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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in REPUBLIC OF INDIA on 07/08/2022. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the IN202241039424 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see remarks pages 9-12, filed 04/29/2026, with respect to rejection of claims 1-19 under 35 U.S.C. 101, have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 1-19 under 35 U.S.C. 101 has been withdrawn in view of the argument and the corresponding amendments.
Applicant’s arguments, see page 12, filed 04/29/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-7, 9, 11-16 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Nixon (US20140282195A1) in view of Chai (US20240045399A1) and further in view of Schmidt (US20230237284A1) and further in view of Heynen (US20110035552A1).
Drawings
The drawings were received on 04/29/2026. These drawings are acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-7, 9, 11-16 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nixon (US20140282195A1) in view of Chai (US20240045399A1) and further in view of Schmidt (US20230237284A1) and further in view of Heynen (US20110035552A1)
Regarding claim 1,
Nixon teaches, A method of providing visual contents to a user for monitoring processes in an industrial system, the method comprising:
receiving, by a control system, a plurality of variables associated with a plurality of processes in an industrial system, from one or more sources; (¶0110 teaches, graphic display application 30 monitoring process variables associated with a process control system. ¶0043 teaches, The graphic display application 30 may retrieve or receive process variable information from the database 12 for a particular process variable)
determining a presence of one or more critical variables from the plurality of variables based on one or more parameters, ….; (¶0110 teaches, graphic display application 30 determines and/or stores condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. The condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information may include any of a current state of a process variable, a projected state of the process variable, a corresponding trend of the process variable, a direction of change of the process variable, a rate of change of the process variable, a relative position of the process variable with respect to a set point (e.g., above, below, or approximately at the set point), a relative deviation of the process variable from the set point with respect to an operational range of values for the process variable, a relative distance of the process variable with respect to an alarm limit, an actual value of the process variable, and/or the historical or archived values of the process variable tagged over time.)
upon determining the presence of one or more critical variables, identifying one or more first visual contents from a plurality of visual contents associated with the plurality of variables by associating the one or more critical variables with the plurality of visual contents, wherein each of the plurality of visual contents represents one or more processes from the plurality of processes and corresponding variables; (¶0111 teaches, at block 3404, the graphic display application 30 generates icons representative of the condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. For example, the generated icons may correspond to any of the icons described above in connection with FIGS. 6-17. ¶0083 and Fig. 8 teaches, icons that depicts the variable value above or below a setpoint)
identifying one or more second visual contents based on availability of behavior data of a user, ….; and (¶0116-¶0118 teaches receiving request to display information in a process variable summary pane and also teaches the operator interface directly renders the corresponding process variable summary pane based on the request. ¶0101-¶0105 and Fig. 18A-18D teaches visual contents with different levels of details provided in the summary pane)
upon the number of identified one or more first visual contents and identified one or more second visual contents exceeding a pre-defined threshold value, preparing a reduced set of visual contents by omitting at least one second visual content of the one or more visual contents; (¶0116-¶0118 teaches, determining whether there is enough space within a designated display area to display the requested information. "Whether there is enough space depends on size of the designated display area, the amount of information that is requested to be displayed, and what information is already displayed.". ¶0118 teaches, if the graphic display application 30 determines there is not enough space within the designated display area, the graphic display application 3 0 may collapse the summary pane to only display the top banner. Therefore the number of first and second visual contents are constrained by the designated display area (threshold value))
Nixon doesn’t explicitly teach, determining a presence of one or more critical variables from the plurality of variables based on one or more parameters, using a machine learning model (Nixon doesn’t teach using a machine learning model to determine condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. Chai in ¶0049 teaches, Analysis system 110 may utilize machine learning models (e.g., model 190) to determine whether differences exist between a transient portion of data and historical transient data. Analysis system 110 may utilize features of transient data, e.g., shapes in transient data such as spikes, ramps, slopes, etc.; measures such as slope, concavity, etc., of transient data, or the like, to determine summary data 162.)
