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 .
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Regarding claims 1, 11, and 20,
Step 1 Analysis: Claim 1, 11, and 20 are directed to a method, which falls within one of the four statutory categories.
Step 2A Prong 1 Analysis: Claims recites,
The limitation of:
“determining situation-adaptive information based on the location information, the time information and the state information, the situation adaptive information including information on a destination being predicted to move to and a time taken in moving to the destination” is a mental process which can be performed by the human mind. A human can by just looking and/or knowing the pertinent data can determine a situation.
These limitations, as drafted, are processes that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers the performance of the limitation in the mind which falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong 2 Analysis: Claims 1, 11, and 20 recites the additional elements:
“obtaining location information about a location of the terminal”, “obtaining time information about a time corresponding to the location information”, “obtaining state information of the terminal, the state information including network access state information”, “displaying the situation-adaptive information”, “one or more memories”, “one or more processors”, and “terminal”. The limitations of “obtaining” and “displaying” are an additional element and is insignificant extra-solution activity as retrieval/receiving of data (i.e. mere data gathering) such as 'obtaining information' as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application. A terminal comprising “one or more memories”, “one or more processors”, and “terminal”, note that these recited additional elements are a high-level recitation of generic computer components to perform the mental process and applied on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application.
Step 2B Analysis: the conclusions for the additional elements representing mere implementation using a computer are carried over and do not provide significantly more. With respect to the "obtaining and displaying” limitation is identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above when re-evaluated this element is well-understood, routine, and conventional as evidenced by the court cases in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II), "i. Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information); … OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363, 115 USPQ2d 1090, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (sending messages over a network); buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (computer receives and sends information over a network);" and thus remains insignificant extra-solution activity that does not provide significantly more. Lastly the recitation of “A terminal comprising “one or more memories”, “one or more processors”, and “terminal” are recitation of generic computer components to perform the mental process and applied on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f).
Regarding claims 2-3, 8, 10, 12-13, and 18, recites additional elements of using a computer as a tool to perform the recited step amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the abstract idea using generic computer component.
Regarding claims 4-7, 9, 14-17, and 19, recites limitations abstract ideas previously identified in the independent claims, that are mental process which can be performed by the human mind. This claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
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.
Claims 1-3, 8-13, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsuura et al. (US Pub. 2006/0156209) (Eff filing date of app: 2/18/2004)(Hereinafter Matsuura) in view of Winters (US Pub. 2010/0323715) (Eff filing date of app: 6/18/2009).
As to claims 1, 11, and 20, Matsuura teaches a method of display situation-adaptive information by a terminal, the method comprising:
obtaining location information about a location of the terminal (see p. 133, “the movement history recording unit 202 records the location of the mobile terminal 11 and the date and time onto the hard disk HDD of the movement history data storage unit”; p. 9-10 and fig. 6, 202 and 204);
obtaining time information about a time corresponding to the location information (see p. 133, “the movement history recording unit 202 records the location of the mobile terminal 11 and the date and time onto the hard disk HDD of the movement history data storage unit”); and
displaying the situation-adaptive information (see fig, 27).
Matsuura teaches obtain current location and current data and time, see abstract and fig. 39, but does not expressly teach obtaining state information of the terminal, the state information including network access state information; and
determining situation-adaptive information based on the location information, the time information and the state information, the situation-adaptive information including information on a destination being predicted to move to and a time taken in moving to the destination.
Winters teaches device location prediction for mobile service, see abstract, in which he teaches obtaining state information of the terminal, the state information including network access state information (see p. 15, “In FIG. 1, locator device 120 may be coupled to location detection system 150 via communications connection 121, over which navigation data 122 and/or real-time location information 123 may be transmitted. Inside location detection system 150, satellite 151 may be coupled with location detection server(s) 153 via communications connection 152, over which navigation data 122 and/or real-time location information 123 may be transmitted….”; p. 40, “By way of example, and not limitation, communication media may include wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, radio frequency (RF), infrared (IR), and other wireless media.”; p. 46, “”); and
determining situation-adaptive information based on the location information, the time information and the state information, the situation-adaptive information including information on a destination being predicted to move to and a time taken in moving to the destination (see p. 50-53, location prediction information ).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to have modified Matsuura by the teaching of Winters, because obtaining state information of…, would enable the method because to predict future mobile device locations in order to provide optimized mobile services, see paragraph 14.
