is comedy, user is away from home, etc.), and a resulting treatment upon satisfaction (or failure) of a condition (e.g., deliver message with high priority, delete message automatically, etc.); the rules for two different application services can use entirely different types of criteria; a weather application might only use weather alert status to determine treatment of weather messages, while a movie recommendation application might not use the weather alert status at all, and instead may use different criteria such as user viewing habits; [0037], if a notification is received, the life management server may proceed to step 302 and process the notification; notification processing may include various steps depending on the service; for example, processing may include steps of identifying the service from which the notification was sent, identifying the user from which the notification was sent, and identifying the content of the notification; [0038], after processing the notification 302 (e.g., a push notification), the system determines 303 what content, if any, should be presented to the user on one or more displays 304 as a response to the received notification 302; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; a user may also custom-modify the user interface for personal preferences; FIG. 11 shows a page where a user can select applications to appear on the main page (e.g., FIG. 6); [0067-0068], applications sharing a common theme may be grouped together on a particular screen; one screen may group Fitness applications, another screen may group Finance applications, and yet another screen may group Entertainment applications; [0057], coupon notifications; 0071], to facilitate assigning rank values to notifications, a notification prioritization scheme (e.g., a database identifying prioritization and delivery parameters) may be defined to establish how notifications will be prioritized, and how prioritization will affect the delivery of a notification; [0072-0073], the prioritization scheme may also indicate how notifications are to be prioritized or classified; notifications from a close family member; incoming messages from a stranger or a telemarketer; incoming notifications from a home security system, local fire or police departments, weather alert service, or hospitals; [0075], incoming email messages, incoming voice mail messages; [0074-0075], another factor can be the notification or message type or content; incoming email messages may be given lower priority than incoming voice mail messages). Consequently, claim 36 is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 21, Park in view of Goel teaches all the limitations of claim 20, further comprising:
wherein each feed item of the work feed is selectable through a graphical user interface (GUI) generated on the client device, and wherein the method further comprises: in response to a user selection of a particular feed item through the GUI generated on the client device, causing, by the server, an action and/or launch of the first application, or the second application, associated with the particular feed item, and causing, by the server, display of an object associated with the selected particular feed item and a corresponding notification (Park Figs. 1-12; [0036], FIG. 3 provides an example of workflow for how a life management server may receive and process notifications from or to a user's device or services; [0084], a revision can be initiated by the user's request (e.g., a user can view a notification, and press a "revise priorities" button to indicate a desire to adjust the priority of the notification); the display can include a "demote" or "promote" button while viewing a notification message to decrease or increase the priority given to further notifications matching the characteristics of the current notification message; the server can normalize a decrease in priority to all of the factors that led to the viewed message receiving the priority that it received (feed items are selectable for display by the server, including options performable on the object by the user, which cause the server to perform an action); see also [0039], the user can access different application interfaces from the feed and [0066], additional pages may be displayed in response to the user selecting icons corresponding to particular applications (icons for particular applications are shown in the feed of Fig. 6))
Goel further teaches:
in response to a user selection of a particular feed item through the GUI generated on the client device, causing, by the server, launch of the first application, or the second application associated with the particular feed item, and causing, by the server, display of an object associated with the selected particular feed item and a corresponding notification (Goel Figs. 1-6; [0070], as shown in FIG. 1D, in response to determining that a recipient (i.e., “Doug Jackson”) has fallen behind in reviewing an electronic document (i.e., “LEASE”) and that he likely will not meet the document's signing deadline; [0072], As shown in FIG. 1D, the notification 142 includes a message warning the recipient that the signing deadline for the electronic document is fast approaching. Additionally, the electronic document management system can include additional information in the notification 142 such as an estimated amount of time the recipient will have to spend before