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
This non-final office action is in response to the Application filed on 11/2/2023.
Claim(s) 1-20 are pending for examination. Claim(s) 1, 18, 20 is/are independent claim(s).
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4, 6-13, 16-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stachura; Thomas US Pub. No. 2021/0397420 (Stachura) in view of Huo; Qi Feng et al. US Pub. No. 2018/0321829 (Huo).
Claim 1:
Stachura teaches:
A computing system comprising:
at least one memory [¶ 0069] (memory);
one or more hardware processor units coupled to the at least one memory [¶ 0068] (processor); and
one or more computer readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions that [¶ 0070] (instructions), when executed, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
receiving an identifier of a spreadsheet file [¶ 0204, 251, 281-283, 337, 345-353, 378] (unique identifiers for the elements);
receiving an identifier of a web page comprising table data of a table, the web page comprising an identifier of the table [¶ 0205] (GUID that serves as a primary key for the invoice, and a column to VirtInvItemSheet to serve as a foreign key to that primary key);
analyzing code of the web page [¶ 0234, 281-283, 343-346] (webifier GUID for website);
identifying a table identifier token for the table in the code of the web page based on the analyzing [¶ 0202-205, 337] (key with GUID, a key could be a “token”);
extracting table data for the table associated with the table identifier token from the code of the web page to provide extracted table data [¶ 0326] (extracts the unique ID in much the same way as other cell attributes, to obtain knowledge of what changes a user made while Disconnected, used to update the references on the destination system to those cells, or alternatively, those unique cell IDs) [¶ 0013] (update the underlying spreadsheet based on updates made to the web data store);
comparing the extracted table data with spreadsheet data of the spreadsheet file [¶ 0196, 212] (spreadsheet diffing methods are commercially available) [¶ 0415] (compare it cell data obtained earlier by fetching that from the webifier database, and map back the list of cells that have changed to all of the destination page's that make use of a cell reference to that page) [¶ 0072-78] (updating spreadsheet using web interface) [¶ 0315] (identify the differences between spreadsheets and allow iterating through those differences to accept or deny each change, conflict) ;
Stachura does not appear to explicitly disclose “identified differences are displayed to a user on a user interface”.
However, the disclosure of Huo teaches:
based on the comparing, identifying one or more differences between the extracted table data and the spreadsheet data to provide one or more identified differences [¶0061-63] (track back what the original data is);
and storing the one or more identified differences, wherein the one or more identified differences are displayed to a user on a user interface [¶ 0052-53, 60, 62, 73-74] (highlighting a change of the representational object caused by the change of the data, highlighting includes comparatively displaying the original representational object and the representational object after changing).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of updating spreadsheets in Stachura and the method of updating spreadsheets in Huo, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of highlighting changes in Huo could be applied to the web interface in Stachura. Huo and Stachura are similar devices because each display and edit spreadsheets. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, “for the purpose of checking change of data” [Huo: ¶ 0002, 110].
Claim 2:
Stachura teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, wherein analyzing the code of the web page comprises analyzing source code of the table [¶ 0106] (converts display values to ID values) [¶ 0119] (JavaScript application on the user computer may be used to retrieve or analyze data) [¶ 0067] (Fig. 5, JSON).
Claim 4:
Stachura teaches:
The computing system of claim 1 wherein the table identifier token is a tag in the code of the web page [¶ 0269] (html TD cell as follows “<td>Cell Text</td>”).
Claim 6:
Stachura teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, the operations further comprising:
receiving user credentials for the web page; and
prior to analyzing code of the web page, authenticating to the web page using the user credential [¶ 0372] (authorization token) [¶ 0089, 100, 141, 162, 199, 215, 220, 169, 341, 362, 372, 433] (password, login, authentication).
Claim 7:
Stachura teaches:
The computing system of claim 6, wherein the web page dynamically loads or updates data based at least in part on the user credentials, which serve as filter criteria for data inclusion in the code of the web page [¶ 0060, 76, 280, 361-361] (dynamically add, delete, edit, or otherwise amend application data, e.g., via one or more online web pages) [¶ 0372] (authorization token) [¶ 0089, 100, 141, 162, 199, 215, 220, 169, 341, 362, 372, 433] (password, login, authentication).
Claim 8:
Huo teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, wherein extracting table data comprises extracting table data in a first format, the operations further comprising:
extracting at least a portion of the spreadsheet data in the first format;
wherein comparing the extracted table data with the spreadsheet data comprising comparing data in the first format [¶ 0052-53, 60, 62, 73-74] (highlighting a change of the representational object caused by the change of the data, highlighting includes comparatively displaying the original representational object and the representational object after changing).
Claim 9:
Huo teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, the operations further comprising:
causing a display to be rendered that displays the one or more identified differences [¶ 0052-53, 60, 62, 73-74] (highlighting a change of the representational object caused by the change of the data, highlighting includes comparatively displaying the original representational object and the representational object after changing).
