DETAILED ACTION
This Action is in response to Applicant’s amendment filed on 09/11/25.
Claims 21, 28 and 35 have been amended.
Claims 1-20 have been previously cancelled.
Claims 21-40 are pending.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 103 rejection of claims 21, 28 and 35 (see applicant’s remarks; pages 8-10) have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
In particular, the examiner no longer relies on Ebling and has introduced Bargeron to disclose the limitation “automatically adjusting, by the server of the online collaboration platform, the amount of information to be displayed in the notification based on resource availability of the network”, as shown in the rejection below.
The applicant states similar arguments for claims 22-25, 29-32 and 36-39 in view of their dependency upon claims 21, 28 and 35 (see applicant’s remarks; page 10). As such, the same rationale discussed above applies equally as well to claims 22-25, 29-32 and 36-39.
Claim Interpretation
Regarding claims 23-25, 30-32 and 37-39 the claims recite alternative language, i.e. using the term “or”, and as such, the Examiner interprets certain features to not be required due to the claim language listing the features in the alternative. The rejection below specifies the particular limitations.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a), the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned at the time any inventions covered therein were made absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and invention dates of each claim that was not commonly owned at the time a later invention was made in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(c) and potential pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(e), (f) or (g) prior art under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a).
Claims 21, 26-28, 33-35 and 40 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Roger et al. (U.S. 2009/0132651 A1) in view of Ozzie et al. (U.S. 2008/0320025 A1) and Obasanjo et al. (U.S. 2011/0225170 A1), and further in view of Bargeron et al. (U.S. 2004/0003352 A1).
Regarding claims 21, 28 and 35, Roger discloses a method for notifying recipient collaborators of activities occurring in an online collaboration platform (see Roger; paragraph 0045 and Abstract), the method comprising:
selecting, by a server of the online collaboration platform, a recipient collaborator (specialist) for notification of an activity occurring on an item (collaboration page) in a workspace (business project) of the online collaboration platform (see Roger; paragraph 0043; Roger discloses assigning a specialist, i.e. “collaborator”, who is notified when a particular instance of sensitive information/words gets posted on a collaboration page, i.e. “item”, associated with a business project, i.e. “workspace”);
sending, by the server of the online collaboration platform, the notification of the activity to the recipient collaborator (specialist) (see Roger; paragraph 0044; Roger discloses a message is sent to the identified specialist, the message includes the identity of instance of sensitive information).
While Rogers discloses sending the notification of the activity to the recipient (see Rogers; paragraph 0044), Rogers does not explicitly teach presenting, by the server of the online collaboration platform, the notification via a user interface of the online collaboration platform to a device of the recipient collaborator over the network, wherein the presenting includes: determining a relevancy of each notification of the plurality of notifications based on activity of the user in the workspace, selecting two or more notifications from the plurality of notifications whose relevancy exceeds a specified threshold to generate selected notifications, and determining the order of the selected two or more notifications based on the relevancy of each of the selected two or more notifications.
In analogous art, Ozzie discloses presenting, by the server of the online collaboration platform, the notification via a user interface (notification pane) of the online collaboration platform to a device of recipient collaborator over a network (see Ozzie; paragraphs 0026, 0028, 0042, 0047 and 0048 and Figure 3; Ozzie discloses determining the level of relevancy of an event/activity and providing a master list in a notification pane, i.e. “user interface”, where the most/very relevant event/activity appears and somewhat relevant event/activity may be added. In other words, the most/very relevant event/activity is first on the list and the somewhat relevant event/activity is added and displayed next. Preferences such as other users and type of activity may be used as part of determining the relevancy of the activity/event), wherein the presenting includes:
determining a relevancy of each notification of the plurality of notifications based on activity of the user in the workspace (see Ozzie; paragraphs 0026 and 0042; Ozzie discloses determining if a particular action or change event, i.e. “activity”, is relevant or not relevant. For example, a particular action or change might be determined to be "very relevant”, another action or change might be determined to be "somewhat relevant”, and yet another action or change might be determined to be "not relevant". Such varying levels of relevance may then be used in a variety of ways, including as part of determining how a user might be notified, i.e. “notification”, of relevant actions, events, or changes through one or more user interfaces),
selecting two or more notifications from the plurality of notifications whose relevancy exceeds a specified threshold to generate selected notifications (see Ozzie; paragraphs 0026 and 0042; Ozzie discloses determining the level of relevancy for an event/activity to be displayed in the notification pane, such as, most relevant, somewhat relevant and less relevant, in which, the most and somewhat relevant notifications, i.e. “two or more notifications”, are selected and displayed and the less relevant may not be displayed. For example, the amount, i.e. “specified threshold”, of attention the user has paid previously to an activity determines the relevancy, i.e. if the user paid less attention, then the notification is less relevant and if the user paid more attention, then the notification is more relevant).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roger and Ozzie because they both disclose features of collaborative group reviewing, and as such are within the same environment.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made, to incorporate the feature of notifying relevant activities to a user as taught by Ozzie into the system of Roger in order to provide the benefit of efficiency by allowing the system to only notify the user of activities/events that are relevant to the user instead of being made aware of all activities/events.
