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 .
Notice to Applicant
The following is a Non-Final Office action. In response to Examiner’s Final Rejection of 8/1/2025, Applicant, on 10/28/2025, amended claims 1, 4, 8 and 15;. Claims 1, 3-8, 10-15, are 17-23 are pending in this application and have been rejected below. Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) filed 8/19/2025 and 10/3/2025 are acknowledged.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this
application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set
forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action
has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on
10/28/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed October 28, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive and/or are moot in view of the revised rejections. Applicant’s arguments will be addressed herein below in the order in which they appear in the response filed October 28, 2025.
On Pg.11-12 of the Remarks, regarding 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections, Applicant states Lee fails to teach automated load-based attendee selection. In response, Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims has been considered but O’Sullivan is relied upon for teaching the load analysis..
On Pg.12-13 of the Remarks, regarding 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections, Applicant states Rampton supposed teaches aggregated calendar functionality and calendar negotiation processes. However, Rampton's technical focus differs substantially from the claims. In response, Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims has been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
On Pg.14-15 of the Remarks, regarding 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections, Applicant states O'Sullivan as supposedly teaching the scheduling load determination and attendee selection based on load. However, O'Sullivan describes a fundamentally different system where a scheduling user manually assigns priority levels to attendees, and the system then presents possible meeting times based on those user- specified priorities. In response, O’Sullivan Par. 26-27 discloses ‘automatically assigned a priority lower than any priority that was explicitly assigned to an attendee by the scheduling user through the event scheduling interface’. Furthermore, O’Sullivan discloses computing infrastructure (Par. 39) in FIGS. 1 and 2 are block diagram and flowchart illustrations of methods, apparatus(s) and computer program products according to an embodiment of the invention. It will be understood that each block of FIGS. 1 and 2, and combinations of these blocks, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus create means for implementing the functions specified in the block or blocks.
On Pg.15-16 of the Remarks, regarding 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections, Applicant states motivation to combine references is improper. In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, Lee, Smith and O’Sullivan are directed to scheduling analysis..
On Pg. 17-18 of the Remarks, regarding 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejections, Applicant states the claims are not directed to an abstract idea and the claims recite computer operations that are clearly and completely beyond human capability. In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. The present claims are receiving and analyzing calendar information. The recitation of “intelligent assistant”, “computing system”, “client device”, “electronic calendar”, and “servers”, are additional elements of using computer components to perform each step. The “intelligent assistant”, “computing system”, “client device”, “electronic calendar”, and “servers” is recited at a high-level of generality, such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a computer component. See MPEP 2106.05(f). See 101 analysis below for further detail.
On Pgs. 19-21 the Remarks, regarding 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejections, Applicant states the claims integrate the judicial exception into a practical application similar to technological improvements in Enfish and Desjardins. In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. The aforementioned procedures are not improvements to a problem in the software arts, a technology or technological field. The scheduling analysis is a judicial exception (i.e. abstract idea). The claimed invention is executed by computer elements performing computer functions. Enfish recited claims that asserted improvements to the configuration of computer memory in accordance with a self-referential table with sufficient support in the specification that the claims were directed to a specific implementation of a solution to a problem in the software arts. Which shows the claimed invention made improvements in computer-related technology. In contrast, the present claims recitation of “intelligent assistant”, “computing system”, “client device”, “electronic calendar”, and “servers”, are additional elements of using computer components to perform each step. The “intelligent assistant”, “computing system”, “client device”, “electronic calendar”, and “servers” is recited at a high-level of generality, such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a computer component. Examiner asserts, regardless of the complexity of the data analysis and/or processing, without recitation of improvements to the functioning of the technology, technological field and/or computer-related technology (i.e. software), the steps outlined in the claimed invention to create competency learning maps amount to no more than mere instructions to implement the idea on a general purpose computer. Applicant has not identified anything in the claimed invention that shows or even submits the technology is being improved or there was a problem in the technology that the claimed invention solves.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1, 3-8, 10-15, are 17-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Claims 1-20 are directed to calendar event scheduling.
Claim 1, Claim 8 and Claim 15 recite a method for calendar event scheduling, which include receiving a first message from a first client device, the first message comprising a text-based message including a request to schedule a calendar event with a target an external user; analyzing the text-based message to extract constraints for the calendar event, the constraints comprising a first indication that at least one attendee from a plurality of possible attendees listed in the text-based message attend the calendar event; identifying the plurality of possible attendees based on information in the text-based message; issuing one or more network requests to calendar servers associated with electronic calendars associated with the plurality of possible attendees to retrieve calendar information for each of the plurality of possible attendees possible attendee; analyzing the calendar information for each of the plurality of possible attendees possible attendee to identify a plurality of possible time available time slots across the plurality of possible attendees, wherein the analyzing comprises: generating an aggregated calendar by aggregating the calendar information for each possible attendee in a single calendar, and analyzing the aggregated calendar to identify the plurality of available time slots by determining overlapping time slots where the plurality of possible attendees are available; generating, by the computing system, a prompt message to send to the external user based on the available time slots identified using the aggregated calendar; transmitting the prompt message to the external user to select a time slot from the plurality of possible available time slots; receiving a reply message responsive to the prompt message that includes a selection of the time slot from the plurality of possible available time slots from the target external user; for the selected time slot, automatically determining, a scheduling load for each of the plurality of possible attendees based on a number of existing calendar events assigned to each possible attendee; identifying attendees with a lowest scheduling load from the plurality of possible attendees based on the determined scheduling load for each of the plurality of possible attendees; selecting, a subset of possible attendees for the calendar event at the selected time slot from the identified attendees with the lowest scheduling load and based on the receiving and selecting, scheduling in real- time, the calendar event comprising the external user and the subset of possible attendees..[Claim 1] Receiving a first message from a first client device, the first message comprising a text-based message including a request to schedule a calendar event with a candidate; identifying multiple attendees for the calendar event based on information in the text-based message; issuing one or more network requests to the multiple attendees to retrieve calendar information for each attendee; generating an aggregated calendar based on the calendar information retrieved the calendar servers, wherein the aggregated calendar comprises the calendar information associated with each attendee; determining that there is no common availability among the multiple attendees based on the aggregated calendar by determining overlapping time slots where the multiple attendees are available; determining, that a single attendee does not have common availability with remaining attendees of the multiple attendees based on the aggregated calendar; determining, a scheduling load for each of the remaining attendees based on a number of existing calendar events assigned to each remaining attendee to prioritize attendees with a lowest scheduling load to optimize a distribution of calendar events among the remaining attendees; determining, by the computing system, a shared availability among the remaining attendees based on the determined scheduling load; compiling the shared availability among the remaining attendees into a list; generating, a prompt message to send to the single attendee based on the shared availability; transmitting the prompt message to the single attendee to select a time from the list by sending the single attendee a message comprising the shared availability; receiving a reply message responsive to the prompt message that includes a selection of a time for the calendar event from the list; and based on the selection, scheduling, in real-time, the calendar event for the selected time, the calendar event comprising the multiple attendees and the candidate.[Claim 8] Receiving a first message from a first client device, the first message comprising a text-based message including a request to schedule a calendar event with a candidate; identifying multiple attendees required for the calendar event based on information in the text-based message; issuing one or more network requests to electronic calendars associated with the multiple attendees to retrieve calendar information for each attendee; generating an aggregated calendar based on the calendar information retrieved the calendar servers, wherein the aggregated calendar comprises the calendar information associated with each attendee; determining that there is no common availability among the multiple attendees based on the aggregated calendar by determining overlapping time slots where the multiple attendees are available; based on the determining, reviewing historic calendar information associated with the multiple attendees to learn when the multiple attendees have been previously available as a group; compiling available times of the multiple attendees with the historic calendar information; generating, prompt messages to send to the multiple attendees based on the historic calendar information; transmitting the prompt messages to the multiple attendees to select a set of times from the available times of the multiple attendees; receiving a plurality of reply messages from the multiple attendees; analyzing the plurality of responses to identify available times that are common among the multiple attendees; optimizing, the available times by determining a scheduling load for each of the multiple attendees based on a number of existing calendar events assigned to each attendee to prioritize attendees with a lowest scheduling load to optimize a distribution of calendar events among the multiple attendees; and based on the analyzing and the optimizing, scheduling in real-time, the calendar event for the available time, the calendar event comprising the multiple attendees and the candidate.[ Claim 15]
