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
Claims 1, 2, 5-7 have been examined.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection. On 9/29/25, Applicant amended the independent claims. Applicant’s remarks address these features. See the new 103 with the addition of Verma.
Also, the 101 is still found to apply. The use of camera and location tracking is considered generic as not technical details are provided in the claim or Spec. See the 101 below.
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.
Independent Claims 1 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims are in a statutory category of invention. However, the claims recite acquiring interest information that indicates a target of interest of a user; selecting advertisement information based on the interest information; and notifying the user of the advertisement information on the user’s way to or back from an event site, tracking location to destination, identifying objects in a car and providing ads. This is considered in the Abstract Idea grouping of certain methods of organizing human activity - advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claim is directed to an abstract idea with additional generic computer elements. The additional elements are considered location tracking and a vehicle camera. These are considered generic. The use of camera and location tracking is considered generic as not technical details are provided in the claim or Spec. The generically recited computer elements do not add a practical application or meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because they amount to simply implementing the abstract idea on a computer.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional limitations only perform well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions as recognized by the court decisions listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d). Also, the additional hardware elements are: (i) mere instructions to implement the idea on a computer, and/or (ii) recitation of generic computer structure that serves to perform generic computer functions. Viewed separately or as a whole, these additional claim elements do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claims amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The claim does not provide significantly more than the identified abstract idea, in that there is no improvement to another technology or technical field, no improvement to the functioning of a computer, no application with, or by use of a particular machine, no transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, no specific limitation other than what is well-understood, routing and conventional in the field, no unconventional step that confines the claim to a particular useful application, or meaningful limitations that amount to more than generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Dependent claims 2, 5, 6, 7 are not considered directed to any additional non-abstract claim elements. Claims 5 may pass 101 if the image acquiring or image analysis hardware or functional steps were specified in the claim. However, claims 5 is currently generic as no technical details are currently made. Rather, these claims offer further descriptive limitations of elements found in the independent claims and addressed above. While these descriptive elements may provide further helpful description for the claimed invention, these elements do not confer subject matter eligibility to the invention since their individual and combined significance is still not more than the abstract concepts identified in the claimed invention. Hence, these dependent claims are also rejected under 101.
Please see the 35 USC 101 section at the Examination Guidance and Training Materials page on the USPTO website.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 2, 6, 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Can (20240028978) in view of Miyake (20210192240).
Claim 1. Examiner notes Applicant Spec at [17] lists possible types of events. Examiner notes that based on Applicant Spec at [40, 50] that notifying of the ad info can be any method and can be transmitting or displaying the ad. See Applicant Spec at [44] for package identifying by camera. Can discloses a method executed by a control device, the method comprising:
acquiring, from a terminal device, position information of the user (see location at [30, 41, 78]; see GPS at [67, 68, 81]; tracking location at claim 5).
determining whether the user started moving based on the position information of the user (see GPS at [67, 68, 81]; tracking location at claim 5);
in a case where it is determined that the user started moving (see GPS at [67, 68, 81]; tracking location at claim 5), determining that the user is on a path (see GPS at [67, 68, 81]; tracking location at claim 5; “[80]… and movement of in-person attendee 502 may be tracked.”);
in a case where it is determined that the user is on the path (see GPS at [67, 68, 81]; tracking location at claim 5 and “[80]… and movement of in-person attendee 502 may be tracked.”; also see “[78]… In some embodiments, the location of the user is provided by mobile device 514, sensor 512, or camera”), acquiring, from a camera associated with a user, an image capturing the user ([69]).
Can further discloses identifying a booth that the user has visited at an event venue based on the identified image (camera and matching level of interest at claim 7 and analyzing image obtained from user associated camera to track level of interest and booths visited at claims 10, 11 and also claims 8,9);
acquiring, based on the identified booth, interest information that indicates a target of interest of a user ([42, 87]; claims 8-11);
selecting advertisement information based on the interest information (targeted incentives [84] and promotional ads based on user profile which has likes of user [85, 87]); and
displaying the advertisement information on a display (Ads [84]; offers based on camera data and user profile and providing a custom experience [80, 85]).