completing review of the electronic document (i.e., “5 hours”), and how much available time the recipient has before the signing deadline for the electronic document elapses (i.e., “6 total hours”). Furthermore, the electronic document management system can provide a hyperlink 144 to the electronic document. In response to the recipient clicking or tapping on the hyperlink 144, the electronic document management system can open a reviewing window within the electronic document management system and direct the recipient to the last portion of the electronic document reviewed by the recipient)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have incorporated in response to a user selection of a particular feed item through the GUI generated on the client device, causing, by the server, launch of the first application, or the second application associated with the particular feed item, and causing, by the server, display of an object associated with the selected particular feed item and a corresponding notification as suggested in as suggested in Goel into Park. Doing so would be desirable because due to increased interconnectivity, the use of electronic documents has become popular and commonplace. It is no longer problematic for two geographically diverse parties to enter into a signed agreement as both parties can now easily convert a document into an electronic format, and then send the converted electronic document over the Internet (see Goel [0004]). With conventional electronic document solutions, a problem exists when a document owner sends an electronic document to a reviewer who does not have enough time in his schedule to appropriately review and sign the electronic document prior to a deadline. In particular, in conventional electronic document systems, the document owner typically has no way of knowing that a reviewer's schedule does not allow adequate time for the reviewer to review the electronic document prior to the electronic document's deadline (see Goel [0005]). Additionally, with conventional electronic document systems, reviewer may not plan enough time to review an electronic document (see Goel [0006]). The inability of a document owner to understand the scheduling constraints of one or more document reviewers, and the inability of a document reviewer to understand an amount of time a document will take to review, often causes review deadlines to be missed within conventional electronic document systems (see Goel [0007]). One or more embodiments described herein provide benefits and solve one or more of the foregoing or other problems in the art with systems and methods that provide an efficient and effective user experience for managing the review of electronic documents (see Goel [0009]).
Regarding claims 29 and 37, claims 29 and 37 contains substantially similar limitations to those found in claim 21. Consequently, claims 29 and 37 are rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 22, Park in view of Goel teaches all the limitations of claim 20, further comprising:
wherein: the work feed further includes: a first set of feed items based on a first subset of notifications of the first set of notifications; and a second set of feed items based on a second subset of notifications of the second set of notifications (Park Figs. 1-12; [0035], the server 107 may receive notifications from various other services in the user's life, and can organize them for presentation to the user via an Internet web page showing a notification inbox, such as an electronic email inbox; [0036], a movie review server, might have a different set of rules (e.g., prioritizing an incoming new movie alert based on whether the new movie matches a viewer profile of the user, or is in a genre that the user regularly views, etc.); the rules may identify a criterion (e.g., email sender, time of day, movie type, message type, user location, etc.), condition (e.g., sender is movie recommender, time of day is afternoon, movie is comedy, user is away from home, etc.), and a resulting treatment upon satisfaction (or failure) of a condition (e.g., deliver message with high priority); specifying the removal of an alert if a weather condition subsides; [0037], if a notification is received, the life management server may proceed to step 302 and process the notification; [0038], after processing the notification 302 (e.g., a push notification), the system determines 303 what content, if any, should be presented to the user on one or more displays 304 as a response to the received notification 302; [0054], a refrigerator may inform the user that a good such as produce or a dairy product is nearing the end of its shelf-life or is in low amount; [0057], a coupon application may deliver offers for discounted items and services from multiple coupon vendors; coupon notifications may be delivered to a calendar application as well as a coupon application; expiration dates can be presented in the context of the calendar application; the system will automatically notify the user of available coupons that the customer has indicated interest in receiving; if the coupon expiration date is reached, the coupon is automatically removed from the system; [0061], after a visit to a dentist or physician, a user may need to take further action such as ordering medicine or making an appointment to see a specialist; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; [0083], notifications may be rearranged and/or removed or added to the first page display)