As drafted, this is, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, within the Abstract idea grouping of “Methods of Organizing Human Activity” – managing personal behavior. The recitation of “intelligent assistant”, “computing system”, “client device”, “electronic calendar”, and “servers”, provide nothing in the claim elements to preclude the step from being “Methods of Organizing Human Activity”- managing personal behavior. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims primarily recite the additional element of using computer components to perform each step. The “intelligent assistant”, “computing system”, “client device”, “electronic calendar”, and “servers” is recited at a high-level of generality, such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a computer component. See MPEP 2106.05(f). Furthermore, the claim 1, claim 8 and claim 15 recite using one or more natural language analysis techniques. The specification discloses the natural language analysis at a high-level of generality, providing examples of different techniques that may be applied. The general use of a natural language analysis does not provide a meaningful limitation to transform the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, currently, the natural language processing is solely used a tool to perform the instructions of the abstract idea. Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims also fail to recite any improvements to another technology or technical field, improvements to the functioning of the computer itself, use of a particular machine, effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, and/or an additional element applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. See 84 Fed. Reg. 55. In particular, there is a lack of improvement to a computer or technical field in calendar scheduling.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of “intelligent assistant”, “computing system”, “client device”, “electronic calendar”, and “servers” is insufficient to amount to significantly more. (See MPEP 2106.05(f) – Mere Instructions to Apply an Exception – “Thus, for example, claims that amount to nothing more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer do not render an abstract idea eligible.” Alice Corp., 134 S. Ct. at 235). Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept.
The claim fails to recite any improvements to another technology or technical field, improvements to the functioning of the computer itself, use of a particular machine, effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, adding unconventional steps that confine the claim to a particular useful application, and/or meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular environment. See 84 Fed. Reg. 55. Viewed individually or as a whole, these additional claim element(s) do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. With regards to receiving data and step 2B, it is M2106.05(d)- Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information) and Storing and retrieving information in memory, Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
Examiner concludes that the additional elements in combination fail to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea based on findings that each element merely performs the same function(s) in combination as each element performs separately. The claim is not patent eligible. Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually.
Dependent Claims 3-7, 10-14 and 17-23 recite determining that there is not a threshold number of available time slots for the calendar event; and based on the determining, prompting each possible attendee to create more space in their associated electronic calendar; interfacing with electronic calendars associated with the second plurality of possible attendees to retrieve further calendar information for each of the second plurality of possible attendees analyzing the further calendar information for each of the second plurality of possible attendees to identify a second plurality of available time slots across the plurality of possible attendees, wherein the second plurality of possible attendees are of a second type different from a first type associated with the plurality of possible attendees ; analyzing the calendar information for each of the plurality of attendees attendee to identify the plurality of available time slots across the plurality of possible attendees; identifying overlapping time slots, wherein each overlapping time slot comprises a first available attendee from the first plurality of possible attendees and a second available attendee from the second plurality of possible attendees ; receiving a rescheduling request message from an attendee(external user) of the multiple attendees in natural language; and based on the rescheduling request message, re-analyzing the calendar information for each possible attendee to identify a new time for the calendar event; the request comprises a specification that the calendar event comprises a first attendee from a first group of possible attendees and a second attendee from a second group of possible attendees; periodically pushing reminders to the candidate( external user); identifying overlapping time slots, wherein each overlapping time slot comprises a first available attendee from the first group of possible attendees and a second available attendee from the second group of possible attendees; interfacing with a video conference application to generate a video conference link for the calendar event; responsive to the selection of the time, providing the time for the calendar event to the candidate; receiving an indication from the candidate that the time for the calendar event is approved; notifying each attendee of the multiple attendees of the calendar event for the available time; and further narrowing the abstract idea. These recited limitations in the dependent claims do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exceptions in Claims 1, 12 and 20. Regarding Claims, 2-7, 9-14, 16-23, and the additional elements of “computing system”, “intelligent assistant”; “calendar server”;, “video conference application”; it is M2106.05(d)- Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information) and storing and retrieving information in memory, Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015). Regarding claim 6 and claim 17 and he additional element of natural language processing- it is tool to perform the abstract idea.
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 rej3ection, 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 1, 3-6, 8, 10 and 13-15, 17 and 20-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee, US Publication No. 20200175478 A1, [hereinafter Lee], in view of in view of Smith, US Publication No. 20170236097A1, [hereinafter Smith], and in further view of O’Sullivan, US Publication No. 20100100413A1, [hereinafter O’Sullivan].
Regarding Claim 1,
Lee teaches
A method, comprising: receiving, by an intelligent assistant of a computing system, a first message from a first client device, the first message comprising… including a request to schedule a calendar event with an external user;( Lee Par. 16-18-“Examples of the disclosure provide systems, methods, and devices for utilizing artificial intelligence in association with digital assistants to process natural language inputs associated with events to identify clear user intent. In examples, the natural language inputs may include multiple parameters of a same type (e.g., time, date, location, potential attendees), and in some cases, conflicting parameters…The systems, methods and devices described herein are described primarily in association with an electronic messaging digital assistant and an event scheduling helper. However, the two-model processing approach described herein may also be applied for proactive scheduling intent detection, user-assisted event creation (guided capture), and ambient device digital assistant utterance capture, which if applied in that scenario, provides higher accuracy compared with traditional time expression utterance detection models. The systems, methods, and devices described herein provide technical advantages for identifying relevant content in electronic messages…; Par. 20-21)
issuing, by the computing system, one or more network requests to calendar servers associated with electronic calendars associated with the plurality of possible attendees to retrieve calendar information for each of the plurality possible attendees (Lee Par. 20-“Once first user 106 sends email 105, that message is routed to network and processing sub-environment 108, and in particular, a digital assistant service associated with network and processing sub-environment 108. Email 105 may be directed to the digital assistant service based on the digital assistant being included in the carbon copy field of email 105 and/or email 105 including the “@[DIGITAL ASSISTANT]” tag in its body. The digital assistant service may be at least partially cloud-based, and operate on one or more server computing devices, such as server computing device 112. Email 105 may be routed to the digital assistant service via network 110, and any of the computing devices described in relation to FIG. 1 may communicate with one another via network 110. In some examples, the digital assistant service may communicate with one or more data stores, such as training data store 114, which may include natural language data sets for training various aspects of a digital assistant.; Par. 24; Par. 63- program modules 806 may be employed by a client that communicates with server device 902, and/or the program modules 806 may be employed by, server device 902. The server device 902 may provide data to and from a client computing device such as a personal/general computer 904, a tablet computing device 906 and/or a mobile computing device 908 (e.g., a smart phone) through a network 915. By way of example, the computer system described above with respect to FIGS. 6-8 may be embodied in a personal/general computer 904, a tablet computing device 906 and/or a mobile computing device 908 (e.g., a smart phone). Any of these embodiments of the computing devices may obtain content from the store 916, in addition to receiving graphical data useable to be either pre-processed at a graphic-originating system, or post-processed at a receiving computing system. )
analyzing, by the computing system, the calendar information for each of the plurality of possible attendees to identify a plurality of available time slots across the plurality of possible attendees… ( Lee Par. 24; Par. 41; Par. 47-From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
transmitting, by the computing system,… the external user to select a time slot from the plurality of available time slots ( Lee Par. 41-As such, the digital assistant service has sent an email to Alice that states: “Hi Alice—Charles would like to meet with you over Skype in the next few weeks. Are you available at any of the following times and dates? —[Date/Time 1]—[Date/Time 2]—[Date/Time: 3]”. ; Par. 47-From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
receiving, by the computing system, … that includes a selection of the time slot from the plurality of available time slots from the external user ( Lee Par. 41 ; Par. 47-From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
and based on the receiving and identifying, scheduling, by the computing system, in real- time, the calendar event comprising the external user and the subset of possible attendees (Lee system, in real-time, the calendar event comprising the target user and the subset of possible attendees (para [0001), [0016]-[0018], (0021), [0024] - “initiating real-time communications"; "the digital assistant service may analyze received email 105 and determine whether there is a specific command in the that message that if should respond to (e.g. “schedule meeting’, “add to my calendar’, etc.)"; “and automatically generate a meeting, invite for a mutually available timeframe on the proposed meeting date").
