DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 1 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Nguyen (U.S. PGPUB 2006/0095790) in view of Nguyen (U.S. PGPUB 2006/0035707 herein’ known as ‘707).
Re claim 1: Nguyen an apparatus comprising:
a machine readable medium having stored thereon a set of instructions that are configured to cause a processor to:
determine that a user of the device is authorized to use the gaming service (see paragraph [0031]: “The user may be asked to input a confirmation number and/or make an oral response during a telephone call to a telephone number associated with the uncontrolled environment. The oral response may be analyzed, e.g., according to known voice biometrics of a user obtained during a registration process, to verify the user's identity.”);
determine that the device is associated with a first location in which gaming activity is allowed (see paragraphs [0067, 0069, 0070]: “If the telephone is a mobile telephone, the player's location is determined in step 420. This determination may be made in a number of ways. If the mobile telephone has been characterized as one that provides GPS or similar capabilities, in step 420 a verification server polls the mobile telephone and receives the location information determined by the mobile telephone.”);
allow gaming activity based on the determination that the device is authorized, the determination that the operating system is authorized, the determination that the user is authorized, and the determination that the device is associated with the first location (see paragraph [0067, 0069, 0070]);
determine a period of time at which a determination that the device is associated with a second location should be made based on a distance of the first location from a boundary of an area (see paragraph [0072]: Accordingly, in step 440, the appropriate criteria are applied to determine whether the player's location should be verified again. If so, the player's location is determined in step 445 and the jurisdiction is evaluated in step 450….Preferably, both steps 425 and 450 will cause the gaming session to end before the player has left a jurisdiction in which Internet gaming would be permitted, e.g., by terminating the gaming session if the player's location is within a certain distance of a jurisdictional boundary, if the player's velocity indicates that the player will leave the jurisdiction within a certain time, etc.);
determine that the period of time has passed (see paragraph [0072]: the determines a period when to reverify the user’s location, and thus it is inherent that after said time has passed the system would reverify the user’s location); and
in response to determining that the period of time has passed, determine whether the device is associated with a second location in which gaming activity is allowed (see paragraph [0072]).
Nguyen fails to disclose “determine that a device is authorized to use a gaming service;
determine that an operating system of the device is authorized to use the gaming service.” However, ‘707 like Nguyen teaches a portable gaming unit that wherein players can perform gambling activities (see Abstract) within a particular authorized area (see paragraphs [0059, 0069]). ‘707 further discloses the use of transaction certificates that must be verified before play a game machine is authorized, wherein the transaction certificates verify a device identifier and software version which obviously covers operating systems as operating systems fall within the domain of software ([0215, 0216]: “As will be readily appreciated, various software modules and programs may contain a short portion of code that identifies the module or program, and such identifying portions may be encrypted or otherwise secured, such that improper or fraudulent identifications or transactions are hindered or prevented. Using such items, one or more critical software programs or modules may be required to submit such identifying codes as part of a virtual leash process, in order to ensure that not only an authorized module or program is being used, but also to ensure that an appropriate version and/or revision is also being used;” “Such transaction certificate items could relate to, for example, the software version and/or revision for any given software module or program, the types of games downloaded, any specific game downloaded, a casino identifier, an identifier with respect to an owner, player or group of owners or players for the PGD, a time stamp, transaction data regarding any games or game seeds downloaded (e.g., game title, game type, number of seeds, money paid), a device identifier, and any jurisdictional requirements with respect to a particular gaming jurisdiction, such as the one where a registration or transaction using the device has taken place, among others.”).
It would have been obvious at the time the invention was filed, to modify the system of Nguyen with authorizing a device and particular operating system software as taught by ‘707, for the purpose of improving network security and preventing unauthorized use of a gaming device and gaming services.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to REGINALD A RENWICK whose telephone number is (571)270-1913. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 11am-7pm.
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REGINALD A. RENWICK
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3714
/REGINALD A RENWICK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715