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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-18 are pending in this application and have been examined in response to application remarks filed on 03/26/2026.
FOREIGN APPLICATIONS: CHINA 202211152788.9 09/21/2022
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.
Claims 1, 8-9 and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable by MAO et al. (US 2024/0152269 A1) in view of Mo (US 2023/0127743 A1).
As to INDEPENDENT claim 1, Mao discloses a split screen application matching method of a terminal, comprising: acquiring feature information associated with a first application, based on receiving a split screen instruction ([0028], [0129]; features associated with a first application are extracted to determine possible application pairs when the screen is unfolded).
determining a candidate application list using an artificial intelligence model based on the feature information, wherein the artificial intelligence model comprises a feature extraction model and a deep learning model, and the candidate application list comprises at least one candidate second application ([0119]-[0123];application features are extracted and stored by an awareness module, the features are analyzed by a learning module to determine application pair candidates); and
displaying the first application in a first split screen area of the terminal, and displaying the candidate application list in a second split screen area of the terminal (fig.2A, fig.2B; [0082]; [0124]; the candidate applications are displayed on a second area of the screen),
wherein the feature information associated with the first application comprises identification information indicating the first application and identification information indicating a third application ([0118], [0288]; identifiers of the applications are included). Mao does not expressly disclose wherein the third application is used at a time adjacent to the time at which the first application is used.
In the same field of endeavor, Mo discloses wherein the third application is used at a time adjacent to the time at which the first application is used ([0167]; the most recently used application in conjunction with the first application is considered as a candidate).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teaching of Mao and Mo before him prior to the effective filling date, to modify the split screen application pairing interface taught by Mao to include obtaining a list of associating applications taught by Mo with the motivation being to providing application pairings with based on availabilities and user preferences.
As to claim 8, the prior art as combined discloses displaying at least one of a default application list and a currently-used application list in the second split screen area (Mao, [0159], [0160]; a currently used application list is displayed).
As to INDEPENDENT claim 9, see rationale addressed in the rejection of claim 1 above.
As to claim 16, see rationale addressed in the rejection of claim 8 above.
As to INDEPENDENT claim 17, see rationale addressed in the rejection of claim 1 above.
As to INDEPENDENT claim 18, see rationale addressed in the rejection of claim 1 above.
Claims 6 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mao-Mo and in view of Wang et al. (“App2Vec: Context-Aware Application Usage prediction”).
As to claim 6, the prior art as combined discloses a plurality of real behavior sequences corresponding to each user from among a plurality of users (Mao, [0224]; multiple user behaviors are recorded); wherein each of the plurality of real behavior sequences comprise at least two applications which are used sequentially in a real scene (Mao, [0120]; sequential application usage information is tracked). Mao does not expressly disclose wherein based on the feature extraction model being an App2Vec model, the App2Vec model is obtained…
In the same field of endeavor, Wang discloses an App2Vec model (pg.1, abstract; App2Vec model is used to represent app usage traces).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teaching of Mao and Wang before him prior to the effective filling date, to modify the split screen application pairing interface taught by Mao to include App2Vec model taught by Wang with the motivation being to provide a more powerful and accurate application usage prediction model (Wang, pg.1, abstract).
As to claim 14, see rationale addressed in the rejection of claim 8 above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 9, 17 and 18 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.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5, 7, 10-13 and 15 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HAOSHIAN SHIH whose telephone number is (571)270-1257. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-5:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, FRED EHICHIOYA can be reached at (571) 272-4034. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HAOSHIAN SHIH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2179
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