DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1 – 20 are pending.
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant’s submission filed on 24 June 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
With regard to the Final Office Action from 02 June 2026, the Applicant has filed a response on 24 June 2026.
Response to Arguments
With regard to the Final Office Action from 02 June 2026, the Applicant has filed a response on 24 June 2026.
The Examiner rejected the independent claims under 35 U.S.C. 103 but the Applicant disagrees with the Examiner’s rejection, especially based on the amendment to the independent claims. The Applicant indicates what the Fox et al. reference teaches (Remarks: page 11), but further indicates that this reference does not teach or suggest the limitations as currently amended in claim 1, especially ‘the concept of a global metadata log for a collaborative workspace that logs actions across a plurality of content items’ nor ‘the concept of generating a text representation from activity metadata comprising such a global metadata log’ as presented by the amendment. The Applicant argues the same regarding the Kotler et al. reference (Remarks: Page 12). The same is applicable to independent claims 8 and 15.
Upon considering the arguments provided by the Applicant, the Examiner acquiesces for the sake of moving the prosecution forward. The Applicant’s arguments with respect to these independent claim have been considered but are moot due to the new ground of rejection necessitated by the amendment to the claims. The Examiner will consider the claims by their current presentation in the following section.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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 1, 2, 8, 15, 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fox et al. (US 2020/0264745 A1: hereafter — Fox) in view of PIIRA et al. (US 2018/0041457 A1: hereafter — Piira) further in view of MEHTA et al. (US 2024/0314093 A1: hereafter — Mehta).
For claim 1, Fox discloses a computer-implemented method comprising:
determining, for a collaborative workspace of a content management system, activity metadata defining user account activity across a plurality of user accounts performing actions within the collaborative workspace, [[the collaborative workspace comprising an interactive environment for managing a plurality of content items among multiple user accounts, the activity metadata comprising a global metadata log for the collaborative workspace, the global metadata log comprising a plurality of logged actions across the plurality of content items]] (Fox: [0041] — users sharing a document whereby the document can be modified, and changes can be tracked; [0053] — identifying types of changes performed on a shared document; [0052] — accessing metadata from shared document received from each user to identify the respective changes; [0058] — ‘[a] provenance metadata is associated with portion (e.g., paragraph or any other user defined part) of the shared document to log the changes to the relevant portion and creates a chain of event or history of the changes (e.g., user 130 wrote the original portion on Monday, user 210 added a comma to the portion on Tuesday, user 212 removed a word and added a sentence to the portion on Wednesday)’);
generating, from the activity metadata [[comprising the global metadata log]], a text representation of the user account activity indicating the actions within the collaborative workspace that occur between a first timestamp and a second timestamp (Fox: [0043] — ‘[a] context of granular changes is generated based on the change activities and corresponding provenance to the shared document’ (as the text representation of activity changes); [0058] — ‘[a] provenance metadata is associated with portion (e.g., paragraph or any other user defined part) of the shared document to log the changes to the relevant portion and creates a chain of event or history of the changes (e.g., user 130 wrote the original portion on Monday, user 210 added a comma to the portion on Tuesday, user 212 removed a word and added a sentence to the portion on Wednesday)’ (teaching of applying the metadata to obtain changes a user made to the document); [0057] — an activity module determining changes to a shared document, the changes having been made for example, in the last 24 hours (indicating a first and second timestamp that satisfy a 24-hour period from when the activity was intended to be generated));
generating a summary [[generation prompt]] from the text representation of the user account activity (Fox: [0050] — summary of changes made to a shared document which can include aggregate changes performed by a particular user; [0053], [0059], [0092] — generating a summary of the changes that were made; [0092], FIG. 20 Part 2004 — an annotated box displaying important changes made to the document); and
generating an activity summary for the user account activity within the collaborative workspace between the first timestamp and the second timestamp [[by providing the summary generation prompt to a large language model]] (Fox: [0050] — summary of changes made to a shared document which can include aggregate changes performed by a particular user; [0057] — an activity module determining changes to a shared document, the changes having been made for example, in the last 24 hours (indicating a first and second timestamp that satisfy a 24-hour period from when the activity was intended to be generated)).
The reference of Fox provides teaching for a collaborative workspace for content management, but differs from the claimed invention in that the claimed invention further provides teaching for an actual collaborative workspace particularly having an interactive environment that allows for the managing a plurality of content items, an interactive environment, as well as activity metadata comprising a global metadata log which comprises a plurality of logged actions across the plurality of content items.
