DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 9/16/2026 has been entered. Claims 1, 3-11, 13-18, and 20-23 remain pending in the application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed with the Amendment have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that:
As further indicated above, the format or display command in Katahanas governs how already-retrieved data is presented (e.g., "whether the hosted data is presented as a card, phone number, name, or other single line format") and does not determine what fields are requested. For at least the reasons stated above, Katahanas fails to teach or suggest "wherein the template identifies one or more fields of a data structure associated with the second application for inclusion in the content of the electronic document," and "transmitting a request to a computing system associated with the second application for data from the one or more fields identified by the template, the data comprising a subset of the set of data associated with the second application," as included in amended claim
The Examiner cannot concur with the Applicant. Katahanas discloses this limitation at 35:30-36:52 (emphasis added):
(151) FIG. 7 depicts another example selectable graphical object, specifically, a table of contacts. As a result of the sequence of operations described above with respect to FIGS. 5A-5C, the system may generate a link table 710, which is displayed as a table of entries that are selectable by the user by a mouse, touch, or other similar user-interface input command. The link table 710 replaces the link path used to generate the selectable graphical object. The link table 710 includes a portion of the hosted data retrieved from the external platform services which, in this case, includes specific data associated with a group or set of contacts. Specifically, names, phone numbers, titles, addresses, and other information associated with each contact is displayed within each cell of the link table 710. In this example, the link table 710 may contain static data that represents the state of the data at the time it was retrieved and is not updated in accordance with changes to the hosted data made on the external platform service (after the link has been created). In other examples, like the embedded table example of FIG. 12, the contents of the table may be dynamically modified to reflect changes to the hosted data made on the external platform service.
Throughout Katahanas, retrieval of relevant information is described. For example, 15:28-57 describes an API call which retrieves only the specified phone number attribute for the vendor from the hosted data. 33:18-45 describes an API call which retrieves only contacts having a first name attribute “John” from the hosted data. Katahanas discloses retrieving a subset of the data hosted. The link table is generated from a portion of the hosted data that corresponds to the specific attributes of the table.
Prior Art
Listed herein below are the prior art references relied upon in this Office Action:
Rochelle et al. (US Patent Application Publication 2017/0255596), referred to as Rochelle herein [previously cited].
Katahanas et al. (US Patent Number 11,416,319), referred to as Katahanas herein [cited in Applicant’s IDS dated 3/1/2024].
Cheesman (US Patent Application Publication 2019/0318015), referred to as Cheesman herein [previously cited].
Examiner’s Note
Strikethrough notation in the pending claims has been added by the Examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-6, 8-11, 13-16, 18, and 20-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rochelle in view of Katahanas.
Regarding claim 1, Rochelle discloses a method for a server computing device, the method comprising: providing a client device with access to an electronic document using a user interface (UI) for a first application, wherein the electronic document includes content and a reference to a set of data associated with a second application (Rochelle, Fig. 9C with ¶0053, ¶0059-¶0062 – email application interface at a client contains a link to a spreadsheet document of a networked spreadsheet application. The email interface also includes content other than the spreadsheet);
updating the UI for the first application to include, in the electronic document and with the content, the
However, Rochelle appears not to expressly disclose the limitations in strikethrough above. However, in the same field of endeavor, Katahanas discloses third-party content embedding (Katahanas, Abstract with 2:45-60),
upon detecting a first user interaction with a UI element associated with the reference to the set of data, identifying, from a template library, a template associated with the second application, wherein the template identifies one or more fields of a data structure associated with the second application for inclusion in the content of the electronic document (Katahanas, Figs. 4A-4D with 6:15-34 - format designations (templates) for embedded content. The available template format is determined based on the target object. 14:4-40, 15:28-57 – structured data is accessed, attributes (fields) of data entities are retrieved and populated into selected display format. 32:45-33:45 – first name is listed as an attribute for a contact entity and accessed via API call. Fig. 7 with 35:30-36:52 – link table format embeds data retrieved from contacts. The data includes a column of cells within the table format populated from contact data such as phone numbers, email, department, city, country, title, etc);
transmitting a request to a computing system associated with the second application for data from the one or more fields identified by the template, the data comprising a subset of the set of data associated with the second application, updating the UI for the first application to include, in the electronic document and with the content, the subset of the set of data received from the computing system associated with the second application (Katahanas, 32:45-33:45 – first name is listed as an attribute for a contact entity and accessed via API call. Fig. 7 with 35:30-36:52 – link table format embeds data retrieved from contacts. The data includes a column of cells within the table format populated from contact data such as phone numbers, email, department, city, country, title, etc. 18:16-45 – source applications).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the embedded content of Rochelle as modified to include formatting templates based on the teachings of Katahanas. The motivation for doing so would have been to enable the user to customize the embedded view without requiring significant intervention from the user (Katahanas, 15:20-27).
