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 1-26 have been examined.
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, 21 are 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 an effective designing, managing, monitoring, and assessment of effectiveness of advertising content, a targeted advertising campaign which includes advertising content, or both, wherein the advertising content is affixed to or associated with available advertising inventory which is on or associated with delivery media, the exchange platform being capable of identifying, selecting, and reporting suitable advertising inventory from among the available advertising inventory based at least in part on one or more demand side requirements, preferences, and limitations, each of which are accessible by one or more participants using, the supply side manages supply side information and includes:
a data management for receiving, organizing, and collating supply side information, a database submodule comprising one or more databases for receiving and storing organized and collated supply side information, one or more analysis submodules for further organizing, analyzing, collating, and reporting the supply side information stored in the one or more databases, including at least creating and assigning a unique unified consumer identification code (UCIC) to each consumer for which consumer information is received, and creating one or more databases each of which contains at least a portion of the supply side information, the demand side including: receiving and managing demand side information which includes the one or more demand side requirements, preferences, and limitations, providing and managing an onboarding process which controls access and exchange of information by demand side participants to and from the exchange platform system and the one or more central databases, selecting and reporting suitable advertising inventory from the available advertising inventory by analyzing and collating at least a portion of the supply side information with at least a portion of the demand side information, designing, or enabling a demand side participant to design, advertising content, targeted advertising campaigns, or both, wherein advertising content is affixed to or associated with suitable advertising inventory of the delivery media, receiving, producing, and managing advertising content information which includes characteristics and attributes of the advertising content, and targeted advertising campaign information which includes characteristics and attributes of the targeted advertising campaign, and providing, designing, or enabling a participant to design, one or more triggers which are affixed to or associated with the delivery media and collect and transmit supply side information. 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 integrated advertising exchange platform which provides, the exchange platform comprising a client software application (CSA) which includes a supply side module and a demand side module,, one or more computing devices ,an advertising and data management (ADM) module, a data management and database submodule, graphical user interface (GUI) module which is programmed to be capable of, centralized databases, by executing an onboarding module, by executing an advertising campaign design module. 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 2-20, 22-26 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. 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 § 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, 4-7, 10-18, 21-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ferber (20180225686).
Claims 1, 21. Ferber discloses an integrated advertising exchange platform which provides effective designing, managing, monitoring, and assessment of effectiveness of advertising content, a targeted advertising campaign which includes advertising content, or both, wherein the advertising content is affixed to or associated with available advertising inventory which is on or associated with delivery media, the exchange platform being capable of identifying, selecting, and reporting suitable advertising inventory from among the available advertising inventory based at least in part on one or more demand side requirements, preferences, and limitations, the exchange platform comprising a client software application (CSA) which includes a supply side module and a demand side module, each of which are accessible by one or more participants using one or more computing devices, the supply side module manages supply side information and includes (Figs. 1, 2):
an advertising and data management (ADM) module which includes (Figs. 1, 2):
a data management submodule for receiving, organizing, and collating supply side information (see Fig. 2, supply; see supply [42, 44, 45], note supply and audience clusters/groups of users at [51, 57] and supply and audience [76] and the audience makes up segmented/groups of particular users [66, 58, 64, 114] and the particular user is identified [7, 115]),
a database submodule comprising one or more databases for receiving and storing organized and collated supply side information (see Fig. 2, supply; see supply [42, 44, 45], note supply and audience clusters/groups of users at [51, 57] and supply and audience [76]),
one or more analysis submodules for further organizing, analyzing, collating, and reporting the supply side information stored in the one or more databases, including at least creating and assigning a unique unified consumer identification code (UCIC) to each consumer for which consumer information is received, and creating one or more centralized databases each of which contains at least a portion of the supply side information (see Fig. 2, supply; see supply [42, 44, 45], note supply and audience clusters/groups of users at [51, 57] and supply and audience [76] and the audience makes up segmented/groups of particular users [66, 58, 64, 114] and the particular user is identified [7, 115]),