This however isn’t new to the art as the reference of Piira is now introduced to teach this as:
determining, for a collaborative workspace of a content management system, activity metadata defining user account activity across a plurality of user accounts performing actions within the collaborative workspace, the collaborative workspace comprising an interactive environment for managing a plurality of content items among multiple user accounts, the activity metadata comprising a global metadata log for the collaborative workspace, the global metadata log comprising a plurality of logged actions across the plurality of content items (Piira: [0033] — a user database containing information related to users that are associated with the collaborative workspace, this information including users’ names, usernames and passwords for accessing the collaborative workspace; [0035] — a metadata database that includes metadata regarding the collaborative workspace such as information related to the activity of multiple users within the collaborative workspace, the information including ‘what activity was performed, which user performed the activity, when the activity was performed, where the activity was performed, i.e. the location of the client device 104a-104N used by the user when performing the activity, which project the activity relates to, which document the activity relates to’ (this being an activity metadata that contains a global metadata log of actions performed by several users); [0041] — the workspace engine generates a GUI which is used by the user to access the collaborative workspace (the GUI being the interactive environment), the GUI being used to search for and interact with documents and other members of a particular project in the collaborative workspace (teaching of managing content items among multiple user accounts); [0042] — ‘For example, if an action is performed while a user is accessing the collaborative workspace, the activity log of that user is updated to display the new activity to the user. The activity log may be interactive such that a user may, for example, interact with documents associated with the entries through the activity log without having to open the document directly’ (teaching of a plurality of logged actions across the plurality of content items));
generating, from the activity metadata comprising the global metadata log, a text representation of the user account activity indicating the actions within the collaborative workspace that occur [[between a first timestamp and a second timestamp]] (Piira: [0035] — a metadata database that includes metadata regarding the collaborative workspace such as information related to the activity of multiple users within the collaborative workspace; [0042] — ‘[t]he interactive activity log may be included in the GUI displayed on the client device 104a-104N. The activity log may, for example, be continuously or periodically updated while a user is accessing the collaborative workspace. For example, if an action is performed while a user is accessing the collaborative workspace, the activity log of that user is updated to display the new activity to the user. The activity log may be interactive such that a user may, for example, interact with documents associated with the entries through the activity log without having to open the document directly’).
Hence, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to improve upon the teaching of Mehta which provides a collaborative workspace for content management, by applying the known teaching of Piira which presents the collaborative workspace to include an interactive environment for managing multiple content items by multiple users, wherein an activity matadata that comprises a global metadata log of a plurality of logged actions by multiple users of a plurality of content items, to thereby come up with the claimed invention. The combination of both prior art elements would have provided the predictable result of joint collaboration on a task such that multiple users can, at the same time, work on a content item, and present the participants with the opportunity to discuss and make edits on an environment that is accessible to all those involved, while also ensuring that all participants are aware of the actions that took place on the documents so that changes can be properly tracked. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
The combination of Fox in view of Piira provides teaching for generating a summary based on observed changes in a document by a user in a shared document, but differs from the claimed invention in that the claimed invention further provides teaching for generating a summary generation prompt to be provided to an LLM for generating the activity summary.
The generation of a summary generation prompt being provided to an LLM is however not new to the art, as the reference of Mehta is now introduced to teach this as:
generating a summary generation prompt from the text representation of the user account activity (Mehta: [0051] — a summary prompt generator that generates a prompt which would be provided to an AI model); and
generating an activity summary for the user account activity within the collaborative workspace between the first timestamp and the second timestamp by providing the summary generation prompt to a large language model (Mehta: [0051] — a summary generator prompt which generates a prompt to be provided to a generative AI model (a generative AI model being dependent on a large language model) in order to generate a summary information that summarises new activity that has taken place).
Hence, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to combine the known teaching of Mehta which generates a summary generation prompt to be delivered to a generative AI model, with the teaching of the combination of Fox in view of Piira which performs summary generation of a user’s activity within a time period, to thereby come up with the claimed invention. The combination of both prior arts would have provided the predictable result of presenting the user with an ease of access to make use of an AI model capable of presenting the user with particular summaries based on properly generated prompts tailored to generating the desired summary, with little to no human intervention, the use of LLM-genAI models for generating summaries being well-known in the art. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
For claim 2, claim 1 is incorporated and the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta discloses the computer-implemented method, further comprising:
receiving an access request to access the collaborative workspace from a user account from among the plurality of user accounts (Fox: [0050] — being able to display information to a user based on the user’s credentials (indicating that a user is able to access certain information); [0070] — a query request (by a user) to view changes made to a shared document); and
in response to receiving the access request, determining the activity metadata defining the user account activity across the plurality of user accounts (Fox: [0070] — based on the query request, the system is able to identify the granular changes and the corresponding provenance data; [0058] — provenance metadata being associated with a portion of a shared document to be able to log changes, including users who made the changes).