While Ozzie discloses “selecting two or more notifications from the plurality of notifications whose relevancy exceeds a specified threshold to generate selected notifications”, as discussed above, the combination of Roger and Ozzie does not explicitly disclose determining a presentation order of the selected two or more notifications based on the relevancy of each of the selected two or more notifications.
In analogous art, Obasanjo discloses determining a presentation order of the selected two or more notifications based on the relevancy of each of the selected two or more notifications (see Obasanjo; Abstract and paragraphs 0035-0037; Obasanjo discloses notifying a user about updates, e.g. activity items, i.e. “notifications”. In particular, a relationship between the user and an item is determined, such as, interest of the user in the subject of the item and the amount of interaction the user has had with the subject. A relevance score is calculated for each activity item, i.e. “selected two or more notifications”. Based on the relevance scores, a presentation order for each activity item is determined, i.e. “a presentation order of the selected two or more notifications…”).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roger, Ozzie and Obasanjo because they all disclose features of identifying activity on an item, and as such are within the same environment.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made, to incorporate the feature of notifying relevant activities to a user as taught by Obasanjo into the combined system of Roger and Ozzie in order to provide the benefit of efficiency by allowing the system to present the notifications in a specific order, such as, ascending or descending relevance scores (see Obasanjo; paragraph 0037).
While Roger discloses an “online collaboration platform” (see Roger; Abstract and paragraph 0043), Ozzie discloses “presenting…the notification via a user interface”, and Obasanjo discloses “determining a presentation order of the selected two or more notifications based on the relevancy…”, as discussed above, the combination of Roger, Ozzie and Obasanjo does not explicitly disclose automatically adjusting, by the server of the online collaboration platform, the amount of information to be displayed in the notification based on device characteristics of the device of the recipient collaborator or resource availability of the network.
In analogous art, Bargeron discloses automatically adjusting, by the server of the online collaboration platform, the amount of information to be displayed in the notification based on resource availability of the network (see Bargeron; paragraphs 0029, 0065 and 0074; Bargeron discloses a user subscribes to document activity at a discussion system. The discussion system, i.e. “…the online collaboration platform”, monitors the subscribed-to documents for activity and sends notifications. Instructions are provided for how to display particular information, as well as what type of viewer is to be used for displaying the information. The viewer automatically detects the available area and dynamically provides whatever information of the notification can fit, i.e. “the amount of information to be displayed”, into the available area of the viewer, i.e. “based on resource availability of the network”, on a priority basis, such as, the most important parts of the information of the notification are displayed first, with less important information being displayed as space permits).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron because they all disclose features of notification delivery, and as such are within the same environment.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made, to incorporate the feature of the dynamic notification delivery as taught by Bargeron into the combined system of Roger, Ozzie and Obasanjo in order to provide the benefit of efficiency by allowing the notifications sent to recipients of the online collaboration system (see Roger; paragraphs 0043 and 0044) to be adjusted based on availability of a resource, i.e. available area of a viewer, and the most important parts of the information being displayed first (see Bargeron; paragraph 0074).
Further, Roger discloses the additional limitations of claim 28, a processor (see Roger; paragraph 0047); and a memory coupled with and readable by the processor and storing therein a set of instructions (see Roger; paragraph 0046).
Further, Roger discloses the additional limitations of claim 35, a non-transitory, computer-readable medium comprising a set of instructions stored therein which, when executed by a processor (see Roger; paragraph 0046).
