Prosecution Insights
Last updated: August 17, 2026
Application No. 17/850,311

ACTIVITY MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES

Final Rejection §103
Filed
Jun 27, 2022
Examiner
SILVERMAN, SETH ADAM
Art Unit
2172
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
OA Round
2 (Final)
73%
Grant Probability
Favorable
3-4
OA Rounds
0m
Est. Remaining
87%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 73% — above average
73%
Career Allowance Rate
344 granted / 469 resolved
+18.3% vs TC avg
Moderate +14% lift
Without
With
+13.6%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 8m
Avg Prosecution
30 currently pending
Career history
504
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
7.8%
-32.2% vs TC avg
§103
61.1%
+21.1% vs TC avg
§102
17.4%
-22.6% vs TC avg
§112
10.1%
-29.9% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 469 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 6/27/2022 was filed before the first office action. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner. Response to Arguments Applicant’s arguments, filed 6/9/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of independent claim(s) under 35 USC 103, to the combination of Sharifi, and Rathod, have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of 35 USC 103 rejection is made in view of the combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, wherein Watanabe has been added to cure the previous combination’s deficiencies. Response to Amendment The previous 112b rejection Claim 19 has been removed in view of the applicant's amendments. Claim Rejection Notes In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action: A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made. Claim(s) 1, 4, 10, 13, and 19, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharifi et al. (US 20210211476 A1, published: 7/8/2021), in view of Rathod (US 20110276396 A1, published: 11/10/2011), and in further view of Watanabe et al. (US 20050239031 A1, published: 10/27/2005). Claim 1. (Currently Amended): Sharifi teaches a computing apparatus comprising: one or more computer readable storage media; one or more processors operatively coupled with the one or more computer readable storage media; and an application comprising program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media that, when executed by the one or more processors (any suitable computer readable media can be used for storing instructions for performing the functions and/or processes herein [Sharifi, 0083]), direct the computing apparatus to at least: communicate with an online service to obtain activity information indicative of activities undertaken by a user and activity topics produced by the online service for the activities (receiving, from a first user device, a request to present media content recommendations on the first user device… [Sharifi, 0006]); group the activities into activity groups based at least on the activity topics produced for the activities (receiving, from a first user device, a request to present media content recommendations on the first user device; in response to receiving the request, determining information indicating a user context associated with the first user device and network connectivity information associated with a connection status of the first user device over a communications network; identifying a group of media content items to recommend based on the user context and the network connectivity information [Sharifi, 0006]); and enable a display of the activity groups in a user interface to the application (and causing recommendations for the group of media content items to be presented on the first user device [Sharifi, 0006]). Sharifi does not teach obtain activity information indicative of activities undertaken by a user and activity topics, wherein the activities include physical activities and digital activities. However, Rathod teaches obtain activity information indicative of activities undertaken by a user and activity topics, wherein the activities include physical activities and digital activities (monitoring & tracking user's one or more types of physical or digital activities, actions, interactions, communications, responses, events, transactions, life stream, logs, locations, behavior, movement, environment, status, states & conditions from one or more sources [Rathod, 0047]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the invention was filed, to modify the activity topic obtaining and displaying invention of Sharifi to include the physical and digital activities feature of Rathod. One would have been motivated to make this modification to expand the scope of presented activities to include both physical and digital activities. Such would expand the scope of which activities are counted by showing both digital computer activities with healthy outside activities. Such will allow users to monitor how often they are doing physical activities like exercise, so that they keep track of how often they spend in front of a computer/phone and are exercising. The combination of Sharifi, and Rathod, and wherein the activity information includes a text description of a physical activity and a text description of a digital activity; wherein at least a group of the activity groups includes the physical activity and the digital activity; wherein the display of the activity groups includes a text description of an activity topic for the group, the text description of the physical activity, and the text description of the digital activity. However, Watanabe teaches and wherein the activity information includes a text description of a physical activity and a text description of a digital activity; wherein at least a group of the activity groups includes the physical activity and the digital activity; wherein the display of the activity groups includes a text description of an activity topic for the group, the text description of the physical activity, and the text description of the digital activity (each of the remaining small screen sections 20 to 22 is assigned as the related-information display field 26 in which detailed information and/or illustrated information associated with the contents described in the explanation text display field 25 is to be displayed [Watanabe, 0044]. A claim containing a “recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus” if the prior art apparatus teaches all the structural limitations of the claim [MPEP 2114, II]; Examiner's Note: Watanabe teaches the display of information including a text description of activities. These can apply to ANY activities). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the invention was filed, to modify the activity topic obtaining and displaying invention of the combination of Sharifi, and Rathod, to include the text indications feature of Watanabe. One would have been motivated to make this modification to accurately portray different activity groups via the decades known computer method of displaying text descriptions so that users understand what they are looking at. Claims 10 and 19, sharing similar elements to claim 1, are likewise rejected. Claim 4. (Currently Amended): The combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, teaches the computing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the characteristic comprises one of frequency, distance, and recentness (a claim containing a “recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus” if the prior art apparatus teaches all the structural limitations of the claim [MPEP 2114, II]; Examiner's Note: Watanabe teaches the display of information including a text description of activities. These can apply to ANY activities). Rathod further teaches wherein the user interface includes multiple views of the activity groups filtered based on a characteristic of each of the activities (apply one or more filter(s) including ALL, EXACT, ANY, NONE words and one or more or combination of sorting type(s) including ascending & descending order, rank wise, category wise, date & time wise, hit wise, location wise, language wise, availability status wise, price wise (free or paid) with one or more search or command syntax string(s) [Rathod, 0025]; [Rathod, 0026]). Claim 13, sharing similar elements to claim 4, is likewise rejected, wherein claim 13 also includes the teachings of Mallet (claims 3 & 12) and its motivation is the same as has been reported in the rejection to claim 3 below. Claim(s) 2 and 11, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharifi et al. (US 20210211476 A1, published: 7/8/2021), Rathod (US 20110276396 A1, published: 11/10/2011), and Watanabe et al. (US 20050239031 A1, published: 10/27/2005), and in further view of Mallet et al. (US 20120246266 A1, published: 9/27/2012). Claim 2. (Currently Amended): The combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, teaches the computing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the activity information includes a first activity topic for the physical activity and second activity topic for the digital activity, and wherein the first activity topic is the same as or similar to the second activity topic (each of the remaining small screen sections 20 to 22 is assigned as the related-information display field 26 in which detailed information and/or illustrated information associated with the contents described in the explanation text display field 25 is to be displayed [Watanabe, 0044]. A claim containing a “recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus” if the prior art apparatus teaches all the structural limitations of the claim [MPEP 2114, II]; Examiner's Note: Watanabe teaches the display of information including a text description of activities. These can apply to ANY activities). The combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, does not teach wherein, to group the activities into the activity groups based at least on the activity topics, the program instructions direct the computing apparatus to group the activities based on a proximity of each of the activity topics to each other of the activity topics. However, Mallet teaches wherein, to group the activities into the activity groups based at least on the activity topics, the program instructions direct the computing apparatus to group the activities based on a proximity of each of the activity topics to each other of the activity topics (the group content ranker module 414 receives metadata regarding proximity, connections, and the like between the first client device 300 and other client devices 300 each time the group content ranker module 414 ranks the candidate groups 110 for particular content 120 to adjust the ranking [Mallet, 0044]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the invention was filed, to modify the activity topic obtaining and displaying invention of the combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, to include the grouping of topics compared to proximity with activities feature of Mallet. One would have been motivated to make this modification to expand the data used to view and understand times spent with activities and how they relate with each other. Claim 11, sharing similar elements to claim 2, is likewise rejected. Claim(s) 3 and 12, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharifi et al. (US 20210211476 A1, published: 7/8/2021), Rathod (US 20110276396 A1, published: 11/10/2011), Watanabe et al. (US 20050239031 A1, published: 10/27/2005), and Mallet et al. (US 20120246266 A1, published: 9/27/2012), and in further view of Ideses et al. (US 20170060986 A1, published: 3/2/2017). Claim 3. (Currently Amended): The combination of Sharifi, Rathod, Watanabe, and Mallet, teaches the computing apparatus of claim 2, wherein the label for the group comprises the text description for the activity topic for the group (each of the remaining small screen sections 20 to 22 is assigned as the related-information display field 26 in which detailed information and/or illustrated information associated with the contents described in the explanation text display field 25 is to be displayed [Watanabe, 0044]. A claim containing a “recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus” if the prior art apparatus teaches all the structural limitations of the claim [MPEP 2114, II]; Examiner's Note: Watanabe teaches the display of information including a text description of activities. These can apply to ANY activities). The combination does not teach wherein the program instructions further direct the computing apparatus to identify a label for each of the activity groups, based at least on those of the activity topics grouped into the activity group. However, Ideses teaches wherein the program instructions further direct the computing apparatus to identify a label for each of the activity groups, based at least on those of the activity topics grouped into the activity group (each data object is associated with