For claim 8, the reference of Fox discloses a system comprising:
at least one processor (Fox: [0102] — a processor); and
a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor (Fox: [0035] — computer-storage media), cause the system to:
determine digital content for a collaborative workspace of a content management system accessible by a plurality of user accounts, [[the collaborative workspace comprising an interactive environment for managing a plurality of content items among the plurality of user accounts]] (Fox: [0041] — users sharing a document whereby the document can be modified, and changes can be tracked);
determine, [[from activity metadata comprising a global metadata log for the collaborative workspace]] changes in the digital content of the collaborative workspace that occur between a first timestamp and a second timestamp, [[the global metadata log comprising a plurality of logged actions across the plurality of content items]] (Fox: [0053] — identifying types of changes performed on a shared document; [0057] — an activity module determining changes to a shared document, the changes having been made for example, in the last 24 hours (indicating a first and second timestamp that satisfy a 24-hour period from when the activity was intended to be generated));
generate a summary [[generation prompt]] from the changes to the digital content (Fox: [0050] — summary of changes made to a shared document which can include aggregate changes performed by a particular user; [0053], [0059], [0092] — generating a summary of the changes that were made; [0092], FIG. 20 Part 2004 — an annotated box displaying important changes made to the document); and
generate a content change summary for the changes to the digital content within the collaborative workspace between the first timestamp and the second timestamp[[ by providing the summary generation prompt to a large language model]] (Fox: [0050] — summary of changes made to a shared document which can include aggregate changes performed by a particular user; [0057] — an activity module determining changes to a shared document, the changes having been made for example, in the last 24 hours (indicating a first and second timestamp that satisfy a 24-hour period from when the activity was intended to be generated)).
The reference of Fox provides teaching for a collaborative workspace for content management, but differs from the claimed invention in that the claimed invention further provides teaching for an actual collaborative workspace particularly having an interactive environment that allows for the managing a plurality of content items, an interactive environment, as well as activity metadata comprising a global metadata log which comprises a plurality of logged actions across the plurality of content items.
This however isn’t new to the art as the reference of Piira is now introduced to teach this as:
determine digital content for a collaborative workspace of a content management system accessible by a plurality of user accounts, the collaborative workspace comprising an interactive environment for managing a plurality of content items among the plurality of user accounts (Piira: [0033] — a user database containing information related to users that are associated with the collaborative workspace, this information including users’ names, usernames and passwords for accessing the collaborative workspace; [0041] — the workspace engine generates a GUI which is used by the user to access the collaborative workspace (the GUI being the interactive environment), the GUI being used to search for and interact with documents and other members of a particular project in the collaborative workspace (teaching of managing content items among multiple user accounts));
determine, from activity metadata comprising a global metadata log for the collaborative workspace changes in the digital content of the collaborative workspace that occur between a first timestamp and a second timestamp, the global metadata log comprising a plurality of logged actions across the plurality of content items (Piira: [0033] — a user database containing information related to users that are associated with the collaborative workspace, this information including users’ names, usernames and passwords for accessing the collaborative workspace; [0035] — a metadata database that includes metadata regarding the collaborative workspace such as information related to the activity of multiple users within the collaborative workspace, the information including ‘what activity was performed, which user performed the activity, when the activity was performed, where the activity was performed, i.e. the location of the client device 104a-104N used by the user when performing the activity, which project the activity relates to, which document the activity relates to’ (this being an activity metadata that contains a global metadata log of actions performed by several users); [0041] — the workspace engine generates a GUI which is used by the user to access the collaborative workspace (the GUI being the interactive environment), the GUI being used to search for and interact with documents and other members of a particular project in the collaborative workspace (teaching of managing content items among multiple user accounts); [0042] — ‘For example, if an action is performed while a user is accessing the collaborative workspace, the activity log of that user is updated to display the new activity to the user. The activity log may be interactive such that a user may, for example, interact with documents associated with the entries through the activity log without having to open the document directly’ (teaching of a plurality of logged actions across the plurality of content items)).
