DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
The Request for Continued Examination filed 11/13/2025 has been acknowledged. Claims 1, 12, 15 have been amended. Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
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 § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. As currently amended, the independent claims recite a network connectivity prediction module deployed on the end-user devices. As discussed paragraph 0048, 0055 and figure 2 of the originally filed specification, the network connectivity prediction module is a component of the server, wherein the server collects information from user devices, wherein the user devices utilizes a network monitoring module as discussed in paragraph 0057. Although the originally filed specification does support a network connectivity prediction module on a server performing predictive functions, the originally filed specification does not support the module to be deployed on end-user devices, but rather clearly defines a different network monitoring module for the end-user devices as part of the prediction process. As such, the claims contain subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the amended claimed invention.
Non-Obvious Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 are determined to be non-obvious over the prior art. As currently claimed, the invention is directed towards predicting content consumption for offline and online users. The invention pushes content to an initial group of online user and receives response from the initial group. The invention then identifies a first group of user different from the initial group including both online and offline users, including the utilization of network connectivity prediction module to predict user connections, and further determine a predicted time for the offline user and waiting for the offline user to return online. The invention then receives the response from the first set of users and expands the first set of offline users by a second set of offline users and further receives response from the second set of offline users. The invention then predict content consumption based on the collected responses.
The Examiner notes the previous claims were rejected under the combination of Boddu, Thielke, S, and Liu. As shown, Boddu discloses the concept of pushing content to user devices, receiving content response from user devices, and identifying different groups of users for further targeting based on responses. Thielke further teaches the concept of the content to be presented on a lockscreen. S further teaches the concept of tracking and targeting both online and offline users. Liu further teaches the concept of predicting content consumption based on multiple groups of users. The Examiner notes that although the combination of these references teach the limitations of the previous claims, the combination fails to teach/suggest the amended limitation of predicting when an offline user returns online and further waiting for the predicted time. Upon further search and consideration, the Examiner notes the following reference(s):
Raleigh et al. (US 20200045519 A1), which talks about a service plan designer including tracking device usage and predicting device state.
Although the above reference(s) does discuss the concept of predicting device state based on historical information, the reference(s) do not teach/suggest the concept of predicting a particular time and waiting until the time. Upon further search and consideration, no additional reference(s), alone or in combination teaches the amended limitations. As such, the Examiner has determined these limitation to be non-obvious over the prior art.
The Examiner further notes upon further consideration, the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection has been withdrawn. As currently claimed, the Examiner has determined the invention to be significantly more. As currently claimed, the invention is addressing a particular problem arising from a technological environment of targeting content to users based on device connectivity, specifically the determination and treatment of connected and non-connected user devices. The invention addresses this problem through the particular steps performed by the configuration of computer components on both the end-user and server side, and thus similar to Bascom. This concept, in combination with the claimed elements directed towards the particular display of content, has rendered the claimed invention to be significantly more as the invention is integrated into a practical application. As such, the 35 U.S.C. rejection has been withdrawn.
Conclusion
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/VINCENT M CAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622