DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1 – 21 have been canceled.
Claims 22 – 24, 26 – 27, 29, 31 – 33, 35 – 36, 38 – 40 and 42 have been amended.
Claims 22 – 42 have been examined and are pending.
Claim Objections
Claim 23 is objected to because of the following informalities: On line 3 of the claim, the spelling “updtaed” should be “updated”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 24 is objected to because of the following minor informalities: On line 1, “wherein slide show are” should say “…wherein the slide show is …”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 26 is objected to because of the following minor informalities: On line 1, “wherein the slide in slide show” should say “…wherein the slide in the slide show …”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 25 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding Claim 25, the limitation is … monitoring and storing a number of slide show, viewers and action …, it is not clear what is being claimed here. Is the claim trying to say the server monitors the analytics and use of the slide shows. The claim is vague and unclear. Appropriate correction is required.
Furthermore, Claim 25 recites the limitation “the monitoring”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 22 – 27, 29 – 33, 35 – 40 and 42 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0229215 to Baron et al. (hereinafter Baron) and in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0092054 to Bhumkar et al. (hereinafter Bhumkar).
Claim 22, Baron discloses (¶38) computer implemented method of virtual interaction between multiple users of a virtual social environment, and further it discloses:
server (Baron ¶Fig. 2, application server 200), comprising: a processor (Baron ¶122, processor);
and a memory storing instructions (Baron ¶122, instructions from a memory) executed by the processor (Baron ¶122, processor) to:
store a slide show comprising a plurality of slides created and published or posted by a user for viewing by one or more recipients (Baron discloses (¶8) interaction of the first user and the second user includes online activities such as gaming, social networking, meetings, blogging, chatting, discussions and sharing of the multimedia such as slideshows),
wherein each of the slides (Baron ¶39: multimedia is one or more of graphical images, videos, slideshows, and audio content) comprises a photograph, a video, an audio, an image, a text , a file, a link, an action (Baron ¶59: adding, removing and controlling the content clips or content to the current session’s playlist) and any combination thereof, the storing of the slide show (Baron ¶41: information database 209 stores multimedia) comprising making the slide show available for viewing, upon request (Baron ¶62: users 301 requesting the next clip), via respective user devices associated with the one or more recipients, including subscribers, users of network, group of users, all or selected mutually connected users (Baron discloses a virtual social environment ¶43 - ¶47, where the group of users 301 participates in the publishing and distribution of the media and add more clips to the current session and/or playlist. The multiple controls (¶Fig. 4: 409) enables the users 301 to play, pause, fast-forward, rewind, skip to next content forward, rewind to beginning of current content, etc. The "next clip" or content advance request which affects what is rendered in the viewers list 402, the content played in the shared synchronous social playback area 404, and the playlist 406)
Baron does not explicitly disclose and responsive to receiving a slide show or gallery view request from one of the one or more recipients, cause automated sequential display of the plurality of slides or messages on a corresponding user device. However, in an analogous art, Bhumkar teaches:
responsive to receiving a slide show or gallery view request from one of the one or more recipients (Bhumkar allow users (¶20) to view their photos as a slideshow), cause automated sequential display of the plurality of slides or messages on a corresponding user device (Bhumkar teaches (¶28) a slideshow of the images in the thumbnail strip may be initiated and controlled using the slideshow controls. These typically include options to play/pause, skip and review (i.e., rewind). Bhumkar teaches (¶41) PicLens may be configured to pre-fetch or automatically fetch content. The slideshow controls may be part of the retractable thumbnail strip and allow the user to easily navigate in full-screen or grid-view mode without having to leave PicLens. This allows the user to select any content item out-of-order from whence to initiate the slideshow, thus providing a higher degree of control to the user.