The same motivation for incorporating the reference of Piira into the teaching of Fox as applied to claim 1 is applicable here still.
The combination of Fox in view of Piira provides teaching for generating a summary based on observed changes in a document by a user in a shared document, but differs from the claimed invention in that the claimed invention further provides teaching for generating a summary generation prompt to be provided to an LLM for generating the activity summary.
The generation of a summary generation prompt being provided to an LLM is however not new to the art, as the reference of Mehta is now introduced to teach this as:
generate a summary generation prompt from the changes to the digital content (Mehta: [0051] — a summary prompt generator that generates a prompt which would be provided to an AI model); and
generate a content change summary for the changes to the digital content within the collaborative workspace between the first timestamp and the second timestamp by providing the summary generation prompt to a large language model (Mehta: [0051] — a summary generator prompt which generates a prompt to be provided to a generative AI model (a generative AI model being dependent on a large language model) in order to generate a summary information that summarises new activity that has taken place).
The same motivation applied to claim 1 for incorporating the Mehta reference is applicable here still.
As for claim 15, computer program product claim 15 and system claim 8 are related as computer program product storing executable instructions required for the operation of the system as programmable steps on a computer. Fox in [0036] provides suitable non-transitory computer readable medium suitable to read upon the limitations of this claim. Accordingly, claim 15 is similarly rejected under the same rationale as applied above with respect to system claim 8.
For claim 18, claim 15 is incorporated and the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta discloses the non-transitory computer readable medium, wherein the instructions cause the at least one processor to generate the content change summary for the changes in the content item by providing the content item at the first timestamp and the content item at the second timestamp to the large language model with the summary generation prompt (Fox: [0050] — summary of changes made to a shared document which can include aggregate changes performed by a particular user; [0057] — an activity module determining changes to a shared document, the changes having been made for example, in the last 24 hours (indicating a first and second timestamp that satisfy a 24-hour period from when the activity was intended to be generated);
Mehta: [0051] — a summary generator prompt which generates a prompt to be provided to a generative AI model (a generative AI model being dependent on a large language model) in order to generate a summary information that summarises new activity that has taken place (teaching of providing a summary generation prompt to a large language model)).
For claim 20, claim 15 is incorporated and the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta discloses the non-transitory computer readable medium, further storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to:
generate, for display on a client device, a user account selection element (Fox: [0099] — ‘[t]he user selects or clicks again the history icon 2602 to display further prior changes or edits to the selected portion 2504 (performed by all shared users or a selected or identified user)’ (thereby teaching of a display having a user interface whereby, for the purpose of displaying changes to a selected portion of the document, the user can make the selection of changes performed by a selected user, teaching of the selection of a particular user or user account); [0100] — ‘[t]he screenshot 2800 illustrates the shared document 2502 with selected portion 2504. A user selects or click on a user icon 2802 (displayed next to the selected portion 2504). Edits 2804 performed by a user corresponding to the user icon 2802 are visually indicated (e.g., highlighted) for the selected portion 2504’ (further teaching of a user making a selection of a user account by selecting a particular user icon that corresponds to the intended user));
determine, in response to user interaction with the user account selection element, a user account from among the plurality of user accounts (Fox: [0100] — ‘[t]he screenshot 2800 illustrates the shared document 2502 with selected portion 2504. A user selects or click on a user icon 2802 (displayed next to the selected portion 2504). Edits 2804 performed by a user corresponding to the user icon 2802 are visually indicated (e.g., highlighted) for the selected portion 2504’ (further teaching of a user making a selection of a user account by selecting a particular user icon that corresponds to the intended user)); and
generate the summary generation prompt to include instructions for filtering the content change summary according to the user account (Fox: [0099] — a portion on a display for the selection of edits performed by a specific user from a plurality of users, so that the shared document can display changes performed by the one specific user).
Claims 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fox (US 2020/0264745 A1) in view of Piira (US 2018/0041457 A1) further in view of Mehta (US 2024/0314093 A1) as applied to claims 1, 8 and 15, and further in view of Keslin et al. (US 2016/0321227 A1: hereafter — Keslin).
