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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 2/2/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 2/2/2026 have been fully considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by the amendments. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Dufford et al (US 2016/0006618)
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 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sanderson et al (US 20150199846) and Dufford et al (US 2016/0006618)
As to claim 1, Sanderson teaches the method, comprising: receiving, by a client computing device, a digital map from a mapping system, wherein the digital map is associated with a plurality of location sites; ( FIG. 7 is a view for explaining calculation of cell pixel sized dimensions based on geographic origin coordinates, paragraph [0093]);
dividing, by the client computing device, the digital map into a plurality of areas to encompass a geographical region of the digital map; ( (vision ecosystem values are rendered in the map by dividing the HTML5 canvas element into square cells; paragraph [0085-0086])
determining, by the client computing device, which location sites associated with the digital map by the mapping system are sites of interest for the client computing device (Paragraph [0090], [0093])
calculating, by the client computing device, a number of sites of interest in individual ones of the plurality of areas of the digital map(Sanderson teaches in Paragraph [0090], [0093], “commenced in step S601 in which the position of the current map extent is calculated relative to the vision origin (xmin/ymax). In step S602, the size of raster cell in screen pixels is calculated based on zoom level and Paragraph [0025]). While Sanderson teaches the limitation above. Sanderson fails to teach:” wherein the marker indicates a number of sites of interest that are associated with a set of longitudes and latitudes, located in a geographic region encompassed by the individual ones of the plurality of areas of the digital map, and displayed at least in part according to the longitudes and latitudes.”
Dufford teaches the latitude and longitude position may be utilized by the mapping and geocoding service 102 to plot a marker for each data point on the map 200. Other data that may be acquired may be customer information, which may include, but is not limited to a customer's address, status, and distance from a POI 205. Customers may be residential or commercial customers. Prospective customer information may also be acquired, which may include a business name (if applicable), address, and distance from a POI 205. Acquired data may be categorized into five layers: taps 315, nodes 320, residential customers 325, commercial customers 330, and prospects 340. Spans may be plotted on the map 200, wherein vertices may be a series of latitudes and longitudes plotted as polylines on the map; paragraph [0024]).Dufford teaches in FIG. 2, a bubble may be displayed containing the POI address 210, latitude/longitude coordinates 215, and accuracy level. The map 200 may be displayed as a map view, satellite view, or a hybrid view as described above. Dufford and Sanderson are analogous since both of them are dealing with image processing. Sanderson provided way of dynamically adjust the digital map based on the pixel adjustment from the zoom level. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the displayed marker adjustment taught by Dufford into modified invention of Sanderson, in order to determining a serviceability and profitability of potential customers (points of interest) and to locate prospective customers. .
As to claim 2, Sanderson teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising receiving, by the client computing device, a mapping application programming interface from the mapping system( figure 30 and paragraph [0058]; [0137]).
As to claim 3, Sanderson teaches the method of claim 2, further comprising integrating, by the client computing device, with the mapping system to allow provision of the digital map with the sites of interest for the client computing device( figure 30 and paragraph [0137]).
As to claim 4, Sanderson teaches the method of claim 1, wherein a number of the plurality of areas that the digital map is divided into is determined by display dimensions of a viewing screen of the client computing device( figure 5 ; note the dashboard updates the metrics and displays the updated metrics to the user, paragraph [0048];[0102],[106]).
As to claim 5, Sanderson teaches the method of claim 1, wherein a uniform size of the plurality of areas that the digital map is divided into is determined by display dimensions of a viewing screen of the client computing device( figure 5 ; note the dashboard updates the metrics and displays the updated metrics to the user, paragraph [0048];[0102],[106]).
As to claim 6, Sanderson teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising receiving an election of a type of site of interest from user input, wherein the location sites that are of the elected site type are determined to be the sites of interest for the client computing device ( the user is able to develop an ecological vision for a geographic location, by defining vision parameters for the geographic location, such as on a cell-by-cell basis, starting with a blank vision, a baseline vision, or another user's vision. Thereafter, the user can cause calculation of metrics for the vision, based on the vision parameters and based on a database of ecosystem data, thereby allowing the user or other users to evaluate, change, improve, comment on, distribute and share the vision. Calculation of metrics is described in the following section, paragraph [0095][0098]).
As to claim 7, Sanderson method of claim 1, wherein a type of site of interest comprises a merchant site ( vision selection; paragraph [0133][0095-0098]).
The limitation of claims 8-20 has been addressed above.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NANCY BITAR whose telephone number is (571)270-1041. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 p.m.
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NANCY . BITAR
Examiner
Art Unit 2664
/NANCY BITAR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2664
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