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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 1/23/2025 was filed before the first office action. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejection Notes
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.
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.
Claim 20 recites a “storage medium” and the specification fails to provide antecedent basis for this limitation. Without antecedent basis for “storage medium”, it is unclear if the limitation intended to be the same as the storage media described as part of the disclosed program product or whether it's intended to be broader than the disclosed storage media. It is believed that the limitation “storage medium” is intended to claim something broader than the disclosed storage media and cover signals, waves and other forms of transmission media that carry instructions. Therefore, the limitation “storage medium” is not limited to physical articles or objects which constitute a manufacture within the meaning of 35 USC 101 and enable any functionality of the instructions carried thereby to act as a computer component and realize their functionality. As such, the claim is not limited to statutory subject matter and is therefore non-statutory. It is noted that the specification does disclose a computer-readable medium, however the computer-readable medium described by the specification is open ended thus can also include transmission media; however, it is suggested to amend " storage medium" to "non-transitory storage medium" (such as depicted in Instant 0115); thus directing the storage medium to only physical mediums.
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.
Claims 1-6, 9-17, and 20, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Fang et al. (US 20220334854 A1, published: 10/20/2022).
Claim 1: Fang teaches an application display method, comprising: entering a first display mode in response to detecting a first operation by an electronic apparatus (receiving a partition display input for a user interface of the electronic device (step S101); and in response to the partition display input, partitioning the user interface of the electronic device and displaying a partition result (step S102) [Fang, 0040, FIG. 1], [Fang 0117]; [Fang, FIG. 6, First Stage]), wherein: the first display mode comprises a main display area (211A [Fang, FIG. 2A]), a recent task display area (220A [Fang, FIG. 2A]), and a frequently-used application display area (file display region 630 [Fang, 0213, FIG. 6]; Examiner's Note: Top region respective to FIG. 6), and the recent task display area is in a first area adjacent to a first edge of the main display area, and the frequently-used application display area is in a second area adjacent to a second edge of the main display area ([Fang, FIG. 2A and FIG. 6]); and in response to entering the first display mode, displaying, in the recent task display area, an application that the electronic apparatus has run within a set time before a current time (Examiner's Note: This feature is obvious from e.g. FIG. 2B or FIG. 4: In the second display region, which equals the recent task display area, application window "3" is displayed in the first display region (see FIG. 4 "second stage") and application window "1" which was displayed in the "first stage" then displayed in the second display region), displaying, in the main display area, a first currently active application upon detection of the first operation by the electronic apparatus (in response to the partition display input [Fang, 0046]; displaying a program window [Fang, 0047]; Examiner's Note: in response to partitioning the display, a program window is displayed in the first region (ref 210A of FIG. 2A and 610 in FIG 6), which equals the main display area), and displaying, in the frequently-used application display area, a preset application ([Fang, 0214]. At least one of a text category icon, a note text category icon, a document text category icon, an image text category icon, an audio text category icon, or a video text category icon can be displayed in the file display region [Fang, 0218]; Examiner's Note: files which are displayed in the file display region (frequently-used application display area) can be set by the user).
Claims 12 and 20, having similar elements to claim 1, are likewise rejected.
Claim 2: Fang teaches the application display method according to claim 1. Fang further teaches further comprising: performing display control on a target display area based on a second operation, in response to detecting the second operation in the first display mode, wherein the target display area comprises at least one of: the main display area, the recent task display area, and the frequently-used application display area (first to second stages [Fang, 0075, FIG. 2A]).
Claim 13, having similar elements to claim 2, is likewise rejected.
Claim 3: Fang teaches the application display method according to claim 2. Fang further teaches wherein performing the display control on the target display area based on the second operation comprises: in response to that the second operation comprises an adjustment operation on a display position of a first application window displayed in the main display area, displaying the first application window in the main display area based on the display position corresponding to the adjustment operation, and keeping display positions of the recent task display area and the frequently-used application display area unchanged ([Fang, 0266]).
Claim 14, having similar elements to claim 3, is likewise rejected.
Claim 4: Fang teaches the application display method according to claim 2. Fang further teaches wherein performing the display control on the target display area based on the second operation comprises: performing display control on an application displayed in the target display area based on the second operation ([Fang, 0266]).
Claim 15, having similar elements to claim 4, is likewise rejected.
Claim 5: Fang teaches the application display method according to claim 4. Fang further teaches wherein performing the display control on the application displayed in the target display area based on the second operation comprises: in response to the second operation for switching a first application currently displayed in the main display area to a second application, displaying the second application in the main display area, and displaying the first application at a first place in an application queue displayed in the recent task display area, wherein the second application comprises an application selected from the recent task display area, or an application selected from the frequently-used application display area, or an application selected from the main display area ([Fang, 0113]; Examiner's Note: wherein the second application is an application (ref. 222B, FIG. 2B) selected from the recent task display area).
