Prosecution Insights
Last updated: July 15, 2026
Application No. 18/488,797

BROWSER-BASED APPLICATION PERFORMANCE BY PRIORITIZING KEY CONTENT OVER ADVERTISING CONTENT

Non-Final OA §103§112
Filed
Oct 17, 2023
Examiner
DASCOMB, JACOB D
Art Unit
2198
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
Dell Products L.P.
OA Round
2 (Non-Final)
86%
Grant Probability
Favorable
2-3
OA Rounds
0m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 86% — above average
86%
Career Allowance Rate
387 granted / 452 resolved
+30.6% vs TC avg
Strong +22% interview lift
Without
With
+22.0%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 8m
Avg Prosecution
35 currently pending
Career history
491
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
3.5%
-36.5% vs TC avg
§103
77.5%
+37.5% vs TC avg
§102
2.0%
-38.0% vs TC avg
§112
4.6%
-35.4% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 452 resolved cases

Office Action

§103 §112
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 page 6, filed 26 March 2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 2-10 and 12-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 2-10 and 12-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) has been withdrawn. However, the amendment received on 26 March 2026 has given risen to a new rejection of claims 11-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b). Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 of claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. Claim Objections Claims 1, 11 and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities: Regarding claim 1, “the second process” in line 12 should be “the second processes.” Claims 11 and 20 are objected to for substantially the same reason. Appropriate correction is required. Claims 2 and 12 are objected to because of the following informalities: Regarding claim 2, “based upon the scheduler process information” should be “based upon the schedule . Appropriate correction is required. Claims 3 and 13 are objected to because of the following informalities: Regarding claim 3, “the software process information” should be “the schedule process information.” Claim 13 is objected to for substantially the same reason. Appropriate correction is required. 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 11-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 11 recites the limitation “the performance core” and “the efficient core.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claims 12-19 depend on claim 11; therefore, they are rejected for the same reason. Claim 20 recites commensurate subject matter as claim 11; therefore, it is rejected for the same reason. 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, 2, 11, 12, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Callaghan (US 2019/0034394) and further in view of Sule (US 2012/0260181) and further in view of Singh (US 9,424,092). Regarding claim 1, Callaghan teaches: An information handling system, comprising: processing hardware (¶ 71, “computing resources for the user device 202”); a web browser configured to retrieve a webpage (¶ 97, “The flow diagram begins at operation 502 and proceeds to operation 504 where the HTML, DOM or other markup language representation is retrieved”) including content and an advertisement (¶ 2, “a typical web page may comprise one or more main items of interest such as a news article . . . advertisements for various items . . . and a vast array of other information”), and to provide browser process information related to the processes launched by the web browser for the content and the advertisement (¶ 47, “the element evaluator 206 extracts one or more identifiers from the link, script, downloaded information, metadata regarding any of the foregoing, and/or combinations thereof.”); a hardware scheduler configured to direct the execution of processes on the processing hardware (¶ 84, “The rendering engine 310 produces a visual representation for a given URI. In browsers, it displays HTML and Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents, applies cascading style sheets (CSS) to documents, embeds content such as images, and so forth”); and a browser inference module configured to receive the browser process information (¶ 47, “The browser 204 comprises a plug-in, such as element evaluator 206. The element evaluator 206 evaluates documents that are downloaded from the network and identifies portions of the document that contain instructions to download further information from the network”), and to provide a first indication to the hardware scheduler to prioritize first processes associated with the content over second processes associated with the advertisement based upon the browser process information (¶ 56, “Once the web page is returned to the browser, the element evaluator 206 examines the web page and identifies elements that may contain data that should be subject to blocking, and other actions as described herein”), wherein in prioritizing the first processes over the second process, the hardware scheduler directs the execution of the first processes to the performance core () and directs the execution of the second processes to the efficient core (). Callaghan does not teach as clearly as Sule discloses: a hardware scheduler configured to direct the execution of processes on the processing hardware (¶ 40, “multiple browser tabs may be scheduled so that the foreground tab gets as much of the resource as it needs while the background tabs share the remaining CPU bandwidth”). