DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the response filed on 4/27/2026.
Claims 1-21 are now pending in this application. Claims 1, 14, 16, 19, and 20 have been amended. New claim 21 has been added. Claims 1, 14, and 20 are independent claims.
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 1-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Independent claims 1, 14, and 20 recite “generating a group of content item bundles from … based on a commonality in one or more of time or location between each of the content item bundles, each content item bundle comprising one or more content items associated with a respective user activity”, “determining a primary label corresponding to at least one of the content item bundles in the group of content item bundles, wherein determining the primary label comprises selecting a primary user activity from among the respective user activities of the content item bundles in the group, the primary label being indicative of the primary user activity across the content item bundles”, and “determining a content suggestion comprising one or more content items from the content item bundles that are associated with the primary user activity”, all of which can be recognized as concepts that can be performed in the human mind, but for the recitation of generic computer components (“device”, “memory”, “processors” and “non-transitory machine-readable media”). Note that the generation of bundles based on commonalities, the determination of a corresponding label and the determination of suggested items associated with the activity indicated by the label are all judgements based on observations and/or evaluations and thus fall within the Mental Processes” groupings of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the limitations are merely instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer and require no more than a generic computer to perform generic computer functions. Additional element of additional specification that the content item bundles are from sensor data collected by one or more sensors of an electronic device amounts to no more than adding insignificant extra-solution activity/specifications related to the content items (bundles). This additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Moreover, additional element of providing, for display on the electronic device, the primary label and a portion of the one or more content items in the content suggestion for prompting a user of the electronic device to provide user-generated content related to the content suggestion amounts to no more than adding insignificant extra-solution activity of displaying data. This additional element also does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using a device including a processors and memory or a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions to be executed by a processor to perform the different steps described above amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. Furthermore, regarding the additional element of providing items for display on the electronic device is considered well-understood, routine, and conventional in view of the OIP Techs. court decision cited in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II) indicating that mere presentation or display of information is a well-understood, routine, conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Neither can insignificant extra-solution activity.
Therefore, these limitations, taken alone or in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or recite significantly more that the abstract idea. Thus, these independent claims are not patent eligible.
The dependent claims recite additional limitations of generating the content item bundles based on one or more pattern detections in a plurality of content items … (claim 2), generating the content item bundles comprises detecting unusual patterns in one or more of user activities, user visited locations and or social interactions in the plurality of content items using one or more pattern detection algorithms … (claims 3 and 15), determining the content suggestion further comprises ranking a plurality of content items from the content item bundles into a ranked set of content suggestions using a ranking algorithm (claim 4), adaptively updating the ranking algorithm based on the user engagement data (claim 5), generating the group of content item bundles comprises clustering the content item bundles using one or more clustering algorithms based on … (claim 6), summarizing the group of content item bundles into a summarization of content item bundles based on the primary label of the group of content item bundles, the summarization comprising aggregation data having at least one level of granularity (claims 7 and 17), summarizing the group of content item bundles comprises aggregating the group of content item bundles into different aggregation data having respective levels of aggregation granularity (claims 8 and 17), performing a fine granularity aggregation of the group of content item bundles associated with the primary label to generate fine-grained aggregation data; and performing a coarse granularity aggregation of the group of content item bundles associated with the primary label to generate coarse-grained aggregation data (claims 9 and 18), filtering the fine-grained aggregation data into a time-sorted set of content items… (claim 10), ranking the coarse-grained aggregation data into a ranked set of content items based on a plurality of factors associated with the user of the electronic device (claim 11) and identifying the primary user activity by computing an aggregate duration of user activity across each of the content item bundles in the group of content item bundles, and assigning the primary label to the user activity having a greatest aggregate duration (claim 21).
These above-indicated additional limitations also constitute steps involving judgements based on observations and/or evaluations and may include certain specifications. They all fall within the “Mental Processes” groupings of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Additional elements of additional specification such as the levels of aggregation granularity (claims 7, 8, and 17), specifying what the content items in the bundles are associated with (claim 13), or specifying what the determined content suggestions comprise (claims 9 and 10) all amount to no more than adding insignificant extra-solution activity/specifications related to the content items (bundles) or the determined content suggestion. These additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Moreover, additional elements of receiving user engagement data … (claims 5 and 16), and receiving one or more annotations … and storing the one or more annotations … (claims 12 and 19), all amount to no more than adding insignificant extra-solution activity related to data input or data storage. These additional elements all do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
The dependent claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of “receiving” input and “storing” which are mere data input or data storage are further considered well-understood, routine, and conventional in view of the Symantec, TLI, and OIP Techs. court decisions cited in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II) indicating that mere receipt, or transmittal of data over a network is a well-understood, routine, conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner. Insignificant extra-solution activity steps cannot provide an inventive concept. Thus, none of the additional elements as generically claimed in these dependent claims is sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Therefore, these limitations, taken alone or in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or recite significantly more that the abstract idea.
