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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s traversal of the restriction requirement has been noted, but the arguments are deemed not persuasive.
Applicant’s sole argument appears to be that the claims were “similarly classified, so a single search could cover all claims of these Species and would not bring a serious burden to the Examiner.” However, this argument is not persuasive at least the following reasons:
Applicant fails to provide for how the claims were “similarly classified,” or what the classifications were. Claims are not generally individually classified on the record, where a classification is applied to the application, as a whole. Further, the restriction requirement provided classifications for the claims that were not the same. Thus, there is no evidence of the claims sharing the same classification, or what “similarly classified” would mean. As a note, the instant application is a continuation of an international application, where the International Search Report did not find a lack of unity. However, the lack of unity standard is different from the US standards for restrictions, where applicant may be attempting to provide the lack of unity standard. As this application is not a National Stage of a PCT application, lack of unity requirements do not apply.
The restriction requirement provided how a burden would be present, where none of the actual rationale was addressed by Applicant. The rationale provided that a most likely rejection of the dependent claims would require two distinct rejections of the independent claims, one where the messages are sent and the other where the messages are unsent. There is no case where the messages can be both sent and unsent, as these would be the same messages. Regardless of the classification of the instant claims, requiring that two completely different rejections with non-overlapping embodiments, where all of the prior art applicable in one embodiment would not be applicable in the other embodiment would provide such a serious burden, as this would essentially have two different prosecutions occurring for the two different embodiments. Further, in a case where allowable subject matter is identified, such would likely only be identified with regard to specific functions for the sent messages or the unsent messages, making it unlikely that such allowable subject matter would be incorporated into the other embodiment (note that none of the dependent claims that add substantial subject matter beyond changing statutory categories actually apply to both embodiments, with the different dependent claims specifying whether the messages were sent or unsent messages). If allowable subject matter is identified that would be applicable to both embodiments, Applicant will have the opportunity to apply such subject matter to both embodiments to have the withdrawn claims then examined.
Accordingly, as Applicant’s traversal was not responsive to the actual rationale provided, and the evidence on the record would support that the restriction was proper, the restriction has been maintained.
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 1-4, 10-13, and 17-20 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.
With regard to claim 1, the instant claim presents “in a case that the first message is the M sent messages…or in a case that the first message is the M unsent messages…” The “or” term, in combination with the “in a case” recitations would mean that one of the two options can be selected, but then the recitation would only apply for the selected option in the specific recited case. For instance, with the term “or,” “M unsent messages” in a prior art reference could still be applied in the first option, but then the “in a case that the first message is the M sent messages” would mean that the language is not limiting. Accordingly, due to the use of the term “or,” it is unclear if the language is limiting. Applicant should change the term “or” to “and,” thus ensuring that “in a case” phrases are limiting, but each would only be triggered in that specific case. Claims 2-4, 10-13, and 17-20 fail to correct the issue, and are rejected for the same.
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.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the instant claim is explicitly drawn towards a “software product,” which would be software per se, and is thus held to be non-statutory. To be statutory, the software product would need to be stored on or include some non-transitory computer readable medium or a storage device that stores the software that is executed by at least one processor to implement the method.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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) 1-4, 9-13, and 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by US 2019/0320060 (Seidman).
With regard to claim 1, Seidman discloses a message sending method, wherein the method comprises:
receiving, by a first electronic device, a first input by a user for a first message, wherein the first message is M messages sent or unsent by the first electronic device, and M is a positive integer (Seidman: Figure 2A and Paragraph [0007]. A user can send messages to a recipient. The number “M” only needs to be a positive integer, and thus can be 1. Further “sent or unsent” only requires one of the two options to teach the claim, as a whole, where the messages are at least sent.);
performing, by the first electronic device, first processing on the first message in response to the first input, to obtain a second message (Seidman: Paragraph [0007]. The user can amend messages after being sent, where if the message is edited, a second message would be received.); and
sending, by the first electronic device, the second message through a server (Seidman: Paragraph [0007]. The message is provided to the recipient to change the previously sent message.),
wherein
in a case that the first message is the M sent messages, the first processing is processing for updating content or in a case that the first message is the M unsent messages, the first processing is message merging processing (Seidman: Paragraph [0007]. As above, the message was at least a sent message. Further, the content of the message is updated.).
