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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over HUANG; Huaying US 20240198223 A1 (hereafter Huang) and in further view of Ceraldi; James Paul et al. US 20170014718 A1 (hereafter Ceraldi) and in further view of Miron; Keith et al. US 20180161675 A1 (hereafter Miron).
Regarding claim 1, “a method for processing data, comprising: obtaining respective current interaction data of each interactive party within a target virtual interaction space in a competition state, the current interaction data comprising a current number of times that a specified interactive action has been performed” Nelson para 14-15 teaches tracking player gameplay matches within a virtual environment and corresponds to target virtual interaction space in a competition state and further teaches tracking events based on other telemetric gameplay data associated with the players during the gameplay session and corresponds to current number of times that a specified interactive action has been performed; Regarding “obtaining interaction quota data, a specified competition time length, and a current competition time length of the target virtual interaction space” Nelson para 14 teaching tracking telemetric gameplay data associated with the players during the gameplay session comprising competition time length relating to the amount of time a player is active in relation to all the players during the entirety of the game tournament corresponds to specified competition time length and a current competition time length; see also para 16 regarding utilizing thresholds that must be satisfied which is provided to each player and corresponds to quota data; Regarding “the interaction quota data comprising a target number of times of performing the specified interactive action; and sending competition end information to each interactive party, based on the current competition time length not reaching the specified competition time length and the current interaction data of one of interactive parties within the target virtual interaction space satisfying the interaction quota data” Nelson para 14 teaching tracking telemetric gameplay data associated with the players during the gameplay session comprising competition time length relating to the amount of time a player is active in relation to all the players during the entirety of the game tournament corresponds to specified competition time length and a current competition time length; see also para 16 regarding utilizing thresholds that must be satisfied which is provided to each player and corresponds to quota data.
Whereas Nelson references the term threshold which the examiner interprets as quota, the prior art to Ceraldi teaches an invention for game group processing in a game comprising multiple virtual characters and teaches the terms quotas or thresholds are used interchangeably (see para 22-25, 30).
The motivation to further modify Nelson and Ceraldi is evidenced in Miron para 54, 62, 67, 72, 79, 87, 95 and 103 virtual game instances are tracked and update messages are provided to each participating player on the current status and state of the game such that a person of ordinary skill would reasonably infer that when a new game is started/initiated such as with sub-games discussed in para 57.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Nelson’s invention for obtaining respective current interaction data of each interactive party within a target virtual interaction space in a competition state, the current interaction data comprising a current number of times that a specified interactive action has been performed and utilize quota data and competition data to track the competition data thresholds to determine when gameplay actions take effect by further incorporating known elements of Ceraldi’s invention for game group processing comprising multiple virtual characters and teaches the terms quotas or thresholds are used interchangeably for tracking gameplay data because the combination of known elements according to known functions to improve similar methods and devices in the same way because Miron’s invention discloses virtual game instances are tracked and update messages are provided to each participating player identifiers on the current status and state of the game.
