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 .
Status of Claims
This action is in response to amendment filed on 26 November 2025. Claims 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, and 20 have been amended. Claims 2-3, 9-10 and 17 have been cancelled. Claims 1, 4-8, 11-16 and 18-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 26 November 2025 has been entered.
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.
Step 1: The claims 1, and 4-7 are method, claims 8 and 11-14 are medium and claims 15, 16 and 18-20 are system. Thus, each independent claim, on its face is directed to one of the statutory categories of 35 U.S.C §101. However, the claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 2A-Prong 1: Independent claims (1, 8 and 15) recite soliciting bids from a plurality of bidders for identifying a winning advertisement with respect to an online ad display opportunity, receiving bids from at least some of the plurality of bidders in response to the solicitation, wherein each of the received bids is associated with an advertisement from a certain type of flow; retrieving a current value of a budget factor that used to control budget pacing in online advertising; for each of the received bids. These limitation as drafted, are a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers the commercial or legal interaction is advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors include:
using advertising as an exchange or currency, Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC;33
offer-based price optimization, which pertains to marketing, OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc.;34 and
structuring of a sales force or marketing company, which pertains to marketing or sales activities or behaviors, In re Ferguson
The claims as whole recited a method or organizing human activity and managing Personal Behavior or Relationships or Interactions Between People” Thus, the claim recites an abstract idea.
The recited limitation of computing a wrapper function value based on the current value of the budget factor and the type of flow of the advertisement associated with the bid; ranking the received bids in accordance with ranking scores for the respective received bids computed based on the wrapper function values of the respective advertisements associated therewith; and selecting a winning bid from the received bids based on the ranking scores. These limitation, as drafted, is also a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation covers calculation of budget in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than “a processor and memory”, nothing in the claim precludes the claims preclude the computing, ranking and selecting steps from practically being performed in the human mind. For example, but for the “processor and memory” language the claims encompass the user thinking and selecting the winning bid based on the ranking higher score. Thus, these limitation is also a mental process.
Step 2A-Prong 2: The claims recite additional limitation of processor and memory is used to perform the soliciting, receiving, retrieving, ranking and selecting steps. The processor and memory in those steps are recited at a high level of generality, i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function of processing data (selecting a winning bids, based on the ranking the received bids). This generic processor limitation is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Wrapper function is also recited at high level of generality, (i.e., general means of receiving bid value, gathering information) and amounts to mere data gathering which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to the abstract idea.
Step 2B: As discussed with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional element in the claim amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The same analysis applies here in 2B, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. The claim is ineligible.
Further, the courts have consistently recognized that merely presenting the results of
abstract processes of soliciting, receiving, retrieving, ranking and selecting winning bid information, without more (such as identifying a particular tool for presentation), is abstract as an ancillary part of such collection and analysis. See, e.g., Content Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1347; Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 715 (Fed. Cir. 2014). Examiner asserts that “selecting a winning bid based on computed/ranked received bid” is not particular tool, thus it offers no more than presenting anything that includes the winning bid that resulted from the agreement between the communication platform and any third party. In sum, the combination of steps that retrieve data, received bids, selecting winning bid a record is at best is doing no more than generally linking the claims to network environment that sends and receives communications– see MPEP 2106.05(h). See also, OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363, 115 USPQ2d 1090, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (sending messages over a network).
TLI Communications provides an example of a claim invoking computers and other
machinery merely as a tool to perform an existing process. The court stated that the claims
describe steps of recording, administration and archiving of digital images, and found them to be
directed to the abstract idea of classifying and storing digital images in an organized manner. 823
F.3d at 612, 118 USPQ2d at 1747. The court then turned to the additional elements of
performing these functions using a telephone unit and a server and noted that these elements were being used in their ordinary capacity (i.e., the telephone unit is used to make calls and
operate as a digital camera including compressing images and transmitting those images, and the
server simply receives data, extracts classification information from the received data, and stores
the digital images based on the extracted information). 823 F.3d at 612-13, 118 USPQ2d at
1747-48.
Similarly, these claims soliciting, receiving bids, retrieving, ranking and selecting winning bid by invoking computer systems as tools being used in an ordinary capacity to execute the abstract idea. Thus, these additional elements do not add significantly more to the abstract idea because they were simply applying the abstract idea on a computer system without sufficient recitation of details of how to carry out the abstract idea. The claims merely offer conventional computer systems to organizing Human Activity.
Dependent claims 4-7, 11-14 , 16, and 18-20, these claims recite limitation that further define the abstract idea noted in claims 1, 8 and 15. These claims do not contain any further additional elements per step 2A prong 2. Therefore, they are considered patent ineligible for the reason give above.
