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 .
Claims 2 – 21 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the Double Patenting rejection have been fully considered and are persuasive in view of the amendments to the claim language. The double patenting rejections of claims 2 – 21 have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments with respect to the 35 USC 102 rejection in view of Lampert have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The amended claim language’s including of the pieces of information being different from the subject of interest is not claiming that the pieces of information should be for other items of interest. Other pieces of information being received, such as alternative purchase options and/or vendors are pieces of information that are different from the item, itself, that is being purchased. Further, Lampert discloses such alternative options and vendors being sent to the user maybe be selected based on past user requests and/or purchase history from the vendors. Further, the vendors may be weighted greater if the user has a past or repeated purchase history with them, which constitutes a ranking between the potential vendors to be sent to the user. Each vendor and/or alternative purchase option is a piece of information, and they are different from the item of interest itself, and are non-specific to the item as the user has a past history for prior purchases not related to the item. Further clarification within the claim language of the relationship between the pieces of information and the subject of interest, or what the pieces of information comprise, may be sufficient in overcoming the current mapping.
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 2 – 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.
The independent claims recite “wherein at least one piece of information is non-specific to the subject of interest”. However, it is unclear as to what degree would a piece of information be specific or non-specific to a subject of interest. It is unclear if the piece of information should have associations with other potential subjects of interest, or if the piece of information just needs to have a potential other association or use with another piece of information. Would a color “red” be non-specific as there are countless objects in the world that are red, or would a vendor be non-specific as a vendor can potentially sell other items even if there is no record of that particular vendor selling another item? For purpose of examination, the term “non-specific” will just be any piece of information that has any other potential association other than the subject of interest, under broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 2 – 6, 8 – 10, 12 – 19 and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0279222 issued to Lampert (hereinafter Lampert).
As to claim 2, Lampert discloses a method, comprising:
submitting, via a user device, a request comprising a link directed to a webpage (user may drag a hyperlink to an item of interest into the plugin to add the associated item to shopping list, see Lampert: Para. 0054); and
receiving, via the user device, at least one piece of information related to, but different than, a subject of interest included within content of the webpage (prices alerts and sales for vendors for the item added to the shopping list (such as by the hyperlink of the item on a first vendors webpage) are provided to the user to either purchase in the plug-in or links to the vendors’ sites to purchase directly from the vendor, further the user may elect to have the system present other purchase options. Thus, the system may be programmed to recognize other purchase options that the customer has employed or requested in the past, and to employ the criteria used in connection with those purchase options for selecting and presenting alternative purchase options. Additionally, the system may utilize customer history as criteria for selecting and presenting alternative purchase options. For example, the system may provide greater weight towards vendors that the user has purchased from previously or repeatedly, based upon user weighting (described below) or for which the user has provided a favorable rating or has selected as a favorite vendor. In addition, the user may also edit the purchase options to select from other vendors systems, see Lampert: Para. 0054, see also Para. 0044 – 0053 and 0036 – 0042, alternative purchase options such as vendors from which the item (subject of interest) may be purchased are different from the subject of interest (the item)),
wherein a first piece of information and a second piece of information of the at least one piece of information are ranked relative to each other based on previous user behavior (the user may elect to have the system present other purchase options. Thus, the system may be programmed to recognize other purchase options that the customer has employed or requested in the past, and to employ the criteria used in connection with those purchase options for selecting and presenting alternative purchase options. Additionally, the system may utilize customer history as criteria for selecting and presenting alternative purchase options. For example, the system may provide greater weight towards vendors that the user has purchased from previously or repeatedly, based upon user weighting (described below) or for which the user has provided a favorable rating or has selected as a favorite vendor. In addition, the user may also edit the purchase options to select from other vendors systems, see Lampert: Para. 0041 – 0042, user’s history of employing or requesting of other purchases options and purchase from and/or favoriting certain vendors is previous user behavior, weighting certain vendors greater than others based on their previous purchase history is ranking vendors relative to each other, each vendor and/or purchase option being pieces of information),
wherein the at least one piece of information is from at least one other webpage different from the webpage and other than a version copy of the webpage (the user is provided with the option to purchase the item from various vendors directly through a checkout process by the plug-in or may access each vendor’s website directly to purchase the item, see Lampert: Para. 0041 - 0042 and 0054, see also Para. 0044 – 0053 and 0036 – 0041),
wherein the at least one piece of information is non-specific to the subject of interest (alternative purchase options and vendors weighted and selected based on a user’s past purchase history and/or request history, see Lampert: Para. 0041 – 0042, a user have past or repeated purchases from vendors or use of alternative purchase options are non-specific to the current item as they were used for past purchases no related to the current item and purchase thereof), and
wherein the at least one piece of information is retrieved using a database storing one or more links directed to one or more webpages, one or more subjects of interest included within content of each of the one or more webpages, and one or more pieces of information related to each of the one or more subjects of interest (the database is populated with items, prices, sales, coupons, quality, vendor rating, etc. for items at the various vendors, the population occurring via FTP data feeds, real-time HTTP requests, crawling systems, and/or directly from the systems, see Lampert: Para. 0031, see also Para. 0044 – 0054 and 0036 – 0042).
