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 .
Response to Arguments
2. The Amendment filed on December 19, 2025, has been entered. The examiner acknowledges the amendments to claims 1-15, 18, 20.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101: Applicant argues that the claims integrate the judicial exception into a practical application citing a specific technological solution; this a monitoring the number of threads (of a topic) that have occurred between two time points and determining if this number is within a defined threshold before generating recommendation information. The Examiner notes that the improvement of a processor is not discussed, the solution appears to be filtering input based on a number of topic hits and if meeting a threshold, proceeding to a processing stage. Any improvement in “the functioning of the computer itself,” or memory and processor usage resulting in enhanced performance is due to a reduction in input based on a threshold of topic hits. Although the Applicant states this is not implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, the Examiner sees the input screening and threshold “gating” as implementing the abstract idea to reduce the volume of data to be processed on a generic computer that is unaltered in functionality, thus actualizing exactly what the Applicant argues against. If in fact this pre-screening method is a tangible improvement to an overall system, the details enabling one of ordinary skill in the art to discern how the improvement is achieved in order to build upon it are not immediately evident. Examiner notes the absence of any logical argument concerning improvement to a computer or processor technology. In view of these arguments and the absence of a practical application, the request to withdraw the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is denied.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103: Applicant’s argues that cited references fail to disclose elements of independent claims 1, 14, and 20, specifically, "identify, in response to execution of a schedule-related application for registering a schedule by a user, a first time point at which the schedule-related information is extracted and a second time point at which the schedule-related application is executed, identify whether a number of threads that occurred between the first time point and the second time point is within a threshold value, generate at least one piece of recommendation information for registering the schedule based on the extracted schedule-related information in response to the number of threads being within the threshold value." Examiner agrees noting that additional search similarly failed to reveal evidence of this type of event prioritization technique.
Given the above, the Examiner withdraws rejections to claims 1, 14, and 20, under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Dependent claims 2-13, 15-19 are not rejected because of their dependency on independent claims 1, 14, and 20.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed
to non-statutory subject matter. The claims, 1-20 are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, abstract idea) without providing significantly more.
Step 1
Step 1 of the subject matter eligibility analysis per MPEP § 2106.03, required the claims to be a process, machine, manufacture or a composition of matter. Claims 1-20 are directed to a process (method), machine (system), and product/article of manufacture, which are statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A
Claims 1-20 are directed to abstract ideas, as explained below.
Prong one of the Step 2A analysis requires identifying the specific limitation(s) in the claim under examination that the examiner believes recites an abstract idea, and determining whether the identified limitation(s) falls within at least one of the groupings of abstract ideas of mathematical concepts, mental processes, and certain methods of organizing human activity.
Step 2A-Prong 1
The claims recite the following limitations that are directed to abstract ideas, which can be summarized as being directed to a method, the abstract idea, extracting schedule-related content from various media to include texts, e-mails, web pages or images, etc., for the purposes of updating and maintaining a schedule.
Claim 14 discloses a method, comprising: A method of displaying recommendation information, the method comprising:
based on reception of at least one piece of content, identifying whether an
application corresponding to the at least one piece of content is an information-sharing application; (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion),
extracting schedule-related information from the received at least one piece of
content based on identifying that the application is an information-sharing application; (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion),
identifying, in response to execution of a schedule-related application for registering a
schedule by a user, a first time point at which the schedule-related information is extracted and a second time point at which the schedule-related application is executed; (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion),
identifying whether a number of threads that occurred between the first time point and the second time point is within a threshold value; (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion),
generating at least one piece of recommendation information for registering the schedule based on the extracted schedule-related information in response to the number of threads being within the threshold value; (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion), and
displaying the generated at least one piece of recommendation information,
wherein, when the number of threads is within the threshold value, the user has an intention to register the schedule, (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion).
Additional limitations employ the method to receive first content and acting within the configured time in response to the content and preparing information sharing in response to a schedule in the first content, (observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 15), assigning a first score based on first content in response to schedule registration, notifying in response to the cumulative score exceeding a first threshold score, and information sharing in response to user input to the notification, (observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 16), identifying schedule-related information in response to the schedule and generating a recommendation based on usage pattern and history related to the schedule-related information, (observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 17), assigning a second score to a first phrase in response to identifying the first phrase as a schedule and generating a recommendation based on the first phrase in response to a first phrase exceeding a second threshold score, (observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 18), and taking action on a schedule registration event and generating a recommendation based on the schedule related information in response to the occurrence of the schedule registration event and where the occurrence of the event detects a schedule registration instruction for registering one schedule, while making a schedule, (observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 19).
Each of these claimed limitations employ mental processes involving observation, evaluation and judgement as well as opinion.
Claims 1 – 13 and 20 recite similar abstract ideas as those identified with respect to claims 14-19.
