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
Status of Claims
Claim(s) the 1-8 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.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claims recite a judicial exception which is not integrated into a practical application and the claims lack an inventive concept.
Step 1 is the first inquiry into eligibility analysis and asks whether the claims are directed to a statutory category. In this instance, the answer must be in the affirmative because they recite a method, medium, and system.
Step 2A prong 1 is the next step in the eligibility analyses and asks whether the claimed invention recites a judicial exception. In this instance, the claims recite the following limitations which comprise the abstract idea:
a conditional search to search for an object matching a search condition and generate a list including the object;
in a case where the acquired drawn object is not included in a new list generated by newly performing the conditional search based on the search condition, add the drawn object to the new list.
This is an abstract idea because it is a certain method of organizing human activity because it involves commercial interactions such as marketing and sales activities and/or behaviors.
Step 2A prong 2 is the next step in the eligibility analyses and looks at whether the abstract idea is integrated into a practical application. This requires an additional element or combination of additional elements in the claims to apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
In this instance, the claims recite the additional elements such as:
a search device, comprising one or more processors, wherein the processors perform:
cause a user terminal to display the object included in the generated list on a display screen of the user terminal;
acquire drawn information indicating the object that is drawn on the display screen among the objects included in the list;
However, these elements do not amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
In addition, the recitations of the additional limitations are recited at a high level of generality and also do not amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
The dependent claims also fail to recite elements which amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. For example, claims 2-3 do not amount to an integration according to any one of the considerations above.
Step 2B is the next step in the eligibility analyses and evaluates whether the claims recite additional elements that amount to an inventive concept (i.e., “significantly more”) than the recited judicial exception. According to Office procedure, revised Step 2A overlaps with Step 2B, and thus, many of the considerations need not be re-evaluated in Step 2B because the answer will be the same.
In Step 2A, several additional elements were identified as additional limitations:
a search device, comprising one or more processors, wherein the processors perform:
cause a user terminal to display the object included in the generated list on a display screen of the user terminal;
acquire drawn information indicating the object that is drawn on the display screen among the objects included in the list;
These additional limitations, including the limitations in the dependent claims, do not amount to an inventive concept because they are recited at a high level of generality and also do not amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
In addition, they were already analyzed under Step 2A and did not amount to a practical application of the abstract idea.
Therefore, the claims lack one or more limitations which amount to an inventive concept in the claims.
For these reasons, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kalin (US 2012/0284145) in view of IYER (US 2021/0034684).
Referring to Claim 1, Kalin teaches a search device, comprising one or more processors, wherein the processors perform:
a conditional search to search for an object matching a search condition and generate a list including the object (see Kalin ¶¶0048,52);
cause a user terminal to display the object included in the generated list on a display screen of the user terminal (see Kalin ¶¶0053,80);
acquire drawn information indicating the object that is drawn on the display screen among the objects included in the list (see Kalin ¶0053)
Kalin does not teach in a case where the acquired drawn object is not included in a new list generated by newly performing the conditional search based on the search condition, add the drawn object to the new list. However, IYER teaches providing a list of search results which are relevance-based but then get appended onto them additional resulting items based on user-specific search results, such as those the user previously viewed according to paragraph [0046] (see IYER ¶¶0070-72,75). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of invention to combine these references because the results would be predictable. Specifically, the prior art of Kalin would continue to cause the display of a list of objects (e.g., products) except that now it would further add an object from the first list to a second list according to the teachings of IYER. This is a predictable result of the combination.
Referring to Claim 4, the combination teaches the search device according to claim 1, wherein the object is a product or a service that serves as a trading object in electronic commerce (see Kalin ¶¶0060), and the search condition includes a condition for extracting a product or a service that another user who is registered as a favorite by a user register as a favorite (see Kalin ¶¶0054,8,26).
Referring to Claim 5, the combination teaches the search device according to claim 1, wherein the object is a product or a service that serves as a trading object in electronic commerce (see Kalin ¶¶0060), and the search condition includes a condition for extracting a product or a service that a store or a seller registered as a favorite by a user is putting up for sale (see Kalin ¶¶0054,8,26).
Referring to Claim 6, the combination teaches the search device according to claim 1, wherein the processors, when the object drawn on the display screen is selected, cause detail information of the selected object to be displayed on the display screen (see Kalin ¶¶0065,60).
Referring to Claims 7-8, these claims are similar to claims 1, 4-6 and therefore rejected under the same reasons and rationale.
Claim(s) 2-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kalin (US 2012/0284145) in view of IYER (US 2021/0034684) in further view of Roach (US 10,423,303).
Referring to Claim 2, the combination teaches the search device according to claim 1. The combination does not teach wherein the processors in a case where all the objects included in the list cannot be collectively drawn on the display screen, cause all the objects to be drawn on the display screen by causing the display screen to be scrolled. However, Roach teaches this (see Roach Col. 2 lines 27-48). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of invention to combine these references because the results would be predictable. Specifically, the prior art of Kalin and IYER would continue to create lists of objects except that now when there are too many to display on a screen at once, the list could then be scrolled according to the teachings of Roach. This is a predictable result of the combination.
Referring to Claim 3, the combination teaches the search device according to claim 2, wherein the processors acquire the drawn information including the object that is drawn on an initial screen, the initial screen being a screen on which the object that is found by performing the conditional search is first displayed (see Kalin ¶¶0053,80). The combination does not teach where the object that is drawn on the display screen by causing the display screen to be scrolled. However, Roach teaches this (see Roach Col. 2 lines 27-48). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of invention to combine these references because the results would be predictable. Specifically, the prior art of Kalin and IYER would continue to create lists of objects except that now when there are too many to display on a screen at once, the list could then be scrolled according to the teachings of Roach. This is a predictable result of the combination.
Remarks
Additional prior art relevant to the claimed application but not relied upon includes:
Bazzani (US 11,416,910) teaches a visual search for products.
Warren (US 11,361,373) teaches providing search result filters.
Reference U (see PTO-892) teaches collaborative filtering and emotion detection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW E ZIMMERMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5278. The examiner can normally be reached 8-4pm M-T, 8-12pm W.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeff Smith can be reached at (571)272-6763. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MATTHEW E ZIMMERMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3688