For claim 3, claim 1 is incorporated but the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta fails to disclose the limitations of this claim, for which the reference of Keslin is now introduced to teach as the computer-implemented method, wherein determining the activity metadata defining the user account activity comprises:
extracting first metadata associated with a content item within the collaborative workspace at the first timestamp and second metadata associated with the content item at the second timestamp (Keslin: [0015] — ‘[d]ocument metadata (e.g., at the server) may be used to store the temporary content changes’; [0069] — change tracking engine may save content changes in metadata which may include the time of the content change (different timestamps for different content changes)); and
generating, utilizing a difference function to process the first metadata and the second metadata, an activity comparison file that defines differences in the user account activity between the first timestamp and the second timestamp (Keslin: [0069] — the change tracking engine (as the difference function) may present content change using a textual scheme (as the activity comparison file), the metadata also including the identity of the user (the user account activity); FIG. 3 — a display of activity changes in the document showing the times and the user accounts which made the changes (these having been performed between two timestamps)).
The combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta provides teaching for applying activity metadata to generate a summary of user activity on a collaborative workspace, but differs from the claimed invention in that the claimed invention further provides that first and second timestamps are attached to first and second metadata, these being used to obtain a difference function for generating an activity comparison file. This is however not new to the art as the reference of Keslin is seen to provide above.
Hence, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to improve upon the teaching of the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta which provides teaching for applying activity metadata to generate a summary of user activity on a collaborative workspace, by applying the known teaching of Keslin which obtains the changes in activity to a collaborative content by associating timestamped changes with metadata information for the content, to thereby come up with the claimed invention. The combination of both prior art elements would have provided the predictable result of logging every change to the collaborative content by including time information, so that such information can be easily accessed by a user when needed. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
For claim 5, claim 1 is incorporated and as applied to claim 3 above, the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta further in view of Keslin discloses the computer-implemented method, further comprising:
defining the first timestamp as a time of most recent previous access of a user account from among the plurality of user accounts accessing the collaborative workspace (Keslin: FIG. 3 Part 306 — a first timestamp as a time a user accessed and edited the collaborative content); and
determining the second timestamp at a next successive time of the user account accessing the collaborative workspace after the first timestamp (Keslin: FIG. 3 Part 304 — a second timestamp as a time a user accessed and edited the collaborative content).
For claim 6, claim 1 is incorporated and as applied to claim 3 above, the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta further in view of Keslin discloses the The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising defining at least one of the first timestamp or the second timestamp by utilizing user input to determine a time of the first timestamp or the second timestamp (Keslin: FIG. 3 Parts 304, 306 — timestamps associated with content changes).
For claim 7, claim 1 is incorporated and the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:
generating the summary generation prompt to include instructions for filtering the activity summary according to the one or more activity types selected via the activity type selection element (Mehta: [0051] — a summary prompt generation for generating a prompt for generating a summary in order to summarise activity that is important to the user (indicating activity type selection, and filtering based on activity that is important to the user, with other filters being dedicated to summaries for a new e-mail, importance summary, identifying the importance of a message or group of messages to the user)).
The combination of Fox in view of Mehta however fails to teach the further limitations of this claim regarding generating an activity type selection on a display. Th reference of Keslin is now introduced to teach this as:
generating, for display on a client device, an activity type selection element (Keslin: [0031] — a visual indicator to be able to distinguish between a temporary change and a permanent change; [0032] — a collaborating editor may select to not display temporary content changes (indicating an activity type selection));
determining, in response to user interaction with the activity type selection element, a selection of one or more activity types (Keslin: [0032] — a collaborating editor may select to not display temporary content changes (indicating an activity type selection)).
The combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta provides teaching for the generation of a prompt that is useful for generating a summary based on certain activity type selection. This however differs from the claimed invention in that the claimed invention further provides teaching for a display on a client device for selecting an activity type through user interaction. This however isn’t new to the art as the reference of Keslin is seen to teach above.
