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 § 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.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because
From applicant’s specification, a computer-readable medium is open to transitory mediums and thus is non-statutory subject matter. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is obliged to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification during proceedings before the USPTO. See In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (during patent examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow). The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a computer/processor readable medium (also called machine readable medium and other such variations) typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media, particularly when the specification is silent. See MPEP 2111.01. A claim drawn to such a computer/processor readable medium that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 by adding the limitation "non-transitory" to the claim. Such an amendment would typically not raise the issue of new matter, even when the specification is silent because the broadest reasonable interpretation relies on the ordinary and customary meaning that includes signals per se. The limited situations in which such an amendment could raise issues of new matter occur, for example, when the specification does not support a non-transitory embodiment because a signal per se is the only viable embodiment such that the amended claim is impermissibly broadened beyond the supporting disclosure. Appropriate corrective action is required.
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 1-3, 7-8, 10-14, 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tkaczyk (US 20220294901) in view of Brown (US 9723157) in view of Thomas (US 20200112636).
Regarding claim 1, Tkaczyk teaches, an electronic device (telephone: el. 118, Paragraph 48) comprising:
at least one input device (Paragraph 80: The user may type this information into a keyboard of the telephone 118); at least one output device (Paragraph 129: a display screen of the telephone 118);
a memory (Paragraph 107: local storage of the telephone 118) comprising a personal knowledge base containing at least one contact each having at least one associated telephone number that is cleared for originating received telephonic communication (Paragraph 40: The call register may be a list of calls previously made to the telephone 118 or to the computer 102. The list may include a call outcome for each call; Paragraph 54: The allow policy may include a manually defined allowed list of numbers, all device contacts, a subset of device contacts that meet some criteria, Paragraph 102: list of allowed phone numbers);
a communications subsystem that links the electronic device to a communication network that support telephonic communication sessions (Fig. 1, el. 116: phone is connected to the network and Paragraph 49: The first communication network 116a allowing a phone call and communication between the other phone device 130 and the telephone 118 or the computer 102 may include various types of communication networks, such as the Internet, a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), a telecommunication network, a wireless network, a public switched telephone network (PTSN) and/or a satellite network. The second communication network 116b allowing communication between the server 112 and the computer 102 or the telephone 118 may also include various types of communication networks, such as the Internet, a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), a telecommunication network, a wireless network, a public switched telephone network (PTSN) and/or a satellite network. The second communication network 116b may be the same as or different from the first communication network 116a); and
a processor communicatively coupled to the at least one input device, the at least one output device, the memory, and the communications subsystem (el. 104), and which is configured to cause the electronic device to:
in response to receiving a telephone call from a first telephone number, determine whether at least one registered prior activity by a user of the electronic device indicates that the user has a current interest in receiving the telephone call from a second party associated with the first telephone number (Fig. 15 and Paragraph 121-122: the calls that the user makes or receives on the telephone 118 or on the computer 102 may be monitored. These monitored calls may include voice calls, video calls, etc. This step 1502 may include a processor accessing the call register 302 to obtain information regarding any call made or received by the device user. This monitoring of step 1502 may help the call filtering program 110a, 110b, 110c recognize a relationship of the user from whom the user would like to receive calls but for whom the user has never manually entered in information for that relationship into the contact list of the phone or into the relationship corpus 402 of the call filtering program 110a, 110b, 110c. This monitoring may include recognizing each call made or received and a duration of the call. The call duration information may also be obtained via the call register 302. [0122] In step 1504 of the learned relationship identifying process 1500, app use on the device is monitored. This step 1504 may be performed with respect to the device, e.g., the telephone 118 or the computer 102, on which the call filtering program 110a, 110b, 110c filters phone calls for the use. The call filtering program 110a, 110b, 110c may access an app activity log on the telephone 118 or on the computer 102 to obtain the information about app activity usage. For example, this step 1504 may monitor whether a user uses an app to make a reservation at a restaurant or a hotel. Examples of apps that may be monitored include hotel reservations apps, banking apps, restaurant reservation apps, insurance apps, travel apps, and ride-share apps, etc.); and
in response to determining the user has the current interest, enabling the user to accept or decline the telephone call (enable the user to accept/not accept the call: Paragraph 125).
Tkaczyk does not explicitly teach that the phone number is not included in a contact of the personal knowledge base, generate and present via the at least one output device an indication of the current interest, along with at least one call session control enabling the user to accept or decline the telephone call.
Brown teaches generate and present via the at least one output device an indication of the current interest, along with at least one call session control enabling the user to accept or decline the telephone call (Fig. 6 and Col. 10, lines 49-59: the content advises the party that the organization is placing a call to her telephone, and indicates a reason for the call. The party may be able to defer the call, agree to answer it, or take other action).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to modify Tkaczyk with Brown in order to improve the system and enhance the user experience.
Tkaczyk in view of Brown does not teach that the phone number is not included in a contact of the personal knowledge base.
Thomas teaches that the phone number is not included in a contact of the personal knowledge base (Paragraph 23: observe a called party's activity in electronic messaging and/or internet searching and can use that information to determine rules that help to determine if an incoming call relates to (e.g. is resultant from) the called party's activity. In this way, incoming calls which result from the recent activities or actions of the called party can be identified and distinguished from incoming calls that are entirely unrelated to the called party's recent activities or actions (and thus unsolicited or uninvited). For example, if a value of a descriptive parameter of the calling party (e.g. location, business name, or business function) relates to a past activity (e.g. visited location, searched business, or searched business function) of the called party, it can be inferred that the calling party is making the incoming call because of the past activity of the called party, which can in turn suggest that the called party can be interested in receiving the incoming call. Conversely, if a value of a descriptive parameter of the calling party (e.g. location, business name, or business function) does not relate to a past activity (e.g. visited location, searched business, or searched business function) of the called party, it can be inferred that the calling party is not making the incoming call because of the past activity of the called party, which can, in turn, suggest that the called party may not be interested in receiving the incoming call and Fig. 4D).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to modify Tkaczyk with Thomas in order to improve the system and enhance the user experience.