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, at the effective filing date of the invention, to have applied the known technique of a hardware scheduler configured to direct the execution of processes on the processing hardware, as taught by Sule, in the same way to the system, as taught by Callaghan. Both inventions are in the field of rendering web pages, and combining them would have predictably resulted in a system configured to “reduce a likelihood that the at least one browser management activity adversely affects performance of the plurality of browser processing components,” as indicated by Sule (¶ 8). Callaghan and Sule do not teach; however, Singh teaches: processing hardware including a performance core and an efficient core (col. 7:14-16, “a processing system having heterogeneous cores including power efficient cores and performance oriented cores”); wherein in prioritizing the first processes over the second process (col. 7:65-67 and col. 8:1-2, “individual threads are scheduled in dependence upon the core states set based on the periodic analysis to allocate the individual threads between active cores of the heterogeneous cores on a per-thread basis (block 306)” and col. 10:1-4, “the thread scheduler module 128 may operate to evaluate priority, core utilizations, workload and other considerations to place the thread”), the hardware scheduler directs the execution of the first processes to the performance core (col. 10:5-7, “A value of 2 designates that performance oriented cores 202 are to be used even if none are currently available”) and directs the execution of the second processes to the efficient core (col. 10:11-13, “A value of 4 indicates that power efficient cores 204 are to be used even if none are currently available (e.g., do not use performance oriented cores 202)”). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, at the effective filing date of the invention, to have applied the known technique of processing hardware including a performance core and an efficient core; wherein in prioritizing the first processes over the second process, the hardware scheduler directs the execution of the first processes to the performance core and directs the execution of the second processes to the efficient core, as taught by Singh, in the same way to the first and second processes, as taught by Callaghan and Sule. Both inventions are in the field of scheduling processes for execution, and combining them would have predictably resulted in a system configured to “strike a good balance between performance and battery life,” as indicated by Singh (col. 1:19-20). Regarding claim 2, Sule teaches: The information handling system of claim 1, further comprising: a software scheduler configured to schedule the execution of processes on the processing hardware (¶ 26, “the browser management component 102 considers the execution environment of the browser components (e.g., processor cores, hardware accelerated units, and/or outside chipset) to schedule suitable browser management activities in parallel with browser processing activities”), and to provide schedule process information related to the processes launched by the web browser (¶ 27, “The browser management component 102 may also influence the activity of one or more of the browser processing components 104”); wherein the browser inference module is further configured to receive the schedule process information (¶ 28, “The BCDG 106 also depends on the resources (e.g., JavaScript resources) that can block page loading until script execution is complete, followed by DOM updates, layout computations, painting, and rendering”), and wherein the first indication is further based upon the scheduler process information (¶ 28, “the content of the BCDG 106 depends on the resources present in a web page and the inherent dependency of the browser activities”). Claims 11, 12, and 20 recite commensurate subject matter as claims 1 and 2. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons. Claim(s) 3, 4, and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Callaghan, Sule, and Singh, as applied above, and further in view of Shintre (US 11,509,688). Regarding claim 3, Callaghan, Sule, and Singh do not teach; however, Shintre discloses: the browser inference module utilizes a machine learning algorithm utilizing the browser process information and the software process information as inputs and providing the first indication as an output (col. 3:21-23, “newer ad blockers may use machine learning (e.g., neural networking, nearest neighbor, decision trees, etc.) ad blocking, such as perceptual ad blocking”). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, at the effective filing date of the invention, to have applied the known technique of the browser inference engine utilizes a machine learning algorithm utilizing the browser process information and the software process information as inputs and providing the first indication as an output, as taught by Shintre, in the same way to the browser inference engine, as taught by Callaghan, Sule, and Singh. Both inventions are in the field of filtering content to web browsers, and combining them would have predictably resulted in “identifying, at the virtual machine, a presence of at least one advertisement element on the rendered first version of the web page, removing, at the virtual machine, the presence of the at least one advertisement element on the rendered first version of the webpage,” as indicated by Shintre (col. 1:39-43). Regarding claim 4, Shintre discloses: The information handling system of claim 3, wherein the machine learning algorithm includes at least one of a linear regression algorithm, a logistic regression algorithm, a decision tree algorithm, a support vector machine algorithm, a naive Bayes algorithm, a K-nearest neighbor algorithm, a K-means algorithm, a random forest algorithm, a dimensionality reduction algorithm, and a gradient boosting algorithm (col. 3:21-23, “newer ad blockers may use machine learning (e.g., neural networking, nearest neighbor, decision trees, etc.) ad blocking, such as perceptual ad blocking”). Claim(s) 13 recite(s) commensurate subject matter as claim(s) 3. Therefore, it/they is/are rejected for the same reasons. Claim(s) 5, 6, 14, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Callaghan, Sule, and Singh, as applied above, and further in view of Osmond (US 11,334,385). Regarding claim 5, Callaghan, Sule, and Singh do not teach; however, Osmond discloses: the process information includes a number of browser workers associated with the content and with the advertisement (col. 11:50-55, “the corresponding GUI 156 is launched using the browser 157, one or more data worker threads 159a and one or more crunch worker threads 159b are launched as in the backend processes 159 of the browser 157, executed within the runtime environment of the browser”). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, at the effective filing date of the invention, to have applied the known technique of the process information includes a number of browser workers associated with the content and with the advertisement, as taught by Osmond, in the same way to the browser inference engine, as taught by Callaghan, Sule, and Singh. Both inventions are in the field of rendering web pages, and combining them would have predictably resulted in “browser-based processing of data on a device,” as indicated by Osmond (col. 1:6-7). Regarding claim 6, Osmond discloses: The information handling system of claim 5, wherein the process information includes a number of threads associated with each browser worker (col. 4:43-47, “a trading platform presents a GUI using a browser application on a client device, and executes one or more web worker threads as background processes of the browser application to remain responsive in real-time for display of trading data”). Claims 14 and 15 recite commensurate subject matter as claims 5 and 6. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons. Claim(s) 7-9 and 16-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Callaghan, Sule, and Singh, as applied above, and further in view of Kang (US 2018/0137546). Regarding claim 7, Callaghan, Sule, and Singh do not teach; however, Kang discloses: the process information includes a second indication that the webpage includes a plug-in (¶ 24, “When the advertisement is implemented using non-native code of the browser, such as by using a plug-in, advertisement script 218 can be in the plug-in native code and script rendering engine 216 can be a plug-in engine, such as Oracle's Java, Adobe's Flash, Apple's QuickTime player, and/or the like”). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, at the effective filing date of the invention, to have applied the known technique of the process information includes a second indication that the webpage includes a plug-in, as taught by Kang, in the same way to the browser inference engine, as taught by Callaghan, Sule, and Singh. Both inventions are in the field of rendering web pages, and combining them would have predictably resulted in “delivering advertisements,” as indicated by Kang (¶ 1). Regarding claim 8, Kang discloses: The information handling system of claim 7, wherein the second indication further identifies that the plug-in is associated with the content (¶ 24, “processor 202, using browser 210, provides a rendered web page, including any rendered plug-ins, to display 208 as an output for a user”). Regarding claim 9, Kang discloses: The information handling system of claim 7, wherein the second indication further identifies that the plug-in is associated with the advertisement (¶ 6, “Ad-blockers were originally developed as browser plug-ins that reviewed web page code to identify and not reproduce advertisements”). Claims 16-18 recite commensurate subject matter as claims 7-9. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons. Claim(s) 10 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Callaghan, Sule, and Singh, as applied above, and further in view of Lepeska (US 9,037,638). Regarding claim 10, Callaghan, Sule, and Singh do not teach; however, Lepeska discloses: the process information includes a loading speed of the webpage (col. 5:6-9, “the ‘render time’ for a web page may be used as web page load timing information for web page objects. Render time is the time that the object is actually used by a browse”). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, at the effective filing date of the invention, to have applied the known technique of the process information includes a loading speed of the webpage, as taught by Lepeska, in the same way to the browser inference engine, as taught by Callaghan, Sule, and Singh. Both inventions are in the field of rendering web pages, and combining them would have predictably resulted in solving the problem of “slower performance and increased wait time for a user while a system fetches an object that was missed by a prefetcher,” as indicated by Lepeska (col. 2:10-12). Claim(s) 19 recite(s) commensurate subject matter as claim(s) 10. Therefore, it/they is/are rejected for the same reasons. Conclusion 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. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JACOB D DASCOMB whose telephone number is (571)272-9993. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-5:00. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Pierre Vital can be reached at (571) 272-4215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /JACOB D DASCOMB/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2198
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Oct 17, 2023
Application Filed
Feb 05, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103, §112
Mar 26, 2026
Response Filed
Apr 28, 2026
Final Rejection mailed — §103, §112
Jun 29, 2026
Response after Non-Final Action
Jul 13, 2026
Request for Continued Examination
Jul 14, 2026
Response after Non-Final Action

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

2-3
Expected OA Rounds
86%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+22.0%)
2y 8m (~0m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 452 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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