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 .
DETAILED ACTION
The present invention application contains 21 claims. Claim 1 is independent. Claims 1-21 are examined and rejected by the following detail action.
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.
Claims 1-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Independent claim 1 is directed to a method that collects display presentation information, determining whether the information has changes, updating stored information based on the changes, and using the updated information to simulate application operation. Such limitations constitutes a mental process concept of collecting information (i.e., collects display presentation information), analyzing or evaluating information (i.e., identifying and determining whether the information has changed by comparing the current and previous information and updating stored information record based on the changes), and displaying or presenting information (i.e., using the updated information to simulate application operation). Therefore, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does 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 a combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. In particular, the claims recite the additional elements of the application, displaying presentations and data store that merely perform well-understood, routine, and conventional computer functions as collecting, storing, comparing, updating and displaying and do not recite a particular graphical architecture, a specific data structure, a technical improvement to GUI rendering, a specialized synchronization algorithm or improved computer functionality. Therefore, the claims do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and do not amount to significant more than the abstract idea.
Dependent claims 2-21 depend on the rejected independent claim 1 and are similarly rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(B) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 1 recites the limitation “….using the plurality of display presentations … to provide the simulated operations of the application” which renders the scope of the claim unclear because it is uncertain what constitutes “simulated operations”. It is unclear whether the recited simulation encompasses replaying screens, emulating application logic, executing workflow, testing user interfaces, or some other operation. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the metes and bounds of the claimed subject matter. Therefore, the limitation is rejected as indefinite.
Claims 20 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claims 20 and 21 recite about the local and global edit instruction from administrator but the claims nor the specification are unclear about how the administrator instruction is incorporated to manually by user or automatically by the system to edit the application simulate operations as updating interactive service. Therefore, the claims are rejected as indefinite.
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 of this title, 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 1-10, 13-15 and 20-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Carmi (US PG-Pub. 2014/0075371 A1) in view of Schoning et al. (“Schoning”, US PG-Pub. 2015/0149493 A1).
Re-claim 1,
Carmi teaches a method for providing simulated operations of an application with a plurality of display presentations through which a plurality of flows is defined, the method comprising:
collecting and storing in a data store a plurality of display presentations produced by the application for display in a plurality of different display areas (Figs. 1, 2, [0003, 0021-0026, 0035-0038]. Carmi describes the screenshots of screens and the interactive transition operations produced by an application are captured and stored in a model);
using the plurality of display presentations stored in the data store to provide the simulated operations of the application (Figs. 1-3, [0035, 0066-0069, 0074, 0083, 0113]. Carmi describes the recorded model is used to playback and simulate the application’s operations to user).
Carmi fails to teach:
iteratively re-collecting the plurality of display presentations to analyze to identify any display presentation that has been modified since the display presentation’s last collection;
for any particular display presentation that is identified as having been modified since the last collection, modifying the particular display presentation in the data store to reflect any modification to the particular display presentation since the last collection.
However, Schoning teaches:
iteratively re-collecting the plurality of display presentations to analyze to identify any display presentation that has been modified since the display presentation’s last collection (Figs. 1, 7, [0049, 0050, 0095, 0100]. Schoning describes the concept of iteratively re-collecting the current screenshot (i.e. screenshot 117) and comparing to the previous documented screenshot (i.e. screenshot 115) to identify the differences shown in step 113 or 707);
for any particular display presentation that is identified as having been modified since the last collection, modifying the particular display presentation in the data store to reflect any modification to the particular display presentation since the last collection (Figs. 1, 7, [0044, 0050, 0051, 0095]. Schoning describes when there are the differences, replaces or updates the previous recorded screenshots with the current screenshots shown in step 119 or 713).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of Carmi with the screenshot change-detection and replacement techniques teaching of Schoning to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 2,
Carmi-Schoning teaches the method in claim 1, but Carmi fails to teach a method, wherein modifying the particular display presentation in the data store comprises modifying a portion of data of the display presentation stored in the data store without modifying any other data that has not been modified since the last collection.