Regarding claim 30, claim 30 contain substantially similar limitations to those found in claim 22. Consequently, claim 30 is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 24, Park in view of Goel teaches all the limitations of claim 23, further comprising:
wherein the object information further includes a receiving time of the notification (Park Figs. 1-12; [0036], FIG. 3 provides an example of workflow for how a life management server may receive and process notifications from or to a user's device or services; the rules may identify a criterion (e.g., email sender, time of day, movie type, message type, user location, etc.); [0070], the system provides for delivering or presenting notifications to the user on a prioritized basis; a dynamic ranking system may be used to prioritize one notification over another, allowing the system to present to the user the notification having a higher rank value; [0071], to facilitate assigning rank values to notifications, a notification prioritization scheme (e.g., a database identifying prioritization and delivery parameters) may be defined to establish how notifications will be prioritized, and how prioritization will affect the delivery of a notification; [0073], the prioritization scheme may also indicate how notifications are to be prioritized or classified; the prioritization classification information can use a variety of factors to arrive at a priority ranking for a given notification; [0077], ignores incoming messages having certain characteristics (e.g., messages for an online shopping site, text messages received at 2 am, etc.); [0079], the various factors above can be weighted and combined in any desired fashion to arrive at a ranking order of pending incoming notifications; [0082], the current time may indicate that a previously urgent notification is no longer as urgent, so its time-based ranking factor may assign a lower priority value now that the time is different; [0084], if an incoming notification was given a "75" priority rating because of 3 distinct factors (e.g., geographic location of sender, message keyword and time of day))
Regarding claim 32, claim 32 contains substantially similar limitations to those found in claim 24. Consequently, claim 32 is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 25, Park in view of Goel teaches all the limitations of claim 20, further comprising:
updating, by the server, the work feed displayed on the client device by adding a new notification or removing a displayed notification from an integrated view of notifications including notifications from the first application or the second application (Park Figs. 1-12; [0035], an application server 107 may be used to carry out a life management service for a user; the server 107 may receive notifications from various other services in the user's life, and can organize them for presentation to the user via an Internet web page showing a notification inbox, such as an electronic email inbox; [0037], in step 301, the life management server may determine whether it has received a notification for the user (e.g., a push notification); [0038], after processing the notification 302 (e.g., a push notification), the system determines 303 what content, if any, should be presented to the user on one or more displays 304 as a response to the received notification 30 (Update Display 304); [0081], FIG. 5 provides an example of the life management server updating a notification display; the server may initially identify all notifications that have been received and have not yet been deleted from the server's list of notifications; in step 502, the server may delete notifications that have expired; [0082], in step 503, the server may process the remaining notifications to re-evaluate their rankings; [0083], in step 504, the re-ranked notifications may then refresh the notification mechanisms (display areas, sounds, external messaging, etc.) to reflect the current ranking of notifications; the notifications may be distributed among the available notification mechanisms identified in the scheme, resulting in a rearrangement and/or change of the notifications that are displayed on the screen; notifications may be shifted in the notifications area such that a different notification now occupies the highest priority spot, while other notifications may be rearranged and/or removed or added to the first page display)
Regarding claim 26, Park in view of Goel teaches all the limitations of claim 20, further comprising:
wherein the first application, or the second application is one of: a productivity application; a word processing application; a finance application; a multimedia application; a networking application; a calendaring application; a messaging application; an email application; a spreadsheet application; a customer relationship management application; or a social media application (Park Figs. 1-12; [0036], weather; movie review; [0055], some applications enhance productivity by centralizing information from other applications; a calendar application presents content to the user organized according to time; [0057], coupon notifications; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; FIG. 11 shows a page where a user can select applications to appear on the main page (e.g., FIG. 6); [0067], finance applications; [0077], ignores incoming messages having certain characteristics (e.g., messages for an online shopping site))