Claim 16, having similar elements to claim 5, is likewise rejected.
Claim 6: Fang teaches the application display method according to claim 4. Fang further teaches wherein performing the display control on the application displayed in the target display area based on the second operation comprises: in response to the second operation for closing a first application currently displayed in the main display area, wherein a number of the first application is one, closing the first application displayed in the main display area and displaying a desktop application ([Fang, 0113]; Examiner's Note: wherein the second application is an application (ref. 222B, FIG. 2B) selected from the recent task display area).
Claim 17, having similar elements to claim 6, is likewise rejected.
Claim 9: Fang teaches the application display method according to claim 4. Fang further teaches wherein performing the display control on the application displayed in the target display area based on the second operation comprises: in response to that the second operation comprises updating an application displayed in the recent task display area, updating the application displayed in the recent task display area according to a closing time sequence of the application in an application queue displayed in the recent task display area (on the user interface of the electronic device, a region of the sixth window region after being zoomed in to the updated first display region completely covers a region of the sixth window region before being zoomed in, so that a zooming-in animation where the sixth window region is zoomed in remains consistent, which further improves the visual experience of the user [Fang, 0163]).
Claim 10: Fang teaches the application display method according to claim 4. Fang further teaches further comprising: in response to detecting a third operation of exiting the first display mode, exiting the first display mode, and displaying a fourth application according to a display manner of displaying the fourth application in the main display area upon detection of the third operation (if the user no longer wishes to create the first application window in the first window region, he can cause the thumbnail of the first application window to exit the first window region [Fang, 0090]).
Claim 11: Fang teaches the application display method according to claim 1. Fang further teaches wherein detection of the first operation comprises: detecting a first control operation on a first control in an application interface or a desktop application interface displayed on the electronic apparatus, and determining that the first operation is detected, wherein at least one of a second operation or a third operation is a second control operation performed on the first control in the first display mode ([Fang, FIG. 2A, 2B, 6]).
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.
Claims 7-8, and 18-19, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fang et al. (US 20220334854 A1, published: 10/20/2022), in view of Liu (US 20250130825 A1, published: 4/24/2025).
Claim 7: Fang teaches the application display method according to claim 4. Fang does not teach wherein performing the display control on the application displayed in the target display area based on the second operation comprises: in response to that the second operation comprises dragging a third application from at least one of the recent task display area or the frequently-used application display area to the main display area, displaying the third application in the main display area in a display manner matching a hot spot location where the third application is dragged to the main display area, wherein the display manner comprises at least one of split screen display or floating window display, and different display manners correspond to different hot spot locations.
However Liu teaches wherein performing the display control on the application displayed in the target display area based on the second operation comprises: in response to that the second operation comprises dragging a third application from at least one of the recent task display area or the frequently-used application display area to the main display area, displaying the third application in the main display area in a display manner matching a hot spot location where the third application is dragged to the main display area, wherein the display manner comprises at least one of split screen display or floating window display, and different display manners correspond to different hot spot locations (FIG. 3(a), FIG. 3(b), FIG. 3(c), and FIG. 3(d) are a schematic diagram of an example of a process in which a user triggers display of a specific application interface in a floating window on a split-screen view of a mobile phone [Liu, 0067]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the invention was filed, to modify the multi-partition display comprising functional areas invention of Fang to include the input progression feature of Liu.
One would have been motivated to make this modification in order to launch an application by gesturing through sub-windows to drag them to different areas, and create floating or split windows, to allow input functionality that easily allows users to make on-screen changes.
Claim 18, having similar elements to claim 7, is likewise rejected.
Claim 8: The combination of Fang and Liu, teaches the application display method according to claim 7. Liu further teaches further comprising: in response to that the third application belongs to the recent task display area, filling a vacancy in the recent task display area by an application behind the third application in an application queue displayed in the recent task display area sequentially according to a closing time sequence (FIG. 3(a), FIG. 3(b), FIG. 3(c), and FIG. 3(d) are a schematic diagram of an example of a process in which a user triggers display of a specific application interface in a floating window on a split-screen view of a mobile phone [Liu, 0067]).
Claim 19, having similar elements to claim 8, is likewise rejected.
Additional References
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The following references also partition on-screen windows into multiple categories:
Sugai (US 20060242594 A1, published: 10/26/2006)
Han (US 20140137036 A1, published: 5/15/2014)
Jeong et al. (US 11340752 B2, published: 5/24/2022)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SETH A SILVERMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-9783. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thur, 8AM-4PM MST.
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, Adam Queler can be reached at (571)272-4140. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Seth A Silverman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2172