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, 4-8, 11-16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jain et al. (Pub. No.: US 2007/0061216 Al) in view of Sarkhel et al (US Pub., No., 2021/0374809 A1)
With respect to claim 1, Jain teaches a method implemented on at least one processor, a memory, and a communication platform for dynamically selecting advertisements from a preferred type of advertisement flow in online advertising, comprising:
soliciting bids from a plurality of bidders for identifying a winning advertisement with respect to an online ad display opportunity (paragraph [0007], discloses advertising opportunities, such as ads [soliciting bids] and paragraph [0012], discloses the bid associated with the highest pseudo bis is identified as the winning bid);
receiving bids from at least some of the plurality of bidders in response to the solicitation, wherein each of the received bids is associated with an advertisement from a certain type of advertisement flow (Fig. 3, 304, discloses receive bids, each bid including a bid price and an auction budget submitted by a bidder, paragraph [0007], discloses advertiser submit bids for advertising opportunities that arise, paragraph [0008], discloses advertiser may submit bids that include a “pre selection” or “per click” bid the advertiser desires …, paragraph [0011], discloses bidders submitting high budgets to be satisfied..) ;
retrieving, from a computer database, a current value of a budget factor that used to control budget pacing in online advertising, wherein the budget factor has a range between a minimum value and a maximum value(Figs. 4, 5, paragraph [0039], discloses set of bids 400 submitted by the bidder, Bidder A 410, Bidder B 420 and Bidder C, bidder A 410 submits a bid price 412 of $0.06 per impression and an auction [current value].., an auction budget is $2.50, and paragraph [0040], discloses determine a relevant bid price.., ) ;
for each of the received bids, computing a wrapper function value based on the current value of the budget factor and the type of flow of the advertismetn associated with the bid (paragraph [0012], discloses pseudo bid function [a wrapper function value] is applied to determine the pseudo bis for each of bids or variable pseudo bid functions .., and paragraph [0029], discloses a Vickery-type auction, using the pseudo bid function to determine what bid price a bidder would have had to submit ), wherein:
if the current value of the budget factor falls in a higher subrange of the budget factor and the type of flow indicates that the advertisement associated with the bid is from a native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow the wrapper function value equals to the maximum value (Fig. 5, paragraph [0042], discloses Bidder A 410 and the bid price 422 of Bidder B 420 are both $0.06, and Bidder C 430 submitted a lower bid price 432 than Bidder B 420. However, Bidder C 430 submitted an auction budget 434 of $2.50 that is significantly larger than the $1.00 auction budget 424 of Bidder B 420. Because the pseudo bid function of Eq. (8) used to determine the pseudo bids considers.., and paragraph [0043], discloses the auction budgets 414, 424, and 434 submitted by the bidders have been redesignated as "Remaining Budgets"514, 524, and 534, respectively. In one mode of a pseudo bid process, while the initial pseudo bids are determined based upon the original auction budgets submitted, as items being auctioned are assigned to winning bidders); and
if the current value of the budget factor falls in a lower subrange of the budget factor and the type of flow indicates that the advertisement associated with the bid is from a native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow , the wrapper function value equals to the maximum value (paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned);
ranking the received bids in accordance with ranking scores for the respective received bids computed based on the wrapper function values of the respective advertisements associated therewith (paragraph [0059], discloses ranks below bidder A’s pseudo bid of $0.02778.., thus, bidder A is the next winner determined in round .., allow other bidder to win items ..); and
updating the budget factor based on detection of a click on the advertismetn that is displayed (paragraph [0008], discloses advertiser may submit bids that include a “per selection“ or “per click” bid, paragraph [0013], discloses auction budgets increase their pseudo bids.., recalculating pseudo bids based on remaining auction , paragraph [0040], discloses selection rate may include for example, an estimated or an historical click-through rate …, calculate bids that are relevant to the auction being conducted )
Jain teaches the above elements including selecting a winning bid from the received bids based on the ranking scores (paragraph [0013], discloses higher auction budget are rewarded by being above to win more it.., paragraph [0025], discloses second bidder submitting the second bid to reward the second bidder for submitting a higher auction budget and paragraph [0045], discloses an advertising opportunity has become available the bid associated with the highest pseudo bid .., bidder A wins the item with a highest pseudo bid of $0.045). Jain failed to teach such that selection of the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid is dynamically steered to a preferred type of advertisement flow under different budget spending condition and hosting, on an online platform, a webpage including the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid.