and/or assigned a classification label of a predefined content category [Ideses, 0121]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the invention was filed, to modify the activity topic obtaining and displaying invention of the combination of Sharifi, Rathod, Watanabe, and Mallet, to include the grouping labels feature of Ideses. One would have been motivated to make this modification to prominently label activities into groups, to best keep track of similar activities. Claim 12, sharing similar elements to claim 3, is likewise rejected. Claim(s) 5-9 and 14-18, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharifi et al. (US 20210211476 A1, published: 7/8/2021), Rathod (US 20110276396 A1, published: 11/10/2011), and Watanabe et al. (US 20050239031 A1, published: 10/27/2005), and in further view of Elizarov et al. (US 20120137316 A1, published: 5/31/2012). Claim 5: The combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, teaches the computing apparatus of claim 4. The combination does not teach wherein each view, of the multiple views, includes a detailed view for each activity in an activity group displayed in the view. However, Elizarov teaches wherein each view, of the multiple views, includes a detailed view for each activity in an activity group displayed in the view (FIG. 2 illustrates a more detailed view of the initial step of the present method, wherein the anchorman of the mass media system determines the topics of the online and offline user generated content (UGC), which circulates inside the groups of users (social networks, email services, open Web, watchers, listeners, and etc), most commented by the users and the most searched topics of the content presented at the web based search engines for presenting these topics to the groups of users [Elizarov, 0035, FIG. 2]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the invention was filed, to modify the activity topic obtaining and displaying invention of the combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, to include the multiple views feature of Elizarov. One would have been motivated to make this modification to effectively keep track of different data displays by effectively grouping them into different viewing windows. Claim 14, sharing similar elements to claim 5, is likewise rejected. Claim 6: The combination of Sharifi, Rathod, Watanabe, and Elizarov, teaches the computing apparatus of claim 5. Rathod further teaches wherein the detailed view includes a description of the activity, a day of the activity, and a time of the activity (life stream covers all chronological user generated or created or provided or updated action item(s) with metadata including taxonomy categories, date & time, rank, review notes or comments and like [Rathod, 0021]). Claim 15, sharing similar elements to claim 6, is likewise rejected. Claim 7. (Currently Amended): The combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, teaches the computing apparatus of claim 6. Rathod further teaches wherein the activity groups further include a second group, wherein the second group includes a second physical activity and a second digital activity (physical or digital activities [Rathod, 0047]). Claim 16, sharing similar elements to claim 7, is likewise rejected. Claim 8. (Currently Amended): The combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, teaches the computing apparatus of claim 7. Rathod further teaches wherein the physical activity comprises an outdoor activity undertaken by the user at a physical location identified in the detailed view, wherein the physical activity comprises one of a sporting event, a dining event, and a travel event (user might be connected to 10, 100, or 500 friends on social networking web site, external domains, outside world, many of whom take actions on the social networking web site, external domains, outside world, that reflect news in their real lives [Rathod, 0294]. A claim containing a “recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus” if the prior art apparatus teaches all the structural limitations of the claim [MPEP 2114, II]; Examiner's Note: Watanabe teaches the display of information including a text description of activities. These can apply to ANY activities). Claim 17, sharing similar elements to claim 8, is likewise rejected. Claim 9. (Currently Amended): The combination of Sharifi, Rathod, and Watanabe, teaches the computing apparatus of claim 8. Rathod further teaches wherein the digital activity comprises an online activity undertaken by the user with respect to an online service identified in the detailed view, wherein the online activity comprises a video game, searching an e-commerce website, placing calls, and chatting online (a "User" is who have action or activity or status server or network account and send and receive activity, action, status & log feed to and from one or more other users, domains, applications, services, objects, networks, groups, web pages, databases, devices who are identified or registered with system [Rathod, 0019]. A claim containing a “recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus” if the prior art apparatus teaches all the structural limitations of the claim [MPEP 2114, II]; Examiner's Note: Watanabe teaches the display of information including a text description of activities. These can apply to ANY activities). Claim 18, sharing similar elements to claim 9, is likewise rejected. Conclusion Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a). A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SETH A SILVERMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-9783. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thur, 8AM-4PM MST. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Adam Queler can be reached at (571)272-4140. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /Seth A Silverman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2172
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Jun 27, 2022
Application Filed
Feb 09, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103
Jun 09, 2026
Response Filed
Jul 30, 2026
Final Rejection mailed — §103 (current)

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Prosecution Projections

3-4
Expected OA Rounds
73%
Grant Probability
87%
With Interview (+13.6%)
2y 8m (~0m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 469 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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