DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the amendment filed 1/2/2026.
Claims 1-19 and 21 are currently pending.
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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 7-10 of amendment, filed 1/2/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1 under 35 U.S.C. 103 over Quine in view of Keller have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Adams (US 2002/0124100).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4-6, 8, 9, 11-13, 15, 16, 18, 19, and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Quine (US 2012/0290959), in view of Keller (US 2019/0065017), in view of Adams.
As per claim 1, Quine teaches the following:
a computer system comprising:
a memory resource storing instructions, (see Fig. 2A, 204); and
one or more processors, (see Fig. 2A, 203), using the instructions stored in the memory resource to perform operations including:
implementing a simulation environment in which a plurality of prototype screens are individually renderable to simulate an application user interface. As Quine teaches in paragraph [0124], a page toolbar allows a designer to select a page to view, thus screens are individually renderable. Quine teaches in paragraph [0096] of a preview mode 204 which allows the designer to at least partially execute an application to view the application similar to how a user would see it (simulate an application user interface);
displaying an initial prototype screen of the plurality of prototype screens, the initial prototype screen including a first set of interactive elements to navigate to a corresponding first set of subsequent prototype screens. As Quine shows in Fig. 4, an initial screen may be displayed. Quine teaches in paragraph [0131] that configuration palette 412 may be utilized to configure the function of a control. In the example shown, a “click” on the “OK” button 420 would cause the display to navigate to page 2. Thus the elements may be designed to navigate to different pages (prototype screens) and would act as such when shown in a preview mode.
While Quine suggests that a preview mode would cause display of corresponding screens of an application (see paragraph [0096]), Quine does not explicitly teach of loading content associated with each screen. In a similar field of endeavor, Keller teaches of designing interfaces (see abstract). Keller further teaches the following:
based on the corresponding first set of subsequent prototype screens, loading content associated with each prototype screen of the corresponding first set of subsequent prototype screens,
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to have modified the control rendering of Quine with the tree-like organization of Keller. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to have made such modification because loading applications provides the well known benefit of allowing said applications to be executed, and thus rendered.
Furthermore, neither Quine nor Keller explicitly teach limiting loading to the first set of subsequent prototype screens. Adams teaches in paragraph [0238] that an IntenseSpeed client component may obtain a list of links from a currently accessed web page and pre-load the content pointed to by the list into a cache of the browser.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to have further modified the loading of Quine in view of Keller with the pre-loading of Adams. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to have made such modification because as Adams teaches in paragraph [0208], pre-loading benefits users in allowing navigation between interfaces without the delay of waiting for the content of such interfaces to be loaded as needed.
Regarding claim 2, modified Quine teaches the system of claim 1 as described above. However, as described above, Quine does not explicitly teach of loading content associated with each screen. Keller further teaches the following:
receiving user input corresponding to a selection of an interactive element of the first set of interactive elements. As Keller shows in Fig. 4, a preferred response to an initial prompt is given at step 440.;
based on the selection of the interactive element, displaying a second prototype screen of the plurality of prototype screens, the second prototype screen including a second set of interactive elements to navigate to a corresponding second set of prototype screens. As Keller further shows in Fig. 4, a second prompt based upon the user response is presented in step 450; and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to have modified the control rendering of Quine with the tree-like organization of Keller. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to have made such modification because loading applications provides the well known benefit of allowing said applications to be executed, and thus rendered.
However, as described above, neither Quine nor Keller explicitly teach limiting loading to the first set of subsequent prototype screens. Adams teaches in paragraphs [0236] and [0237] that pre-loading occurs in response to a user accessing a webpage. Therefore, upon a user navigating from a first page to a second page, the pre-loading list for the second page (second set of screens) is loaded into cache.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to have further modified the loading of Quine in view of Keller with the pre-loading of Adams. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to have made such modification because as Adams teaches in paragraph [0208], pre-loading benefits users in allowing navigation between interfaces without the delay of waiting for the content of such interfaces to be loaded as needed.
Regarding claim 4, modified Quine teaches the system of claim 1 as described above. However, Quine does not explicitly teach of traversing a document tree. In a similar field of endeavor, Keller teaches of designing interfaces (see abstract). Keller further teaches the following:
loading the content associated with each prototype screen of the first set of prototype screens includes traversing a document tree for the plurality of prototype screens. As Keller shows in Fig. 3, 320, a desired simulation may be loaded, at step 325 an initial question or prompt is loaded, and 335 another prompt is read. As may be seen in Fig. 7 of Keller, the prompts presented are determined based upon traversal of a decision tree and selections by a user.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to have modified the control rendering of Quine with the tree-like organization of Keller. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to have made such modification because as Keller teaches in paragraph [0005], a tree-diagram design may benefit users in improving the user’s understanding of a process flow. Furthermore, Quine suggests such hierarchical organization where in paragraph [0007], Quine teaches that data associated with the application may be stored in a database model, and in paragraph [0111], various data structures may store information in the database, including trees.
