DETAILED ACTION
The non-final office action is responsive to the RCE request filed on 12/09/2025. Claims 2-21 are pending; claims 2-21 are rejected.
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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/09/2025 has been entered.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 2-21 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 11,880,752 B2 (hereinafter P752) in view of U.S Patent 10,776,723 B1 to Hopkins et al. (hereinafter Hopkins) and U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0245351 A1 to Sussman et al. (hereinafter Sussman).
Claim 1 of the Instant Application
Claim 1 of P752
A computer-implemented method for dynamic access right assignment comprising:
A computer-implemented method for managing load for access rights to a resource, comprising:
determining, by a primary load management system, a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource, the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried;
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource;
accessing a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein: each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a respective user of a plurality of users-registered with the primary load management system, each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters being a value that represents a likelihood of the respective user to access the resource, and the plurality of users is prioritized in a position queue based on the value of a corresponding resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters;
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters;
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device;
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period; and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal.
Claim 1 of P752 does not discloses the claim limitations identified above.
Hopkins discloses
determining a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource (Upon receiving an allocation of tickets from a promoter of an upcoming event, the provider of the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can designate all, or a portion, of the tickets it receives as the tickets 132 that are to be proactively reserved on behalf of its customers 106, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8. Note: pre-sale tickets or the tickets proactively reserved for a venue read on claimed “non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource”), the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried (In the example of FIG. 1, the first pre-sale window 128(A) begins on Tuesday and ends on Thursday. The schedule 126 also shows a second pre-sale window 128(B) for a different ticket vendor that begins on Wednesday and ends on Thursday. Each of the pre-sale windows 128(A) and 128(B) occur prior to the general sale window 130 that takes place on Friday, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8, Col. 2, Line 64 – Col. 3, Line 50);
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource (the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can identify, by accessing the customer data 121 maintained in the database 112, a plurality of customers 106 associated with the venue or an artist of an upcoming event that is to occur at the venue. For example, as illustrated at 136 of FIG. 1, the customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the artist by the streaming data 116 indicating that the customers 106 have streamed content 118 associated with the artist, or by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the artist. As another example, the plurality of customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the venue by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the venue (e.g., a theme park). At 138, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 computes respective scores (sometimes referred to herein as “artist scores”) for the plurality of customers 106 identified at 136. Computation of an artist score for an individual customer 106 can be based at least in part on a first statistic exhibited in the streaming data 116 relating to the content 118 associated with the artist that was streamed by the individual customer 106 and a second statistic exhibited in the purchase data 120 relating to the item(s) 120 associated with the artist that were purchased by the individual customer 106, Hopkins, Col. 10, Line 9 – Line 58, Col. 7, Line 24 – Col. 9, Line 5, Fig. 4. Note: streamed data and purchased statistic read on claimed “resource-affinity parameters”);
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters (For example, the plurality of customers 106 identified at 406 can be ranked according to their respective scores computed at 408, and the top “M” customers that are ranked the highest by score can be selected for ticket assignments at 410. In this scenario, if each customer 106 is to have four tickets proactively reserved for them, and if the number of tickets 132 determined at 402 is equal to 100 tickets, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can select the top 25 customers 106 identified at 406 that have the highest scores, Hopkins, Col. 22, Line 35 – Col. 24, Line 45, Fig. 4);
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device (At 414, an electronic notification 144 can be transmitted over the computer network 110 to a customer 106 in the subset selected at 410, prior to the start of the scheduled sale period (e.g., the pre-sale window 128(A)). The electronic notification can be of any suitable form, such as an email notification, an SMS text message, a push notification delivered via the client application 222 on the networked computing device 108, and the like, Hopkins, Col. 24, Line 45 – Col. 26, Line 16, Fig. 4);
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period (a determination can be made as to whether a customer 106 who received an electronic notification has responded to the electronic notification in the affirmative (i.e., confirming purchase of the reserved tickets) or in the negative (i.e., declining purchase of the reserved tickets) before the specified time period for responding has expired, Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 28, Line 67, Fig. 7. Note: specified time period for responding reads on claimed “first predefined decision period”); and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal (If it is determined at 710 that the customer 106 confirmed the purchase of the proactively reserved tickets (e.g., by selecting a number of tickets via the selectable options 152, 552 of the electronic notification 144, 544), the process 700 follows the “confirm” route from 710 to 714 where the notification module 210 sends an electronic confirmation to the customer 106 confirming the purchase of the desired number of tickets, Hopkins, Col. 29, Line 1 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement offering for sale of tickets proactively reserved for a venue to selected customers as taught by Hopkins to modify the method of P752 in order to conserve resources with respect to at least network bandwidth resources, processing resources, and/or other resources while providing mechanisms to proactively reserve tickets on behalf of selected customers.