Chai is an art in the area of interest as it teaches relates to diagnostic methods for analyzing sensor data. A combination of Chai with Nixon would allow determining critical variables using a machine learning model. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teaching of Chai with Nixon. One would have been motivated to do so because doing so would allow determining differences exist between a transient portion of data and historical transient data which can be used for summary data generation, as taught by Chai in ¶0049 and ¶0070.
Nixon and Chai doesn’t teach, identifying one or more second visual contents based on availability of behavior data of a user, using the machine learning model; (Nixon in ¶0116-¶0118 teaches, identifying second visual content based on operator input. However it doesn’t teach using a machine learning model. Schmidt in ¶0021-¶0025 teaches determining the response R to the information request Ir from a user using a machine learning model.)
Schmidt is an art in the area of interest as it relates to an industrial plant. A combination of Schmidt with Nixon and Chai would allow using a machine learning model in identifying one or more second visual contents. Nixon already teaches, identifying second visual content based on operator input. One of ordinary skill in the art could combine the teachings of Schmidt with Nixon and Chai to identify second visual content using a machine learning model. One would have been motivated to do so because doing so allows for enabling automation of interactions which require less time consuming manual interaction, as taught by Schmidt in ¶0063.
Nixon, Chai and Schmidt doesn’t teach, storing, in a cache of the control system, the reduced set of visual contents; (Heynen in ¶0116 teaches storing UI items cache memory along with display settings)
in response to receiving a request from a user for process information, providing, via a user interface of the control system, the reduced set of visual contents from the cache of the control system to the user for monitoring at least one process of the plurality of processes in the industrial system and thereby reducing a call-up time of the user interface. (Nixon in ¶0112 teaches, graphic display application 30 renders a diagram based on user input. ¶0118 teaches receiving user input to display summary pane and rendering a reduced summary pane. However, it doesn’t teach, providing, the reduced set of visual contents from the cache Heynen in ¶0114 teaches, When the determination is made that the UI item was previously displayed or cached at that display setting, the process retrieves (at 1620) the UI item from the cache. ¶0117 teaches, the process 1600 then redraws (at 1640) the UI based on the retrieved UI item.)
Heynen is an art in the area of interest as it relates to dynamically adjustable user interface (see Abstract). A combination of Heynen with Nixon, Chai and Schmidt would allow storing the reduced set of visual contents in the cache and providing the reduced set of visual contents from the cache. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teaching of Heynen with Nixon, Chai and Schmidt. One would have been motivated to do so because doing so would improve application performance when adjusting the appearance of the UI by re-using cached UI elements rather than re-processing the UI elements stored on disk, as taught by Heynen in ¶0009 and ¶0112.
Regarding claim 2,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein upon determining an absence of the one or more critical variables, comprising providing the one or more second visual contents to the user, based on the behavior data. (Nixon in ¶0111 teaches, at block 3404, the graphic display application 30 generates icons representative of the condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. For example, the generated icons may correspond to any of the icons described above in connection with FIGS. 6-17. ¶0083 and Fig. 8 teaches, icons that depicts the variable value at setpoint, therefore it can determine an absence of critical variable. ¶0118 and Fig. 20B step 3428 teaches, the operator interface directly renders the corresponding process variable summary pane based on receiving request to display information in a process variable summary pane
Regarding claim 3,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein upon determining unavailability of the behavior data, comprising providing the one or more first visual contents to the user, based on the association of the one or more critical variables with the plurality of visual contents. (Nixon in ¶0118 and Fig. 20A-20B teaches, determining that a request to display information in a process variable summary pane has not been received and skipping the steps of rendering the process variable summary pane and return back to step 3408. ¶0112 teaches, in step 3408 the operator interface renders the diagram including the generated icons (block 3404) adjacent to, or in place of, the key indicators and/or other relevant information.)