the demand side module including (see demand Figs. 2, 3a):
a graphical user interface (GUI) module which is programmed to be capable of: receiving and managing demand side information which includes the one or more demand side requirements, preferences, and limitations, providing and managing an onboarding process by executing an onboarding module which controls access and exchange of information by demand side participants to and from the exchange platform system and the one or more central databases (see demand Figs. 2, 3a; see demand at [45, 47, 48, 51]),
selecting and reporting suitable advertising inventory from the available advertising inventory by analyzing and collating at least a portion of the supply side information with at least a portion of the demand side information (see Fig. 2, 9a supply and demand, see match supply demand at [42, 51, 63, 106]),
designing, or enabling a demand side participant to design, advertising content, targeted advertising campaigns, or both, by executing an advertising campaign design module, wherein advertising content is affixed to or associated with suitable advertising inventory of the delivery media, receiving, producing, and managing advertising content information which includes characteristics and attributes of the advertising content, and targeted advertising campaign information which includes characteristics and attributes of the targeted advertising campaign (Fig. 9c, see [45, 47, 55] and demand and campaign and metadata/constraints), and
providing, designing, or enabling a participant to design, one or more triggers which are affixed to or associated with the delivery media and collect and transmit supply side information to the ADM module of the supply side module (see supply, demand, and change, modify, real-time, update at [99, 108]).
In further regards to claim 21, Ferber further discloses managing supply side information by receiving, organizing, and collating the supply side information, wherein the supply side information includes one or more of: consumer demographic information, consumer product information, consumer service information, and supply side participant industry information, and wherein the supply side information is received from one or more sources which include one or more supply side participants, one or more triggers affixed to or associated with delivery media having available advertising inventory and used in the targeted advertising campaign, one or more information analysis methods, and one or more third party databases (see Fig. 2, supply; see supply [42, 44, 45], note supply and audience clusters/groups of users at [51, 57] and supply and audience [76] and the audience makes up segmented/groups of particular users [66, 58, 64, 114] and the particular user is identified [7, 115]; also see Fig. 3a with 3rd party sources on consumer);
managing demand side information by receiving, organizing, and collating the demand side information, wherein the demand side information includes one or more of: one or more demand side requirements, preferences, and limitations, demand side participant information, demand side participant industry information, preferred consumer information, and preferred market segment information, and wherein the demand side information is received from one or more sources which include one or more demand side participants, and one or more information analysis methods (see Fig. 9c, see [45, 47, 55] and demand and campaign and metadata/constraints).
Claim 4, 23. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein each participant is at least one type of person or entity selected from: advertisers, distributors, delivery media providers, and proprietor participants (Fig. 1).
Claim 5, 24. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 4, wherein a participant is two or more types of persons or entities selected from: distributors, advertisers, advertising buyers, advertising brokers, delivery media providers, and proprietor participants (Fig. 1, also see provider, distributor at [4], 3rd party vendor at [48]).
Claim 6. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein the supply side information includes one or more types of information selected from: available advertising inventory information, delivery media information, supply side participant information, consumer demographic information, consumer product information, consumer service information, supply side participant industry information (see Fig. 2, supply; see supply [42, 44, 45], note supply and audience clusters/groups of users at [51, 57] and supply and audience [76] and the audience makes up segmented/groups of particular users [66, 58, 64, 114] and the particular user is identified [7, 115]; also see Fig. 3a with 3rd party sources on consumer); and wherein the demand side information includes one or more types of information selected from: demand side requirements, preferences, and limitations, demand side participant information, demand side participant industry information, preferred consumer information, and preferred market segment information (see Fig. 9c, see [45, 47, 55] and demand and campaign and metadata/constraints).
Claim 7. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of 1, wherein the one or more demand side requirements, preferences, and limitations comprise information selected from one or more of the following types of information: supply side participant information, demand side participant information, consumer demographic information, preferred market segment information, available advertising inventory information, delivery media information, consumer product information, and consumer service information (see Fig. 9c, see [45, 47, 55] and demand and campaign and metadata/constraints).
