DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
This action is in reply to the claims filed on 07 April 2023.
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined.
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 Objections
Claims 1-20 are objected to because of the following informalities: The claims recite articles and also recite set of news article, which seem to be used interchangeably within the claims, and appear to be a typographical error. The claims should recite the articles as either all recited as the news articles or just articles throughout all of the claims. Appropriate correction is required.
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 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea without significantly more).
Under step 1, it is determined whether the claims are directed to a statutory category of invention (see MPEP 2106.03(II)). In the instant case, claims 1-10 are directed to a method, claims 11-15 are directed to product of manufacture, and claims 16-20 are directed to a system.
While the claims fall within statutory categories, under revised Step 2A, Prong 1 of the eligibility analysis (MPEP 2106.04), the claimed invention recites an abstract idea of identifying a set of news articles for a user. Specifically, representative claim 1 recites the abstract idea of:
identifying, a user, the user being associated with a location and having a set of predetermined interests;
querying, an indexed data of a plurality of news articles, each news article having corresponding tags indicating a location and context;
identifying, a set of news articles based on the query, the set of articles comprising content corresponding to the user location, the context of the set of articles corresponding to the predetermined interests of the user; and
communicating, the set of news articles to a user.
Under revised Step 2A, Prong 1 of the eligibility analysis, it is necessary to evaluate whether the claim recites a judicial exception by referring to subject matter groupings articulated in 2106.04(a) of the MPEP. Even in consideration of the analysis, the claims recite an abstract idea. Representative claim 1 recites the abstract idea of identifying a set of news articles for a user, as noted above. This concept is considered to be a method of organizing human activity. Certain methods of organizing human activity include “fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions).” MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II). In this case, the abstract idea recited in representative claim 1 is a certain method of organizing human activity because relates to marketing or sales activities or behaviors since the claims specifically recite the activities of identifying a user location that has predetermined interests, querying news articles that have corresponding tags indicating a location and context of the article, identifying a set of articles comprising content corresponding to the user’s location, the context of the set of articles that also correspond to the predetermined interests of the user, and communicating to the user the set of news articles, thereby making these activities sales behaviors and marketing activities.
The Examiner additionally notes that that the steps of identifying, a user, and identifying a set of news articles based on a query, would also fall into the enumerated grouping of mental processes. A mental process is defined as and includes “concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgement, and opinion)” (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)). In this case, the steps of identifying, would be considered a concept performed in the human mind, such as an observation and judgement. Thus, representative claim 1 recites an abstract idea that also falls into the grouping of mental processes.
Thus, representative claim 1 recites an abstract idea.
Under Step 2A, Prong 2 of the eligibility analysis, if it is determined that the claims recite a judicial exception, it is then necessary to evaluate whether the claims recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application of that exception. MPEP 2106.04(d). The courts have identified limitations that did not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application include limitations merely reciting the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f). MPEP 2106.04(d). In this case, representative claim 1 includes additional elements: a device, the device, and a device.
Although reciting such additional elements, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they merely amount to no more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer or merely use a computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea. These additional elements are described at a high level in Applicant’s specification without any meaningful detail about their structure or configuration. Similar to the limitations of Alice, representative claim 1 merely recites a commonplace business method (i.e., identifying a set of news articles for a user) being applied on a general-purpose computer using general purpose computer technology. MPEP 2106.05(f). Thus, the claimed additional elements are merely generic elements and the implementation of the elements merely amounts to no more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer. Since the additional elements merely include instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer or merely use a generic computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, the abstract idea has not been integrated into a practical application.
Additionally, the Examiner notes that the claim recites the step of communicating, by the device, the set of news articles to a device of the user, which is considered to be insignificant extra-solution activity. Extra-solution activity can be understood as activities that are incidental to the primary process or product that are merely a nominal or tangential addition the claim (see MPEP 2106.05(g)). In this case, the activity of communicating (e.g., transmitting data) is merely nominal or tangential additions to the primary process of item ordering.
Under Step 2B of the eligibility analysis, if it is determined that the claims recite a judicial exception that is not integrated into a practical application of that exception, it is then necessary to evaluate the additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether they provide an inventive concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself). MPEP 2106.05. In this case, as noted above, the additional elements of a device, the device, and a device recited in independent claim 1 are recited and described in a generic manner merely amount to no more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer or merely use a generic computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea.