However, Sarkhel teaches selection of the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid is dynamically steered to a preferred type of advertisement flow under different budget spending condition and hosting, on an online platform, a webpage including the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid (paragraph [0019], discloses dynamically placed withing primary content a web page based on predicted clearing price .., paragraph [0020], discloses dynamic content placement opportunity.., and paragraph [0022], discloses identifying historical winning bids, associated clearing price). Therefore, it would have been obvious to the one ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention for budget depending pseudo bid in auction of Jain with dynamic content placement opportunity of Sarkhel in order to up-to-date content relevance.
With respect to claim 4, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 1, furthermore, Jain teaches the method futher comprising:
if the current value of the budget factor satisfies a first condition, computing the wrapper function value in accordance with a first definition, wherein the first condition specifies that the current value is within a first subrange of the budget factor; and if the current value of the budget factor satisfies a second condition, computing the wrapper function value in accordance with a second definition, wherein the second condition specifies that the current value is within a second subrange of the budget factor(Fig. 5, paragraph [0042], discloses Bidder A 410 and the bid price 422 of Bidder B 420 are both $0.06, and Bidder C 430 submitted a lower bid price 432 than Bidder B 420. However, Bidder C 430 submitted an auction budget 434 of $2.50 that is significantly larger than the $1.00 auction budget 424 of Bidder B 420. Because the pseudo bid function of Eq. (8) used to determine the pseudo bids considers.., and paragraph [0043], discloses the auction budgets 414, 424, and 434 submitted by the bidders have been redesignated as "Remaining Budgets"514, 524, and 534, respectively. In one mode of a pseudo bid process, while the initial pseudo bids are determined based upon the original auction budgets submitted, as items being auctioned are assigned to winning bidders).
With respect to claim 5, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 4, furthermore, Jain teaches the method futher comprising:
wherein the first definition includes: if the advertisement is from product advertisements flow the primary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be a function of the current value of the budget factor and a first predetermined constant; and if the advertisement is from the native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow the secondary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be the minimum value, wherein the wrapper function value computed based on the first definition represents a preference of an advertisement from advertisements flow primary flow(paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned). Jain failed teach the dynamic product advertisements flow.
However, Sarkhel teaches he dynamic product advertisements flow (paragraph [0019], discloses dynamically placed withing primary content a web page based on predicted clearing price .., paragraph [0020], discloses dynamic content placement opportunity.., and paragraph [0022], discloses identifying historical winning bids, associated clearing price). Therefore, it would have been obvious to the one ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention for budget depending pseudo bid in auction of Jain with dynamic content placement opportunity of Sarkhel in order to up-to-date content relevance.
With respect to claim 6, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 4, furthermore, Jain teaches the method wherein the second definition includes:
if the advertisement is from the native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow the secondary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be a multiplication of a difference between the current value and a midpoint of the range and a second predetermined constant, wherein the wrapper function value computed based on the second definition allows selection of advertisements from either the dynamic product advertisements flow primary flow or the native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow secondary flow(paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned).
Jain teaches the above elements including if the advertisement is from product advertisements flow the primary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be the maximum value(paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned). Jain failed teach the dynamic product advertisements flow.
However, Sarkhel teaches he dynamic product advertisements flow (paragraph [0019], discloses dynamically placed withing primary content a web page based on predicted clearing price .., paragraph [0020], discloses dynamic content placement opportunity.., and paragraph [0022], discloses identifying historical winning bids, associated clearing price). Therefore, it would have been obvious to the one ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention for budget depending pseudo bid in auction of Jain with dynamic content placement opportunity of Sarkhel in order to up-to-date content relevance.
With respect to claim 7, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 1, furthermore, Jain teaches the method wherein each of the scores for an advertisement associated with one of the received bids is determined based on a bid value multiplied by the wrapper function value(paragraph [0012], discloses pseudo bid function applied to determine the pseudo bids and paragraph [0033], discloses the bid price remains constant and the auction budget is increase٨ and value of e raise to – ٨ multiply by the auction budget ..) .
