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 § 101
35 U.S.C. § 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
The claims do not provide significantly more than the judicial exception under the subject matter eligibility two-part statutory analysis, as provided below.
Regarding Step 1,
Step 1 addresses whether the claims are directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter according to MPEP §2106.03. The claims fall within the four statutory categories.
Regarding Step 2A [prong 1],
The claimed invention recites an abstract idea according to MPEP §2106.04. Independent claims for the same abstract features, is provided below for the following claim limitations, as an abstract idea.
Claims 1, 6, 14 & 15:
A process for sharing task related information between different parties of a project comprising:
maintaining, for the construction project, at least shared model information of an end result of the construction project, shared information of responsible parties involved, and a shared workflow, wherein the shared model information comprises at least, per a part, a part identifier, which is unique within the construction project, said part representing a piece for the end result of the construction project in a model of the end result; the shared workflow comprises a plurality of tasks, a task representing a piece of work to be done or undertaken for the construction project, the task having a task identifier, which is unique within the construction project, and comprising at least an indication of a party responsible for the task, and dependency information indicating one or more dependent tasks, a dependent task being either a preceding task or a following task, wherein the tasks are in the shared workflow in an order in which a preceding task has to be completed before the piece of work the task represents can start, and wherein the shared workflow associates tasks, per a task, at least with one of a part identifier, a shared resource in the construction project and a shared location; and providing, per a pair of a first task and a dependent task of the first task, a responsible party of the dependent task with access rights to task related information of a responsible party of the first task; and providing, per the pair of a first task and the dependent task, the responsible party of the first task with access rights to task related information of the responsible party of the dependent task.
The claim limitations above, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, fall under “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas, and includes at least managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions). See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2)(II).
But for the recitation of generic implementation of computer system components, the claimed invention merely recites a process for managing personal behavior/relationships or interactions between people because the claimed steps recite managing a construction project and workflow of shared tasks for responsible parties working on the project. Accordingly, since the claimed invention describes a process that falls under “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activities” grouping, the claimed invention recites an abstract idea.
Regarding Step 2A [prong 2],
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application according to MPEP §2106.04(d). Claims 1, 6, 14 & 15 include the following additional elements:
A computer-implemented method, non-transitory computer-readable and system comprising:
computer instructions to carry out a first and second process,
at least one data storage comprising;
at least one access right apparatus/device;
In particular, the additional elements cited above beyond the abstract idea are recited at a high-level of generality and simply equivalent to a generic recitation and basic functionality that amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception using generic computer technology components.
The claimed invention merely provides an abstract-idea-based-solution implemented with generic computer processes and components recited at a high-level of generality (receiving, storing, determining, and comparing data) using computer instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer, and merely “apply it” without any meaningful technological limits or any improvement to technology, technical field or improvement to the functioning of the computer itself.
Therefore, the additional elements fail to integrate the recited abstract idea into any practical application since they do not impose any non-generic meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Thus, the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea.
Regarding Step 2B,
The claimed invention does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. See MPEP §2106.05.
As discussed above, the claimed additional elements recited above amounts to no more than mere instructions to implement the abstract idea by adding the words “apply it” using generic computer components and functionality. See MPEP §2106.05(h). Mere instructions to apply the judicial exception using generic computer components are insufficient to provide an inventive concept. Furthermore, the claimed additional elements merely limit the abstract idea to be executed in a computer environment, thus do nothing more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. See MPEP §2106.05(h).
Considered as an ordered combination, the additional elements are claimed at a high-level of generality and add nothing that is not already present when the steps are considered separately. The sequence of the claimed limitations is equally generic and otherwise held to be abstract since the combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception using generic computer components operating in their ordinary and generic capacities of what is typically expected of computers storing and updating data, and receiving and transmitting data between generic computer devices. The claimed invention is not patent eligible because the additional elements are merely invoked as tools to execute the abstract idea and thus are insufficient to amount to an inventive concept significantly more than the judicial exception.