Furthermore, P752-Hopkins does not explicitly disclose wherein upon expiration of the first predefined decision period without receipt of the first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning the non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold.
Sussman discloses wherein upon expiration of a first predefined decision period without receipt of a first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with a resource affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, and transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning a non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold. (If a user's payment mechanism is declined or otherwise cannot be used, optionally, the user may be informed of the problem and/or asked for an alternative payment mechanism within a specified period of time. If the user fails to do so, the user is not allocated a ticket and the next higher ranked user request having matching seat criteria is allocated the seat tickets that had previously been assigned to the user's whose payment mechanism has been declined, Sussman, [0062]-[0070]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement waiting list as taught by Sussman to modify the method of P752-Hopkins in order to reduce peak usage of a networked computer system.
As to claims 3-21, claims 1-20 of P752 in view of Hopkins and Sussman obviously disclose all limitations in claims 3-21 of the instant application. Accordingly, claim 3-21 of the instant application are not patently distinct from the earlier patent claims and as such are unpatentable for obvious-type double patenting.
Claims 2-21 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 11,388,170 B2 (hereinafter P170) in view of Hopkins and Sussman.
Claim 1 of the Instant Application
Claim 1 of P170
A computer-implemented method for dynamic access right assignment comprising:
A computer-implemented method for managing load for access rights to resources, comprising:
determining, by a primary load management system, a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource, the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried;
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource;
accessing a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein: each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user from a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system, each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters being a value that represents a likelihood that corresponding user will access the first plurality of resources, the plurality of users is prioritized in a position queue based on the value of the resource-affinity parameter corresponding to the user;
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters;
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device;
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period; and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal.
Claim 1 of P170 does not discloses the claim limitations identified above.
Hopkins discloses
determining a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource (Upon receiving an allocation of tickets from a promoter of an upcoming event, the provider of the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can designate all, or a portion, of the tickets it receives as the tickets 132 that are to be proactively reserved on behalf of its customers 106, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8. Note: pre-sale tickets or the tickets proactively reserved for a venue read on claimed “non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource”), the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried (In the example of FIG. 1, the first pre-sale window 128(A) begins on Tuesday and ends on Thursday. The schedule 126 also shows a second pre-sale window 128(B) for a different ticket vendor that begins on Wednesday and ends on Thursday. Each of the pre-sale windows 128(A) and 128(B) occur prior to the general sale window 130 that takes place on Friday, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8, Col. 2, Line 64 – Col. 3, Line 50);
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource (the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can identify, by accessing the customer data 121 maintained in the database 112, a plurality of customers 106 associated with the venue or an artist of an upcoming event that is to occur at the venue. For example, as illustrated at 136 of FIG. 1, the customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the artist by the streaming data 116 indicating that the customers 106 have streamed content 118 associated with the artist, or by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the artist. As another example, the plurality of customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the venue by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the venue (e.g., a theme park). At 138, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 computes respective scores (sometimes referred to herein as “artist scores”) for the plurality of customers 106 identified at 136. Computation of an artist score for an individual customer 106 can be based at least in part on a first statistic exhibited in the streaming data 116 relating to the content 118 associated with the artist that was streamed by the individual customer 106 and a second statistic exhibited in the purchase data 120 relating to the item(s) 120 associated with the artist that were purchased by the individual customer 106, Hopkins, Col. 10, Line 9 – Line 58, Col. 7, Line 24 – Col. 9, Line 5, Fig. 4. Note: streamed data and purchased statistic read on claimed “resource-affinity parameters”);
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters (For example, the plurality of customers 106 identified at 406 can be ranked according to their respective scores computed at 408, and the top “M” customers that are ranked the highest by score can be selected for ticket assignments at 410. In this scenario, if each customer 106 is to have four tickets proactively reserved for them, and if the number of tickets 132 determined at 402 is equal to 100 tickets, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can select the top 25 customers 106 identified at 406 that have the highest scores, Hopkins, Col. 22, Line 35 – Col. 24, Line 45, Fig. 4);
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device (At 414, an electronic notification 144 can be transmitted over the computer network 110 to a customer 106 in the subset selected at 410, prior to the start of the scheduled sale period (e.g., the pre-sale window 128(A)). The electronic notification can be of any suitable form, such as an email notification, an SMS text message, a push notification delivered via the client application 222 on the networked computing device 108, and the like, Hopkins, Col. 24, Line 45 – Col. 26, Line 16, Fig. 4);
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period (a determination can be made as to whether a customer 106 who received an electronic notification has responded to the electronic notification in the affirmative (i.e., confirming purchase of the reserved tickets) or in the negative (i.e., declining purchase of the reserved tickets) before the specified time period for responding has expired, Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 28, Line 67, Fig. 7. Note: specified time period for responding reads on claimed “first predefined decision period”); and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal (If it is determined at 710 that the customer 106 confirmed the purchase of the proactively reserved tickets (e.g., by selecting a number of tickets via the selectable options 152, 552 of the electronic notification 144, 544), the process 700 follows the “confirm” route from 710 to 714 where the notification module 210 sends an electronic confirmation to the customer 106 confirming the purchase of the desired number of tickets, Hopkins, Col. 29, Line 1 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement offering for sale of tickets proactively reserved for a venue to selected customers as taught by Hopkins to modify the method of P170 in order to conserve resources with respect to at least network bandwidth resources, processing resources, and/or other resources while providing mechanisms to proactively reserve tickets on behalf of selected customers.