With respect to claim 8, Jain teaches a machine readable and non-transitory medium having information recorded thereon dynamically selecting advertisements from a preferred type of advertisement flow in online advertising wherein the information, when read by the machine cause the machine to perform the following steps:
soliciting bids from a plurality of bidders for identifying a winning advertisement with respect to an online ad display opportunity (paragraph [0007], discloses advertising opportunities, such as ads [soliciting bids] and paragraph [0012], discloses the bid associated with the highest pseudo bis is identified as the winning bid);
receiving bids from at least some of the plurality of bidders in response to the solicitation, wherein each of the received bids is associated with an advertisement from a certain type of advertisement flow (Fig. 3, 304, discloses receive bids, each bid including a bid price and an auction budget submitted by a bidder, paragraph [0007], discloses advertiser submit bids for advertising opportunities that arise, paragraph [0008], discloses advertiser may submit bids that include a “pre selection” or “per click” bid the advertiser desires …, paragraph [0011], discloses bidders submitting high budgets to be satisfied..) ;
retrieving, from a computer database, a current value of a budget factor that used to control budget pacing in online advertising, wherein the budget factor has a range between a minimum value and a maximum value(Figs. 4, 5, paragraph [0039], discloses set of bids 400 submitted by the bidder, Bidder A 410, Bidder B 420 and Bidder C, bidder A 410 submits a bid price 412 of $0.06 per impression and an auction [current value].., an auction budget is $2.50, and paragraph [0040], discloses determine a relevant bid price.., ) ;
for each of the received bids, computing a wrapper function value based on the current value of the budget factor and the type of flow of the advertismetn associated with the bid (paragraph [0012], discloses pseudo bid function [a wrapper function value] is applied to determine the pseudo bis for each of bids or variable pseudo bid functions .., and paragraph [0029], discloses a Vickery-type auction, using the pseudo bid function to determine what bid price a bidder would have had to submit ), wherein:
if the current value of the budget factor falls in a higher subrange of the budget factor and the type of flow indicates that the advertisement associated with the bid is from a native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow the wrapper function value equals to the maximum value (Fig. 5, paragraph [0042], discloses Bidder A 410 and the bid price 422 of Bidder B 420 are both $0.06, and Bidder C 430 submitted a lower bid price 432 than Bidder B 420. However, Bidder C 430 submitted an auction budget 434 of $2.50 that is significantly larger than the $1.00 auction budget 424 of Bidder B 420. Because the pseudo bid function of Eq. (8) used to determine the pseudo bids considers.., and paragraph [0043], discloses the auction budgets 414, 424, and 434 submitted by the bidders have been redesignated as "Remaining Budgets"514, 524, and 534, respectively. In one mode of a pseudo bid process, while the initial pseudo bids are determined based upon the original auction budgets submitted, as items being auctioned are assigned to winning bidders); and
if the current value of the budget factor falls in a lower subrange of the budget factor and the type of flow indicates that the advertisement associated with the bid is from a native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow , the wrapper function value equals to the maximum value (paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned);
ranking the received bids in accordance with ranking scores for the respective received bids computed based on the wrapper function values of the respective advertisements associated therewith (paragraph [0059], discloses ranks below bidder A’s pseudo bid of $0.02778.., thus, bidder A is the next winner determined in round .., allow other bidder to win items ..); and
updating the budget factor based on detection of a click on the advertismetn that is displayed (paragraph [0008], discloses advertiser may submit bids that include a “per selection“ or “per click” bid, paragraph [0013], discloses auction budgets increase their pseudo bids.., recalculating pseudo bids based on remaining auction , paragraph [0040], discloses selection rate may include for example, an estimated or an historical click-through rate …, calculate bids that are relevant to the auction being conducted )
Jain teaches the above elements including selecting a winning bid from the received bids based on the ranking scores (paragraph [0013], discloses higher auction budget are rewarded by being above to win more it.., paragraph [0025], discloses second bidder submitting the second bid to reward the second bidder for submitting a higher auction budget and paragraph [0045], discloses an advertising opportunity has become available the bid associated with the highest pseudo bid .., bidder A wins the item with a highest pseudo bid of $0.045). Jain failed to teach such that selection of the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid is dynamically steered to a preferred type of advertisement flow under different budget spending condition and hosting, on an online platform, a webpage including the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid.
However, Sarkhel teaches selection of the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid is dynamically steered to a preferred type of advertisement flow under different budget spending condition and hosting, on an online platform, a webpage including the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid (paragraph [0019], discloses dynamically placed withing primary content a web page based on predicted clearing price .., paragraph [0020], discloses dynamic content placement opportunity.., and paragraph [0022], discloses identifying historical winning bids, associated clearing price). Therefore, it would have been obvious to the one ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention for budget depending pseudo bid in auction of Jain with dynamic content placement opportunity of Sarkhel in order to up-to-date content relevance.
With respect to claim 11, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 8, furthermore, Jain teaches the medium wherein the information, when read by the machine, cause the machine to futher perform the following steps:
if the current value of the budget factor satisfies a first condition, computing the wrapper function value in accordance with a first definition, wherein the first condition specifies that the current value is within a first subrange of the budget factor; and if the current value of the budget factor satisfies a second condition, computing the wrapper function value in accordance with a second definition, wherein the second condition specifies that the current value is within a second subrange of the budget factor(Fig. 5, paragraph [0042], discloses Bidder A 410 and the bid price 422 of Bidder B 420 are both $0.06, and Bidder C 430 submitted a lower bid price 432 than Bidder B 420. However, Bidder C 430 submitted an auction budget 434 of $2.50 that is significantly larger than the $1.00 auction budget 424 of Bidder B 420. Because the pseudo bid function of Eq. (8) used to determine the pseudo bids considers.., and paragraph [0043], discloses the auction budgets 414, 424, and 434 submitted by the bidders have been redesignated as "Remaining Budgets"514, 524, and 534, respectively. In one mode of a pseudo bid process, while the initial pseudo bids are determined based upon the original auction budgets submitted, as items being auctioned are assigned to winning bidders).