Thus, all of the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 6-9, 12-14, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang et al., US PGPUB 2011/0270836 Al (hereinafter as Yang) in view of KOKEMOHR, US PGPUB 2020/0026751 Al (hereinafter as Kokemohr).
Regarding independent claim 1, Yang teaches a method [see e.g. fig. 3 and title] comprising:
generating a group of content item bundles from sensor data collected by one or more sensors of an electronic device [note the collection of data from sensors (such as 111a) of the user equipment (or device 101a) as shown in fig. 1 and described in [0024]], based on a commonality in one or more of time or location between each of the content item bundles, each content item bundle comprising one or more content items associated with a respective user activity [see [0024]-[0025] and note linking media objects to events (i.e. a bundle of media objects may be associated with a certain event) and recognizing the events according to various dimensions which may include time and location];
determining a primary label corresponding to at least one of the content item bundles in the group of content item bundles, wherein determining the primary label comprises selecting a primary user activity from among the respective user activities of the content item bundles in the group, the primary label being indicative of the primary user activity across the content item bundles [note e.g. in [0037] recognizing events based on the classification: Examiner notes that the event recognized may also be a primary label indicative of a primary user activity, especially in view of the example of a root event in [0040]; consider also the scenario in [0038] of a trip/vacation spanning several days with different hierarchies of events each spanning a subset of the time and note that the trip/vacation is a primary activity across the different bundles which also corresponds to each of the content item bundles in the group];
determining a content suggestion comprising one or more content items from the content item bundles that are associated with the primary user activity [note e.g. in [0039] the selection of certain content objects associated with a recognized event]; and
providing, for display on the electronic device[note again user equipment 101a in fig. 1], the primary label and a portion of the one or more content items in the content suggestion [note in [0042] and fig. 7, the display of the caption 701 pertaining to an event which can be a primary label and associated content objects].
Yang does not explicitly teach that the providing the primary label and a portion of the one or more content items in the content suggestion for display is for prompting a user of the electronic device to provide user-generated content related to the content suggestion. Examiner further notes that this feature is a recitation of an intended result that is not recited with sufficient detail to further limit the claim. It is only addressed in the interest of compact prosecution.
Kokemohr teaches displaying a label and content items on an electronic device for prompting a user of the electronic device to provide user-generated content related to the content items [see figs. 11 -13; note the label and content displayed in fig. 11; see also [0013] and [0126]].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art having the teachings of Yang and Kokemohr, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the instructions and display of Yang by explicitly specifying that providing the primary label and a portion of the one or more content items in the content suggestion for display is for prompting a user of the electronic device to provide user-generated content related to the content suggestion, as per the teachings of Kokemohr. The motivation for this obvious combination of teachings would be to enable transforming the content items into a memorable creation with minimal input by allowing users to provide their personal related annotations, as suggested by Kokemohr [again, see [0013]] which would provide an overall improved user experience.
Regarding independent claim 14, Yang teaches a device [see e.g. figs. 1, 2, and 9] comprising: a memory; and one or more processors [see the memory and processors of fig. 9] configured to perform the steps of the method of claim 1. See the rejection of claim 1 for details.
Regarding independent claim 20, Yang teaches a non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising code that, when executed by a processor, causes the processor [see e.g. [0065]] to perform operations corresponding to the steps of the method of claim 1. See the rejection of claim 1 for details.
Regarding claim 6, the rejection of independent claim 1 is incorporated. Yang further teaches that the generating the group of content item bundles comprises clustering the content item bundles using one or more clustering algorithms based on one or more of proximity in time and location, bundle factors, user factors, theme, user demographics, population density, or environment type [again, see [0024]-[0025] and note linking media objects to events (i.e. each bundle of media objects may be associated with a certain event) and recognizing the events according to various dimensions which may include time and location].