Regarding claim 4,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the plurality of variables comprises at least one of, electrical variables, mechanical variables, and thermal variables. (Nixon in ¶0044 teaches, the graphic display application 30 displays process variable data for several process variables associated with the heater 56, such as inlet pressure, outlet pressure, and crude temperature)
Regarding claim 5,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the one or more sources comprises one or more sensors in the industrial system. (Nixon in ¶0042 teaches, process variable are received from the field devices 15-22. ¶0039 teaches, the field devices 15-22 may be any types of devices, such as sensors)
Regarding claim 6
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters comprise at least one of, alarm severity level associated with the plurality of variables and threshold values associated with a rate of change of the plurality of variables. (Nixon in ¶0083 teaches icons related to process value above or below a threshold)
Regarding claim 7,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the behavior data comprises at least one of, historic visual content selected by the user, a selection pattern associated with the historic visual content, identification details of the user and a role of the user in the industrial system. (Schmidt in ¶0080 teaches, collecting user actions over a period of time, analyzing the user actions, thereby recognizing patters of user actions, determining a predicted information intent using the recognized patterns
Regarding claim 8,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein
the one or more first visual contents and the second visual contents of the reduced set of visual contents are retrieved from the cache upon receiving the request from the user. ((Nixon in ¶0112 teaches, graphic display application 30 renders a diagram based on user input. ¶0118 teaches receiving user input to display summary pane and rendering a reduced summary pane. However, it doesn’t teach, providing, the reduced set of visual contents from the cache Heynen in ¶0114 teaches, When the determination is made that the UI item was previously displayed or cached at that display setting, the process retrieves (at 1620) the UI item from the cache. ¶0117 teaches, the process 1600 then redraws (at 1640) the UI based on the retrieved UI item.)
Regarding claim 9,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the number of the one or more first visual contents and the one or more second visual contents provided to the user is less than the pre-defined threshold value. (Nixon in ¶0116-¶0118 teaches, determining whether there is enough space within a designated display area to display the requested information. “Whether there is enough space depends on size of the designated display area, the amount of information that is requested to be displayed, and what information is already displayed.”. ¶0118 teaches, if the graphic display application 30 determines there is not enough space within the designated display area, the graphic display application 30 may collapse the summary pane to only display the top banner. Therefore the number of first and second visual contents are constrained by the designated display area (threshold value))
Regarding claim 11,
Nixon teaches, A control system for providing visual content to a user for monitoring processes in an industrial system, the control system comprising:
a memory; and (¶0109 teaches a memory)
one or more processors coupled to the memory, wherein the memory stores processor-executable instructions, which, on execution, cause the one or more processors to: (¶0109 teaches, the method may be implemented using machine readable instructions that comprise a program for execution by a processor. The program may be embodied in software stored on a tangible computer readable storage medium such as a CD-ROM, a floppy disk, a hard drive, a digital versatile disk (DVD), a Blu-ray disk, or a memory associated with the processor)
receive a plurality of variables associated with a plurality of processes in an industrial system from one or more sources; (¶0110 teaches, graphic display application 30 monitoring process variables associated with a process control system. ¶0043 teaches, The graphic display application 30 may retrieve or receive process variable information from the database 12 for a particular process variable)
determine a presence of one or more critical variables from the plurality of variables based on one or more parameters, ….; (¶0110 teaches, graphic display application 30 determines and/or stores condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. The condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information may include any of a current state of a process variable, a projected state of the process variable, a corresponding trend of the process variable, a direction of change of the process variable, a rate of change of the process variable, a relative position of the process variable with respect to a set point (e.g., above, below, or approximately at the set point), a relative deviation of the process variable from the set point with respect to an operational range of values for the process variable, a relative distance of the process variable with respect to an alarm limit, an actual value of the process variable, and/or the historical or archived values of the process variable tagged over time.)