Lee discloses scheduling analysis and the feature is expounded upon by Rampton:
… a text-based message… (Smith Par. 83- The method of communication used for triggering the event scheduling process implemented by an embodiment of the invention may be email, text/SMS message, a chat interface such as instant messaging, an online form, or a telephony integrated phone system, and may include virtually any type of communication mode where the inventive system can be copied on and can monitor a discussion about scheduling an event.”)
analyzing, by the computing system, the text-based message to extract constraints for the calendar event, the constraints comprising a first indication that at least one attendee from a plurality of possible attendees listed in the text-based message attend the calendar event (Smith Par. 83; Par. 117- Next, the Scheduler uses the information extracted from the event request message to determine one or more possible options for the date, time, location, etc. of the event or meeting (as suggested by step or stage 430 of FIG. 4(a)). In some embodiments this may involve accessing information related to each of the prospective participant's calendars (to indicate potential availability, any constraints on attendance, etc.), event scheduling preferences (to indicate preferred times of day, days of the week, locations, duration, etc.), or business data or events (to indicate possible events or a state of the business that might impact the availability of one or more of the prospective attendees) from a suitable data store. This data store may include a set of previously submitted preferences and/or constraints that were provided by employees, and may be organized in any suitable manner (such as alphabetically, by working group, by title, etc.). If organized by group, title, or function, for example, one or more rules or constraints may apply to each person in the group or functional area (such as that all managers are unavailable certain days or if certain business conditions (end of the quarter) are present).”)
identifying, by the computing system, the plurality of possible attendees based on information in the text-based message (Smith Par. 74- Implementing the internal process to determine one or more characteristics of a proposed meeting or event, such as a day, a time, a location, a list of prospective attendees, etc., taking into account one or more of the respective schedules, commitments, locations, time zones or other available information about one or more of the prospective attendees—this may include consideration of the relative importance of a person to a meeting or to other meetings, the state of the business operations of a company and how that may impact possible meeting days or times, business related data that may be indicative of a demand for resources that would otherwise be available for the meeting (such as rooms, equipment, personnel, etc.), and may also involve application of one or more sets of rules or conflict resolution procedures; Par. 83”);
… wherein the analyzing comprises: generating an aggregated calendar by aggregating the calendar information for each possible attendee retrieved from the calendar servers in a single calendar, and analyzing the aggregated calendar to identify the plurality of available time slots by determining overlapping time slots where the plurality of possible attendees are available (Smith Par. 139- Note that instead or using a list of “essential” or “required” attendees to determine the priorities for scheduling, each prospective attendee can be associated with a metric that reflects their importance to the discussion(s) or activities expected at the event. This allows a greater weighting to be assigned to the prospective attendees based on their role in a task or decision, and not on their position in an organizational hierarchy. In such an example, a meeting or event may be scheduled if the weighted total for all attendees or the weighted average per attendee exceeds a pre-set threshold. This is one way of ensuring that decisions are made even if a senior person cannot attend.”; Fig. 4a- 4c; Par. 71)
generating, by the computing system, a prompt message to send to the external user based on the available time slots identified using the aggregated calendar (Smith Par. 7- generating a message to one or more of the attendees of the proposed meeting or event, the generated message including the one or more possible options for scheduling the proposed meeting or event;”);
transmitting, by the computing system, ‘the prompt message’ … (Smith Par. 7- receiving a message from the organizer of the proposed meeting or event, the received message including a selection of one of the one or more possible options for scheduling the proposed meeting or event; and scheduling the proposed meeting or event based on the selected option.;”);
receiving, by the computing system, a reply message responsive to the prompt message… (Smith Par.164- In this example, once the Scheduler process has identified three options, it generates and sends a message (e.g., emails or text messages) back to the set of prospective users/attendees. The messages may contain options and instructions on how to select a desired option (as suggested by step or stage 440 of FIG. 4(b)). In some embodiments, selecting an option could be indicated by replying with certain words or phrases (such as “option 3”, or “number 1”), or could be performed by selecting a link to submit a preference for an option. In some embodiments, the Scheduler may send each user/attendee a copy of their personal calendar for a range of dates so that they can make an informed decision. An example of such a message (in the form of an email) is shown in FIG. 4(b)(1).”);
Lee and Smith are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee, as taught by Smith, by utilizing additional data and calendar views with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee with the motivation of improving conventional approaches to meeting or event scheduling often require a significant amount of user interaction or investigation in order to coordinate schedules between attendees, meeting rooms, conflicting commitments, and other resources (Smith Par.3).
