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 .
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.
Claims 1, 3, 5, 12 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guheen et al. (US Patent 6,536,037; hereinafter “Guheen”) in view of Antons et al. (US PGPUB 2017/0147334; hereinafter “Antons”), Cuneo et al. (US PGPUB 2009/0177703; hereinafter “Cuneo”), Vaid et al. (US PGPUB 2024/0005280; hereinafter “Vaid”), Ding et al. (US PGPUB 2019/0303116; hereinafter “Ding”) and Flam et al. (US Patent 7,409,398; hereinafter “Flam”).
Claim 1: (Currently Amended)
Guheen teaches a method of tracking changes to software applications in a development environment, the method comprising:
permitting developer access to a plurality of different web-based software applications, in the development environment, wherein the plurality of different web-based software applications are part of a defined development project (Col. 33 Ln. 24: “Java applets are small, specialized applications that comply with Sun's Java Application Programming Interface (API) allowing developers to add ‘interactive content’ to Web documents.” Col. 33 Ln. 57: “FIG. 52… The Integrated Development Environment Architecture provides a development environment framework and associated guidelines… IDEA takes a holistic approach to the development environment by addressing all three Business Integration components: organization, processes, and tools.” Col. 33 Ln 66: “The development environment is a production environment for one or several systems development projects as well as for maintenance efforts.” Col. 51 Ln. 1: “Base package type--identifies the various types of application components that are developed during systems building such as executables, JCL, HTML scripts, and Java applets.” Col. 75 Ln. 60: “components can be reused across large development projects to increase developer productivity and decrease the risks associated with coding and testing the same components multiple times.” Col. 121 Ln. 21: “Due to the tendency of Web-based applications to combine multiple components (such as… Java applets…), numerous source code editors may be required for the development of any single web application,” wherein the “Java applet” “components” are the “plurality of different web-based software applications.”);
causing display of a graphical user interface (GUI) project bar on a display device (Col. 9 Ln. 36: “Operation 14 of FIG. 1 includes indicia coding for effectively conveying which components of a system are required for implementation of technology using the web architecture framework, thereby affording a project definition and an implementation plan. See also FIG. 4. Operation 34 of FIG. 4 displays a pictorial representation of a system including a plurality of components, again, such as the pictorial representation shown in FIG. 21.” Col. 8 Ln. 10: “the pictorial representation and indicia coding may be displayed via a computer with any desired presentation software.” Col. 8 Ln. 33: “To create such a pictorial representation, referring to FIG. 22, each of the primary components of the system, such as the components listed above, are arranged for display in operation 62… the primary components are grouped under descriptive headings, as in operation 63. Examples of such headings shown in FIG. 21 are ‘Web Application Services’,” wherein the “pictorial representation”, including the displayed grouping with the heading “Web Application Services,” is the “GUI project bar”.); and
wherein the development environment supports display of the plurality of different web-based software applications via a plurality of different web pages (Col. 270 Ln. 12: “Web Site Testing Tools (Performance & Link Spiders) Simulates multiple users on web site Allows pages to be retrieved and programmatically navigated by simulated clients.” Further, Col. 113 Ln. 12: “Presentation design tools provide a graphical depiction of the presentation layer of the application, such as windows, dialogs, pages, navigation and reports,” and Col. 113 Ln. 30: “The majority of Netcentric systems use Web browsers to provide a common cross-platform user interface. Presentation design for this type of environment therefore entails the generation of HTML pages”).
With further regard to Claim 1, Guheen does not teach the following, however, Antons teaches:
the GUI project bar comprising a counter arrangement that graphically tracks changes made to the plurality of different web-based software applications in the development environment ([0010] “’Codebase’ herein shall refer to a collection of files (e.g., source files, data files, project files, build scripts, etc.) that are stored in a code repository and may be utilized to build one or more software applications that belong to a certain project,” wherein the “codebase” represent the claimed “web-based software applications”, i.e. the “components” discussed above in Guheen. [0035] “FIG. 2A schematically illustrates an example of data presentation GUI.” [0036] “FIG. 2A, the data visualization client may display one or more graphs 210A-210K showing the number of code changes for the corresponding codebase in a visual relationship to the time axis, for a certain number of codebases.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen with the change counter as taught by Antons in order “to visually present a plurality of real-time and/or aggregated metrics reflecting lifecycle events of software artifacts that are being developed within the software development environments” (Antons [0012]).
