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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Applicants’ communication filed on 03/11/2026. In virtue of this communication, claims 1, 4, 6 and 9-11 are currently pending in the instant application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 4, 6 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Raphael (US 2016/0316503 A1).
Regarding Claim 1 Raphael teaches the limitations "A method of providing, by a service server, a proximal user networking service, the method comprising: (see abstract);
receiving proximity context information from a second user device; and (see fig. 9 (938) and par. 0116-0117), where detected user identity is sent to server);
recording proximal user information for a first user device based on the proximity context information and transmitting at least part of the proximal user information to the first user device, (see fig. 9 (941, 946) and par. 0118-0119, where server establishes connection and grouping and will “…update its list of nearby presence groups.” Also see fig. 5 and par. 0057 where user device receives proximal user information of other devices (i.e. A, B, and C available));
wherein the proximity context information comprises at least part of information in an ad packet received by the second user device from the first user device through a near-field communication network, (see fig. 9 (921, 922, 931 and 937) and par. 0116-0117), where second device receives advertisement from a first device via Bluetooth).
wherein the ad packet comprises a UUID for identifying a service provided by the service server, (see par. 0022, 0054 and 0076, Bluetooth ad includes UUID and user identifiers, here the UUID identifies a service such as social media etc. “advertisements comprising Unique User Identification (UUID) such as Bluetooth Low Energy UUID &/or Randomly Generated Identifier from 0 to 4294967295, MAC address and SSID information are transmitted in a query to the server system and cross referenced with registered member information” (see par. 0022);
and further comprises at least one of a community identifier for identifying a community established by a user of the first user device and a user identifier for identifying the user of the first user device, and (as shown above, includes user identifier);
wherein the proximity context information further comprises
(i) at least one of the community identifier and the user identifier, (as shown above, includes user identifier);
(ii) timestamp information that records a time point at which the ad packet was received from the first user device, and (see par. 0075 “Each time the mobile device senses a unique identifier advertisement the device immediately transmits this user's ID to the server via various methods including currently a web service call.” And par. 0087 “Update timestamp of both A and B in user record”);
(iii) duration information that records a time period of coexistence within an effective near-field communication network between the first user device and the second user device (see par. 0102 “after running through the above algorithm to create presence groups, a purge cycle is run. During a purge cycle, all users that are part of a presence group that have not detected any other user in the presence group or have not been detected by any other users in the presence group in a specified period are purged from their presence group. This period referred to as the timeout period may be 60 seconds, for example. Users that are grouped by detections will time out and become degrouped after an adjustable amount of seconds of no detections.” Here, the server determines the duration for each purge cycle. If no detections for period of time, then no longer present in the group. This is equated to determining duration of presence). Lastly, see par. 0149-0150 and fig. 10a-10c, showing “proximity display”).
Claim 9 is rejected for the same reasons set forth above as the limitations have been addressed.
Regarding Claim 4 Raphael teaches the limitations "The method of claim 3, wherein the proximity context information further comprises: RSSI information that records a reception strength when the second user device receives the ad packet" (see par. 0145 “this ability is limited to users who within a predetermined proximity to the user. The predetermined proximity can be defined in terms of physical distance, visual proximity, distance as determined by radio signal strength, absolute received radio signal strength, boundaries stored on a server or any convenient means to define proximity.” Also see claims 11-12).
Regarding Claim 6 Raphael teaches the limitations "The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the service server, a community participation request that makes a request for participation in a community established by a user of the first user device from the second user device" (see par. 0009 “The established detection is used to form a group of two or more mobile devices. A list of users or an updated list of users in the group. If the first mobile device does not have the profile information regarding users associated with other mobile devices in the group, at least a subset of profile information associated with the list of users in the group to the first mobile device is provided” and par. 0045 “Optionally, each of the users 201, 203, 209, and 211 may use their respective mobile computing devices 202, 204, 210, and 212 while within wireless frequency range including Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth 205 to request a social networking connection with any of the other devices.”).
Regarding Claim 8 Raphael teaches the limitations "The method of claim 7, further comprising: generating a second ad packet with reference to information included in the received first ad packet; and broadcasting the second ad packet" (see par. 0047 “user 203 can broadcast a message, call and/or video conference and view/comment/“gift” photos using mobile computing device 204 to the other users 209, 201, 211 and their devices 210, 202, 212” and see par. 0019-0122 where indirect mobile transit unique identifiers of other mobiles via advertisements. Also see claim 1 “using the unique identifiers of the first mobile device and the second mobile device to establish detection, whereby the detection comprises detections made directly between two devices, detection between two devices through an external radio communication device or hotspot, or indirect detection through another mobile device or devices linking the first mobile device and the second mobile device.” Here, the intermediate mobile advertises identifiers received in a first advertisement).
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 of this title, 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 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Raphael as applied to claim 9 above, and further in view of Simkhai et al. (US 2017/0359429 A1).
Regarding Claim 10 Raphael teaches the method of claim 9, but does not explicitly disclose the limitation “wherein the displaying of at least part of the proximal person information through the screen of the device further comprises displaying GPS information acquired by the device itself.”
In the same field of endeavor Simkhai discloses a system and method for providing location-based cascading displays, where “ Current locations for the user and for subjects can be determined using any known means for location detection, including, for example, GPS functionality, cell phone tower triangulation, SkyHook database of wireless routers, and/or the like” (see par. 0072) and “Referring now to FIG. 15, a user interface screen 1510 displayed by a device 142 is seen to provide representations 1520 of the locations of other users relative nearby the user of device 142. Upon tabbing over one such representation 1520, a profile of the detected user may be displayed.” (see fig. 15 and par. 0111).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to display GPS information acquired by the device itself as taught by ref2 in the system of Raphael, in order to offer features or services premised upon the real-time locations of the users (see par. 0004 of Simkhai).
Regarding Claim 11 Raphael and Simkhai teach the limitations "The method of claim 10, wherein the GPS information acquired by the device itself is encrypted by the device and then shared with the service server" (see above where Simkhai explicitly shows using GPS location) and see par. 0168-0169 of Raphael where location data is encrypted and sent to server). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to encrypt GPS information as taught the modified system of Raphael and Simkhai, in order to protect user data (see par. 0168-0169 of Raphael).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 extension fee 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 DAVID BILODEAU whose telephone number is (571)270-3192. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6:00am-4:00pm Eastern Standard Time.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Wesley Kim can be reached at (571) 272-7867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/David Bilodeau/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648