Regarding claim 7, the rejection of independent claim 1 is incorporated. Yang further teaches summarizing the group of content item bundles into a summarization of content item bundles based on the primary label of the group of content item bundles, the summarization comprising aggregation data having at least one level of granularity [again, see [0024]-[0025] and note linking media objects to events (i.e. each bundle of media objects may be associated with a certain event) and recognizing the events according to various dimensions and granularities; note the example of different location granularities in [0024]; see also [0035]].
Regarding claim 8, the rejection of claim 7 is incorporated. Yang further teaches that the summarizing the group of content item bundles comprises aggregating the group of content item bundles into different aggregation data having respective levels of aggregation granularity [again, see [0024]-[0025] and note linking media objects to events (i.e. each bundle of media objects may be associated with a certain event) and recognizing the events according to various dimensions and granularities; especially note in [0035] categorizing the events to different level of granularities; see the example of event hierarchy in [0038] and the display of content objects in different levels of hierarchy in granularities (including parent event and child events) as described in [0039]].
Regarding claim 9, the rejection of claim 8 is incorporated. Yang further teaches that the aggregating comprises: performing a fine granularity aggregation of the group of content item bundles associated with the primary label to generate fine-grained aggregation data; and performing a coarse granularity aggregation of the group of content item bundles associated with the primary label to generate coarse-grained aggregation data [again, note in [0035] categorizing the events to different level of granularities; see the example of event hierarchy in [0038], the description in [0044] of coarse and fine granularity levels for recognizing events, and the characterization of displayed content objects corresponding to different levels of hierarchy in granularities (including parent event and child events) as described in [0039]].
Regarding claims 12 and 19, the rejection of independent claims 1 and 14 are respectively fully incorporated.
The previously combined art further teaches receiving one or more annotations comprising user-generated content associated with the content suggestion; and storing the one or more annotations in association with the group of content item bundles [see the rejection of claim 1 for the content suggestion teaching in Yang; see Kokemohr at [0013] indicating receiving annotations and uploading them in association with the digital media]. Refer to the rejection of the independent claim for combining the art and motivations to combine.
Regarding claim 13, the rejection of independent claim 1 is incorporated. Yang further teaches that each of the content item bundles comprises one or more content items associated with a different type of user activity or event [again, see [0024]-[0025] and note linking media objects to events (i.e. each bundle of media objects may be associated with a certain event)].
Regarding claim 17, the rejection of independent claim 14 is incorporated. Yang further teaches that the one or more processors are further configured to summarize the group of content item bundles into a summarization of content item bundles based on the primary label of the group of content item bundles by aggregating the group of content item bundles into different aggregation data having respective levels of aggregation granularity [again, see [0024]-[0025] and note linking media objects to events (i.e. each bundle of media objects may be associated with a certain event) and recognizing the events according to various dimensions and granularities; especially note in [0035] categorizing the events to different level of granularities; see the example of event hierarchy in [0038] and the display of content objects in different levels of hierarchy in granularities (including parent event and child events) as described in [0039]].
Regarding claim 18, the rejection of claim 17 is incorporated. Yang further teaches that the one or more processors configured to aggregate are further configured to: perform a fine granularity aggregation of the group of content item bundles associated with the primary label to generate fine-grained aggregation data; and perform a coarse granularity aggregation of the group of content item bundles associated with the primary label to generate coarse-grained aggregation data [again, note in [0035] categorizing the events to different level of granularities; see the example of event hierarchy in [0038], the description in [0044] of coarse and fine granularity levels for recognizing events, and the characterization of displayed content objects corresponding to different levels of hierarchy in granularities (including parent event and child events) as described in [0039]].
Regarding claim 21, the rejection of independent claim 1 is incorporated. Yang further teaches that determining the primary label comprises: identifying the primary user activity by computing an aggregate duration of user activity across each of the content item bundles in the group of content item bundles, and assigning the primary label to the user activity having a greatest aggregate duration [again, see [0038]-[0040] and note that a root event (at the highest level of hierarchy in granularities) may depend on a time factor thus having the root (or primary) event (or label) being the one corresponding to the greatest aggregate duration (such as the entire vacation “weekend” versus “certain “days” or even “hours” of it)].
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang in view of KOKEMOHR (as applied to claim 1) and further in view of Gong et al., US Patent No. 11,003,692 B2 (hereinafter as Gong).
