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 action is responsive to the following communication: RCE filed Jul. 15, 2025.
Claims 1 and 42-56 are pending in the case.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 Jul. 15, 2025 has been entered.
Claim Objections
Claim 56 is objected to because of its dependency from rejected claim 55. Claim 56 would be allowable if written in independent form.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 43-49 are rejected under 112. Claims 43, 44, 45 recite the limitation “the summaries ". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claims 46-49, which depend from claim 45, fail to remedy the deficiencies of claim 45, therefore are also rejected.
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.
Claims 1, 42 and 50-55 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wie et al. (hereinafter Wie) U.S. Patent Publication No. 2010/0146118 in view of Wie et al. (hereinafter Wie843) U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0254843.
With respect to independent claim 1, Wie teaches a method, comprising:
executing code in a computer system to cause the computer system to perform operations (see e.g., Fig. 1, 5 and Para [136] – “The computer system 120 includes a processing unit 122, a system memory 124, and a system bus 126 that couples the processing unit 122 to the various components of the computer system 120. The processing unit 122 may include one or more data processors, each of which may be in the form of any one of various commercially available computer processors. The system memory 124 includes one or more computer-readable media that typically are associated with a software application addressing space that defines the addresses that are available to software applications.”) comprising:
administering realtime communications between communicants in a virtual area (see e.g., Para [51][52][97]-[106] – “these embodiments infer the existence of social network ties from realtime communicant interactions in the network communications environment. In addition, these embodiments also infer relationship attribute values from such interactions”);
monitoring collaborations occurring in respective, detected assemblies of the communicants in one or more of the virtual locations, wherein the monitoring comprises, in a database system, recording interaction data relating to interactions between communicants in each assembly (see e.g., Para [40] [121] – “queries on the relationship database 36 may be combined with queries on contact history data generated for interactions with contacts using another communication system (e.g., Skype, Facebook, and Flickr). In one example, the Skype virtual area 112 may be associated with a query on a communicant's relationship data associated with the Skype virtual area 112 and the communicant's Skype history data to produce a sorted list of realtime contacts of the user that are associated with the Skype virtual area 112.”);
for each of one or more of the collaborations, deriving a respective set of values of one or more attributes that characterize the collaboration (see e.g., Para [47][52]-[59] – “The trust level attribute value may correspond to a numerical value that is normalized to a particular scale (e.g., a number between zero and one, or an integer number of stars in a five star rating taxonomy) or it may correspond to a class label that is selected from a trust level taxonomy (e.g., very trustworthy, trustworthy, untrustworthy, very untrustworthy)”);
ascertaining scores for respective ones of the collaborations based on one or more of the respective sets of attribute values (see e.g., Para [59]).
Wie does not expressly show detecting assemblies of copresent communicants in the virtual area; transmitting data for execution by a computer to generate a visualization of one or more of the collaborations based on their respective scores. However, Wie843 teaches the detecting feature (see e.g., Fig. 18 19 Para [245]-[249]) and the visualization feature (see e.g., Fig. 18-33). Both Wie843 and Wie are directed to virtual communication interfaces. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to the skilled artisan before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Wie843 and Wie in front of them to modify the system of Wie to include the above feature. The motivation to combine Wie843and Wie comes from Wie843. Wie843 discloses the motivation to allow user to choose a virtual meeting from a plurality of virtual meetings (see e.g., Fig. 18-33 Para [245]-[249]).
With respect to dependent claim 42, the modified Wie teaches generating a respective collaboration summary for each of one or more of the collaborations, wherein transmitting comprises transmitting data for execution by a computer to generate a visualization of one or more of the summaries (see e.g., Para [53]-[62] - “The network infrastructure service environment 30 also maintains a relationship database 36 that contains records 38 of interactions between communicants and social network profiles 40 that are associated with respective communicants. Each interaction record 38 describes the context of an interaction between a pair of communicants.”).
With respect to dependent claim 50, the modified Wie teaches the ascertaining comprises determining one or more of the scores for one or more collaborations involving designated ones of the communicants (see e.g., Para [59]-[65][181] - “For example, the network infrastructure service environment 30 may restrict which communicants can access resources (e.g., a personal virtual area, such as the users HomeSpace; music, documents, and other data files; personal profile information; and presence information) that are associated with the user. The network infrastructure service environment 30 also may restrict which communicants can contact the user (e.g., only those communicants who have an explicit tie or an inferred tie with the user may contact the user). In some embodiments, the network infrastructure service environment 30 filters messages (e.g., electronic mail messages, chat messages, whisper messages) sent to the user based on the one or more attribute values. In some embodiments, the network infrastructure service environment 30 manages communicant interactions with the virtual areas of the virtual environment based on the one or more attribute values.”).
With respect to dependent claim 51, the modified Wie teaches the designated communicants are connected by social network ties, and the configuring comprises configuring the at least one memory to store structured data in a format executable by a computer to generate a visualization of one or more of the collaborations involving the designated ones of the communicants (see e.g., Para [31]-[32]).
With respect to dependent claim 52, the modified Wie teaches executing code in the computer system to cause the computer system to perform further operations comprising: ranking respective ones of the designated communicants in each of the one or more collaborations involving the designated communicants based on a statistic derived from results of querying the database (see e.g., Para [59]-[65] [146]-[149] - “query results are relationship attribute values and trust level attribute values. Relationship attribute values include social network ties, relationship type values that specify the type of a social network tie, and relationship level values that specify a degree, strength, or rating that is associated with a social network tie or a relationship type.”).
With respect to dependent claim 53, the modified Wie teaches 53. method of claim 1, wherein the ascertaining comprises determining at least one of the scores based on a respective one of the attribute values corresponding to a duration of the respective collaboration (see e.g., Para [47][53]-[62] [77]- “For every interaction between communicants, one or more services of the network infrastructure service environment 30 (e.g., the area service) transmit interaction data to the interaction service. In response, the interaction service generates one or more respective interaction records and stores them in the relationship database. Each interaction record describes the context of an interaction between a pair of communicants. For example, in some embodiments, an interaction record contains an identifier for each of the communicants, an identifier for the place of interaction (e.g., a virtual area instance), a description of the hierarchy of the interaction place (e.g., a description of how the interaction room relates to a larger area), start and end times of the interaction”).
With respect to dependent claim 54, the modified Wie teaches the ascertaining comprises determining at least one of the scores based on a respective one of the attribute values corresponding to a level of activity in the respective collaboration (see e.g., Para [52]-[57] – “relationship information that is inferred from the communicant's interactions … the network infrastructure service environment 30 queries interaction records 38 describing realtime network interactions between a user and other communicants in one or more virtual areas of the network communications environment (FIG. 2, block 42).“).
With respect to dependent claim 55, the modified Wie teaches wherein the ascertaining comprises determining at least one of the scores based on feedback from a communicant in connection with the respective collaboration (see e.g., Para [61] – user provide interaction input as feedback).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PEIYONG WENG whose telephone number is (571)270-1660. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon.-Fri. 8 am to 5 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Matthew Ell, can be reached on (571) 270-3264. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/PEI YONG WENG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2141
Prosecution Insights