DETAILED ACTION
1. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The IDS filed 6/26/2024 and 11/10/2025 are considered.
Specification
Applicant is reminded of the proper content of an abstract of the disclosure.
A patent abstract is a concise statement of the technical disclosure of the patent and should include that which is new in the art to which the invention pertains. The abstract should not refer to purported merits or speculative applications of the invention and should not compare the invention with the prior art.
If the patent is of a basic nature, the entire technical disclosure may be new in the art, and the abstract should be directed to the entire disclosure. If the patent is in the nature of an improvement in an old apparatus, process, product, or composition, the abstract should include the technical disclosure of the improvement. The abstract should also mention by way of example any preferred modifications or alternatives.
Where applicable, the abstract should include the following: (1) if a machine or apparatus, its organization and operation; (2) if an article, its method of making; (3) if a chemical compound, its identity and use; (4) if a mixture, its ingredients; (5) if a process, the steps.
Extensive mechanical and design details of an apparatus should not be included in the abstract. The abstract should be in narrative form and generally limited to a single paragraph within the range of 50 to 150 words in length.
See MPEP § 608.01(b) for guidelines for the preparation of patent abstracts.
4. The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it is not directed towards the entire disclosure. The abstract is merely a copy of claim 1 and fails to address the entire disclosure including the invention claimed in claims 11 and claim 20. A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
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.
5. Claims 1-10 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) “acquiring, in response to an editing operation triggered for the online spreadsheet, an editing area corresponding to the editing operation, wherein the editing area comprises a plurality of cells; acquiring editing data corresponding to the plurality of cells, wherein the editing data comprises attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells; obtaining a message body according to the editing data; and sending the message body”, which is considered to fall within the abstract idea grouping of certain methods of organizing human activity. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements, “a server”, “a processor”, “a memory”, and “execute instructions stored in the memory, enabling the device to implement the method” merely generally link the abstract idea to a particular technology field and/or simply implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, as discussed above, the additional elements merely generally link the abstract idea to a particular technology field and/or simply implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. The dependent claims 2-10 and 20 recite the abstract idea as identified above. These claims are not found to include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
6. Claims 11-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) “receiving a message body, wherein the message body is obtained based on editing data corresponding to a plurality of cells in the online spreadsheet, and the editing data comprises attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells; acquiring the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells according to the message body; and updating the online spreadsheet according to the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells”, which is considered to fall within the abstract idea grouping of certain methods of organizing human activity. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The dependent claims 12-19 recite the abstract idea as identified above. These claims are not found to include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
7. Claim(s) 1, 2, 11, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Simon et al. (US 2016/0162461 A1).
In regard to claim 1, Simon discloses a method for processing an online spreadsheet, comprising:
acquiring, in response to an editing operation triggered for the online spreadsheet, an editing area corresponding to the editing operation, wherein the editing area comprises a plurality of cells (Fig. 3A, Paragraph 0025, and Paragraph 0041: editing operation (e.g. copying) for a plurality of cells in a cloud-based collaborative spreadsheet are acquired);
acquiring editing data corresponding to the plurality of cells, wherein the editing data comprises attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells (Paragraph 0041: the editing data (e.g. copied cells) is acquired, which includes the cells copied);
obtaining a message body according to the editing data; and sending the message body to a server (Paragraph 0045: message corresponding to the editing operation with the editing data is obtained and sent to a server).
In regard to claim 2, Simon discloses wherein the acquiring editing data corresponding to the plurality of cells comprises: traversing each cell in the editing area to obtain the editing data (Paragraph 0041: the data from each of cells B1 and B2 is copied to cells C1 and C2 and therefore requires traversing each of cells B1 and B2 to obtain the current data in those cells in order to copy the data to cells C1 and C2).
In regard to claim 11, Simon discloses a method for processing an online spreadsheet, comprising:
receiving a message body, wherein the message body is obtained based on editing data corresponding to a plurality of cells in the online spreadsheet, and the editing data comprises attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells (Paragraph 0025, Paragraph 0041, and Paragraph 0045: message corresponding to editing operation performed in a cloud-based collaborative spreadsheet with respect to a plurality of cells is received at a server, where the message incudes editing data (e.g. copied cells));
acquiring the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells according to the message body (Paragraph 0045 and Paragraph 0052: the message is used be the server to acquire the editing data (e.g. copied cells)) ;
and updating the online spreadsheet according to the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells (Fig. 3D and Paragraph 0053: the document at the server (e.g. 345c) is updated to reflect editing data received in the message).
In regard to claim 20, Simon discloses a device, comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the processor is configured to execute instructions stored in the memory, enabling the device to implement the method according to claim 1 (The rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein in its entirety. Further, Paragraphs 0092-0099 describe a computing device including a processor, memory, and program code stored in the memory for performing the described processes).
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.
8. Claim(s) 3-6, 12-14, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Simon et al. (US 2016/0162461 A1) and further in view of Cuomo et al. (US 2015/0378980 A1).