Regarding claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated. Yang further teaches that each of the content item bundles comprises content items having related activity information [again, see [0024]-[0025] and note linking media objects to events (i.e. each bundle of media objects may be associated with a certain event)].
The previously combined art, however, does not explicitly teach generating the content item bundles based on one or more pattern detections in a plurality of content items.
Gong teaches generating content item bundles based on one or more pattern detections in a plurality of content items [see e.g. the BK-means clustering approach for batches of content described in col. 3, line 53- col. 4, line 11].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art having the teachings of the previously combined art and Gong, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the method of Yang by further specifying generating the content item bundles based on one or more pattern detections in a plurality of content items, as taught by Gong. The motivation for this obvious combination of teachings would be to enable quick and efficient clustering of large amounts of content based on visual similarity, as suggested by Gong [again, see col. 4, lines 1-11; see also col. 1, lines 21-31].
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang in view of KOKEMOHR and Gong (as applied to claim 2) and further in view of Gedge et al., US PGPUB 2016/0321616 Al (hereinafter as Gedge).
Regarding claim 3, the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated.
The previously combined art does not explicitly teach that generating the content item bundles comprises detecting unusual patterns in one or more of user activities, user visited locations or social interactions in the plurality of content items using one or more pattern detection algorithms.
Gedge teaches identifying events or content items associated therewith based on detecting unusual patterns [see [0007]] in one or more of user activities [note in [0087] determining unusualness based on overlap between an event and a sleep schedule which is a user activity], user visited locations [note in [0089] determining unusualness based on location which can be embedded in a text content item] or social interactions in the content items [note in [010] and [0103] the affinity-based factor contributing to an unusualness of an event and note that it detects unusual patterns in social interaction with others] using one or more pattern detection algorithms [note examples of pattern detection algorithms in [0044]].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art having the teachings of the previously combined art and Gedge, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to apply the teaching of Gedge of the identification of events or content items associated therewith based on detecting unusual patterns in one or more of user activities, user visited locations or social interactions in the content items using one or more pattern detection algorithms to the generation of content item bundles related to events taught by Yang. The motivation for this obvious combination of teachings would be to enable distinguishing unusual activities and associated content to enable users to become aware of unique events, as suggested by Gedge [again, see [0007]].
Claims 4, 5, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang in view of KOKEMOHR (as applied to claim 1 (for claims 4 and 5) and claim 14 (for claim 16)) and further in view of Correa et al., US Patent No. 11,276,104 B1 (hereinafter as Correa).
Regarding claim 4, the rejection of independent claim 1 is incorporated. The previously combined art does not explicitly teach that the determining the content suggestion further comprises ranking a plurality of content items from the content item bundles into a ranked set of content suggestions using a ranking algorithm.
Correa teaches determining content suggestions that comprises ranking a plurality of items into a ranked set of content suggestions using a ranking algorithm [see e.g. col. 1, lines 42-51].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art having the teachings of the previously combined art and Correa, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the content suggestion determination taught by Yang by explicitly specifying that the determining the content suggestion further comprises ranking a plurality of content items from the content item bundles into a ranked set of content suggestions using a ranking algorithm, as per the teachings of Correa. The motivation for this obvious combination of teachings would be to incorporate a probability of being selected for each content suggestion, as suggested by Correa [again, see e.g. col. 1, lines 42-60] which would increase the likelihood of suggesting content that appeals to a user.
Regarding claim 5, the rejection of claim 4 is incorporated. Correa further teaches: receiving user engagement data that indicates user interactions between the ranked set of content suggestions and the user of the electronic device; and adaptively updating the ranking algorithm based on the user engagement data [see e.g. col. 1, lines 51-60]. Refer to the rejection of claim 4 for motivations to combine.
Regarding claim 16, the rejection of independent claim 14 is incorporated. The previously combined art does not explicitly teach receiving user engagement data that indicates user interactions between the content suggestion and the user of the device; and adaptively updating a ranking algorithm based on the user engagement data.
