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 . Claims 1-17 are pending.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 07/01/2026 has been entered.
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.
Claims 1-17 are rejected under 35 USC § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1 (The Statutory Categories): Is the claim to a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter? MPEP 2106.03.
Per Step 1, claim 1 is directed to a method (i.e., a process), claim 15 to a system (i.e., a machine), and claim 16 is directed to a computer program product (i.e., machine or manufacture). Thus, the claims are directed to statutory categories of invention. However, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because they are directed to an abstract idea, a judicial exception, without reciting additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
The analysis proceeds to Step 2A Prong One.
Step 2A Prong One: Does the claim recite an abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon? MPEP 2106.04.
The abstract idea of claims 1, 15, and 16 (claim 1 being representative) is:
reading a meeting schedule, the meeting schedule including a list of attendees and one or more pieces of content to be presented;
capturing attendee metadata and content history for each attendee based on the list of attendees;
aggregating the content history for the list of attendees;
generating a relevancy score for each of the one or more pieces of content based on the aggregated content history, wherein generating the relevancy score comprises computing an aggregated familiarity score across the list of attendees;
identifying redundant content across different communities represented by the list of attendees based on the aggregated content history;
identifying an opportunity for offloading content from the one or more pieces of content based on the identified redundant content;
generating a summary of the content identified for offloading;
automatically modifying a presentation behavior associated with the one or more pieces of content during the presentation based on the generated summary;
annotating each of the one or more pieces of content with metadata corresponding to the modified presentation behavior; and
outputting the annotated one or more pieces of content.
The abstract idea steps italicized above recite collecting and analyzing information to generate a score, and using the analysis to rank relevance, which could be performed mentally, including with pen and paper. This is further supported by [0025] – [0027] of applicant’s specification as filed. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), covers performance of the limitation in the mind, including observations, evaluations, judgements, and/or opinions, then it falls within the Mental Processes – Concepts Performed in the Human Mind grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
Additionally and alternatively, the claim is directed to managing presentation content and attendee engagement, which constitutes a process that, under its BRI, covers managing personal behavior relationships, interactions between people. This is further supported by [0016] of applicant’s specification as filed. If a claim limitation, under its BRI, covers managing personal behavior relationships, interactions between people, including social activities, teaching, and/or following rules or instructions, following rules or instructions, then it falls within the Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity – Managing Personal Behavior Relationships, Interactions Between People grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
Step 2A, Prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application? MPEP §2106.04.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements are merely instructions to apply the abstract idea to a computer, as described in MPEP §2106.05(f).
Claim 1 recites the following additional elements: computer-implemented; virtual presentation system; virtual; during a virtual presentation via a graphical user interface of the virtual presentation system; using natural language processing; by rendering the modified presentation behavior on a display device in real time during the virtual presentation.
Claim 15 recites the following additional elements: System; virtual presentation system; a computing node comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor of the computing node to cause the processor to perform a method comprising; virtual; during a virtual presentation via a graphical user interface of the virtual presentation system; using natural language processing; by rendering the modified presentation behavior on a display device in real time during the virtual presentation.
Claim 16 recites the following additional elements: A computer program product for updating content relevancy in a virtual presentation system, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to perform a method comprising; virtual; during a virtual presentation via a graphical user interface of the virtual presentation system; using natural language processing; by rendering the modified presentation behavior on a display device in real time during the virtual presentation.
These elements are merely instructions to apply the abstract idea to a computer, per MPEP §2106.05(f). Applicant has only described generic computing elements in their specification, as seen in [0055] – [0056] of applicant’s specification as filed, for example. Further, the combination of these elements is nothing more than a generic computing system.
Accordingly, these additional elements, alone and in combination, do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B (The Inventive Concept): Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception? MPEP §2106.05.
Step 2B involves evaluating the additional elements to determine whether they amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
The examination process involves carrying over identification of the additional element(s) in the claim from Step 2A Prong Two and carrying over conclusions from Step 2A Prong Two on the considerations discussed in MPEP §2106.05(f).
The additional elements and their analysis are therefore carried over: applicant has merely recited elements that facilitates the tasks of the abstract idea, as described in MPEP §2106.05(f).
Further, the combination of these elements is nothing more than a generic computing system. When the claim elements above are considered, alone and in combination, they do not amount to significantly more.
Therefore, per Step 2B, the additional elements, alone and in combination, are not significantly more. The claims are not patent eligible.
Further, the analysis takes into consideration all dependent claims as well:
Regarding claims 2, 5, and 7-14, applicant further narrows the abstract idea with additional step(s). There are no further additional elements to consider, beyond those highlighted above. This further narrowing of the abstract idea, similar to above, is also not patent eligible.