It would have been obvious as of the effective filing date to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the server, comprising: a processor, and a memory storing instructions executed by the processor to: store a slide show comprising a plurality of slides created and published or posted by a user for viewing by one or more recipients, wherein each of the slides comprises a photograph, a video, an audio, an image, a text , a file, a link, an action and any combination thereof, the storing of the slide show comprising making the slide show available for viewing, upon request, via respective user devices associated with the one or more recipients, including subscribers, users of network, group of users, all or selected mutually connected users, as disclosed by Baron, and responsive to receiving a slide show or gallery view request from one of the one or more recipients, cause automated sequential display of the plurality of slides or messages on a corresponding user device, as taught by Bhumkar, for the purpose of implementing (¶2) systems and methods useful for presenting Web-based content in full-screen immersive and grid-like views on a personal computer or similar device, so as to provide users with enhanced content browsing/consuming experiences.
Claim 23, Baron and Bhumkar disclose all the elements of claim 22. Further they disclose:
receive from the user an updated or an edited posted slide (Bhumkar teaches (¶72) user identifies photos of interest and this feedback is applied to update a model of the presented media) store the posted slide, and associate the slide with the slide show (Bhumkar teaches (¶59) user can select images or media content in a normal browsing mode and add it to a stack. Adding content in normal browser mode to the stack accumulates it, pre-fetches it and stacks it so the user can initiate the full-screen slideshow mode to view the selected stacked content.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 22.
Claim 24, Baron and Bhumkar disclose all the elements of claim 22. Further they disclose:
wherein slide show are supplied as per date and time (Bhumkar teaches (¶38) allowing users to set the attributes of content items, for example, all photos taken on a certain date belong to a set for that day. Bhumkar allow users (¶63) to time-stamped and mix videos with photos to create mash-ups.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 22.
Claim 25, Baron and Bhumkar disclose all the elements of claim 22. Further they disclose:
wherein the monitoring and storing a number of slide show, viewers, and actions (Bhumkar teaches (¶39) access patterns, e.g. access count, access duration, level of interaction with content, inferred interest and other attributes. Further, Bhumkar teaches (¶43) results ranked as per the feedback e.g. time spent, level of interaction, ranking, starring, etc.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 22.
Claim 26, Baron and Bhumkar disclose all the elements of claim 22. Further they disclose:
wherein the slide in slide show includes added text, photo, video, image, file, link, action, audio or music, animations, graphics, locations and any combination thereof (Bhumkar teaches (¶59) user can select images or media content in a normal browsing mode and add it to a stack. Adding content in normal browser mode to the stack accumulates it, pre-fetches it and stacks it so the user can initiate the full-screen slideshow mode to view the selected stacked content.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 22.
Claim 27, Baron and Bhumkar disclose all the elements of claim 22. Further they disclose:
wherein at a server system, maintaining a slide show comprising a plurality of slides respectively comprising visual media content (Baron discloses (¶8) sharing of the multimedia content such as slideshows), the slide show being associated with a particular user and being viewable online, upon request, by a plurality of client devices (Baron discloses (¶8) interaction of the first user and the second user) in communication with the server system via a distributed computer network (Baron discloses (¶43) publishing and distribution of the media content by computing devices such as servers), each online viewing comprising, responsive to receipt of a view request from a requesting client device, causing automated display on the requesting device, the visual media content of the plurality of slides (Baron discloses (¶8) online activities such as gaming, social networking, meetings, blogging, chatting, discussions and sharing of the multimedia, wherein (¶39) the multimedia is one or more of graphical images, videos, slideshows, and audio content).
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 22.
Claim 29, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 22. Therefore, claim 29 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 22.
Claim 30, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 23. Therefore, claim 30 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 23.
Claim 31, Baron and Bhumkar disclose all the elements of claim 30. Further they disclose:
wherein one or more of the plurality of slides edited or added slides that include editing or addition made by the user to the respective visual media content (Bhumkar teaches (¶72) user identifies photos of interest and this feedback is applied to update a model of the presented media. Bhumkar teaches (¶59) user can select images or media content in a normal browsing mode and add it to a stack. Adding content in normal browser mode to the stack accumulates it, pre-fetches it and stacks it so the user can initiate the full-screen slideshow mode to view the selected stacked content.)
The motivation to combine the references is similar to the reasons in Claim 22.
Claim 32, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 26. Therefore, claim 32 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 26.