Lee in view of Smith disclose calendar scheduling and the feature is expounded upon by O’Sullivan:
for the selected time slot, automatically determining, by the computing system, a scheduling load for each of the plurality of possible attendees based on a number of existing calendar events assigned to each possible attendee (O’Sullivan Par.9-“ The disclosed system operates to provide a visual capability in a user interface for a scheduling user that enables fine grained prioritization of individual attendees, or groups of attendees, to allow determination of a relatively larger number of potential event times for a desired event. The disclosed system may be embodied to allow such attendee prioritization in situations where it is not be possible to establish a sufficient range of event times that are acceptable across all invitees. The disclosed system enables a scheduling user to indicate a number of attendee priority levels, where the number N of priority levels used for a given event may be user specific configuration parameter, or supplied on a per event basis. As a result of the user supplied prioritization of prospective attendees, the disclosed system operates to supply possible event times relevant to each priority indicated by the scheduling user. Accordingly, where a scheduling user has assigned prospective attendees to attendee priorities 1 through N, the disclosed system would respond by simultaneously presenting to the scheduling user N sets of prospective event times corresponding to the assigned priorities. Specifically, a first set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priority 1, a second set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all attendees of priorities 1 and 2, a third set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1, 2 and 3, and so on through a set of prospective event times that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1 through N. ; Par. 26-27”);
identifying attendees with a lowest scheduling load from the plurality of possible attendees based on the determined scheduling load for each of the plurality of possible attendees (O’Sullivan Par. 26-27-In another embodiment, the disclosed system may operate to determine at step 36 whether all attendees have been assigned priorities by the event scheduling user through the event scheduling user interface. If not, then those attendees for which a priority has not been so assigned are automatically assigned a priority lower than any priority that was explicitly assigned to an attendee by the scheduling user through the event scheduling interface. For example, if the scheduling user assigns a highest priority (priority 1) to some subset of the attendees through the event scheduling user interface, and then indicates that they have no more priorities to assign, and/or that possible event times are to be calculated, then the disclosed system may be embodied to automatically assign a lower priority (priority 2) to the remaining attendees. Thus a next lower priority with respect to any lowest explicitly assigned priority may be automatically assigned to those attendees to which a priority was not explicitly assigned through the event scheduling interface, for purposes of calculating possible event times.”) ;
selecting, by the computing system, a subset of possible attendees for the calendar event at the selected time slot from the identified attendees with the lowest scheduling load ( O’ Sullivan Par. 26-28- For example, if the scheduling user assigns a highest priority (priority 1) to some subset of the attendees through the event scheduling user interface, and then indicates that they have no more priorities to assign, and/or that possible event times are to be calculated, then the disclosed system may be embodied to automatically assign a lower priority (priority 2) to the remaining attendees.”; Fig. 5;Par. 46-“ FIG. 5 shows an example of an event time selection interface 70 provided in response to an event scheduling user clicking on the user interface display button 66 shown in FIG. 4. As shown in FIG. 5, a list 73 of possible event time sets for attendee priority sets includes a number of rows, each row having a column 74 for the attendee priority sets corresponding to the possible event times in the column 76. In the embodiment of FIG. 5, the first row includes possible event times in column 76 at which all attendees having priority 1 are available. The second row includes possible event times in column 76 at which all attendees having priorities 1 or 2 are available. The third row includes possible event times at which all attendees having priorities 1, or 2, or 3 are available, and so on. The list 73 may further indicate the total numbers of attendees that are available and unavailable for each possible event time. The event scheduling user may then select one of the presented possible event times by clicking on it, and then click on the button 80 to use that selected time for the event being scheduled. Event notifications will be sent out using email having destination address fields populated with attendee email addresses as indicated in the user interface of FIG. 3. The event scheduling user may also choose to click on the button 78 to return to the user interface of FIG. 3 to modify the associations between attendees and email notification destination address fields, or click on the button 82 to return to the user interface of FIG. 4 to re-prioritize the attendees. In this way the disclosed system enables great convenience and flexibility to the event scheduling user to modify the attendee prioritizations independent from the associations between attendees and email notification destination address fields, resulting in quick access to a wider range of possible event times meeting the event requirements, and therefore more timely and effective event scheduling.”);
Lee, Smith and O’Sullivan are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee in view of Smith, as taught by O’Sullivan, by utilizing additional scheduling analysis with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee in view of Smith with the motivation of improving the probability of success with regard to scheduling a calendar event (O’Sullivan Par.8).
Regarding Claim 2- Cancelled,
Regarding Claim 3,
The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing, by the computing system, the calendar information for each possible attendee to identify the plurality of available time slots for the calendar event comprises: determining that there is not a threshold number of available time slots for the calendar event; and based on the determining, prompting each possible attendee to create more space in their associated electronic calendar.( Lee Par. 16-22; Par. [0032], [0041], [0047], [0058]).
Regarding Claim 4 Lee in view of Smith teach The method of claim 1,…
Lee in view of Smith discloses scheduling analysis (Lee Par. 41) and the feature is expounded upon by O’Sullivan:
wherein the constraints comprise a second indication that at least one attendee from a second plurality of possible attendees attend the calendar event and wherein the method further comprises: Interfacing, by the computing system, with further calendar servers associated with further electronic calendars associated with the second plurality of possible attendees to retrieve further calendar information for each of the second plurality of possible attendees and analyzing, by the computing system, the further calendar information for each of the second plurality of possible attendees to identify a second plurality of available time slots across the plurality of possible attendees, wherein the second plurality of possible attendees are of a second type different from a first type associated with the plurality of possible attendees. ( O’Sullivan Abstract- Accordingly, where a scheduling user has assigned prospective attendees to priorities 1 through N, where priority 1 is the highest, the disclosed system would respond by simultaneously presenting to the scheduling user with N sets of prospective event times corresponding to the assigned priorities. Specifically, a first set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priority 1, a second set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all attendees of priorities 1 and 2, a third set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1, 2 and 3, and so on through a set of prospective event times that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1 through N.; Par. 9)
Lee, Smith and O’Sullivan are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee in view of Smith, as taught by O’Sullivan, by utilizing additional scheduling analysis with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee in view of Smith with the motivation of improving the probability of success with regard to scheduling a calendar event (O’Sullivan Par.8).
Regarding Claim 5,
The method of claim 4, wherein analyzing, by the computing system, the calendar information for each possible attendee to identify the plurality of possible time slots for the calendar event comprises: identifying …time slots, wherein each …time slot comprises a first available attendee from the first group of possible attendees and a second available attendee from the second group of possible attendees. ( Lee Par. [0016][0022],{0024)-[0027],[0044}-[0042]).
Rampton expounds on the conflict analysis :
…overlapping time slots, wherein each overlapping time slot… (Smith Par. 139- Note that instead or using a list of “essential” or “required” attendees to determine the priorities for scheduling, each prospective attendee can be associated with a metric that reflects their importance to the discussion(s) or activities expected at the event. This allows a greater weighting to be assigned to the prospective attendees based on their role in a task or decision, and not on their position in an organizational hierarchy. In such an example, a meeting or event may be scheduled if the weighted total for all attendees or the weighted average per attendee exceeds a pre-set threshold. This is one way of ensuring that decisions are made even if a senior person cannot attend.”; Fig. 4a- 4c; Par. 71)
Lee and Smith are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee, as taught by Smith, by utilizing additional data and calendar views with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee with the motivation of improving conventional approaches to meeting or event scheduling often require a significant amount of user interaction or investigation in order to coordinate schedules between attendees, meeting rooms, conflicting commitments, and other resources (Smith Par.3).
