Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 6/15/2026 has been entered.
Claim Status
Claims 1-2, 4-10 and 36-37 and 39-46 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 1 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Allen (US 2008/0085502) in view of Gross (US 2005/0266388) in view of Abzarian (US 2009/0007219) in view of Evje (US 2009/0150806) in view of Florance (US 2003/0064355).
Hereafter, above references will be entered as reference combination A.
Regarding claim 1, Allen discloses:
a) a plurality of computing devices for communicating with a plurality of users in an educational community; and
Allen [0031] Turning now to the drawings, FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary data exchange system 1 comprising, in one embodiment, a host CMS system 2 including a host server 3 and a database 4, a client SIS system 5 including a client computer 6 and a database 7, with client SIS system 5 communicating with host system 2 through a network 10. System 1 further includes an administrator user computer 8 and student user computer 9 communicating with client SIS system 5 and/or host system 2 through network 10.
b) at least one server in communication with each of the plurality of computing devices, the at least one server in communication with at least one data storage device configured to host a plurality of electronic portfolios, each electronic portfolio associated with one or more users of the plurality of users in the educational community;
Allen [0031] Turning now to the drawings, FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary data exchange system 1 comprising, in one embodiment, a host CMS system 2 including a host server 3 and a database 4, a client SIS system 5 including a client computer 6 and a database 7, with client SIS system 5 communicating with host system 2 through a network 10. System 1 further includes an administrator user computer 8 and student user computer 9 communicating with client SIS system 5 and/or host system 2 through network 10.
c) wherein the at least one server is configured such that one or more users may associate one or more digital items with each electronic portfolio, and the plurality of users may take actions on the digital items in each electronic portfolio depending on authorization criteria,
Allen discloses elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose above limitation. However, Gross discloses:
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Gross claim 5, A method of creating and providing access to a student digital portfolio that aggregates and centralizes information about a student in a school for collaboration among school staff, comprising the steps of: receiving first student information from teachers of the student; storing the student information; receiving second student information from a student information system for the school; providing a digital drop box for the input by the student of student work; storing a student plan for the student created by the school staff; aggregating the first student information, the second student information, the student work and the student plan based upon identify of the student and schedule information relating to the student from the student information system; and providing access to the school staff to the aggregated information.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Allen to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Gross for the purpose of providing information on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to Gross’s analogous art from the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, see below extract from the abstract:
A system and method is provided for the collection and automate dispatching of assignments and news from a teacher to their students and parents. This involves registering members and assigning them roles, scopes and groups based on scheduling and other data pulled from the school/district's database, capturing assignment data from the teacher or student assistant through a web form, constructing custom homepages and assignment messages for each student and parents, and transmitting those messages to the right parties.
wherein the authorization criteria comprises at least one global configuration profile associated with the plurality of electronic portfolios
Allen discloses elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose above limitation. However, Abzarian discloses:
Abzarian [0056] If it is determined in block 708 that there are no global configuration options set, the process continues to block 710, wherein the group and network security policies are queried to determine whether they contain any per-profile configuration options that apply to the current profile of the computer system. Similar to the global configuration options, per-profile configuration options may be any suitable setting that controls security of a computer system. For example, if the computer system is operating according to the "public" profile, and a group/network security policy enables the "Shields Up" configuration option in the "public" profile, then the process 700 returns TRUE to indicate that some elements of a merged security policy are controlled by a group or network security policy and therefore may override settings of user and/or administrator security policies and prevent operations to make changes to the user and/or administrator security policies from being effective.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Allen to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Abzarian for the purpose of indicating that some elements of a merged security policy are controlled by a group or network security policy and therefore may override settings of user and/or administrator security policies and prevent operations to make changes to the user and/or administrator security policies from being effective.
Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to Abzarian’s analogous art which is reasonably pertinent to the problem faced by the inventor see [0055] If no connection security rules are found in block 706, the process continues to block 708, wherein the process determines whether the group or network security policy for the specified profile has set configuration options globally (i.e., for all profiles rather than the profile specified in block 702).
d) wherein the at least one server is configured to:
provide for the creation of a collection of digital items in an electronic portfolio, the collection comprising digital items from the plurality of electronic portfolios or outside the system,
during or after creation of the collection receive at least one tag associated with a digital item,
search and identify digital items in the plurality of electronic portfolios with associated tags that match the at least one tag, and update the collection of digital items in a corresponding electronic portfolio by adding identified digital items.