As for dependent claims 2-5, 7-13 and 16-20, they merely further narrow and reiterate the same abstract ideas for storing and updating data, and receiving and transmitting data using generic data storage and transmittal techniques with the same additional elements as recited above which provide nothing more than applying the abstract idea using generic computer technology components. Furthermore the dependent claims 2-5, 7-13 and 16-20 contain the following additional elements: a plurality of devices, memory for storing information, at least one interface.
These additional elements do not provide any improvement to technology, technical field or improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, and at best simply applying the abstract idea executed in a general-purpose computer environment. Therefore the dependent claims are also directed to ineligible subject matter since they do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Thus, after considering all claim elements in Claims 1-20 both individually and as an ordered combination, it has been determined that the claimed invention as a whole, is not enough to transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention since nothing in the claim limitations provide significantly more than the abstract idea under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated CULVER (US20210081897).
Culver discloses:
Regarding Claims 1, 6, 14 & 15:
A method, system, computer-readable storage medium for sharing task related information between different parties of a construction project (Abstract; enabling collaboration between individuals to design, construction and maintenance of a building, Summary and Figs. 1-23; CRM and CPU system) comprising:
maintaining, for the construction project, at least shared model information of an end result of the construction project, shared information of responsible parties involved, and a shared workflow, wherein the shared model information comprises at least, per a part, a part identifier, which is unique within the construction project, said part representing a piece for the end result of the construction project in a model of the end result ([0169] part identifier 720 unique to the project created, [0174] event tasks associated with each project, and defining a goal or objective, [0054-0059] projects module 302 may include creating and storing project-related data, such as activities, tasks, timelines and work assignments related to a particular project, [0246] building projects database 312 can include a set of project templates 750. Each template in the templates 750 represents a project whose event group 730 and set of team parameters 740, and Fig.7 projects database 312 and project templates 750,Fig. 10-11 Project roles, management, team members, event type, [0878-0879] event analysis sub-module identifies and extracts tasks relating to the completion of construction phase events for a particular project in the projects database 312, reordering of certain tasks in the events that remove a key dependency and therefore mitigate a particular bottleneck, [0731] project name, type, user roles, team members, detailed timeline of event tasks and location information, [0177-0186] task event details timeline and start end dates);
the shared workflow comprises a plurality of tasks, a task representing a piece of work to be done or undertaken for the construction project, the task having a task identifier, which is unique within the construction project, and comprising at least an indication of a party responsible for the task ([0067] project-specific data within the projects module 302 to be shared between users, [0361] first user and/or other users within the user community 14can be provided with the ability to contribute and share templates within the project templates 750 with other users, [0660] FIG. 15B menu 1530 and an events area and summary information section 1542 and a set of events 15441 to 1544N that correspond to the tasks, [0662-0679] the events area 1540 displays all of the tasks 15441 to 1544N for which a user is responsible with description and task type identifier and persons responsible for the event task, [0381] location of project, [0447] location of each event task, [0177-0186] task event details timeline and start end dates);
dependency information indicating one or more dependent tasks, a dependent task being either a preceding task or a following task, wherein the tasks are in the shared workflow in an order in which a preceding task has to be completed before the piece of work the task represents can start, and wherein the shared workflow associates tasks, per a task, at least with one of a part identifier, a shared resource in the construction project and a shared location ([0660] a user could view a list of his or her projects by expanding the Projects branch and view a list of his or her portfolios by expanding the Portfolios, and sub-branches can display the projects and tasks grouped under the portfolio. As a result, a user can be provided with a way to drill-down hierarchical view and see which projects and tasks are included in a particular portfolio, [0837-0846] the user may choose to adjust the date for certain tasks ahead by a week to allow certain other potentially inter-dependent tasks to be completed, the organization of events by the user may impact the schedule of other users in the system 10 thus affecting their ability to collaborate on shared work, and the user may update the status of certain tasks UI to ‘Task Complete’ and allowing tasks for other users that are dependent on the user performing his or her work to proceed and any work scheduled for other users that is dependent on the current user can be allowed, [0758] events area 1540 could be grouped by their related project (default), as well as by their type (e.g., task, document or milestone), status (e.g., starting soon, in progress, completed) and/or related role) and