Regarding Claim 6 , Claim 10 and Claim 17 , Lee in view of Smithi in further view of O’Sullivan teach The method of claim 1, further comprising:… and The method of claim 8, further comprising:… and The method of claim 15,….
receiving, by the computing system via the intelligent assistant, a rescheduling request message from the external user in natural language(Lee Par. 28-“ When the digital assistant service extracts the text from the body of email 205, it may process that text with a hierarchical attention model, as illustrated by element 212. For example, each sentence from the body of email 205 may be broken into its corresponding words, a word encoder may be applied to each word for each sentence, and a resulting vector for each sentence may be determined based on those encodings”; {0029]-[0035],[0041],[0047]);
Smith improves upon the conflict analysis by expounding upon the features below:
and based on the rescheduling request message, re-analyzing, by the computing system, the calendar information for each possible attendee to identify a new plurality of possible time slots for the calendar event. (Smith Par.129-138-“ Note that in determining a proposed date, time, or location for an event, the Scheduler may apply one or more of several possible strategies; these include, but are not limited to logic such as:
(1) Attempt to find at least an amount of time equal to a pre-set minimum that can be scheduled in a way that enables all of the attendees to attend, either in person or via video conferencing;
(2) If (1) is not possible, then attempt to find at least an amount of time equal to a pre-set minimum that can be scheduled in a way that enables the “essential” or “required” attendees to attend; (3) If (2) is not possible, then attempt to find at least an amount of time equal to a pre-set minimum that can be scheduled in a way that enables a senior member of the same department as the “essential” or “required” attendees to attend;
(4) Given potentially available times for a meeting or event, a scheduler can select one or more options to present to the prospective attendees. The options it presents may be selected based on a rule, heuristic, threshold, or individual or group preference data, and may follow one or more of the following guidelines:
(1) Look for options that best fit with most senior attendees preference; (2) Look for options that best fit with organizers preference; (3) Look for options on days that are least busy (measured by % of day booked) for either the greatest number of attendees, the organizer, or the most senior attendees; or (4) Look for options that offer some buffer time between this meeting and other meetings for the greatest number of attendees, the organizer, or the most senior attendees; and A suitable weighting can be applied to an option based on the criteria it fits (e.g., can organizer attend, can senior member attend, additional weight for each optional attendee, etc.). This weighting could be controlled via system preferences and used to generate a “score” for each possible meeting or event schedule. If the score exceeded a specified threshold, then the potential meeting or event schedule may be presented to the prospective invitees as an option, or as the primary option.”).
Lee and Smith are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee, as taught by Smith, by utilizing additional data and calendar views with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee with the motivation of improving conventional approaches to meeting or event scheduling often require a significant amount of user interaction or investigation in order to coordinate schedules between attendees, meeting rooms, conflicting commitments, and other resources (Smith Par.3).
Regarding Claim 8,
Lee teaches
A method, comprising: receiving, by an intelligent assistant of a computing system, a first message from a first client device, the first message comprising ….including a request to schedule a calendar event with a candidate; ( Lee Par. 16-18-“Examples of the disclosure provide systems, methods, and devices for utilizing artificial intelligence in association with digital assistants to process natural language inputs associated with events to identify clear user intent. In examples, the natural language inputs may include multiple parameters of a same type (e.g., time, date, location, potential attendees), and in some cases, conflicting parameters…The systems, methods and devices described herein are described primarily in association with an electronic messaging digital assistant and an event scheduling helper. However, the two-model processing approach described herein may also be applied for proactive scheduling intent detection, user-assisted event creation (guided capture), and ambient device digital assistant utterance capture, which if applied in that scenario, provides higher accuracy compared with traditional time expression utterance detection models. The systems, methods, and devices described herein provide technical advantages for identifying relevant content in electronic messages…; Par. 20-21)
issuing, by the computing system, one or more network requests to calendar servers associated with electronic calendars associated with the multiple attendees to retrieve calendar information for each attendee; ( Lee Par. 20-“Once first user 106 sends email 105, that message is routed to network and processing sub-environment 108, and in particular, a digital assistant service associated with network and processing sub-environment 108. Email 105 may be directed to the digital assistant service based on the digital assistant being included in the carbon copy field of email 105 and/or email 105 including the “@[DIGITAL ASSISTANT]” tag in its body. The digital assistant service may be at least partially cloud-based, and operate on one or more server computing devices, such as server computing device 112. Email 105 may be routed to the digital assistant service via network 110, and any of the computing devices described in relation to FIG. 1 may communicate with one another via network 110. In some examples, the digital assistant service may communicate with one or more data stores, such as training data store 114, which may include natural language data sets for training various aspects of a digital assistant.; Par. 24; Par. 63)
determining, by the computing system, that a single attendee does not have common availability with remaining attendees of the multiple attendees… (Lee (para [0001], [0016]-[0018), [0021], [0024}).”);
transmitting, by the computing system using the intelligent assistant,… to the single attendee to select a time from the list by sending the single attendee a message comprising the shared availability; ( Lee Par. 41-As such, the digital assistant service has sent an email to Alice that states: “Hi Alice—Charles would like to meet with you over Skype in the next few weeks. Are you available at any of the following times and dates? —[Date/Time 1]—[Date/Time 2]—[Date/Time: 3]”. ; Par. 47-From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
receiving, by the computing system through the intelligent assistant, …a selection of a time for the calendar event from the list ( Lee Par. 41 ; Par. 47-From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
and based on the selection, scheduling, by the computing system, in real-time, the calendar event for the selected time, the calendar event comprising the multiple attendees and the candidate (Lee system, in real-time, the calendar event comprising the target user and the subset of possible attendees (para [0001), [0016]-[0018], (0021), [0024] - “initiating real-time communications"; "the digital assistant service may analyze received email 105 and determine whether there is a specific command in the that message that if should respond to (e.g. “schedule meeting’, “add to my calendar’, etc.)"; “and automatically generate a meeting, invite for a mutually available timeframe on the proposed meeting date")..
Lee discloses scheduling analysis and the feature is expounded upon by Smith:
… a text-based message… (Smith Par. 83- The method of communication used for triggering the event scheduling process implemented by an embodiment of the invention may be email, text/SMS message, a chat interface such as instant messaging, an online form, or a telephony integrated phone system, and may include virtually any type of communication mode where the inventive system can be copied on and can monitor a discussion about scheduling an event.”)