Hence, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to improve upon the teaching of the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta which generates a prompt for generating a summary by making certain particular selections for the content of the summary, by applying the known teaching of Keslin which provides an activity type selection to be made by the user, to thereby come up with the claimed invention. The combination of both prior art elements would have provided the predictable result of presenting a user with the option of generating certain types of information/summary, while leaving out other details that are not required in the moment, presenting a tailored summary. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
For claim 9, claim 8 is incorporated but the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta fails to disclose the limitations of this claim, for which the reference of Keslin is now introduced to teach as the system, wherein the instructions cause the system to determine the changes in the digital content by:
extracting first digital content of the collaborative workspace at the first timestamp (Keslin: [0015] — ‘[d]ocument metadata (e.g., at the server) may be used to store the temporary content changes’; [0069] — change tracking engine may save content changes in metadata which may include the time of the content change (different time stamps for different content changes, thereby teaching of obtaining second digital content at a second timestamp));
extracting second digital content of the collaborative workspace at the second timestamp (Keslin: [0015] — ‘[d]ocument metadata (e.g., at the server) may be used to store the temporary content changes’; [0069] — change tracking engine may save content changes in metadata which may include the time of the content change (different time stamps for different content changes, thereby teaching of obtaining second digital content at a second timestamp)); and
generating, utilizing a difference function, a content difference file that defines differences between the first digital content from the second digital content (Keslin: [0069] — the change tracking engine (as the difference function) may present content change using a textual scheme (as the activity comparison file), the metadata also including the identity of the user (the user account activity); FIG. 3 — a display of activity changes in the document showing the times and the user accounts which made the changes (these having been performed between two timestamps)).
The same motivation for combination as applied to claim 3 for incorporating the reference of Keslin is applicable here still.
For claim 10, claim 8 is incorporated and as applied to claim 9 above, the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta and further in view of Keslin discloses the system, further storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to generate, utilizing a difference function to process the changes in the digital content, a text representation of the changes in the digital content (Keslin: [0069] — the change tracking engine (as the difference function) may present content change using a textual scheme (as the textual representation of the changes in the digital content), the metadata also including the identity of the user (the user account activity); FIG. 3 — a display of activity changes in the document showing the times and the user accounts which made the changes (these having been performed between two timestamps)).
For claim 11, claim 10 is incorporated and the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta and further in view of Keslin discloses the system, wherein the instructions cause the system to generate the summary generation prompt by:
generating summary generation instructions (Mehta: [0051] — a summary prompt generator that generates prompt so that a summary may be generated based on certain criteria (these being instructions to be applied to the generation of the prompt)); and
combining the summary generation instructions with the text representation of the changes in the digital content for providing to the large language model (Mehta: [0033] — ‘[s]ystem 134 also used prompt/response processor 142 to generate a prompt and provide it to API interaction system 144. API interaction system 144 calls AI model API 150 to have a generative AI model in layer 152 generate summaries for the new email messages’ (providing teaching of presenting the generated prompt as well as the text or content change, to a generative AI model as a part of the LLM).
For claim 12, claim 11 is incorporated and the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta further in view of Keslin discloses the system, further storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to generate the summary generation instructions to be specific to at least one of a user account from among the plurality of user accounts or a type of content change (Mehta: [0051] — a summary prompt generation for generating a prompt for generating a summary in order to summarise activity that is important to the user (indicating activity type selection based on activity that is of importance to the user)).
For claim 13, claim 8 is incorporated and as applied to claim 10 above, the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta further in view of Keslin discloses the system, further storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to:
generate a first text description of the digital content at the first timestamp (Keslin: FIG. 3 Part 306 — a text description at a first timestamp);
generate a second text description of the digital content at the second timestamp (Keslin: FIG. 3 Part 304 — a text description at a second timestamp); and
generate a content comparison indicating the changes in the digital content by comparing the first text description with the second text description (Fox: FIG. 22 Part 2204, [0094] — a summary of changes to a section of a shared document; [0057] — showing changes over a period of time, such as a 24-hour period).
For claim 14, claim 13 is incorporated and the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta further in view Keslin discloses the system, wherein the instructions cause the system to generate the summary generation prompt from the changes to the digital content indicated by the content comparison (Mehta: [0051] — generating a prompt that is to generate a summary of ‘all the new activity’ (new activity indicates making a content comparison to be able to show changes)).
As for claim 16, computer program product claim 16 and system claim 10 are related as computer program product storing executable instructions required for the operation of the system as programmable steps on a computer. Accordingly, claim 16 is similarly rejected under the same rationale as applied above with respect to system claim 10.
For claim 17, claim 16 is incorporated and the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta further in view of Keslin discloses The non-transitory computer readable medium, further storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to generate the summary generation prompt from the text representation of the changes in the content item (Mehta: [0051] — generating a prompt that is to generate a summary of ‘all the new activity’ (new activity indicates making a content comparison to be able to show changes)).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fox (US 2020/0264745 A1) in view of Piira (US 2018/0041457 A1) further in view of Mehta (US 2024/0314093 A1) and further in view of Keslin (US 2016/0321227 A1) as applied to claim 3, and further in view of HAR-TAL et al. (US 2018/0165267 A1: hereafter — Har-Tal).