Claim 10. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 9, wherein the consumer demographic information includes one or more consumer attributes selected from: name, gender, age, marital status, family members, geographic location or region, residential address, occupation, income, level of education, hobbies and interests, political affiliation, religion, and income ([58]).
Claim 11. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more triggers also delivers or provides additional information, interaction, or other experiences to consumers who receive or are otherwise in contact with delivery media having advertising content thereon or associated therewith and included in a targeted advertising campaign (see click through at [47]).
Claim 12. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, where supply side information is received from one or more sources selected from: one or more supply side participants, one or more triggers provided on or associated with delivery media, and one or more databases external to the exchange platform (see Fig. 3a with 3rd party sources on consumer).
Claim 13. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 12, wherein the supply side participants comprise at least one or more participants selected from: distributors, and delivery media providers (see Fig. 3a with 3rd party sources on consumer; Fig. 1, also see provider, distributor at [4], 3rd party vendor at [48]).
Claim 14. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein the demand side information comprises at least one or more types of information selected from: requirements, preferences and limitations concerning characteristics of suitable advertising inventory, preferred delivery media, preferred customer demographics, preferred market segment information, and instructions from a demand side participant (see Fig. 9c, see [45, 47, 55] and demand and campaign and metadata/constraints).
Claim 15. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein the demand side participants comprise one or more of advertisers, advertising buyers, and advertising brokers (Fig. 1, also see provider, distributor at [4], 3rd party vendor at [48]).
Claim 16. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein when supply side information has been further organized, analyzed, collated, and reported by the one or more analysis submodules of the ADM, research and analysis to determine whether suitable advertising inventory is available for a demand side participant's advertising content, as well as which supply side distributors and their media are likely to reach or contact desired or preferred market segments and consumer populations for targeted advertising campaigns (see Fig. 2, 9a supply and demand, see match supply demand at [42, 51, 63, 106]).
Claim 17. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein the GUI is further programmed to be capable of producing, or enabling a participant to produce, based on parameters selected by the participant, one or more reports which include at least a porting of the targeted advertising information (see real time execution unit and data logging [65], logging and record at [43]).
Claim 18. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein the GUI communicates demand side information to and receives reports and recommendations from the one or more centralized databases of the ADM module, at least one of the one or more analysis submodules of the ADM module, and the advertising campaign design module of the GUI module, based on at least a portion of the demand side information (see real time execution unit and data logging [65], logging and record at [43] and see feedback and update/modify [52, 64] and update/modify at [65]).
Claim 22. Ferber further discloses the method of Claim 21, wherein the one or more demand side requirements, preferences, and limitations comprise information selected from one or more of the following types of information: supply side participant information, demand side participant information, consumer demographic information, preferred market segment information, available advertising inventory information, delivery media information, consumer product information, and consumer service information (see Fig. 2, 9a supply and demand, see match supply demand at [42, 51, 63, 106]; see real time execution unit and data logging [65], and see feedback and update/modify [52, 64] and update/modify at [65]).
Claim 25. Ferber further discloses the method of Claim 21, wherein suitable advertising inventory is identified and reported based at least in part, on one or more of consumer demographic information, the characteristics of one or more of the supply side participants, the characteristics of one or more of demand side participants, consumers, products and services, which are assessed concurrently by the platform (see Fig. 2, 9a supply and demand, see match supply demand at [42, 51, 63, 106]; see real time execution unit and data logging [65], and see feedback and update/modify [52, 64] and update/modify at [65]).
Claim 26. See rejection of claim 1 and the onboarding features there.
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 2, 3, 8, 9, 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ferber (20180225686) in view of Bramucci (20150371258).