Furthermore, P170-Hopkins does not explicitly disclose wherein upon expiration of the first predefined decision period without receipt of the first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning the non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold.
Sussman discloses wherein upon expiration of a first predefined decision period without receipt of a first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with a resource affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, and transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning a non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold. (If a user's payment mechanism is declined or otherwise cannot be used, optionally, the user may be informed of the problem and/or asked for an alternative payment mechanism within a specified period of time. If the user fails to do so, the user is not allocated a ticket and the next higher ranked user request having matching seat criteria is allocated the seat tickets that had previously been assigned to the user's whose payment mechanism has been declined, Sussman, [0062]-[0070]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement waiting list as taught by Sussman to modify the method of P170-Hopkins in order to reduce peak usage of a networked computer system.
As to claims 3-21, claims 1-20 of P170 in view of Hopkins and Sussman obviously disclose all limitations in claims 3-21 of the instant application. Accordingly, claim 3-21 of the instant application are not patently distinct from the earlier patent claims and as such are unpatentable for obvious-type double patenting.
Claims 2-21 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 10,979,434 B2 (hereinafter P434) in view of Hopkins and Sussman.
Claim 1 of the Instant Application
Claim 1 of P434
A computer-implemented method for dynamic access right assignment comprising:
A computer-implemented method comprising:
determining, by a primary load management system, a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource, the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried;
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource;
accessing a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponding to a user registered with the primary load management system, each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters being a value that represents a likelihood that the corresponding user will access the resource, and each user being associated with a user device;
selecting a resource-affinity parameter, from amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein the selected resource-affinity parameter being a value that represents a highest likelihood of accessing the resource from amongst remaining resource-affinity parameters of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters;
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters;
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device;
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period; and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal.
Claim 1 of P434 does not discloses the claim limitations identified above.
Hopkins discloses
determining a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource (Upon receiving an allocation of tickets from a promoter of an upcoming event, the provider of the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can designate all, or a portion, of the tickets it receives as the tickets 132 that are to be proactively reserved on behalf of its customers 106, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8. Note: pre-sale tickets or the tickets proactively reserved for a venue read on claimed “non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource”), the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried (In the example of FIG. 1, the first pre-sale window 128(A) begins on Tuesday and ends on Thursday. The schedule 126 also shows a second pre-sale window 128(B) for a different ticket vendor that begins on Wednesday and ends on Thursday. Each of the pre-sale windows 128(A) and 128(B) occur prior to the general sale window 130 that takes place on Friday, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8, Col. 2, Line 64 – Col. 3, Line 50);
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource (the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can identify, by accessing the customer data 121 maintained in the database 112, a plurality of customers 106 associated with the venue or an artist of an upcoming event that is to occur at the venue. For example, as illustrated at 136 of FIG. 1, the customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the artist by the streaming data 116 indicating that the customers 106 have streamed content 118 associated with the artist, or by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the artist. As another example, the plurality of customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the venue by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the venue (e.g., a theme park). At 138, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 computes respective scores (sometimes referred to herein as “artist scores”) for the plurality of customers 106 identified at 136. Computation of an artist score for an individual customer 106 can be based at least in part on a first statistic exhibited in the streaming data 116 relating to the content 118 associated with the artist that was streamed by the individual customer 106 and a second statistic exhibited in the purchase data 120 relating to the item(s) 120 associated with the artist that were purchased by the individual customer 106, Hopkins, Col. 10, Line 9 – Line 58, Col. 7, Line 24 – Col. 9, Line 5, Fig. 4. Note: streamed data and purchased statistic read on claimed “resource-affinity parameters”);