Claim 10:
Huo teaches:
The computing system of claim 9, wherein for an identified difference of the one or more identified differences, the display displays a value of the extracted table data and a value of the spreadsheet data [¶ 0052-53, 60, 62, 73-74] (highlighting a change of the representational object caused by the change of the data, highlighting includes comparatively displaying the original representational object and the representational object after changing).
Claim 11:
Stachura teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, wherein the spreadsheet data and the extracted table page data comprise data organized in columns [¶ 0266] (column, the operations further comprising:
prior to the comparing, matching columns in the extracted web page data with columns of the spreadsheet data [¶ 0208, 211, 290] (column matching, ordering columns).
Claim 12:
Stachura teaches:
The computing system of claim 11, wherein the matching comprises placing the columns in the extracted table page data and the columns in the spreadsheet data in a common order [¶ 0208, 211, 290] (column matching, ordering columns).
Claim 13:
Stachura teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, wherein the spreadsheet data comprises data exported from the web page [¶ 0078] (web application updates the web data store based on the user input, e.g., adding, editing, deleting, and/or otherwise amending the data previously stored in the web data store. In step 215, the webifier software and/or the web application may be used to update data in the original blueprint spreadsheet used to generate the web application in the first place).
Claim 16:
Stachura teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, the operations further comprising:
from the identifier of the web page, or from the code of the web page, identifying a coding schema of the web page [¶ 0071, 216, 265, 327, 415-416] (schema); and
selecting a table identifier token to be identified based at least in part on the coding schema [¶ 0372] (authorization token, GUID, identifier).
Claim 17:
Stachura teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the extracted table data corresponds to data generated at least in part from data of a backend system accessed by the web page, and is not present in the data of the backend system [¶ 0033-35, 41-46, 61-62] (formula and formula changes, formulas that automatically calculate and display a value based on math equations).
Claim(s) 3, 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stachura; Thomas US Pub. No. 2021/0397420 (Stachura) in view of Huo; Qi Feng et al. US Pub. No. 2018/0321829 (Huo) in view of Lloyd; Zachary et al. US Pub. No. 2011/0252299 (Lloyd).
Claim 3:
Stachura and Huo do not appear to explicitly disclose “analyzing a document object model for the web page”.
However, the disclosure of Lloyd teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, wherein analyzing the code of the web page comprises analyzing a document object model for the web page [¶ 0031, 44, 68, 79] (client code may add characters to the model in near real-time, and those changes can be passed into the DOM--so that each user can see the edits made by the other users very quickly) [¶ 0021, 24-25, 75] (HTML table) [¶ 0066] (Fig. 2D, DOM structures for implementing a browser-based spreadsheet).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of browser based spreadsheets in Lloyd and the method of updating spreadsheets in Stachura and the method of updating spreadsheets in Huo, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of manipulating DOM structures in Lloyd could be applied to the highlighting changes in Huo and the web interface in Stachura. Lloyd, Huo and Stachura are similar devices because each display and edit spreadsheets. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, to “make such output more meaningful and visually appealing” [Lloyd: ¶ 0003].
Claim 5:
Lloyd teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, wherein the table identifier token is an element of a document object model of the web page [¶ 0033] (indexed by row and column ids, map of IDs).
Lloyd also teaches: [¶ 0053] (document access times)
Claim(s) 14, 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stachura; Thomas US Pub. No. 2021/0397420 (Stachura) in view of Huo; Qi Feng et al. US Pub. No. 2018/0321829 (Huo) in view of Livathinos; Nikolaos et al. US Pub. No. 2024/0233223 (Livathinos)
Claim 14:
Stachura and Huo do not appear to explicitly disclose “automation tool”.
However, the disclosure Livathinos teaches:
The computing system of claim 1, wherein the analyzing the code, the identifying a table identifier token, and the extracting table data are performed by an automation tool [¶ 0070, 72, 79, 82, 93-103] (generating a HTML code for a table, DOM) [¶ 0039, 68, 74-76, 102] (rendering the table using a headless browser).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of browser based tables in Livathinos and the method of updating spreadsheets in Stachura and the method of updating spreadsheets in Huo, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of rendering the table using a headless browser in Livathinos could be applied to the highlighting changes in Huo and the web interface in Stachura. Lloyd, Huo and Stachura are similar devices because each display and edit spreadsheets. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, to make parsing tables easier [¶ 0039, 68, 74-76, 102] (rendering the table using a headless browser).
Claim 15:
Livathinos teaches:
The computing system of claim 14, wherein the automation tool operates in a headless mode [¶ 0039, 68, 74-76, 102] (rendering the table using a headless browser).
ALTENRATE REJECTION:
Claim(s) 1, 18, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stachura; Thomas US Pub. No. 2021/0397420 (Stachura) in view of Davis; Edmund A. et al. US Pub. No. 2019/0095413 (Davis).
