DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 09/16/2025 has been entered.
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, 14-18, 24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Razdow (WO 01/41412) in view of Rogers (US 20100158225)
Regarding claim 1, 14 and 21, Razdow teaches a device of a first party, comprising: a processing system including a processor; and a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
storing a first connection link for a call from the first party to a called party (Page 5 Lines 16-24; “To provide contact information beforehand, a registration Web page 49 (FIG. 3) may be generated by code 42 and displayed to a user on computer 12. To register, the user (either the caller or the callee) inputs contact information 50 where the user can be reached. The user may also input his name 51 .. and any other registration information. Registration is completed by clicking on "GO" button. The input registration information is then transmitted to central link server 14 for storage in database 46);
receiving a request for contact information of the called party from a third-party device (Page 7 Line 21-23 “Fig. 2, when the caller clicks on a callee's hyperlink, the identification information that is associated with the callee's hyperlink is transmitted, in step 201 b, over intermediary network 15 to central link server 14.”); and
sending a copy of the first connection link to the third-party device (Page 7 Line 32; “In step 202a, code 42 locates these”),
wherein the copy of the first connection link includes identifying information (Page 7 Line 21-23 “Fig. 2, when the caller clicks on a callee's hyperlink, the identification information that is associated with the callee's hyperlink is transmitted, in step 201 b, over intermediary network 15 to central link server 14.”; Page 7 Line 32; “In step 202a, code 42 locates these”),
causing a second device of the called party to display information identifying the first connection link at a time that the third-party device uses the copy to call the second device (Fig. 2 Step 203; establish telephone link; Page 8 L12-17 “The link results in the callee’s telephone ringing…the numbers may be retrieved ..links corresponding to these numbers may be displayed to the caller”);
activating a monitoring condition (limit when, and with whom, telephone link can be established; e.g., calls cannot be received from 11 :00 PM to 7:00 AM) associated with the first connection link, and
Invalidating (The hyperlink may also be set to expire after a predetermined time period) the first connection link after the monitoring condition is met” (P8 L24-62; “a party can restrict or limit the circumstances under which a telephone link can be established with that party. In particular, a party may identify himself to central link server 14 and instruct central link server 14 as to when, and with whom, calls can be established. Thus, using this option, it is possible for a party to limit the times during which a telephone link can be established (e.g., calls cannot be received from 11 :00 PM to 7:00 AM), or to limit parties with whom a telephone link can be established (e.g., calls can be received from family but not from work colleagues).. If the information resides in database 46, it may be stored in association with an identifier for the caller, and retrieved in response to receipt of that identifier. The hyperlink may also be set to expire after a predetermined time period.” Thus expiring is the same as invalidating the link.)
However, Razdow does not explicitly includes information identifying the first party as the referrer.
In an analogous art, Rogers teaches information identifying the first party as the referrer ([0150] “before transferring the call, Joe 13 can modify the calling party identifier information so as to indicate that the call is being forwarded to Janet, and in order to better indicate who the originator of the call is. For example, Joe 13 can modify the calling party identifier information such that the modified calling party identifier information that is provided to Janet 12 takes the form: JO FW JA: BARB SMITH (i.e. Joe is forwarding a call from Barb to Janet)”). Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Razdow’s teaching of displaying the caller ID to also include information identifying the first party as the referrer as taught by Rogers as a user-friendly feature to provide the callee more detail information thereby allowing the callee be more informed of the incoming call before picking up the call.
Regarding claim 2 and 22, Razdow and Rogers teach the device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise sending the copy of the first connection link to a network element of a communications network of the called party (Razdow Page 5 Lines 17-24; “To register, the user (either the caller or the callee) inputs contact information 50 where the user can be reached. The user may also input his name 51 .. and any other registration information. Registration is completed by clicking on "GO" button. The input registration information is then transmitted to central link server 14).
Regarding claim 3, 16 and 23, Razdow and Rogers teach the device of claim 2, wherein the operations further comprise calling the called party using the first connection link (Razdow Page 8 Lines 6-10, “In step 202b, code 42 retrieves the telephone numbers, or other contact information as the case may be, of the caller and the callee. In step 203, these numbers are used to establish a telephone link between the caller and the callee. Code 42 causes the link to be established by sending instructions/commands to telco interface 59 to establish the telephone link based on the numbers”).
Regarding claim 4, 17 and 24, Razdow and Rogers teach the device of claim 3, wherein the network element maintains a phone number for the second device in association with the first connection link (Razdow Page 6 Lines 6-8, “code 42 on central link server 14 outputs the contact information for the first and second parties and a request to make a connection between then to telco interface 59”).