Claim 3 includes further additional elements with additional tasks that narrow the abstract idea: wherein the content history is provided by querying an application programming interface and/or a database. Similar to above, these additional elements do no more than apply the abstract idea to a computer, per MPEP 2106.05(f). When viewed alone or in combination, this does not integrate the abstract idea into practical application and is not significantly more.
Claim 4 includes further additional elements with additional tasks that narrow the abstract idea: via optical character recognition. Similar to above, these additional elements do no more than apply the abstract idea to a computer, per MPEP 2106.05(f). When viewed alone or in combination, this does not integrate the abstract idea into practical application and is not significantly more.
Claim 6 includes further additional elements with additional tasks that narrow the abstract idea: on screen; virtual. Similar to above, these additional elements do no more than apply the abstract idea to a computer, per MPEP 2106.05(f). When viewed alone or in combination, this does not integrate the abstract idea into practical application and is not significantly more.
Claim 17 includes further additional elements with additional tasks that narrow the abstract idea: virtual. Similar to above, these additional elements do no more than apply the abstract idea to a computer, per MPEP 2106.05(f). When viewed alone or in combination, this does not integrate the abstract idea into practical application and is not significantly more.
Accordingly, claims 1-17 are rejected under 35 USC § 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
No Prior Art Applied to Claims 1-17
Claims 1, 15, and 16
There is no prior art applied to claims 1, 15, and 16 because the cited prior art fails to disclose or suggest the complete feature set recited in the claims. Daredia (US 20230291595), considered the closest prior art, discloses:
(claim 1) A computer-implemented method for updating content relevancy in a virtual presentation system, the computer-implemented method comprising: {“ [0005] One or more embodiments disclosed herein provide benefits and/or solve one or more of the foregoing and other problems in the art with systems, methods, and non-transitory computer readable storage media that provide customized meeting insights based on meeting media (e.g., meeting documents, audio data, and video data) and user interactions with client devices.”}
(claim 15) A system for updating content relevancy in a virtual presentation system, the system comprising: a computing node comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor of the computing node to cause the processor to perform a method comprising: {“[0005] One or more embodiments disclosed herein provide benefits and/or solve one or more of the foregoing and other problems in the art with systems, methods, and non-transitory computer readable storage media that provide customized meeting insights based on meeting media (e.g., meeting documents, audio data, and video data) and user interactions with client devices.”}
(claim 16) A computer program product for updating content relevancy in a virtual presentation system, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to perform a method comprising: {“[0005] One or more embodiments disclosed herein provide benefits and/or solve one or more of the foregoing and other problems in the art with systems, methods, and non-transitory computer readable storage media that provide customized meeting insights based on meeting media (e.g., meeting documents, audio data, and video data) and user interactions with client devices.”}
reading a virtual meeting schedule, the virtual meeting schedule including a list of attendees and one or more pieces of content to be presented during a virtual presentation via a graphical user interface of the virtual presentation system; {The system analyses meeting materials such as a meeting agenda displayed within a client application GUI and determines users associated with the meeting (e.g., invitees and attendees). ¶¶ [0058], [0080] – [0081]}
capturing attendee metadata and content history for each attendee based on the list of attendees; {The system identifies meeting attendees, associates users with client devices, and collects user data (e.g., user input, biometrics, media). ¶¶ [0023], [0028], [0058], [0105]}
aggregating the content history for the list of attendees; {The system uses past meeting data and curated meeting insights across users to train ML models and generate insights for future meetings (i.e., aggregates historical content). ¶¶ [0018], [0064]}
outputting the annotated one or more pieces of content by rendering the modified presentation behavior on a display device in real time during the virtual presentation {The system provides real-time meeting assistance by analyzing meeting content and dynamically displaying notifications, highlights, transcripts, and feedback within the GUI during the meeting. ¶¶ [0023], [0052], [0084], [0091]}
Chung (20210081459) teaches:
generating a relevancy score for each of the one or more pieces of content based on the aggregated content history, wherein generating the relevancy score comprises computing an aggregated familiarity score across the list of attendees {The system generates a relevancy score based on aggregated user interaction history (e.g., click-through rates, dwell time, prior interactions). ¶ [0093]}
annotating each of the one or more pieces of content with metadata corresponding to the modified presentation behavior {The system supports associating content with metadata (e.g., urgency/relevancy scores and summaries) that governs how the content is presented, including summarized views and prioritized display. ¶¶ [0043], [0045], [0062]}
Wiener (US 20190074987) further teaches:
identifying redundant content across different communities represented by the list of attendees based on the aggregated content history; {The system identifies attendee communities from historical interactions and identifies common topics appearing across the aggregated meeting content associated with those communities. [0030] – [0033], [0052] – [0053]}
identifying an opportunity for offloading content from the one or more pieces of content based on the identified redundant content; {The system identifies relatively common or semantically insignificant content through importance scoring and excludes lower ranked content from the generated summary. [0056] – [0058], [0088] – [0089]}
However, nor Daredia, Chung, or Wiener disclose or suggest “automatically modifying, by the virtual presentation system, a presentation behavior associated with the one or more pieces of content during the virtual presentation based on the generated summary”.