Regarding claim 3, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 1 above, and further discloses determining whether the client device satisfies one or more authorization criteria associated with the second application, where the UI for the first application is updated based on the determination (Katahanas, 9:33-61, 11:33-11:49, 16:55-17:17, 31:15-36 – authentication tokens are required to access the embedded content).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the embedded content of Rochelle to include authentication based on the teachings of Katahanas. The motivation for doing so would have been enable the user to access restricted content (Katahanas, 31:15-36).
Regarding claim 4, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 3 above, and further discloses wherein determining whether the client device satisfies one or more authorization criteria associated with the second application comprises: determining that the client device is associated with a user account of the second application; and determining that an authorization process associated with the user account of the second application has completed (Katahanas, 9:33-61, 11:33-11:49, 16:55-17:2, 31:15-36 – completed authentication are required to access the embedded content (second application)).
Regarding claim 5, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 1 above, and further discloses wherein the reference to the set of data associated with the second application comprises a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with a web page that comprises the set of data (Rochelle, ¶0053 – URL).
Regarding claim 6, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 1 above, and further discloses wherein the UI element is a second UI element, and wherein the method further comprises: determining that the electronic document comprises the reference to the set of data associated with the second application; responsive to determining that the reference is supported by the second application, updating the UI for the first application to include a first UI element; responsive to a user interaction with the first UI element, obtaining, from the second application, data associated with rendering the second UI element associated with the reference to the set of data; and updating the UI for the first application to include the second UI element (Rochelle, Fig. 9C with ¶0053, ¶0059-¶0062 – email application interface at a client contains a link to a spreadsheet document of a networked spreadsheet application. ¶0061 – users can select whether or not the embedding is supported).
Regarding claim 8, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 1 above, and further discloses wherein detecting the first user interaction with the UI element comprises at least one of: detecting that a user has engaged with the UI element via the UI, or detecting that the user has hovered at least one of a mouse or cursor of a peripheral device of the client device to a region of the UI that is adjacent to the UI element (Rochelle, Fig. 5 with ¶0039-¶0045 – users modify (engage) the cells of the spreadsheet document, which are reflected through the application server to other users at other clients and stored at the server database. ¶0032 – mouse input).
Regarding claim 9, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 1 above, and further discloses wherein the UI for the first application is updated to include the subset of the set of data with the reference to the set of data (Katahanas, Fig. 8 with 37:46-38:3 – the subset of items is displayed in a menu in the interface. Fig. 4E with 26:49-64 – multiple items can be selected for embedding).
Regarding claim 10, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 1 above, and further discloses wherein the UI for the first application is updated to replace the reference to the set of data with the subset of the set of data (Katahanas, Fig. 8 with 37:46-38:3 – the subset of items is displayed in a menu in the interface. Fig. 4E with 26:49-64 – multiple items can be selected for embedding. The subset continues to be refined in response to user interaction).
Regarding claim 11, Rochelle discloses a system comprising: a memory; and a set of processing devices coupled to the memory, wherein the set of processing devices is to perform operations comprising: providing a client device with access to an electronic document using a user interface (UI) for a first application, wherein the electronic document includes content and a reference to a set of data associated with a second application (Rochelle, Fig. 9C with ¶0053, ¶0059-¶0062 – email application interface at a client contains a link to a spreadsheet document of a networked spreadsheet application. The email interface also includes content other than the spreadsheet. ¶0031 – processor executing instructions stored in hardware memory);
updating the UI for the first application to include, in the electronic document and with the content,
However, Rochelle appears not to expressly disclose the limitations in strikethrough above. However, in the same field of endeavor, Katahanas discloses third-party content embedding (Katahanas, Abstract with 2:45-60),
upon detecting a first user interaction with a UI element associated with the reference to the set of data, identifying, from a template library, a template associated with the second application, wherein the template identifies one or more fields of a data structure associated with the second application for inclusion in the content of the electronic document (Katahanas, Figs. 4A-4D with 6:15-34 - format designations (templates) for embedded content. The available template format is determined based on the target object. 14:4-40, 15:28-57 – structured data is accessed, attributes (fields) of data entities are retrieved and populated into selected display format. 32:45-33:45 – first name is listed as an attribute for a contact entity and accessed via API call. Fig. 7 with 35:30-36:52 – link table format embeds data retrieved from contacts. The data includes a column of cells within the table format populated from contact data such as phone numbers, email, department, city, country, title, etc);
transmitting a request to a computing system associated with the second application for data from the one or more fields identified by the template, the data comprising a subset of the set of data associated with the second application, updating the UI for the first application to include, in the electronic document and with the content, the subset of the set of data received from the computing system associated with the second application (Katahanas, 32:45-33:45 – first name is listed as an attribute for a contact entity and accessed via API call. Fig. 7 with 35:30-36:52 – link table format embeds data retrieved from contacts. The data includes a column of cells within the table format populated from contact data such as phone numbers, email, department, city, country, title, etc. 18:16-45 – source applications).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the embedded content of Rochelle as modified to include formatting templates based on the teachings of Katahanas. The motivation for doing so would have been to enable the user to customize the embedded view without requiring significant intervention from the user (Katahanas, 15:20-27).