However, Schoning teaches:
wherein modifying the particular display presentation in the data store comprises modifying a portion of data of the display presentation stored in the data store without modifying any other data that has not been modified since the last collection (Figs. 1, 7, [0095]. Schoning describes the concept of replacing only one documented screenshot with the corresponding modified current screenshot shown in block 713 and not any other data (i.e. any other screenshot or data) that have not been modified or no differences found shown in block 709).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of Carmi with the screenshot change-detection and replacement techniques teaching of Schoning to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 3,
Carmi-Schoning teaches the method in claim 1, but Carmi fails to teach a method, wherein modifying the particular display presentation in the data store comprises: replacing the particular display presentation stored at the last collection with an updated version of the particular display presentation that represents any modifications made since the last collection; and deleting the particular display presentation stored since at the last collection.
However, Schoning teaches:
wherein modifying the particular display presentation in the data store comprises: replacing the particular display presentation stored at the last collection with an updated version of the particular display presentation that represents any modifications made since the last collection; and deleting the particular display presentation stored since at the last collection (Figs. 1, 7, [0095]. Schoning describes the concept of replacing a documented screenshot with the corresponding modified current screenshot shown in block 713 that indicates the previous version stored screenshot is deleted and being replaced by the new version modified current screenshot).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of Carmi with the screenshot change-detection and replacement techniques teaching of Schoning to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 4,
In addition to what Carmi-Schoning teaches in claim 1, Carmi also teaches the method, wherein collecting and storing the plurality of display presentations comprises collecting and storing flow-based controls included in the plurality of display presentations, each particular flow-based control is associated with at least one particular display presentation and is selectable to direct the application to transition to the particular display presentation (Fig. 1, [0021]. Carmi describes the flow-based controls including possibly sequential presentation of two or more screens and related events (i.e. screen 110, a click on button 181 event and a subsequent screen 115) that is collected and stored in a model).
Carmi fails to teach:
collecting and storing non-flow-based content included in the plurality of display presentations, and the non-flow-based content of each display presentation comprises one or more sets of data for display in the plurality of different display areas.
However, Schoning teaches:
collecting and storing non-flow-based content included in the plurality of display presentations, and the non-flow-based content of each display presentation comprises one or more sets of data for display in the plurality of different display areas (Figs. 1, 7, [0044, 0049, 0050, 0051, 0095, 0100]. Schoning describes the concept of iteratively re-collecting the current screenshot (i.e. screenshot 117) and comparing to the previous documented screenshot (i.e. screenshot 115) to identify the differences shown in step 113 or 707, when there are the differences, replaces or updates the previous recorded screenshots with the current screenshots shown in step 119 or 713. The screenshot of each current image is considered as a non-flow-based content).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of Carmi with the screenshot change-detection and replacement techniques teaching of Schoning to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 5,
Carmi-Schoning teaches the method in claim 4, but Carmi fails to teach a method, wherein modifying the particular display presentation in the data store comprises modifying a set of non-flow-based content of the particular display presentation.
However, Schoning teaches:
wherein modifying the particular display presentation in the data store comprises modifying a set of non-flow-based content of the particular display presentation (Figs. 1, 7, [0049, 0050, 0095, 0100]. Schoning describes the concept of iteratively re-collecting the current screenshot (i.e. screenshot 117) that can be modified shown in steps 109 or 701 and comparing to the previous documented screenshot (i.e. screenshot 115) to identify the differences shown in step 113 or 707).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of Carmi with the screenshot change-detection and replacement techniques teaching of Schoning to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 6,
In addition to what Carmi-Schoning teaches in claim 4, Carmi also teaches the method, wherein modifying the particular display presentation in the data store comprises modifying a flow-based control of the particular display presentation.
(Fig. 1, [0021, 0056]. Carmi describes the flow-based controls to transition from one screen to other screen related to events and user interaction can be modified, captured and represented in a model).
Re-claim 7,
In addition to what Carmi-Schoning teaches in claim 4, Carmi also teaches the method, wherein each of the plurality of flows comprises a different sequence of one or more flow-based controls that defines a different order of display presentations to be displayed in the plurality of different display areas ([0046, 0056]. Carmi describes in paragraph [0056] as “… an application that provides hundreds of screens where thousands of different flows or transitions between the screens are possible, may be modeled as described herein, wherein the modeling may include screenshots and information related to events, transition and flows as described herein”).