Regarding claim 2, “further comprising: receiving a competition instruction triggered by a target interactive party within the target virtual interaction space, the competition instruction comprising an identifier of the target virtual interaction space, the specified interactive action, and the interaction quota data; performing a competition condition-based verification on the target virtual interaction space in response to the competition instruction, and changing a state of the target virtual interaction space into the competition state after passing the competition condition-based verification; storing a first correspondence between the identifier of the target virtual interaction space and a respective identifier of each interactive party; and storing a second correspondence between the identifier of the target virtual interaction space, the specified interactive action and the interaction quota data” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claim 1 wherein Nelson para 14 teaching tracking telemetric gameplay data associated with the players during the gameplay session comprising competition time length relating to the amount of time a player is active in relation to all the players during the entirety of the game tournament corresponds to specified competition time length and a current competition time length; see also para 16 regarding utilizing thresholds that must be satisfied which is provided to each player and corresponds to quota data. See also para 52-63 receiving instructions identifying the target virtual space comprising selected registered virtual players for gameplay based on assignment rules based on the combat effectiveness data, ranking situation, actual combat data, points data, activity data, and other aspects of the individual members (virtual characters) and the specified interactive action regarding performing a competition condition-based verification on the target virtual interaction space in response to the competition instruction, and changing a state of the target virtual interaction space into the competition state after passing the competition condition-based verification corresponds to Ceraldi’s para 22, 27-32 disclosing identifier of the target virtual interaction space comprising examples of virtual game playing environments; specifying trigger(s) and condition(s) associated with gameplay can control the presentation of content to players; selectively change these timing parameters using player behavioral data if the current timing parameters; maintain performance thresholds or quotas for presentation of events when events do not meet or exceed expected thresholds, the server can adjust the parameters to increase the successful events; see para 43 - configurations comprised of values or ranges of values for things such as, play time, currency balance, real world money spent to date, mission, level, time since last purchase, average or typical real world currency spend in game, etc. See also Miron para 83-84 the game server 104 hosts multiple instances concurrently and therefore the event log 203 may maintain a different set of event records 300 for each match being played on those instances or may store multiple event logs. Each of the event records 300 includes an event ID 301, a timestamp 302, a list of participants 303, and additional characteristics 304.
Regarding claim 3, “further comprising: obtaining a target interaction message in response to the competition instruction, the target interaction message indicating that the specified interactive action is performed towards a specified interactive party within the target virtual interaction space, the specified interactive party is any one of the interaction parties within the target virtual interaction space, and the target interaction message comprising a number of times that the specified interactive action is to be performed; obtaining updated interaction data by updating the current interaction data of the specified interactive party using the number of times that the specified interactive action is to be performed; and determining the updated interaction data as new current interaction data of the specified interactive party” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-2 wherein Nelson para 14 teaching tracking telemetric gameplay data associated with the players during the gameplay session comprising competition time length relating to the amount of time a player is active in relation to all the players during the entirety of the game tournament corresponds to specified competition time length and a current competition time length; see also para 16 regarding utilizing thresholds that must be satisfied which is provided to each player and corresponds to quota data. See also para 52-63 receiving instructions identifying the target virtual space comprising selected registered virtual players for gameplay based on assignment rules based on the combat effectiveness data, ranking situation, actual combat data, points data, activity data, and other aspects of the individual members (virtual characters) and the specified interactive action. See also Ceraldi’s para 22, 27-32 disclosing identifier of the target virtual interaction space comprising examples of virtual game playing environments; specifying trigger(s) and condition(s) associated with gameplay can control the presentation of content to players; selectively change these timing parameters using player behavioral data if the current timing parameters; maintain performance thresholds or quotas for presentation of events when events do not meet or exceed expected thresholds, the server can adjust the parameters to increase the successful events; see para 43 - configurations comprised of values or ranges of values for things such as, play time, currency balance, real world money spent to date, mission, level, time since last purchase, average or typical real world currency spend in game, etc. See para 32, 62 regarding presenting pop up screens corresponding to target interaction message. See also Miron para 50, 62, 65, 72-73, 79-80, regarding virtual game instances are tracked and update messages are provided to each participating player on the current status and state of the game.
Regarding claim 4, “wherein obtaining the target interaction message comprises: obtaining an interaction message within the target virtual interaction space from a message middleware based on the identifier of the target virtual interaction space, the interaction message indicating that a preset interactive action is performed towards the specified interactive party within the target virtual interaction space; storing the interaction message in a queue of messages to be combined corresponding to the specified interactive party, based on determining that the preset interactive action is the specified interactive action; and obtaining the target interaction message by combining, at a preset time interval, interaction messages in the queue of messages to be combined corresponding to the specified interactive party” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-3 wherein Ceraldi’s para 22, 27-32 disclosing identifier of the target virtual interaction space comprising examples of virtual game playing environments; specifying trigger(s) and condition(s) associated with gameplay can control the presentation of content to players; selectively change these timing parameters using player behavioral data if the current timing parameters; maintain performance thresholds or quotas for presentation of events when events do not meet or exceed expected thresholds, the server can adjust the parameters to increase the successful events; see para 43 - configurations comprised of values or ranges of values for things such as, play time, currency balance, real world money spent to date, mission, level, time since last purchase, average or typical real world currency spend in game, etc. See para 32, 62 regarding presenting pop up screens corresponding to target interaction message. See also Nelson para 14 teaching tracking telemetric gameplay data associated with the players during the gameplay session comprising competition time length relating to the amount of time a player is active in relation to all the players during the entirety of the game tournament corresponds to specified competition time length and a current competition time length; see also para 16 regarding utilizing thresholds that must be satisfied which is provided to each player and corresponds to quota data. See also para 52-63 receiving instructions identifying the target virtual space comprising selected registered virtual players for gameplay based on assignment rules based on the combat effectiveness data, ranking situation, actual combat data, points data, activity data, and other aspects of the individual members (virtual characters) and the specified interactive action.