Regarding claim 13, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 11 above, and further discloses determining whether the client device satisfies one or more authorization criteria associated with the second application, where the UI for the first application is updated based on the determination (Katahanas, 9:33-61, 11:33-11:49, 16:55-17:17, 31:15-36 – authentication tokens are required to access the embedded content).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the embedded content of Rochelle to include authentication based on the teachings of Katahanas. The motivation for doing so would have been enable the user to access restricted content (Katahanas, 31:15-36).
Regarding claim 14, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 13 above, and further discloses wherein determining whether the client device satisfies one or more authorization criteria associated with the second application comprises: determining that the client device is associated with a user account of the second application; and determining that an authorization process associated with the user account of the second application has completed (Katahanas, 9:33-61, 11:33-11:49, 16:55-17:17, 31:15-36 – completed authentication are required to access the embedded content (second application)).
Regarding claim 15, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 11 above, and further discloses wherein the reference to the set of data associated with the second application comprises a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with a web page that comprises the set of data (Rochelle, ¶0053 – URL).
Regarding claim 16, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 11 above, and further discloses wherein the UI element is a second UI element, and wherein the operations further comprise: determining that the electronic document comprises the reference to the set of data associated with the second application; responsive to determining that the reference is supported by the second application, updating the UI for the first application to include a first UI element; responsive to a user interaction with the first UI element, obtaining, from the second application, data associated with rendering the second UI element associated with the reference to the set of data; and updating the UI for the first application to include the second UI element (Rochelle, Fig. 9C with ¶0053, ¶0059-¶0062 – email application interface at a client contains a link to a spreadsheet document of a networked spreadsheet application. ¶0061 – users can select whether or not the embedding is supported).
Regarding claim 18, Rochelle discloses a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions for a server that, when executed by a set of processing devices, cause the set of processing devices to perform operations comprising: providing a client device with access to an electronic document using a user interface (UI) for a first application, wherein the electronic document includes content and a reference to a set of data associated with a second application (Rochelle, Fig. 9C with ¶0053, ¶0059-¶0062 – email application interface at a client contains a link to a spreadsheet document of a networked spreadsheet application. The email interface also includes content other than the spreadsheet. ¶0031 – processor executing instructions stored in hardware memory);
updating the UI for the first application to include, in the electronic document and with the content,
However, Rochelle appears not to expressly disclose the limitations in strikethrough above. However, in the same field of endeavor, Katahanas discloses third-party content embedding (Katahanas, Abstract with 2:45-60),
upon detecting a first user interaction with a UI element associated with the reference to the set of data, identifying, from a template library, a template associated with the second application, wherein the template identifies one or more fields of a data structure associated with the second application for inclusion in the content of the electronic document (Katahanas, Figs. 4A-4D with 6:15-34 - format designations (templates) for embedded content. The available template format is determined based on the target object. 14:4-40, 15:28-57 – structured data is accessed, attributes (fields) of data entities are retrieved and populated into selected display format. 32:45-33:45 – first name is listed as an attribute for a contact entity and accessed via API call. Fig. 7 with 35:30-36:52 – link table format embeds data retrieved from contacts. The data includes a column of cells within the table format populated from contact data such as phone numbers, email, department, city, country, title, etc);
transmitting a request to a computing system associated with the second application for data from the one or more fields identified by the template, the data comprising a subset of the set of data associated with the second application, updating the UI for the first application to include, in the electronic document and with the content, the subset of the set of data received from the computing system associated with the second application (Katahanas, 32:45-33:45 – first name is listed as an attribute for a contact entity and accessed via API call. Fig. 7 with 35:30-36:52 – link table format embeds data retrieved from contacts. The data includes a column of cells within the table format populated from contact data such as phone numbers, email, department, city, country, title, etc. 18:16-45 – source applications).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the embedded content of Rochelle as modified to include formatting templates based on the teachings of Katahanas. The motivation for doing so would have been to enable the user to customize the embedded view without requiring significant intervention from the user (Katahanas, 15:20-27).