upon determining the presence of one or more critical variables, identify one or more first visual contents from a plurality of visual contents associated with the plurality of variables by associating the one or more critical variables with the plurality of visual contents, wherein each of the plurality of visual contents represents one or more processes from the plurality of processes and corresponding variables; (¶0111 teaches, at block 3404, the graphic display application 30 generates icons representative of the condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. For example, the generated icons may correspond to any of the icons described above in connection with FIGS. 6-17. ¶0083 and Fig. 8 teaches, icons that depicts the variable value above or below a setpoint)
identify one or more second visual contents based on availability of behavior data of a user, …; and(¶0116-¶0118 teaches receiving request to display information in a process variable summary pane and also teaches the operator interface directly renders the corresponding process variable summary pane based on the request. ¶0101-¶0105 and Fig. 18A-18D teaches visual contents with different levels of details provided in the summary pane)
upon the number of identified one or more first visual contents and identified one or more second visual contents exceeding a pre-defined threshold value, preparing a reduced set of visual contents by omitting at least one second visual content of the one or more visual contents;
Nixon doesn’t explicitly teach, determine a presence of one or more critical variables from the plurality of variables based on one or more parameters, using a machine learning model (Nixon doesn’t teach using a machine learning model to determine condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. Chai in ¶0049 teaches, Analysis system 110 may utilize machine learning models (e.g., model 190) to determine whether differences exist between a transient portion of data and historical transient data. Analysis system 110 may utilize features of transient data, e.g., shapes in transient data such as spikes, ramps, slopes, etc.; measures such as slope, concavity, etc., of transient data, or the like, to determine summary data 162.)
Chai is an art in the area of interest as it teaches relates to diagnostic methods for analyzing sensor data. A combination of Chai with Nixon would allow determining critical variables using a machine learning model. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teaching of Chai with Nixon. One would have been motivated to do so because doing so would allow determining differences exist between a transient portion of data and historical transient data which can be used for summary data generation, as taught by Chai in ¶0049 and ¶0070.
Nixon and Chai doesn’t teach, identify one or more second visual contents based on availability of behavior data of a user, using the machine learning model; (Nixon in ¶0116-¶0118 teaches, identifying second visual content based on operator input. However it doesn’t teach using a machine learning model. Schmidt in ¶0021-¶0025 teaches determining the response R to the information request Ir from a user using a machine learning model.)
Schmidt is an art in the area of interest as it relates to an industrial plant. A combination of Schmidt with Nixon and Chai would allow using a machine learning model in identifying one or more second visual contents. Nixon already teaches, identifying second visual content based on operator input. One of ordinary skill in the art could combine the teachings of Schmidt with Nixon and Chai to identify second visual content using a machine learning model. One would have been motivated to do so because doing so allows for enabling automation of interactions which require less time consuming manual interaction, as taught by Schmidt in ¶0063.
Nixon, Chai and Schmidt doesn’t teach, store, in a cache of the control system, the reduced set of visual contents; and (Heynen in ¶0116 teaches storing UI items cache memory along with display settings)
in response to receiving a request from a user for process information, provide the reduced set of visual contents to the user via a user interface of the control system for monitoring at least one process of the plurality of processes in the industrial system. (Nixon in ¶0112 teaches, graphic display application 30 renders a diagram based on user input. ¶0118 teaches receiving user input to display summary pane and rendering a reduced summary pane. However, it doesn’t teach, providing, the reduced set of visual contents from the cache Heynen in ¶0114 teaches, When the determination is made that the UI item was previously displayed or cached at that display setting, the process retrieves (at 1620) the UI item from the cache. ¶0117 teaches, the process 1600 then redraws (at 1640) the UI based on the retrieved UI item.)