Regarding claim 5, “further comprising: determining the identifier of the target virtual interaction space corresponding to an identifier of the specified interactive party based on the first correspondence; and determining the specified interactive action corresponding to the identifier of the target virtual interaction space based on the second correspondence” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-4 wherein Ceraldi’s para 22, 27-32 disclosing identifier of the target virtual interaction space comprising examples of virtual game playing environments; specifying trigger(s) and condition(s) associated with gameplay can control the presentation of content to players; selectively change these timing parameters using player behavioral data if the current timing parameters; maintain performance thresholds or quotas for presentation of events when events do not meet or exceed expected thresholds, the server can adjust the parameters to increase the successful events; see para 43 - configurations comprised of values or ranges of values for things such as, play time, currency balance, real world money spent to date, mission, level, time since last purchase, average or typical real world currency spend in game, etc. See para 32, 62 regarding presenting pop up screens corresponding to target interaction message.
Regarding claim 6, “further comprising: obtaining respective historical interaction data of each interactive party in response to an instruction for selecting the specified interactive action triggered by the target interactive party, the historical interaction data comprising a plurality of historical interaction resource identifiers and respective numbers of historical interactions corresponding to the plurality of historical interaction resource identifiers; determining a recommended interaction resource identifier based on the plurality of historical interaction resource identifiers of each interactive party, one of the plurality of historical interaction resource identifiers of each interactive party matching the recommended interaction resource identifier; determining recommended quota data based on the number of historical interactions of each interactive party with respect to the recommended interaction resource identifier; and sending a recommended competition quota to the target interactive party, the recommended competition quota comprising the recommended interaction resource identifier and the recommended quota data” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-5 wherein Nelson para 14 teaching tracking telemetric gameplay data associated with the players during the gameplay session comprising competition time length relating to the amount of time a player is active in relation to all the players during the entirety of the game tournament corresponds to specified competition time length and a current competition time length; see also para 16 regarding utilizing thresholds that must be satisfied which is provided to each player and corresponds to quota data. See also para 52-63 receiving instructions identifying the target virtual space comprising selected registered virtual players for gameplay based on assignment rules based on historical data comprising combat effectiveness data, ranking situation, actual combat data, points data, activity data, and other aspects of the individual members (virtual characters) and the specified interactive action. See also Ceraldi’s para 22, 27-32 disclosing identifier of the target virtual interaction space comprising examples of virtual game playing environments; specifying trigger(s) and condition(s) associated with gameplay can control the presentation of content to players; selectively change these timing parameters using player behavioral data if the current timing parameters; maintain performance thresholds or quotas for presentation of events when events do not meet or exceed expected thresholds, the server can adjust the parameters to increase the successful events; see para 43 - configurations comprised of values or ranges of values for things such as, play time, currency balance, real world money spent to date, mission, level, time since last purchase, average or typical real world currency spend in game, etc. See para 32, 62 regarding presenting pop up screens corresponding to target interaction message.
