DETAILED ACTION
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
This final office action is in response to the amendment filed 19 September 2025.
Claims 2-21 are pending. Claims 2 and 12 are independent claims.
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 (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.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 2-7, 9-17, and 19-21 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Rohall et al. (US 2008/0192302, filed 16 March 2008, hereafter Rohall) and further in view of Kumar et al. (US 2001/0051907, published 13 December 2001, hereafter Kumar) and further in view of Brezina et al. (US 2009/0177754, filed 5 January 2009, hereafter Brezina), and further in view of McCarthy et al. (US 7328242, patented 5 February 2008, hereafter McCarthy), and further in view of Mukherjea et al. (US 6415282, patented 2 July 2002, hereafter Mukherjea) and further in view of Limberg (US 2008/0144784, published 19 June 2008).
As per independent claim 2, Rohall discloses a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium encoded with instructions executable by a processor of a computing device, the non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions to perform a method for presenting relational information (see Paragraph 0083 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that a software implementation of the above-described embodiments may comprise a series of computer instructions either fixed on a tangible medium.), the method comprising:
producing a map to electronically stored information (see Paragraph 0057 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that visualization of conversation thread trees is possible. A simple graphical representation of the message thread and highlighting of the interesting relationships among the parties involved in the conversation is possible. The tree data compiled by a generator may then be provided to a graphics program for visually rendering a conceptual representation of a conversation thread tree. Also see Figure 7, which illustrates a visualization of a message tree mapped to a timeline.) by:
in a semantic processor comprising a similarity engine:
extracting a plurality of entities from electronically stored information (see Paragraph 0076 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that contact data may be aggregated using extraction software from users’ organizer information.);
identifying a plurality of threads from the electronically stored information (see Paragraph 0060 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that multiple recent threads of conversation may be presented.); and
in a relationship builder:
determining a plurality of relationships among the plurality of entities according to the plurality of threads (see Paragraph 0060 and Figure 7 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that in a threads visualization, the entity nodes may be color-coded to indicate the relationship of the message senders to the recipient.),
in a visualization processor:
displaying the relationships of messages or transactions in the thread (see Paragraph 0057 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that visualization of conversation thread trees is possible. A simple graphical representation of the message thread and highlighting of the interesting relationships among the parties involved in the conversation is possible. The tree data compiled by a generator may then be provided to a graphics program for visually rendering a conceptual representation of a conversation thread tree. Also see Figure 7, which illustrates a visualization of a message tree mapped to a timeline.), wherein:
each of the plurality of threads is associated with a root originator (see Paragraph 0047 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that a mail message may be considered the parent document and serves as the root from which a conversation thread tree is derived. Also see Paragraph 0047 – Rohall further discloses this limitation in that metadata of the root document may include sender.),
each of the plurality of threads is associated with a first piece of data from the root originator (see Paragraph 0047 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that a mail message may be considered the parent document and serves as the root from which a conversation thread tree is derived.),
each of the plurality of threads is associated with a second piece of data in response to the root originator (see Paragraph 0047 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that any replies to the original mail message are considered children documents within the conversation thread.).
Rohall fails to specifically disclose:
researching whether an entity of the plurality of entities has participated in a transaction regarding a particular stock
accessing accounts of each entity of the plurality of entities
However, Kumar, which is analogous to the claimed invention because it is directed toward managing stock portfolios, discloses:
researching whether an entity of the plurality of entities has participated in a transaction regarding a particular stock (Figure 13; paragraph 0197-0198: Here, an interface is provided that displays transaction histories associated with an account)
accessing accounts of each entity of the plurality of entities (Figure 3; paragraph 0085: Here, access to a portfolio account is provided based upon logging in via a set of credentials)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to have combined Kumar with Rohall, with a reasonable expectation of success, as it would have facilitated storing and accessing transaction histories to display in conjunction with other processed data, such as messages. This would have provided a user with a unified interface for displaying various types of information in a single display.
Rohall fails to expressly disclose:
the plurality of relationships comprises a plurality of relationship types.
Brezina, which is analogous to the claimed invention because it is directed toward identifying relationship types, discloses:
the plurality of relationships comprises a plurality of relationship types (see Paragraph 0069-0072 – Brezina teaches this limitation in that the system monitors, stores, and alerts the user to relationship types, such as “highly sensitive”, work/personal, or corresponding to different groups of potential recipients.).