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters (For example, the plurality of customers 106 identified at 406 can be ranked according to their respective scores computed at 408, and the top “M” customers that are ranked the highest by score can be selected for ticket assignments at 410. In this scenario, if each customer 106 is to have four tickets proactively reserved for them, and if the number of tickets 132 determined at 402 is equal to 100 tickets, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can select the top 25 customers 106 identified at 406 that have the highest scores, Hopkins, Col. 22, Line 35 – Col. 24, Line 45, Fig. 4);
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device (At 414, an electronic notification 144 can be transmitted over the computer network 110 to a customer 106 in the subset selected at 410, prior to the start of the scheduled sale period (e.g., the pre-sale window 128(A)). The electronic notification can be of any suitable form, such as an email notification, an SMS text message, a push notification delivered via the client application 222 on the networked computing device 108, and the like, Hopkins, Col. 24, Line 45 – Col. 26, Line 16, Fig. 4);
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period (a determination can be made as to whether a customer 106 who received an electronic notification has responded to the electronic notification in the affirmative (i.e., confirming purchase of the reserved tickets) or in the negative (i.e., declining purchase of the reserved tickets) before the specified time period for responding has expired, Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 28, Line 67, Fig. 7. Note: specified time period for responding reads on claimed “first predefined decision period”); and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal (If it is determined at 710 that the customer 106 confirmed the purchase of the proactively reserved tickets (e.g., by selecting a number of tickets via the selectable options 152, 552 of the electronic notification 144, 544), the process 700 follows the “confirm” route from 710 to 714 where the notification module 210 sends an electronic confirmation to the customer 106 confirming the purchase of the desired number of tickets, Hopkins, Col. 29, Line 1 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement offering for sale of tickets proactively reserved for a venue to selected customers as taught by Hopkins to modify the method of P434 in order to conserve resources with respect to at least network bandwidth resources, processing resources, and/or other resources while providing mechanisms to proactively reserve tickets on behalf of selected customers.
Furthermore, P434-Hopkins does not explicitly disclose wherein upon expiration of the first predefined decision period without receipt of the first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning the non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold.
Sussman discloses wherein upon expiration of a first predefined decision period without receipt of a first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with a resource affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, and transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning a non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold. (If a user's payment mechanism is declined or otherwise cannot be used, optionally, the user may be informed of the problem and/or asked for an alternative payment mechanism within a specified period of time. If the user fails to do so, the user is not allocated a ticket and the next higher ranked user request having matching seat criteria is allocated the seat tickets that had previously been assigned to the user's whose payment mechanism has been declined, Sussman, [0062]-[0070]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement waiting list as taught by Sussman to modify the method of P434-Hopkins in order to reduce peak usage of a networked computer system.
As to claims 3-21, claims 1-20 of P434 in view of Hopkins and Sussman obviously disclose all limitations in claims 3-21 of the instant application. Accordingly, claim 3-21 of the instant application are not patently distinct from the earlier patent claims and as such are unpatentable for obvious-type double patenting.
Claims 2-21 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 10,419,440 B2 (hereinafter P440) in view of Hopkins and Sussman.
Claim 1 of the Instant Application
Claim 1 of P440
A computer-implemented method for dynamic access right assignment comprising:
A computer-implemented method comprising:
determining, by a primary load management system, a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource, the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried;
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource;
accessing a first set of data points associated with the user identifier;
generating a local resource-affinity parameter, the local resource-affinity parameter representing a likelihood that a user associated with the user device will access the resource;
accessing a second set of data points associated with the user identifier, at least one data point of the second set of data points being different from the first set of data points;
generating a global resource-affinity parameter, the global resource-affinity parameter representing a likelihood that the user associated with the user device will access any resource;
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters;
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device;
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period; and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal.
Claim 1 of P440 does not discloses the claim limitations identified above.