Examiner also considered the following additional references:
Rangan (US 20170039527), which teaches: Systems and methods are provided for analyzing a history of meetings, the attendees, date of occurrence, and other content to determine the value of the meetings and the attendees. The importance of people and the meetings they attend can be derived based on patterns of attendees. In one embodiment, the meta-data of meetings and the attendees can be used to determine value without requiring time-consuming manual steps or manual evaluation of people and their titles. A graph of meetings and its attendees can be generated and used by one or more automated software agents to place value to the content of the meeting, its agenda, and other meeting collateral such as meeting briefs/attachments of meetings. Accordingly, embodiments dramatically reduce the need for human examination of meeting history.
Moynihan (US 20230282218), which teaches: Various embodiments discussed herein are directed to improving existing technologies by causing presentation, to one or more user devices associated with one or more meeting attendees, of one or more indications of one or more content items during or before a meeting based at least in part on one or more natural language utterances associated with the meeting, a context of the meeting, and/or a context associated with one or more meeting attendees. In other words, particular embodiments automatically recommend relevant content items responsive to the real-time natural language utterances in the meeting, and/or other context.
Osebe (US 20210264929), which teaches: In an aspect, during a presentation of a presentation material, viewers of the presentation material can be monitored. Based on the monitoring, new content can be determined for insertion into the presentation material. The new content can be automatically inserted to the presentation material in real time. In another aspect, during the presentation, a presenter of the presentation material can be monitored. The presenter's speech can be intercepted and analyzed to detect a level of confidence. Based on the detected level of confidence, the presenter's speech can be adjusted and the adjusted speech can be played back automatically, for example, in lieu of the presenter's original speech that is intercepted.
DeCharms (US 20240273793), which teaches: According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer graphics processing and selective visual display system, comprising: a computer graphics processing and selective visual display system with a screen; an eye tracking device; a processor; one or more computer memory devices; wherein the processor is arranged for operations comprising: measuring the user's eye movements to ascertain the specific word on which the user is fixated, by the eye tracking device; modifying the display at the user's current fixation point; applying a delay between the presentation of successive graphic elements based on the user's calculated rate to accommodate the user's required time; and presenting elements to the user at a rate based upon the user's required time.
Clarke (US 20220382443), which teaches techniques for navigating, viewing, and editing a collection of media items, including aggregated content items.
Accordingly, there is no prior art applied to claims 1, 15, and 16. The rest of the claims, by virtue of their dependency, also have no prior art applied.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 07/01/2026 have been carefully considered but they are not persuasive.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. §101
Under Step 2A, Prong One, claim 1 continues to recite an abstract idea. The claim collects and evaluates attendee and content information, identifies redundant content, determines that certain content should be offloaded, generates a summary, and selects how the content should be presented. These limitations amount to evaluating information and making a presentation decision based on that evaluation, which falls within the mental process grouping. The claim also manages what information is presented to meeting attendees and how is presented, which constitutes managing interactions between people.
Applicant’s reliance on ML and NLP is not persuasive. Claim 1 does not recite a particular ML model, training technique, NLP architecture, or other specific technological implementation. Instead, NLP is recited as a tool for performing the information processing function of summarizing content. Features described in applicant’s specification as filed but not recited in the claim do not limit the claim.
Under Step 2A, Prong Two, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The additional elements are used to implement and display the result of the claimed analysis. The claim does not recite an improvement to computers or NLP systems.
The limitation of automatically modifying a presentation behavior is stated in functional terms and does not recite a specific rendering technique, interface, or display mechanism. Likewise, annotating content with metadata merely records how the content is to be presented, and rendering the modified behavior displays the result of the preceding analysis.
The asserted benefits of saving time, increasing engagement, tailoring content, and reducing viewer fatigue relate to improved meeting management and information delivery, not an improvement to computer functionality or another technological field.
Accordingly, the rejection under 35 USC §101 is maintained. Independent claims 15 and 16, and the dependent claims, are rejected for the same reasons.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. §103
Arguments are moot under 35 USC §103 because there is no prior art applied to claims 1-17. Accordingly, Examiner directs Applicant’s attention to the analysis above.
In summary, examiner has responded to all arguments and found them unpersuasive.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CARLOS F MONTALVO whose telephone number is (703)756-5863. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00AM - 5:30PM; First Fridays OOO.
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, Sarah Monfeldt can be reached at 571-270-1833. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/C.F.M./Examiner, Art Unit 3629 /SARAH M MONFELDT/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3629
Prosecution Insights