Regarding claims 26, 33 and 40, Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron disclose all the limitations of claims 21, 28 and 35, as discussed above. Further, the combination Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron clearly discloses wherein the notification is presented via the user interface among other notifications in an order based on a rule that is configurable by the recipient collaborator (see Ozzie; paragraphs 0026, 0042, 0047 and 0048; Ozzie discloses determining the level of relevancy of an event/activity and providing a master list in a notification pane, where the most relevant event/activity appears first. Preferences, i.e. “rule”, such as other users and type of activity may be used as part of determining the relevancy of the activity/event).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron because they all disclose features of notification delivery, and as such are within the same environment.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made, to incorporate the feature of notifying relevant activities to a user as taught by Ozzie into the combined system of Roger Obasanjo and Bargeron in order to provide the benefit of efficiency by allowing the system to only notify the user of activities/events that are relevant based on preferences of the type of notifications to be displayed.
Regarding claims 27 and 34, Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron discloses all the limitations of claims 21 and 28, as discussed above. Further, the combination of Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron clearly discloses wherein the notification is presented via the user interface among other notifications based on a chronological order (see Ozzie; paragraphs 0026, 0042, 0047 and 0048; Ozzie discloses determining the level of relevancy of an event/activity and providing a master list in a notification pane, where the most relevant event/activity appears first, i.e. “chronological order”).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron because they all disclose features of notification delivery, and as such are within the same environment.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made, to incorporate the feature of notifying relevant activities to a user as taught by Ozzie into the combined system of Roger, Obasanjo and Bargeron in order to provide the benefit of efficiency by allowing the system to only notify the user of activities/events that are relevant to the user instead of being made aware of all activities/events.
Claims 22-25, 29-32 and 36-39 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Roger et al. (U.S. 2009/0132651 A1) in view of Ozzie et al. (U.S. 2008/0320025 A1), Obasanjo et al. (U.S. 2011/0225170 A1) and Bargeron et al. (U.S. 2004/0003352 A1), as applied to claims 21, 28 and 35 above, and further in view of Agilewords, Powerful features yet simple (hereinafter Agilewords).
Regarding claims 22, 29 and 36, Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron disclose all the limitations of claims 21, 28 and 35, as discussed above. While Roger discloses workspaces and selecting a recipient collaborator, as discussed above, the combination of Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron does not explicitly disclose wherein the workspace is associated with an enterprise and the criteria specifies that the recipient collaborator that is selected is an employee of the enterprise.
In analogous art, Agilewords discloses wherein the workspace is associated with an enterprise and the criteria specifies that the recipient collaborator that is selected is an employee of the enterprise (see Agilewords; page 2 'Company workspaces’ and ‘Delegate administration’; Agilewords discloses company workspaces and a collaborator that may receive notification may be a team lead associated with a department).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo, Bargeron and Agilewords because they all disclose features of notification delivery, and as such are within the same environment. Further, Agilewords would provide another way to setup different workspaces, such as projects, and control access (see Agilewords; page 2 'Company workspaces').
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made to incorporate the feature of tracking progress in workspaces as taught in Agilewords into the combined system of Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron in order to provide the benefit of improved performance and scalability by specifying notifications according to departments or teams associated with the workspaces.
Regarding claims 23, 30 and 37, Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron disclose all the limitations of claims 21, 28 and 35, as discussed above. While Roger discloses workspaces and selecting a recipient collaborator, as discussed above, the combination of Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron does not explicitly disclose wherein, the criteria is determined based on permissions or roles configured for the workspace and wherein the permissions or roles for the workspace are configured by a creator or administrative user of the workspace.
In analogous art, Agilewords discloses wherein, the criteria is determined based on permissions or roles configured for the workspace and wherein the permissions or roles for the workspace are configured by a creator or administrative user of the workspace (see Agilewords; pages 1 and 2, ‘Role Based Collaboration’ and ‘Delegate administration’; Agilewords discloses roles and permissions associated with the workspace, example for different projects. Further, giving different roles associated with documents in the different projects. As such, the person who gives the different roles is interpreted as an administrator giving the different roles and/or delegating control. Further, although not relied upon, Roger also discloses an administrator that is responsible for all collaboration pages assigns users as specialists; see Roger; paragraph 0043; administrator configures the role by assigning the specialists) (The claim list features in the alternative. While the claim lists a number of optional limitations only one limitation from the list is required and needs to be met by the prior art. The Examiner has chosen both alternatives).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo, Bargeron and Agilewords because they all disclose features of notification delivery, and as such are within the same environment. Further, Agilewords would provide another way to setup different workspaces, such as projects, and control access (see Agilewords; page 2 'Company workspaces').