providing, per a pair of a first task and a dependent task of the first task, a responsible party of the dependent task with access rights to task related information of a responsible party of the first task; and providing, per the pair of a first task and the dependent task, the responsible party of the first task with access rights to task related information of the responsible party of the dependent/second task ([0174-0185] event are tasks or any occurrence related to the project that happens in time and also has an action or activity component which is a goal or objective toward the event aimed, and an event may be dependent on one or more activities and event group component 730 includes timeline for the events that acts as a parent to at least one other child event, [0918-0921] verify and authentication of users, [0361-0363] privacy restrictions and access to projects, [0423-0426] user permissions within a project are assigned to roles rather than to individual users in order to simplify the security model and allow turnover in the project. For example, assigning a default set of permissions (e.g., read, write, create, update, administer, execute and delete, among others) to a generic “architect” role allows anyone who assumes this role to also inherit those permissions assigned to the role, for example Jane having the same role as Bob can inherit and be transferred access rights since they have the same job role and this approach simplifies the transfer of roles between users while continuing to ensure that the permission set restricts what any particular user can do. Should the first user be replaced by a second user (i.e., the original person shifts the responsibility for the role to another), the second user will inherit the same set of permissions, while the first user will lose his or her original set of permissions, [0067] this relationship may establish or support a particular hierarchy such as allowing project-specific data within the projects module 302 to be shared between users of the user community 14 involved in this project via their user profiles, which are provided by the community management module 304, [0731-0742] project’s more detailed (and likely confidential) information about the project, such as its exact location, the overall budget, the list of project team members and the detailed timeline of related tasks for the project, also presented “Tasks view”, a “Documents view”, a “To-Do view”, and a “Milestone view” that would display task events, document events, to-do events and milestone events respectively in the events area 1540. By providing the ability to switch between such views, the menu 1530 allows the user to quickly filter his or her events in the events area 1540 to correspond to a particular type of event, [0795-0803] search query builder can provide search on a particular project, timeline when task events are due to start and end, and toles and tasks only related to a particular user, [0177-0186] task event details timeline and start end dates, dependency data where the task event is dependent on one or more other event activities).
Regarding Claim 2. Culver further discloses wherein the task related information comprises at least one of timing related information, location related information and shared resource related information, wherein the location related information of a task defines at least one of a space defined based on a physical size of a part associated with the task or the space defined based on the physical size added with extra space required for the work to be performed ([0067-176] address location of project, [0447] location of event tasks and task location type, [0986] the size of the data submitted to the certifying body).
Regarding Claim 3. Culver further discloses wherein the task related information comprises end result information of the piece of work ([0253] milestones can be provided for each construction project phase, including when the design phase ends, when the building phases ends, and [0673-0679] status of tasks, including start and end dates and durations of each event task).
Regarding Claim 4. Culver further disclose receiving a change notification for a second task from a second party, determining one or more dependent tasks of the second task; and providing, per a dependent task, a responsible party of the dependent task with indication of a change in the second task ([0348] events in the events group 730 so that these events can be modified to adjust for prior experience and/or changing circumstances, [0422] a user role in the project can be changed and/or the original first user fulfilling that role is replaced by a new second user., the change notification comprising at least a task identifier, [0210-0219] ability to receive notifications when certain activities related to an event occur, and configured to notify users when the document moves between each person in the chain in order that its progress can be monitored and configured to notify users when the shared document moves between each person in the chain in order that its progress can be monitored, document associated with an event can be ‘pushed’ to a group of reviewers in sequence so that a first reviewer may review the associated document, add his or her comments or edits, and then pass along the document to the second reviewer, [0220] the system 10 generates a notification to one or more reviewers along the chain, completion of each dependency triggers a notification to one or more users who may be directly or tangentially related to the task, [0427] information regarding the new project and its assembled project team and changes to the project are tracked and stored, [0813] update and change certain tasks and events, [0842] task update allows other tasks for other users that are dependent on the user performing his or her work to proceed, and second and third party can be identified, [0245] when another person is assigned the first role that second person will be given the role and assigned responsibilities and event tasks will be reassigned to the second person, [0246] When a new project 710a is created, the new project's event group 730a and set of team parameters 740a will contain the set of events and roles from the project, [0417-0425] update project role and parameters and event tasks, including updating permissions as well).
