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 .
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 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.
Examiner’s Note
This Office Action is in response to application filed on 1/27/2023 and election to restriction filed on 8/28/2025, where claims 1-10 are withdrawn; and claims 11-20 are currently pending.
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 19 and 20 are 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claims 19 and 20 are rejected to because of the following: claim 19 recites “comprising identifying an image on the browser page”. The element “image” is recited with the article “an”, which indicates it being the first recitation of such element. However, the same element is also recited in claim 11, which instant claim depends from. However, there is no unique identifier to clearly distinguish the two elements. Therefore, it is unclear whether they are the same element or are different and distinct elements. As such, renders the claim indefinite. It is suggested to amendment the image element with unique identifiers, e.g., first, second, etc., distinguish the elements of the same name if they are different and distinct elements, and amendment the limitation above to recite the article “the” if it is referencing to the element recited in claim 11.
Claim 20 is rejected to as having the same deficiencies as the claim it depends from.
Claim 20 is rejected to because of the following: claim 20 recites “wherein identifying an image comprises”. The element “image” is recited with the article “an”, which has the same issue as discussed for claim 19 above. See rejection above.
Claim 20 further recites “comprises a filtering based on the user profile”. The element “user profile” is recite with the article “the”, which indicates it is referencing a previously recited element of the same name. However, there is no mentioning of the “user profile” in either claim 19, which instant claim depends directly from, and claim 11, which instant claim depends indirectly from. Therefore, it is unclear which element it is referring to. As such, render the claim indefinite.
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 of this title, 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 11-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Funaro, (US 8,819,053 B1) (hereinafter Funaro) in view of Renaudie et al., (US 20150317569 A1) (hereinafter Renaudie).
Referring to claim 11, Funaro teaches a computer-implemented method for displaying services on a user device displaying a browser page, comprising:
determining service data related to an image of the browser page (1:32-34, “Implementations of the present disclosure can allow a user to initiate a travel search to a particular location upon viewing an item displayed on a web page”. 1:38-40, “receiving an input including an item; receiving information associated with the item, the information including implicit information”. 1:62-2:2, “The item is an image or a text string. The information further includes a geo tag…The implicit information includes one or more of an IP address, a set of one or more recognizable features of a locatable object associated with the item, or an indirect indicator of the geographic location.”);
retrieving, based on the service data related to the image,…from a database (4:67-5:6, “If the information received by the travel portal system in association with the image 302 does not include explicit geographic location information, then the travel portal system can execute image recognition software at the server to identify the object in the image based on image data stored in a repository, e.g., the data store 118 of FIG. 1.”);
displaying a graphical user interface element in the browser page (5:50-60, fig. 3, “FIG. 3 depicts an example travel portal web page 300 from which a travel search may be initiated. The travel portal web page 300 can be launched in a browser upon a user selecting, e.g., clicking on, the image 302 displayed on another web page 301. The travel portal web page 300 can include a departure location field 304, a departure date field 306, and a departure time field 308. In some implementations, the departure location field 304 can be prepopulated with information provided by the travel portal system and determined based on information, e.g., geographic location information, associated with the user.” 6:1-5, fig. 3, “The travel portal web page 300 further includes an arrival location field 310. In some implementations, the arrival location field 310 can be prepopulated with information provided by the travel portal system and determined based on location information associated with the image 302.”);
upon receiving user input related to the graphical user interface element, displaying a result corresponding to the retrieved list of services on the user device (6:34-42, fig. 3, “Upon desired information being provided in the search fields 304-320, the user can select, e.g., click on, a submission icon 322 to submit the information to the travel planning system and thus continue planning the trip. In some examples, information relating to airline schedules, pricing, lodging, activities, and any other information associated with the travel plan to the selected arrival location 310 can be provided in another web page upon the user selecting the submission icon 322.”),
wherein the steps of determining and retrieving are executed as a continuous task on the user device (4:33-42, fig. 2, “in association with the item received by the travel portal system 202, the travel portal system can, in some examples, further receive information, e.g., geographic location information, associated with the item 204…the information associated with the item can include implicit information”. 4:54-58, fig. 2, “If the travel portal system has not received explicit information 206 associated with the item, then the travel portal system can determine explicit information associated with the item based on implicit information”. Examiner notes, based on the above disclosure and figure 2, it is clear that the steps are executed as continuous task where step 206 is executed immediately after step 204 as shown in figure.)
Funaro teaches the above limitations. However, Funaro does not explicitly teach retrieving a list of services.
Renaudie teaches retrieving a list of services from a database (¶ [0128], fig. 11, “in block 456, one or more travel offer databases may be accessed to attempt to identify one or more relevant travel offers. The travel offer databases may be associated with multiple travel-related entities, or may be dedicated to specific travel-related entities, e.g., so that specific travel-related entities such as travel providers or travel agencies can individually manage the travel offers they wish to present to potential customers…If not, block 458 passes control to block 462 to access a travel product database (e.g., an open flight search database) to generate an offer”.)
