DETAILED ACTION
This is in reference to communication received 26 May 2026. Addition of claim 21 is acknowledged. Claims 11 – 20 are in Withdrawn status. Claims 1 – 10 and 21 are examined in this office action. 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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 – 10 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Independent claim 1, in part is directed toward a statutory category of invention, the claim appears to be directed toward a judicial exception namely an abstract idea. Claim 1 recites invention directed to
identifying or receiving a link to be shared in digital social media content; generating a unique identifier to be associated with the social media content, and creating a trackable link by adding information corresponding to the unique identifier to the link, subsequent to which the created trackable link is inserted into the social media content before it is shared on a social media. Impact data stored impact data corresponding to a business impact of the social media content is retrieved, and a return on investment report (ROI report) is generated by aggregating the impact data into a predetermined format, and outputting the generated ROI report.
These limitations describe marketing/sales/advertising activities. Adding a trackable link in a marketing content that will be presented to the users of Social-Media, collecting the users response and storing them on a storage medium, retrieving the collected interaction data to perform the impact of the marketing content, generating a ROI report and outputting the ROI report would be the marketing team (or person) providing, such as a visual presentation, the ROI information to the marketing team’s client (e.g., advertisers).
When taken as an ordered combination, nothing is added that is not already present when the elements are taken individually. When viewed as a whole, the marketing activities amount to activities performed by a human. There is not computer performing the recited limitations.
As for dependent claims 2 – 10 and 21, these claims recite limitations that further define the same abstract idea of defining content of impact data, content insights, content details, analytics data, a database will be used to store data, where the data will be received from; defining what data will be used to create unique identifier, what data will be used to generate and present ROI report when a user makes a request for a ROI report; and defining that the trackable link will be shortened and attached to the social media content, ensuring that the generated identifier does not have a duplicate before it is assigned, as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of organizing certain methods of human activity related to advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors but for the recitation of generic computer components. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
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 – 6, 8 – 10 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Greenberger et al. US Publication 2019/0356744 in view of Sims et al. US Publication 2016/0019579.
Regarding claim 1, Greenberger teaches system and method for tracking a business impact of social media campaigns (Greenberger, tracking sharing analytics for a shortened link includes receiving a network link referencing a network address associated with a network resource, and generating a first shortened link from the received network link. The embodiment further includes mapping the first shortened link to a first mapped shortened link) [Greenberger, 0004], the system and method comprising:
identifying or receiving a link to be shared in digital social media content (Greenberger, In block 502, application 105 receives a link that a user desires to share on a social media site.) [Greenberger, 0057];
generating, by the one or more processors, a unique identifier to be associated with the social media content, wherein each unique identifier is associated with a single posting on a single social media platform (Greenberger, In block 504, application 105 generates a shortened link from the received link in which the shortened link is shorter than the received link.) [Greenberger, 0057];
creating, by the one or more processors, a trackable link by modifying the link to include a parameter by adding information corresponding to the unique identifier to the link (Greenberger, the sharing analytics include information tracking the re-sharing of the original user's posting of the shortened link by any subsequent users which also re-share the shortened link as well as and the extent of the sharing of the shortened link among one or more social media networks) [Greenberger, 0060];
inserting, by the one or more processors, the trackable link into the digital social media content to produce modified digital social media content including the unique identifier (Greenberger, In block 506, application 105 receives a shortened link sharing indication which indicates that the user has shared the shortened link on a social media site. application 105 generates a unique identifier for the sharing user for uniquely identify the user from among other users …. application 105 appends the unique identifier to the shortened link to generate the remapped shortened link. In block 512, application 105 posts the remapped shortened link to the social media site.) [Greenberger, 0057, 0058];
sharing the digital social media content with the trackable link on a social media platform (Greenberger, In block 512, application 105 posts the remapped shortened link to the social media site.) [Greenberger, 0058];
Greenberger does not explicitly recite impact data of social media content. However, Sims teaches system and method to facilitate and coordinate communication between advertisers and on-line social media influencers throughout all phases of influencer campaigns which use blogs or social media to reach, consumers. The invention involves the creation database of influencers who use electronic and/or social media to reach consumers. The influencers are then evaluated to determine their effectiveness and assigned a rating. The effectiveness of the influence campaign can also be gaged.) [Sims, 0008].