Hopkins discloses
determining a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource (Upon receiving an allocation of tickets from a promoter of an upcoming event, the provider of the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can designate all, or a portion, of the tickets it receives as the tickets 132 that are to be proactively reserved on behalf of its customers 106, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8. Note: pre-sale tickets or the tickets proactively reserved for a venue read on claimed “non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource”), the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried (In the example of FIG. 1, the first pre-sale window 128(A) begins on Tuesday and ends on Thursday. The schedule 126 also shows a second pre-sale window 128(B) for a different ticket vendor that begins on Wednesday and ends on Thursday. Each of the pre-sale windows 128(A) and 128(B) occur prior to the general sale window 130 that takes place on Friday, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8, Col. 2, Line 64 – Col. 3, Line 50);
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource (the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can identify, by accessing the customer data 121 maintained in the database 112, a plurality of customers 106 associated with the venue or an artist of an upcoming event that is to occur at the venue. For example, as illustrated at 136 of FIG. 1, the customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the artist by the streaming data 116 indicating that the customers 106 have streamed content 118 associated with the artist, or by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the artist. As another example, the plurality of customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the venue by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the venue (e.g., a theme park). At 138, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 computes respective scores (sometimes referred to herein as “artist scores”) for the plurality of customers 106 identified at 136. Computation of an artist score for an individual customer 106 can be based at least in part on a first statistic exhibited in the streaming data 116 relating to the content 118 associated with the artist that was streamed by the individual customer 106 and a second statistic exhibited in the purchase data 120 relating to the item(s) 120 associated with the artist that were purchased by the individual customer 106, Hopkins, Col. 10, Line 9 – Line 58, Col. 7, Line 24 – Col. 9, Line 5, Fig. 4. Note: streamed data and purchased statistic read on claimed “resource-affinity parameters”);
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters (For example, the plurality of customers 106 identified at 406 can be ranked according to their respective scores computed at 408, and the top “M” customers that are ranked the highest by score can be selected for ticket assignments at 410. In this scenario, if each customer 106 is to have four tickets proactively reserved for them, and if the number of tickets 132 determined at 402 is equal to 100 tickets, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can select the top 25 customers 106 identified at 406 that have the highest scores, Hopkins, Col. 22, Line 35 – Col. 24, Line 45, Fig. 4);
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device (At 414, an electronic notification 144 can be transmitted over the computer network 110 to a customer 106 in the subset selected at 410, prior to the start of the scheduled sale period (e.g., the pre-sale window 128(A)). The electronic notification can be of any suitable form, such as an email notification, an SMS text message, a push notification delivered via the client application 222 on the networked computing device 108, and the like, Hopkins, Col. 24, Line 45 – Col. 26, Line 16, Fig. 4);
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period (a determination can be made as to whether a customer 106 who received an electronic notification has responded to the electronic notification in the affirmative (i.e., confirming purchase of the reserved tickets) or in the negative (i.e., declining purchase of the reserved tickets) before the specified time period for responding has expired, Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 28, Line 67, Fig. 7. Note: specified time period for responding reads on claimed “first predefined decision period”); and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal (If it is determined at 710 that the customer 106 confirmed the purchase of the proactively reserved tickets (e.g., by selecting a number of tickets via the selectable options 152, 552 of the electronic notification 144, 544), the process 700 follows the “confirm” route from 710 to 714 where the notification module 210 sends an electronic confirmation to the customer 106 confirming the purchase of the desired number of tickets, Hopkins, Col. 29, Line 1 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement offering for sale of tickets proactively reserved for a venue to selected customers as taught by Hopkins to modify the method of P440 in order to conserve resources with respect to at least network bandwidth resources, processing resources, and/or other resources while providing mechanisms to proactively reserve tickets on behalf of selected customers.
Furthermore, P440-Hopkins does not explicitly disclose wherein upon expiration of the first predefined decision period without receipt of the first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning the non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold.
Sussman discloses wherein upon expiration of a first predefined decision period without receipt of a first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with a resource affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, and transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning a non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold. (If a user's payment mechanism is declined or otherwise cannot be used, optionally, the user may be informed of the problem and/or asked for an alternative payment mechanism within a specified period of time. If the user fails to do so, the user is not allocated a ticket and the next higher ranked user request having matching seat criteria is allocated the seat tickets that had previously been assigned to the user's whose payment mechanism has been declined, Sussman, [0062]-[0070]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement waiting list as taught by Sussman to modify the method of P440-Hopkins in order to reduce peak usage of a networked computer system.
As to claims 3-21, claims 1-20 of P440 in view of Hopkins and Sussman obviously disclose all limitations in claims 3-21 of the instant application. Accordingly, claim 3-21 of the instant application are not patently distinct from the earlier patent claims and as such are unpatentable for obvious-type double patenting.
Claims 2-21 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 10,205,728 B2 (hereinafter P728) in view of Hopkins and Sussman.
Claim 1 of the Instant Application
Claim 1 of P728
A computer-implemented method for dynamic access right assignment comprising:
A computer-implemented method, comprising:
determining, by a primary load management system, a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource, the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried;
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource;
accessing one or more data points associated with the user identifier, each data point of the one or more data points corresponding to an attribute associated with the user identifier;
generating a resource-affinity parameter using the one or more data points, the resource-affinity parameter representing a likelihood that a user associated with the user device will meet an objective, and the resource-affinity parameter being generated by inputting the one or more data points into a machine-learning model to output the resource-affinity parameter;
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters;
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device;
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period; and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal.
Claim 1 of P728 does not discloses the claim limitations identified above.
