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 .
Claims 1, 4, 7, 10, and 13 are currently amended. Claims 2, 8, 17, and 20 have been canceled. No new claims have been added. Claims 1, 3-7, 9-16, and 18-19 are currently pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
In response to the applicant’s arguments, pgs.8-12, regarding the application of the Kaushal reference to teach the limitations of claims 1 and 2, now combined in the amended claim 1, the examiner has carefully considers these arguments and concedes. As such, the new grounds for rejection under 35 USC 103 rely upon Zeng (US 11704629 B2) to disclose the limitations in question, i.e.; “wherein the generation of the app card is performed using standard data obtained by converting the one of the business notification details or the business process details included in the business process notification according to a preset standard format, // wherein the app card includes, as a card-type interface, one of: a simple notification type app card, the simple notification type app card including only an area for displaying the business notification details // and a business processing type app card, business processing type app card including a first area for displaying the business process details and a second area for implementing a processing function for the business process details.” As such, the rejection under 35 USC 103 is maintained. Prosecution has been re-opened, and the current rejection is a non-final rejection.
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 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kaplinger (US 20160162447 A1) in view of Yu (US 10545640 B1) in further view of in further view of Jenks (US 10505875 B1) in further view of Zeng (US 11704629 B2)
As per claim 1, Kaplinger discloses:
An apparatus for supporting business transactions comprising: one or more processors configured to execute instructions; and a memory storing the instructions, wherein execution of the instructions configures the one or more processors to: receive a business process notification from a business system, the business process notification including one or business notification details and business process details ("In another embodiment, a system includes a memory and one or more processors communicatively coupled to the memory. The one or more processors are configured to receive first event details from a provider. The first event details are related to a first event in a business process flow associated with a user and related to a user interaction.”, 0006 ; "The event details may provide the user with details about the event within the business process flow that resulted in the document 210 being issued.", 0019 ; Examiner Note: an event with event details equates to a notification with business process details)
Kaplinger discloses the above limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose generating an app card based on the business process notification.
However, Yu discloses:
generate an app card based on the one of the business notification details and the business process notification; ("The executable computer code may further include code for generating a visual representation of the e-book. The visual representation may be, for example, a content card that can be presented in conjunction with the website content (e.g., rendered by a browser application as part of a rendering of the website content). Alternatively, the executable computer code may transmit an indication of the identifier to a remote server which may, in turn, generate the content card (or retrieve a previously generated content card corresponding to the identifier) and transmit the content card to a host device storing the website source code which may, in turn, transmit the content card to the browser application. The browser application may be configured to display the content card in connection with the website content.", 0011 ; Examiner Note: a content card equates to an app card and an indication of the identifier corresponds to a business process notification. The remote server equates to a server, and the browser application equates to an application)
the app card includes, as a card-type interface, one of: a simple notification type app card, the simple notification type app card including only an area for displaying the business notification details (“For example, a content card corresponding to a candidate e-book determined to be related to website content on a website may be associated with an identifier of an available space on the website, thereby causing the content card to be displayed on the website in the available space. As another example, a browser application executing on a user device may be configured to display the content card outside of the website when the corresponding website content is rendered by the browser application.”, 0021)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Kaplingers business process notification/event processing method with the content/app card generation of Yu in order to provide a content card generation system which uses the identifier, or business process notification details, to select whether certain content should be included based on performance metrics in order to cause desired user behavior (Yu, [0013])
Kaplinger in view of Yu may disclose the above limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose a messaging application provided by a messaging server.
However, Jenks discloses:
transmit the app card to a messenger server, wherein the app card is transmitted to a user terminal through the messenger server to be displayed using a messenger application of the user terminal ( "At operation 622, the device service 240 may make a call to the card service 244 to fetch the new/updated card. At operation 624, the device service 240 may send the new/updated card to the device agent 206.", 0149 ; "The selected content card 4802 may be rendered in a respective messaging application user interface that corresponds to the electronic messaging application and that is being displayed on each user device associated with each user profile participating in the conversation.”, 0284 ; Examiner Note: being a part of the user device, the device agent equates to a user terminal. As it provides a messaging application, the device service 240 equates to a messenger server, and since the card is fetched it is necessarily transmitted from card service 244 to device service 240. The card is then transmitted to the user terminal and displayed using a messaging/messenger application.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Kaplingers business process notification/event processing method and the content/app card generation of Yu with the messaging server and application of Jenks in order to adapt the generation and displaying of cards to a messaging application which improves the personalization and contextual relevance of a card presented to a user (Jenks, [0063]).