Both Rohall and Brezina are concerned with extracting information from message data in order to infer information for a user. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the invention was made to modify the method, disclosed in Rohall, to include the plurality of relationships comprises a plurality of relationship types for the purpose of reducing the number of unintended recipients while sending an email correspondence (see Paragraph 0067).
The combination of Rohall and Brezina fails to expressly teach:
each of the plurality of threads is associated with a particular color, and
a rectangular box colored in a lighter shade of the particular color indicates that a recipient has received the second piece of data.
McCarthy, which is analogous to the claimed invention because it is directed toward displaying relationships using colors, teaches:
each of the plurality of threads is associated with a particular color (see Column 14, Lines 30-35 – McCarthy teaches this limitation in that each thread may be indicated in various colors or shades of gray.), and
a rectangular box colored in a lighter shade of the particular color indicates that a recipient has received the second piece of data (see Column 13, Lines 24-30 – McCarthy teaches this limitation in that newly received communication on a thread may trigger a notification to a user by highlighting the displayed indication for that thread in the thread summary window.).
Rohall, Brezina, and McCarthy are concerned with extracting information from message data in order to infer information for a user. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the invention was made to modify the method, taught in Rohall and Brezina, to include:
each of the plurality of threads is associated with a particular color, and
a rectangular box colored in a lighter shade of the particular color indicates that a recipient has received the second piece of data
for the purpose of alerting a user to updates after thread communications are received (see Column 13, Lines 20-33).
Rohall fails to specifically disclose an indexing and search engine.
However, Mukherjea, which is analogous to the claimed invention because it is directed toward improving visualizations, discloses an indexing and search engine (Figure 3; column 5, lines 4-18). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to have combined Mukherjea with Rohall-Brezina-McCarthy, with a reasonable expectation of success, as it would have allowed for indexing and searching clusters. This would have improved a user experience as contents would be labeled and clustered to facilitate providing related contents within the visualization.
Finally, Rohall fails to specifically disclose displaying the relationship of messages or transactions in the thread as a multidimensional spatial-temporal map that simultaneously presents communications and transactions in two or three dimensions, the presentation permitting incremental updates without reloading a dataset, thereby reducing processor cycles and network bandwidth compared to conventional message-thread displays.
However, Limberg, which is analogous to the claimed invention because it is directed toward displaying linked messages, discloses the relationship of messages or transactions in the thread as a multidimensional spatial-temporal map that simultaneously presents communications and transactions in two or three dimensions, the presentation permitting incremental updates without reloading a dataset, thereby reducing processor cycles and network bandwidth compared to conventional message-thread displays (Figures 4-6; paragraph 0059: Here, a link affordance controls the ability to contextually link messages before or after sending the messages). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to have combined Limberg with Rohall-Kumar-Brezina-McCarthy-Mukherjea, with a reasonable expectation of success, as it would have allowed for linking and displaying related messages in a thread (Limberg: paragraph 0059).
As per dependent claim 3, Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg disclose the limitations similar to those in claim 2, and the same rejection is incorporated herein. Rohall discloses wherein each of the plurality of threads comprises one or more messages from multiple types of communications (see Paragraph 0005 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that the electronic mail may consist of invitations, receipts, transactions, discussions, conversations, tasks, and/or newsletters.).
As per dependent claim 4, Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg discloses the limitations similar to those in claim 2, and the same rejection is incorporated herein. Brezina discloses wherein each of the plurality of threads comprises a financial information thread that is displayed independently from a communication thread (see Paragraph 0026 and Figure 1 – Brezina teaches this limitation in that “Conversations” are displayed separately from other data groups, such as attachments from threads. Also see Paragraph 0090 – Brezina further teaches that transaction information such as invoices and payments, may be displayed to the user upon search.).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the invention was made to modify the method, disclosed in Rohall, to include wherein each of the plurality of threads comprises a financial information thread that is displayed independently from a communication thread for the purpose of reducing the number of unintended recipients while sending an email correspondence (see Paragraph 0067). Further, both Rohall and Brezina are concerned with extracting information from message data in order to infer information for a user.
As per dependent claim 5, Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg disclose the limitations similar to those in claim 2, and the same rejection is incorporated herein. Rohall discloses wherein the method comprises using a feedback loop to identify a document related to a relationship of the plurality of relationships (see Paragraph 0066 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that the preprocessing module determines if a message has a parent. If the message has a parent, the determining steps are then repeated with the message’s parents, in a recursive manner, until all ancestors of the message have been preprocessed, summarized, and the resulting individual document summaries prepended into a summary document.).