Even when considered as an ordered combination, the additional elements of representative claim 1 do not add anything that is not already present when they considered individually. In Alice, the court considered the additional elements “as an ordered combination,” and determined that “the computer components…‘ad[d] nothing…that is not already present when the steps are considered separately’… [and] [v]iewed as a whole…[the] claims simply recite intermediated settlement as performed by a generic computer.” Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208, 217, (2014) (citing Mayo, 566 U.S. at 79, 101 USPQ2d at 1972). Similarly, when viewed as a whole, representative claim 1 simply conveys the abstract idea itself facilitated by generic computing components. Therefore, under Step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test, there are no meaningful limitations in representative claim 1 that transforms the judicial exception into a patent eligible application such that the claims amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Further, the step communicating, by the device, the set of news articles to a device of the user does not provide significantly more than the judicial exception because they are merely well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the industry of data management and processing. The courts have recognized the computer functions as well-understood, routine, and conventional functions when they are claimed in a generic manner or as insignificantly extra-solution activity. Receiving or transmitting data over a network (e.g., using the Internet to gather data) are recognized computer functions that are considered insignificant extra-solution activity (see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)). This is similar to the steps and additional elements that are recited in the claims. For example, the step of communicating by the device, the set of news articles to a user device would be the same as the activity of transmitting data over a network in this case. Further, the step of communicating would be the same as the function of transmitting and receiving the data over a network, such as the internet. For examples of court cases, see Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am, Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2015) and Intellectual Ventures I v. Symantec Corp., 838 F. 3d 1307, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
As such, representative claim 1 is ineligible.
Independent claims 11 and 16 are similar in nature to representative claim 1 and Step 2A, Prong 1 analysis is the same as above for representative claim 1. It is noted that in independent claim 11 includes the additional elements of a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium tangibly encoded with computer-executable instructions, that when executed by the device performs the method, and independent claim 16 includes the additional element of a processor configured to. The Applicant’s specification does not provide any discussion or description of the claimed additional elements as being anything other than generic elements. Thus, the claimed additional elements of claims 11 and 16 are merely generic elements and the implementation of the elements merely amounts to no more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer. As such, the additional elements of claims 11 and 16 do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application of the abstract idea. Additionally, the additional elements of claim 11 and 16, considered individually and in combination, do not provide an inventive concept because they merely amount to no more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer.
As such, claims 11 and 16 are also ineligible.
Dependent claims 2-10, 12-15, and 17-20, depending from claims 1, 11, and 16, respectively, do not aid in the eligibility of the independent claim 1. The claims of 2-10, 12-15, and 17-20 merely act to provide further limitations of the abstract idea and are ineligible subject matter.
It is noted that dependent claims includes the additional elements of over a network (claim 3, 13, & 18), and the network (claim 5). Applicant’s specification does not provide any discussion or description of over a network and the network, as being anything other than a generic element. The claimed additional elements, individually and in combination do not integrate into a practical application and do not provide an inventive concept because they are merely being used to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer (see MPEP 2106.05(f)). Accordingly, claims 3, 5, 13, and 18 are directed towards an abstract idea. Additionally, the additional elements of claims 3, 5, 13, and 18 considered individually and in combination, do not provide an inventive concept because they merely amount to no more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer. It is further noted that the remaining dependent claims 2, 4, 6-12, 14-15, 17, and 19-20 do not recite any further additional elements to consider in the analysis, and therefore would not provide additional elements that would integrate the abstract idea into a practical application and would not provide an inventive concept.
As such, dependent claims 2-10, 12-15, and 17-20 are ineligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 1-4, 6, and 8-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Green, B., et al. (PGP No. US 2017/0124207 A1), in view of Blue, A., et al. (PGP No. US 2017/0351760 A1).