Funaro and Renaudie are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with interface for displaying service based on an image (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Funaro and Renaudie before them to modify the method of receiving and determining implicit and explicit information related to an item of Funaro to incorporate the function of retrieving items from a database as taught by Renaudie. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements using known methods as disclosed by Renaudie (¶ [0018]-[0133]), because the function of retrieving items from a database does not depend on the method of receiving and determining implicit and explicit information related to an item. That is the function of retrieving items from a database performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would be predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to improving user experience by providing recommendations as suggested by Renaudie (¶ [0128]).
Referring to claim 12, Funaro further teaches the method according to claim 11 wherein determining service data related to the image comprises identifying a geographical location displayed in the image (1:62-63, “The information further includes a geo tag”).
Referring to claim 13, Funaro further teaches the method according to claim 12 wherein the geographical location is based on geolocation metadata associated with the image (1:62-63, “The information further includes a geo tag”).
Referring to claim 14, Funaro further teaches the method according to claim 11 wherein determining service data related to the image comprises identifying an activity (1:32-35, travel) related to the image (1:32-35, “Implementations of the present disclosure can allow a user to initiate a travel search to a particular location upon viewing an item displayed on a web page that is associated with the particular location.”)
Referring to claim 15, Funaro further teaches the method according to claim 11 wherein an origin is determined based on user-related location data (5:54-60, “The travel portal web page 300 can include a departure location field 304, a departure date field 306, and a departure time field 308. In some implementations, the departure location field 304 can be prepopulated with information provided by the travel portal system and determined based on information, e.g., geographic location information, associated with the user.”)
Funaro teaches the limitations above. However, Funaro does not explicitly teach retrieving is also based on the origin.
Renaudie further teaches retrieving is also based on the origin (¶ [0104], “a user may be directed to a closest “physical” travel agency, known to be in the immediate vicinity of the user based upon the user's known current location and travel agency database 116 (FIG. 2), which may include information about the travel agency, contact information, geolocation data and current available offers), and offering a special deal on the desired location.”)
Referring to claim 16, Funaro further teaches the method according to claim 15 wherein user related location data comprise the ip address of the user device or GPS data of the user device (4:27-32, “the geographic location information associated with the user can be obtained from…an internet protocol (IP) address associated with the client device.”)
Referring to claim 17, Funaro further teaches the method according to claim 11 wherein the graphical user interface element is only displayed if service data related to the image has been determined and a list of services has been retrieved from the database (Fig. 2, Examiner notes, figure 2 discloses step 208 is performed only after steps 206 or 212 is performed).
Referring to claim 18, Funaro teaches the method of claim 11. However, Funaro does not explicitly teach the step of retrieving is also based on a user profile.
Renaudie further teaches the step of retrieving is also based on a user profile (¶ [0104], “a user may be directed to a closest “physical” travel agency, known to be in the immediate vicinity of the user based upon the user's known current location and travel agency database 116 (FIG. 2), which may include information about the travel agency, contact information, geolocation data and current available offers), and offering a special deal on the desired location.” ¶ [0096], “a user may be associated with a default location, e.g., as specified in a user profile. The default location, for example, may be associated with the user's home address. In some embodiments, the user may set a preference favoring the user's current location or default location as the initial travel origination location input.”)
Referring to claim 19, Funaro further teaches the method according to claim 11 comprising identifying an image on the browser page (1:32-34, “Implementations of the present disclosure can allow a user to initiate a travel search to a particular location upon viewing an item displayed on a web page”. 1:62, “The item is an image or a text string.”)
Referring to claim 20, Funaro further teaches the method according to claim 19 wherein identifying an image comprises a filtering based on the user profile (2:57-66, “the user may view a photo of a landmark, e.g., the Eiffel Tower located in Paris, France, that another internet user has posted on a social networking website in order to share content relating to a vacation experience. Upon viewing the photo, the user may develop an interest in traveling to the particular location, e.g., Paris, France. Implementations of the present disclosure can allow a user to initiate a travel search to a location upon viewing an item displayed on a web page that is associated with the location.” Examiner notes, the image is filtered based on the specific image(s) shown in the social networking website that the user is viewing, e.g., having a user profile with the social networking website, as opposed to any other images existed on the website.)
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
US 20230306317 (Karri) – discloses technology for setting and presenting itinerary for a traveler.
US 20140025490 (Shekar) – discloses method for correlating photos with specific location.
US 9460120 (Wang) – discloses methods for providing customized trip plans using geo-tagged photographs.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MONG-SHUNE CHUNG whose telephone number is (571) 270-5817. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F (9-5) EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Scott Baderman, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-3644. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from Patent Center and the Private Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from Patent Center or Private PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Patent Center and Private PAIR for authorized users only. Should you have questions about access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated- interview-request-air-form.
/MONG-SHUNE CHUNG/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2118