Kaplinger in view of Yu in further view of Jenks discloses the above limitations of claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose that the generation of the app/content card is done through converting standard data into a standard format, or that the app card may be of a business processing type.
However, Zeng discloses:
the generation of the app card is performed using standard data obtained by converting the one of the business notification details or the business process details included in the business process notification according to a preset standard format (“FIG. 3 is a schematic view of an information card created by a SMS application in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. The information card may include a name of an event, a location of the event, and a time of the event.”, col.8, lines 1-3 ; “A card title field is a card title of the information card; a business field is a business field of the information card. A specific format may be defined based on a business part including card contents of the information card.”, col.13, lines 11-14 ; “Suppose that the first application receives advisement information from the third application and the processing type is a creating operation. The first application may assign a card ID and service ID to the advertisement information and retrieve a card title, card contents such as to obtain processing information for creating an information card based on the advisement information.”, col.12, lines 36-42 ; Examiner Note: the specific format defined based on a business part/advertising information equates to a preset standard format which is used to generate app/information cards based on business notification details)
a business processing type app card, business processing type app card including a first area for displaying the business process details and a second area for implementing a processing function for the business process details. (“ In implementations, the processing module 812 is further configured to render the card title and the card content based on a type resource corresponding to the service ID to generate an information card view and to create a background view if the processing type of the information card includes creating.”, col.6, lines 41-47 ; “Suppose that the first application receives advisement information from the third application and the processing type is a creating operation. The first application may assign a card ID and service ID to the advertisement information and retrieve a card title, card contents such as to obtain processing information for creating an information card based on the advisement information.”, col.12, lines 36- 42 ; “Further, the second application processes the information card based on the processing information.// In implementations, the processing information may include processing parameters associated with the processing of the information card. For example, the processing information includes a processing type associated with the processing of the information card.”, col.4, lines 27-34 ; Examiner Note: the card title area equates to a first area for displaying the business process details, and the card content area equates to a second area for implementing a processing function- as it contains information required to process the app/information card. )
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Kaplinger in view of Yu in further view of Jenks with those of Zeng in order to provide a method of processing information or app cards with multiple applications which improves both the flexibility and efficiency of the system (Zeng, [col.1, lines 52-55]).
As per claim 7, it is a method claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 1, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
Claims 3-6, 9-16, and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kaplinger (US 20160162447 A1) in view of Yu (US 10545640 B1) in further view of in further view of Jenks (US 10505875 B1) in further view of Zeng (US 11704629 B2) in further view of Kaushal (US 11888955 B1).
As per claim 3, Kaplinger in view of Yu in further view of Jenks in further view of Zeng fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose that the preset standard format is a JSON format.
However, Kaushal discloses:
the preset standard format is a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format, and wherein the standard data includes, in addition to the business notification details or the business process details, one or more of an environment, a content type, an app card ID, an ID of a transmission target messenger server, and an ID of a user receiving the app card. ("As discussed above, the card content 302 can include values for one or more attributes to be rendered and displayed in a card. In some examples, the card content 302 can be provided as JSON data, or other card data 108, that includes one or more AVPs indicating values for one or more attributes.", 0063 ; "The action request 120 may be addressed to the card engine 110 as if it were any other type of request for a card, but may include header data or another type of backend system identifier data that is associated with a particular backend system… The ARC engine 118 can provide action data 126 to the card engine 110, based on the action request 120 from the client application 104 and/or the action response 124 from the backend system. The card engine 110 can use the action data 126 to dynamically generate new card data 108 for a card to be displayed in response to the action request 120, and the ARC engine 118 can route the new card data to the client application 104.", 0030)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Kaplinger in view of Yu in further view of Jenks in further view of Zeng with those of Kaushal in order to provide the system with the ability to generate card data in JSON format which may then be sent to a remote client application, thus reducing the memory footprint of the client application (Kaushal, [0018-0019]).