Regarding Claim 5. Culver further comprising: adding, by a third party, a new task to the shared workflow, the new task being associated with at least one of a part identifier, a shared resource in the construction project and a shared location; assigning to the new task a unique task identifier; determining, using information of the third party, information associated with the new task, the shared model information, the shared information of responsible parties involved and the shared workflow, one or more dependent tasks to the new task; providing, per a pair of the new task and a dependent task of the new task, a responsible party of the dependent task with access rights to task related information of the new task; and providing, per the pair of the new task and the dependent task, the third party with access rights to task related information of the responsible party of the dependent task ([0842] task update allows other tasks for other users that are dependent on the user performing his or her work to proceed, and third party can be identified, [0067] project-specific data within the projects module 302 to be shared between users, [0427] information regarding the new project and its assembled project team and changes to the project are tracked and stored, [0813] update and change certain tasks and events, [0842] task update allows other tasks for other users that are dependent on the user performing his or her work to proceed, and second and third party can be identified, [0245] when another person is assigned the first role that second person will be given the role and assigned responsibilities and event tasks will be reassigned to the second person, [0361] first user and/or other users within the user community 14can be provided with the ability to contribute and share templates within the project templates 750 with other users, [0660] FIG. 15B menu 1530 and an events area and summary information section 1542 and a set of events 15441 to 1544N that correspond to the tasks, [0662-0679] the events area 1540 displays all of the tasks 15441 to 1544N for which a user is responsible with description and task type identifier and persons responsible for the event task, [0381] location of project, [0447] location of each event task, [0177-0186] task event details timeline and start end dates), ([0837-0846] user may update the status of certain tasks UI to ‘Task Complete’ and allowing tasks for other users that are dependent on the user performing his or her work to proceed and any work scheduled for other users that is dependent on the current user can be allowed, [0758] events area 1540 could be grouped by their related project (default), as well as by their type (e.g., task, document or milestone), status (e.g., starting soon, in progress, completed) and/or related role), ([0174-0185] event are tasks or any occurrence related to the project that happens in time and also has an action or activity component which is a goal or objective toward the event aimed, and an event may be dependent on one or more activities and event group component 730 includes timeline for the events that acts as a parent to at least one other child event, [0918-0921] verify and authentication of users, [0361-0363] privacy restrictions and access to projects, [0423-0426] user permissions within a project are assigned to roles rather than to individual users in order to simplify the security model and allow turnover in the project. For example, assigning a default set of permissions (e.g., read, write, create, update, administer, execute and delete, among others) to a generic “architect” role allows anyone who assumes this role to also inherit those permissions assigned to the role, for example Jane having the same role as Bob can inherit and be transferred access rights since they have the same job role and this approach simplifies the transfer of roles between users while continuing to ensure that the permission set restricts what any particular user can do. Should the first user be replaced by a second user (i.e., the original person shifts the responsibility for the role to another), the second user will inherit the same set of permissions, while the first user will lose his or her original set of permissions, [0067] this relationship may establish or support a particular hierarchy such as allowing project-specific data within the projects module 302 to be shared between users of the user community 14 involved in this project via their user profiles, which are provided by the community management module 304, [0731-0742] project’s more detailed (and likely confidential) information about the project, such as its exact location, the overall budget, the list of project team members and the detailed timeline of related tasks for the project, also presented “Tasks view”, a “Documents view”, a “To-Do view”, and a “Milestone view” that would display task events, document events, to-do events and milestone events respectively in the events area 1540. By providing the ability to switch between such views, the menu 1530 allows the user to quickly filter his or her events in the events area 1540 to correspond to a particular type of event, [0795-0803] search query builder can provide search on a particular project, timeline when task events are due to start and end, and toles and tasks only related to a particular user, [0177-0186] task event details timeline and start end dates, dependency data where the task event is dependent on one or more other event activities).