Claim 33, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 27. Therefore, claim 33 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 27.
Claim 35, Baron and Bhumkar discloses a computer-based presentation system configured to display a slideshow of images in a full-screen immersive view in response to user input and configured to present a continuously generated sequence of media items modulated in real-time (Bhumkar, ¶7). Claim 35 do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 27. Therefore, claim 35 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 27.
Claim 36, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 22. Therefore, claim 36 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 22.
Claim 37, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 23. Therefore, claim 37 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 23.
Claim 38, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 31. Therefore, claim 38 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 31.
Claim 39, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 26. Therefore, claim 39 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 26.
Claim 40, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 27. Therefore, claim 40 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 27.
Claim 42, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 35. Therefore, claim 42 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 35.
Claims 28, 34 and 41 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0229215 to Baron, in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0092054 to Bhumkar and in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0126088 to Inoue et al. (hereinafter Inoue).
Claim 28, Baron and Bhumkar disclose all the elements of claim 22. Baron in view of Bhumkar does not explicitly disclose wherein the user interface displays respective slide show icons for a plurality of slide shows viewable via the user interface, a view request with respect to a particular one of the plurality of slide shows being triggered by user input selecting the slide icon corresponding to the particular slide show. However, in an analogous art, Inoue teaches:
wherein the user interface displays respective slide show icons for a plurality of slide shows viewable via the user interface (Inoue teaches user interface menu screen (¶Fig. 22) with multiple icons (i.e. 241, 242, 243) representing photo picture albums. Further, Inoue teaches user interface menu screen (¶Fig. 23) with multiple icons (i.e. 261, 262, 263) where the icon 261 representative of the slideshow (using picture content from Fig. 22: 241) alongside displaying the other video content icons 262 and 263), a view request with respect to a particular one of the plurality of slide shows being triggered by user input (Inoue teaches slideshow content being representative as icons and belong to “video” section on menu screen (¶273-¶278, Fig. 23) and icon 261 is representative of the slideshow content. The user can select the slideshow content in a same feeling as that upon selection of any other video content and perform reproduction and so forth of the slideshow content) selecting the slide icon corresponding to the particular slide show (Inoue teaches (¶299) icon 261 ‘Travel 1’ representing the slideshow content on the menu screen in Fig. 23)
It would have been obvious as of the effective filing date to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the server, comprising: a processor, and a memory storing instructions executed by the processor to: store a slide show comprising a plurality of slides created and published or posted by a user for viewing by one or more recipients, wherein each of the slides comprises a photograph, a video, an audio, an image, a text , a file, a link, an action and any combination thereof, the storing of the slide show comprising making the slide show available for viewing, upon request, via respective user devices associated with the one or more recipients, including subscribers, users of network, group of users, all or selected mutually connected users, and responsive to receiving a slide show or gallery view request from one of the one or more recipients, cause automated sequential display of the plurality of slides or messages on a corresponding user device, as disclosed by Baron in view of Bhumkar, and wherein the user interface displays respective slide show icons for a plurality of slide shows viewable via the user interface, a view request with respect to a particular one of the plurality of slide shows being triggered by user input selecting the slide icon corresponding to the particular slide show, as taught by Inoue, for the purpose of implementing (¶2) an information processing apparatus and method and a program wherein a plurality of data are successively outputted continuously at output timings scheduled in advance.
Claim 34, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 28. Therefore, claim 34 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 28.
Claim 41, do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 28. Therefore, claim 41 is rejected for the same rationale of rejection as set forth in claim 28.
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Applicant’s arguments and amendments, filed on 01/08/2026 with respect to the Claims 22 – 42 have been fully considered and they are persuasive. Hence, the 35 USC § 112a rejections are withdrawn.
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 HASSAN ABDUR-RAHMAN KHAN whose telephone number is (313)446-6574. The examiner can normally be reached TEAPP - (M-Sa) 9/30/17-9/30/18, 6am-10pm IFP.
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/H. A. K./
Examiner, Art Unit 2451
/Chris Parry/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2451