Can does not explicitly disclose information indicating that a user has set a destination of a route search application to home of the user, determining whether the user started moving to home, determining that the user is on a return path, in a case where it is determined that the user is on the return path, acquiring, from a camera associated with a vehicle; identifying, from the acquired image, a package possessed by the user; displaying ads on a display mounted on the vehicle. However, Can discloses the features above. Can further discloses user profile and registration info like name and contact info and attended identifying info [42] and mailing to mailing address of the user [59], home décor [52], the user is tracked for what he has purchased [40, 85], and provide beauty promotion AFTER home décor event [52]. Hence, Can knows the home address of the user and that the user is interested in home goods. And, Verma discloses a navigation system with GPS [14] and ads based on navigation info [19] and ads based on travel route [39] and ads based on destination [50] and ads based on the user driving to home/residence [57]. And, Verma discloses a camera in a vehicle to monitor passenger and objects/belongings in vehicle [18, 20], an in-vehicle display [10], determining driver preference by monitoring the driver [57], and ads based on objects/belongings of the passenger in the vehicle [18, 20]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Verma’s ads based on the user driving home, based on user preferences, and based on camera information on objects in the vehicle to Can’s custom ads/experience and camera tracking. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better use camera to provide custom/targeted ads.
Claim 2. Can further discloses the method according to claim 1, further comprising selecting advertisement information associated with the target of interest of the user from among a plurality of pieces of advertisement information associated with an event at the event venue (targeted promotions Before the event on the way to the event to the user mobile device [84], Fig. 5; targeted promotions before the event [50]; offer/incentive/ad goes to mobile device [80]; provide beauty promotion AFTER home décor event [52]).
Claim 6. Can further discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the event venue includes an exhibition, a trade show, or a product exhibition (Figs. 4, 5).
Claim 7. Can further discloses the method according to claim 1, further comprising: transmitting information indicating an inquiry of the target of interest of the user to the terminal device; acquiring, by the terminal device, the target of interest from the user; and acquiring the interest information based on the acquired target of interest ([80, 84-87]).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Can (20240028978) in view of Miyake (20210192240) in view of Nishikawa (20190019019).
Claim 5. Examiner notes Applicant Spect at [43] describes baggage/shopping bag and color. Can does not explicitly disclose the method according to claim 1, wherein the package includes a shopping bag, and the method further includes specifying the booth based on a color of the shopping bag. However, Can discloses the preceding and further discloses products at the event [86] and promotional content at the booth [55] and promotional codes [87]. And, Nishikawa discloses shopping and shopping at a large venue like a mall [85] and tracking the shopper by tracking the bag given to the shopper [85, 94, 110] and tracking based on color of the bag (see color and bag at [94]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Nishikawa’s tracking a user by tracking their given bag and bag color to Can’s tracking a user and the user’s movement and interests/likes. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better track the user.
Conclusion
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
aa) Miyake discloses a camera in a vehicle to monitor passenger and belongings in vehicle [23, 29-31], an in-vehicle display [22], and ads based on belongings of the passenger in the vehicle [42]; Zahid with tennis and picnic basket based on sensors but is same assignee; Acosta discloses camera and car [0023]; these disclose camera and car: Verma [18, 20], Hanson targeted ad and camera in vehicle, Endo.
a) Examiner notes nothing available in Global Dossier at time of search for the related Japanese application;
aa) Brit [0231] discloses events and ads based on the event after the event attendance; the other cited prior art discloses events and ads based on the event;
b) Liu, Ryan, Audo disclose bag colors; Brooks discloses bag color for id [47].
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ARTHUR DURAN whose telephone number is (571)272-6718. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thurs, 7-5pm.
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, Ilana Spar can be reached on 571-270-3923. 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.
/ARTHUR DURAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3621 10/6/25