Hopkins discloses
determining a non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource (Upon receiving an allocation of tickets from a promoter of an upcoming event, the provider of the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can designate all, or a portion, of the tickets it receives as the tickets 132 that are to be proactively reserved on behalf of its customers 106, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8. Note: pre-sale tickets or the tickets proactively reserved for a venue read on claimed “non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource”), the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried (In the example of FIG. 1, the first pre-sale window 128(A) begins on Tuesday and ends on Thursday. The schedule 126 also shows a second pre-sale window 128(B) for a different ticket vendor that begins on Wednesday and ends on Thursday. Each of the pre-sale windows 128(A) and 128(B) occur prior to the general sale window 130 that takes place on Friday, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8, Col. 2, Line 64 – Col. 3, Line 50);
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource (the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can identify, by accessing the customer data 121 maintained in the database 112, a plurality of customers 106 associated with the venue or an artist of an upcoming event that is to occur at the venue. For example, as illustrated at 136 of FIG. 1, the customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the artist by the streaming data 116 indicating that the customers 106 have streamed content 118 associated with the artist, or by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the artist. As another example, the plurality of customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the venue by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the venue (e.g., a theme park). At 138, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 computes respective scores (sometimes referred to herein as “artist scores”) for the plurality of customers 106 identified at 136. Computation of an artist score for an individual customer 106 can be based at least in part on a first statistic exhibited in the streaming data 116 relating to the content 118 associated with the artist that was streamed by the individual customer 106 and a second statistic exhibited in the purchase data 120 relating to the item(s) 120 associated with the artist that were purchased by the individual customer 106, Hopkins, Col. 10, Line 9 – Line 58, Col. 7, Line 24 – Col. 9, Line 5, Fig. 4. Note: streamed data and purchased statistic read on claimed “resource-affinity parameters”);
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters (For example, the plurality of customers 106 identified at 406 can be ranked according to their respective scores computed at 408, and the top “M” customers that are ranked the highest by score can be selected for ticket assignments at 410. In this scenario, if each customer 106 is to have four tickets proactively reserved for them, and if the number of tickets 132 determined at 402 is equal to 100 tickets, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can select the top 25 customers 106 identified at 406 that have the highest scores, Hopkins, Col. 22, Line 35 – Col. 24, Line 45, Fig. 4);
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device (At 414, an electronic notification 144 can be transmitted over the computer network 110 to a customer 106 in the subset selected at 410, prior to the start of the scheduled sale period (e.g., the pre-sale window 128(A)). The electronic notification can be of any suitable form, such as an email notification, an SMS text message, a push notification delivered via the client application 222 on the networked computing device 108, and the like, Hopkins, Col. 24, Line 45 – Col. 26, Line 16, Fig. 4);
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period (a determination can be made as to whether a customer 106 who received an electronic notification has responded to the electronic notification in the affirmative (i.e., confirming purchase of the reserved tickets) or in the negative (i.e., declining purchase of the reserved tickets) before the specified time period for responding has expired, Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 28, Line 67, Fig. 7. Note: specified time period for responding reads on claimed “first predefined decision period”); and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal (If it is determined at 710 that the customer 106 confirmed the purchase of the proactively reserved tickets (e.g., by selecting a number of tickets via the selectable options 152, 552 of the electronic notification 144, 544), the process 700 follows the “confirm” route from 710 to 714 where the notification module 210 sends an electronic confirmation to the customer 106 confirming the purchase of the desired number of tickets, Hopkins, Col. 29, Line 1 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement offering for sale of tickets proactively reserved for a venue to selected customers as taught by Hopkins to modify the method of P728 in order to conserve resources with respect to at least network bandwidth resources, processing resources, and/or other resources while providing mechanisms to proactively reserve tickets on behalf of selected customers.
Furthermore, P728-Hopkins does not explicitly disclose wherein upon expiration of the first predefined decision period without receipt of the first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning the non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold.
Sussman discloses wherein upon expiration of a first predefined decision period without receipt of a first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with a resource affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, and transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning a non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold. (If a user's payment mechanism is declined or otherwise cannot be used, optionally, the user may be informed of the problem and/or asked for an alternative payment mechanism within a specified period of time. If the user fails to do so, the user is not allocated a ticket and the next higher ranked user request having matching seat criteria is allocated the seat tickets that had previously been assigned to the user's whose payment mechanism has been declined, Sussman, [0062]-[0070]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement waiting list as taught by Sussman to modify the method of P728-Hopkins in order to reduce peak usage of a networked computer system.
As to claims 3-21, claims 1-20 of P728 in view of Hopkins and Sussman obviously disclose all limitations in claims 3-21 of the instant application. Accordingly, claim 3-21 of the instant application are not patently distinct from the earlier patent claims and as such are unpatentable for obvious-type double patenting.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 2-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hopkins and Sussman.