Regarding claim 6, Razdow and Shuman teach the device of claim 5,
wherein the copy of the first connection link becomes permanent when the second
device accepts the call (Note: This "wherein" limitation is not positively recited as an
active step and is treated as an intended use. For a more positive outcome, the
examiner suggests amending this limitation to recite an active step of what action is
being positively performed.)
Regarding claim 15, Razdow and Rogers teach the method of claim 14, further comprising storing, by the processing system, the copy of the first connection link in the third-party device (Razdow Page 7 line 3-5; “The identification information that is associate with the hyperlink (either as part of the hyperlink or within the databased as the server or at both locations”; Page 5 Lines 16-24; “To provide contact information beforehand, a registration Web page 49 (FIG. 3) may be generated by code 42 and displayed to a user on computer 12. To register, the user (either the caller or the callee) inputs contact information 50 where the user can be reached. The user may also input his name 51 .. and any other registration information. Registration is completed by clicking on "GO" button. The input registration information is then transmitted to central link server 14 for storage in database 46);
Regarding claim 18, Razdow and Rogers teach the device of claim 1, except wherein causing comprising causing the copy of the first connection link to be temporary. In an analogous art, Jensen teaches the concept of comprising causing the copy of the first connection link to be temporary (Razdow; Page8 L24-62; “a party can restrict or limit the circumstances under which a telephone link can be established with that party. In particular, a party may identify himself to central link server 14 and instruct central link server 14 as to when, and with whom, calls can be established. Thus, using this option, it is possible for a party to limit the times during which a telephone link can be established (e.g., calls cannot be received from 11 :00 PM to 7:00 AM), or to limit parties with whom a telephone link can be established (e.g., calls can be received from family but not from work colleagues).. If the information resides in database 46, it may be stored in association with an identifier for the caller, and retrieved in response to receipt of that identifier. The hyperlink may also be set to expire after a predetermined time period.” Thus expiring is the same as invalidating the link.)
Claim(s) 5 and 25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Razdow (WO 01/41412) in view of Rogers (US 20150229770) further in view of Jensen (US 9049303)
Regarding claim 5 and 25, Razdow and Rogers teach the device of claim 1, except wherein causing the copy of the first connection link to expires after the third-party device initiates the call to the second device. In an analogous art, Jensen teaches the concept of causing the copy of a connection link to expires after the third-party device initiates the call to the second device (Razdow Page 13 L35-45 “after linking the second peripheral unit to said interface unit, monitoring the connection status of the audio connection to sense a call already underway or a call initiated after linking, and after the audio connection is completed, indicating the end of a call, the secondary wireless communication link expires, so that the user of the secondary peripheral unit may not listen into subsequent calls without re-authentication”). Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Razdow’s phone call using the connection link and Rogers’s teaching of referring information to also include Jensen’s teaching of expiring the communication link for security purpose as taught by Jensen (Page 13 L40-45 “after linking the second peripheral unit to said interface unit, monitoring the connection status of the audio connection to sense a call already underway or a call initiated after linking, and after the audio connection is completed, indicating the end of a call, the secondary wireless communication link expires, so that the user of the secondary peripheral unit may not listen into subsequent calls without re-authentication).
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Razdow (WO 01/41412) in view of Rogers (US 20150229770) further in view of DOWLATKHAH (US 20160373907)
Regarding claim 8, Razdow and Rogers teach the device of claim 1, wherein the processing system except for a plurality of processors operating in a distributed computing environment. In an analogous art, DOWLATKHAH teaches “plurality of processors operating in a distributed computing environment (Claim 12. “the processor comprises a plurality of processors operating in a distributed processing environment” [0082] “software implementations (e.g., software programs, instructions, etc.) including, but not limited to, distributed processing or component/object distributed processing, parallel processing, or virtual machine processing can also be constructed to implement the methods described herein.” [0083] While the tangible computer-readable storage medium 722 is shown in an example embodiment to be a single medium, the term “tangible computer-readable storage medium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more sets of instructions”). Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill to modify Razdow’s teaching of processor and Rogers’s teaching of call system to also include the plurality of processors operating in a distributed computing environment to increase reliability and improved performance.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 19-20 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Regarding claim 7 and 19, the cited prior art do not teach wherein the operations further comprise causing the copy of the first connection link to become permanent when the second device accepts the call.
Regarding claim 20, the cited prior art do not teach wherein the copy of the first connection link becomes permanent when the second device accepts the referring information.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-8 and 14-25 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground of rejection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUNG L LAM whose telephone number is (571)272-6497. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday -Thursday 9-5pm.
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/Dung Lam/
Examiner, Art Unit 2617
/MATTHEW D. ANDERSON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2646