As per claim 4, Kaplinger in view of Yu in further view of Jenks in further view of Zeng fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose the processing function being implemented in the form of a button.
However, Kaushal discloses:
the processing function is implemented in a form of a button in the second area for implementing the processing function. ("Some types of cards, such as card 106 shown in FIG. 1, can include a call-to-action (CTA) 128. The CTA 128 can be a user-selectable button, link, image, or other UI element. If the user selects the CTA 128 of a card, the client application 104 can send an action request 120 associated with that card.", 0035 )
As per claim 5, Kaplinger in view of Yu in further view of Jenks in further view of Zeng in further view of Kaushal fully discloses the limitations of claim 4.
Furthermore, Kaushal discloses:
when the app card is the business processing type app card: receiving processing details of a user from the user terminal through the messenger server, the processing details of the user including a click event of the button implemented in the area for implementing the processing function; and transmitting the processing details of the user to the business system. ("The action request 120 may be sent by the client application 104 in association with a particular card. Some types of cards, such as card 106 shown in FIG. 1, can include a call-to-action (CTA) 128. The CTA 128 can be a user-selectable button, link, image, or other UI element. If the user selects the CTA 128 of a card, the client application 104 can send an action request 120 associated with that card.", 0035 ; " As discussed above, the ARC engine 118 can receive an action request 120 from the client application 104, and send an ARC action request 122 to a corresponding backend system, such as the payment system 130, the account management system 132, the retail system 134, or another backend system. ", 0045 ; Examiner Note: the action request equates to the processing details of the user)
As per claim 6, Kaplinger in view of Yu in further view of Jenks in further view of Zeng in further view of Kaushal fully discloses the limitations of claim 5.
Furthermore, Jenks discloses:
receiving a processing result from the business system; generating an app card based on the processing result; and transmitting the app card to the messenger server, wherein the app card is transmitted to the user terminal through the messenger server to be displayed using the messenger of the user terminal. ("The results of the natural language processing may be provided to a card producer 248 to facilitate generation of cards that include card content that is relevant to the subject matter of an electronic messaging conversation and/or that meets constraints or restrictions gleaned from the subject matter (as indicated by the processing results)", 0089 ; "At operation 622, the device service 240 may make a call to the card service 244 to fetch the new/updated card. At operation 624, the device service 240 may send the new/updated card to the device agent 206.", 0149 ; "The selected content card 4802 may be rendered in a respective messaging application user interface that corresponds to the electronic messaging application and that is being displayed on each user device associated with each user profile participating in the conversation.”, 0284; Examiner Note: being a part of the user device, the device agent equates to a user terminal, and the device service equates to a messenger server)
As per claim 9, it is a method claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 3, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 10, it is a method claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 4, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 11, it is a method claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 4, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 12, it is a method claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 6, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 13, it is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium (Kaplinger discloses: “A computer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construed as being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freely propagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagating through a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulses passing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmitted through a wire.”, 0046) claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 6, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 14, it is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 1, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 15, it is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 5, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 16, it is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 5, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 18, it is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 5, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 19, it is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 6, as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Sirpal (US 20160231973 A1)- discloses method for operating the user interface of an application; including detecting a command for a user interface associated with a card element displayed.
Soo (US 20160216875 A1) – discloses a computer implemented GUI for monitoring and controlling and EMS in real time; includes a card carousel GUI control including a plurality of cards arranged in a sequence.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROSS MICHAEL VINCENT whose telephone number is (703)756-1408. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8:30AM-5:30PM.
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, April Blair can be reached at (571) 270-1014. 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.
/R.M.V./
Examiner, Art Unit 2196
/APRIL Y BLAIR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2196
Prosecution Insights