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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I (claims 1-13, 16 and 18-20) in the reply filed on 10/14/2025 is acknowledged. Claim 14 is withdrawn from consideration
Claim Objections
Claims 3, 6 and 8 are objected to because of the following informalities: the claim recites “and the in response to the selection operation on the object identifiers, determining the target object identifier from the multiple object identifiers”. Appropriate correction is required.
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 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.
Claims 1, 3, 5, 11, 16, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Eatedali et al. (US 20200155948) in view of Gjertson et al. (US 11741528).
Claim 1. Eatedali et al. (Eatedali) teaches a computer-implemented method for recommending a video game-related product, wherein a graphical user interface is provided through a first terminal device, the first terminal device is configured to control a first virtual object [0029], and the method comprises:
displaying at least one virtual item through the graphical user interface [0006], [0036];
in response to a first operation on a target virtual item in the at least one virtual item, displaying multiple object identifiers on the graphical user interface, wherein second virtual objects corresponding to the object identifiers and the first virtual object belong to a same camp/(“teammates of the recommender in video game play”) [0007], [0030];
in response to a selection operation on the object identifiers, determining a target object identifier (“game players to which a recommendation should be provided”) from the multiple object identifiers [0018], [0038]; and
in response to a sending operation, sending, to the second virtual object corresponding to the target object identifier, a message [0019] carrying an identifier of the target virtual item (“text entered into the computing device by a recommender”), causing a second terminal device, used for controlling the second virtual object corresponding to the target object identifier, to display the target virtual item on a graphical user interface of the second terminal device [0016], [0017], [0039].
Eatedali does not explicitly teach that said message includes a push message.
Gjertson et al. (Gjertson) teaches a computer-implemented method of providing recommendations wherein an application server can send a push message at any time, even when a web application or user agent is inactive (col. 7, lines 4-6).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Eatedali to include that said message includes a push message, as disclosed in Gjertson, because it would advantageously ensure reliable and efficient delivery to the user, as taught by Gjertson (col. 7, lines 6-7).
Claim 3. Eatedali teaches said method wherein the graphical user interface provides a selection responding area, the selection responding area is separated from an area corresponding to the object identifiers, and in response to the selection operation on the object identifiers, determining the target object identifier from the multiple object identifiers comprises: in response to the selection operation on the selection responding area, determining the multiple object identifiers as the target object identifier (Fig. 1).
Claim 5. Eatedali teaches said method, wherein the displaying at least one virtual item through the graphical user interface is at least one step of: displaying, through the graphical user interface, at least one virtual item currently recommended; and displaying at least one virtual item through an equipment purchasing interface, wherein the equipment purchasing interface is an interface displayed in response to a fifth operation on a store control of the graphical user interface [0029], [0015].
Claim 11. Eatedali teaches said method wherein the displaying the multiple object identifiers on the graphical user interface comprises: obtaining location information of the target virtual item; determining a target area matching the location information; displaying the multiple object identifiers in the target area of the graphical user interface (Fig. 1).
System claim 16 repeats the subject matter of method claim 1, as a set of apparatus elements rather than a series of steps. As the underlying processes of claim 1 have been shown to be fully disclosed by the teachings of Eatedali and Gjertson in the above rejections of claim 1, it is readily apparent that the system disclosed by Eatedali and Gjertson includes the apparatus to perform these functions. As such, these limitations are rejected for the same reasons given above for method claim 1, and incorporated herein.
Claim 19. Eatedali teaches said method, wherein the location information of the target virtual item is coordinates of a central location of the target virtual item, and the target area is an area for displaying the object identifiers (Fig. 1).
Claim 20. Eatedali teaches said method wherein the fifth operation is at least one operation of a click operation, a double-click operation and a long press operation [0029], [0015].
Claims 2 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over e combination of Eatedali and Gjertson, in view of Official Notice.
Claim 2. The combination of Eatedali and Gjertson teaches all the limitations of claim 2 except determining the target virtual item as a preordered item.
Official Notice is taken that it is old and well known to preorder products.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include determining the target virtual item as a preordered item in the system of Eatedali and Gjertson, since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable. KSR, 127 S.Ct. at 1740, 82 USPQ2d at 1396.
Claim 4. Eatedali teaches said method, wherein the selection operation is at least one operation of a click operation and a slide operation [0020].
Claims 12, 13 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Eatedali and Gjertson, in view of Li et al. (US 20130268897).
Claim 12. The combination of Eatedali and Gjertson teaches all the limitations of claim 12 except providing a preset mask on an upper layer of the graphical user interface, and displaying the multiple object identifiers on the preset mask.
Li et al. (Li) teaches a computer-implemented method of providing an interactive interface. The processing unit is configured to, when the selectable object in the main menu selection area is selected and moves towards a position where any one of the two first boundaries is located and the selected selectable object crosses over a predetermined position (preset mask), replace the selected selectable object in the main menu selection area with predetermined upper-level selectable objects or lower-level selectable objects correlated to the selected selectable object [0042].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Eatedali and Gjertson to include providing a preset mask on an upper layer of the graphical user interface, and displaying the multiple object identifiers on the preset mask, as suggested by Li, because it would advantageously meet the ergonomic requirements, as taught by Li [0015].
Claims 13 and 18. Same reasoning applied to claim 12.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 7, 8-10 are 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 11253780 to Yamanokuchi et al. discloses a game device having slide-operation-driven user interface. The information processing apparatus configured to execute a game content specifying step of specifying a selected game content on the basis of first input operation data from an operation unit, a step of retrieving information from a storage unit, a step of specifying a direction from a start point to an end point of a second input operation on the basis of second input operation data from an operation unit, and an execution step of executing one process associated with the direction from the start point to the end point of the second input operation in the information from the storage unit on the selected game content.
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/MILA AIRAPETIAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3688