DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention, “A method, comprising identifying members of a group in a messaging application; detecting an active sharing of content collection from a member of the group; and generating a visual indicator corresponding to the group in a user interface of the messaging application..”, is directed to an abstract idea, specifically Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity (i.e. managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people), without significantly more. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements individually or in combination provide mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer.
Independent claims 1, 11 and 20 are directed to an abstract idea of “managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people”, based on the following claim limitations: “identifying members of a group in a messaging application; detecting an active sharing of content collection from a member of the group; and generating a visual indicator corresponding to the group in a user interface of the messaging application.” These claims limitations describes the step of identifying members of a group in a messaging application; detecting an active sharing of content collection from a member of the group. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, these limitations fall within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” abstract grouping which directed to the fundamental concept of notifying a defined group of people that an individual member is performing an action (i.e; sharing an items) and thus recite an abstract idea. Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity encompass activity of a single person (e.g. a person following a set of instructions), activity that involve multiple people (e.g. a commercial interaction), and certain activity between a person and a computer (e.g. a method of anonymous loan shopping).
Independent claims 1, 11 and 20 recite additional elements of a method, comprising identifying members of a group in a messaging application; detecting an active sharing of content collection from a member of the group; and generating a visual indicator corresponding to the group in a user interface of the messaging application. These additional elements are viewed as mere instructions to apply or implement the abstract idea on a computer. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
Dependent claims 2-10 and 12-19 further limits the abstract ideas of independent claims 1, 11 and 20 do not include any additional elements, and do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application that is sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Therefore, dependent claims 2-10 and 12-19 are not patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1, 4-11 and 14-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sarafa et al. (US 2018/0241707) in view of Deets, JR. (US Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0107342).
Regarding claim 1, Sarafa discloses a method, comprising: identifying members of a group in a messaging application [see para. 0099, 0100 and figures 1A-1J; The sharing interface include a first portion allowing the sending user to transmit the media as ephemeral content to a selected group of users in the sender's contacts list. The group of users may be configured through the user's privacy settings. The sharing interface present a second portion allowing the user to share the media with frequently contacted parties. The parties may include individual users or groups of users, who may be selected based on which individuals or groups the user has most frequently communicated and allow the user to share media with individuals or groups that the user has recently communicated with (e.g., the n most recent communication threads in which the user has participated); which corresponds to a messaging system that manages group of participants including identifying users associated with each conversation group];
detecting an active sharing of content collection from a member of the group [see para. 0286, 0288 and figures 8A-8C; Targeting criteria used to identify and target users include explicit, stated user interests on social-networking server or explicit connections of a user to a node, object, entity, brand, or page on social networking server, such targeting criteria include implicit or inferred user interests or connections (which include analyzing a user's history, demographic, social or other activities, friends' social or other activities, subscriptions, or any of the preceding of other users similar to the user (based, e.g., on shared interests, connections, or events)). Particular embodiments utilize platform targeting, which involve platform and “like” impression data; contextual signals connection lookalikes; fans; extracted keywords; EMU advertising; inferential advertising; coefficients, affinities, or other social-graph information; friends-of-friends connections; pinning or boosting; deals; polls; household income, social clusters or groups; products detected in images or other media; social- or open-graph edge types; geo-prediction; views of profile or pages; status updates or other user posts; events information; or collaborative filtering; which corresponds to describe receiving a shared content collection from a group participant and sharing as detectable activity within conversation]; however, Safara fails to explicitly teach generating a visual indicator corresponding to the group in a user interface of the messaging application.
Deets, JR. discloses generating a visual indicator corresponding to the group in a user interface of the messaging application [see para. 0019-0021; the system detects that the sender is searching for and/or including (e.g., attaching) secondary content (e.g., a photo, a video, a GIF, an EMOJI, a file, a link, etc.) and adjusts the message composition indicator to visually indicate this to the recipient. The system add one or more icons or other graphical elements to the message composition indicator to indicate that the sender is searching for and/or attaching content to the message, and/or to indicate one or more attributes of the content (e.g., to indicate a type of the content, a source of the content, or any other characteristic of the content). For example, if a sender is searching for a photo to include in a message, the system adds a photo or camera icon to the message composition indicator; which corresponds to generate real time visual indicators in messaging interfaces within a conversation group].
It would have been obvious to one of an ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Sarafa and Deets Jr. before the affective filing date of the claimed invention to modify, the group based messaging environment where participants share collections of content of Sarafa to include a conversation by generating activity based visual indicator, as taught by Deets Jr.