As to claims 2 and 12, Matsuura as modified teaches wherein the network access state information indicated that the terminal is connected to a predetermined (see Matsuura p. 222, “This system includes the above-mentioned mobile phone 1201 capable of doing search via voice call and networks, a wireless IC card 1202 that has a communication function via a local wireless (RF (radio frequency)) tag or the like and is mounted or integrated in the mobile phone, a public network 1203 such as the Internet, a server 1204 that performs information retrieval and information distribution”).
As to claims 3 and 13, Matsuura as modified teaches the method further comprises generating a user database including prior location information, prior time information and prior state information (see Winters p. 27, historical device movements).
As to claims 8 and 18, Matsuura as modified teaches wherein the state information of the terminal further comprises application information of the terminal (see p. 1, “The present invention relates to a method of predicting an application program that a user is likely to use from among application programs previously installed onto a mobile terminal such as a mobile phone).
As to claims 9 and 19, Matsuura as modified teaches wherein the determining the situation adaptive information comprises predicting a situation of the user based on the state information of the terminal indicating that a certain application is being executed (see Winters, p. 33, use of application location by the use of applications and Matsuura abstract, “that creates a usage prediction rule of the application executed on the input device (106), in association with a usage location detected by the GPS reception unit (108); and an information display control unit (204) that specifies, based on the usage prediction rule, an application corresponding to the current location detected by the GPS reception unit (108), and causes a display (105) to display the specified application as a prediction result.” and p. 279, “The mobile phone according to the present embodiment previously holds the usage history of an e-mail application or the like for the user of the mobile terminal, and predicts, based on the current date and time and location, an application that the user is likely to use currently. The mobile terminal further predicts an application that the user is likely to use in the future location predicted by the above location prediction method.’).
As to claim 10, Matsuura teaches wherein: the obtaining the location information comprises determining the location information of the terminal as that the terminal is in a car and is near a workplace of the user of the terminal (see p. 174, mobile terminal is mounted in a car); and
the application information of the terminal comprises information of a map application installed on the terminal (see fig 8, map database and fig 63, map display and p. 135, “recorded location coordinate of the mobile terminal 11 belongs, by referring to the map database (map DB”).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed May 19, 2026 with respect to the rejected claims in view of
the cited references have been fully considered but they are not persuasive:
In response to applicants’ arguments that prior art does not teach “ obtaining state information…” and “determining situation…”, the arguments have been fully considered but are not deemed persuasive, because Winters teaches “Mobile communications services adapt to new device locations in a variety of ways such as switching communications channels and adjusting device, transmission, and network settings… when a mobile communications device in a cellular network is moving away from an area covered by a first cell, and entering an area covered by a neighboring cell. In this scenario, the call or data session may be transferred to the neighboring cell in order to avoid call degradation or termination when the mobile device moves outside the range of the first cell.” see p. 2 and p. 15, “In FIG. 1, locator device 120 may be coupled to location detection system 150 via communications connection 121, over which navigation data 122 and/or real-time location information 123 may be transmitted. Inside location detection system 150, satellite 151 may be coupled with location detection server(s) 153 via communications connection 152, over which navigation data 122 and/or real-time location information 123 may be transmitted…”. Teaches determining situation… in p. 50, “In a "Generate Mobile Device Location Prediction Information" operation 304, the network server 300 may be arranged to use one or more means of predicting the device's likely future location at a given time based on the device's current real-time location”.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-7 and 14-17 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Bilogrevic et al. “A machine-learning based approach to privacy-aware information-sharing in mobile social networks” (Hereinafter Bilogrevic) (Eff filing date of 06/30/2014).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BELIX M ORTIZ DITREN whose telephone number is (571)272-4081. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am -5pm.
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BELIX M. ORTIZ DITREN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2164
/Belix M Ortiz Ditren/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2164
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