identifying, by the computing system, the plurality of possible attendees based on information in the text-based message (Smith Par. 74- Implementing the internal process to determine one or more characteristics of a proposed meeting or event, such as a day, a time, a location, a list of prospective attendees, etc., taking into account one or more of the respective schedules, commitments, locations, time zones or other available information about one or more of the prospective attendees—this may include consideration of the relative importance of a person to a meeting or to other meetings, the state of the business operations of a company and how that may impact possible meeting days or times, business related data that may be indicative of a demand for resources that would otherwise be available for the meeting (such as rooms, equipment, personnel, etc.), and may also involve application of one or more sets of rules or conflict resolution procedures; Par. 83”);
generating, by the computing system, an aggregated calendar based on the calendar information retrieved the calendar servers, wherein the aggregated calendar comprises the calendar information associated with each attendee; (Smith Par. 139- Note that instead or using a list of “essential” or “required” attendees to determine the priorities for scheduling, each prospective attendee can be associated with a metric that reflects their importance to the discussion(s) or activities expected at the event. This allows a greater weighting to be assigned to the prospective attendees based on their role in a task or decision, and not on their position in an organizational hierarchy. In such an example, a meeting or event may be scheduled if the weighted total for all attendees or the weighted average per attendee exceeds a pre-set threshold. This is one way of ensuring that decisions are made even if a senior person cannot attend.”; Fig. 4a- 4c; Par. 71)
… based on the aggregated calendar by determining overlapping time slots where the multiple attendees are available (Smith Par. 139- Note that instead or using a list of “essential” or “required” attendees to determine the priorities for scheduling, each prospective attendee can be associated with a metric that reflects their importance to the discussion(s) or activities expected at the event. This allows a greater weighting to be assigned to the prospective attendees based on their role in a task or decision, and not on their position in an organizational hierarchy. In such an example, a meeting or event may be scheduled if the weighted total for all attendees or the weighted average per attendee exceeds a pre-set threshold. This is one way of ensuring that decisions are made even if a senior person cannot attend.”; Fig. 4a- 4c; Par. 71)
determining, by the computing system, that there is no common availability among the multiple attendees based on the aggregated calendar; ( Smith Par.79- Implementing the internal process to determine one or more characteristics of a proposed meeting or event, such as a day, a time, a location, a list of prospective attendees, etc., taking into account one or more of the respective schedules, commitments, locations, time zones or other available information about one or more of the prospective attendees—this may include consideration of the relative importance of a person to a meeting or to other meetings, the state of the business operations of a company and how that may impact possible meeting days or times, business related data that may be indicative of a demand for resources that would otherwise be available for the meeting (such as rooms, equipment, personnel, etc.), and may also involve application of one or more sets of rules or conflict resolution procedures;);
compiling, by the computing system, the shared availability among the remaining attendees into a list; (Smith Par. 74-“ Implementing the internal process to determine one or more characteristics of a proposed meeting or event, such as a day, a time, a location, a list of prospective attendees, etc., taking into account one or more of the respective schedules, commitments, locations, time zones or other available information about one or more of the prospective attendees—this may include consideration of the relative importance of a person to a meeting or to other meetings, the state of the business operations of a company and how that may impact possible meeting days or times, business related data that may be indicative of a demand for resources that would otherwise be available for the meeting (such as rooms, equipment, personnel, etc.), and may also involve application of one or more sets of rules or conflict resolution procedures;”)
generating, by the computing system, a prompt message to send to the external user based on the available time slots identified using the aggregated calendar (Smith Par. 7- generating a message to one or more of the attendees of the proposed meeting or event, the generated message including the one or more possible options for scheduling the proposed meeting or event;”);
transmitting, by the computing system, ‘the prompt message’ … (Smith Par. 7- receiving a message from the organizer of the proposed meeting or event, the received message including a selection of one of the one or more possible options for scheduling the proposed meeting or event; and scheduling the proposed meeting or event based on the selected option.;”);
receiving, by the computing system, a reply message responsive to the prompt message… (Smith Par.164- In this example, once the Scheduler process has identified three options, it generates and sends a message (e.g., emails or text messages) back to the set of prospective users/attendees. The messages may contain options and instructions on how to select a desired option (as suggested by step or stage 440 of FIG. 4(b)). In some embodiments, selecting an option could be indicated by replying with certain words or phrases (such as “option 3”, or “number 1”), or could be performed by selecting a link to submit a preference for an option. In some embodiments, the Scheduler may send each user/attendee a copy of their personal calendar for a range of dates so that they can make an informed decision. An example of such a message (in the form of an email) is shown in FIG. 4(b)(1).”);
Lee and Smith are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee, as taught by Smith, by utilizing additional data and calendar views with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee with the motivation of improving conventional approaches to meeting or event scheduling often require a significant amount of user interaction or investigation in order to coordinate schedules between attendees, meeting rooms, conflicting commitments, and other resources (Smith Par.3).
Lee in view of Smith disclose calendar scheduling and the feature is expounded upon by O’Sullivan:
determining, by the computing system, a scheduling load for each of the remaining attendees based on a number of existing calendar events assigned to each remaining attendee to prioritize attendees with a lowest scheduling load to optimize a distribution of calendar events among the remaining attendees; (O’Sullivan Par.9-“ The disclosed system operates to provide a visual capability in a user interface for a scheduling user that enables fine grained prioritization of individual attendees, or groups of attendees, to allow determination of a relatively larger number of potential event times for a desired event. The disclosed system may be embodied to allow such attendee prioritization in situations where it is not be possible to establish a sufficient range of event times that are acceptable across all invitees. The disclosed system enables a scheduling user to indicate a number of attendee priority levels, where the number N of priority levels used for a given event may be user specific configuration parameter, or supplied on a per event basis. As a result of the user supplied prioritization of prospective attendees, the disclosed system operates to supply possible event times relevant to each priority indicated by the scheduling user. Accordingly, where a scheduling user has assigned prospective attendees to attendee priorities 1 through N, the disclosed system would respond by simultaneously presenting to the scheduling user N sets of prospective event times corresponding to the assigned priorities. Specifically, a first set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priority 1, a second set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all attendees of priorities 1 and 2, a third set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1, 2 and 3, and so on through a set of prospective event times that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1 through N. ; Par. 26-27”);
determining, by the computing system, a shared availability among the remaining attendees based on the determined scheduling load; ( O’ Sullivan Abstract- Specifically, a first set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priority 1, a second set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all attendees of priorities 1 and 2, a third set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1, 2 and 3, and so on through a set of prospective event times that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1 through N.”);
Lee, Rampton and O’Sullivan are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee in view of Rampton, as taught by O’Sullivan, by utilizing additional scheduling analysis with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee in view of Rampton with the motivation of improving the probability of success with regard to scheduling a calendar event (O’Sullivan Par.8).
Regarding Claim 9 and Claim 16, - Cancelled
Regarding Claim 13,
The method of claim 8, further comprising: responsive to the selection of the time, providing, by the computing system, the time for the calendar event to the candidate. ( Lee Par. 41-As such, the digital assistant service has sent an email to Alice that states: “Hi Alice—Charles would like to meet with you over Skype in the next few weeks. Are you available at any of the following times and dates? —[Date/Time 1]—[Date/Time 2]—[Date/Time: 3]”. ; Par. 47-From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
Regarding Claim 14,
The method of claim 13, further comprising: receiving, by the computing system, an indication from the candidate that the time for the calendar event is approved. ( Lee Par. 47- In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
Regarding Claim 15,
Lee teaches
A method, comprising: receiving, by an intelligent assistant of a computing system, a first message from a first client device, the first message comprising …a request to schedule a calendar event with a candidate; (Lee Par. 16-18-“Examples of the disclosure provide systems, methods, and devices for utilizing artificial intelligence in association with digital assistants to process natural language inputs associated with events to identify clear user intent. In examples, the natural language inputs may include multiple parameters of a same type (e.g., time, date, location, potential attendees), and in some cases, conflicting parameters…The systems, methods and devices described herein are described primarily in association with an electronic messaging digital assistant and an event scheduling helper. However, the two-model processing approach described herein may also be applied for proactive scheduling intent detection, user-assisted event creation (guided capture), and ambient device digital assistant utterance capture, which if applied in that scenario, provides higher accuracy compared with traditional time expression utterance detection models. The systems, methods, and devices described herein provide technical advantages for identifying relevant content in electronic messages…; Par. 20-21)
issuing, by the computing system, one or more network requests to calendar servers associated with electronic calendars associated with the multiple attendees to retrieve calendar information for each attendee; ( Lee Par. 20-“Once first user 106 sends email 105, that message is routed to network and processing sub-environment 108, and in particular, a digital assistant service associated with network and processing sub-environment 108. Email 105 may be directed to the digital assistant service based on the digital assistant being included in the carbon copy field of email 105 and/or email 105 including the “@[DIGITAL ASSISTANT]” tag in its body. The digital assistant service may be at least partially cloud-based, and operate on one or more server computing devices, such as server computing device 112. Email 105 may be routed to the digital assistant service via network 110, and any of the computing devices described in relation to FIG. 1 may communicate with one another via network 110. In some examples, the digital assistant service may communicate with one or more data stores, such as training data store 114, which may include natural language data sets for training various aspects of a digital assistant.; Par. 24; Par. 63)
determining, by the computing system, that a single attendee does not have common availability with remaining attendees of the multiple attendees… (Lee (para [0001], [0016]-[0018), [0021], [0024}).”);
transmitting, by the computing system, …to the multiple attendees to select a set of times from the available times of the multiple attendees; ( Lee Par. 41-As such, the digital assistant service has sent an email to Alice that states: “Hi Alice—Charles would like to meet with you over Skype in the next few weeks. Are you available at any of the following times and dates? —[Date/Time 1]—[Date/Time 2]—[Date/Time: 3]”. ; Par. 47-From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
receiving, by the computing system, a plurality of reply messages from the multiple attendees; ( Lee Par. 41 ; Par. 47-From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
analyzing, by the computing system, the reply messages to identify available times that are common among the multiple attendees ( Lee Par. 24; Par. 41; Par. 47-From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”);
based on the analyzing and the optimizing, scheduling, by the computing system, in real- time, the calendar event for the available time, the calendar event comprising the multiple attendees and the candidate (Lee system, in real-time, the calendar event comprising the target user and the subset of possible attendees (para [0001), [0016]-[0018], (0021), [0024] - “initiating real-time communications"; "the digital assistant service may analyze received email 105 and determine whether there is a specific command in the that message that if should respond to (e.g. “schedule meeting’, “add to my calendar’, etc.)"; “and automatically generate a meeting, invite for a mutually available timeframe on the proposed meeting date")..