In regard to claim 3, while Simon teaches acquiring editing data corresponding to the plurality of cells, wherein the editing data comprises attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells and obtaining a message body according to the editing data, they fail to show the obtaining a target array corresponding to each cell according to the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells, wherein the plurality of cells comprises a first cell, a target array corresponding to the first cell comprises at least one element, each element of the at least one element corresponds to one cell attribute, and a value of each element is used to indicate an attribute value of a cell attribute corresponding to the each element; and obtaining a message body comprising the target array corresponding to each cell, according to the target array corresponding to each cell, as recited in the claims. Cuomo teaches a message for modifying a spreadsheet similar to that of Simon. In addition, Cuomo further teaches
obtaining a target array corresponding to each cell according to attribute values respectively for each cell of a plurality of cells, wherein the plurality of cells comprises a first cell, a target array corresponding to the first cell comprises at least one element, each element of the at least one element corresponds to one cell attribute, and a value of each element is used to indicate an attribute value of a cell attribute corresponding to the each element; and obtaining a message body comprising the target array corresponding to each cell, according to the target array corresponding to each cell (Fig. 4, Paragraph 0004 lines 7-19, Paragraph 0032, Paragraph 0033, Paragraph 0041, and Paragraph 0042: message with target array corresponding to a plurality of cells indicating cell attributes with values).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Simon and Cuomo before him before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the acquiring editing data corresponding to the plurality of cells, wherein the editing data comprises attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells and obtaining a message body according to the editing data taught by Simon to include the obtaining a target array corresponding to each cell according to attribute values respectively for each cell of a plurality of cells, wherein the plurality of cells comprises a first cell, a target array corresponding to the first cell comprises at least one element, each element of the at least one element corresponds to one cell attribute, and a value of each element is used to indicate an attribute value of a cell attribute corresponding to the each element; and obtaining a message body comprising the target array corresponding to each cell, according to the target array corresponding to each cell of Cuomo, in order to obtain wherein the obtaining the message body according to the editing data comprises: obtaining a target array corresponding to each cell according to the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells, wherein the plurality of cells comprises a first cell, a target array corresponding to the first cell comprises at least one element, each element of the at least one element corresponds to one cell attribute, and a value of each element is used to indicate an attribute value of a cell attribute corresponding to the each element; and obtaining a message body comprising the target array corresponding to each cell, according to the target array corresponding to each cell. It would have been obvious for one to utilize such a combination as providing a message that is a self-contained, structured data message conforming to a REST architecture, as suggested by Cuomo (Paragraph 0031 lines 1-3).
In regard to claim 4, Cuomo further discloses wherein the target array corresponding to the first cell comprises a first element, a cell attribute corresponding to the first element is a value of a cell, and a value of the first element is a value of the cell (Paragraph 0004 lines 16-19, Paragraph 0033, and Paragraph 0041: target array and data corresponding to values of the cells).
In regard to claim 5, Cuomo further discloses wherein the target array corresponding to the first cell comprises a second element, a cell attribute corresponding to the second element is a first attribute, the first attribute is not a value of the cell, and a value of the second element is an identifier of an attribute value of the first attribute (Paragraph 0004 lines 16-19, Paragraph 0033, and Paragraph 0041: identifier of cell).
In regard to claim 6, Cuomo further discloses wherein the obtaining a target array corresponding to each cell according to the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells, comprises: acquiring the attribute value of the first attribute corresponding to the first cell; obtaining the identifier according to the attribute value of the first attribute; and obtaining the target array corresponding to the first cell according to the identifier (Paragraph 0004 lines 16-19, Paragraph 0032, Paragraph 0033, and Paragraph 0041: column and row indices corresponding to cell is obtained and used to provide an identifier of the cell).