Claim 2. Ferber does not explicitly disclose the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein the delivery media comprises physical delivery media, virtual delivery media, and combinations thereof. However, Ferber discloses online/virtual media (see Fig. 1, item 104 and note Applicant Spec at [58] where virtual media can be online/Internet like media). And, Bramucci discloses online advertising [13] and offline/ physical advertising/content [64]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Bramucci’s online/offline ads to Ferber’s online ads. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better advertise.
Claim 3. Bramucci further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 2, wherein the physical delivery media comprises one or more of: packaging, product and service brochures, instruction manuals and other literature, billboards, posters, magazines, books, pamphlets, flyers, and any other tangible media which delivers, describes, provides, or communicates, consumer goods and services and their features, use, and operation to consumers ([64]; and the motivation is the same as already provided).
Claim 8. Ferber does not explicitly disclose the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein each of the one or more triggers includes: a quick response (QR) code, a barcode, universal product code (UPC), a digital coupon, a near field communication (NFC) tag, a radio frequency identification (RFID) device, a custom branded vanity uniform resource locators (URL), an email addresses, a push notifications, a non-fungible tokens (NFT), augmented reality, or combinations thereof. However, Ferber discloses URL (see click through at [47] which reads on URL) and adapting advertising in realtime ([65, 99, 108]). And, Bramucci discloses online and offline advertising ([13, 64[) and further discloses using barcode [11], push [35] email and text [111] mailing [112] and QR codes [148] and URL [184] and coupons [202]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Bramucci’s variety of triggers and other triggers to Ferber’s click/link triggers. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better adapt advertising.
Claim 9. Ferber further discloses the exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein supply side information collected and transmitted by one or more triggers to the ADM module of the supply side module of the CSA relates to a consumer and comprises one or more of: demographic information, product and service purchase history information, brand purchase history information (see Fig. 2, supply; see supply [42, 44, 45], note supply and audience clusters/groups of users at [51, 57] and supply and audience [76] and the audience makes up segmented/groups of particular users [66, 58, 64, 114] and the particular user is identified [7, 115]; also see Fig. 3a with 3rd party sources on consumer), age/gender [58] and purchase behavior [101]. Ferber does not explicitly disclose vehicle information, health status information, and medical history information. However, Bramucci disclose medical [5] and health and medical [103] information. And, vehicle info is a type of purchase info. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Bramucci’s further user info and other user info to Ferber’s user info. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better target.
Claim 19. Ferber does not explicitly disclose the method for monetizing physical packaging using the integrated advertising exchange platform of Claim 1, wherein the delivery media comprises one or more physical delivery media selected from: packaging, product and service brochures, instruction manuals and other literature, billboards, posters, magazines, books, pamphlets, flyers, and any other tangible media which delivers, describes, provides, or communicates, consumer goods and services and their features, use, and operation to consumers. However, Bramucci discloses online advertising [13] and offline/ physical advertising/content [64] and a variety of physical media [64]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Bramucci’s online/offline ads and physical media to Ferber’s online ads. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better advertise.
Claims 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ferber (20180225686) in view of Bramucci (20150371258) in view of Official Notice
Claim 20. Ferber does not explicitly disclose the method of Claim 19, wherein the packaging comprises one or more containers, boxes, bottles, vessels, cartons, barrels, envelopes, bags, pouches, trays, each of which is made of flexible material, rigid material, or combinations thereof. However, Bramucci discloses online advertising [13] and offline/ physical advertising/content [64] and a variety of physical media [64] including ads and books [64] and direct mail [157]. And, Examiner takes Official Notice that containers, boxes, bottles, vessels, cartons, barrels, envelopes, bags, pouches, trays are old and well known way to mail things. These have been used in the mail for long before Applicant’s priority date. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Bramucci’s online/offline ads and physical media and use of mail and old and well known ways to mail to Ferber’s online ads. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better advertise.
Conclusion
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
a) Heiser and Burton discloses relevant supply/demand and advertising features.
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/ARTHUR DURAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622 12/15/25