As per dependent claim 6, Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg disclose the limitations similar to those in claim 2, and the same rejection is incorporated herein. Rohall discloses wherein the method comprises identifying a new message related to a relationship of the plurality of relationships (see Paragraph 0051 and Figure 5A – Rohall discloses this limitation in that upon receiving a message, the parent/child, and root document associated with the message is determined per the stored shadow document. Also see Paragraph 0070 – Rohall further discloses this limitation in that the shadow document containing the summarization of the complete conversation thread may be updated or recomputed each time a new electronic message related to the specific thread is summarized. Therefore, the incoming message is continuously compared against an updated shadow document of message data.).
As per dependent claim 7, Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg disclose the limitations similar to those in claim 2, and the same rejection is incorporated herein. Rohall discloses wherein the method comprises displaying a graph of relationships of a selected relationship type (see Paragraph 0057 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that conversation thread trees may be rendered graphically to highlight specific relationships among the parties involved in a conversation.).
As per dependent claim 9, Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg disclose the limitations similar to those in claim 2, and the same rejection is incorporated herein. Rohall discloses wherein the method comprises selectively normalizing a time history of the plurality of relationships (see Paragraph 0060 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that time is non-linear in this display; days with little or no activity are shown compressed to avoid the problem of large gaps in the time display. For example, a timeline can be broken to show a large passage of time. This might be useful if electronic mail is received from someone infrequently. In that case, the system could show on the timeline the most recent threads of conversation with that person.).
As per dependent claim 10, Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, and Mukherjea disclose the limitations similar to those in claim 2, and the same rejection is incorporated herein. Rohall discloses wherein the plurality of entities are determined by a noun-phrase concept (see Paragraph 0067 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that the useful “features” found in the message, such as names, dates, and names of companies and/or products are extracted by the feature extraction module and the output thereof are added to the summary document.).
As per dependent claim 11, Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg disclose the limitations similar to those in claim 2, and the same rejection is incorporated herein. Rohall discloses wherein the plurality of relationship types comprises a financial relationship (see Paragraph 0005 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that the electronic mail from which relationships are derived may consist of receipts and transactions.).
With respect to claims 12-17 and 19-21, the applicant discloses the limitations substantially similar to those in claims 2-7 and 9-11, respectively. Additionally, Rohall discloses:
a system for presenting relational information, the system comprising:
a memory operable to store information (see Paragraph 0031);
a processor operable to perform the method (see Paragraph 0031); and
a map generator configured to map electronically stored information (see Paragraph 0057 – Rohall discloses this limitation in that visualization of conversation thread trees is possible. A simple graphical representation of the message thread and highlighting of the interesting relationships among the parties involved in the conversation is possible. The tree data compiled by a generator may then be provided to a graphics program for visually rendering a conceptual representation of a conversation thread tree. Also see Figure 7, which illustrates a visualization of a message tree mapped to a timeline.).
Claims 12-17 and 19-21 are similarly rejected.
Claims 8 and 18 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg, further in view of Nickolayev et al. (US 2010/0211419, filed 13 February 2009, hereafter Nickovayev).
As per dependent claim 8, Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg disclose the limitations similar to those in claim 2, and the same rejection is incorporated herein. Rohall fails to specifically disclose wherein the method comprises overlaying a financial thread on a travel thread.
However, Nickolayev, which is analogous to the claimed invention because it is directed toward including financial data within a thread, discloses:
wherein the method comprises overlaying a financial thread on a travel thread (see Paragraph 0026 – Nickolayev teaches this limitation in that price information may be overlaid over travel information on the graph.).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the invention was made to modify the method, taught in the combination of Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, and Mukherjea to include:
wherein the method comprises overlaying a financial thread on a travel thread.
for the purpose of providing a concise presentation to the user (see Paragraph 0033). Further, both Rohall and Nickolayev are concerned with presenting relevant information to a user in a graph.
With respect to claim 18, the applicant discloses the limitations substantially similar to those in claim 8. Claim 18 is similarly rejected.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection of claims under 35 USC 101 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection of claims under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Rohall, Kumar, Brezina, McCarthy, Mukherjea, and Limberg.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Bernard Kerr (THREAD ARCS: An Email Thread Visualization, 2003): Discloses threaded email visualization (Abstract; Figure 18)
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 KYLE R STORK whose telephone number is (571)272-4130. The examiner can normally be reached 8am - 2pm; 4pm - 6pm.
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/KYLE R STORK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2128