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 § 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Howard (US 20150017962) and Zhou (CN105515619A)
With respect to claim 7, Howard discloses:
An electronic device, comprising: a memory storing a computer program; and a processor coupled to the memory and configured to execute the computer program to perform operations (as shown in figures 20-21) comprising:
receiving, when a target device (input devices 2130 in figure 21 and paragraph 0257 for user to make the selections) is connected to the electronic device,
determining a first subscriber identity module card in the electronic device based on a historically successful call card selection status of the electronic device; and using the first subscriber identity module card to dial. (figure 13 and paragraphs 0146 – 0154 shows a historical call history along with labels indicating which SIM card was used for each call in history. SIM indicator switcher 1310 can then be used to select which SIM to be used for the outgoing message. Figure 19 also shows a flowchart of this process.)
Howard though does not specifically disclose receiving a dialing request information sent by the target device, wherein the dialing request information is used for requesting the electronic device to dial.
In a similar field of endeavor, Zhou teaches in its claim 1 an external Bluetooth device which triggers a call instruction to performing a dialing instruction that is sent to the mobile terminal.
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art at the time of effective filing to modify the mobile device with SIM card of Howard to include the external Bluetooth dialing initiation, as taught by the mobile device with SIM card of Zhou, in order to provide the user with increased ease of use and accessibility in initiating a call.
With respect to claim 8, Howard discloses:
The electronic device according to claim 7, wherein the first subscriber identity module card is any one of the following: a subscriber identity module card used for a most recent successful call of the electronic device, or a subscriber identity module card with a highest historically successful call frequency. (figure 13 and paragraphs 0146 – 0154 shows a historical call history along with labels indicating which SIM card was used for each call in history. This shows the most recent call, and corresponding SIM for that call. User can also surmise from the list of historical calls which SIM was used most frequently.)
With respect to claim 9, Howard discloses:
wherein the determining a first subscriber identity module card in the electronic device based on a historically successful call card selection status of the electronic device comprises: determining a subscriber identity module card indicated by a card slot identifier stored in a target storage area as the first subscriber identity module card, (paragraphs 0091-0093 disclose SIM card labels, which can be a number, letter, or carrier name, or friendly name to indicate different SIM cards installed in the device. And paragraph 0046 discloses that SIM cards are installed into SIM slots)
wherein the target storage area is a storage area in at least one storage area of the electronic device, and each storage area is used for storing a card slot identifier corresponding to the subscriber identity module card used for the most recent successful call of the electronic device, or a card slot identifier corresponding to the subscriber identity module card with the highest historically successful call frequency. (figure 17 and paragraphs 0217-0220 disclose a default SIM table which discloses that default SIM selections can be stored for specific interfaces. For example, different defaults can be stored for call history, dialer, new conversation, recognized phone number (e.g., edit before call when a number is extracted from a webpage or other content). Defaults can also be set according to communication type (e.g., messaging), resulting in a default for contacts according to the communication type, or finer grained (e.g., for communication type and contact point).
With respect to claim 10, Howard discloses wherein the electronic device comprises a plurality of subscriber identity module cards, and the operations further comprise using a second subscriber identity module card to dial when the target storage area does not comprise a card slot identifier, wherein the second subscriber identity module card is any one of the following: a subscriber identity module card with highest signal strength in the plurality of subscriber identity module cards, or a subscriber identity module card determined based on call service registered states of the plurality of subscriber identity module cards. (paragraphs 0010 and 0194 disclose overriding the default SIM selection when insufficient signal strength, and instead selecting a different SIM for the call)
With respect to claim 11, Howard discloses wherein the target storage area is further used for storing a card identifier of the subscriber identity module card used for the most recent successful call of the electronic device, or a card identifier of the subscriber identity module card with the highest historically successful call frequency; and the operations further comprise: updating content stored in the target storage area when a target condition is met, (paragraph 0047 teaches that more than two SIM card could be supported, and thus more than two SIM cards could be included in the default SIM table of figure 17) wherein the target condition comprises at least one of the following: the target storage area does not comprise a card slot identifier corresponding to a subscriber identity module card used for a current successful call, the target storage area does not comprise a card slot identifier corresponding to a subscriber identity module card with a highest historically successful call frequency according to most recent statistics, or a card slot in which a subscriber identity module card indicated by a card identifier in the target storage area is located changes. (paragraph 0170 discloses Activation of a user interface element associated with a non-current SIM card can switch to the selected SIM (e.g., the SIM associated with the activated user interface element). Such an activation can also engage in communications (e.g., to avoid an additional activation). However, in some cases, it may be desirable to wait for an additional activation (e.g, when sending a message). Upon activation of a SIM card, the display can be changed to reflect activation (e.g., the current SIM card is changed).
Method claim 1 and computer readable medium claim 13 disclosed as discussed above with similar claim 7.
Method claim 2 and computer readable medium claim 14 disclosed as discussed above with similar claim 7.
Method claim 3 and computer readable medium claim 15 disclosed as discussed above with similar claim 7.
Method claim 4 and computer readable medium claim 16 disclosed as discussed above with similar claim 7.
Method claim 5 and computer readable medium claim 17 disclosed as discussed above with similar claim 7.
Method claim 6 and computer readable medium claim 18 disclosed as discussed above with similar claim 7.
Conclusion
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/MATTHEW D. ANDERSON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2646
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