Claim 7. Culver further discloses accessing the second task related information of the second task using the access rights information; detecting a conflict between the second task related information and at least one of the first task related information; and generating an alert notifying the conflict ([0224] use of notifications to indicate actions related to an event may help those involved with the event to identify potential issues or bottlenecks beforehand, i.e., notification has been sent to the electricians related to the wiring on the 7th floor, but that the status of the task event related to the wiring of the 5th floor is marked as “in progress” and the status of the task event for wiring the 6th floor is marked as “late”. As a result, a user may deduce from these facts that while the task event for the 7th floor can be started, it is unlikely to remain on schedule unless additional resources (i.e., electricians) are brought on-board to perform this task [0422] when a role in the project is changed and/or the original first user fulfilling that role is replaced by a new second user, [0426] if first user is replaced by a second user (i.e., the original person shifts the responsibility for the role to another), the second user will inherit the same set of permissions, while the first user will lose his or her original set of permissions).
Claim 8. Culver further discloses wherein task related information comprises at least one of timing related information, location related information and resource related information ([0731] project information including, such as its exact location, the overall budget, the list of project team members and the detailed timeline for the project).
Claim 9. Culver further discloses further comprising: maintaining planning information of a plurality of activities to be performed, said activities comprising at least a first activity relating at least to one of the first tasks; updating, in response to detecting in at least one activity of the plurality of activities a change that affects to at least one of timing related information, location related information and resource related information of said first activity, task related information of said at least one of the first tasks correspondingly ([1000] system maintaining how project is designed, organized and maintained, as well as by which it is reviewed and receives certification, may be simplified and made more efficient, [0224] use of notifications to indicate actions related to an event may help those involved with the event to identify potential issues or bottlenecks beforehand, i.e., notification has been sent to the electricians related to the wiring on the 7th floor, but that the status of the task event related to the wiring of the 5th floor is marked as “in progress” and the status of the task event for wiring the 6th floor is marked as “late”. As a result, a user may deduce from these facts that while the task event for the 7th floor can be started, it is unlikely to remain on schedule unless additional resources (i.e., electricians) are brought on-board to perform this task).
Claim 10. Culver further discloses accessing, after updating the task related information of said at least one of the first tasks, the second task related information of the second task using the access rights information; detecting a conflict between the second task related information and updated task related information of said at least one of the first tasks; and generating an alert notifying the conflict ([0224] use of notifications to indicate actions related to an event may help those involved with the event to identify potential issues or bottlenecks beforehand, i.e., notification has been sent to the electricians related to the wiring on the 7th floor, but that the status of the task event related to the wiring of the 5th floor is marked as “in progress” and the status of the task event for wiring the 6th floor is marked as “late”. As a result, a user may deduce from these facts that while the task event for the 7th floor can be started, it is unlikely to remain on schedule unless additional resources (i.e., electricians) are brought on-board to perform this task).
Claim 11. Culver further discloses determining, in response to completing a piece of work of one of the first tasks, end result information of the piece of work; and updating task related information of the one of the first tasks by adding the end result information to the task related information of the one of the first tasks ([0162]-[0163] the system 10 is configured in such a way that the completion of a task by a first user in a project (e.g., a worker or junior employee) must be satisfactorily rated by a second user (e.g., a supervisor or senior employee) before the task may be considered complete and/or ‘signed-off’… When the tagging sub-module 650 indicates that the task has been signed-off by the second user, the email management sub-module 620 may send a certain indication (e.g., an email, an update to an RSS feed or a ‘tweet’) to other members of the project team that a particular task has been completed and that any dependent tasks may now commence).
Claim 12. Culver further discloses providing, in response to the updating, the entity with a change notification comprising, per a first task in the at least one of the first tasks, at least a task identifier of the first task ([0224] use of notifications to indicate actions related to an event may help those involved with the event to identify potential issues or bottlenecks beforehand, i.e., notification has been sent to the electricians related to the wiring on the 7th floor, but that the status of the task event related to the wiring of the 5th floor is marked as “in progress” and the status of the task event for wiring the 6th floor is marked as “late”. As a result, a user may deduce from these facts that while the task event for the 7th floor can be started, it is unlikely to remain on schedule unless additional resources (i.e., electricians) are brought on-board to perform this task).
