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 1-20 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 1/13/26, Applicant amended independent claim 1. And, Applicant’s remarks address these amended features. See the added citations and explanations for these features and remarks. Also on 1/13/26, Applicant broadened claim 1 by cancelling some features. Also, for the 1/13/26 Remarks the argued features at the bottom of page 19 do not address the actual claim limitations. It is the actual claim limitations in light of the Spec that are examined. For example, raw pings and centralized ping feed are not found in the actual claim language.
Examiner notes the 6/5/25 Interview.
See the election by original presentation for new claims 12-20 added on 1/13/26.
Examiner notes the approved Terminal Disclaimer on 1/7/26 to CON application 18227035 which is patent number 12106328. Also, patent 12106328 has a Terminal Disclaimer to patent 11756079 (application 17198181). Patent 11756079 has a Terminal Disclaimer to patent 10977690 (application 16504201).
Also, dependent claims 2, 9, 11 dated 1/13/26 were found to have potentially allowable subject matter. Also, dependent claim 11 needs a 101 issue addressed. See the 101 and the statement on dependent claim 11 below.
Potential Allowable Subject Matter
See the Examiner initiated interview dated 6/5/25. Claim 1 dated 8/27/24 is similar to parent CON allowance to 18227035 with patent number 12106328. The current claim dated 8/27/24 changed populating to writing. The current claims dated 8/27/24 dropped the last comprising step. The last comprising step was an important feature as noted in the Notice of Allowance for the parent patent 12106328. The interview was made to explore new or different features to add back in to make the current application first action allowable. However, the Attorney said that the Applicant did not want to change or add anything at this time. See the Double Patenting rejection below. Also, the 1/13/26 claims dropped the inserting step entirely from claim 1. Also an Amendment to the last feature of the current claim 1 may help move towards allowance. Adding more to the last feature of claim 1 with further details on engagement metric, or visibility, or time spent, or interaction data as visibility/scroll/MRC, or identifying time and interaction data, or a binary value indicating whether 100% visible are examples of what could be added to the last feature of current claim 1. This may help move the current application towards Allowance.
Also, dependent claims 2, 9, 11 were found to have potentially allowable subject matter. Also, dependent claim 11 needs a 101 issue addressed. See the 101 and the statement on dependent claim 11 below.
Double Patenting
A Terminal Disclaimer was approved on 1/7/26.
Election/Restrictions
Newly submitted claim 12-20 directed to an invention that is independent or distinct from the invention originally claimed for the following reasons: Independent claims 12 and 18 calculate an engagement metric in contrast with the engagement metric of claim 1.
Since applicant has received an action on the merits for the originally presented invention, this invention has been constructively elected by original presentation for prosecution on the merits. Accordingly, claim 12-20 withdrawn from consideration as being directed to a non-elected invention. See 37 CFR 1.142(b) and MPEP § 821.03.
To preserve a right to petition, the reply to this action must distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement. Otherwise, the election shall be treated as a final election without traverse. Traversal must be timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are subsequently added, applicant must indicate which of the subsequently added claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
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 is 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 a method for characterizing user engagement with visual elements loaded with visual content and viewed on a population of devices, the method comprising: receiving a first ping from a visual element accessed by a first device in the population of devices, the first ping comprising: a first value representing a first amount of the visual element viewed at the first device; in response to the first value exceeding a threshold value, grouping the first ping with a first group of pings in a ping feed, each ping in the first group of pings received from the visual element prior to the first ping, the ping feed comprising pings received from the population of mobile devices; and in response to the first value falling below the threshold value: based on the first group of pings, deriving an engagement metric representing user interactions with visual content rendered within the visual element; writing the engagement metric representing the first group of pings. 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 at a remote computer system remote from the population of mobile devices: via a computer network, to a view session packet, the view session packet into a browse session packet. These are considered generic. 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 3-8, 10,11 are not considered directed to any additional non-abstract claim elements. Rather, these claims offer further descriptive limitations of elements found in the independent claims and addressed above. Also, claim 11 was found to potentially pass 101 if this dependent claim 11 actually wrote the engagement data into the view session packet. At present, dependent claim 11 does nothing with the engagement data in that claim. 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 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Itzhak (20110082755) in view of Krishnamurthy “Krishna” (20150142557).
