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
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Fitzpatrick (How to Enable a Guest Access Point on Your Wireless Network).
In claim 1, Fitzpatrick discloses
Configuring each of a plurality of Wi-Fi networks to broadcast a primary SSID and at lest one secondary SSID (the entirety of the document shows exactly how to configure the Wi-Fi network to broadcast a primary SSID and a secondary SSID. With respect to “a plurality of Wi-Fi networks”, any people with these devices can configure their Wi-Fi networks in this manner, and multiple configurations would read on the invention as claimed, however specifically, Mr Fitzpatrick is configuring his own Wi-Fi network within the document, along with describing the reader configuring their own Wi-Fi network, making a plurality)
Designating the primary SSID for use by a network owner and the at least one secondary SSID for broadcasting game data (page 14 shows HTG_Guest as the secondary SSID and HTG_Office as the primary SSID. Page 2 states “You may have just wanted to let them […] play a game online”, thus the secondary SSID is to allow for your friend to play a game online, which would mean that the SSID would be for broadcasting game data)
Establishing a gaming application on a user device to detect the at least one secondary SSID associated with the game data, establishing a connection between the user device and a secondary Wi-Fi network associated with the at least one secondary SSID, broadcasting the game data over the secondary Wi-Fi network associated with the at least one secondary ID, registering an acquisition of the game data within the gaming application upon the connection to the secondary Wi-Fi network (page 2. All of these limitations amount to the game on the user device connecting to the internet, and using the internet to download data for play of the game via the secondary SSID. Specifically with respect to “a gaming application on a user device to detect the at least one secondary SSID associated with the game data”, this is taught by simply being connected to the internet via the secondary SSID. As playing a game online via the secondary SSID is taught, this teaches the limitation as claimed)
In claim 10, Fitzpatrick discloses designating the primary SSID for private use by the network owner (pages 21-26 describe the secondary network not having access to all of the resources of the primary network so that guests cannot access all of the network, leaving the primary SSID and primary network accessible for only the network owner)
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) 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, and 15-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fitzpatrick in view of Krishna (US 11687530)
In claims 11 and 20, Fitzpatrick discloses
A plurality of Wi-Fi networks to broadcast a primary SSID and at least one secondary SSID (the entirety of the document shows exactly how to configure the Wi-Fi network to broadcast a primary SSID and a secondary SSID. With respect to “a plurality of Wi-Fi networks”, any people with these devices can configure their Wi-Fi networks in this manner, and multiple configurations would read on the invention as claimed, however specifically, Mr Fitzpatrick is configuring his own Wi-Fi network within the document, along with describing the reader configuring their own Wi-Fi network, making a plurality)
A gaming application on a user device programmed to detect the secondary SSID associated with a game (page 2. All of these limitations amount to the game on the user device connecting to the internet, and using the internet to download data for play of the game via the secondary SSID. Specifically with respect to “a gaming application on a user device to detect the at least one secondary SSID associated with the game data”, this is taught by simply being connected to the internet via the secondary SSID. As playing a game online via the secondary SSID is taught, this teaches the limitation as claimed)
Fitzpatrick fails to disclose a central server and/or cloud service configured to synchronize game progress and manage game data, as well as geolocation tracking software configured to track a location of the user device during the game, however Krishna discloses a central server and/or cloud service configured to synchronize game progress and manage game data (figure 1 shows the various game modules connecting to a client via a network, figure 5 shows providing game data to the user based on geolocations), geolocation tracking software configured to track a location of the user device during the game (column 13 lines 7-36, column 4 lines 57-67, column 5 lines 1-12), Fitzpatrick further fails to explicitly disclose wherein the game requires that the user device to be transported from one location to another to detect the secondary SSID as part of the game. Particularly, the Wi-Fi network of Fitzpatrick would require the device to be within a particular range in order for the device to connect to the Wi-Fi network, however technically, although the user is a guest, the art does not explicitly state that the user device is transported from one location to another, nor does it disclose that this transportation would be part of the game, however Krishna further discloses a game wherein a user device is transported from one location to another as part of the game (column 8 lines 37-58). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Fitzpatrick with Krishna in order to allow for the guest to play the particular game disclosed in Krishna to be used on the configuration taught in Fitzpatrick
In claim 2, Fitzpatrick fails to discloses communicating with a central server and/or cloud service to synchronize game progress and/or manage game logic, however Krishna discloses communicating with a central server and/or cloud service to synchronize game progress and/or manage game logic (figure 1 shows the various game modules connecting to a client via a network, figure 5 shows providing game data to the user based on geolocations) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Fitzpatrick with Krishna in order to allow for the guest to play the particular game disclosed in Krishna to be used on the configuration taught in Fitzpatrick