One would have been motivated to make such a combination in order to predict and desire result displaying a visual indicator to inform group members that a participant is actively sharing content within a group and messaging user interface practices.
Regarding claim 4, Deets, JR. discloses further comprising: detecting a user selection of the visual indicator in the user interface of the messaging application from another member of the group [see para. 0022; messaging system determines to adjust the message composition indicator (e.g., based on a sender's activity that satisfies one or more triggering conditions), the system adjust any number of visual attributes of the message composition indicator to indicate one or more attributes of the message and composition thereof. For example, the system adjust a size of the message composition indicator (e.g., to indicate an increase in size of the message), a color of the message composition indicator (e.g., to indicate a rate of growth of the message), add a graphic (e.g., icon) to the message composition indicator (e.g., to indicate the sender is adding content to the message), and/or any other visual attribute of the message composition indicator to indicate any attributes of the message or detected activity of the sender. The system makes adjustments to the message composition indicator that are proportional to or directly representative of changes to the message]; and in response to receiving the user selection of the visual indicator, enabling an ephemeral display of the content collection only from devices associated with the other member of the group [see para. 0050. 0129 and figure 2; a user may be an individual (human user), an entity (e.g., an enterprise, business, or third-party application), or a group (e.g., of individuals or entities) that interacts or communicates with or over electronic messaging system, when a user registers for an account with electronic messaging system, electronic messaging system create a user corresponding to the user, and store the user node in one or more data stores. Users and user nodes, refer to registered users and user nodes associated with registered users; a user node associated with information provided by a user or information gathered by various systems, including electronic messaging system. A user provide his or her name, profile picture, contact information, birth date, sex, marital status, family status, employment, education background, preferences, interests, or other demographic information. A user node associated with one or more data objects corresponding to information associated with a user and a user node correspond to one or more webpages].
Regarding claim 5, Sarafa discloses wherein the content collection comprises at least one media content item [see para. 0166; the ephemeral content generation process, a user may select media to be shared in connection with the ephemeral content message, and use the above-described process to upload the media to the blob store. The sending client then transmit an ephemeral content message to the intermediate server for transmission to receiving clients].
Regarding claim 6, Deets JR. discloses further comprising: displaying a messaging user interface of the messaging application, the messaging user interface comprising a list of users and the group [see para. 0137; sending messages, posting content, or commenting on content; various types of a observation actions, such as accessing or viewing profiles pages, media, or other suitable content; various types of coincidence information about two or more social-graph entities, such as being in the same group, tagged in the same photograph, checked-in at the same location, or attending the same event; or other suitable actions]; detecting a user selection of the visual indicator in the messaging user interface of the messaging application; and in response to detecting the user selection of the visual indicator in the messaging user interface of the messaging application, opening a group profile user interface of the messaging application or enabling an ephemeral display of the content collection, wherein the group profile user interface comprises a list of members of the group, wherein the visual indicator corresponds to the group in the messaging user interface [see para. 0139; Electronic messaging system monitor such actions on the online social network, on other suitable systems. Any suitable type of user actions may be tracked or monitored. Typical user actions include viewing profile pages, creating or posting content, interacting with content, joining groups, listing and confirming attendance at events, checking-in at locations, liking particular pages, creating pages, and performing other tasks that facilitate social action].
Regarding claim 7, Deets JR. discloses further comprising: displaying a group profile user interface of the messaging application, the group profile user interface comprising a list of members of the group; detecting a user selection of the visual indicator in the group profile user interface of the messaging application; and in response to detecting the user selection of the visual indicator in the group profile user interface of the messaging application, enabling an ephemeral display of the content collection, wherein the visual indicator corresponds to the member of the group in the group profile user interface of the messaging application [see para. 0139, 0145; Typical user actions include viewing profile pages, creating or posting content, interacting with content, joining groups, listing and confirming attendance at events, checking-in at locations, liking particular pages, creating pages, and performing other tasks that facilitate social action. Electronic messaging system calculate a coefficient based on the user's actions with particular types of content. The content associated with the online social network, or another suitable system. The content include users, profile pages, posts, news stories, headlines, instant messages, chat room conversations, emails, advertisements, pictures, video, music. Electronic messaging system analyze a user's actions to determine whether one or more of the actions indicate an affinity for subject matter, content, other users. Particular actions or types of actions may be assigned a higher weight and/or rating than other actions, which affect the overall calculated coefficient if a first user emails a second user, the weight or the rating for the action may be higher than if the first user simply views the user-profile page for the second user].
