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 .
The Status of the Claims
Claims 1-4, 7-11 and 14-20 are pending for examination.
Claims 1, 8 and 15 are independent Claims.
Claims 1-4, 7-11 and 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103.
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, 7-11 and 14-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sheoran et al. (U.S. 2021/0089331 hereinafter Sheoran) in view of DeFilippo et al. (U.S. 2022/0366277 hereinafter DeFilippo).
As Claim 1, Sheoran teaches a method, comprising:
operating an environment evaluation system for working with a host system that is configured to host an online platform (Sheoran (¶0008), an online platform for evaluating and facilitating modification to an interactive user experience) and perform a modification of interface elements of the online platform based on an interface experience metric computed from interaction data (Sheoran (¶0016 line 20-24, ¶0061 line 1-4), modifying the layout of interface element based on user’s level of expertise); and
performing, with one or more processing devices of the environment evaluation system, operations comprising:
accessing interaction data recording interactions by a plurality of users with the online platform (Sheoran (¶0018 line 1-5, ¶0019 line 1-4), users’ interactions are mapped to the goal clusters);
computing, based on the interaction data, a plurality of interface experience metrics (Sheoran (¶0060 line 1-3), “the process 300 involves computing an interface experience metric 110 (interface experience metrics) for each sequence of user interactions included in the interaction data 116”) comprising a plurality of individual experience metrics and a plurality of transition experience metric (Sheoran (¶0060 last 4 lines); “The interface experience metrics 110 for the sequences of user interactions can indicate whether an end user had a positive, a negative, or a neutral experience (individual experience metrics) when generating the sequences (transition experience metric) of user interactions”), wherein computing the plurality of interface experience metrics includes:
calculating an individual experience metric, wherein the individual experience metric for the user represents a portion of the user’s pair wise successive interactions with the online platform that show an increase in proxy rating values associated with the user (Sheoran (¶0060 last 4 lines); “The interface experience metrics 110 for the sequences of user interactions can indicate whether an end user had a positive, a negative, or a neutral experience (individual experience metrics) when generating the sequences (transition experience metric) of user interactions”. Individual experience as positive is construed an increase in proxy rating value); and
for each pair of successive interactions with the online platform, calculating a transition experience metric, wherein the transition experience metric represents a proportion of all instances of a pair of successive interactions (Sheoran (¶0060 line 3-6), system computes values from current click state to all possible other click states) that show an increase in proxy rating values (Sheoran (¶0039 line 1-12), a potential next click states can increase/decrease a quality of user’s experience);
transmitting, to the host system data including, for each identified user, information identifying the frictional transition, the individual experience metrics, and the transition experience metrics (Sheoran (¶0042 line 1-2, ¶0060 last 4 lines), experience metric 110 is transmitted to the host system. Interface experience metric 110 includes a positive, a negative or a neutral experience. Negative experience is construed as frictional transition);
modifying the one or more interface elements of the online platform (Sheoran (¶0061, line 1-4), host system modifies interface elements based on the interface experience metric 110),
wherein performing the modification comprises transmitting modified content of the one or more interface elements of the online platform (Sheoran (¶0062 line 1-2), a website structure used in the online platform) to user devices associated with the plurality of users to improve at least one of the individual experience metrics or the transition experience metrics (Sheoran (¶0061 line 11-13), interface elements are modified when lower user experience metrics are received. It is construed as the purpose is to improve the lower user experience metrics).
Sheoran does not explicitly disclose:
for each user of the plurality of users,
identifying, among the plurality of users, all users whose individual experience metric is below an individual experience threshold value;
for each identified user whose individual experience metric is below the individual experience threshold value, identifying each pair of successive interactions made by such identified user with the online platform having a corresponding transition experience metric lower than a transition experience metric threshold, wherein each such pair of successive interactions is considered a frictional transition within the online platform: and
identifying, based at least in part on the data, one or more interface elements of the online platform where a layout should be modified to address the frictional transition and improve at least one of the individual experience metrics or the transition experience metrics; and
DeFilippo teaches:
for each user of the plurality of users (DeFilippo (¶0139), “the interaction model 1820 is specific to a particular workflow and/or a particular representative. Other interaction models can be specific to other workflows and/or other representatives.”),
identifying, among the plurality of users, all users whose individual experience metric is below an individual experience threshold value (DeFilippo (¶0150 line 4-8)), “Agents on team X generally do action or sequence Y, which often leads to undesirable results (below an individual experience threshold value), here is recommended alternative behaviors a team wide recommendation: ...”);
for each identified user whose individual experience metric is below the individual experience threshold value, identifying each pair of successive interactions made by such identified user with the online platform having a corresponding transition experience metric lower than a transition experience metric threshold (DeFilippo (¶0113), “The support representative 1702 may use a browser on the computing device 1706 to navigate away from the case management application towards an external website … The interaction analyzer/recommendation engine 1734 can determine that the current behavior of the support representative 1702 is likely to result in a poor customer experience (lower than a transition experience metric threshold).” DeFilippo (¶0149), “Representative-level recommendations can include recommendations such as: 1) "You generally or often perform interaction X before performing interaction Y -alternatively, performing interaction Z before interaction Y is preferred";”), wherein each such pair of successive interactions is considered a frictional transition within the online platform (DeFilippo (¶0132, fig. 18B), fig. 18B displays plurality of user’s interactive patterns. Patterns are categorized as good/bad. Bad patterns are construed as frictional transitions): and
identifying, based at least in part on the data, one or more interface elements of the online platform where a layout should be modified to address the frictional transition and improve at least one of the individual experience metrics or the transition experience metrics (DeFilippo (¶0150 line 4-11)), “Agents at site Y affirmatively respond to suggestions at less than a desired 90% level, site wide communication is recommended (one or more interface elements)”).