As to claim 3, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2 wherein submitting the request includes submitting the request via a browser plugin activated on the user device (user input and checkout process occurs via a plug-in, and the plug-in may also direct the user to vendors’ website for direct purchases, see Lampert: Para. 0053 – 0054).
As to claim 4, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2 wherein receiving the at least one piece of information includes receiving the at least one piece of information presented in a document, a single webpage, or across multiple webpages (user may drag a hyperlink to an item of interest into the plugin to add to shopping list, such as for a TV being view on Amazon.com, see Lampert: Para. 0054).
As to claim 5, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2 wherein receiving the at least one piece of information includes receiving a plurality of pieces of information presented in an aggregated view (the user is presented purchase options by various vendors for the candidate items, and the user may be presented with a checkout process within the plug-in to purchase or given the vendor sites to purchase from directly, see Lampert: Para. 0034, 0054 and Fig. 14 – 20).
As to claim 6, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2 wherein the subject of interest is a good or service, and wherein receiving the at least one piece of information includes receiving at least one of an availability, a pricing, a review, or a promotional offer related to the good or service (candidate items are returned to the user from various vendors, including prices, coupons, and may be presented with factors such as lower cost, lower combined cost for multiple items, vendor rating, etc. see Lampert: Para. 0034, 0037 – 0040, 0043, 0046 – 0054).
As to claim 8, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2 wherein submitting the request includes submitting the link without specifying keywords or search terms (user may drag a hyperlink to an item of interest into the plugin to add the associated item to shopping list, see Lampert: Para. 0054).
As to claim 9, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the link is a first link, and where the method further comprises submitting, via the user device, information indicating selection of certain content from within the at least one piece of information, activation of a second link from within the at least one piece of information, time spent on a given webpage associated with the at least one piece of information, or a combination thereof (a user elects to have alternative purchase options and vendors provided, the vendors being weighted based on previous user requests and/or purchase history, see Lampert: Para. 0041 – 0042, and providing the user with links to vendors and rating the vendors based on determined best purchase options, see Lampert: Para. 0046 – 0048 and Fig. 17, providing an option for a user to selection alternative purchase options to be provided and then providing various vendors from which to purchase the item so that a user may click to visit the vendor and complete the purchase is providing of first and second links that may be activated to receive a vendor list and select a vendor therefrom, or select multiple vendors as first and second links).
As to claim 10, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2 wherein the at least one piece of information is based at least in part on (a) an analysis of at least one other webpage to determine one or more parameters related to the subject of interest included within the content of the webpage and (b) a search for piece of information based at least in part on the one or more parameters (a user elects to have alternative purchase options and vendors provided, the vendors being weighted based on previous user requests and/or purchase history, see Lampert: Para. 0041 – 0042, and providing the user with links to vendors and rating the vendors based on determined best purchase options, see Lampert: Para. 0046 – 0048 and Fig. 17, and an item is added to the list by the provided link, the item name of the web page when the “Add This Item” button is selected, images may be processed to determine items, QR codes, item descriptions, etc., see Lampert: Para. 0033 and 0054, see also 0030 – 0034, item details such as price from the various vendors are from an analysis of the at least one other webpage).