With further regard to Claim 1, Guheen in view of Antons does not teach the following, however, Cuneo teaches:
updating status of the counter arrangement in response to completion of an eligible change made to any of the plurality of different web-based software applications in the development environment, wherein status of the counter arrangement is updatable within the development environment to maintain at least one running count of eligible changes made to the plurality of different web-based software applications ([0023] “The system 100 includes a change component 102 for tracking asynchronous changes to data 104.” [0037] “When a change occurs… an entry for that change is made in the change tracker 500 if the change was explicit.” [0048] “At 1202, the changes are stored as... change entries in a client change tracker.”); and
resetting the counter arrangement to zero if all of the identified changes to be implemented are saved ([0038] “When a save operation occurs the changes are read from the change tracker 500, committed to the datasource, and the change tracker 500 is cleared.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Antons with the counter updating and resetting as taught by Cuneo in order to advantageously implement “a control driven cascading changes system where change tracking works seamlessly in asynchronous (and synchronous) scenarios” (Cuneo [0004]).
With further regard to Claim 1, Guheen in view of Antons and Cuneo does not teach the following, however, Vaid teaches wherein the method
causes persistent display of the GUI project bar with the plurality of different web pages ([0021] “A workspace shell that comprises multiple browser tabs permits a user to navigate to content from multiple network resources (e.g., web pages) at the same time, with each network resource presented in a respective browser tab.” [0067] “FIG. 5A is an example user interface (UI) 500 displayed for a collaborative browser workspace as rendered within a workspace shell by the UI thread 212 of browser process 210.” [0069] “the bookmark bar 546 may include bookmarks that are global and apply to all collaborative browser workspaces, or focused bookmarks that apply specifically to the currently active collaborative browser workspace,” wherein the “global bookmarks” are persistently displayed.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Antons and Cuneo with the persistent GUI display as taught by Vaid in order to “help workspace members more efficiently utilize network content (and therefore lead to more efficient utilization of processing resources and network bandwidth)” (Vaid [0005]).
With further regard to Claim 1, Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo and Vaid does not teach the following, however, Ding teaches:
wherein the GUI project bar comprises an activatable Save Changes element that, when activated, initiates saving of at least one change tracked by the counter arrangement; and saving of the at least one change causes implementation of the at least one change in the defined production project that is associated with the development environment ([0105] “A commit button 250 is provided as part of the GUI 200. Selection of the commit button 250, or a related operation, is effective to save the updated executable code 210 to the appropriate file location… This means that the executable code 210, when next run by a third party having ownership of said executable code, will comprise the updated and remedied version of the code.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo and Vaid with the activable save element as taught by Ding such that “a developer who may not be the user, or part of the user's organization, may be restricted from modifying the executable code 210 unless their privileges allow” (Ding [0091]).
With further regard to Claim 1, Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid and Ding does not teach the following, however, Flam teaches:
causing, in response to activation of the Save Changes element, and displays of a Save Changes interface that includes a list of entries corresponding to changes tracked by the counter arrangement (Col. 12 Ln. 33: “system 101 creates an audit trail for the change. What the user sees of this is the windows shown at 501 and 513. Window 501 lists the changes that are pending when the user presses save button 413.”);
wherein at least some of the entries are selectable to identify changes to be implemented in the defined production project (Col. 12 Ln. 36: “Here, there is only one change. A user-configurable field has been changed. The configuration sub area to which this change belongs is Fields, as shown at column 503. In addition to making the change, the user making the change must enter a reason why the change is being made at 505 using dropdown list 507 and may enter a comment at 509; further, an electronic signature is required to authenticate the person making the change, and the person making the change enters the electronic signature at 511. 513 shows the window as it appears when the user is ready to confirm what is in the window by clicking on OK button 519,” wherein the changes shown in “Column 503” of “Window 501” are selectable as shown in Fig. 5 of Flam.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid and Ding with the interface including a change list as taught by Flam in order “to determine what changes were made as a result of a transaction, who made them, and when they were made” (Flam Col. 1 Ln. 51).
Claim 3:
Guheen in view of Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam teaches the method of claim 1, and Guheen further teaches wherein:
the development environment supports display of the plurality of different web-based software applications via a plurality of different web pages (Col. 270 Ln. 12: “Web Site Testing Tools (Performance & Link Spiders) Simulates multiple users on web site Allows pages to be retrieved and programmatically navigated by simulated clients.”).