Regarding claim 7, Nelson and Ceraldi disclose all the elements of the claim except deleting the first correspondence as claimed in “further comprising: updating the state of the target virtual interaction space from the competition state to an interaction state, and starting timing upon the updating; sending respective current interaction data of each interactive party at a moment when the competition is ended to each interactive party; and updating the state of the target virtual interaction space from the interaction state to a competition end state based on the timing reaching a specified interaction time length, deleting the first correspondence between the identifier of the target virtual interaction space and the respective identifier of each interactive party, and deleting the second correspondence between the identifier of the target virtual interaction space, the specified interactive action, and the interaction indicator data” Nelson para 14 teaching tracking telemetric gameplay data associated with the players during the gameplay session comprising competition time length relating to the amount of time a player is active in relation to all the players during the entirety of the game tournament corresponds to specified competition time length and a current competition time length; see also para 16 regarding utilizing thresholds that must be satisfied which is provided to each player and corresponds to quota data. See also para 52-63 receiving instructions identifying the target virtual space comprising selected registered virtual players for gameplay based on assignment rules based on historical data comprising combat effectiveness data, ranking situation, actual combat data, points data, activity data, and other aspects of the individual members (virtual characters) and the specified interactive action. See also Ceraldi’s para 22, 27-32 disclosing identifier of the target virtual interaction space comprising examples of virtual game playing environments; specifying trigger(s) and condition(s) associated with gameplay can control the presentation of content to players; selectively change these timing parameters using player behavioral data if the current timing parameters; maintain performance thresholds or quotas for presentation of events when events do not meet or exceed expected thresholds, the server can adjust the parameters to increase the successful events; see para 43 - configurations comprised of values or ranges of values for things such as, play time, currency balance, real world money spent to date, mission, level, time since last purchase, average or typical real world currency spend in game, etc. See para 32, 62 regarding presenting pop up screens corresponding to target interaction message.
In an analogous art, Miron para 54, 62, 67, 72, 79, 87, 95 and 103 virtual game instances are tracked and update messages are provided to each participating player on the current status and state of the game such that a person of ordinary skill would reasonably infer that when a new game is started/initiated such as with sub-games discussed in para 57 and Miron’s teachings correspond to the new messages are presented to reflect the start of the game, the teaches deleting the first correspondence between the identifier of the target virtual interaction space and the respective identifier of each interactive party, and deleting the second correspondence between the identifier of the target virtual interaction space, the specified interactive action, and the interaction indicator data.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Nelson and Ceraldi’s invention for obtaining respective current interaction data of each interactive party within a target virtual interaction space in a competition state, the current interaction data comprising a current number of times that a specified interactive action has been performed and utilize quota data and competition data to track the competition data thresholds to determine when gameplay actions take effect and further game group processing comprising multiple virtual characters and teaches the terms quotas or thresholds are used interchangeably for tracking gameplay data by further incorporating known elements of Miron’s invention for tracking virtual game instances and sending update messages are provided to each participating player on the current status and state of the game and reset games status messages at the beginning of new games.
Regarding claim 8, “further comprising: determining an identifier of the target interactive party who sends the competition instruction as an identifier of an initiating party of the specified interactive action; or storing color information of an element to be displayed in the target virtual interaction space, the element to be displayed comprising at least one of a name of a winner interactive party among interactive parties, competition result data or a competition special effect to be displayed when the competition is finished in a respective display page of each interactive party” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-7 wherein Miron para 54, 62, 67, 72, 79, 87, 95 and 103 virtual game instances are tracked and update messages are provided to each participating player on the current status and state of the game such that a person of ordinary skill would reasonably infer that when a new game is started/initiated such as with sub-games discussed in para 57; see also Miron para 29, 46, 49, 93-94, 108-109 disclosing displaying competition data, winner as a high score at the end of a window.
Regarding the electronic device claims 9-16 and non-transitory computer readable media claims 17-20 the claims are grouped and rejected with the method claims 1-8 because the steps of the method claims are met by the disclosure of the apparatus and methods of the reference(s) as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-8 and because the steps of the method are easily converted into elements of computer implemented methods and electronic device claims by one of ordinary skill in the art.
CONCLUSION
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALFONSO CASTRO whose telephone number is (571)270-3950. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday from 10am to 6pm.
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) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nathan Flynn can be reached. 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 the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ALFONSO CASTRO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2421