Claim 13. Culver further discloses generating an internal workflow using the one or more first tasks and information obtained using the access rights information; and showing the internal workflow comprising the one or more first task and the at least one second task ([0662]-[0663] By default, the events area 1540 displays all of the tasks 1544 1 to 1544 N for which a user is responsible. In the case where a user has assumed responsibility for a plurality of roles in multiple projects, it will be appreciated that this list may comprise hundreds of events, each of which may represent a task requiring a user's attention at some point. .. The summary information section 1542 can be used to organize the events 1544 1 to 1544 N in the events area 1540. In particular, this section comprises a list of general event types (such as events that are upcoming and/or late), where each event type is associated with a figure showing the number of events associated with that type. For example, in the illustrated UI, the user has completed 16 events, has three (3) events that are late, and has five (5) events that are due to start soon).
Claim 16. Culver further discloses a plurality of devices of the different parties, wherein a device of a party responsible for at least one task comprises: memory for storing, per a task of the at least one task, task related information, accessible by one or more further parties of the construction project to whom access rights has been provided, for storing access rights information provided to the party to, said access rights being provided by at least one of the at least one access rights apparatus, and for storing information not accessible by other parties of the construction project; at least one interface for information exchange with the access rights apparatus, for accessing task related information of at least one dependent task of another party and for allowing at least devices of the one or more another responsible parties to access the task related information, wherein the device is configured at least to obtain, using the access rights information, task related information of the at least one dependent task, to check whether there is a conflict between the at least one task and the at least one dependent task, and to generate, when there is a conflict, an alert notifying the conflict (Fig. 1-4 user devices, [0813] update and change certain tasks and events, [0842] task update allows other tasks for other users that are dependent on the user performing his or her work to proceed, and second and third party can be identified, [0245] when another person is assigned the first role that second person will be given the role and assigned responsibilities and event tasks will be reassigned to the second person, [0246] When a new project 710a is created, the new project's event group 730a and set of team parameters 740a will contain the set of events and roles from the project, [0417-0425] update project role and parameters and event tasks, including updating permissions as well, [0879-0881] analysis of the task events 820i by the sub-module 1724 indicate that the source of the efficiency gain is the reordering of certain tasks in the events that remove a key dependency and therefore mitigate a particular bottleneck that is known to affect projects of this type, statistical analysis sub-module 1724 could perform any calculation (statistical or not) that allows the determination of whether one or more extracted events represent a significant variance or deviation from those already known to the knowledge builder module 1720 and to the system 10 in general. It will be further appreciated that the analysis performed by this sub-module can allow the determination of whether the significant variance or deviation is positive in nature (i.e., represents a realized improvement in efficiency and/or cost-savings) or is negative in nature (i.e., represents a mistake, an inefficiency and/or a cost overrun, task events analyzed by the statistical analysis sub-module 1724 whose deviation or variance from the established norm in the project database 312 are positive in nature may represent a ‘best practice’ that could be adopted in other projects to realize similar efficiencies and/or cost-savings. Likewise, events analyzed by the sub-module 1724 that are negative in nature may represent a ‘lesson learned’ that should be avoided in other projects to prevent similar mistakes, inefficiencies and/or cost-overruns from occurring. In the example mentioned above, the analysis of the events by the sub-module 1724 indicated that a reordering of certain tasks in the construction phase events 820 may mitigate a bottleneck).
Claim 17. Culver discloses wherein the device is further configured, when there is a change in the task related information of the at least one task, to provide the access rights apparatus a change notification comprising at least a task identifier per a task of the at least one task; the access rights apparatus is further configured, when receiving the change notification, to determine, per the task identifier, one or more dependent tasks, and to provide, per a dependent task, a responsible party of the dependent task with an indication of a change in the task having the task identifier ([0813] update and change certain tasks and events, [0842] task update allows other tasks for other users that are dependent on the user performing his or her work to proceed, and second and third party can be identified, [0245] when another person is assigned the first role that second person will be given the role and assigned responsibilities and event tasks will be reassigned to the second person, [0246] When a new project 710a is created, the new project's event group 730a and set of team parameters 740a will contain the set of events and roles from the project, [0417-0425] update project role and parameters and event tasks, including updating permissions as well).
