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 § 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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by U.S. Pub. 2020/0038750 by Kojima.
Regarding claim 1, Kojima discloses a system, comprising: a plurality of application servers (para. 57-61 – see servers), each configured to simulate one or more objects in a shared virtual environment (para. 57-61 – see the managed digital objects), and to communicate with one or more client devices so as to exchange data related to the one or more objects and the shared virtual environment (para. 57-61 – see operation of the servers to provide object information to client devices); wherein each object generates and/or has associated with it, object state data indicative of one or more states of each object (para. 57-61 – see object states); the system further comprising an object state management server, configured to store and distribute object state data of the one or more objects simulated in the shared virtual environment (para. 57-61 – see the digital objects provided to the shared virtual environment); wherein the object state management server is connected via a network to the plurality of application servers, and is configured to: receive further object state data related to a given object from a respective application server of the plurality of application servers, and to distribute said further object state data to at least one other application server of the plurality of application servers (para. 57-61 – see the distribution of object state data though to application servers).
Regarding claim 2, Kojima discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the object state management server is configured to ascertain an owner of the one or more objects simulated by a given application server, and to update object state data associated with the object only if the updated state data or request for update is received from the owner of the object (para. 57-61 – see updating object state updates).
Regarding claim 3, Kojima discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the system comprises a plurality of object state management servers, and wherein a given object state management server is configured to migrate all object state data stored on that object state management server to another object state management server during a hand-over process (para. 57-61, 78, 240 – see transferring of object state data. Examiner notes that “hand-over process” does not provide for any particular requirements for the transfer and is being interpreted under the broadest reasonable interpretation to mean any transfer process).
Regarding claim 4, Kojima discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the system comprises a plurality of object state management servers, one of which is a nexus object state management server, and the plurality of application servers are configured to transmit all object state data requests to the nexus object state management server, and the nexus object state management server is configured to forward on object state data requests to a respective object state management server (para. 57-61, 78, 240 – see server architecture and transfer routing).
Regarding claim 5, Kojima discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the object state management server is configured to distribute changes in object state data to one or more of the application servers (para. 57-61, 78, 240 – see propagation of object data through the servers).
Regarding claim 6, Kojima discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the object state management server is configured to receive a request from an application server of the plurality of application servers and/or another object state management server for all state data generated by or associated with one or more objects, and to transmit to the requesting application server and/or requesting object state management server said data (para. 57-61, 78, 240 – see propagation of object data through the servers).
Regarding claim 7, Kojima discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the object state management server is configured to receive a subscription request for an object from an application server of the plurality of application servers, and to transmit any changes to the state data for said object to the subscribing application server (para. 57-61, 78, 240 – see propagation of object data through the servers)
Regarding claim 8, Kojima discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the application servers are client devices, configured to communicate with one or more other client devices, each client device providing a user with access to the shared virtual environment (para. 57-61, 78, 240 – see propagation of object data through the servers).
Regarding claim 9, Kojima discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the object state management server is configured, when it receives a request to update state data associated with an object from an application server of the plurality of application servers which is not the owner of the object, to forward the request to update the object state data to another application server of the plurality of application servers which is the owner of the object (para. 57-61, 78, 240 – see propagation of object data through the servers).
Regarding claims 10-13, these claims are rejected as noted above regarding claim 1.
Conclusion
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/PETER J IANNUZZI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715