Claim 1. Itzhak discloses a method for characterizing user engagement with visual elements loaded with visual content viewed on a population of devices, the method comprising, at a remote computer system (see time at [13, 14]; Fig. 1):
via a computer network, receiving a first ping from a visual element accessed by a first device in the population of devices, the first ping comprising ([19-22], [30-31], [38-46]):
a first value representing a first amount of the visual element viewed at the first device ([19-22], [30-31], [38-46]);
in response to the first value exceeding a threshold value, grouping the first ping with a first group of pings in a ping feed, each ping in the first group of pings received from the visual element prior to the first ping, the ping feed comprising pings received from the population of devices (predefined portion of the advertisement is considered visible, see [0036]; also see [34-36]; also for grouping pings see every advertisement presented to users according to the advertisers requirement is recorded and reported for accurate monitoring, metering and billing for advertisements actually viewed or displayed to users on mobile devices, see Fig. 2 (250), (260), [0016], [0019]; also for for group of ping feeds see aggregate and time of test at [22] and aggregated or cumulative length an ad is visible at [43], also for threshold see limit and caps and time at [44, 54] ); and
in response to the first value falling below the threshold value (anything below the predetermined value is considered invisible, see Fig. 2):
based on the first group of pings, deriving an engagement metric representing user interactions with visual content rendered within the visual element (aggregated or total visibility time amount of time or status indicating whether the advertisement is visible or not at the time of the test, see [0022], [0036]-[0041]; also for engagement metric see e vent at [22] and see conditions and event at [23]).
Examiner notes Application Spec at [50] of the PG_PUB and view session packet is for ad viewing information while browse session is for the whole browse session. Itzhak does not explicitly disclose writing the engagement metric to a view session packet representing the first group of pings. However, Itzhak discloses using packet for information and data transfer. And, Krishna discloses ad session data metrics and tracking a view session including ad session data and ad engagement scores and web browsing session data [90]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Krishna’s tracking ad engagement metrics per session to Itzhak’s visual engagement with ads. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better track ad interaction and presentation.
Claim 2. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1, further comprising inserting the view session packet into a browse session packet representing a browse session at the first device and comprising a set of view session packets representing periods of visibility of the visual element within a viewport at the first device (This dependent claim was found to have potentially allowable subject matter).
Claim 3. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1: wherein receiving the first ping comprises receiving the first ping at a first time (see time marker in claim 1); wherein deriving the engagement metric based on the first group of pings in response to the first value falling below the threshold value comprises, in response to the first value falling below the threshold value: concluding a first view session containing the first group of pings; and based on the first group of pings, deriving the first engagement metric for the first view session; and further comprising: outputting the first view session packet to a first database at a second time succeeding the first time; writing the ping feed to a second database at approximately the second time; and at a third time succeeding the second time, deriving a second engagement metric for the first view session based on the ping feed (see report and threshold and limit citations for claim 1 above).
Claim 4. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1, further comprising: receiving a second ping from a second visual element accessed by a second device in the population of devices, the second ping comprising a second value representing a second amount of the second visual element viewed at the second device; in response to the second value exceeding the threshold value, grouping the second ping with a second group of pings in the ping feed, each ping in the second group of pings received from the second visual element prior to the second ping; and in response to the second value falling below the threshold value: based on the second group of pings, deriving a second engagement metric representing user interactions with visual content rendered within the second visual element; and writing the second engagement metric to a second view session packet representing the second group of pings (see time measure and one ad measured across multiple users/devices in claim 1).
Claim 5. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein calculating the first engagement metric based on the first group of pings comprises calculating a first time spent value for visibility of visual content loaded within the visual element based on time values of pings in the first group of pings (see [56] and measure and visibility).