With respect to claim 12, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 11, furthermore, Jain teaches the medium wherein the first definition includes:
wherein the first definition includes: if the advertisement is from product advertisements flow the primary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be a function of the current value of the budget factor and a first predetermined constant; and if the advertisement is from the native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow the secondary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be the minimum value, wherein the wrapper function value computed based on the first definition represents a preference of an advertisement from a d advertisements flow primary flow(paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned). Jain failed teach the dynamic product advertisements flow.
However, Sarkhel teaches he dynamic product advertisements flow (paragraph [0019], discloses dynamically placed withing primary content a web page based on predicted clearing price .., paragraph [0020], discloses dynamic content placement opportunity.., and paragraph [0022], discloses identifying historical winning bids, associated clearing price). Therefore, it would have been obvious to the one ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention for budget depending pseudo bid in auction of Jain with dynamic content placement opportunity of Sarkhel in order to up-to-date content relevance.
With respect to claim 13, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 11, furthermore, Jain teaches the medium wherein the second definition includes:
if the advertisement is from the native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow the secondary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be a multiplication of a difference between the current value and a midpoint of the range and a second predetermined constant, wherein the wrapper function value computed based on the second definition allows selection of advertisements from either the dynamic product advertisements flow primary flow or the native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow secondary flow(paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned).
Jain teaches the above elements including if the advertisement is from product advertisements flow the primary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be the maximum value(paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned). Jain failed teach the dynamic product advertisements flow.
However, Sarkhel teaches he dynamic product advertisements flow (paragraph [0019], discloses dynamically placed withing primary content a web page based on predicted clearing price .., paragraph [0020], discloses dynamic content placement opportunity.., and paragraph [0022], discloses identifying historical winning bids, associated clearing price). Therefore, it would have been obvious to the one ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention for budget depending pseudo bid in auction of Jain with dynamic content placement opportunity of Sarkhel in order to up-to-date content relevance.
With respect to claim 14, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 8, furthermore, Jain teaches the medium wherein each of the scores for an advertisement associated with one of the received bids is determined based on a bid value multiplied by the wrapper function value(paragraph [0012], discloses pseudo bid function applied to determine the pseudo bids and paragraph [0033], discloses the bid price remains constant and the auction budget is increase٨ and value of e raise to – ٨ multiply by the auction budget ..) .
With respect to claim 15, Jain teaches a system implemented on at least one processor, a memory, and a communication platform for dynamically selecting advertisements from a preferred type of advertisement flow in comprising:
a bid solicitation unit implemented by a processor and configured for soliciting bids from a plurality of bidders for identifying a winning advertisement with respect to an online ad display opportunity (paragraph [0007], discloses advertising opportunities, such as ads [soliciting bids] and paragraph [0012], discloses the bid associated with the highest pseudo bis is identified as the winning bid);
a bid processing unit implemented by a processor and configured for receiving bids from at least some of the plurality of bidders in response to the solicitation, wherein each of the received bids is associated with an advertisement from a certain type of advertisement flow (Fig. 3, 304, discloses receive bids, each bid including a bid price and an auction budget submitted by a bidder, paragraph [0007], discloses advertiser submit bids for advertising opportunities that arise, paragraph [0008], discloses advertiser may submit bids that include a “pre selection” or “per click” bid the advertiser desires …, paragraph [0011], discloses bidders submitting high budgets to be satisfied..) ;
a wrapper function determiner implemented by a processor and configured for retrieving, from a computer database, a current value of a budget factor that used to control budget pacing in online advertising, wherein the budget factor has a range between a minimum value and a maximum value(Figs. 4, 5, paragraph [0039], discloses set of bids 400 submitted by the bidder, Bidder A 410, Bidder B 420 and Bidder C, bidder A 410 submits a bid price 412 of $0.06 per impression and an auction [current value].., an auction budget is $2.50, and paragraph [0040], discloses determine a relevant bid price.., ) ;
for each of the received bids, computing a wrapper function value based on the current value of the budget factor and the type of flow of the advertismetn associated with the bid (paragraph [0012], discloses pseudo bid function [a wrapper function value] is applied to determine the pseudo bis for each of bids or variable pseudo bid functions .., and paragraph [0029], discloses a Vickery-type auction, using the pseudo bid function to determine what bid price a bidder would have had to submit ), wherein:
if the current value of the budget factor falls in a higher subrange of the budget factor and the type of flow indicates that the advertisement associated with the bid is from a native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow the wrapper function value equals to the maximum value (Fig. 5, paragraph [0042], discloses Bidder A 410 and the bid price 422 of Bidder B 420 are both $0.06, and Bidder C 430 submitted a lower bid price 432 than Bidder B 420. However, Bidder C 430 submitted an auction budget 434 of $2.50 that is significantly larger than the $1.00 auction budget 424 of Bidder B 420. Because the pseudo bid function of Eq. (8) used to determine the pseudo bids considers.., and paragraph [0043], discloses the auction budgets 414, 424, and 434 submitted by the bidders have been redesignated as "Remaining Budgets"514, 524, and 534, respectively. In one mode of a pseudo bid process, while the initial pseudo bids are determined based upon the original auction budgets submitted, as items being auctioned are assigned to winning bidders); and
if the current value of the budget factor falls in a lower subrange of the budget factor and the type of flow indicates that the advertisement associated with the bid is from a native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow , the wrapper function value equals to the maximum value (paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned);
ranking the received bids in accordance with ranking scores for the respective received bids computed based on the wrapper function values of the respective advertisements associated therewith (paragraph [0059], discloses ranks below bidder A’s pseudo bid of $0.02778.., thus, bidder A is the next winner determined in round .., allow other bidder to win items ..); and
updating the budget factor based on detection of a click on the advertismetn that is displayed (paragraph [0008], discloses advertiser may submit bids that include a “per selection“ or “per click” bid, paragraph [0013], discloses auction budgets increase their pseudo bids.., recalculating pseudo bids based on remaining auction , paragraph [0040], discloses selection rate may include for example, an estimated or an historical click-through rate …, calculate bids that are relevant to the auction being conducted )
Jain teaches the above elements including selecting a winning bid from the received bids based on the ranking scores (paragraph [0013], discloses higher auction budget are rewarded by being above to win more it.., paragraph [0025], discloses second bidder submitting the second bid to reward the second bidder for submitting a higher auction budget and paragraph [0045], discloses an advertising opportunity has become available the bid associated with the highest pseudo bid .., bidder A wins the item with a highest pseudo bid of $0.045). Jain failed to teach such that selection of the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid is dynamically steered to a preferred type of advertisement flow under different budget spending condition and hosting, on an online platform, a webpage including the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid.
However, Sarkhel teaches selection of the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid is dynamically steered to a preferred type of advertisement flow under different budget spending condition and hosting, on an online platform, a webpage including the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid (paragraph [0019], discloses dynamically placed withing primary content a web page based on predicted clearing price .., paragraph [0020], discloses dynamic content placement opportunity.., and paragraph [0022], discloses identifying historical winning bids, associated clearing price). Therefore, it would have been obvious to the one ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention for budget depending pseudo bid in auction of Jain with dynamic content placement opportunity of Sarkhel in order to up-to-date content relevance.
With respect to claim 16, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 15, furthermore, Jain teaches the system futher comprising:
if the current value of the budget factor satisfies a first condition, computing the wrapper function value in accordance with a first definition, wherein the first condition specifies that the current value is within a first subrange of the budget factor; and if the current value of the budget factor satisfies a second condition, computing the wrapper function value in accordance with a second definition, wherein the second condition specifies that the current value is within a second subrange of the budget factor(Fig. 5, paragraph [0042], discloses Bidder A 410 and the bid price 422 of Bidder B 420 are both $0.06, and Bidder C 430 submitted a lower bid price 432 than Bidder B 420. However, Bidder C 430 submitted an auction budget 434 of $2.50 that is significantly larger than the $1.00 auction budget 424 of Bidder B 420. Because the pseudo bid function of Eq. (8) used to determine the pseudo bids considers.., and paragraph [0043], discloses the auction budgets 414, 424, and 434 submitted by the bidders have been redesignated as "Remaining Budgets"514, 524, and 534, respectively. In one mode of a pseudo bid process, while the initial pseudo bids are determined based upon the original auction budgets submitted, as items being auctioned are assigned to winning bidders).
With respect to claim 18, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 15, furthermore, Jain teaches the system futher comprising:
wherein the first definition includes: if the advertisement is from flow the primary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be a function of the current value of the budget factor and a first predetermined constant; and if the advertisement is from the secondary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be the minimum value, wherein the wrapper function value computed based on the first definition represents a preference of an advertisement from primary flow(paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned).
