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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements filed on December 5, 2024, and February 13, 2026 comply with the provisions of 37 C.F.R. § 1.97, 1.98, and MPEP § 609, and therefore have been placed in the application file. The information referred to therein has been considered as to the merits.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed. The following title is suggested: “Display Control Device and Method for Restricting Input Operations via Extended User Interfaces”.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 112(a)
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. § 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. § 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 5 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. § 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
As an initial matter, the Applicant is reminded that the preliminary amendment filed on December 5, 2024 is not entitled to the presumption of adequate written description ordinarily afforded to preliminary amendments filed on the same date as a patent application, because the original filing date of a national stage application is its international filing date, not the date it enters the national stage. See MPEP § 714.01(e) (“A preliminary amendment filed with a submission to enter the national stage of an international application under 35 U.S.C. 371 is not part of the original disclosure under 37 C.F.R. § 1.115(a) because it was not present on the international filing date accorded to the application under PCT Article 11”); see also MPEP § 1893.01(a)(3).
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[AltContent: oval][AltContent: oval]The amendment filed on December 5, 2024 contains two pieces of new matter with respect to claim 5. First, as can clearly be seen in the amendment text itself, the first “when” statement converts its condition to the opposite of what was originally recited. That is, it deletes the text that provides a conditional statement for when the condition is “not satisfied,” and replaces it with the opposite (“when the input operation satisfies a predetermined condition”).
Second, it completely changes the meaning of the first “when” contingency. Originally, claim 5 simply provided a mechanism for customizing (e.g., by an administrator) the “restriction details” concerning how the subsequent UI will be restricted in response to the input operation failing to satisfy the predetermined condition, and then carrying out those custom restrictions in response to a use who actually provides an input that fails the predetermined condition. (See Spec. ¶ 30). This has been removed from the claim, and replaced with a requirement that the input operation that merely sets the restriction details (e.g., by the administrator in paragraph 30) is also the same input operation that both satisfies and does not satisfy the predetermined condition at runtime. This does not make sense, and it is not disclosed in the originally-filed written description.
Accordingly, claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) for reciting new matter, and claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) because it incorporates the new matter of its parent claim by reference.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 112(b)
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 5 and 6 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 applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 5, as modified by the preliminary amendment, is indefinite. As currently written, claim 5 now applies restrictions to a subsequent extended UI both when the input operation satisfies the predetermined condition and when the input operation does not satisfy the predetermined condition. At a minimum, this directly contradicts parent claim 1 (whose limitations are incorporated into claim 5 by reference), because parent claim 1 only applies a restriction when the input operation does not satisfy the condition. Furthermore, as a practical matter, it does not make sense: the device of claim 1 seemingly restricts subsequent extended UI operations regardless of whether the predetermined condition is met.
The issue appears to arise from a misunderstanding of original claim 5. Originally, claim 5 simply provided a mechanism for customizing (e.g., by an administrator) the “restriction details” concerning how the subsequent UI will be restricted in response to the input operation failing to satisfy the predetermined condition, and then carrying out those custom restrictions in response to a use who actually provides an input that fails the predetermined condition. (See Spec. ¶ 30).
In order to promote compact prosecution, the Examiner will apply prior art to claim 5 as though it had been amended properly, i.e., by preserving its meaning in the original version of claim 5 and in paragraph 30 of the specification.
Claim 6 is also rejected for the same reason, because claim 6 incorporates the text of claim 5 by reference. See 35 U.S.C. § 112(d).
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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 1–9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0246466 A1 (“Waddell”).
Claim 1
Waddell discloses
A display control device comprising a processor configured to execute operations comprising:
As shown in FIG. 2, a mobile computing device 200 is provided, Waddell ¶¶ 17–18, including a processor for executing applications on the mobile computing device 200. Waddell ¶ 13.
One of the applications executed by the processor of mobile computing device 200 is a “text entry interface system 210,” which corresponds to the claimed “extended UI.” The text entry interface system 210 falls within the scope of the extended UI because it is a separate application that runs as a layer on top of other applications 208 running on the device 200. Waddell ¶¶ 19 and 21.
storing extended user interface (UI) rule information, the extended UI comprises a condition specifying at least one of an operation sequence, an operation time lapse, or a number of operations of the extended UI,
The text entry user interface system 210 includes a “layer manager 216” that “detects the conditions for switching the active layer from the text entry layer to the application layer, and controls the switch.” Waddell ¶ 23. Like the other applications on the device, everything the layer manager 216 does is stored as a set of instructions on the memory of the device. See Waddell ¶ 13 and clm. 19. This necessarily includes the “conditions” that layout manager 216, which conditions correspond to the claimed rule information.