As to claim 2, Hopkins teaches a computer-implemented method for dynamic access right assignment (An automated ticket reservation system proactively reserves tickets for a venue on behalf of customers who are identified as “fans” of the venue or an artist of an upcoming event at the venue, Hopkins, Abstract, Col. 2, Line 64 – Col. 3, Line 50) comprising:
determining, by a primary Upon receiving an allocation of tickets from a promoter of an upcoming event, the provider of the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can designate all, or a portion, of the tickets it receives as the tickets 132 that are to be proactively reserved on behalf of its customers 106, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8. Note: pre-sale tickets or the tickets proactively reserved for a venue read on claimed “non-enabled access right corresponding to a resource”), the non-enabled access right being assigned to an entity associated with the resource prior to being available to be queried (In the example of FIG. 1, the first pre-sale window 128(A) begins on Tuesday and ends on Thursday. The schedule 126 also shows a second pre-sale window 128(B) for a different ticket vendor that begins on Wednesday and ends on Thursday. Each of the pre-sale windows 128(A) and 128(B) occur prior to the general sale window 130 that takes place on Friday, Hopkins, Col. 9, Line 30 – Col. 10, Line 8, Col. 2, Line 64 – Col. 3, Line 50);
accessing, in response to the determination of the non-enabled access right, a data store that stores a plurality of resource-affinity parameters, wherein each resource-affinity parameter of the plurality of resource-affinity parameters corresponds to a user of a plurality of users registered with the primary load management system and each resource-affinity parameter represents a value of likelihood of the corresponding user to access the resource (the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can identify, by accessing the customer data 121 maintained in the database 112, a plurality of customers 106 associated with the venue or an artist of an upcoming event that is to occur at the venue. For example, as illustrated at 136 of FIG. 1, the customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the artist by the streaming data 116 indicating that the customers 106 have streamed content 118 associated with the artist, or by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the artist. As another example, the plurality of customers 106 can be identified as being associated with the venue by the purchase data 120 indicating that the customers 106 have purchased items 122 associated with the venue (e.g., a theme park). At 138, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 computes respective scores (sometimes referred to herein as “artist scores”) for the plurality of customers 106 identified at 136. Computation of an artist score for an individual customer 106 can be based at least in part on a first statistic exhibited in the streaming data 116 relating to the content 118 associated with the artist that was streamed by the individual customer 106 and a second statistic exhibited in the purchase data 120 relating to the item(s) 120 associated with the artist that were purchased by the individual customer 106, Hopkins, Col. 10, Line 9 – Line 58, Col. 7, Line 24 – Col. 9, Line 5, Fig. 4. Note: streamed data and purchased statistic read on claimed “resource-affinity parameters”);
identifying a first select user from the plurality of users, the first select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters (For example, the plurality of customers 106 identified at 406 can be ranked according to their respective scores computed at 408, and the top “M” customers that are ranked the highest by score can be selected for ticket assignments at 410. In this scenario, if each customer 106 is to have four tickets proactively reserved for them, and if the number of tickets 132 determined at 402 is equal to 100 tickets, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can select the top 25 customers 106 identified at 406 that have the highest scores, Hopkins, Col. 22, Line 35 – Col. 24, Line 45, Fig. 4);
transmitting a first notification signal to a first select user device associated with the first select user, the first notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device (At 414, an electronic notification 144 can be transmitted over the computer network 110 to a customer 106 in the subset selected at 410, prior to the start of the scheduled sale period (e.g., the pre-sale window 128(A)). The electronic notification can be of any suitable form, such as an email notification, an SMS text message, a push notification delivered via the client application 222 on the networked computing device 108, and the like, Hopkins, Col. 24, Line 45 – Col. 26, Line 16, Fig. 4);
determining whether a first response to the first notification signal is received from the first select user device in a first predefined decision period (a determination can be made as to whether a customer 106 who received an electronic notification has responded to the electronic notification in the affirmative (i.e., confirming purchase of the reserved tickets) or in the negative (i.e., declining purchase of the reserved tickets) before the specified time period for responding has expired, Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 28, Line 67, Fig. 7. Note: specified time period for responding reads on claimed “first predefined decision period”); and
determining, in response to the determination that the first response to the first notification signal is received in the first predefined decision period, an intent of the first select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user device, based on the first response to the first notification signal (If it is determined at 710 that the customer 106 confirmed the purchase of the proactively reserved tickets (e.g., by selecting a number of tickets via the selectable options 152, 552 of the electronic notification 144, 544), the process 700 follows the “confirm” route from 710 to 714 where the notification module 210 sends an electronic confirmation to the customer 106 confirming the purchase of the desired number of tickets, Hopkins, Col. 29, Line 1 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
Hopkins does not explicitly disclose the system being a load management system.
However, load management is known to the people with skill in the art and Hopkins discloses to “conserve resources with respect to at least network bandwidth resources, processing resources, and/or other resources” in Col. 4, Line 1-25. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Hopkins to incorporate load management in order to ensure that systems can handle the workload efficiently and effectively.
Furthermore, Hopkins does not explicitly disclose wherein upon expiration of the first predefined decision period without receipt of the first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning the non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold.