Sheoran disclose a system/method to categorize user interactions as good, bad or neutral. DeFillipo teaches a system/method to provide recommendation to the user based on good or bad transitions. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine successive actions metric of Sheoran with a recommendation system by DeFilippo, with a reasonable expectation of success. The motivation would be to allow “the personalized recommendations [be] presented to the operator in real time to direct and improve operator behavior” (DeFilippo (¶0003 last 3 lines)).
As Claim 2, besides Claim 1, Sheoran in view of DeFilippo teaches wherein:
accessing the interaction data comprises accessing the interaction data of a user during a session of the user browsing the online platform (Sheoran (¶0019 line 1-4), user interactions are mapped to the goal clusters);
computing the individual experience metric for the user comprises computing a plurality of individual experience metric instances during the session (Sheoran (¶0019 line 1-4), user interactions are mapped to the goal clusters); and
performing the modification of the interface elements comprises modifying the interface elements to include an interface element configured to activate a virtual agent to intervene the session based on determining that the user encounters one of the friction transitions in the session (Sheoran (¶0043 line 9-14), system (virtual agent) updates to the second mode when user has an undesirable experience).
As Claim 3, besides Claim 2, Sheoran in view of DeFilippo teaches wherein determining that the user has a poor experience in the session according to the plurality of individual experience metric instances comprises determining that the plurality of individual experience metric instances has a decreasing trend (Sheoran (¶0043 line 9-14), system (virtual agent) updates to the second mode when user has an undesirable experience. Sheoran (¶0005 last 3 lines), system changes user interface element arrangements in order to improve user interface experience metrics).
As Claim 4, besides Claim 2, Sheoran in view of DeFilippo teaches wherein each of the plurality of individual experience metric instances is calculated each time when the user interacts with the online platform (Sheoran (¶0043 line 9-14), during each session, an interface experience metric is calculated).
As Claim 7, besides Claim 1, Sheoran in view of DeFilippo teaches wherein accessing the interaction data comprises accessing the interaction data of the plurality of users after sessions of the plurality of users browsing the online platform have completed, and wherein the operations further comprise:
clustering the plurality of users based on a pattern of the individual experience metrics associated with respective users (Sheoran (¶0019 line 1-4), user interactions are mapped to the goal clusters); and
presenting the individual experience metrics and the transition experience metrics based on clustering of the plurality of users (Sheoran (¶0069 line 1-4, fig. 7), series of action patterns are depicted as clusters in figure 7).
As Claim 8, Sheoran teaches a system comprising:
a host system (Sheoran (¶0072 line 3-4), processor executes computer-executable program) configured to:
The rest of the limitations are rejected for the same reasons as Claim 1.
As Claims 9-11, 14, Claims 9-17 are rejected for the same reasons as Claim 2-4, 7, respectively.
As Claim 15, Claim 15 is rejected for the same reasons as Claim 1.
As Claim 16, Claim 16 is rejected for the same reasons as Claim 1.
As Claim 17, Claim 17 is rejected for the same reasons as Claim 2.
As Claim 18, Claim 18 is rejected for the same reasons as Claim 3.
As Claim 19, Claim 19 is rejected for the same reasons as Claim 4.
As Claim 20, Claim 20 is rejected for the same reasons as Claim 7.
Response to Arguments
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. §103:
As Claims 1-4, 7-11 and 14-20, Applicants argue that Sheoran and DeFilippo does not disclose “identifying, for each user, each pair of successive interactions with a transition experience metric below a threshold” (third paragraph of page 12 in the remarks).
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Applicants’ arguments are not persuasive DeFilippo (¶0113) teaches “The support representative 1702 may use a browser on the computing device 1706 to navigate away from the case management application towards an external website … The interaction analyzer/recommendation engine 1734 can determine that the current behavior of the support representative 1702 is likely to result in a poor customer experience (lower than a transition experience metric threshold).”
Other independent(s)/dependent(s) Claims are not allowable for the same reasons above.
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.
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/NHAT HUY T NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2147
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