Regarding claim 20, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 18 above, and further discloses determining whether the client device satisfies one or more authorization criteria associated with the second application, where the UI for the first application is updated based on the determination (Katahanas, 9:33-61, 11:33-11:49, 16:55-17:17, 31:15-36 – authentication tokens are required to access the embedded content).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the embedded content of Rochelle to include authentication based on the teachings of Katahanas. The motivation for doing so would have been enable the user to access restricted content (Katahanas, 31:15-36).
Regarding claim 21, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 1 above, and further discloses receiving a request to modify the subset of the set of data associated with the second application based on a second user interaction with the subset of the set of data included in the electronic document; and transmitting an instruction to a computing system associated with the second application to modify the subset of the set of data in accordance with the request (Katahanas, Fig. 8 with 37:46-38:3 – the subset of items is displayed in a menu in the interface. Fig. 4E with 5:60-67, 26:49-64 – multiple items can be selected for embedding. The subset continues to be refined in response to user interaction. See also Figs. 2C-2D with 21:37-22:12).
Regarding claim 22, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 11 above, and further discloses wherein the operations further comprise: receiving a request to modify the subset of the set of data associated with the second application based on a second user interaction with the subset of the set of data included in the electronic document; and transmitting an instruction to a computing system associated with the second application to modify the subset of the set of data in accordance with the request (Katahanas, Fig. 8 with 37:46-38:3 – the subset of items is displayed in a menu in the interface. Fig. 4E with 5:60-67, 26:49-64 – multiple items can be selected for embedding. The subset continues to be refined in response to user interaction. See also Figs. 2C-2D with 21:37-22:12).
Regarding claim 23, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 18 above, and further discloses wherein the operations further comprise: receiving a request to modify the subset of the set of data associated with the second application based on a second user interaction with the subset of the set of data included in the electronic document; and transmitting an instruction to a computing system associated with the second application to modify the subset of the set of data in accordance with the request (Katahanas, Fig. 8 with 37:46-38:3 – the subset of items is displayed in a menu in the interface. Fig. 4E with 5:60-67, 26:49-64 – multiple items can be selected for embedding. The subset continues to be refined in response to user interaction. See also Figs. 2C-2D with 21:37-22:12).
Claim(s) 7 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rochelle in view of Katahanas in further view of Cheesman.
Regarding claim 7, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 6 above. However, Rochelle appears not to expressly disclose detecting an error associated with at least one of the second application, the subset of the set of data associated with the second application, or the second UI element; and responsive to the detection, updating the UI to replace the second UI element with the first UI element.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Cheesman discloses synchronized collaborative document editing interfaces (Cheesman, Abstract), including
detecting an error associated with at least one of the second application, the at least the portion of the set of data associated with the second application, or the second UI element; and responsive to the detection, updating the UI to replace the second UI element with the first UI element (Cheesman, ¶0105, ¶0122 – when errors are detected in the updated version, the document is rolled back to a previous version).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the document interface of Rochelle to include rolling back to previous versions in response to errors based on the teachings of Cheesman. The motivation for doing so would have been to continue to enable the user to interact with the content by providing a working version when a new version is broken.
Regarding claim 17, Rochelle as modified discloses the elements of claim 11 above. However, Rochelle appears not to expressly disclose wherein the operations further comprise: detecting an error associated with at least one of the second application, the subset of the set of data associated with the second application, or the second UI element; and responsive to the detection, updating the UI to replace the second UI element with the first UI element.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Cheesman discloses synchronized collaborative document editing interfaces (Cheesman, Abstract), including
detecting an error associated with at least one of the second application, the at least the portion of the set of data associated with the second application, or the second UI element; and responsive to the detection, updating the UI to replace the second UI element with the first UI element (Cheesman, ¶0105, ¶0122 – when errors are detected in the updated version, the document is rolled back to a previous version).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the document interface of Rochelle to include rolling back to previous versions in response to errors based on the teachings of Cheesman. The motivation for doing so would have been to continue to enable the user to interact with the content by providing a working version when a new version is broken.
Conclusion
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 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 DANIEL W PARCHER whose telephone number is (303)297-4281. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm, Mountain Time.
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, William Bashore can be reached at (571)272-4088 (Eastern Time). 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.
/DANIEL W PARCHER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2174