Claim 1-
Green discloses a method comprising:
identifying, by a device, a user, the user being associated with a location and having a set of predetermined interests (Green, see: paragraph [0017] disclosing “a user profile store”; and paragraph [0018] disclosing “user profile include…hobbies, preferences, location” ; and paragraph [0019] disclosing “system 140…may retrieve, for example, Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates associated with a user’s device” and “identifies the location associated with the user, and associates the location with the user’s user profile stored in the user profile store”);
by the device, an indexed database of a plurality of objects, each object having corresponding tags indicating a location and context (Green, see: paragraph [0029] disclosing “recommendation engine 235 identifies objects stored in the content store that have explicit connections with one or more users” and “retrieves data included in a user profile associated with a user, such as location”; and paragraph [0035] disclosing “identifies objects in the content store 210 that have explicit connections…located within the level of geographical partitions” and “For example, identified zip code” and “identifies objects that have explicit connections to one or users located within the identified zip code, such as users who have ‘liked’ the object”) (Examiner’s comment: It is interpreted that the identified zip code and the user’s predetermined ‘liked’ action of the object of Green, are both tags indicating a location and context.);
identifying, by the device, a set of objects based on the query, the set of objects comprising content corresponding to the user location, the context of the set of objects corresponding to the predetermined interests of the user (Green, see: paragraph [0035] disclosing “identifies objects in the content store 210 that have explicit connections…located within the level of geographical partitions” and “identifies objects that have explicit connections to one or users located within the identified zip code, such as users who have ‘liked’ the object”; and paragraph [0056] disclosing “system 140 then selects 370 relevant objects to recommend to the user from the set of…relevant objects” and see: paragraph [0057] disclosing “system 140 might provide a newsfeed to the user and whereon the page that includes the news feed” and “might include a ‘Pages you Might Like” section” and “provide a list of all the selected relevant objects or page”); and
communicating, by the device, the set of objects to a device of the user (Green, see: paragraph [0057] disclosing “selected relevant objects for a user can then be presented for display to au ser” and “provide a newsfeed to the user and whereon the page that includes the news feed” and “might include a ‘Pages you Might Like” section” and “provide a list of all the selected relevant objects or page”).
Although Green does disclose identifying relevant objects to recommend to a user, such as a news feed pages that they may like based on the location and the preferences of a user, Green does not explicitly disclose that the system identifies specific news articles to recommend to a user. Green does not disclose:
querying, news articles;
news articles;
a set of news articles;
communicating, the set of news articles;
Blue, however, does teach:
querying, news articles (Blue, see: paragraph [0034] teaching “Queries may be initiated by the query module 220 to the database and utilize the index to retrieve a list of articles associated with a certain set of characteristics (or facets)”);
news articles (Blue, see: paragraph [0023] teaching “news articles provided by various article sources such as the NRS 125”);
a set of news articles (Blue, see: paragraph [0026] teaching “matched with articles having a high popularity with other users”; and see: paragraph [0034] teaching “retrieve a list [i.e., set] of articles associated with a certain set of characteristics”; and paragraph [0076] teaching “In response to the query of the article database 135, the method continues”);
communicating, the set of news articles (Blue, see: paragraph [0076] teaching “In response to the query of the article database 135…transmitting 870 the ranked listing of the articles to a client device of the user”).
It is noted that both references describe displaying types of content to a user based on the user’s preferences, however, the reference of Green also describes that the content recommended to a user is based on the identified location, which Blue does not describe.
This step of Blue is applicable to the method of Green, as they both share characteristics and capabilities, namely, they are directed to displaying content to a user based on a user’s preferences. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Green, to also include the features of querying, news articles, news articles, a set of news articles, and communicating, the set of news articles, as taught by Blue. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to modify the method of Green to improve recommendations of articles for a user by providing more relevant news articles for a user to interact with (Blue, see: paragraphs [0018]-[0020]).
Claim 2-
Green in view of Blue teach the method of claim 1, as described above.
Green discloses further comprising:
analyzing the set of objects (Green, see: paragraph [0055] disclosing “system 140 may also use machine learning algorithm to…rank the relevant objects”); and
determining a ranking of the set of objects wherein the ranking is based on an analysis of the context of the set of articles respective to the predetermined interests of the user (Green, see: paragraph [0056] disclosing “selects relevant objects based on the rank of the relevant objects” and “top 20 ranked relevant objects in the set”),
wherein communication of the set of objects is based on the determined ranking (Green, see: paragraph [0057] disclosing “selected relevant objects for a user can then be presented for display to a user” and “ranked objects from the merged set of objects”).
Green does not disclose:
set of articles;
set of news articles;
Blue, however, does teach:
set of articles (Blue, see: paragraph [0026] teaching “matched with articles having a high popularity with other users”; and see: paragraph [0034] teaching “retrieve a list [i.e., set] of articles associated with a certain set of characteristics”; and paragraph [0076] teaching “In response to the query of the article database 135, the method continues”);
set of news articles (Blue, see: paragraph [0076] teaching “In response to the query of the article database 135…transmitting 870 the ranked listing of the articles to a client device of the user”).
This step of Blue is applicable to the method of Green, as they both share characteristics and capabilities, namely, they are directed to displaying content to a user based on a user’s preferences. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Green, to also include the features of the set of articles, and the set of news articles, and communicating, the set of news articles, as taught by Blue. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to modify the method of Green to improve recommendations of articles for a user by providing more relevant news articles for a user to interact with (Blue, see: paragraphs [0018]-[0020]).