Heynen is an art in the area of interest as it relates to dynamically adjustable user interface (see Abstract). A combination of Heynen with Nixon, Chai and Schmidt would allow storing the reduced set of visual contents in the cache and providing the reduced set of visual contents from the cache. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teaching of Heynen with Nixon, Chai and Schmidt. One would have been motivated to do so because doing so would improve application performance when adjusting the appearance of the UI by re-using cached UI elements rather than re-processing the UI elements stored on disk, as taught by Heynen in ¶0009 and ¶0112.
Regarding claim 12,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The control system as claimed in claim 11, wherein upon determining an absence of the one or more critical variables, the one or more processors are configured to provide the one or more second visual contents to the user, based on the behavior data. (Nixon in ¶0111 teaches, at block 3404, the graphic display application 30 generates icons representative of the condition(s), characteristic(s), and/or other information associated with the process variables. For example, the generated icons may correspond to any of the icons described above in connection with FIGS. 6-17. ¶0083 and Fig. 8 teaches, icons that depicts the variable value at setpoint, therefore it can determine an absence of critical variable. ¶0118 and Fig. 20B step 3428 teaches, the operator interface directly renders the corresponding process variable summary pane based on receiving request to display information in a process variable summary pane)
Regarding claim 13,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The control system as claimed in claim 11, wherein upon determining unavailability of the behavior data, the one or more processors are configured to provide the one or more first visual contents to the user, based on the association of the one or more critical variables with the plurality of visual contents. (Nixon in ¶0118 and Fig. 20A-20B teaches, determining that a request to display information in a process variable summary pane has not been received and skipping the steps of rendering the process variable summary pane and return back to step 3408. ¶0112 teaches, in step 3408 the operator interface renders the diagram including the generated icons (block 3404) adjacent to, or in place of, the key indicators and/or other relevant information.)
Regarding claim 14,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The control system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the plurality of variables comprises at least one of, electrical variables, mechanical variables, and thermal variables and wherein the one or more sources comprise one or more sensors in the industrial system. (Nixon in ¶0044 teaches, the graphic display application 30 displays process variable data for several process variables associated with the heater 56, such as inlet pressure, outlet pressure, and crude temperature. Nixon in ¶0042 teaches, process variable are received from the field devices 15-22. ¶0039 teaches, the field devices 15-22 may be any types of devices, such as sensors)
Regarding claim 15,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The control system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the one or more parameters comprise at least one of, alarm severity level associated with the plurality of variables and threshold values associated with a rate of change of the plurality of variables. (Nixon in ¶0083 teaches icons related to process value above or below a threshold)
Regarding claim 16,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The control system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the behavior data comprises at least one of, historic visual content selected by the user, a selection pattern associated with the historic visual content, identification details of the user and a role of the user in the industrial system. (Schmidt in ¶0080 teaches, collecting user actions over a period of time, analyzing the user actions, thereby recognizing patters of user actions, determining a predicted information intent using the recognized patterns
Regarding claim 17,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The control system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the one or more first visual contents and the second visual contents are retrieved from the cache upon receiving the request from the user. (Nixon in ¶0112 teaches, graphic display application 30 renders a diagram based on user input. ¶0118 teaches receiving user input to display summary pane and rendering a reduced summary pane. However, it doesn’t teach, providing, the reduced set of visual contents from the cache Heynen in ¶0114 teaches, When the determination is made that the UI item was previously displayed or cached at that display setting, the process retrieves (at 1620) the UI item from the cache. ¶0117 teaches, the process 1600 then redraws (at 1640) the UI based on the retrieved UI item.)