One of the conditions that layer manager 216 monitors includes a condition involving a timeout counter to detect “[i]f a user has failed to enter any text via the text entry layer for a period of time (e.g., 15 second).” Waddell ¶ 24. This falls within the scope of at least the claimed “operation time lapse” condition, but also falls within the scope of the “number of operations” condition (the number of operations being “zero” in this case).
Another one of the conditions that layer manager 216 monitors is the input of a specific “touch gesture” to the text entry interface system 210. Waddell ¶ 26. Examples of such monitored gestures include “a swipe gesture” and “a long press, such as a touch and hold.” Waddell ¶ 30. Each of these fall within the scope of the claimed “operation sequence” rule, because they require a specific, pre-defined sequence of input operations by the user to invoke the rule.
wherein the extended UI permits an input operation to the extended UI, and the condition is set as a rule for controlling an input operation to the extended UI of a web system;
Notably, all of the rules discussed above are rules that concern input to the text entry interface system 210, rather than the underlying application for which text entry interface system 210 provides an extended function. See Waddell ¶¶ 24, 26, and 30.
determining whether an input operation to a predetermined extended UI satisfies the condition for permitting an input operation to the corresponding extended UI in the extended UI rule information, in response to detecting the input operation to the corresponding extended UI;
“A function of the layer manager 216 is to interpret user inputs and determine whether those inputs should be treated as commands directing layer manager operations (e.g., triggering an active layer switch) or whether those inputs should be treated as entered text.” Waddell ¶ 22. “The layer manager 216 detects the conditions for switching the active layer from the text entry layer to the application layer, and controls the switch.” Waddell ¶ 23. Specifically, in accordance with the rules discussed above, FIG. 3 shows how the interface system 210 determines whether the user inputs satisfy the criteria in decision steps 308, 310, and 314. Waddell ¶ 33 (“At the decision block 310, the interface system 210 evaluates received user input to determine whether the input indicates an active layer switch”) and ¶ 35 (“At the decision block 314, the text entry interface system evaluates whether a layer switch timer has expired.”).
and when determining that the input operation to the extended UI does not satisfy a condition for permitting an input operation to the corresponding extended UI: restricting, an input operation to an extended UI subsequent to the corresponding extended UI.
“If the layer switch timer has expired, then processing proceeds to the block 316 where the interface system sets the application layer to be the active layer.” Waddell ¶ 35. Likewise, “[i]f the received user input indicates an active layer switch at decision block 310, processing proceeds to a block 316 where the system sets the application layer to the active layer.” Waddell ¶ 33.
Claim 2
Waddell discloses the display control device according to claim 1, the processor further configured to execute operations comprising:
setting, in the extended UI rule information, a condition of the operation sequence of the corresponding extended UI, wherein the condition permits the input operation to the extended UI based on an instruction input by a user.
Waddell discloses this in two ways—one where the operation sequence activates the text entry layer (i.e., the extended UI), thus permitting input operation via the text entry layer, and another where the text entry interface system 210 checks operation sequences against its stored rules to see whether it should continue to maintain an active text entry layer (thus permitting further input operation), rather than disable it.
Specifically, for the first example, Waddell discloses that text entry interface system 210 that layer manager 216 is programmed to “detect[] the conditions for switching the active layer from the application layer to the text entry layer,” which include “the selection of an on-screen key, a touch gesture, or an input to a physical key.” Waddell ¶ 25. This programming is stored on memory as discussed in the rejection of claim 1. Additionally, Waddell further discloses that such touch gesture data may be stored in a “configuration module 222.” Waddell ¶ 30. In other words, this first disclosure anticipates claim 2 because the touch gesture is a sequence that activates the text entry layer, and the text entry layer is what provides the extended UI.
For the second example, Waddell discloses that the layer manager 216 has programming to “detect[] the conditions for switching the active layer from the text entry layer to the application layer,” including “[c]ertain user inputs [that] instruct the layer manager 216 to make the application layer active and the text entry layer inactive.” Waddell ¶ 23. Importantly, this means that the stored programming of layer manager 216 also allows the text entry interface system 210 to accept user input sequences that keep the text entry layer active, so that it can continue to accept and process the user inputs in accordance with its own programming, e.g., as described in paragraphs 27–29.
Claim 3
Waddell discloses the display control device according to claim 1, the processor further configured to execute operations comprising
setting, in the extended UI rule information, a condition of the operation time lapse of the corresponding extended UI,
“In some embodiments a user may specify the use of or duration of a timeout, wherein the layer manager 216 will initiate an active layer switch if no user input is received at the expiration of a period of time.” Waddell ¶ 30.
wherein the condition permits the input operation to the extended UI based on an instruction input by a user.