Regarding claim 34, claim 34 contains substantially similar limitations to those found in claim 26. Consequently, claim 34 is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 33, Park in view of Goel teaches all the limitations of claim 28, further comprising:
obtaining object information for each notification of a first set of notifications, a second set of notifications, and a third set of notifications; identifying a first object having object information associated with at least one of the first set of notifications, the second set of notifications, and/or the third set of notifications; updating at least the portion of the set of feed items of the work feed displayed on the client device by adding a new notification or removing a displayed notification from an integrated view of the work feed (Park Figs. 1-12; [0035], an application server 107 may be used to carry out a life management service for a user; the server 107 may receive notifications from various other services in the user's life, and can organize them for presentation to the user via an Internet web page showing a notification inbox, such as an electronic email inbox; [0037], in step 301, the life management server may determine whether it has received a notification for the user (e.g., a push notification); [0038], after processing the notification 302 (e.g., a push notification), the system determines 303 what content, if any, should be presented to the user on one or more displays 304 as a response to the received notification 30 (Update Display 304); [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; a user may also custom-modify the user interface for personal preferences; FIG. 11 shows a page where a user can select applications to appear on the main page (e.g., FIG. 6); [0067] applications sharing a common theme may be grouped together on a particular screen; one screen may group Fitness applications, another screen may group Finance applications, and yet another screen may group Entertainment applications; [0068], grouping of applications into themes or onto particular screens may be automatic or may be user-controlled; the system may contain a variety of default themes and an application may contain a flag, which has the effect of automatically grouping the application into a particular theme; alternatively, or in addition, the user may group one or more applications into a particular screen; [0081], FIG. 5 provides an example of the life management server updating a notification display; the server may initially identify all notifications that have been received and have not yet been deleted from the server's list of notifications; in step 502, the server may delete notifications that have expired; [0082], in step 503, the server may process the remaining notifications to re-evaluate their rankings; [0083], in step 504, the re-ranked notifications may then refresh the notification mechanisms (display areas, sounds, external messaging, etc.) to reflect the current ranking of notifications; the notifications may be distributed among the available notification mechanisms identified in the scheme, resulting in a rearrangement and/or change of the notifications that are displayed on the screen; notifications may be shifted in the notifications area such that a different notification now occupies the highest priority spot, while other notifications may be rearranged and/or removed or added to the first page display)
Regarding claim 39, Park in view of Goel teaches all the limitations of claim 36, further comprising:
wherein generating the suggested action is based on relevance of an object associated with each notification of the first set of notifications, the second set of notifications, and/or the third set of notifications to a particular user account (Park Figs. 1-12; [0036], FIG. 3 provides an example of workflow for how a life management server may receive and process notifications from or to a user's device or services, in step 300, the user may register with the life management service or server which may be any computing device configured to implement all or a portion of the disclosed methods; the registration may include creating an account, login identification, password, and identification of services to which the user wishes to subscribe; a weather service may define rules indicating how its weather alerts should be delivered to the user (e.g., establishing a higher default priority, whether to bother with the alert if the user is already out of the home, specifying the removal of an alert if a weather condition subsides, etc.); a movie review server, might have a different set of rules (e.g., prioritizing an incoming new movie alert based on whether the new movie matches a viewer profile of the user, or is in a genre that the user regularly views, etc.); the rules may identify a criterion (e.g., email sender, time of day, movie type, message type, user location, etc.), condition (e.g., sender is movie recommender, time of day is afternoon, movie is comedy, user is away from home, etc.), and a resulting treatment upon satisfaction (or failure) of a condition (e.g., deliver message with high priority); [0038], the system determines 303 what content, if any, should be presented to the user on one or more displays 304 as a response to the received notification 302; [0070], the