As to claim 12, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2 wherein the at least one piece of information is obtained as part of a search conducted using a third-party search engine (the system may use third party systems such as dealcatcher.com, pricegrabber.com, nextag.com, google.com, bizrate.com, etc. to retrieve item data that is populated into the database, including the crawling of the third party systems or vendor and third party systems may be searched directly, see Lampert: Para. 0030 – 0032).
As to claim 13, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2 wherein the at least one piece of information is based at least in part on (a) a search of the database using the link and (b) an identification, based at least in part on the link, of the subject of interest within the one or more subjects of interest stored within the database (the database contains item information, links, etc., see Lampert: Para. 0030 – 0031, and when a user provides a link to the system, the database is searched and candidate items are presented as results, see Lampert: Para. 0032 – 0034, 0054).
Claims 14 and 21 are rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 2 above.
Claim 15 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 3 above.
Claim 16 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 4 above.
Claim 17 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 8 above.
Claim 18 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 9 above.
Claim 19 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 6 above.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 7 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lampert in view of U.S. Patent No. 9,589,292 issued to Harcar (hereinafter Harcar).
As to claim 7, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2; however, Lampert does not explicitly disclose wherein the subject of interest is an article or news story, and wherein receiving the at least one piece of information includes receiving a related article or news story regarding a same event or item.
Harcar teaches wherein the subject of interest is an article or news story, and wherein receiving the at least one piece of information includes receiving a related article or news story regarding a same event or item (the disclosed processes can also be used in other types of systems, and can be used to access information regarding digital items, such as but not limited to search results, news, real estate, social networking content, images, blogs, videos, music, movies, etc., as well as physical items, see Harcar: Col. 2 lines 33 – 55, news/blogs related to digital or physical items may be searched and retrieved/presented).
Harcar and Lampert are analogous due to their disclosure of searching for items, including those for purchase, from various electronic catalogs/vendors.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Lampert’s use of determining candidate items from multiple vendors for an item of interest to a user with Harcar’s use of the system for other uses such as for searching for news and blogs related to a digital item in order to provide users with access to an alternative version of an item for free or at reduced cost without requiring the users to manually cross providers' platform boundaries (see Harcar: Col. 2 lines 13 – 32).
Claim 20 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 7 above.
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lampert in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0294643 issued to Moss et al (hereinafter Moss).
As to claim 11, Lampert discloses the method of claim 2 including the database storing information about items (information concerning items, item specifications, discounts, prices or cost, quality, vendor rating, user reviews, item reviews, item ratings, sales tax information, coupon information, rebate information, etc. is stored in the database 120, see Lampert: Para. 0031); however, Lampert does not explicitly disclose wherein the at least one piece of information is based at least in part on (a) a topic vector constructed using the webpage and (b) a comparison of the topic vector to topic vectors of other webpages.
Moss teaches wherein the at least one piece of information is based at least in part on (a) a topic vector constructed using the webpage and (b) a comparison of the topic vector to topic vectors of other webpages (feature vectors for webpages are created and compared to vectors of other web pages, see Moss: Para. 0008, 0010 – 0013, 0027, 0058, 0061, and vectors of web pages may be for product of a seller’s webpage and be used to compare with other sellers’ page for a product and can be ordered by price for a user to browse and select, via a hyperlink, to make a purchase, see Moss: Para. 0034 – 0035, 0058 and 0061).
Moss and Lampert are analogous due to their disclosure of searching for items, including those for purchase, from various seller webpages.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Lampert’s use of determining candidate items from multiple vendors for an item of interest to a user with Moss’ use of feature vectors for items for purchase on multiple seller webpages to use in comparison for prices, etc. in order to provide a method of automatically adjusting the content of a web page to include relevant information extracted automatically from other relevant web pages (Moss: Para. 0006).
Conclusion
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARK E HERSHLEY whose telephone number is (571)270-7774. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9am-6pm.
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, Amy Ng can be reached on (571) 270-1698. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MARK E HERSHLEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2164