DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the RCE filed 13 March 2026.
Claims 17–21 are pending. Claim 17 is independent.
Claims 17–21 are rejected.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after 16 March 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Continued Examination
A request for continued examination under 37 C.F.R. § 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 C.F.R. § 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 13 March 2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
The objection to the drawings is withdrawn in light of the replacement drawings and accompanying arguments (remarks, p. 8).
Regarding the rejections under § 103, Applicant's arguments have been fully considered, but are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that McClintock does not teach determining a priority by comparing component scores with multiple threshold scores (remarks, p. 10). The examiner respectfully disagrees. McClintock teaches communicating components using streams, and assigning components to streams based on their score; the streams may be divided, e.g., by components having scores of 81–100, 61–80, and so on (McClintock, col. 11 ll. 45–55). These score ranges are equivalent to threshold scores; for example, a threshold of 81 or higher, a threshold of 61 or higher, etc.
Applicant further argues that McClintock does not teach transmitting a portion of data to be displayed first, and then determining how to prioritize remaining data. However, McClintock teaches that one or more high priority components may be designated for substantially immediate or expedited generation or communication (McClintock, col. 19 ll. 20–30). Afterward, the process proceeds to evaluating the other components based on their scores (McClintock, figs. 10 and 11).
Applicant further argues regarding the Bissell reference with respect to the same limitations, which have been addressed above with the teachings of McClintock.
Drawings
The drawings were received on 13 March 2026. These drawings are acceptable.
Claim Rejections—35 U.S.C. § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. § 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 17, 18, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over McClintock et al. (US 11,194,882 B1) [hereinafter McClintock] in view of Bissell et al. (US 2012/0194519 A1) [hereinafter Bissell], Taylor et al. (US 9,183,258 B1) [hereinafter Taylor], and Choi (US 10,726,077 B1).
Regarding independent claim 17, McClintock teaches [a]n automatic display control method for web content in which data saved in a storage area usable by a web server is displayed on a user terminal over a network, the method comprising: A server device including a content server storing content to be presented (McClintock, col. 5 ll. 20–30, ll. 45–60). The content may be web pages (McClintock, col. 8 ll. 35–40). generating a plurality of processed data by processing original data saved in the storage area usable by the web server; The server has a content generation module that generates content having an original or default order of components (McClintock, col. 9 ll. 30–45). A content generation module on the server may generate a content description, which may be HTML for a web page, that specifies a priority order for communicating or presenting components of the content (McClintock, col. 9 ll. 45–60). calculating an engagement score between a user and the web content based on a user experience of the user viewing the web content; and Component score data [engagement score] is determined based on behavioral data, e.g., dwell time for a component, the number of times a component was presented, etc. (McClintock, col. 12 l. 25 to col. 13 l. 55). […] selecting optimized data corresponding to each user terminal included in the plurality of user terminals from at least one resource included in at least one of the original data and the plurality of processed data according to the engagement score; and An order determination module determines an order for the components based on the component score data (McClintock, col. 9 ll. 45–55). displaying the web content on each user terminal according to the optimized data at a first time that the request is transmitted from each user terminal to the web server The client may, e.g., execute an ordering script in order to present the components in the default or priority order (McClintock, col. 10 ll. 20–40). wherein the at least one resource includes at least one of program data and binary data, The components include content files including static or dynamic content files including markup, script, style sheets, etc. [program data] and multimedia files including images, audio, and video [binary data] (McClintock, col. 6 ll. 1–25). wherein the program data includes a program containing at least one of a markup language, a programming language, a style sheet, and a script language, The components may include content files that may be HTML, DHTML, XHTML, XML, etc. [markup languages], script files providing dynamic content that may be JavaScript [script language], or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) [style sheet] (McClintock, col. 6 ll. 1–15). wherein the binary data includes at least one file from among an image file, an audio file, and a video file, and Content files may also include image files, audio or video files, etc. (McClintock, col. 6 ll. 15–25). wherein the generating the plurality of processed data comprises: specifying a first program code portion which is to be executed and a second program portion which is not to be executed from the program, and extracting a plurality of program code portions which are to be executed; The generation of the priority order may include determining that only a subset of components should be used (McClintock, col. 20 ll. 20–30). [The components may be markup, script, or style sheets; see above.] determining an execution order of first program code portions corresponding to a process enabling the user terminal to accept input, and second program code portions different from the first program code portions, from among the plurality of program code portions; The generation of the priority order includes determining a higher priority for some components [portions to be executed with priority] and a lower priority for other components [portions to be executed with a delay] (McClintock, col. 21 ll. 40–65). determining an execution timing of the first program code portions and the second program code portions; and The generation of the priority order includes determining a time