In claim 3, Krishna discloses receiving geolocation data from the user device and using the geolocation data to provide geolocation based games (column 13 lines 7-36, column 4 lines 57-67, column 5 lines 1-12)
In claim 8, Krishna discloses pushing notifications and hints to user devices to assist players in locating and interacting with the game data (column 3 lines 16-67, column 4 lines 1-10, providing a map teaches the BRI of notifications and hits that assist players in location and interacting with the game data, as the map would show the location of everything on the map)
In claims 9 and 12, Krishna discloses the game includes virtual items and/or objectives (column 2 lines 56-67, column 8 lines 1-2 discloses virtual objects, which teach the BRI of virtual items)
In claim 15, Krishna discloses providing a platform for users to create configure and share custom games and/or custom game data (the invention of Krishna creates, configures, and shares tons of custom game data, pretty much any data provided to the server is custom game data, most clearly figure 5 shows receipt of a request indicating a geolocation which is custom game data which includes the custom geolocation of the user)
In claim 16, Fitzpatrick in view of Krishna discloses the claimed invention except for updating a centralized leaderboard with player achievements and rankings based on in game progress, however Official notice is taken that leaderboards and player achievements and rankings based on in game progress was notoriously well known in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Fitzpatrick in view of Krishan with this well known technique in order to allow for the guest of Fitzpatrick to use the configuration to play a wide variety of games with known features, as well as for Krishna to include a leaderboard to increase competitiveness in the game.
In claim 17, Krishna discloses the game includes collecting items by moving the user device to within range of the secondary SSID (column 5 lines 49-64 discloses collection of virtual items), Fitzpatrick in view of Krishna fails to disclose that the items are nuggets, however Official notice is taken that any sort of item, including nuggets are known to be included within a virtual world, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Fitzpatrick and Krishna with this well known technique in order to allow for the items to include any sort of item deemed appropriate by the operator to improve the game world experience.
In claim 18, Krishna discloses the game includes collecting clues by moving the user device to within range of the secondary SSID (column 5 lines 49-64, virtual items which accomplish objectives teaches the BRI of clues)
In claim 19, Krishna discloses the game includes generating a pattern for a user to follow by moving the user device to within range of the secondary SSID (column 10 lines 49-58 discloses an event being at a specific location)
Claim(s) 4 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fitzpatrick in view of Socaciu (US 20150230109)
In claim 4, Fitzpatrick discloses the claimed invention except collecting signal strength data from Wi-Fi networks to determine an effective broadcast range of game data, however Socaciu discloses collecting signal strength data from Wi-Fi networks to determine an effective broadcast range of game data (paragraph 46) and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Fitzpatrick with Socaciu in order to allow for the operator to be aware of the range in which the Wi-Fi can be used.
In claim 5, Socaciu discloses generating a virtual map overlay indicating locations of available game data based on the collected signal strength data (paragraph 46)
Claim(s) 6 and 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fitzpatrick
In claim 6, Fitzpatrick discloses the claimed invention except for providing a platform for users to create configure and share user games and/or game data with other players, however Official notice is taken that games which allow users to create configure and share user games and/or game data with other players was notoriously well known in the art, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Fitzpatrick with this well known technique in order to allow for the guest of Fitzpatrick to use the configuration to play a wide variety of games with known features
In claim 7, Fitzpatrick discloses the claimed invention except for updating a centralized leaderboard with player achievements and rankings based on in game progress, however Official notice is taken that leaderboards and player achievements and rankings based on in game progress was notoriously well known in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Fitzpatrick with this well known technique in order to allow for the guest of Fitzpatrick to use the configuration to play a wide variety of games with known features
Claim(s) 13 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fitzpatrick in view of Krisha in view of Socaciu.
In claim 13, Fitzpatrick in view of Krishna discloses the claimed invention except collecting signal strength data from Wi-Fi networks to determine an effective broadcast range of game data, however Socaciu discloses collecting signal strength data from Wi-Fi networks to determine an effective broadcast range of game data (paragraph 46) and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine Fitzpatrick in view of Krishna with Socaciu in order to allow for the operator to be aware of the range in which the Wi-Fi can be used.
In claim 14, Socaciu discloses generating a virtual map overlay indicating locations of available game data based on the collected signal strength data (paragraph 46)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THOMAS HAYNES HENRY whose telephone number is (571)270-3905. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10-6.
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/THOMAS H HENRY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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