Regarding claim 18,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen teaches, The control system as claimed in claim 11, wherein a number of the one or more first visual contents and the one or more second visual contents provided to the user is less than a pre-defined threshold value. (Nixon in ¶0116-¶0118 teaches, determining whether there is enough space within a designated display area to display the requested information. “Whether there is enough space depends on size of the designated display area, the amount of information that is requested to be displayed, and what information is already displayed.”. ¶0118 teaches, if the graphic display application 30 determines there is not enough space within the designated display area, the graphic display application 30 may collapse the summary pane to only display the top banner. Therefore the number of first and second visual contents are constrained by the designated display area (threshold value))
Claim(s) 10 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nixon (US20140282195A1) in view of Chai (US20240045399A1) and further in view of Schmidt (US20230237284A1) and further in view of Heynen (US20110035552A1) and further in view of Drees (US20180046164A1)
Regarding claim 10,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen doesn’t teach, The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein identifying the one or more second visual contents further comprises updating the behavior data based on a learning by the machine learning model when the user selects one or more visual contents other than the one or more first visual contents and the one or more second visual contents. (Although Schmidt in ¶0041 teaches recognizing and learning patterns of user actions, it doesn’t explicitly teach, learning when the user selects one or more visual contents other than the one or more first visual contents and the one or more second visual contents. Drees in ¶0146 -¶0147 teaches, learning user user's behavior and preferences and learn that the user should be provided with information tailored to less experienced users or information tailored to more experienced users based on user requests. Also teaches, “if the user repeatedly requests more details or more complex information when presented with a set of information tailored to novice users, user identifier 1122 can determine that the user should be presented with a set information tailored to more experienced users”. ¶0149 teaches, description tailored to communicate effectively with a different type of user or user class (e.g., building owners, novice users, operations staff, service technicians, expert users, etc.) based on the attributes and abilities of the user or user class. adaptive state information generator 1124 can customize the state information and the transition information presented in the adaptive user interface to the particular user or user class to which the information will be presented)
Drees is an art in the area of interest as it relates to an user interface generator (see Abstract). A combination of Drees with Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen would allow the system to learn when the user selects one or more visual contents other than the one or more first visual contents and the one or more second visual contents. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teaching of Drees with Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen. One would have been motivated to do so because doing so would allow the system to present information with an appropriate level of detail for the user and in a format that is most understandable by the user (as taught by Drees in ¶0037). Doing so would make the system more user friendly.
Regarding claim 19,
Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen doesn’t teach, The control system as claimed in claim 11, wherein identifying the one or more second visual contents further comprises updating the behavior data based on a learning by the machine learning model when the user selects one or more visual contents other than the one or more first visual contents and the one or more second visual contents. (Although Schmidt in ¶0041 teaches recognizing and learning patterns of user actions, it doesn’t explicitly teach, learning when the user selects one or more visual contents other than the one or more first visual contents and the one or more second visual contents. Drees in ¶0146 -¶0147 teaches, learning user user's behavior and preferences and learn that the user should be provided with information tailored to less experienced users or information tailored to more experienced users based on user requests. Also teaches, “if the user repeatedly requests more details or more complex information when presented with a set of information tailored to novice users, user identifier 1122 can determine that the user should be presented with a set information tailored to more experienced users”. ¶0149 teaches, description tailored to communicate effectively with a different type of user or user class (e.g., building owners, novice users, operations staff, service technicians, expert users, etc.) based on the attributes and abilities of the user or user class. adaptive state information generator 1124 can customize the state information and the transition information presented in the adaptive user interface to the particular user or user class to which the information will be presented)
Drees is an art in the area of interest as it relates to an user interface generator (see Abstract). A combination of Drees with Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen would allow the system to learn when the user selects one or more visual contents other than the one or more first visual contents and the one or more second visual contents. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teaching of Drees with Nixon, Chai, Schmidt, Heynen. One would have been motivated to do so because doing so would allow the system to present information with an appropriate level of detail for the user and in a format that is most understandable by the user (as taught by Drees in ¶0037). Doing so would make the system more user friendly.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ISTIAQUE AHMED whose telephone number is (571)272-7087. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Thursday 10AM -6PM and alternate Fridays.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kenneth M Lo can be reached at (571) 272-9774. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ISTIAQUE AHMED/Examiner, Art Unit 2116
/KENNETH M LO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2116
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