Sussman discloses wherein upon expiration of a first predefined decision period without receipt of a first response: iteratively identifying one or more users with a resource affinity parameter above a predefined threshold, and transmitting a second notification signal only to users having resource-affinity parameters above the predefined threshold, and iteratively assigning a non-enabled access right to the one or more users with the resource-affinity parameter above the predefined threshold. (If a user's payment mechanism is declined or otherwise cannot be used, optionally, the user may be informed of the problem and/or asked for an alternative payment mechanism within a specified period of time. If the user fails to do so, the user is not allocated a ticket and the next higher ranked user request having matching seat criteria is allocated the seat tickets that had previously been assigned to the user's whose payment mechanism has been declined, Sussman, [0062]-[0070]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement waiting list as taught by Sussman to modify the method of Hopkins in order to reduce peak usage of a networked computer system.
As to claim 3, Hopkins-Sussman discloses the method for dynamic access right assignment as claimed in claim 2 further comprising determining a first denial from the first select user, wherein the first denial comprises one of: a condition when the first response to the first notification signal is not received from the first select user device in the first predefined decision period; and another condition when the intent of the first select user is unfavorable for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user (Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
As to claim 4, Hopkins-Sussman discloses the method for dynamic access right assignment as claimed in claim 3, wherein, in response to the determination of the first denial from the first select user, the method further comprising enabling the non-enabled access right to be accessible for querying by the plurality of users (Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
As to claim 5, Hopkins-Sussman discloses the method for dynamic access right assignment as claimed in claim 3, wherein, in response to the determination of the first denial from the first select user, the method further comprising: identifying a second select user from the plurality of users, the second select user being associated with a resource-affinity parameter having a second highest value amongst the plurality of resource-affinity parameters; transmitting a second notification signal to a second select user device associated with the second select user, the second notification signal comprising instructions to request an automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the second select user device; determining whether a second response to the second notification signal is received from the second select user device in a second predefined decision period; and determining, in response to the determination that the second response to the second notification signal is received in the second predefined decision period, an intent of the second select user for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the second select user device, based on the second response to the second notification signal (Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
As to claim 6, Hopkins-Sussman discloses the method for dynamic access right assignment as claimed in claim 5 further comprising: determining a second denial from the second select user, wherein the second denial comprises one of: a condition when the second response to the second notification signal is not received from the second select user device in the second predefined decision period; and another condition when the intent of the second select user is unfavorable for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the second select user; and in response to the determination of the second denial, enabling the non-enabled access right to be accessible for querying by the plurality of users (Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
As to claim 7, Hopkins-Sussman discloses the method for dynamic access right assignment as claimed in claim 2 further comprising: determining a first acceptance from the first select user, wherein the first acceptance comprises a condition when the intent of the first select user is favorable for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the first select user; and in response to the determination of the first acceptance from the first select user: assigning the non-enabled access right to the first select user; and enabling the non-enabled access right to provide access of the resource to the first select user associated with the first select user device (Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
As to claim 8, Hopkins-Sussman discloses the method for dynamic access right assignment as claimed in claim 5 further comprising: determining a second acceptance from the second select user, wherein the second acceptance comprises a condition when the intent of the second select user is favorable for automatic and tentative assignment of the non-enabled access right to the second select user; and in response to the determination of the second acceptance from the second select user: assigning the non-enabled access right to the second select user; and enabling the non-enabled access right to provide access of the resource to the second select user associated with the second select user device (Hopkins, Col. 28, Line 27 – Col. 30, Line 5, Fig. 7).
As to claim 9, Hopkins-Sussman discloses the method for dynamic access right assignment as claimed in claim 5, wherein identifying the first select user and the second select user from the plurality of users comprises arranging the plurality of users into a hierarchical manner based on a corresponding value of the resource-affinity parameter associated with each user of the plurality of users (For example, the plurality of customers 106 identified at 406 can be ranked according to their respective scores computed at 408, and the top “M” customers that are ranked the highest by score can be selected for ticket assignments at 410. In this scenario, if each customer 106 is to have four tickets proactively reserved for them, and if the number of tickets 132 determined at 402 is equal to 100 tickets, the proactive ticket reservation service 102 can select the top 25 customers 106 identified at 406 that have the highest scores, Hopkins, Col. 22, Line 35 – Col. 24, Line 45, Fig. 4).
As to claims 10-21, the same reasoning applies mutatis mutandis to the corresponding system claims 10-16 and non-transitory computer-readable medium (hereinafter CRM) claims 17-21 (Note: Hopkins discloses “one or more computing devices 104 equipped with a processor(s) and memory” in Col. 5, Line 4-46. So claimed CPU and memory/CRM are disclosed). Accordingly, claims 10-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hopkins and Sussman.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 2-21 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0055554 A1 to Sussman et al. also discusses ticket presale and queue processing.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RUOLEI ZONG whose telephone number is (571)270-7522. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:30AM-4:30PM IFP.
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/RUOLEI ZONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2449 1/7/2026