Claim 1:
Stachura teaches:
A computing system comprising:
at least one memory [¶ 0069] (memory);
one or more hardware processor units coupled to the at least one memory [¶ 0068] (processor); and
one or more computer readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions that [¶ 0070] (instructions), when executed, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
receiving an identifier of a spreadsheet file [¶ 0204, 251, 281-283, 337, 345-353, 378] (unique identifiers for the elements);
receiving an identifier of a web page comprising table data of a table, the web page comprising an identifier of the table [¶ 0205] (GUID that serves as a primary key for the invoice, and a column to VirtInvItemSheet to serve as a foreign key to that primary key);
analyzing code of the web page [¶ 0234, 281-283, 343-346] (webifier GUID for website);
identifying a table identifier token for the table in the code of the web page based on the analyzing [¶ 0202-205, 337] (key with GUID, a key could be a “token”);
extracting table data for the table associated with the table identifier token from the code of the web page to provide extracted table data [¶ 0326] (extracts the unique ID in much the same way as other cell attributes, to obtain knowledge of what changes a user made while Disconnected, used to update the references on the destination system to those cells, or alternatively, those unique cell IDs);
comparing the extracted table data with spreadsheet data of the spreadsheet file [¶ 0196, 212] (spreadsheet diffing methods are commercially available) [¶ 0415] (compare it cell data obtained earlier by fetching that from the webifier database, and map back the list of cells that have changed to all of the destination page's that make use of a cell reference to that page) [¶ 0072-78] (updating spreadsheet using web interface) [¶ 0315] (identify the differences between spreadsheets and allow iterating through those differences to accept or deny each change, conflict);
Stachura does not appear to explicitly disclose “identified differences are displayed to a user on a user interface”.
However, the disclosure of Davis teaches:
based on the comparing, identifying one or more differences between the extracted table data and the spreadsheet data to provide one or more identified differences [¶ 0004, 24, 60] (tracking data changes in the spreadsheet);
and storing the one or more identified differences, wherein the one or more identified differences are displayed to a user on a user interface [¶ 0076, 82] (Figs. 9-11, update indicator, which indicates to the user that one or more of the fields in the spreadsheet have been updated).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of updating spreadsheets in Stachura and the method of updating spreadsheets in Davis, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of displaying an update indicator in Davis could be applied to the web interface in Stachura. Davis and Stachura are similar devices because each display and edit spreadsheets on a web interface. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, to “rapidly integrate spreadsheets with web applications” and “reduce the net cost of such data entry tasks” [Davis: ¶ 0002, 110].
Claims 18-20:
Claim(s) 18 and 20 is/are substantially similar to claim 1 and is/are rejected using the same art and the same rationale.
Claim 18 is a “method” claim, claim 1 is a “system” claim and claim 20 is a “medium” claim, but the steps or elements of each claim are essentially the same.
Claim(s) 19 is/are substantially similar to claims 2-3 and is/are rejected using the same art and the same rationale.
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Please See PTO-892: Notice of References Cited.
Evidence of the level skill of an ordinary person in the art for Claim 1:
Nag; Subhrojit et al. US 20200117636 teaches: visualize a spreadsheet at the user interface. The visualized spreadsheet may display at least a subset of the values, HTML, DOM, FIGS. 6A and 6B are conceptual diagrams illustrating update processes of destination files based on the mapping entries in mapping file.
Citations to Prior Art
A reference to specific paragraphs, columns, pages, or figures in a cited prior art reference is not limited to preferred embodiments or any specific examples. It is well settled that a prior art reference, in its entirety, must be considered for all that it expressly teaches and fairly suggests to one having ordinary skill in the art. Stated differently, a prior art disclosure reading on a limitation of Applicant's claim cannot be ignored on the ground that other embodiments disclosed were instead cited. Therefore, the Examiner's citation to a specific portion of a single prior art reference is not intended to exclusively dictate, but rather, to demonstrate an exemplary disclosure commensurate with the specific limitations being addressed. In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332-33,216 USPQ 1038, 1039 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009, 158 USPQ 275, 277 (CCPA 1968". In re: Upsher-Smith Labs. v. Pamlab, LLC, 412 F.3d 1319, 1323,75 USPQ2d 1213,1215 (Fed. Cir. 2005); In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1264,23 USPQ2d 1780, 1782 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Merck & Co. v. Biocraft Labs., Inc., 874 F.2d 804, 807,10 USPQ2d 1843, 1846 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Fracalossi, 681 F.2d 792,794 n.1, 215 USPQ 569, 570 n.1 (CCPA 1982); In re Lamberti, 545 F.2d 747, 750, 192 USPQ 278, 280 (CCPA 1976); In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385,1390,163 USPQ 545, 549 (CCPA 1969).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN J SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-3825. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 11:00 - 7:30 EST.
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/Benjamin Smith/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2172 Direct Phone: 571-270-3825
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