So long as the user provides inputs to the text entry layer during the specified period of time, the layer manager 216 will continue to permit further inputs to the text entry layer. Waddell ¶¶ 24 and 26.
Claim 4
Waddell discloses the display control device according to claim 1, the processor further configured to execute operations comprising
setting, in the extended UI rule information, a condition of the number of operations of the corresponding extended UI, wherein the condition permits the input operation to the extended UI based on an instruction input by a user.
“In some embodiments, the layer manager 216 may also automatically switch to the application layer as the active layer without user command. For example, a timeout counter may be maintained by the layer manager 216. If a user has failed to enter any text via the text entry layer for a period of time (e.g., 15 second), the layer manager will automatically switch to the applications layer.” Waddell ¶ 24. In other words, the claimed “number” for Waddell is one or more. So long as at least one operation is received during the timeout period, the layer manager 216 will permit inputs to the text entry layer.
Claim 5
Waddell discloses the display control device according to claim 1, the processor further configured to execute operations comprising
when the input operation satisfies a predetermined condition, setting, in the extended UI rule information: restriction details of the input operation to an extended UI subsequent to the corresponding extended UI based on an instruction input by a user,
As a reminder, the above claim element is being treated in the manner described in the 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) rejection, above (i.e., “setting, based on an instruction input by a user, and in the extended UI rule information, restriction details of an extended UI subsequent to the corresponding extended UI to apply when an input operation does not satisfy a predetermined condition”). Waddell discloses that the text entry interface system 210 has a “configuration module 222” that allows “selecting how the layer manager 216 determines switching the current active layer. For example, a user may specify that an on-screen function key to be used to direct an active layer switch, or a user may specify that a swipe gesture to be used to direct an active layer switch. In some embodiments a user may specify the use of or duration of a timeout, wherein the layer manager 216 will initiate an active layer switch if no user input is received at the expiration of a period of time.” Waddell ¶ 30.
wherein when the input operation does not satisfy the predetermined condition, restricting a subsequent input operation to an extended UI after the corresponding extended UI based on the extended UI rule information.
“If the layer switch timer has expired, then processing proceeds to the block 316 where the interface system sets the application layer to be the active layer.” Waddell ¶ 35. Likewise, “[i]f the received user input indicates an active layer switch at decision block 310, processing proceeds to a block 316 where the system sets the application layer to the active layer.” Waddell ¶ 33.
Claim 6
6. The display control device according to claim 5, wherein,
when the condition of permitting an input operation to the extended UI is not satisfied, the setting further comprises setting display details to the corresponding extended UI in the extended UI rule information based on the instruction input by the user,
“If the layer switch timer has expired, then processing proceeds to the block 316 where the interface system sets the application layer to be the active layer.” Waddell ¶ 35. Likewise, “[i]f the received user input indicates an active layer switch at decision block 310, processing proceeds to a block 316 where the system sets the application layer to the active layer.” Waddell ¶ 33.
and when the input operation to the corresponding extended UI does not satisfy the condition of permitting an input operation of the corresponding extended UI, the restricting further comprises displaying a display detail associated with the condition not satisfied.
“The layer manager 216 maintains which of the text entry layer and the application layer is the active layer and which is the inactive layer. Both the active layer and inactive layer are displayed simultaneously, with the active layer displayed over the inactive layer. Visual cues are used to distinguish between the active and inactive layers according to configuration settings. For example, in some embodiments the display of the application layer is blurred if the text entry layer is active. The layer manager 216 initially sets the text entry layer as the active layer when the transparent full-screen text entry interface is launched.” Waddell ¶ 22.
Claim 7
Claim 7 recites the same method that the device of claim 1 is programmed to perform during its normal operation. As such, the findings set forth in the rejection of claim 1 also anticipate claim 7. See MPEP § 2112.02.
Claim 8
Claim 8 recites a computer-readable non-transitory recording medium storing a computer-executable program instructions that when executed by a processor cause a computer to execute the same steps that the processor of the device of claim 1 performs. Since the device of claim 1 holds such instructions, and since both the device and its instructions were rejected over the findings set forth in the rejection from Waddell, claim 8 is rejected over all of those same findings.
Claim 9
Waddell discloses the display control device according to claim 1,
wherein the restricting further comprises suppressing the input operation to an extended UI subsequent to the corresponding extended UI.
“When the layer manager 216 detects such an input it sets the application layer as the active layer. By changing the application layer to the active layer, any user inputs following the input that triggered the layer switch will not be passed to the text entry layer.” Waddell ¶ 23.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Justin R. Blaufeld whose telephone number is (571)272-4372. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00am - 4:00pm ET.
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, James K Trujillo can be reached at (571) 272-3677. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Justin R. Blaufeld
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2151
/Justin R. Blaufeld/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2151