system provides for delivering or presenting notifications to the user on a prioritized basis; a dynamic ranking system may be used to prioritize one notification over another, allowing the system to present to the user the notification having a higher rank value; by delivering notifications to the consumer on a prioritized basis, the system reduces delivery of less important and/or less relevant notifications; the system permits modifying the priority of notifications, allowing the user to teach the system which notifications are more important to the user; the system may be iterative, allowing for repeated comparisons of rank values to present the notifications with the highest ranks to the user; [0071], to facilitate assigning rank values to notifications, a notification prioritization scheme (e.g., a database identifying prioritization and delivery parameters) may be defined to establish how notifications will be prioritized, and how prioritization will affect the delivery of a notification; [0073], the prioritization scheme may also indicate how notifications are to be prioritized or classified; the prioritization classification information can use a variety of factors to arrive at a priority ranking for a given notification; one factor may be the identity of the sender and/or the recipient; notifications from a close family member might automatically be given a priority ranking of 80, while incoming messages from a stranger or a telemarketer may be given a default priority ranking of 10; [0075], another factor can be the notification or message type or content; incoming email messages may be given lower priority than incoming voice mail messages; messages containing certain types of content (e.g., keywords, sounds, codes, etc.) may also be given a predetermined priority ranking; messages marked with an "urgent" identifier code can be given a higher ranking, while messages marked with a "not urgent--at your convenience" identifier code can be given a lower ranking; [0079], the various factors above can be weighted and combined in any desired fashion to arrive at a ranking order of pending incoming notifications; [0086], announcements with terms like "weather", "canceled", "delay", or "closed" may be given a higher priority than announcements with terms like "fund raiser" or "yearbook)
Regarding claims 23 and 31, claims 23 and 31 contains substantially similar limitations to those found in claim 39. Consequently, claims 23 and 31 are rejected for the same reasons.
Claims 27 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park in view of Goel in further view of DeLuca et al. (US 20190173826 A1, published 06/06/2019), hereinafter DeLuca.
Regarding claim 27, Park in view of Goel teaches all the limitations of claim 20, further comprising:
determining, by the server, an object associated with the first set of notifications or the second set of notifications using language processing, the object being one of: a data file, a particular user account, a particular website, or the particular document (Park Figs. 1-12; [0037], if a notification is received, the life management server may proceed to step 302 and process the notification; notification processing may include various steps depending on the service; for example, processing may include steps of identifying the service from which the notification was sent, identifying the user from which the notification was sent, and identifying the content of the notification; [0038], after processing the notification 302 (e.g., a push notification), the system determines 303 what content, if any, should be presented; [0075], messages containing certain types of content (e.g., keywords, sounds, codes, etc.) may also be given a predetermined priority ranking; messages marked with an "urgent" identifier code can be given a higher ranking, while messages marked with a "not urgent--at your convenience" identifier code can be given a lower ranking; [0078], a sender who is located at a shopping mall, and wishes to send a message containing the words "sale" or "price", may have a higher priority since the message may be one requesting permission to purchase an item; [0084], message keyword; [0086], a user may identify a particular Internet site (e.g., a school announcement web site for a family's child), and may request that the server automatically scan the website and generate a notification when a new announcement is posted on the site; the user can specify certain keywords in the announcements, and can assign different priorities to them; announcements with terms like "weather", "canceled", "delay", or "closed" may be given a higher priority than announcements with terms like "fund raiser" or "yearbook")
However, Park in view of Goel fails to expressly using natural language processing. In the same field of endeavor, DeLuca teaches:
using natural language processing (DeLuca Figs. 1-15; [0026], the notification source 110a, 110b . . . 110c may be one or more server servicing an application downloaded on the user device; [0027], embodiments of social media platform 111 may be one or more websites; [0028], the alert modification application 130 may be a software application running on one or more back end servers; [0029], the alert modification application 130 of the computing system 120 may include a receiving module 131, a content identification module 132, an analytics module 133, and an alerting module 134; [0030], embodiments of the receiving module 131 may include one or more components of hardware and/or software program code for receiving a notification message from a notification source, such as notification sources 110a, 1 110b; [0050-0051], begin at step 401, wherein the notification message is received a notification source 110a, 110b . . . 110n; step 402 analyzes the body or content payload of the notification message to determine a content of the notification message; step 403 checks a social media platform 111 for user activity, for example a recent activity; step 404 determines whether the notification message is relevant to the social media activity; if yes, step 406 modifies the alert preference from the default alert preference to a modified alert preference; [0031], the content of the notification message may be analyzed by a text analysis system that may parse, identify, scan, detect, analyze etc. words using, for example, a natural language processing technique, natural language classification, pre-trained language model, etc. to analyze the content payload of the notification message; [0032], the analytics module 133 may analyze, parse, scan, review, etc. a user's shared content and the user's activity on a user's social media account(s), as well as a shared content and an activity of the user on social contacts of the user, shared or otherwise available on one or more social media platforms 111; the analytics module 133 may utilize an image or visual recognition engine to inspect, parse, scan, analyze, etc. a photograph, image, video, or other content to determine one or more descriptions or insights that describe or are associated with the photograph, image, video, or other content, and then examine the descriptions/insights with keywords that may be relatable with the content encompassed by the notification message; [0032], the analytics module 133 may use a combination of natural language techniques, cognitive applications/engines, and visual recognition engines to determine a context, content, and relevancy of the shared content available on the one or more social media platforms for comparison with the content of the notification message; [0033], keywords, texts, insights, or other acquired computer readable information associated with the analyzed shared social media content and user social media activity may be compared with keywords, texts, insights, or other computer readable information associated with the content of the notification message; based on the comparison, the analytics module 133 may determine that the content of a particular social media content supplied by the user on the user's social media network may be relevant or otherwise correlate to the content of the received notification message; [0034], the content of the notification message 150 relates to an offer for outdoor apparel being sold at a nearby store; the shared content on the user's social media page 200 includes two photo albums 220, 221 with multiple photographs; the first photo album 220 has a cover photo of a mountain; the analytics module 133 of the computing system 120 may determine (e.g. based on WATSON visual recognition and insights) that the cover photo is of a mountain, and the photographs of the album are mostly of mountains; in the comments, the user has posted text relating to “hiking boots,” “Grand Canyon,” “parka,” “Brand Y,” and “hiking”; these keywords may be associated with a context of outdoor activities, which can correlate to or is relevant to the purchasing outdoor apparel at a discount, which is the content of the notification message 150)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have incorporated using natural language processing as suggested in DeLuca into Park in view of Goel. Doing so would be desirable because notification messages, such as push notifications can have a dramatic effect on an application's ability to engage users. As user's interests change over time, social media content can be used to help monitor the evolution of user's interest. Further, by knowing that a user is interested in, the alert preferences for alerting the user to the notification message can be modified accordingly (see DeLuca [0019]). Thus, there is a need for an alert system for alerting a user based on a relevancy to a social media activity of the user and a content of a notification. The alert system described herein may analyze push notifications and provide the user with a proper alert according to a relevancy to the user's shared social content (see DeLuca [0020]). Furthermore, the alert modification system 100 improves computer technology by saving computing power resources. Issuing an alert to the user uses power and other computing resources of a mobile device. Additional power is also used if the user activates the device from a rest state with the screen turned off to an active state to check the alert. The claimed solution is necessarily rooted in computer technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of computer technology. By reducing the number of alerts presented to the user using a specific set of rules, there is a savings in the computing resources used. There is an improvement to the computing device/systems overall, because the alert system 100 may be directed to an improvement to computer technology, including software that improves the capability of a computing device (see DeLuca [0048]).