Claim 3-
Green in view of Blue teaches the method of claim 1, as described above.
Green discloses further comprising:
identifying, over a network, the plurality of objects (Green, see: paragraph [0014] disclosing “network 120”; and see: paragraph [0035] disclosing “identifies objects in the content store 210 that have explicit connections…located within the level of geographical partitions” and “identifies objects that have explicit connections to one or users located within the identified zip code, such as users who have ‘liked’ the object”);
analyzing the plurality of objects (Green, see: paragraph [0055] disclosing “system 140 may also use machine learning algorithm to…rank the relevant objects”);
determining, based on the analysis, information related to each of the objects in the plurality (Green, see: paragraph [0057] disclosing “selected relevant objects for a user can then be presented for display to au ser” and “provide a newsfeed to the user and whereon the page that includes the news feed” and “might include a ‘Pages you Might Like” section” and “provide a list of all the selected relevant objects or page”); and
categorizing each of the objects in the plurality based on the determined information (Green, see: paragraph [0055] disclosing “relevant objects for each level of geographic partitions based on the demographic information associated with the relevant object and the user, engagement information associated with the relevant object”; and see: paragraph [0057] disclosing “selected relevant objects for a user can then be presented for display to au ser” and “provide a newsfeed to the user and whereon the page that includes the news feed” and “might include a ‘Pages you Might Like” section” and “provide a list of all the selected relevant objects or page”).
Green does not disclose:
news articles;
articles;
Blue, however, does teach:
news articles (Blue, see: paragraph [0026] teaching “matched with articles having a high popularity with other users”; and see: paragraph [0034] teaching “retrieve a list [i.e., set] of articles associated with a certain set of characteristics”; and paragraph [0076] teaching “In response to the query of the article database 135, the method continues”);
articles (Blue, see: paragraph [0076] teaching “In response to the query of the article database 135…transmitting 870 the ranked listing of the articles to a client device of the user”).
This step of Blue is applicable to the method of Green, as they both share characteristics and capabilities, namely, they are directed to displaying content to a user based on a user’s preferences. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Green, to also include the features of the news articles, and articles as taught by Blue. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to modify the method of Green to improve recommendations of articles for a user by providing more relevant news articles for a user to interact with (Blue, see: paragraphs [0018]-[0020]).
Claim 4-
Green in view of Blue teach the method of claim 3, as described above.
Green discloses:
wherein the categorization provides an indication of a type covered in each object, wherein the tags in the indexed database are based on the categorization (Green, see: paragraph [0027] disclosing “a feature may represent the level of interest that a user has in a particular topic”).
Green does not disclose:
a type topic covered in news article;
Blue, however, does teach:
a type topic covered in news article (Blue, see: paragraph [0063] teaching “the suggested industries section 392 as an aid to the user for potentially finding further topics to follow” and paragraph [0070] teaching “search topics link 398 may also be displayed adjacent to the top sources section 386 and the suggested industries section 392”).
This step of Blue is applicable to the method of Green, as they both share characteristics and capabilities, namely, they are directed to displaying content to a user based on a user’s preferences. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Green, to also include the features of a type topic covered in news article, and articles as taught by Blue. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to modify the method of Green to improve recommendations of articles for a user by providing more relevant news articles for a user to interact with (Blue, see: paragraphs [0018]-[0020]).
Claim 6-
Green in view of Blue teach the method of claim 1, as described above.
Green discloses:
wherein the query comprises information related to the user location and a time period (Green, see: paragraph [0019] disclosing “retrieve location information” and “associates the location with user’s user profile” and “identifies GPS coordinate at which the user’s user device occupies the most time or more than a threshold amount of time and associates the location information determined from the GPS coordinate with user’s user profile”).
Claim 8-
Green in view of Blue teach the method of claim 1, as described above.
Green discloses:
wherein the location of the user corresponds to a residence of the user. (Green, see: paragraph [0019] disclosing “may provide the…system 140 with a home or work address associated with the user's residence”; and see: paragraph [0045] disclosing “user might also be associated with more than one location (e.g., a work location, a home location, etc.)”).
Claim 9-
Green in view of Blue teach the method of claim 1, as described above.
Green discloses further comprising:
detecting an action related to the user, wherein the identification of the user is based on detection of the action (Green, see: paragraph [0029] disclosing “data included in a user profile associated with a user, such as location information identifying the primary location occupied by a user” and “identifies objects stored in the content store that have explicit connections with one or more users”).
Claim 10-
Green in view of Blue teach the method of claim 9, as described above.