to generate or retrieve the components and determining the higher/lower priority based thereon (McClintock, col. 21 ll. 40–65). […] wherein the displaying the web content on each user terminal comprises: transmitting, to the user terminal, a portion of the optimized data corresponding to a portion of the web content to be displayed first on a screen of the user terminal; and High priority components may be designated for immediate or expedited generation/communication, e.g., items with a score over the threshold of 90 (McClintock, col. 19 ll. 20–40). after the portion of the optimized data is transmitted to the user terminal, determining a time for transmitting first data corresponding to the first program code portions and second data corresponding to the second program code portions based on the engagement score, Components may be mapped to different communication streams based on their score, e.g., a low priority stream and high priority stream (McClintock, col. 11 ll. 30–55). wherein, based on the engagement score being a first engagement score which is lower than a first threshold score, transmission of the first data corresponding to the first program code portions is prioritized, and transmission of second data corresponding to the second program code portions is blocked until after the transmission of the first data is finished, The components [for which the component scores are generated] include user interface components, e.g., input boxes [a process enabling the user terminal to accept input] and components that do not accept input, e.g., images (McClintock, col. 5 l. 65 to col. 6 l. 30). The component scores determine the priority order of generation, communication, or presentation of components (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 35–60). For example, a search box or navigation controls [inputs] may be rendered [prioritized] based on the scores (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 60–65). The components may be sent to the client serially (McClintock, col. 7 l. 55 to col. 7 l. 10). [Therefore, in a case where the components other than those for accepting input are lower than scores for those for accepting input, the components for accepting input are prioritized and would be sent before the components having lower priority.] The components are prioritized into different streams based on score ranges, e.g., 81–100, 61–80, etc. [thresholds of 81+, 61+, etc.] (McClintock, col. 11 ll. 45–55). […] wherein, based on the engagement score being a third engagement score higher than the second threshold score, the transmission of the first data is performed in parallel with the transmission of the second data during the first time period and the second time period. The components are scored with, e.g., a number or a qualitative category such as low/medium/high (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 20–30). Components are sent to the device according to the priority order in response to requests from the client device; components may be sent to the client device in parallel (McClintock, col. 7 l. 55 to col. 8 l. 10). [That is, if components have a particular score such that they have the same priority, they may be sent in parallel.] The components are prioritized into different streams based on score ranges, e.g., 81–100, 61–80, etc. [thresholds of 81+, 61+, etc.] (McClintock, col. 11 ll. 45–55).
McClintock teaches retrieving components of a web page in a particular order based on engagement, but does not expressly teach blocking retrieval of second data only during a first time period. However, Bissell teaches: wherein, based on the engagement score being a second engagement score higher than the first threshold score and lower than a second threshold score, the transmission of the first data is prioritized and the transmission of the second data is blocked during a first time period1, and the transmission of the first data is performed in parallel with the transmission of the second data during a second time period, and A deferred image loader script is configured such that higher quality images are only loaded after, e.g., the last “above-the-fold” content [content appearing in the browser viewport before the user scrolls] has been rendered, or after a predetermined number of resources have been loaded, or after all other deferred actions have been executed [a first time period]. (Bissell, ¶ 93).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of McClintock with those of Bissell. One would have been motivated to do so in order to improve the perceived speed and responsiveness of the page (Bissell, ¶ 11).
McClintock/Bissell teaches omitting “binary file” content/components based on various criteria, but does not expressly teach changing the content. However, Taylor teaches: changing an attribute associated with the at least one file, wherein the attribute comprises at least one of a number of display pixels per unit area, an image recording density per unit time, a sound recording density per unit time, a data size, and a save format. A resolution [number of display pixels per unit area, data size] of one or more content objects, e.g., images or videos, is varied based on popularity rankings or values associated with content sections of a web page (Taylor, col. 38 ll. 50–65). The process may be done with or without a proxy server (Taylor, col. 3 ll. 1–5).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of McClintock/Bissell with those of Taylor. One would have been motivated to do so in order to reduce the page load times and conserve bandwidth and battery life, while maintaining the quality of higher popularity content (Taylor, col. 9 ll. 40–60).
McClintock/Bissell/Taylor teaches generating pages based on behavioral data and device characteristics, but does not expressly teach doing so prior to receiving a request for a page. However, Choi teaches: before the web server receives a request for the original data from a plurality of user terminals, [selecting optimized data corresponding to each user terminal included in the plurality of user terminals from at least one resource included in at least one of the original data and the plurality of processed data according to the engagement score] Pages are pre-generated for particular users, client devices, etc. and are served instantly as they are requested (Choi, col. 4 ll. 15–35).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of McClintock/Bissell/Taylor with those of Choi. One would have been motivated to do so in order to deliver the pages to the users more quickly (Choi, col. 4 ll. 15–35).
