DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Notice to Applicant
2. This communication is in response to the communication filed 12/30/2023. Claims 1-11 are currently pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
3.1. Claims 1 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gurciullo et a. (US Gurciullo), in view of Nakatani (US 8479114).
CLAIM 1
Gurciullo teaches a development support system comprising a service-provider-side terminal device and a user-side terminal device that are communicably connected (Gurciullo: abstract),
at least a part of the development support program is described using an extended function language for giving an extended function to an application program with a calculation function installed in the user-side terminal device to cause the user-side terminal device to analyze a flow step of a membrane reactor that simultaneously performs a chemical reaction and membrane separation (Gurciullo: abstract; ¶¶ [0024] “flow rate”, [0032]-[0039] “hydroprocessing reactors” and “separation membranes”, [0048]-[0050], [0105] “user interface”; FIGS. 1-7).
Gurciullo does not appear to explicitly teach the following:
wherein the service-provider-side terminal device determines whether or not a user of the user-side terminal device is a user satisfying a predetermined permission condition in a case where there is a request for use of a predetermined development support program from the user-side terminal device, and makes the development support program available for use to the user when it is determined that the user is the user satisfying the permission condition.
Nakatani, however, teaches the following:
wherein the service-provider-side terminal device determines whether or not a user of the user-side terminal device is a user satisfying a predetermined permission condition in a case where there is a request for use of a predetermined development support program from the user-side terminal device, and makes the development support program available for use to the user when it is determined that the user is the user satisfying the permission condition (Nakatani: abstract; col. 1, ln. 53-col. 2, ln. 38; col. 5, ln. 52-col. 6, ln. 22; FIGS. 1-7); and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to include the method, device and system for imposing use-restriction of a development program, as taught by Nakatani, with the system and method for optimizing refinery hydrogen gas using a membrane reactor, as taught by Gurciullo, with the motivation of managing user permission and restrictions to a program (Nakatani: col. 1, ln. 15-col. 2, ln. 39).
CLAIM 7
Claim 7 repeats substantially the same limitations as those in claim 1. As such, claim 7 is rejected for substantially the same reasons given for claim 1 and are incorporated herein.
Allowable Subject Matter
4. Claims 2-6 and 8-11 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
5. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael Tomaszewski whose telephone number is (313)446-4863. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 5:30 am - 2:30 pm.
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/MICHAEL TOMASZEWSKI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3681