Lee teaches calendar scheduling and the feature is expounded upon by Smith:
Lee discloses scheduling analysis and the feature is expounded upon by Smith:
… a text-based message… (Smith Par. 83- The method of communication used for triggering the event scheduling process implemented by an embodiment of the invention may be email, text/SMS message, a chat interface such as instant messaging, an online form, or a telephony integrated phone system, and may include virtually any type of communication mode where the inventive system can be copied on and can monitor a discussion about scheduling an event.”)
identifying, by the computing system, the plurality of possible attendees based on information in the text-based message (Smith Par. 74- Implementing the internal process to determine one or more characteristics of a proposed meeting or event, such as a day, a time, a location, a list of prospective attendees, etc., taking into account one or more of the respective schedules, commitments, locations, time zones or other available information about one or more of the prospective attendees—this may include consideration of the relative importance of a person to a meeting or to other meetings, the state of the business operations of a company and how that may impact possible meeting days or times, business related data that may be indicative of a demand for resources that would otherwise be available for the meeting (such as rooms, equipment, personnel, etc.), and may also involve application of one or more sets of rules or conflict resolution procedures; Par. 83”);
generating, by the computing system, an aggregated calendar based on the calendar information retrieved the calendar servers, wherein the aggregated calendar comprises the calendar information associated with each attendee; (Smith Par. 139- Note that instead or using a list of “essential” or “required” attendees to determine the priorities for scheduling, each prospective attendee can be associated with a metric that reflects their importance to the discussion(s) or activities expected at the event. This allows a greater weighting to be assigned to the prospective attendees based on their role in a task or decision, and not on their position in an organizational hierarchy. In such an example, a meeting or event may be scheduled if the weighted total for all attendees or the weighted average per attendee exceeds a pre-set threshold. This is one way of ensuring that decisions are made even if a senior person cannot attend.”; Fig. 4a- 4c; Par. 71)
… based on the aggregated calendar by determining overlapping time slots where the multiple attendees are available (Smith Par. 139- Note that instead or using a list of “essential” or “required” attendees to determine the priorities for scheduling, each prospective attendee can be associated with a metric that reflects their importance to the discussion(s) or activities expected at the event. This allows a greater weighting to be assigned to the prospective attendees based on their role in a task or decision, and not on their position in an organizational hierarchy. In such an example, a meeting or event may be scheduled if the weighted total for all attendees or the weighted average per attendee exceeds a pre-set threshold. This is one way of ensuring that decisions are made even if a senior person cannot attend.”; Fig. 4a- 4c; Par. 71)
based on the determining, reviewing, by the computing system, historic calendar information associated with the multiple attendees to learn when the multiple attendees have been previously available as a group; ( Smith Par.50- In addition to determining or helping to determine attendee availability, data from a multi-tenant system can also be used by the invention to make “smart” suggestions for event times and locations. Information from human resources about hierarchy, location, tenure or position is available and can be compared across meeting attendees; in this way the invention can suggest event times and locations that work best for the more senior attendees or prospective attendees. These preferred times can be determined in several ways, including but not limited to machine learning and analysis of past and current schedules, individual user preferences that each user in the system defines, or a combination of both analysis and user preferences.);
compiling, by the computing system, available times of the multiple attendees with the historic calendar information; (Smith Par. 50; Par. 168-“ By monitoring the discussion, if new people are added to the communication thread, then the Scheduler can look up relevant preference data and provide options that include the new person or persons. In some embodiments, the Scheduler may suggest additional attendees to an event based on their past attendance at the same or a similar event, and/or a correlation between the attendance at events by one or more attendees and another person who is not presently invited to the current event. For example, from information in a calendaring or human resources system, it might suggest attendees based on one or more of the following: Shared past events—i.e., there are many events with Joe, Bob, and Sue, so if Joe and Bob are meeting it might suggest to invite Sue; Topic—if others are commonly attendees at meetings with the subject being discussed, it could suggest those people as possible attendees; or Role or position in the company—by accessing HRIS information, the scheduler process can find people in similar roles, locations or departments, or could find recent replacements of termed employees that may have been attendees at previous similar meetings (in which case the replacement would be invited).”)
generating, by the computing system, prompt messages to send to the multiple attendees based on the historic calendar information; (Smith Par. 7- generating a message to one or more of the attendees of the proposed meeting or event, the generated message including the one or more possible options for scheduling the proposed meeting or event; Par. 50; Par 168”);
transmitting, by the computing system, ‘the prompt message’ … (Smith Par. 7- receiving a message from the organizer of the proposed meeting or event, the received message including a selection of one of the one or more possible options for scheduling the proposed meeting or event; and scheduling the proposed meeting or event based on the selected option.;”);
receiving, by the computing system, a reply message responsive to the prompt message… (Smith Par.164- In this example, once the Scheduler process has identified three options, it generates and sends a message (e.g., emails or text messages) back to the set of prospective users/attendees. The messages may contain options and instructions on how to select a desired option (as suggested by step or stage 440 of FIG. 4(b)). In some embodiments, selecting an option could be indicated by replying with certain words or phrases (such as “option 3”, or “number 1”), or could be performed by selecting a link to submit a preference for an option. In some embodiments, the Scheduler may send each user/attendee a copy of their personal calendar for a range of dates so that they can make an informed decision. An example of such a message (in the form of an email) is shown in FIG. 4(b)(1).”);
Lee and Smith are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee, as taught by Smith, by utilizing additional data and calendar views with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee with the motivation of improving conventional approaches to meeting or event scheduling often require a significant amount of user interaction or investigation in order to coordinate schedules between attendees, meeting rooms, conflicting commitments, and other resources (Smith Par.3).
