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 amendment filed March 6, 2026.
Status of Claims
Applicant amended the claims. Claims 1,4-11,15,18-25 remain pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 3/6/26 in regards to the 112(b) and 102 prior art rejections have been fully considered and are persuasive. However, a new grounds of rejection is presented below based on de Souza in view of Hartzler. Furthermore, the filed amendment contains new matter and is rejected under 112(a).
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed 3/6/26 is objected to under 35 U.S.C. 132(a) because it introduces new matter into the disclosure. 35 U.S.C. 132(a) states that no amendment shall introduce new matter into the disclosure of the invention. The added material which is not supported by the original disclosure is newly added limitations in claims 1 & 15, and is as follows:
… the content entry being a document addressable from the content source….
Applicant is required to cancel the new matter in the reply to this Office Action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1,4-11,15,18-25 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. This claim contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
The specification does not repeat the language of amendments made to claims 1 & 15 on 3/6/26, specifically: “… the content entry being a document addressable from the content source…”. The specification fails to contain any language related to “addressable”, and does not show any support for it. There are no embodiments, drawings, flowcharts, or examples given in the specification detailing the scope and functionality of “addressable”. Accordingly the claim limitation is considered as new matter since the specification does not satisfy the written description requirement, and gives no indication that the inventors had possession of this type of feature.
The dependent claims inherit this deficiency and are rejected based on the same rationale.
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 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 1,4,5,15,18,19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over De Souza et al (US Publication 20130097124) in view of Hartzler et al (US Publication 20130067039).
In reference to claim 1, De Souza teaches a method of managing contents using a computing device, the method comprising:
accessing a content entry from a content source; (see at least ¶ 22 lines 1-8 & ¶ 25, which teaches accessing contact information/entry from a data source)
posting the content entry in association with a contact selected from or added to the address book, as a record associated with the computing device in a database; (see at least ¶ 19 lines 1-4, ¶ 22 lines 9-16 & ¶s 27-28, which teaches aggregating/posting the contact information in association with a particular contact, as aggregation records in a server storage/database) and
displaying the content entry in association with the contact as posted, wherein the contact is selectable such that a storyline is capable of being generated in connection with the contact; (see at least ¶s 27,29, which teaches presenting the aggregated contact information associated with the contact, and generating a unified contact object/storyline for the contact)
querying records of the database upon user selection of the contact to retrieve a plurality of content entries associated with the contact in the database, the plurality of content entries including the content entry as posted and at least one or more other content entries as posted in the database in association with the contact; (see at least ¶s 26,31-33 & 58, which teaches querying original contact records of the database when a user selects the contact and edits the contact. A plurality of content information of the contact is retrieved, aggregated and compared with the original contact) and
generating the storyline associated with the contact, the storyline including the plurality of content entries associated with the contact as retrieved from the database, wherein the plurality of content entries of the storyline upon selection are accessible from the plurality of content sources to the computing device, wherein at least one content entry of the plurality of content entries of the storyline is accessible from a remote content source to the computing device and at least another content entry of the plurality of content entries of the storyline is accessible from a local content source to the computing device (see at least ¶s 25,43,44,59, which teaches generating and presenting a unified contact object/storyline including the plurality of contact information accessed from the external data sources and also including the original contact information in the local contact list of the client device).
De Souza fails to explicitly teach the contact entry being a document addressable from the content source. However, Hartzler teaches collecting supplemental contact information for a contact, where the information is collected from remote data sources and is sent to a client (see Hartzler, at least Abstract); and discloses the contact information is addressable from a source and stored in an XML document (see Hartzler, at least ¶s 22,28,30). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify De Souza based on the teachings of Hartzler for the purpose of managing and maintaining accurate information related to a contact that is relevant to a user.
In reference to claim 4, De Souza teaches the contact details the data source is local or external to the device (see at least ¶s 22,25).
In reference to claim 5, De Souza teaches generating the unified contact object/storyline in combination with the contact information (see at least ¶s 29,59).
Claims 15,18,19 correspond to claim 1,4,5 and are a slight variations thereof. Therefore claims 15,18,19 are rejected based upon the same rationale as given above.
Claims 6,7,20,21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over De Souza (US Publication 20130097124) in view of Hartzler et al (US Publication 20130067039) in further view of Huyghe et al (US Publication 20190340252) in further view of Batni et al (US Publication 20090215486).