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made to incorporate the feature of tracking progress in workspaces as taught in Agilewords into the combined system of Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron in order to provide the benefit of improved performance and scalability by specifying notifications according to departments or teams associated with the workspaces.
Regarding claims 24, 31 and 38, Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron disclose all the limitations of claims 21, 28 and 35, as discussed above. While Roger discloses workspaces and selecting a recipient collaborator, as discussed above, the combination of Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron does not explicitly disclose wherein the criteria is determined based on permissions or roles associated with the item on which the activity occurred, wherein the permissions or roles associated with the item are set by, a creator of the item or an administrative user of the workspace and wherein the workspace includes multiple items each having individually configurable permissions or roles.
In analogous art, Agilewords discloses wherein the criteria is determined based on permissions or roles associated with the item (document) on which the activity occurred (see Agilewords; pages 1 and 2 ‘Role Based Collaboration’ and ‘Delegate administration’; Agilewords discloses roles associated with documents for different projects), wherein the permissions or roles associated with the item (document) are set by, a creator of the item or an administrative user of the workspace and wherein the workspace includes multiple items each having individually configurable permissions or roles (see Agilewords; pages 1 and 2, ‘Role Based Collaboration’; Agilewords discloses giving different roles associated with documents in the different projects. As such, the person who gives the different roles is interpreted as an administrator giving the different roles and/or delegating control. Further, although not relied upon, Roger also discloses an administrator that is responsible for all collaboration pages assigns users as specialists; see Roger; paragraph 0043; administrator sets the role by assigning the specialists) (The claim list features in the alternative. While the claim lists a number of optional limitations only one limitation from the list is required and needs to be met by the prior art. The Examiner has chosen the role and administrator alternatives).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo, Bargeron and Agilewords because they all disclose features of notification delivery, and as such are within the same environment. Further, Agilewords would provide another way to setup different workspaces, such as projects, and control access (see Agilewords; page 2 'Company workspaces').
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made to incorporate the feature of tracking progress in workspaces as taught in Agilewords into the combined system of Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron in order to provide the benefit of improved performance and scalability by specifying notifications according to departments or teams associated with the workspaces.
Regarding claims 25, 32 and 39, Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron disclose all the limitations of claims 21, 28 and 35, as discussed above. While Roger discloses workspaces and selecting a recipient collaborator, as discussed above, the combination of Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron does not explicitly disclose wherein the notification is presented via the user interface to the recipient collaborator when the recipient collaborator accesses one or more of the workspace or a different workspace.
In analogous art, Agilewords discloses wherein the notification is presented via the user interface to the recipient collaborator when the recipient collaborator accesses one or more of the workspace or a different workspace (see Agilewords; pages 1 and 2, ‘Smart Notifications’ and ‘Activity feed’; Agilewords discloses receiving notifications together with the content they are associated with, therefore if the content is accessed the workspace is accessed. Further, notifications are shown, for example, of who just changed the document) (The claim list features in the alternative. While the claim lists a number of optional limitations only one limitation from the list is required and needs to be met by the prior art. The Examiner has chosen the “accesses one or more of the workspace” alternative).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo, Bargeron and Agilewords because they all disclose features of notification delivery, and as such are within the same environment. Further, Agilewords would provide another way to setup different workspaces, such as projects, and control access (see Agilewords; page 2 'Company workspaces').
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made to incorporate the feature of tracking progress in workspaces as taught in Agilewords into the combined system of Roger, Ozzie, Obasanjo and Bargeron in order to provide the benefit of improved performance and scalability by specifying notifications according to the user who accesses the workspace.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Simon et al. (U.S. 2003/0087652 A1) discloses automatically adjust the content and type of information and notifications sent to a user based upon certain behavior.
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 ADAM A COONEY whose telephone number is (571)270-5653. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30am-5:00pm (every other Fri off).
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, Umar Cheema can be reached at 571-270-3037. 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.
/A.A.C/Examiner, Art Unit 2458
11/05/25
/UMAR CHEEMA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2458