Lee in view of Rampton disclose calendar scheduling and the feature is expounded upon by O’Sullivan:
optimizing, by the computing system, the available times by determining a scheduling load for each of the multiple attendees based on a number of existing calendar events assigned to each attendee to prioritize attendees with a lowest scheduling load to optimize a distribution of calendar events among the multiple attendees; (O’Sullivan Par.9-“ The disclosed system operates to provide a visual capability in a user interface for a scheduling user that enables fine grained prioritization of individual attendees, or groups of attendees, to allow determination of a relatively larger number of potential event times for a desired event. The disclosed system may be embodied to allow such attendee prioritization in situations where it is not be possible to establish a sufficient range of event times that are acceptable across all invitees. The disclosed system enables a scheduling user to indicate a number of attendee priority levels, where the number N of priority levels used for a given event may be user specific configuration parameter, or supplied on a per event basis. As a result of the user supplied prioritization of prospective attendees, the disclosed system operates to supply possible event times relevant to each priority indicated by the scheduling user. Accordingly, where a scheduling user has assigned prospective attendees to attendee priorities 1 through N, the disclosed system would respond by simultaneously presenting to the scheduling user N sets of prospective event times corresponding to the assigned priorities. Specifically, a first set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priority 1, a second set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all attendees of priorities 1 and 2, a third set of prospective event times would be presented that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1, 2 and 3, and so on through a set of prospective event times that satisfy the availability constraints of all prospective attendees of priorities 1 through N. ; Par. 26-27”);
Lee, Rampton and O’Sullivan are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee in view of Rampton, as taught by O’Sullivan, by utilizing additional scheduling analysis with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee in view of Rampton with the motivation of improving the probability of success with regard to scheduling a calendar event (O’Sullivan Par.8).
Regarding Claim 20,
The method of claim 15, further comprising: notifying, by the computing system, each attendee of the multiple attendees of the calendar event for the available time. ( Lee Par. 47- From operation 508 flow continues to operation 510 where an automated action associated with scheduling the meeting is caused to be performed. In examples, the automated action may include at least one meeting parameter from one of the words of the first group of words split at operation 508. In examples, the automated action may be a meeting request sent to one or more potential attendees of a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled, a query to one or more potential attendees of a meeting for confirming potential times and/or dates for holding a meeting that the digital assistant service has determined the message sender would like to have scheduled. etc.”; Par. 9; Fig 4);
Regarding Claim 21, Claim 22 and Claim 23, Lee in view of Smith teach the method of claim 1…, the method of claim 8 and the method of claim 15…
wherein the calendar servers comprise a first calendar server associated with a first service provider and a second calendar server associated with a second service provider (Smith Par. 55-“ FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a system 100, including an integrated business system 102 and an enterprise network 104 in which an embodiment of the invention may be implemented. Enterprise network 104 may be associated with a business enterprise, such as a retailer, merchant, service provider, or other type of business. Alternatively, and in accordance with the advantages of an application service provider (ASP) hosted integrated business system (such as a multi-tenant data processing platform), the business enterprise may comprise fewer or no dedicated facilities or business network at all, provided that its end users have access to an internet browser and an internet connection. For simplicity and clarity of explanation, the enterprise network 104 is represented by an on-site local area network 106 to which a plurality of personal computers 108 are connected, each generally dedicated to a particular end user (although such dedication is not required), along with an exemplary remote user computer 110 that can be, for example, a laptop computer or tablet computer of a traveling employee having internet access through a hotel, coffee shop, a public Wi-Fi access point, or other internet access method.”; Par. 38).
Lee and Smith are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon scheduling analysis of Lee, as taught by Smith, by utilizing additional data and calendar views with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee with the motivation of improving conventional approaches to meeting or event scheduling often require a significant amount of user interaction or investigation in order to coordinate schedules between attendees, meeting rooms, conflicting commitments, and other resources (Smith Par.3).
.
Claim 7, 11-12 and claim 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee, US Publication No. 20200175478 A1, [hereinafter Lee], in view of Smith, US Publication No. 20170236097A1, [hereinafter Smith], in further view of O’Sullivan, US Publication No. 20100100413A1, [hereinafter O’Sullivan and in further view of Whalin et al., US Publication No. 20120179980A1, [hereinafter Whalin].
Regarding Claim 7, Claim 11 and Claim 18, Lee in view of Smith in further view of O’Sullivan teach the method of claim 1…, the method of claim 8 and the method of claim 15…
Lee in view of Smith in further view of O’Sullivan teach the method of claim 1 and scheduling features are expounded by Whalin:
periodically pushing, by the computing system via the intelligent assistant, reminders to the external user (Whalin par. 187-“ (para[0187]-“automatic scheduler may provide for a selectable setting, such as a meeting repeat period, a reminder setting").
Lee, Smith, O’Sullivan and Whalin are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon data analysis of Lee in view of Smith in further view of O’Sullivan, as taught by Whalin, by utilizing notification features and alerts with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee in view of Smith in further view of O’Sullivan with the motivation of improving meeting participant notification and attendance.(Whalin Par. 185).
Regarding Claim 12 and Claim 19 Lee in view of Smith in further view of O’Sullivan teach the method of Claim 8 and the method of claim 15…,
Lee in view of Rampton in further view of O’Sullivan teach scheduling and scheduling features are expounded by Whalin:
interfacing, by the computing system, with a video conference application to generate a video conference link for the calendar event. (Whalin par. 194]-“ In an example, a user may open up a meeting or event from their phone, indicate they want to add a photo, snap the photo, add a caption, and upload the photo, where the photo may now be available for viewing as the meeting or event is happening. In embodiments, meeting groups and event activities may be available through a user's mobile communications facility, such as future and past meetings and events, RSVPs to upcoming meetings and events, get directions, view RSVP lists, have discussions, search for a group or event, view meeting group information, view event information, join a meeting group, join an event, and the like. In addition, live streaming of video may be utilized to support a meeting or event, such as though UStream, Livestream, Slideshare, and the like. In embodiments, through the ability to upload photos and video as a meeting or event is occurring, anyone may potentially share in the real-time event, even if they couldn't get there themselves."; Par. 219).
Lee, Rampton, O’Sullivan and Whalin are directed to calendar scheduling analysis. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have improve upon data analysis of Lee in view of Rampton in further view of O’Sullivan, as taught by Whalin, by utilizing notification features and alerts with a reasonable expectation of success of arriving at the claimed invention. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to the teachings of Lee in view of Rampton in further of O’Sullivan with the motivation of improving meeting participant notification and attendance.(Whalin Par. 185).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: US Publication No. 20210056450A1 to Catalano et al.- Abstract-“ Aspects of the present disclosure relate to event scheduling. An indication of an attempt to schedule a first meeting designated at a first time is received. Attendee calendar data for a prospective meeting attendee invited to the first meeting is received. A determination is made that the prospective meeting attendee is scheduled with a second meeting designated at the first time based on the attendee calendar data. A probabilistic availability that the prospective meeting attendee will be available to attend the first meeting at the first time is calculated. The probabilistic availability is then compared to a threshold. In response to the probabilistic availability satisfying the threshold, the first meeting at the first time is scheduled for the prospective meeting attendee.”
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Chesiree Walton, whose telephone number is (571) 272-5219. The examiner can normally be reached from Monday to Friday between 8 AM and 5 PM. If any attempt to reach the examiner by telephone is unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Patricia Munson, can be reached at (571) 270-5396. The fax telephone numbers for this group are either (571) 273-8300 or (703) 872-9326 (for official communications including After Final communications labeled “Box AF”).
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Sincerely,
/CHESIREE A WALTON/ Examiner, Art Unit 3624