Green discloses:
wherein the action corresponds to a user request (Green, see: paragraph [0030] disclosing “A user may send a request to the web server”).
Regarding claim 11, claim 11 is directed to a product of manufacture. Claim 11 recites limitations that are similar in nature to those addressed above for claim 1, which is directed towards a method. Claim 11 also recites the features of a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium tangibly encoded with computer-executable instructions, that when executed by the device (Green, see: paragraph [0063] disclosing “computer program may be stored in a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium, or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, which may be coupled to a computer system bus”). Claim 11 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 1.
Regarding claim 12, claim 12 is directed to a product of manufacture. Claim 12 recites limitations that are parallel in nature to those addressed above for claim 2, which is directed towards a method. Claim 12 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 2.
Regarding claim 13, claim 13 is directed to a product of manufacture. Claim 13 recites limitations that are parallel in nature to those addressed above for claim 3, which is directed towards a method. Claim 13 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 3.
Regarding claim 14, claim 14 is directed to a product of manufacture. Claim 14 recites limitations that are parallel in nature to those addressed above for claim 4, which is directed towards a method. Claim 14 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 4.
Regarding claim 15, claim 15 is directed to a product of manufacture. Claim 15 recites limitations that are parallel in nature to those addressed above for claim 6, which is directed towards a method. Claim 15 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 6.
Regarding claim 16, claim 16 is directed to a system. Claim 16 recites limitations that are similar in nature to those addressed above for claim 1, which is directed towards a method. Claim 16 also recites the feature of a processor (Green, see: paragraph [0063] disclosing “may include a single processor”). Claim 16 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 1.
Regarding claim 17, claim 17 is directed to a system. Claim 17 recites limitations that are parallel in nature to those addressed above for claim 2, which is directed towards a method. Claim 17 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 2.
Regarding claim 18, claim 18 is directed to a system. Claim 18 recites limitations that are parallel in nature to those addressed above for claim 3, which is directed towards a method. Claim 18 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 3.
Regarding claim 19, claim 19 is directed to a system. Claim 19 recites limitations that are parallel in nature to those addressed above for claim 4, which is directed towards a method. Claim 19 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 4.
Regarding claim 20, claim 20 is directed to a system. Claim 20 recites limitations that are parallel in nature to those addressed above for claim 6, which is directed towards a method. Claim 20 is therefore rejected for the same reasons as set forth above for claim 6.
Claims 5 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Green, B., et al., in view of Blue, A., et al., and Rathod, Y. (PGP No. US 2018/0350144 A1).
Claim 5-
Green in view of Blue teach the method of claim 3, as described above.
Green does not disclose:
wherein the identification of the plurality of news articles corresponds to a time period related to publishing of the news article on the network.
Rathod, however, does teach:
wherein the identification of the plurality of news articles corresponds to a time period related to publishing of the news article on the network (Rathod, see: paragraph [0456] teaching “published posts or one or more type of contents…metadata…per received date & time”).
This step of Rathod is applicable to the method of Green, as they both share characteristics and capabilities, namely, they are directed to suggesting types of information based on a user profile. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Green, to also include the features wherein the identification of the plurality of news articles corresponds to a time period related to publishing of the news article on the network, as taught by Rathod. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to modify the method of Green to improve suggestions of content for a user based on when content has been published (Rathod, see: paragraph [0459]).
Claim 7-
Green in view of Blue teach the method of claim 1, as described above.
Green does not disclose
wherein the location of the user is a current location of the user.
Rathod, however, does teach:
wherein the location of the user is a current location of the user (Rathod, see: paragraph [0457] teaching “mark current location of user 4307 device 200” and “information about each visited route”).
This step of Rathod is applicable to the method of Green, as they both share characteristics and capabilities, namely, they are directed to suggesting types of information based on a user profile. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Green, to also include the feature of wherein the location of the user is a current location of the user, as taught by Rathod. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to modify the method of Green to improve suggestions of content for a user based on when content has been published (Rathod, see: paragraph [0459]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Shukla, A., et al. (PGP No. US 2018/0246972 A1), describes techniques for providing an enhanced search to generate a feed based on a user’s interests.
Non-patent literature (NPL) document, Personalized News Recommendation Based on Click Behavior, published on google.com (2009), is a publication describing a large analysis of Google users to determine user’s interests by using learning algorithms to identify specific news content for the user.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ASHLEY PRESTON whose telephone number is (571)272-4399. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Smith can be reached at 571-272-6763. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ASHLEY D PRESTON/Examiner, Art Unit 3688