Claim 6. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1: wherein receiving the first ping comprises receiving the first ping comprising: a first time value; and the first value representing the first amount of the visual elements viewed at the first device at a first time corresponding to the first time value; and wherein deriving the engagement metric based on the first group of pings comprises: calculating a time offset between consecutive pings in the first group of pings; calculating a product of a visible proportion of the visual element indicated in a ping and the time offset from the ping to a contiguous ping for each ping in the first group of pings; and calculating a sum of products for pings in the first group of pings to calculate a total pixel-time spent value (see time and segment intervals for when visible at [50]).
Claim 7. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1: wherein receiving the first ping from the visual element viewed at the first device comprises receiving the first ping from the visual element viewed at the first device, the visual element loaded with a first advertisement within a first advertising campaign; and further comprising, in response to the first value exceeding the threshold value, serving a second advertisement in the first advertising campaign to the first device (“[24]… In some embodiments, module 113 may request a new advertisement from advertisement server 135 when a page-view cap or a time-period cap is reached”).
Claim 8. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1: wherein receiving the first ping from the visual element viewed at the first device comprises receiving the first ping from the visual element viewed at the first device, the visual element loaded with a first advertisement within a first advertising campaign; wherein deriving the engagement metric based on the first group of pings comprises calculating, based on the first group of pings; and further comprising, in response, serving a second advertisement in a second advertising campaign to the first device, the second advertisement campaign different from the first advertising campaign (“[24]… In some embodiments, module 113 may request a new advertisement from advertisement server 135 when a page-view cap or a time-period cap is reached”).
Itzhak does not explicitly disclose scoring or an engagement score, representing user engagement with the first advertisement. However, Krishna discloses scoring and ads [28, 52]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Krishna’s ad score to Itzhak’s ads and viewing. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better present ads that are viewed.
Claim 9. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1: wherein receiving the first ping comprises receiving the first ping at a first time; and further comprising, in response to the first value falling below the threshold value: via the computer network, receiving a second ping from the visual element at a second time succeeding the first time, the second ping comprising a second value representing a second amount of the visual element viewed at the first device; and in response to the second value falling below the threshold value:- based on the first group of pings, deriving the engagement metric representing user interactions with visual content rendered within the visual element; and- writing the engagement metric to the view session packet representing the first group of pings (This dependent claim was found to have potentially allowable subject).
Claim 10. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1: wherein receiving the first ping comprises receiving the first ping at a first time; and further comprising: writing the ping feed to a database at a second time succeeding the first time; accessing a second engagement metric definition defined at a third time succeeding the second time; based on pings in the ping feed received from the visual element, calculating a second engagement metric according to the second engagement metric definition; and writing the second engagement metric to the view session packet (see visibility and multiple measurements at claim 1 above).
Claim 11. Itzhak discloses the method of Claim 1, further comprising: calculating an offset interval between contiguous pings in the ping feed based on timestamps contained in pings in the ping feed; and in response to a first offset interval between the first ping and a contiguous ping exceeding 200 milliseconds: detecting absence of a particular ping from the ping feed; and interpolating a set of engagement data between pings, in the ping feed, spanning the particular ping (This dependent claim was found to have potentially allowable subject matter if the 101 on this claim was addressed by actually writing the engagement data into the view session packet).
Conclusion
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
See the actions on related case CON application 18227035 which is now patent number 12106328; see CON application 17/198,181 now patent 17198181; see CON application 16/504,201 now patent 10977690.
the prior art Itzhak (US 2011/0082755 A1) teaches remote server receiving visibility information when an advertisement becomes visible, when the advertisement leaves the browser’s viewport ... when the page is minimized etc. Haile et al. (US 2015/0310484A 1) teaches determining whether an online ad is viewable and whether the user has interacted with the webpage and reporting the condition.
Collins discloses ad session data metrics [10] and tracking a view session including ad session data [49, 76, 167] and also using packets for tracking [168]; Wenig discloses session and ad tracking.
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.
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/ARTHUR DURAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3621 1/28/26