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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1, 16 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Lema et al. [US20160030848], hereinafter Lema.
Regarding claim 1, Lema discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program causing a computer to execute:
processing for enabling a special item in which an element for use in first game content can be stocked and that is usable as an item for second game content ([0085], “FIG. 9 shows that a player may purchase a physical toy carrying case 188 with related non-NFC toys, which is available at a market price and redeemable at a carrying case currency rate 190 of 100 currency points earned within the game per dollar. Also, a player may purchase a physical top 192, which is available at a market price and redeemable at a physical top currency rate 194 of one gem and one “digital unlock” earned within the game per dollar” and [0020], “The network-based gaming system management program may further have an account management tool that allows network users to open an account so the electronic device from one gaming system may recognize the physical game piece of a different gaming system”); and
processing for stocking the element in the special item in the case where a prescribed condition is satisfied ([0081], “In this specific example, the player may earn currency from play in the real world and from play in the virtual world, and the real world play representation 152 and the virtual world representation 154 are compared. FIG. 7B shows the amount of currency that may be earned during a specific amount of playtime in both in the real world and in the virtual world. Here, the real world earning rate 156 is faster that the virtual world earning rate 158, and the player will earn more currency three times faster from real world play. The ratio of these earning rates may be adjusted”).
Regarding claims 16 and 17, please refer to the claim rejection of claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-15 are 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.
The closest reference(s) appears to be AONUMA [US20150151202]. AONUMA teaches an upper limit value of possession by the player as appeared in claims 2-15 ([0008], “Generally, there may be settings that when the number of pieces of a virtual item in possession exceeds the upper limit number, no other new piece of the virtual item can be obtained, or the pieces of the virtual item already in possession are automatically removed from the oldest piece”). Nonetheless, a thorough search of the prior art fails to disclose any reference or references, which, taken alone or in combination, teach or suggest, in combination with the other limitations:
“the special item is a stock item that can be installed in the game space, the element is an asset of a player, and in the processing for stocking, in the case where the special item has been enabled and the asset has reached an upper limit value of possession by the player, the asset is automatically stocked in the stock item irrespective of whether or not the stock item has been installed in the game space” (claim 2).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YINGCHUAN ZHANG whose telephone number is (571)272-1375. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 - 4:30 M-F.
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/YINGCHUAN ZHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715