Re-claim 8,
In addition to what Carmi-Schoning teaches in claim 1, Carmi also teaches the method, wherein the data store comprises a second storage structure for storing the flow-based controls (Fig. 3, [0021, 0060]. Carmi describes the flow-based controls including possibly sequential presentation of two or more screens and related events (i.e. screen 110, a click on button 181 event and a subsequent screen 115) that is collected and stored in a model storage structure).
Carmi fails to teach:
wherein the data store comprises a first storage structure for storing the non-flow-based content.
However, Schoning teaches:
wherein the data store comprises a first storage structure for storing the non-flow-based content (Figs. 1, 6, 7, [0085]. Schoning describes the non-flow-based documented screenshots can be replayed, modified and stored in documentation electronic storage 617).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of Carmi with the screenshot change-detection and replacement techniques teaching of Schoning to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 9,
Carmi-Schoning teaches the method in claim 1, but Carmi fails to teach a method, wherein iteratively re-collecting the plurality of display presentations to analyze comprises comparing the plurality of display presentations collected and stored at the last collection to the re-collected plurality of display presentations to identify any modifications that have been made to any display presentation since the last collection.
However, Schoning teaches:
wherein iteratively re-collecting the plurality of display presentations to analyze comprises comparing the plurality of display presentations collected and stored at the last collection to the re-collected plurality of display presentations to identify any modifications that have been made to any display presentation since the last collection (Figs. 1, 7, [0044, 0049, 0050, 0051, 0095, 0100]. Schoning describes the concept of iteratively re-collecting the current screenshot (i.e. screenshot 117) and comparing to the previous documented screenshot (i.e. screenshot 115) to identify the differences shown in step 113 or 707, when there are the differences, replaces or updates the previous recorded screenshots with the current screenshots shown in step 119 or 713).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of Carmi with the screenshot change-detection and replacement techniques teaching of Schoning to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 10,
Carmi-Schoning teaches the method in claim 9, but Carmi fails to teach a method, wherein comparing the plurality of display presentations collected and stored at the last collection to the re-collected plurality of display presentations comprises comparing a first plurality of code copies for the plurality of display presentations collected and stored at the last collection to a second plurality of code copies for the re-collected plurality of display presentations.
However, Schoning teaches:
wherein comparing the plurality of display presentations collected and stored at the last collection to the re-collected plurality of display presentations comprises comparing a first plurality of code copies for the plurality of display presentations collected and stored at the last collection to a second plurality of code copies for the re-collected plurality of display presentations ([0050]. Schoning describes the concept of comparing the current screenshot to the stored screenshot by other know techniques besides bit-wise compare that can code copies comparison).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of Carmi with the screenshot change-detection and replacement techniques teaching of Schoning to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 13,
Carmi-Schoning teaches the method in claim 1, but Carmi fails to teach a method, wherein the re-collecting is performed iteratively as part of an automated process that identifies modifications made to the plurality of display presentations.
However, Schoning teaches:
wherein the re-collecting is performed iteratively as part of an automated process that identifies modifications made to the plurality of display presentations ([0044]. Schoning describes the process of iteratively re-collecting the current screenshot and automatically comparing to the previous documented screenshot to identify the differences or modification, when there are the differences or modifications, the process is automatically replaces or updates the previous recorded screenshots with the current screenshots).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of Carmi with the screenshot change-detection and replacement techniques teaching of Schoning to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 14,
In addition to what Carmi-Schoning teaches in claim 1, Carmi also teaches the method, wherein using the plurality of display presentations stored in the data store to provide the simulated operations of the application comprises generating a plurality of simulated display presentations to simulate the application (Figs. 1-3, [0035, 0066-0069, 0074, 0083, 0113]. Carmi describes the recorded model is used to playback and simulate the application’s operations to user).
Re-claim 15,
In addition to what Carmi-Schoning teaches in claim 14, Carmi also teaches the method, further comprising: receiving direction from an administrator of the application to edit a first set of content in a particular simulated display presentation to a second set of content; and editing the first set of content in the particular simulated display presentation to the second set of content areas (Figs. 1, 2, [0003, 0021-0026, 0035-0038]. Carmi describes the screenshots of screens and the interactive transition operations produced by an application and/or interactions/actions from a user are captured and stored in a model).