Thus, the concepts set forth in claims 1-20 recite abstract ideas.
Step 2A-Prong 2
As per MPEP § 2106.04, while the claims 1-20 recite additional limitations which are hardware or software elements such as the electronic device: a processor, a memory, and a display; an application, an information-sharing application, a schedule-related application, a user interface, and a non-transitory computer-readable storage media, these limitations are not sufficient to qualify as a practical application being recited in the claims along with the abstract ideas since these elements are invoked as tools to apply the instructions of the abstract ideas in a specific technological environment. The mere application of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological field do not integrate an abstract idea into a practical application (MPEP § 2106.05 (f) & (h)).
Evaluated individually, the additional elements do not integrate the identified abstract ideas into a practical application. Evaluating the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually.
The claims do not amount to a “practical application” of the abstract idea because they neither (1) recite any improvements to another technology or technical field; (2) recite any improvements to the functioning of the computer itself; (3) apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; (4) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; (5) provide other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
Accordingly, claims 1-20 are directed to abstract ideas.
Step 2B
Claims 1-20 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
The analysis above describes how the claims recite the additional elements beyond those identified above as being directed to an abstract idea, as well as why identified judicial exception(s) are not integrated into a practical application. These findings are hereby incorporated into the analysis of the additional elements when considered both individually and in combination.
For the reasons provided in the analysis in Step 2A, Prong 1, evaluated individually, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than a judicial exception. Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than a judicial exception.
Evaluating the claim limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. In addition to the factors discussed regarding Step 2A, prong two, there is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely amount to instructions to implement the identified abstract ideas on a computer.
Therefore, since there are no limitations in the claims 1-20 that transform the exception into a patent eligible application such that the claims amount to significantly more than the exception itself, the claims are directed to non-statutory subject matter and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Claims 1, 14, and 20 are not rejected by prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Dependent
claims 2-13, 15-19 are not rejected because of their inherent dependency on independent claims 1, 14 and 20. The closest prior art to the invention includes Lee, (KR 102068422 B1), “Schedule Management Service System And Method,” Oh, (KR 20210058738 A), “Method of Managing Schedule in Computing Device and System Thereof,” and Zong, (CN 112765470 A), “A Training Method of Content Recommendation Model, Content Recommendation Method, Device And Device.”
Regarding Claim 1, An electronic device comprising:
a display; at least one processor; and a memory operatively connected to the display and the at least one processor, Lee teaches, (devices capable of transmitting and receiving
various information through a network and displaying necessary information on a display, the user terminal 5 and the requester terminal 7 may be a computer including a CPU, a display unit, a memory unit, and an input device. [p.4]),
wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the at least
one processor, cause the electronic device to:
based on reception of at least one piece of content, identify whether an application corresponding to the at least one piece of content is an information-sharing application, Lee does not teach, Oh teaches, (when the corresponding data is received through an application related to call, text, SMS/MMS, text, image, handwriting, voice, email, social networking service (SNS) data, etc.(S401), [p.6]),
extract schedule-related information from the received at least one piece of
content based on identifying that the application is an information-sharing application, (the information about this may be fed back and reflected in the next data extraction (S405), Oh, [p.6]),
(identify, in response to execution of a schedule-related application for registering a
schedule by a user, a first time point at which the schedule-related information is extracted and a second time point at which the schedule-related application is executed
identify whether a number of threads that occurred between the first time point and the second time point is within a threshold value, Lee does not teach identification of a first time point of discovery and a second time of application is executed. The closest prior art is Oh and Zong, Oh teaching the use of multiple applications to extract a schedule and then manage said schedule, drawing upon schedule related data received through various social networking services. Oh filters on time but does not utilize a parameter for time between extraction and execution. Zhong teaches a content recommendation model, similar to threads, but does not utilize time calculations for prioritization. Neither of these teach all of the features of the claimed invention.
generate at least one piece of recommendation information for registering the schedule based on the extracted schedule-related information in response to the number of threads being within the threshold value, and
display the generated at least one piece of recommendation information through the
display wherein, when the number of threads is within the threshold value, the electronic device determines that the user has an intention to register the schedule.
Claim 14 is not rejected for reasons corresponding to those provided in claim 1. The absence of hardware or software components does not change the rationale for rejection. (Lee teaches a schedule management service system and method, [Abstract].
Claim 20 is not rejected for reasons corresponding to those provided in claim 1. The addition of a non-transitory computer-readable medium does not change the rationale for rejection. Lee teaches, (the device-readable storage medium may be provided in the form of a non-transitory storage medium, [p.2]).
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure or directed to the state of the art is listed on the enclosed PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL BOROWSKI whose telephone number is (703)756-1822. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jerry O’Connor can be reached on (571) 272-6787. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/MB/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3624
/MEHMET YESILDAG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624