Regarding claim 8, Sarafa discloses wherein the visual indicator comprises a ring surrounding a thumbnail of the content collection of the member [see para. 0089, 0090; the indicator a ring around the thumbnail that changes color depending on the link status (e.g., green or blue for active, black or red for inactive) or otherwise changes or disappears when the link becomes inactive; the indicator indicate other information about available ephemeral content. The ring of each indicator is broken into a number n of segments. The number of segments of the indicator represent a number of content items available from or associated with the user identified in conjunction with the thumbnail].
Regarding claim 9; Sarafa discloses further comprising: replacing a default profile icon of the member in the group profile user interface with a thumbnail of the content collection of the member [see para. 0125; the options associated with default content or actions. For example, selecting the weather option may cause a weather report at the current location to be selected as the content item. Selecting the location option may cause the user's current location to be loaded into a location tag to be used as the content item. Selecting the text option may cause any text currently stored in the device's clipboard to be selected as the content item].
Regarding claim 10; Sarafa discloses further comprising: displaying a group conversation user interface of the messaging application, the group conversation user interface comprising presence pills of members of the group; detecting a user selection of the visual indicator in the group conversation user interface of the messaging application; and in response to detecting the user selection of the visual indicator in the group conversation user interface of the messaging application, enabling an ephemeral display of the content collection, wherein the visual indicator comprises a ring surrounding a thumbnail of the content collection of the member in a presence pill of the member in the group conversation user interface of the messaging application [see para. 0089-0090 and figure 1B; the indicator also indicate other information about available ephemeral content. The ring of each indicator is broken into a number n of segments. The number of segments of the indicator represent a number of content items available from or associated with the user identified in conjunction with the thumbnail. For example, the indicator indicates that six ephemeral content items are currently available from the user Jane. Meanwhile, the indicator indicates that two ephemeral content items are currently available from the user Joe. The thumbnail displayed may correspond to a most-recent content item available from the identified user].
Regarding claim 11, Sarafa discloses a system comprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, configure the processor to perform operations comprising [see para. 0328; a process running on a processor, a processor, a hard disk drive, multiple storage drives (of optical and/or magnetic storage medium), an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on a server and the server can be a component]: identifying members of a group in a messaging application [see para. 0099, 0100 and figures 1A-1J; The sharing interface include a first portion allowing the sending user to transmit the media as ephemeral content to a selected group of users in the sender's contacts list. The group of users may be configured through the user's privacy settings. The sharing interface present a second portion allowing the user to share the media with frequently contacted parties. The parties may include individual users or groups of users, who may be selected based on which individuals or groups the user has most frequently communicated and allow the user to share media with individuals or groups that the user has recently communicated with (e.g., the n most recent communication threads in which the user has participated); which corresponds to a messaging system that manages group of participants including identifying users associated with each conversation group];
detecting an active sharing of content collection from a member of the group [see para. 0286, 0288 and figures 8A-8C; Targeting criteria used to identify and target users include explicit, stated user interests on social-networking server or explicit connections of a user to a node, object, entity, brand, or page on social networking server, such targeting criteria include implicit or inferred user interests or connections (which include analyzing a user's history, demographic, social or other activities, friends' social or other activities, subscriptions, or any of the preceding of other users similar to the user (based, e.g., on shared interests, connections, or events)). Particular embodiments utilize platform targeting, which involve platform and “like” impression data; contextual signals connection lookalikes; fans; extracted keywords; EMU advertising; inferential advertising; coefficients, affinities, or other social-graph information; friends-of-friends connections; pinning or boosting; deals; polls; household income, social clusters or groups; products detected in images or other media; social- or open-graph edge types; geo-prediction; views of profile or pages; status updates or other user posts; events information; or collaborative filtering; which corresponds to describe receiving a shared content collection from a group participant and sharing as detectable activity within conversation]; however, Safara fails to explicitly teach generating a visual indicator corresponding to the group in a user interface of the messaging application.
Deets, JR. discloses generating a visual indicator corresponding to the group in a user interface of the messaging application [see para. 0019-0021; the system detects that the sender is searching for and/or including (e.g., attaching) secondary content (e.g., a photo, a video, a GIF, an EMOJI, a file, a link, etc.) and adjusts the message composition indicator to visually indicate this to the recipient. The system add one or more icons or other graphical elements to the message composition indicator to indicate that the sender is searching for and/or attaching content to the message, and/or to indicate one or more attributes of the content (e.g., to indicate a type of the content, a source of the content, or any other characteristic of the content). For example, if a sender is searching for a photo to include in a message, the system adds a photo or camera icon to the message composition indicator; which corresponds to generate real time visual indicators in messaging interfaces within a conversation group].