Regarding claim 35, Park in view of Goel teaches all the limitations of claim 33, further comprising:
determining the first object having object information associated with a plurality of notifications of the first set of notifications using language processing, the first object being one of: a data file, a particular user account, a particular website, or the particular document (Park Figs. 1-12; [0037], if a notification is received, the life management server may proceed to step 302 and process the notification; notification processing may include various steps depending on the service; for example, processing may include steps of identifying the service from which the notification was sent, identifying the user from which the notification was sent, and identifying the content of the notification; [0038], after processing the notification 302 (e.g., a push notification), the system determines 303 what content, if any, should be presented; [0066], FIG. 6 illustrates information that may be presented to a user in an inbox of the interface; FIG. 6 illustrates a weather inbox, an energy usage inbox, a shopping list inbox, a combined email and voicemail inbox and a calendar function inbox; a user may also custom-modify the user interface for personal preferences; FIG. 11 shows a page where a user can select applications to appear on the main page (e.g., FIG. 6); [0067] applications sharing a common theme may be grouped together on a particular screen; one screen may group Fitness applications, another screen may group Finance applications, and yet another screen may group Entertainment applications; [0068], grouping of applications into themes or onto particular screens may be automatic or may be user-controlled; the system may contain a variety of default themes and an application may contain a flag, which has the effect of automatically grouping the application into a particular theme; alternatively, or in addition, the user may group one or more applications into a particular screen; [0075], messages containing certain types of content (e.g., keywords, sounds, codes, etc.) may also be given a predetermined priority ranking; messages marked with an "urgent" identifier code can be given a higher ranking, while messages marked with a "not urgent--at your convenience" identifier code can be given a lower ranking; [0078], a sender who is located at a shopping mall, and wishes to send a message containing the words "sale" or "price", may have a higher priority since the message may be one requesting permission to purchase an item; [0084], message keyword; [0086], a user may identify a particular Internet site (e.g., a school announcement web site for a family's child), and may request that the server automatically scan the website and generate a notification when a new announcement is posted on the site; the user can specify certain keywords in the announcements, and can assign different priorities to them; announcements with terms like "weather", "canceled", "delay", or "closed" may be given a higher priority than announcements with terms like "fund raiser" or "yearbook")
However, Park in view of Goel fails to expressly using natural language processing. In the same field of endeavor, DeLuca teaches:
using natural language processing (DeLuca Figs. 1-15; [0026], the notification source 110a, 110b . . . 110c may be one or more server servicing an application downloaded on the user device; [0027], embodiments of social media platform 111 may be one or more websites; [0028], the alert modification application 130 may be a software application running on one or more back end servers; [0029], the alert modification application 130 of the computing system 120 may include a receiving module 131, a content identification module 132, an analytics module 133, and an alerting module 134; [0030], embodiments of the receiving module 131 may include one or more components of hardware and/or software program code for receiving a notification message from a notification source, such as notification sources 110a, 1 110b; [0050-0051], begin at step 401, wherein the notification message is received a notification source 110a, 110b . . . 110n; step 402 analyzes the body or content payload of the notification message to determine a content of the notification message; step 403 checks a social media platform 111 for user activity, for example a recent activity; step 404 determines whether the notification message is relevant to the social media activity; if yes, step 406 modifies the alert preference from the default alert preference to a modified alert preference; [0031], the content of the notification message may be analyzed by a text analysis system that may parse, identify, scan, detect, analyze etc. words using, for example, a natural language processing technique, natural language classification, pre-trained language model, etc. to analyze the content payload of the notification message; [0032], the analytics module 133 may analyze, parse, scan, review, etc. a user's shared content and the user's activity on a user's social media account(s), as well as a shared content and an activity of the user on social contacts of the user, shared or otherwise available on one or more social media platforms 111; the analytics module 133 may utilize an image or visual recognition engine to inspect, parse, scan, analyze, etc. a photograph, image, video, or other content to determine one or more descriptions or insights that describe or are associated with the photograph, image, video, or other content, and then examine the descriptions/insights with keywords that may be relatable with the content encompassed by the notification message; [0032], the analytics module 133 may use a combination of natural language techniques, cognitive applications/engines, and visual recognition