DETAILED ACTION
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 .
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 1-20 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 term “substantially” in claims 1 and 11 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “substantially” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. Without a definition as to the extent required to be qualified as “substantially,” one of ordinary skill in the art would not be able to satisfactorily determine how much the reveal animation needs to be completed before being considered “substantially completed.” Any amount of completion could therefore be considered within the range of completion. The examiner will interpret the limitation as such, with any amount of completion for the animation being considered “substantially completed” until further clarification and correction by applicant.
Claims 2-10 and 12-20 are dependent on claims 1 and 11 and inherit these deficiencies.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-13, and 15-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aoki et al (US 2016/0086448) in view of Collette et al (US 2012/0077564).
Re claim 1, Aoki discloses a gaming system comprising: a wagering system that generates an electronic pull-tab deck that includes a plurality of electronic pull-tab tickets (par. [0036], the gaming machine is used to play electronic pull-tab games), wherein the electronic pull-tab deck includes a plurality of watermarked winning electronic pull-tab tickets having a non-zero win value (fig. 9, watermarks 160, [0054], wherein the watermarks indicate progressive jackpots); a plurality of gaming devices communicatively coupled to the wagering system, wherein each gaming device includes a processor and memory (fig. 2, 42 and 44, and [0033], wherein the system includes other gaming machines in the gaming network); an electronic pull-tab ticket request generated by a gaming device, in which the gaming device receives an electronic pull-tab ticket in response to the electronic pull-tab ticket request ([0035], when a wagering-game instance is executed, the CPU executes the RNG programming to generate pseudo-random numbers for game-outcome logic); wherein the electronic pull-tab ticket includes a watermark identifier (fig. 9, 160); a watermark table stored on the gaming device, wherein the watermark table associates a watermark with the final awarded prize (pars. [0053] and [0054], the included table indicates the paytable for progressive awards, including those involved with the watermarks, and since the watermark influences the award amount, it is therefore associated with the final awarded prize); wherein the gaming device displays the watermark as indicated by the watermark table (fig. 9, 160); and a reveal animation that includes the final awarded prize and the watermark is displayed (fig. 10 and [0055]).
However, Aoki does not explicitly disclose the watermark being displayed before a reveal animation. Collette teaches a wagering game with watermarks similar to Aoki (fig. 4a, 125) that are displayed in symbol positions prior to the reveal of the base wagering game symbols ([0057]). As shown by Collette, these watermark symbols remain on the display after the reveal of the symbols.
It would have been obvious to present watermarks prior to symbol reveals as taught by Collette with the game of Aoki in order to provide a source of anticipation and excitement for players by showing them where potential bonus awards or prizes await, increasing the player’s hope for winning symbols to be revealed in those locations.
Re claim 2, Aoki discloses the watermark identifier includes a total prize and a plurality of display information associated with the total prize ([0054], the watermarks are associated with the table above, dictating the total prize and displaying information as shown in fig. 9, 152).
Re claims 3 and 13, while Aoki does not disclose the watermark being displayed as a grid, this is considered nonfunctional descriptive material, therefore printed matter. Since the claim is entirely directed to conveying a message independent of the supporting product, no functional relationship between the printed matter and the substrate. In other words, the limitation only claims the content of information.
Since Aoki discloses conveying a watermark to the user, its design does not materially change its functionality as a watermark, and therefore, it would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill at the time the invention was filed to design the watermark in any desired design in order to provide an aesthetically pleasing design to players of the game while still providing useful information regarding the watermark and prizes, as it would be obvious to try and leading to predictable results.
Re claims 5-6, Aoki discloses the watermark is embedded/proximate to a game symbol (fig. 9, watermarks 160a-c are embedded or proximate to the game symbols).
Re claim 7, Aoki discloses the reveal animation includes a foreground display ([0055], an animated fish swims around the display to indicate the awarded jackpot).
Re claim 8, Aoki discloses the reveal animation includes an overlaid feature displayed on top of at least one of the plurality of game symbol display positions ([0055], an animated fish swims around the display to indicate the awarded jackpot).
Re claims 9 and 19, similar to claim 3, while Aoki does not explicitly disclose a placeholder symbol covering a game symbol and being removed, as Aoki has already taught graphical animations for revealing awards, without any functional relationship being disclosed, the limitation is considered nonfunctional descriptive material, and one of ordinary skill in the art would be able to design any desired reveal animation for the purposes of creating an eye-catching and entertaining animation for revealing awards to players, as it would be obvious to try and leading to predictable results.
Re claim 10, Aoki discloses a non-zero paytable modification value, the gaming device displays a paytable modification animation corresponding to the received electronic pull-tab ticket non-zero paytable modification value ([0055], the animated fish 160 indicates the awarded jackpot, the jackpots being progressive and as shown in figs. 9-10, non-zero).
Re claims 11-12, 15-18, and 20, see the above rejections.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 14 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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 Kevin Y Kim whose telephone number is (571)270-3215. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Xuan Thai can be reached at (571) 272-7147. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KEVIN Y KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