With respect to claim 19, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 17, furthermore, Jain teaches the system wherein the second definition includes:
if the advertisement is from the native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow the secondary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be a multiplication of a difference between the current value and a midpoint of the range and a second predetermined constant, wherein the wrapper function value computed based on the second definition allows selection of advertisements from either the dynamic product advertisements flow primary flow or the native catalog-to-carousel advertisements flow secondary flow(paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned).
Jain teaches the above elements including if the advertisement is from product advertisements flow the primary flow, the wrapper function value is set to be the maximum value(paragraphs [0036]- [0037], discloses using a statistical function as expressed eq. (6) .., the bidder's auction budget for the period is less than the remaining portions of items to be auctioned, the product of the bid price and A will be reduced by the ratio of the remaining portion of the budget to the remaining portion of items to be auctioned). Jain failed teach the dynamic product advertisements flow.
However, Sarkhel teaches he dynamic product advertisements flow (paragraph [0019], discloses dynamically placed withing primary content a web page based on predicted clearing price .., paragraph [0020], discloses dynamic content placement opportunity.., and paragraph [0022], discloses identifying historical winning bids, associated clearing price). Therefore, it would have been obvious to the one ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention for budget depending pseudo bid in auction of Jain with dynamic content placement opportunity of Sarkhel in order to up-to-date content relevance.
With respect to claim 20, Jain in view of Sarkhel elements of claim 15, furthermore, Jain teaches the system wherein each of the scores for an advertisement associated with one of the received bids is determined based on a bid value multiplied by the wrapper function value(paragraph [0012], discloses pseudo bid function applied to determine the pseudo bids and paragraph [0033], discloses the bid price remains constant and the auction budget is increase٨ and value of e raise to – ٨ multiply by the auction budget ..) .
Prior arts:
Zheng et al. (Pub. No.: US 2016/0267551 Al) discloses method and system for advertisement coordination through online bidding are provided. In one example, a first bid request is received regarding a first advertisement opportunity. A first advertisement is determined for the first advertisement opportunity. A first online bid associated with the first advertisement is generated based on the first bid request. The first online bid is transmitted as a response to the first bid request. A second bid request is received regarding a second advertisement opportunity. The first and second advertisement opportunities are related to an online service
Karande et al (US Pub., No., 2015/0213488 A1) discloses an advertiser specifies an advertising campaign along with a budget, a duration and one or more objectives associated with the advertising campaign. An online system presenting advertisements from the advertising campaign determines an interval representing a portion of the duration, an interval budget, and one or more interval objectives. Historical information describing selection and presentation of advertisements by the online system is retrieved, and used to determine one or more filters limiting the number of opportunities to present an advertisement in which advertisements from the advertising campaign are included.
Jain et al (US Pub., No., 2007/0038509 A1) discloses budget-based advertisement placement is described. Advertisements are selected for display via multiple available ad slots. Click-through prices are calculated for each of the advertisements such that if a particular advertisement is selected by a user, an advertiser is charged the click-through price for that advertisement. The advertisements are assigned to the available ad slots based, at least in part, on budget data associated with the advertisements
Theodore (US pub., 2021/0312508 A1) discloses video header bidding systems and methods increase a number of advertisers that can place bids for an advertising impression while maintaining low latency in loading of the video. The systems and methods utilize a specialized control wrapper in the video header to manage one or more additional wrappers so as to allow for simultaneous bid collection from multiple groups of advertisers, one group per wrapper, without experiencing the traditional increase in latency of video ad loading as the number of entities bidding on an impression increases. Each wrapper contains information relating to a separate subset of advertisers from which to receive bids for the advertising impression.
Jain et al. (Pub. No.: US 2007/0061216 Al) discloses in auctioning items, pseudo bids are determined based on the bid price and auction budget submitted by a bidder. The bid associated with the highest pseudo bid is identified as the winning bid. A consistent pseudo bid function is applied to determine the pseudo bids for each of the bids, or a variable pseudo bid function is selectively applied to some bids. The pseudo bid increases with increased bid prices and/or increased auction budgets.
Sarkhel et al (US Pub., No., 2021/0374809 A1) discloses techniques are disclosed for real-time bidding (e.g., for dynamic online content placement) using an optimized final bid. The final bid is determined based on a predicted clearing price and an initial bid. The initial bid represents a value to a prospective content provider, and may be computed based on campaign information.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments of 35 U.S.C 101 rejection with respect to claims 1, 4-8, 11-16 and 18-20 filed on 26 November 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The 35 U.S.C 101 rejection with respect to claims 1-20 is updated and the rejection is maintained.