engines to determine a context, content, and relevancy of the shared content available on the one or more social media platforms for comparison with the content of the notification message; [0033], keywords, texts, insights, or other acquired computer readable information associated with the analyzed shared social media content and user social media activity may be compared with keywords, texts, insights, or other computer readable information associated with the content of the notification message; based on the comparison, the analytics module 133 may determine that the content of a particular social media content supplied by the user on the user's social media network may be relevant or otherwise correlate to the content of the received notification message; [0034], the content of the notification message 150 relates to an offer for outdoor apparel being sold at a nearby store; the shared content on the user's social media page 200 includes two photo albums 220, 221 with multiple photographs; the first photo album 220 has a cover photo of a mountain; the analytics module 133 of the computing system 120 may determine (e.g. based on WATSON visual recognition and insights) that the cover photo is of a mountain, and the photographs of the album are mostly of mountains; in the comments, the user has posted text relating to “hiking boots,” “Grand Canyon,” “parka,” “Brand Y,” and “hiking”; these keywords may be associated with a context of outdoor activities, which can correlate to or is relevant to the purchasing outdoor apparel at a discount, which is the content of the notification message 150)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have incorporated using natural language processing as suggested in DeLuca into Park in view of Goel. Doing so would be desirable because notification messages, such as push notifications can have a dramatic effect on an application's ability to engage users. As user's interests change over time, social media content can be used to help monitor the evolution of user's interest. Further, by knowing that a user is interested in, the alert preferences for alerting the user to the notification message can be modified accordingly (see DeLuca [0019]). Thus, there is a need for an alert system for alerting a user based on a relevancy to a social media activity of the user and a content of a notification. The alert system described herein may analyze push notifications and provide the user with a proper alert according to a relevancy to the user's shared social content (see DeLuca [0020]). Furthermore, the alert modification system 100 improves computer technology by saving computing power resources. Issuing an alert to the user uses power and other computing resources of a mobile device. Additional power is also used if the user activates the device from a rest state with the screen turned off to an active state to check the alert. The claimed solution is necessarily rooted in computer technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of computer technology. By reducing the number of alerts presented to the user using a specific set of rules, there is a savings in the computing resources used. There is an improvement to the computing device/systems overall, because the alert system 100 may be directed to an improvement to computer technology, including software that improves the capability of a computing device (see DeLuca [0048]).
Response to Arguments
The Examiner acknowledges the Applicant’s amendments to claims 20-22, 25, 28-29, 30, 36-37. Amended claims 20-37 and 39 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b).
Regarding independent claim 20, the Applicant alleges that Park in view of Goldsmith as described in the previous Office action, does not explicitly teach generating, by a machine learning system, a suggested action based on the first notification data item and the second notification data item, the suggested action comprising a future action regarding a particular document associated with a respective application and derived from the first notification data item and the second notification data item; generating a first feed item comprising the suggested action; and causing, by the server, display of a work feed on a client device, the work feed including a set of feed items that includes the first feed item, wherein the first feed item includes one or more action input controls that are configured to cause the user to be directed to a specific portion of the particular document on which the suggested action is to be performed, and in response to detecting a user input to the one or more input action controls displayed within the first feed item of the work feed, directing the user to a specific portion of the particular document, as has been amended to the claim. Examiner has therefore rejected independent claim 20 under 35 U.S.C § 103 as unpatentable over Park in view of Goel.
Similar arguments have been presented for claims 28 and 36 and thus, Applicant’s arguments are not persuasive for the same reasons.
Applicant states that dependent claims 21-27, 29-35, 37 and 39 recite all the limitations of the independent claims, and thus, are allowable in view of the remarks set forth regarding independent claims 20, 28, and 36. However, as discussed above, Park in view of Goel is considered to teach claims 20, 28, and 36, and consequently, claims 21-27, 29-35, 37 and 39 are rejected.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Vogel (US 20140281870 A1) see Figs. 1-10 and [0019].
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 JOHN T REPSHER III whose telephone number is (571)272-7487. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8AM-5PM EST.
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/JOHN T REPSHER III/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2143