It would have been obvious to one of an ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Sarafa and Deets Jr. before the affective filing date of the claimed invention to modify, the group based messaging environment where participants share collections of content of Sarafa to include a conversation by generating activity based visual indicator, as taught by Deets Jr.
One would have been motivated to make such a combination in order to predict and desire result displaying a visual indicator to inform group members that a participant is actively sharing content within a group and messaging user interface practices.
Regarding claim 14, Deets, JR. discloses further comprising: detecting a user selection of the visual indicator in the user interface of the messaging application from another member of the group [see para. 0022; messaging system determines to adjust the message composition indicator (e.g., based on a sender's activity that satisfies one or more triggering conditions), the system adjust any number of visual attributes of the message composition indicator to indicate one or more attributes of the message and composition thereof. For example, the system adjust a size of the message composition indicator (e.g., to indicate an increase in size of the message), a color of the message composition indicator (e.g., to indicate a rate of growth of the message), add a graphic (e.g., icon) to the message composition indicator (e.g., to indicate the sender is adding content to the message), and/or any other visual attribute of the message composition indicator to indicate any attributes of the message or detected activity of the sender. The system makes adjustments to the message composition indicator that are proportional to or directly representative of changes to the message]; and in response to receiving the user selection of the visual indicator, enabling an ephemeral display of the content collection only from devices associated with the other member of the group [see para. 0050. 0129 and figure 2; a user may be an individual (human user), an entity (e.g., an enterprise, business, or third-party application), or a group (e.g., of individuals or entities) that interacts or communicates with or over electronic messaging system, when a user registers for an account with electronic messaging system, electronic messaging system create a user corresponding to the user, and store the user node in one or more data stores. Users and user nodes, refer to registered users and user nodes associated with registered users; a user node associated with information provided by a user or information gathered by various systems, including electronic messaging system. A user provide his or her name, profile picture, contact information, birth date, sex, marital status, family status, employment, education background, preferences, interests, or other demographic information. A user node associated with one or more data objects corresponding to information associated with a user and a user node correspond to one or more webpages].
Regarding claim 15, Sarafa discloses wherein the content collection comprises at least one media content item [see para. 0166; the ephemeral content generation process, a user may select media to be shared in connection with the ephemeral content message, and use the above-described process to upload the media to the blob store. The sending client then transmit an ephemeral content message to the intermediate server for transmission to receiving clients].
Regarding claim 16, Deets JR. discloses further comprising: displaying a messaging user interface of the messaging application, the messaging user interface comprising a list of users and the group [see para. 0137; sending messages, posting content, or commenting on content; various types of an observation actions, such as accessing or viewing profiles pages, media, or other suitable content; various types of coincidence information about two or more social-graph entities, such as being in the same group, tagged in the same photograph, checked-in at the same location, or attending the same event; or other suitable actions]; detecting a user selection of the visual indicator in the messaging user interface of the messaging application; and in response to detecting the user selection of the visual indicator in the messaging user interface of the messaging application, opening a group profile user interface of the messaging application or enabling an ephemeral display of the content collection, wherein the group profile user interface comprises a list of members of the group, wherein the visual indicator corresponds to the group in the messaging user interface [see para. 0139; Electronic messaging system monitor such actions on the online social network, on other suitable systems. Any suitable type of user actions may be tracked or monitored. Typical user actions include viewing profile pages, creating or posting content, interacting with content, joining groups, listing and confirming attendance at events, checking-in at locations, liking particular pages, creating pages, and performing other tasks that facilitate social action].
Regarding claim 17, Deets JR. discloses further comprising: displaying a group profile user interface of the messaging application, the group profile user interface comprising a list of members of the group; detecting a user selection of the visual indicator in the group profile user interface of the messaging application; and in response to detecting the user selection of the visual indicator in the group profile user interface of the messaging application, enabling an ephemeral display of the content collection, wherein the visual indicator corresponds to the member of the group in the group profile user interface of the messaging application [see para. 0139, 0145; Typical user actions include viewing profile pages, creating or posting content, interacting with content, joining groups, listing and confirming attendance at events, checking-in at locations, liking particular pages, creating pages, and performing other tasks that facilitate social action. Electronic messaging system calculate a coefficient based on the user's actions with particular types of content. The content associated with the online social network, or another suitable system. The content include users, profile pages, posts, news stories, headlines, instant messages, chat room conversations, emails, advertisements, pictures, video, music. Electronic messaging system analyze a user's actions to determine whether one or more of the actions indicate an affinity for subject matter, content, other users. Particular actions or types of actions may be assigned a higher weight and/or rating than other actions, which affect the overall calculated coefficient if a first user emails a second user, the weight or the rating for the action may be higher than if the first user simply views the user-profile page for the second user].