With further regard to Claim 3, Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Ding and Flam does not teach the following, however, Vaid teaches wherein:
the method causes on-demand display of the GUI project bar with the plurality of different web pages ([0021] “A workspace shell that comprises multiple browser tabs permits a user to navigate to content from multiple network resources (e.g., web pages) at the same time, with each network resource presented in a respective browser tab.” [0067] “FIG. 5A is an example user interface (UI) 500 displayed for a collaborative browser workspace as rendered within a workspace shell by the UI thread 212 of browser process 210.” [0068] “UI 500 includes a workspace selection button 522. Using the workspace selection button 522, the user may select which collaborative browser workspace is rendered in that workspace shell.” [0069] “the bookmark bar 546 may include… focused bookmarks that apply specifically to the currently active collaborative browser workspace,” wherein the “focused bookmarks”, including the related web pages, are displayed on-demand when the associated “workspace” is selected using “workspace selection button 522”.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Ding and Flam with the on-demand GUI display as taught by Vaid in order to “help workspace members more efficiently utilize network content (and therefore lead to more efficient utilization of processing resources and network bandwidth)” (Vaid [0005]).
Claim 5:
With regard to Claim 5, Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam teaches the method of claim 1. Guheen in view of Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam does not teach the following, however, Antons teaches:
wherein the counter arrangement comprises a modification counter that is updatable within the development environment to indicate a running count of modifications made to the plurality of different web-based software applications ([0036] “FIG. 2A, the data visualization client may display one or more graphs 210A-210K showing the number of code changes for the corresponding codebase in a visual relationship to the time axis, for a certain number of codebases.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam with the modification counter as taught by Antons in order “to visually present a plurality of real-time and/or aggregated metrics reflecting lifecycle events of software artifacts that are being developed within the software development environments” (Antons [0012]).
Claim 12:
With regard to Claim 12, this claim is equivalent in scope to Claim 1 rejected above, merely having a different independent claim type, and as such Claim 12 is rejected under the same grounds and for the same reasons as discussed above with regard to Claim 1.
With further regard to Claim 12, the claim recites additional elements not specifically addressed in the rejection of Claim 1. The Guheen reference also anticipates these additional elements of Claim 12, for example, Guheen teaches:
At least one non-transitory machine-readable storage medium that stores instructions executable by at least one processor, the instructions configurable to cause the at least one processor to perform a method of tracking changes to software applications in a development environment (Col. 271 Ln. 7: “Under one preferred embodiment of the present invention, certain memory (e.g., RAM, ROM, NVRAM) is maintained during WAF related instruction processing in a protected mode (for example, as supported by protected mode microprocessors). This memory is located in the same package as the processing logic (e.g. processor).” See also Cl. 10 of Guheen, “A computer program embodied on a computer readable medium for conveying redundancies and omissions among components of a network framework, the computer program comprising…”).
Claim 17:
With regard to Claim 17, this claim is equivalent in scope to Claim 12 rejected above, merely having a different independent claim type, and as such Claim 17 is rejected under the same grounds and for the same reasons as discussed above with regard to Claim 12.
Claims 4, 6, 14 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam as applied to Claims 1, 12 and 17 above, and further in view of Kay et al. (US PGPUB 2022/0214872; hereinafter “Kay”).
Claim 4:
Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as described above. Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam does not teach the following, however, Kay teaches:
wherein the counter arrangement comprises an addition counter that is updatable within the development environment to indicate a running count of additions made to the plurality of different web-based software applications ([0023] “In example 100, the multi-dimensional array further encodes quantities of additions and removals, for the one or more files, as integers stored within each sub-array therein. For example, the parser may increment an addition counter when the parser identifies a line in the difference file that includes an addition.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam with the addition counter as taught by Kay in order to output information “with increased relevance with respect to the changes and that improves the user's experience with the software repository” (Kay [0012]).
Claim 6:
Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as described above. Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam does not teach the following, however, Kay teaches:
wherein the counter arrangement comprises a deletion counter that is updatable within the development environment to indicate a running count of deletions made to the plurality of different web-based software applications ([0023] “In example 100, the multi-dimensional array further encodes quantities of additions and removals, for the one or more files, as integers stored within each sub-array therein. For example, the parser… may increment a deletion counter when the parser identifies a line in the difference file that includes a removal.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam with the deletion counter as taught by Kay in order to output information “with increased relevance with respect to the changes and that improves the user's experience with the software repository” (Kay [0012]).
Claims 14 and 19:
With regard to Claims 14 and 19, these claims are equivalent in scope to a combination of Claims 4 and 6 rejected above, merely having a different independent claim type, and as such Claims 14 and 19 are rejected under the same grounds and for the same reasons as discussed above with regard to Claim 4 and 6.