Correa teaches receiving user engagement data that indicates user interactions between content suggestion and a user of the device; and adaptively updating a ranking algorithm based on the user engagement data. [see e.g. col. 1, lines 42-60].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art having the teachings of the previously combined art and Correa, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the content suggestion determination taught by Yang by explicitly specifying receiving user engagement data that indicates user interactions between the content suggestion and the user of the device; and adaptively updating a ranking algorithm based on the user engagement data, as per the teachings of Correa. The motivation for this obvious combination of teachings would be to incorporate a probability of being selected for each content suggestion, as suggested by Correa [again, see e.g. col. 1, lines 42-60] which would increase the likelihood of suggesting content that appeals to a user.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang in view of KOKEMOHR (as applied to claim 9) and further in view of Heinley et al., US PGPUB 2008/0294663 A1 (hereinafter as Heinley).
Regarding claim 10, the rejection of claim 9 is incorporated. Although Yang further teaches filtering the fine-grained aggregation data based on time aspects related to the content items, wherein the determining the content suggestion comprises determining a set of content suggestions that includes the filtered set of content items [note e.g. in [0037] recognizing associations between the content and different time periods for the different levels of granularity in time see also the fine level of granularity of “hours” with respect to time in [0038]], it does not explicitly teach a time-sorted set of the content items.
Heinley teaches a time-sorted set of content items [see e.g. the time-tagged content to be used to construct a timeline in [0108]].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art having the teachings of the previously combined art and Heinley, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the fine-grained aggregation data that is filtered based on time aspects related to the content items taught by Yang by explicitly specifying creating a time-sorted set of content items, as taught by Heinley. The motivation for this obvious combination of teachings would be to enable constructing a timeline based on the suggested content, as suggested by Heinley [again, see e.g. [0108]; see also [0011] which would make the suggestion easier to follow for the user.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang in view of KOKEMOHR (as applied to claim 9) and further in view of ZHIVOTVOREV et al., US PGPUB 20190163758 A1 (hereinafter as ZHIVOTVOREV).
Regarding claim 11, the rejection of claim 9 is incorporated. The previously combined art does not explicitly teach comprising ranking the coarse-grained aggregation data into a ranked set of content items based on a plurality of factors associated with the user of the electronic device, wherein the determining the content suggestion comprises determining a set of content suggestions that includes the ranked set of content items.
ZHIVOTVOREV teaches determining content suggestions that comprises ranking a plurality of items into a ranked set of content items based on a plurality of factors associated with a user [see e.g. [0026] indicating using user-specific ranking scores to rank recommendable content items].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art having the teachings of the previously combined art and ZHIVOTVOREV, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the content suggestion determination taught by Yang by applying the item ranking based on a plurality of factors associated with a user taught by ZHIVOTVOREV such that the content suggestion comprises ranking the coarse-grained aggregation data taught by Yang into a ranked set of content items based on a plurality of factors associated with the user of the electronic device, as taught by ZHIVOTVOREV, wherein the determining the content suggestion comprises determining a set of content suggestions that includes the ranked set of content items, as per the combined teachings of Yang and ZHIVOTVOREV. The motivation for this obvious combination of teachings would be to improve the user satisfaction and retention of the recommendation service, as suggested by ZHIVOTVOREV [see e.g. [0009]].
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang in view of KOKEMOHR (as applied to claim 14) and further in view of Gedge.
Regarding claim 15, the rejection of claim 14 is incorporated. Yang further teaches that each of the content item bundles comprises content items having related activity information [again, see [0024]-[0025] and note linking media objects to events (i.e. each bundle of media objects may be associated with a certain event)].
The previously combined art, however, does not explicitly teach generating the content item bundles by detecting unusual patterns in user activities and social interactions in a plurality of content items using one or more pattern detection algorithms.
Gedge teaches identifying events or content items associated therewith based on detecting unusual patterns [see [0007]] in user activities [note in [0087] determining unusualness based on overlap between an event and a sleep schedule which is a user activity], and social interactions in a plurality of content items [note in [0101] and [0103] the affinity-based factor contributing to an unusualness of an event and note that it detects unusual patterns in social interaction with others] using one or more pattern detection algorithms [note examples of pattern detection algorithms in [0044]].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art having the teachings of the previously combined art and Gedge, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to apply the teaching of Gedge of identification of events or content items associated therewith based on detecting unusual patterns in user activities and social interactions in the content items using one or more pattern detection algorithms to the generation of content item bundles related to events taught by Yang. The motivation for this obvious combination of teachings would be to enable distinguishing unusual activities and associated content to enable users to become aware of unique events, as suggested by Gedge [again, see [0007]].
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendments to the claims in regard to the previously presented claim objections have been fully considered and are persuasive.