Re-claim 20,
in addition to what Carmi-Schoning teaches in claim 15, claim 20 is a method claim having similar limitations in scope of claim 15 in term of modifications based on administrator instruction; therefore, it is rejected under similar rationale.
Re-claim 21,
in addition to what Carmi-Schoning teaches in claim 15, claim 21 is a method claim having similar limitations in scope of claim 15 in term of modifications based on administrator instruction; therefore, it is rejected under similar rationale.
Claims 11 and 16-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Carmi in view of Schoning, and further in view of Duneau (US Patent 8087007 B2).
Re-claim 11,
Carmi-Schoning teaches the method in claim 10, but Carmi fails to teach a method, wherein the first and second code copies are first and second Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) code copies.
However, Duneau teaches:
wherein the first and second code copies are first and second Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) code copies (Fig.1, Col. 4 lines [16-34]. Duneau describes the concept of interpreting the simulation file 122 for generating of the HTML123 equivalent of the simulation file).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of modified Carmi with the simulation file data format teaching of Duneau to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 16,
Carmi-Schoning teaches the method in claim 15, but Carmi fails to teach a method, further comprising storing a particular entry in a data structure identifying a set of one or more edits to be made to the plurality of simulated display presentations, the particular entry specifying that the first set of content is to be edited to the second set of content in at least the particular simulated display presentation.
However, Duneau teaches:
storing a particular entry in a data structure identifying a set of one or more edits to be made to the plurality of simulated display presentations, the particular entry specifying that the first set of content is to be edited to the second set of content in at least the particular simulated display presentation (Col. 9 lines [39-54]. Duneau describes the concept of storing the GUI state and any intervening actions in data entry structure defined in the simulation file 122).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of modified Carmi with the simulation file data structure to store the GUI state and intervening actions teaching of Duneau to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 17,
Carmi-Schoning-Duneau teaches the method in claim 16, but Carmi fails to teach a method, wherein the data structure is separate from the data store such that the set of edits is applied only to the plurality of simulated display presentations and not to the plurality of display presentations stored in the data store.
However, Duneau teaches:
wherein the data structure is separate from the data store such that the set of edits is applied only to the plurality of simulated display presentations and not to the plurality of display presentations stored in the data store (Col. 4 lines [16-34]. Duneau describes the concept of storing the set of edits in the simulation file 122 separated from the other data file).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of modified Carmi with the simulation file data structure to store the GUI state and intervening actions teaching of Duneau to maintain the stored application model in synchronization with changes made to the application and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Re-claim 18,
in addition to what Carmi-Schoning-Duneau teaches in claim 16, claim 18 is a method claim having similar limitations in scope of claim 1; therefore, it is rejected under similar rationale.
Re-claim 19,
in addition to what Carmi-Schoning-Duneau teaches in claim 18, claim 19 is a method claim having similar limitations in scope of claim 1; therefore, it is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Carmi in view of Schoning, and further in view of Webster et al. (“Webster”, US Patent 7966602 B1).
Re-claim 12,
Carmi-Schoning teaches the method in claim 9, but Carmi fails to teach a method, wherein comparing the plurality of display presentations collected and stored at the last collection to the re-collected plurality of display presentations comprises generating a hash of each re-collected display presentation and its respective display presentation collected and stored at the last collection to identify any modifications that have been made to any display presentations since the last collection.
However, Webster teaches:
wherein comparing the plurality of display presentations collected and stored at the last collection to the re-collected plurality of display presentations comprises generating a hash of each re-collected display presentation and its respective display presentation collected and stored at the last collection to identify any modifications that have been made to any display presentations since the last collection (Fig.1B, Abstract. Webster describes the concept of generating a hash value for each captured annotation snapshot).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the model-based application simulation system teachings of modified Carmi with the hash generation for each captured snapshot teaching of Webster to quickly identify the current and the previous corresponding snapshot to reprocess that save time and computational resource and thereby improve the accuracy and reliability of the simulated operations.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TUAN S NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-7612. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday (9-5).
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.
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.
/TUAN S NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2179
Prosecution Insights