With further regard to Claim 14 and 19, the claims recite additional elements not specifically addressed in the rejection of Claims 4 and 6. The Antons reference also anticipates these additional elements of Claims 14 and 19, for example, Antons teaches wherein the counter arrangement comprises:
a modification counter that is updatable within the development environment to indicate a running count of modifications made to the plurality of different web-based software applications ([0036] “FIG. 2A, the data visualization client may display one or more graphs 210A-210K showing the number of code changes for the corresponding codebase in a visual relationship to the time axis, for a certain number of codebases.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the storage medium, as in Claim 14, or the computing system, as in Claim 19, as disclosed by Guheen in view of Sandhu and Kay with the modification counter as taught by Antons in order “to visually present a plurality of real-time and/or aggregated metrics reflecting lifecycle events of software artifacts that are being developed within the software development environments” (Antons [0012]).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam as applied to Claim 1 above, and further in view of Nickolov et al. (US PGPUB 2017/0034023; hereinafter “Nickolov”).
Claim 10:
Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as described above. Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam does not teach the following, however, Nickolov further comprising:
causing display of an activatable Discard Changes element that, when activated, initiates discarding of at least one change tracked by the counter arrangement; and discarding of the at least one change occurs within the development environment ([0889] “FIG. 31 illustrates an example screenshot of a graphical user interface (GUI).” [0893] “The Save button saves user changes made on this GUI to the change set while the Discard button discards such changes.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam with the activable discard changes element as taught by Nickolov in order to “include functionality for enabling the user to selectively drill down to view different set(s) of changes 3017… the user may also modify the proposed changes, for example, by including or excluding packages” (Nickolov [0888]).
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam as applied to Claim 1 above, and further in view of Sandhu et al. (US PGPUB 2021/0141718; hereinafter “Sandhu”).
Claim 11:
With regard to Claim 11, Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam teaches the method of claim 1. Guheen further teaches wherein:
the permitting step permits developer access to the plurality of different web-based software applications by multiple users (Col. 19: System Management Tools Section: “Product2 Management Console -- Java-based utility that provides views of servers on the network and applications on those servers. It allows administrators to add users, hosts or applications from any client on the network.”).
With further regard to Claim 11, Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam does not teach the following, however, Sandhu teaches wherein:
the counter arrangement is maintained and updated to graphically track changes made to the plurality of different web-based software applications by only one of the multiple users ([0021] “The developer risk is aggregated over time using any of the risk identification data, such as the number of code changes the developer has merged with the code repository.” [0100] “In one or more implementations, the risk profile generation system 102 provides a user interface displaying various information regarding the risks generated using the techniques discussed herein,” see for example Fig. 6.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method as disclosed by Guheen in view of Antons, Cuneo, Vaid, Ding and Flam with the per-user change counter as taught by Sandhu as “allows users to quickly identify trends of each developer and take appropriate action” (Sandhu [0115]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments, see Pages 9-10 of the Remarks filed October 9, 2025, with respect to the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103 of Claims 1, 3-6, 10-12, 14, 17 and 19 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
With respect to the Applicant’s argument, Page 10 Paragraph 2 of the Remarks, that “Guheen does not teach, disclose or suggest supporting the display of multiple different web based applications as claimed,” the Office respectfully disagrees. The Office contends that the previously cited Guheen et al. (US Patent 6,536,037) reference does teach the newly amended language recited in independent claims 1, 12 and 17. For example, the Guheen reference discusses the display of a plurality of application web pages in at least Col. 113 Ln. 12, Col. 113 Ln. 30 and Col. 270 Ln. 12, as indicated in the newly modified rejection of Claims 1, 12 and 17. The Office respectfully directs the Applicant’s attention to the newly modified rejections of Claims 1, 12 and 17 above for further explanation regarding how the Guheen reference has been interpreted as teaching the newly amended language of independent Claims 1, 12 and 17.
With respect to the Applicant’s further arguments, Page 10 Paragraph 3 of the Remarks, that the features of remaining claims are not taught by the cited prior art, the Office respectfully disagrees. These arguments rely upon the arguments as presented in relation to Claims 1, 12 and 17, and as such the Office directs the Applicant to the response above regarding these arguments.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is as follows:
Oliveri et al. (US PGPUB 2015/0186132) discloses a web application development system with an associated user interface framework and a set of tools for the creation, configuration, management, and deployment of web applications that may be based on application templates and controlled by configurable runtime attributes.
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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/J.G.M/Examiner, Art Unit 2197
/BRADLEY A TEETS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2197