Regarding claim 5, modified Quine teaches the system of claim 4 as described above. However, as described above, Quine does not explicitly teach of traversing trees. Keller further teaches the following:
loading the content associated with each prototype screen of the first set of prototype screens includes traversing one or more separate component document trees for components that are embedded in each prototype screen. As Keller teaches in paragraph [0068], and corresponding Fig. 7, each question node (document) is connected to other question nodes through the corresponding response option (component).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to have modified the control rendering of Quine with the tree-like organization of Keller. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to have made such modification because as Keller teaches in paragraph [0005], a tree-diagram design may benefit users in improving the user’s understanding of a process flow. Furthermore, Quine suggests such hierarchical organization where in paragraph [0007], Quine teaches that data associated with the application may be stored in a database model, and in paragraph [0111], various data structures may store information in the database, including trees.
Regarding claim 6, modified Quine teaches the system of claim 1 as described above. Quine further teaches the following:
the operations further including: updating the content associated with one or more of the first set of prototype screens based on changes made by another user of the simulation environment. As Quine teaches in paragraph [0009], any changes made in design mode may be reflected in near real-time in the previewed cloud-based application. As applicant simply states that the changes are “made by another user of the simulation environment”, one of ordinary skill in the art may interpret this to comprise “another user” simply using the terminal of the designer to effectuate changes to the application.
As per claim 8, the limitations of claim 8 are substantially similar to those of claim 1 and are rejected using the same reasoning.
Regarding claims 9 and 11-13, modified Quine teaches the method of claim 8 as described above. The remaining limitations of claims 9and 11-13 are substantially similar to those of claims 2 and 4-6 respectively, and are rejected using the same reasoning.
As per claim 15, Quine teaches the following:
a non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores instructions, executable by one or more processors, (see Fig. 2A, 203 and 204).
The remaining limitations of claim 15 are substantially similar to those of claim 1 and are rejected using the same reasoning.
Regarding claims 16, 18 and 19, modified Quine teaches the medium of claim 15 as described above. The remaining limitations of claims 16, 18, and 19 are substantially similar to those of claims 2, 4, and 5 respectively, and are rejected using the same reasoning.
Regarding claim 21, modified Quine teaches the system of claim 1 as described above. However, as described above, Quine does not explicitly teach of limiting loading of interfaces. Adams teaches the following:
maintaining content associated with one or more additional prototype screens of the corresponding first set of subsequent prototype screens in a loaded state that is queued for rendering, without displaying the additional prototype screens, wherein the additional prototype screens are available for rendering in response to subsequent navigation. Adams teaches in paragraph [0238] that an IntenseSpeed client component may obtain a list of links from a currently accessed web page and pre-load the content pointed to by the list into a cache of the browser. Further see paragraph [0208] where such pre-loading is preformed for creating available renderings without delay.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to have further modified the loading of Quine in view of Keller with the pre-loading of Adams. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to have made such modification because as Adams teaches in paragraph [0208], pre-loading benefits users in allowing navigation between interfaces without the delay of waiting for the content of such interfaces to be loaded as needed.
Claim(s) 3, 10, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Quine in view of Keller in view of Adams as applied to claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, and 16 above, and further in view of Nguyen et al. (US 10,656,955).
Regarding claim 3, modified Quine teaches the system of claim 2 as described above. However, Quine does not explicitly teach of evicting content associated with the initial screen from memory. In a similar field of endeavor, Nguyen teaches of modifying a displayed interface (see abstract). Nguyen further teaches the following:
evicting content associated with the initial prototype screen from memory. As Nguyen teaches in column 12, lines 30-50, original states of pages may be removed from memory.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to have modified the page navigation of Quine with the memory purging of Nguyen. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to have made such modification because as Nguyen teaches in in column 12, line 50, such purging benefits users in conserving memory resources.
Regarding claim 10, modified Quine teaches the method of claim 9 as described above. The remaining limitations of claim 10 are substantially similar to those of claim 3 and are rejected using the same reasoning.
Regarding claim 17, modified Quine teaches the medium of claim 16 as described above. The remaining limitations of claim 17 are substantially similar to those of claim 3 and are rejected using the same reasoning.
Claim(s) 7 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Quine in view of Keller in view of Adams as applied to claims 1 and 8 above, and further in view of Miyahara (US 2013/0113750).
Regarding claim 7, modified Quine teaches the system of claim 1 as described above. However Quine does not explicitly teach of loading screens in determination of insufficient memory. Miyahara teaches the following:
the computer system loads the content associated with each prototype screen of the first set of prototype screens in response to determining that memory storage capacity and/or processor power is determined to be insufficient to load the plurality of prototype screens in whole within a predetermined set of performance parameters. As Miyahara shows in Fig. 4, upon a new display screen being requested and insufficient memory being available (i.e. screen cannot display withing performance parameters), an oldest screen is first deleted before loading the requested screen.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to have modified the screen Quine with the memory capacity determination of Miyahara. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to have made such modification because, as Miyahara teaches in paragraph [0048], storage capacity of a device is not physically unlimited, and such on demand deletion/loading benefits users in allowing the newest requested screen to be displayed when capacity is full.
Regarding claim 14, modified Quine teaches the method of claim 8 as described above. The remaining limitations of claim 14 are substantially similar to those of claim 7 and are rejected using the same reasoning.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Berger (5,978,841), look ahead pre-loading cache, see Fig. 12C.
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.
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/GREGORY A. DISTEFANO/
Examiner
Art Unit 2174
/WILLIAM L BASHORE/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2174