Applicants’ arguments of the claims are not directed to any of the judicial exception and therefore the claims are not directed to an abstract idea is not persuasive. According to the 2019 PEG, the claims covers a “commercial interaction” or “legal interaction” include subject matter elating to agreement in the form of contract, legal obligation, advertising marketing or sales activity or behavior and business relation because the claimed limitation recite soliciting bid for identifying a winning advertisement, receiving bids from the plurlity bidders in response to the solicitation , retrieving a current value the a budget factor , for each received bids computing a value based on the current value of the budget factor for ranking and selecting a winning bid for hosting/placing on the platform, which fail into certain methods of organizing human activity. Thus, the claims are an abstract idea and directed to the judicial exception.
Applicants’ arguments of claim 1 recites “retrieving, from a computer database, current value of budget fact that used to control budget pacing in online adverting” and “hosting an online platform, a webpage including the winning advertisement associated with the winning bid” is not persuasive. The broadest reasonable intepration in the light of applicants specification , retrieving budget factor limitation is a process of identifying the minimum and maximum of the value of original bid the advertiser set, according to the 2019 PEG, commercial interaction or legal interactions including subject matter relating to agreements in form of contract, legal obligation, advertising, marketing or sales activities or behavior, and business. The additional of generic computer components (database, webpage) implementation: Merely stating that the bidding auction is performed "on a computer" or using "generic computer elements" and webpage for displying a winning advertismetn is not enough to satisfy the test. Thus, the claims is an abstract.
Applicants’ arguments of the claims are patent eligible because the calmed concepts are integrated into a practical application is not persuasive. The claims recite additional limitation of processor and memory for performing the generic functions of soliciting, receiving, retiring , ranking and selecting functions, and an online platform and website for hosting/displying the winning advertismetn. The processor and the memory in these steps are recited at a high level of generality, i.e., as a generic processor performing the generic computer functions of processing data (i.e., selecting a winning advertisement for hosting on website based on ranked and computed and selected the winning advertisement). This generic computer component limitation is no more than mere instructions apply the exception using generic computer components. Therefore, the claims as a whole, looking at the additional element individually and in combination, do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application using the consideration set forth in the 2019 PEG (Step 2A Prong Two). The rejection is maintained.
Applicants’ arguments of the claims amount to significantly more than the judicial exception is not persuasive. As indicated above, the claims recite a process that, under its broadest reasonable interion convers commercial interaction” or “legal interaction” include subject matter elating to agreement in the form of contract, legal obligation, advertising marketing or sales activity or behavior and business relation. Thus, the claims recite a judicial exception.
Further, with regard to Applicant's argument relating to the 35 USC 101 rejection that the claims are similar to the facts in the case of McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am. Inc. because in the present application, the claims are narrowly directed to application of particular rules for achieving an improved technological result and are patent eligible, Examiner disagrees. In McRO the court found that an improvement “is not limited to improvements in the operation of a computer or a computer network per se, but may also be claimed as a set of ‘rules’ (basically mathematical relationships) that improve computer-related technology by allowing computer performance of a function not previously performable by a computer.” the wrapper functions, the Applicant uses to provide a winning advertisement to be host on the online platform based on ranked and selected winning advertisements and budge consumption, hosting the winning advertisement does not change the way a computer transmits an advertisement. Thus, the Examiner maintains the rejection of said claims under 35 U.S.C. 101, and Applicant’s arguments are considered to be non-persuasive.
Further, with regard to Applicant's argument relating to the 35 USC 101 rejection that the claims are similar to the facts in the case of BASCOM, in BASCOM court agreed that the additional elements were generic computer, network, and Internet components that did not amount to significantly more when considered individually, the inventive concept may be found the non-conventional and non-generic arrangement of additional elements, i.e., the installation of a filtering tool at ta specific location, remote from end-users, with customizable filtering feature specific to each end user . thus , the mount significantly more than a judicial exception. However, the claims at issue provide a winning advertisement to be host on the online platform based on ranked and selected winning advertisements and budget consumption, hosting the winning advertisement does not change the way a computer transmits an advertisement. Thus, the Examiner maintains the rejection of said claims under 35 U.S.C. 101, and Applicant’s arguments are considered to be non-persuasive.
In conclusion, using a "wrapper function" for bidding advertisements typically arise because the USPTO views the invention as an abstract idea (specifically, a method of organizing human activity or a mathematical concept) implemented using conventional computer components. A "wrapper function"—which acts as an intermediary layer to reformat or route data between different ad-bidding systems—is frequently seen as a "well-known," "routine," or "conventional" activity that does not provide a specific, technical improvement to computer functionality
Applicant's arguments of 35 U.S.C 103 rejection with respect to claims 1, 4-8, 11-16 and 18-20 filed on 26 November 2025 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
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/SABA DAGNEW/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3682