Therefore, at the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Greenberger by adopting teachings of Sims to determine the effectiveness of the campaign as well as the effectiveness of individual influences, and enable advertisers to reach a diversified and effected base of on-line influencers and to determine the effectiveness of their campaigns.
Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method further comprising:
retrieving impact data corresponding to a business impact of the social media content, the stored impact data being associated with the unique identifier (Sims, Once the influencer has distributed the information. The system, using the identifier, tracks the effectiveness of the campaign, step 105. This is accomplished by using the system generated identifier to locate the blogs or posts relating to a specific campaign and/or influencer and then gathering such social media data as Social Reach and Social Engagement data with respect to that post or blog.) [Sims, 0055]; and
generating a return on investment report (ROI report) by aggregating the impact data into a predetermined format; and outputting the ROI report (Sims, Information as how often the information is viewed, whether the information has been shared by the consumer, whether a consumer has posted comments about the information and the like. All of this information is gathered and stored in a campaign database. The data can then be analyzed and reports created to show how effective the campaign has been, 106.) [Sims, 0059].
Regarding claim 2, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method, wherein the impact data includes at least one of content insights associated with the social media content, content details associated with the social media content, or analytics data associated with the trackable link (Sims, Information as how often the information is viewed, whether the information has been shared by the consumer, whether a consumer has posted comments about the information and the like. All of this information is gathered and stored in a campaign database. The data can then be analyzed and reports created to show how effective the campaign has been, 106.) [Sims, 0022, Fig. 8 and associated disclosure].
Regarding claim 3, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method, wherein the content insights, the content details, and the analytics data are each associated with the unique identifier, and the impact data includes each of the content insights, the content details, and the analytics data (Sims, see at least screen shot of a typical report generated by the system for an influence campaign) [Sims, 0022, Fig. 8 and associated disclosure].
Regarding claim 4, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method, wherein the content insights are retrieved from a content insights database, the content details are retrieved from a content details database, and the analytics data is retrieved from an analytics engine (Sims, Information as how often the information is viewed, whether the information has been shared by the consumer, whether a consumer has posted comments about the information and the like. All of this information is gathered and stored in a campaign database. The data can then be analyzed and reports created to show how effective the campaign has been, 106.) [Sims, 0022, Fig. 8 and associated disclosure].
Regarding claim 5, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method further comprising: receiving, by the content insights database, the content insights associated with the social media content from a reports server; and storing, by the content insights database, the content insights along with the associated unique identifier (Sims, Information as how often the information is viewed, whether the information has been shared by the consumer, whether a consumer has posted comments about the information and the like. All of this information is gathered and stored in a campaign database (e.g., data is stored in a database). The data can then be analyzed and reports created to show how effective the campaign has been, 106.) [Sims, 0022, Fig. 8 and associated disclosure].
Regarding claim 6, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method further comprising storing, in a content details database, content details associated with the social media content along with the unique identifier (Sims, Information as how often the information is viewed, whether the information has been shared by the consumer, whether a consumer has posted comments about the information and the like. All of this information is gathered and stored in a campaign database (e.g., data is stored in a database). The data can then be analyzed and reports created to show how effective the campaign has been, 106.) [Sims, 0022, Fig. 8 and associated disclosure].
Regarding claim 8, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method, further comprising:
submitting a request for a ROI report for specific social media content (Sims, Upon receiving a request from the advertiser, the system can generate reports showing the effectiveness of each individual influencer as well as the campaign as a whole) [Sims, 0066];
identifying all unique identifiers that are associated with the specific social media content; retrieving the impact data associated with each of the unique identifiers that are associated with the specific social media content; and generating the ROI report to include the impact data associated with each of the unique identifiers that are associated with the specific social media content (Sims, As shown in FIG. 7 the system can generate reports showing overall social media data such as Social reach and Social Engagement data for difference social media as well as for specific influencers) [Sims, 0066].