In regard to claim 12, while Simon teaches receiving a message body, wherein the message body is obtained based on editing data corresponding to a plurality of cells in the online spreadsheet, and the editing data comprises attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells, they fail to show the wherein the message body comprises a target array corresponding to each cell, the target array corresponding to each cell is obtained according to the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells, the plurality of cells comprises a first cell, a target array corresponding to the first cell comprises at least one element, each element of the at least one element corresponds to one cell attribute, and a value of each element is used to indicate an attribute value of a cell attribute corresponding to the each element, as recited in the claims. Cuomo teaches a message for modifying a spreadsheet similar to that of Simon. In addition, Cuomo further teaches
a message body comprises a target array corresponding to each cell, the target array corresponding to each cell is obtained according to the attribute values respectively for each cell of a plurality of cells, the plurality of cells comprises a first cell, a target array corresponding to the first cell comprises at least one element, each element of the at least one element corresponds to one cell attribute, and a value of each element is used to indicate an attribute value of a cell attribute corresponding to the each element (Fig. 4, Paragraph 0004 lines 7-19, Paragraph 0032, Paragraph 0033, Paragraph 0041, and Paragraph 0042: message with target array corresponding to a plurality of cells indicating cell attributes with values).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Simon and Cuomo before him before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the acquiring editing data corresponding to the plurality of cells, wherein the editing data comprises attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells and obtaining a message body according to the editing data taught by Simon to include the a message body comprises a target array corresponding to each cell, the target array corresponding to each cell is obtained according to the attribute values respectively for each cell of a plurality of cells, the plurality of cells comprises a first cell, a target array corresponding to the first cell comprises at least one element, each element of the at least one element corresponds to one cell attribute, and a value of each element is used to indicate an attribute value of a cell attribute corresponding to the each element of Cuomo, in order to obtain wherein the message body comprises a target array corresponding to each cell, the target array corresponding to each cell is obtained according to the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells, the plurality of cells comprises a first cell, a target array corresponding to the first cell comprises at least one element, each element of the at least one element corresponds to one cell attribute, and a value of each element is used to indicate an attribute value of a cell attribute corresponding to the each element. It would have been obvious for one to utilize such a combination as providing a message that is a self-contained, structured data message conforming to a REST architecture, as suggested by Cuomo (Paragraph 0031 lines 1-3).
In regard to claim 13, Cuomo further discloses wherein the target array corresponding to the first cell comprises a first element, a cell attribute corresponding to the first element is a value of a cell, and a value of the first element is a value of the cell (Paragraph 0004 lines 16-19, Paragraph 0033, and Paragraph 0041: target array and data corresponding to values of the cells).
In regard to claim 14, Cuomo further discloses wherein the target array corresponding to the first cell comprises a second element, a cell attribute corresponding to the second element is a first attribute, the first attribute is not a value of the cell, and a value of the second element is an identifier of an attribute value of the first attribute (Paragraph 0004 lines 16-19, Paragraph 0033, and Paragraph 0041: identifier of cell).
In regard to claim 17, Cuomo further discloses wherein a value of a last element of the target array is not null, and a length of the target array is less than a preset length (Fig. 4 and Paragraph 0041: the last element is not null and is less than the width and height).
Claims NOT Rejected Over the Prior Art
9. Claims 7-10, 15, 16, 18, and 19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim. Claims 7-10, 15, 16, 18 and 19 recite subject matter that is not disclosed by the prior art of record. However, these claims stand rejected over 35 U.S.C. 101 and therefore would NOT be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims unless/until the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections are overcome.
In regard to claims 7 and 8, the prior art of record, alone or in combination, fails to teach the recited “wherein the obtaining the identifier according to the attribute value of the first attribute comprises: querying an attribute manager corresponding to the first attribute using the attribute value of the first attribute; in response to the attribute manager comprising a corresponding relationship between the attribute value and the identifier corresponding to the attribute value, acquiring the identifier from the attribute manager; and in response to the attribute manager not comprising the attribute value, generating the identifier, and storing the corresponding relationship between the attribute value and the identifier in the attribute manager” in combination with the other elements recited.
In regard to claims 9 and 10, the prior art of record, alone or in combination, fails to teach the recited “wherein the obtaining a target array corresponding to each cell according to the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells, comprises: obtaining an initial array corresponding to each cell according to the attribute values respectively edited for each cell of the plurality of cells; and in response to values from an nth element to a last element in the initial array being all null, deleting the nth element to the last element in the initial array to obtain the target array” in combination with the other elements recited.
In regard to claims 15 and 16, the prior art of record, alone or in combination, fails to teach the recited “receiving an attribute manager corresponding to the first attribute, wherein the attribute manager corresponding to the first attribute comprises a corresponding relationship between the attribute value of the first attribute and the identifier” in combination with the other elements recited.
In regard to claims 18 and 19, the prior art of record, alone or in combination, fails to teach the recited “wherein the target array corresponding to the first cell comprises a third element, a value of the third element is used to determine an operation type of a target cell attribute, the target cell attribute is a cell attribute corresponding to an element whose element value is null in the target array corresponding to the first cell, and the operation type comprises: not modifying the target cell attribute, or modifying an attribute value of the target cell attribute to be null” in combination with the other elements recited.
Conclusion
10. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Hariri et al. (US 2022/0050961 A1), see at least Paragraph 0078.
Danziger et al. (US 2015/0199328 A1), see at least Fig. 4, Fig. 8 and Paragraph 0029.
Chitilian et al. (US 8812625 B1), see at least the abstract.
Chapweske et al. (US 8516050 B1) see at least the abstract.
Triantos et al. (US 2013/0124649 A1), see at least the abstract.
Bhansali et al. (US 6006239), see at least the abstract and Figs. 6a-6b.
Fraser (Differential Synchronization, ACM, 2009), see whole document.
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICHOLAS S ULRICH whose telephone number is (571)270-1397. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4.
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, Fred Ehichioya can be reached at (571)272-4034. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
12. 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.
/Nicholas Ulrich/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2179