In reference to claim 6, De Souza fails to explicitly teach each of its limitations. However, Huyghe teaches: generating search results and displaying them in a sequence as a storyline (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 57 lines 1-17); receiving a selection of a content type from a plurality of content types (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 64 and ¶ 65 lines 5-10, which discloses a search page for a user selecting a content collection type); receiving a selection of the content entry from a plurality of content entries associated with the content type as selected (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 67 lines 17-21 and ¶ 68 lines 24-25, which discloses selecting content associated with the content type); retrieving one or more content entries associated with each of at least one other content type, the content entries related to the content entry as selected (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 67 lines 21-25 and ¶ 68 lines 25-30, which discloses retrieving content entries related to the selection); and generating the storyline for the content entry as selected, the storyline including the one or more content entries associated with each of the at least one other content type as retrieved (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 67 lines 25-28 and ¶ 68 lines 30-33, which discloses displaying the resulting content entries in an ordered manner). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify De Souza based on the teachings of Huyghe for the purpose of presenting search results for a user in an organized manner that is relevant to the user.
Furthermore, Batni teaches receiving contact type in an address book, and displaying tagged content, where the content is content entries from a contact list/address book (see Batni, at least Abstract and ¶s 8-9 & 38-39). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify De Souza based on the teachings of Batni for the purpose of formatting and presenting contact list entries in an intuitive and organized manner.
In reference to claim 7, De Souza teaches content entries and parameters that include a social network information, photos, notes, emails and other information (see De Souza, at least ¶ 20).
Claim 20,21 correspond to claims 6,7 and are a slight variations thereof. Therefore claims 20,21 are rejected based upon the same rationale as given above.
Claims 8-11,22-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over De Souza (US Publication 20130097124) in view of Hartzler et al (US Publication 20130067039) in further view of Huyghe et al (US Publication 20190340252).
In reference to claims 8-9, De Souza fails to explicitly teach each of its limitations. However, Huyghe teaches: generating search results and displaying them in a sequence as a storyline (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 57 lines 1-17); receiving a search term (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 81 lines 7-17, which discloses entering a search term into an interface); retrieving one or more content entries associated with each of at least one content type, each of the one or more content entries associated with at least one of the tag, the memo, the contact, a link, or other textual data that includes the search term (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 82, which discloses retrieving lists of content associated with the tag and search term); and generating the storyline for the content entry as selected, the storyline including the one or more content entries associated with each of the at least one other content type as retrieved (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 83 lines 1-9, which discloses displaying the resulting content entries in an ordered manner). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify De Souza based on the teachings of Huyghe for the purpose of presenting search results for a user in an organized manner that is relevant to the user.
In reference to claim 10, De Souza fails to explicitly teach each of its limitations. However, Huyghe teaches: receiving a selection of a content type from a plurality of content types (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 77 lines 7-14, which discloses selecting a content type for searching); receiving a selection of the content entry from a plurality of content entries associated with the content type as selected (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 77 lines 19-20, which discloses receiving a selection of content entries related to the type); receiving a selection of the tag associated with the content entry as selected (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 77 lines 17-18, which discloses selecting a tag associated with the content); retrieving one or more content entries associated with each of at least one other content type, the one or more content entries related to the tag associated with the content entry as selected (see Huyghe, at least ¶ 78 lines 1-9, which discloses retrieving search results associated with the tag); and generating the storyline for the tag as selected, the storyline including the one or more content entries associated with each of the at least one other content type as retrieved (see Huyghe, at least Figure 7 # 704, which discloses presenting the results in an ordered manner). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to modify De Souza in view of Huyghe based on the rationale given for claim 8.
In reference to claim 11, De Souza fails to explicitly teach that claim 7 further comprises the storyline includes a summation including a number of the one or more content entries associated with each of the other content type as retrieved in connection with the storyline generated based on a content entry, search term or tag. However, Huyghe teaches providing content search results, and discloses displaying results including a number count of the result entries based on the search term or tag (see Huyghe, at least Figure 10 #1022, and ¶ 81 lines 7-14). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to modify De Souza in view of Huyghe based on the rationale given for claim 8.
Claims 22-25 correspond to claims 8-11 and are slight variations thereof. Therefore claims 22-25 are rejected based upon the same rationale as given above.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
For any subsequent response that contains new/amended claims, Applicant is required to cite its corresponding support in the specification. (See MPEP chapter 2163.03 section (I.) and chapter 2163.04 section (I.) and chapter 2163.06) Applicant may not introduce any new matter to the claims or to the specification.
In formulating a response/amendment, Applicant is encouraged to take into consideration the prior art made of record but not relied upon, as it is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See attached Form 892.
Contact & Status
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAMY M OSMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-4008. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri, 9AM-5PM.
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/Ramy M Osman/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
May 15, 2026
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