Claim 18. Culver discloses wherein the device is further configured to receive the indication, and after receiving the indication, to obtain corresponding task related information and to check, whether there is a conflict ([0879-0881] analysis of the task events 820i by the sub-module 1724 indicate that the source of the efficiency gain is the reordering of certain tasks in the events that remove a key dependency and therefore mitigate a particular bottleneck that is known to affect projects of this type, statistical analysis sub-module 1724 could perform any calculation (statistical or not) that allows the determination of whether one or more extracted events represent a significant variance or deviation from those already known to the knowledge builder module 1720 and to the system 10 in general. It will be further appreciated that the analysis performed by this sub-module can allow the determination of whether the significant variance or deviation is positive in nature (i.e., represents a realized improvement in efficiency and/or cost-savings) or is negative in nature (i.e., represents a mistake, an inefficiency and/or a cost overrun, task events analyzed by the statistical analysis sub-module 1724 whose deviation or variance from the established norm in the project database 312 are positive in nature may represent a ‘best practice’ that could be adopted in other projects to realize similar efficiencies and/or cost-savings. Likewise, events analyzed by the sub-module 1724 that are negative in nature may represent a ‘lesson learned’ that should be avoided in other projects to prevent similar mistakes, inefficiencies and/or cost-overruns from occurring. In the example mentioned above, the analysis of the events by the sub-module 1724 indicated that a reordering of certain tasks in the construction phase events 820 may mitigate a bottleneck, [0224] use of notifications to indicate actions related to an event may help those involved with the event to identify potential issues or bottlenecks beforehand, i.e., notification has been sent to the electricians related to the wiring on the 7th floor, but that the status of the task event related to the wiring of the 5th floor is marked as “in progress” and the status of the task event for wiring the 6th floor is marked as “late”. As a result, a user may deduce from these facts that while the task event for the 7th floor can be started, it is unlikely to remain on schedule unless additional resources (i.e., electricians) are brought on-board to perform this task).
Claim 19. Culver discloses wherein the device is further configured to generate an internal work flow using at least the task related information in the memory and the task related information of the at least one dependent task, obtained using the access rights information ([0918-0921] verify and authentication of users, [0361-0363] privacy restrictions and access to projects, [0423-0426] user permissions within a project are assigned to roles rather than to individual users in order to simplify the security model and allow turnover in the project. For example, assigning a default set of permissions (e.g., read, write, create, update, administer, execute and delete, among others) to a generic “architect” role allows anyone who assumes this role to also inherit those permissions assigned to the role, for example Jane having the same role as Bob can inherit and be transferred access rights since they have the same job role and this approach simplifies the transfer of roles between users while continuing to ensure that the permission set restricts what any particular user can do. Should the first user be replaced by a second user (i.e., the original person shifts the responsibility for the role to another), the second user will inherit the same set of permissions, while the first user will lose his or her original set of permissions, [0224] use of notifications to indicate actions related to an event may help those involved with the event to identify potential issues or bottlenecks beforehand, i.e., notification has been sent to the electricians related to the wiring on the 7th floor, but that the status of the task event related to the wiring of the 5th floor is marked as “in progress” and the status of the task event for wiring the 6th floor is marked as “late”. As a result, a user may deduce from these facts that while the task event for the 7th floor can be started, it is unlikely to remain on schedule unless additional resources (i.e., electricians) are brought on-board to perform this task).
Claim 20. Culver discloses wherein the task related information comprises at least one of timing related information, location related information, shared resource related information, or end result information of the piece of work, wherein the location related information of a task defines at least one of a space defined based on a physical size of a part associated with the task or the space defined based on the physical size added with extra space required for the work to be performed ([0067-176] address location of project, [0447] location of event tasks and task location type, [0986] the size of the project submitted to the certifying body).
Conclusion
The relevant prior art made of record not relied upon but considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure can be found in the current and/or previous PTO-892 Notice of References Cited. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to LAURA YESILDAG whose direct telephone number is (571) 270-5066 and work schedule is generally Monday-Friday, from 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM ET.
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/LAURA YESILDAG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3629