With regard to claim 2, Seidman discloses wherein the first message is the M sent messages; and after the performing, by the first electronic device, first processing on the first message in response to the first input, to obtain a second message, the method further comprises: sending, by the first electronic device, indication information to the server, wherein the indication information is used to indicate any one of the following: the server deleting the first message in the server, or the server replacing the first message in the server with the second message (Seidman: Paragraphs [0007] and [0008]. The message with the recipient is replaced with the second message, where a server is used to provide the message to the recipient. Further, Seidman provides different services that can be used, including Gmail, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc., where these different services would maintain the messages in the server, with the process of Seidman resulting in the stored message in the server being replaced with the updated message.).
With regard to claim 3, Seidman discloses wherein the indication information is used to indicate the server to replace the first message in the server with the second message; after the sending, by the first electronic device, indication information to the server, the method further comprises: displaying, by the first electronic device, the second message in a first area in a conversational interface, wherein the first area is a display area of the first message in the conversational interface, wherein display forms of first content and second content in the second message are different, the first content is content in the first message, and the second content is content in the second message that is different from the first content (Seidman: Figures 2A to 2C. The messages are provided in a conversation interface, where during editing, the content of both messages are displayed in different forms (with markings to designate edits). Further, the instant claim does not require that the message content of both messages are displayed simultaneously, where Seidman would provide the original message content in a form that does not indicate edits while the replacement content is displayed in a form that includes an edit made note.).
With regard to claim 4, Seidman discloses wherein the first message is the M sent messages; and before the receiving, by a first electronic device, a first input by a user for a first message, the method further comprises: receiving, by the first electronic device, a second input by the user in the conversational interface, wherein the second input is an input for selecting the first message; and in response to the second input, displaying, by the first electronic device, a message editing box in the conversational interface, displaying the first message in the message editing box, and displaying an input method interface corresponding to the message editing box, wherein the first input is an input of content entered by the user through the input method interface (Seidman: Figures 2A to 2C and Paragraphs [0097] to [0099]).
With regard to claim 9, Seidman discloses a message sending method, comprising: 4
receiving, by a second electronic device, a second message forwarded by a server, wherein the second message is a message obtained by a first electronic device by updating content of M messages sent by the first electronic device (Seidman: Figure 2A and Paragraph [0007]. A user can send messages to a recipient. The number “M” only needs to be a positive integer, and thus can be 1. The instant claim, as opposed to claim 1, is from the perspective of the recipient, where such messages are displayed to the recipient.);
displaying, by the second electronic device, prompt information, wherein the prompt information is used to prompt a user that the M messages have been updated (Seidman: Figures 2A to 2C. A note is provided that a message is edited, where the recipient is able to respond to any messages, including those that were previously received/edited.);
receiving, by the second electronic device, a target input by the user for the prompt information (Seidman: Figures 2A to 2C. The recipient can input a reply to the message for display in the conversation.); and
displaying, by the second electronic device, the second message in a target area in a conversational interface in response to the target input, wherein the target area is a display area of a first message in the conversational interface (Seidman: Figures 2A to 2C. Lacking detail of the “first message,” such a message could also be a message input by the recipient after the second message was received and displayed (with any corresponding edits).).
With regard to claims 10-13 and 17-20, the instant claims are similar to claims 1-4, and are rejected for similar reasons.
Citation of Pertinent Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The attached Notice of References Cited includes several references that were pertinent but not relied upon. Applicant’s attention is directed particularly to the article "How to Post on Reddit". Posted at https://savemyleads.com/blog/useful/how-to-post-on-reddit> on 1/19/2023, where this appears to also anticipate many of the instant claims, where pages 13-15 provides disclosure of how to edit previous posts on Reddit, where a user can update a message on a server that was provided to at least one recipient (and typically plural recipients on the public forum), such that the content of the new message would be provided to the recipients after the update has been performed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SCOTT B CHRISTENSEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1144. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, 6AM to 2PM.
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, John Follansbee can be reached at (571) 272-3964. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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SCOTT B. CHRISTENSEN
Examiner
Art Unit 2444
/SCOTT B CHRISTENSEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444
Prosecution Insights