In regard to the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101 which had been previously raised and have been updated in view of the amended claims, Applicant's arguments have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Examiner notes that Applicant first argues that the “sensor-driven bundling is not part of the Examiner's articulated abstract idea, which treats the claim as if it operated only on pre-existing content items or user-supplied labels [Response to Office Action, p. 8]. Examiner respectfully notes that the claim limitation, as currently amended, merely specifies the source of the content item bundles (data) as being the sensors of an electronic device. The recitation is merely considered additional specification that amounts to no more than adding insignificant extra-solution activity/specifications related to the content items (bundles). It does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Neither does it suffice to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Applicant then argues that “As explained in the specification, resolving a primary user activity across multiple sensor-derived bundles reduces fragmentation of detected events and allows the device to operate at a higher semantic level than simple event logging. The focus of the claim is therefore on a specific device-implemented mechanism for activity inference and consolidation, not on journaling as a human activity”. [Response to Office Action, p. 8]. Examiner further respectfully notes that the second amended limitation recites “wherein determining the primary label comprises selecting a primary user activity from among the respective user activities of the content item bundles in the group” which is still recognized as a concept that can be performed in the human mind. Note that the determination of a certain level by selecting an activity among various activities of the content item bundles in the group is a mere judgmental step based on observations and/or evaluations and thus also fall within the Mental Processes” groupings of abstract ideas.
Applicant’s argument then proceeds through the different steps of the analysis demonstrating how each step requires precise technical implementation details that are essential to the proposed solution. Examiner, however, respectfully reiterates that a majority of the instructions/steps in the claims, as amended, can be recognized as steps of a mental process that can be performed in the human mind, but for the recitation of generic computer components. Additionally, none of the remaining additional elements, taken alone or in combination with the other limitations in the claim suffices to integrate this judicial exception into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Neither do they suffice to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Applicant is respectfully referred to the reasserted and updated rejections above for further details.
Applicant’s prior art arguments with respect to the amended independent claims have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive.
Examiner respectfully notes that Yang clearly and explicitly teaches the following features pertaining to the amended independent claims:
generating a group of content item bundles from sensor data collected by one or more sensors of an electronic device [note the collection of data from sensors (such as 111a) of the user equipment (or device 101a) as shown in fig. 1 and described in [0024]], and
determining a primary label corresponding to at least one of the content item bundles in the group of content item bundles, wherein determining the primary label comprises selecting a primary user activity from among the respective user activities of the content item bundles in the group, the primary label being indicative of the primary user activity across the content item bundles [note e.g. in [0037] recognizing events based on the classification: Examiner notes that the event recognized may also be a primary label indicative of a primary user activity, especially in view of the example of a root event in [0040]; consider also the scenario in [0038] of a trip/vacation spanning several days with different hierarchies of events each spanning a subset of the time and note that the trip/vacation is a primary activity across the different bundles which also corresponds to each of the content item bundles in the group];
Examiner further emphasizes that Yang’s classification of events that are associated with content item bundles is mapped to a hierarchy of different levels depending on dimensions and granularities which is optionally done in time as described in [0038], for example. The root event described by Yang in [0040] is an event that is at the highest level of the hierarchy in granularities and thus can be mapped to a thematic or primary event among other events, such as a weekend getaway as described in [0038]. Examiner finally notes that this determination of a primary label is all what the broadest reasonable interpretation of the amended claim requires and that there is nothing in Applicant’s specification that precludes Examiner from interpreting it that way.
Regarding the combination of the teachings of the prior art, Examiner respectfully notes that the Office Action clearly provides, from the secondary reference, Kokemohr, a rationale for the combination, which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art having the teachings of Yang and Kokemohr, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Additionally, Examiner further reiterates that the feature missing in the teachings of the primary reference and taught by the secondary reference, Kokemohr, is a mere recitation of an intended result that is recited with no sufficient detail to further limit the claim and that it is only addressed in the interest of compact prosecution.
Thus, the independent claims, as amended, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang in view of Kokemohr. Applicant is referred to the full updated rejection above for further details.
The rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103 of the dependent claims are also respectfully being asserted, as presented above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Examiner notes from the prior art:
Phillips et al., US PGPUB 2022/0350990 A1, which teaches context-aware event-based annotation system for media asset [see e.g. the abstract and the front figure].
39. THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
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/MARIA S AYAD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2172