Regarding claim 18, Sarafa discloses wherein the visual indicator comprises a ring surrounding a thumbnail of the content collection of the member [see para. 0089, 0090; the indicator a ring around the thumbnail that changes color depending on the link status (e.g., green or blue for active, black or red for inactive) or otherwise changes or disappears when the link becomes inactive; the indicator indicate other information about available ephemeral content. The ring of each indicator is broken into a number n of segments. The number of segments of the indicator represent a number of content items available from or associated with the user identified in conjunction with the thumbnail].
Regarding claim 19; Sarafa discloses further comprising: displaying a group conversation user interface of the messaging application, the group conversation user interface comprising presence pills of members of the group; detecting a user selection of the visual indicator in the group conversation user interface of the messaging application; and in response to detecting the user selection of the visual indicator in the group conversation user interface of the messaging application, enabling an ephemeral display of the content collection, wherein the visual indicator comprises a ring surrounding a thumbnail of the content collection of the member in a presence pill of the member in the group conversation user interface of the messaging application [see para. 0089-0090 and figure 1B; the indicator also indicates other information about available ephemeral content. The ring of each indicator is broken into a number n of segments. The number of segments of the indicator represent a number of content items available from or associated with the user identified in conjunction with the thumbnail. For example, the indicator indicates that six ephemeral content items are currently available from the user Jane. Meanwhile, the indicator indicates that two ephemeral content items are currently available from the user Joe. The thumbnail displayed may correspond to a most-recent content item available from the identified user].
Regarding claim 20 is an independent claim and relates to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, the computer-readable storage medium including instructions that when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform operations comprising. Since the features of claim 20 are substantially the same as those of claim 11 except for the category of invention, the same reasoning as in claim 11 applies to claim 20.
Claims 2-3 and 12-13 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure (See PTO-892).
Brandt et al. (US 11,146,514) discloses a device implementing a system for sharing groups of files within a messaging application includes a processor configured to provide, within the messaging application, a user interface element for sending at least one file to a participant in an active message thread of the messaging application, the at least one file having been determined to be relevant to the participant.
Tsuda et al. (US 2016/0234149) discloses an exemplary group selection screen shows groups in which users share a message, so that any of the groups is selectable. In an avatar display area for each group, avatars of not more than five users belonging to a group, who have recently posted a message, are displayed. An arrangement of the avatars is determined based on a posting time and date of a latest message posted by each user represented by an avatar. In an avatar display area, a message included in a balloon is displayed, which message has been posted by a user represented by a displayed avatar.
A reference to specific paragraphs, columns, pages, or figures in a cited prior art reference is not limited to preferred embodiments or any specific examples. It is well settled that a prior art reference, in its entirety, must be considered for all that it expressly teaches and fairly suggests to one having ordinary skill in the art. Stated differently, a prior art disclosure reading on a limitation of Applicant's claim cannot be ignored on the ground that other embodiments disclosed were instead cited. Therefore, the Examiner's citation to a specific portion of a single prior art reference is not intended to exclusively dictate, but rather, to demonstrate an exemplary disclosure commensurate with the specific limitations being addressed. In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332-33,216 USPQ 1038, 1039 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006,1009, 158 USPQ 275, 277 (CCPA 1968)). In re: Upsher-Smith Labs. v. Pamlab, LLC, 412 F.3d 1319, 1323, 75 USPQ2d 1213, 1215 (Fed. Cir. 2005); In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1264, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1782 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Merck & Co. v. Biocraft Labs., Inc., 874 F.2d 804, 807, 10 USPQ2d 1843, 1846 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Fracalossi, 681 F.2d 792,794 n.1,215 USPQ 569, 570 n.1 (CCPA 1982); In re Lamberti, 545 F.2d 747, 750, 192 USPQ 278, 280 (CCPA 1976); In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385, 1390, 163 USPQ 545, 549 (CCPA 1969).
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/CAO H NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2171