Regarding dependent claim 18, the rejection of claim 17 is incorporated and McClintock/Bissell/Taylor/Choi further teaches: wherein the selecting the optimized data comprises: selecting two or more pieces of data which are displayable on each user terminal from among the original data and the plurality of processed data according to the engagement score; and Component scores for multiple components [two or more of processed data] may be used for determining the priority order (McClintock, col. 23 ll. 10–20). comparatively ranking the two or more pieces of data based on a display completion time for each user terminal. Multiple components may be scored, such that one component is scored higher than other components, e.g., such that a main image scored higher than other images will be rendered before the other images (McClintock, col. 17 ll. 10–25). The priority order may be adjusted based on the time expected to be required to generate, communicate, or present the component on the client device [display completion time for each user terminal] (McClintock, col. 21 ll. 40–65).
Regarding dependent claim 21, the rejection of claim 17 is incorporated and McClintock/Bissell/Taylor/Choi further teaches: wherein the plurality of user terminals are listed in a model information file stored in the web server. The server includes a client device characteristics data storage [model information file] (McClintock, col. 16 ll. 35–40, fig. 7).
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over McClintock et al. (US 11,194,882 B1) [hereinafter McClintock] in view of Bissell et al. (US 2012/0194519 A1) [hereinafter Bissell], Taylor et al. (US 9,183,258 B1) [hereinafter Taylor], and Choi (US 10,726,077 B1), further in view of Haramaty et al. (US 2014/0337694 A1) [hereinafter Haramaty].
Regarding dependent claim 20, the rejection of claim 17 is incorporated and McClintock/Bissell/Taylor/Choi further teaches: wherein the selecting the optimized data comprises: changing an execution order of programs respectively corresponding to The priority order may change the order of generating, communicating, or presenting [executing] components (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 40–45). a data portion of the web content which is displayed first on a screen of the user terminal, The priority order includes components with a higher priority [displayed first on a screen] (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 50–55). a time until the user terminal accepts input with respect to the portion of the web content displayed first on the screen of the user terminal, and The priority order determines the latency [time] until a user can interact with content (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 50–65). a different data portion other than the data portion of the web content displayed first on the screen of the user terminal The priority order includes components with a lower priority [data other than data displayed first on a screen] (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 55–65). changing an execution timing of programs corresponding to: The priority order may be changed to adjust a timing of a component, e.g., a component that takes a significant amount of time to generate may have a higher priority to allow time for the component to be generated, communicated, or presented, or a lower priority to prevent the component from delaying other components [i.e., the time required to generate/communicate/present a component combined with its priority order changes its “execution timing”] (McClintock, col. 21 ll. 40–65). a data portion of the web content displayed first on a screen of the user terminal, The priority order includes components with a higher priority [displayed first on a screen] (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 50–55). a time until the user terminal accepts input with respect to the portion of the web content displayed first on the screen of the user terminal, and The priority order determines the latency [time] until a user can interact with content (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 50–65). a data portion other than the data portion of the web content displayed first on the screen of the user terminal The priority order includes components with a lower priority [data other than data displayed first on a screen] (McClintock, col. 3 ll. 55–65). with respect to data for displaying web content selected for each user terminal from among data for displaying a plurality of pieces of web content with different display completion times with respect to the user terminal at regular intervals, and recording a change in the engagement score; and The priority ordering of interactable content may lead to an increase in, e.g., completed transactions (McClintock, col. 3 l. 60–65). The transaction data is part of the behavioral data used for component scoring [engagement score] (McClintock, col. 13 ll. 10–25).
McClintock/Bissell/Taylor/Choi teaches prioritizing presentation of content associated with certain behavior, e.g., performing a transaction, dwell time, etc. versus a default order, but does not expressly teach learning which combinations maximize the time spent viewing the content and the number of actions performed, by all users. However, Haramaty teaches: learning which combinations of original data and the plurality of processed data forming the web content maximize at least one of a total time spent viewing the web content by all users and a number of actions performed on the web content by all users from among the plurality of pieces of web content with different display completion times with respect to the user terminal. A website is optimized by making changes [combinations of original data and processed data] and evaluating performance of the website after the changes (Haramaty, ¶ 7). The performance criteria can include multiple criteria, including the time a user spends on a website [time spent viewing the web content] and a number of orders submitted [number of actions performed on the web content] (Haramaty, ¶ 8). The changes may be changes to a plurality of elements (Haramaty, ¶ 39).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of McClintock/Bissell/Taylor/Choi with those of Haramaty. One would have been motivated to do so in order to maximize the effectiveness of the website by find the best performing parameters, including the best performing content elements (Haramaty, ¶¶ 6, 35).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant's disclosure.
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/Tyler Schallhorn/Examiner, Art Unit 2144
/TAMARA T KYLE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2144
1 The specification does not contain the term “time period”, however, Applicant references figure 20 and paragraphs 728–732 of the pre-grant publication [approximately corresponding to paragraphs 340–343 of the originally filed specification] (see remarks filed 29 May 2025, p. 7, “Status of the Application”). These portions of the application refer to prioritizing “above the fold” rendering and “other than above the fold” rendering. Therefore, “first time period” and “second time period” are interpreted as encompassing, e.g., the period of time taken to render above-the-fold content and the period of time taken to render the remaining content.