Regarding claim 2, Tkaczyk in view of Brown in view of Thomas teaches, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the electronic device to: in response to determining the user does not have a current interest, generate and present via the at least one output device a second indication that the first telephone number is potentially from a source that is not cleared (Thomas: Col. 3, lines 31-36: if a value of a descriptive parameter of the calling party (e.g. location, business name, or business function) does not relate to a past activity (e.g. visited location, searched business, or searched business function) of the called party, it can be inferred that the calling party is not making the incoming call because of the past activity of the called party, which can, in turn, suggest that the called party may not be interested in receiving the incoming call) , along with at least one call session control enabling the user to accept or decline the telephone call (Brown: Fig. 4 and Thomas : Col. 3, lines 40-46).
Regarding claim 3, Tkaczyk in view of Brown in view of Thomas teaches, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the electronic device to: monitor the at least one registered prior activity comprising communications and interactions with secondary sources (Thomas: Col. 3, lines 48-66), the monitoring performed via an artificial intelligence (AI) model trained to recognize current interest based on one or more registered prior activity (Tkaczyk: Paragraph 25 and 39: AI filtering model); parse the at least one registered prior activity to identify user interest in at least one particular type of good, service, vendor, or merchant (Thomas: Col. 9, lines 23-46: The data retrieval component 320 can be adapted to access and/or search various data sources in order to obtain historical called party information relating to past activities of the called party. Such data sources can, for example, include: GPS logs; location tracking applications; electronic messaging applications; electronic messaging services and/or records; searching applications; searching records/logs; call logs; communication applications; social media applications; contact lists; calendar applications; note applications; reminder applications; and the like); and generate an activity record that aligns the user interest with potential categories of callers based at least in part on the at least one particular type identified from parsing the at least one registered prior activity (Col. 9, lines 46-64: The system 300 also comprises a rule generation component 330 that is configured to generate one or more call-handling rules based on the obtained historical called party information. A call-handling rule generated by the rule generation component 330 can define how to handle an incoming call based on a descriptive parameter of a calling party, the rule generation component 330 of the exemplary system 300 of FIG. 3 can be configured to identify a descriptive parameter for checking, based on the obtained historical called party information. The rule generation component 330 then determines one or more permissible values of the identified descriptive parameter based on the obtained historical called party information).
Regarding claim 7, Tkaczyk in view of Brown in view of Thomas teaches, wherein, in determining the current interest, the processor is further configured to cause the electronic device to determine that the first telephone number is associated with one or more telephone numbers registered for use by the second party (Thomas: Fig. 4D, Paragraph 23).
Regarding claim 8, Tkaczyk in view of Brown in view of Thomas teaches, wherein the at least one registered prior activity comprises one or more types of communication from amongst a group comprising: (i) webpage browsing history; (ii) entering contact information into a webpage; (iii) outbound text message; (iv) inbound and outbound telephone call history; and (v) outbound email (Thomas: Paragraph 30: We search and Tkaczyk: Paragraph 26: web search).
Regarding claim 10, Tkaczyk in view of Brown in view of Thomas teaches, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the electronic device to identify the current interest using an artificial intelligence (AI) engine training to associate registered prior activities to providers of a category of goods and services (Tkaczyk: Paragraph 25 and 39: AI filtering model).
Regarding claim 11, Tkaczyk in view of Brown in view of Thomas teaches, wherein the indication of the current interest comprises at least one indication from among a group comprising: (i) a text notification; (ii) a symbol; (iii) a color code; and (iv) a special ringtone (Brown: a text notification; Fig. 6).
Regarding claim 12, see claim 1 rejection.
Regarding claim 13, see claim 2 rejections.
Regarding claim 14, see claim 3 rejections.
Regarding claim 17, see claim 8 rejections.
Regarding claim 19, see claim 10 rejections.
Regarding claim 20, see claim 1 rejection.
Claims 9, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tkaczyk (US 20220294901) in view of Brown (US 9723157) in view of Thomas (US 20200112636) in view of Park (US 20150156300).
Regarding claim 9, Tkaczyk in view of Brown in view of Thomas teaches, generating and presenting via the at least one output device the first call session control
Tkaczyk in view of Brown in view of Thomas does not teach wherein; in generating and presenting via the at least one output device the first call session control, the processor is further configured to cause the electronic device to generate and present a spam control whose selection overrides the at least one registered prior activity for a subsequently received telephone call.
Park teaches provide a method for filtering spam in an electronic device, which efficiently filters a spam call or a spam message in a various types of electronic devices, such as a smart phone or a tablet Personal Computer (PC), and the electronic device (Paragraph 7), generating and presenting via the at least one output device the first call session control, the processor is further configured to cause the electronic device to generate and present a spam control whose selection overrides the at least one registered prior activity for a subsequently received telephone call (Fig. 7A, 16 and Paragraph 146).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to modify Tkaczyk with Park in order to improve the system and enhance the user experience.
Regarding claim 18, see claim 9 rejections.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6, 15-16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARIA EL-ZOOBI whose telephone number is (571)270-3434. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7-4.
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/MARIA EL-ZOOBI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2692
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