For claim 4, claim 3 is incorporated and the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta further in view of Keslin discloses the computer-implemented method, wherein generating the text representation of the user account activity comprises generating, utilizing a content conversion model, a text description of an activity comparison indicated in the activity comparison file [[between the first metadata and the second metadata]] (Keslin: [0069] — presenting the content change using a textual scheme, or a comment box (thereby converting its obtained data regarding the differences noticed as the content change, into a text version that can be read by a user)).
The combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta further in view of Keslin however fails to succinctly teach of a comparison between the first metadata and the second metadata. This is however not new to the art as the reference of Har-Tal is now introduced to teach this as:
the computer-implemented method, wherein generating the text representation of the user account activity comprises generating, utilizing a content conversion model, a text description of an activity comparison indicated in the activity comparison file between the first metadata and the second metadata (Har-Tal: [0038] — determining a difference between metadata associated with content values of a first document and the metadata associated with content values of a second document (teaching of a comparison made between first metadata and second metadata); [0046] — making comparison between cells).
Hence, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to improve upon the teaching of the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta, and further in view of Keslin which presents content change in a textual form by applying the known technique of Har-Tal which gets the difference between the metadata of two documents, to thereby come up with the claimed invention which presents an activity comparison. The combination of both prior art elements would have provided the predictable result of determining clearly, if certain values were edited within the document, since such changes can easily be contained by stored metadata. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fox (US 2020/0264745 A1) in view of Piira (US 2018/0041457 A1) further in view of Mehta (US 2024/0314093 A1) as applied to claim 15, and further in view of BV et al. (US 2023/0141448 A1: hereafter — Bv).
For claim 19, claim 15 is incorporated but the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta fails to disclose the limitations of this claim, for which the reference of Bv is now introduced to teach as the non-transitory computer readable medium, further storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to:
generate, for display on a client device, a timestamp element for customization of at least one of the first timestamp or the second timestamp (Bv: [0055] — a user interface (indicating generation for display) whereby a user can make a selection of a timestamp range for the purpose of generating change summary (the range selection is an indication of first and second timestamps)); and
define at least one of the first timestamp or the second timestamp based on user interaction with the timestamp element (Bv: [0055] — a user interface whereby a user can make a selection of a timestamp range for the purpose of generating change summary (indicating the definition of a first or second timestamp by the user’s selection interaction)).
The combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta provides teaching for generating a change summary to a content between first and second timestamps. This combination however differs from the claimed invention in that the claimed invention further teaches of a display enabling a user to make a selection of the first and second timestamps. This is however not new to the art as the reference of Bv is seen to teach above.
Hence, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to improve upon the teaching of the combination of Fox in view of Piira further in view of Mehta which generates content change summary based on a first and second timestamp, by applying the known technique of Bv which has a display to enable a user make the selection of the timestamps, to thereby come up with the claimed invention. The combination of both prior art elements would have resulted in the predictable result of enabling a user customise the precise time range which the user desires to see content activity change, instead of being presented with more change information that the user requires. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure.
Wang et al. (US 2023/0091248 A1) provides teaching for collaboration tools that capture activity that include shared files or documents and actions performed by swarm members, such that channel-specific activity logs may be recorded over the course of completing a task, the amount of activity intended to be shared with others may be configured, and the shared activity log may be metadata-tagged in order to make the activity log searchable by uses [0054].
ENTREKIN et al. (US 2020/0341882 A1) provides teaching indicating that as a user interacts with a file object that’s present in a workspace, the system generates an interaction event [0042], and that ‘the metadata associating events in the log with users can comprises (sic) scheduling information linking the workspace displays and the users. In another embodiment, the metadata associating events in the log with users can comprise conferencing information linked to the workspace display and the users. The metadata associating events in the log with users can comprises a number of users participating in the collaboration workspace at the time of the interaction’ [0116].
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to OLUWADAMILOLA M. OGUNBIYI whose telephone number is (571)272-4708. The Examiner can normally be reached Monday – Thursday (8:00 AM – 5:30 PM Eastern Standard Time).
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/OLUWADAMILOLA M OGUNBIYI/Examiner, Art Unit 2653
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