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 § 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.
Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 2014/0221101 A1 to Eddy et al.
Re claim 1, Eddy discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium for causing a computer providing a virtual space
Eddy, see the abstract and Fig. 1, is a builder-type game that enables players to place buildings and consolidate buildings in a game space.
to function as: an acquiring unit that acquires item information regarding a plurality of items used by an object operated by a user in the virtual space;
[0036]-[0037], a game space 100 is divided into a grid of equal sections. A player uses a mouse to control a cursor to select housing units from a game menu. In the illustrative embodiment of Fig. 1, the player has commanded the game program to place six small housing units 102 in game space 100.
a formation unit that forms one or more virtual structures based on the plurality of items;
[0037] describes “In Fig. 1, all of the small housing units 102-112 have been positioned adjacent to each other. Alternatively, the small housing units 102-112 could have been selected and placed in any suitable manner and positioned in any location in the game space 100.”
a selecting unit that selects items of a common variation associated with the plurality of items, based on a user input; and a replacement unit that replaces at least a portion of the plurality of items forming the one or more virtual structures with items of the common variation, when the plurality of items satisfy a predetermined condition.
[0035], “a player builds a virtual world comprises of game objects placed into a game space. At any point, the player consolidate any two or more of the same type of object into a single object which maintains all of the same features and benefits of the original, individual game objects but occupies less game space. See additionally [0038]-[0040]. which describes an example of this feature as shown in Fig. 2.
Re claims 2-4, [0035] describes that the virtual structures that are eligible to be combined must be “two or more of the same type”. See Figs. 1-2 which show six small virtual houses of a same type and that are arranged adjacent to each other that are eligible to be combined.
Re claim 5, because this claim does not provide any structural limitations or describe what step limitations would define how “forming a single virtual structure” is to be evaluated in the context of the claim, the six small virtual homes shown in Fig. 1 are interpreted, collectively, as a single structure (or block).
Re claim 6, as described in [0035], the larger, consolidated structure shown in Fig. 2 “maintains all of the same features and benefits of the original” including the number of inhabitants houses. This meets the limitation of being a virtual storage facility (of attributes and virtual people) capable of storing these virtual items.
Re claim 7, absent any definition of what comprises “a predetermined effect in a predetermined range”, the consolidation of six houses in the areas shown in to the single large house in the area shown meets the limitation of being a predetermined graphic effect in the depicted range.
Re claim 8, regarding the claim to a predetermined range that a user stays in, [0037], [0039] describes that the UI of the invention of Eddy functions responsive to user mouse cursor selection and moving of objects. Cursor proximity to selectable UI elements meets a limitation of the user staying near certain objects.
Re claims 9, 12, [0037] and [0040] describe that any of the small housing units and the replacement unit can be freely placed in the game space based on user input commands.
Re claim 10, this negative limitation states that an object different from an object operated by a user does not appear when a predetermined effect occurs. Considering Figs. 1-2 and [0039]-[0040] which describes a user being allowed to freely place large housing unit 122 after it appears (a visual effect of consolidating objects 102-112), there is no visual evidence of any other objects aside from unit 122 being operated by the user appearing in the game space.
Re claim 11, [0032] describes that a user may continue to add game objects to a consolidated object, which teaches virtual devices being displayed in different forms. And as shown in Fig. 1, the space occupied by small buildings is a single cell vs multiple cells for the large building, which teaches different ranges (of covered game spaces) associated with the virtual devices.
Re claims 13, 14, refer to the rejection of claim 1, wherein the rejection of the computer-readable medium necessarily involves a discussion of a method of its use and a system executing the step limitations encoded in the medium.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEVEN J HYLINSKI whose telephone number is (571)270-1995. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 10-530.
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/STEVEN J HYLINSKI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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