DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the. Claims 1-9 are pending.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.
The following claim languages are not clear and indefinite:
As per claim 1, 8 and 9 it is not clear how or if the “constraint formula” is used by the rest of the claims, since it is never used by rest of the claims.
It is not clear how the “target area” is selected (e.g. it is selected by the “arbitration policy” or the “constraint formula”).
It is not clear what the “model” can be (e.g. it is a collection of “areas” or “zones”; or it is a definition of each of the “plurality of areas” or “plurality of zones”).
It is not clear if the “arbitration of the arbitration target area” is done using the “arbitration policy” or the “constraint formula” or the “model”. Furthermore, it is not clear if the “arbitration of the plurality of contents” or “arbitration of the target arbitration area” are two separate arbitrations or they are the same arbitration (e.g. arbitration of the target area involves arbitration of the plurality of contents). Finally it is not clear if the “plurality of contents” are in the “target area” or they are in all of the “plurality of areas”.
The dependent claims do not cure the 112(b) issues of their respective parent claims. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons as those presented for their respective parent claims.
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 1-9 are rejected under 103 as being unpatentable over Kawashima et al (U.S. Pat. 11443720, which is a continuation of PCT/JP2019/018553 that is published on 01/02/2020 and claims priority to JP2020003649A that is included in the IDS filed on 08/21/2023 for the instant application) in view of Liu et al (U.S. Pub. 2016/0378334).
As per claim 1 Kawashima teaches the invention substantially as claimed including a content output controller comprising: a processor and a memory that stores instructions configured to, when executed by the processor, cause the processor (Fig. 1):
to store a rule definition including an arbitration policy for defining a basic arbitration for a case where a plurality of contents are allocated to a plurality of areas or a plurality of, and a constraint formula (col 3 lines 16-23);
to execute an arbitration of the plurality of contents according to the rule definition to satisfy a rule-based arbitration, in response to receiving an output request from an application (col 3 lines 31-40, 50-67, col 4 lines 25-46, col 9 lines 31-41 in response to an APP request arbitration is performed in different display areas based on different arbitration polices to determine what contents to display);
to control an output of the plurality of contents allocated to the plurality of areas or the plurality of zones due to the arbitration of the plurality of contents executed by the processor (col 3 lines 31-60);
to select an area as an arbitration target area from the plurality of areas defined by a model or a zone as an arbitration target zone from the plurality of zones defined by the model in response to receiving the output request from the application (col 6 lines 18-23, 43-54, col 8 lines 53-58 arbitration logic select areas to arbitrate, one target area at a time, in descending order of priority);
to execute an arbitration of the arbitration target area or an arbitration of the arbitration target zone (col 8 line 53- col 9 line 11 arbitration is performed for an area of a plurality of areas); and
to execute an arbitration of remainder of the plurality of areas not being selected as the arbitration target area or an arbitration of remainder of the plurality of zones not being selected as the arbitration target zone (col 8 line 53- col 9 line 21 arbitration is performed for all the areas, one at a time).
Kawashima does not explicitly teach not to execute arbitration or remainder of the plurality of areas/zones not being select as the arbitration target area/zone.
However, Liu explicitly teach not to execute arbitration or remainder of the plurality of areas/zones not being select as the arbitration target area/zone ([0092]-[0094], [0098], [0070]-[0072] a target display region may be selected to be activated, which causes contents to be displayed in the target display region; at the same time other display regions may be kept in screen-off state and/or their respective original operation state, which means that arbitration, that leads to content display, of Kawashima is only performed for the target display region and the other display regions since in Kawashima col 6 lines 43-54, col 8 lines 61-64, col 13 lines 33-37 it is taught that areas that doesn’t have new content to display are not arbitrated).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the prior to the effective filling date of the invention to combine the teachings of Kawashima and Liu because both are directed towards controlling of display contents on mobile displays. One with ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to incorporate the teachings of Liu into that of Kawashima because Liu further improves efficiency of display contents on mobile displays ([0009], [0010], [0076]).
As per claim 2 Kawashima teaches wherein execution of the instructions further causes the processor to allow the remainder of the plurality of areas not being selected as the arbitration target area or the remainder of the plurality of zones not being selected as the arbitration target zone to inherit an arbitration result acquired in a previous arbitration of the arbitration target area or a previous arbitration of the arbitration target zone (Kawashima col 6 lines 43-54, col 8 lines 61-64, col 13 lines 33-37 areas that have contents that have been previously allocated are not arbitrated, these areas would obviously retain their previously allocated display contents).
As per claim 3 Liu teaches wherein execution of the instructions further causes the processor to select the arbitration target area or the arbitration target zone at a time of manufacturing the product ([0110], [0111] display regions that can be selected can be defined as system default, this default can obviously be set when a device containing a display for displaying the display regions is first manufactured).
As per claim 4 Liu teaches wherein execution of the instructions further causes the processor to select the arbitration target area or the arbitration target zone at a time of activating a software of the product ([0092], [0098] user can select a target display region to be activated, thereby activating a software associated with the target display region).
As per claim 5 Liu teaches wherein execution of the instructions further causes the processor to select the arbitration target area or the arbitration target zone at a time of receiving the output request from the application ([0117], [0124] new messages from messaging applications can cause a target display region to be selected to activate).
As per claim 6 Kawashima teaches wherein execution of the instructions further causes the processor to select the arbitration target area or the arbitration target zone based on allocation of the plurality of contents to the plurality of areas or the plurality of zones (col 6 lines 43-54, col 8 lines 61-64, col 13 lines 33-37 areas that have contents that have been previously allocated are not arbitrated).
As per claim 7 Kawashima teaches wherein execution of the instructions further causes the processor to select the arbitration target area or the arbitration target zone based on the constraint formula (col 8 line 65 – col 9 line 21 constraint expression determines which areas are to be selected to be re-arbitrated).
As per claims 8 and 9 they are method and product versions of system claim 1, respectively. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons, mutatis mutandis, as those presented for claim 1.
Conclusion
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/BING ZHAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2151