Regarding claim 9, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method, wherein creating the trackable link includes:
adding the unique identifier to the link (Greenberger, generating a unique identifier associated with the first user, the first mapped shortened link including the unique identifier. An embodiment further includes appending the unique identifier to the first shortened link to generate the first mapped shortened link.) [Greenberger, 0005]; and
shortening the link and using the shortened link as the trackable link that is inserted in the social media content (Greenberger, submit a link referencing a network address of a network resource to a link shortening service or application, such as Bit.ly, and the link shortening service generates a shortened link.) [Greenberger, 0017].
Regarding claim 10, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method, further comprising:
receiving a request to compare success of multiple pieces of social media content; identifying unique identifiers associated with each of the multiple pieces of the social media content; generating a new ROI report by aggregating the impact data associated with each of the unique identifiers; and outputting the new ROI report (Sims, Upon receiving a request from the advertiser, the system can generate reports showing the effectiveness of each individual influencer as well as the campaign as a whole. As shown in FIG. 7 the system can generate reports showing overall social media data such as Social reach and Social Engagement data for difference social media as well as for specific influencers) [Sims, 0066].
Regarding claim 21, as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims teaches system and method, wherein generating a unique identifier comprises determining if a generated unique identifier already exists and if so, generating a new unique identifier that has not been previously generated (Greenberger, generating a unique identifier associated with the first user, the first mapped shortened link including the unique identifier. An embodiment further includes appending the unique identifier to the first shortened link to generate the first mapped shortened link.) [Greenberger, 0005].
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Greenberger et al. US Publication 2019/0356744 in view of Sims et al. US Publication 2016/0019579 and Elle Morgan published article “What are UTM Parameters and How Should You Use Them?” hereinafter referred to as Morgan.
Regarding claim 7, Greenberger in view of Sims does not explicitly teach generating unique identifiers by preselecting random characters in a specific order. However, Morgan teaches A UTM code is a snippet of text appended to a URL and is recognized in GA as another dimension, similar to average time on site or number of pages viewed. This added text string allows for the tracking of a URL through different channels and tools.) [Morgan, page 3].
Therefore, at the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Greenberger in view of Sims by adopting teachings of Morgan to identify where traffic is coming from and allow marketers to see whether a visitor came from Facebook post, article, ad campaign, email, and more.
as combined and under the same rationale as above, Greenberger in view of Sims and Morgan teaches system and method, wherein generating the unique identifier includes:
selecting a predetermined quantity of random characters in a specific order to create a temporary identifier (Morgan, A UTM code is a snippet of text appended to a URL and is recognized in GA as another dimension, similar to average time on site or number of pages viewed. This added text string allows for the tracking of a URL through different channels and tools.) [Morgan, page 3];
determining that the temporary identifier is available if the selected characters in the specific order have not been previously used as a unique identifier (Greenberger, generating a unique identifier associated with the first user, the first mapped shortened link including the unique identifier. An embodiment further includes appending the unique identifier to the first shortened link to generate the first mapped shortened link.) [Greenberger, 0005]; and
setting the temporary identifier as the unique identifier when the identifier is available (Greenberger, generating a unique identifier associated with the first user, the first mapped shortened link including the unique identifier. An embodiment further includes appending the unique identifier to the first shortened link to generate the first mapped shortened link.) [Greenberger, 0005].
Response to Arguments
Applicant's argument that pending claimed amended invention is eligible for patent under 35 USC 101 because claims are not directed to judicial exception and alleged abstract concept is integrated into a practical application is acknowledge and considered.
However, upon further review, it is deemed that the claimed invention is not eligible for patent under 35 USC 101 and have been responded in Rejection under 35 USC 101 section.
Applicant's argument that pending claimed amended invention is eligible for patent because combination of cited prior art does not teach amended invention is acknowledged and considered.
However, while performing an updated search, a new prior art was found that has been cited in this office action. Therefore, applicant’s arguments are moot under new grounds of rejection.
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 Naresh Vig whose telephone number is (571)272-6810. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 06:30a - 04:00p.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ilana Spar can be reached at 571.270.7537. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NARESH VIG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622
May 13, 2026
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