Allen discloses elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose above limitation. However, Evje discloses:
Evje [0041] In step 16, the contextual link engine 109 receives the message communicated from the client machine in step 14. In step 17, in response to the receipt of this message, the contextual link engine 109 searches over the library of media content item references maintained therein (step 1) to select zero or more media content item references whose corresponding tag(s) match the tag(s) of the media content item identified by the message received in step 16. The selection process of step 17 provides for contextual matching and can be rigid in nature (e.g., requiring that the tag(s) of the selected media content item references match all of the tags of the user-selected media content item). The selection process of step 17 can also be more flexible in nature based on similarity between the tag(s) of the selected media content item references and the tag(s) of the user-selected media content item. A weighted-tree similarity algorithm or other suitable matching algorithm can be used for the similarity-based matching. The selected media content item reference(s) are added to a list, which is preferably ranked according to similarity with the tag(s) of the user-selected video content item.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Allen to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Evje for the purpose of selecting media content item references whose corresponding tag(s) match the tag(s) of the media content item identified by the message.
iii) update collection of the digital items in a corresponding electronic portfolio by adding identified digital items.
Allen discloses elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose above limitation. However, Florance discloses:
Florance [0024] Grade level classroom folders are provided to store digital camera images of student and/or classroom projects which may be imported into student portfolios. Teachers can also use these folders for future assignments to be imported into students' powerfolio behind the appropriate subject title. Staff and student portrait pictures may be imported into classroom projects or student portfolios.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Allen to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Florance for the purpose of importing staff and student portrait pictures into classroom projects or student portfolios.
Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to Florance’s analogous art from the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, see below:
[abstract] A method of organizing and presenting information related to a student's academic career is provided which includes creating a series of folders and subfolders for organizing multimedia information chronologically and hierarchically for each student. The information may be presented in a variety of ways such as by academic subject matter spanning one or more years or by grade level.
Claim 2 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the authorization criteria further includes at least one permission profile associated with at least one of the digital items.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 4 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A in view of Rolfe (US 2005/0027841)
Reference combination A discloses elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose wherein the plurality of users includes at least one user authorized to set at least one global configuration profile. However, Rolfe discloses:
Rolfe [0016] Furthermore, the remote user interface 12a permits a user to enter a plurality of global control and/or configuration commands to the remote-CLI 12, which global commands are simulcasted (e.g., broadcasted simultaneously to two or more network switches 14a, 14b or 14c) over the computer network 16 to the plurality of communication network switches 14a, 14b, 14c.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify reference combination A to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Rolfe for the purpose of permitting a user to enter a plurality of global control and/or configuration commands.
Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to Rolfe’s analogous art which is reasonable pertinent to the problem faced by the inventor, i.e., entering a global control and/or configuration command.
Claim 5 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the authorization criteria includes at least one security profile associated with at least one role, each role including at least one of the plurality of users.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 6 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the digital items include at least one of artifacts, reflections, collections and presentations.
Gross claim 5, A method of creating and providing access to a student digital portfolio that aggregates and centralizes information about a student in a school for collaboration among school staff, comprising the steps of: receiving first student information from teachers of the student; storing the student information; receiving second student information from a student information system for the school; providing a digital drop box for the input by the student of student work; storing a student plan for the student created by the school staff; aggregating the first student information, the second student information, the student work and the student plan based upon identify of the student and schedule information relating to the student from the student information system; and providing access to the school staff to the aggregated information.
Claim 7 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the actions that may be taken include commenting on at least one of the digital items.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 8 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the actions that may be taken include assessing at least one of the digital items.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 9 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the actions that may be taken include at least one of reading, modifying, sharing, and creating at least one of the digital items.
Gross claim 5, A method of creating and providing access to a student digital portfolio that aggregates and centralizes information about a student in a school for collaboration among school staff, comprising the steps of: receiving first student information from teachers of the student; storing the student information; receiving second student information from a student information system for the school; providing a digital drop box for the input by the student of student work; storing a student plan for the student created by the school staff; aggregating the first student information, the second student information, the student work and the student plan based upon identify of the student and schedule information relating to the student from the student information system; and providing access to the school staff to the aggregated information.
Claim 10 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the authorization criteria include at least one permission-specific criterion.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 36 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Allen (US 2008/0085502) in view of Gross (US 2005/0266388) in view of Abzarian (US 2009/0007219) in view of Calvert (US 2008/0254434) in view of Florance (US 2003/0064355).
Hereafter, above references will be entered as reference combination A.
a) identifying a plurality of users in an educational community;
Allen [0077] Once a given threshold is met, the CMS system creates or provisions a new course section. (step 304) If the threshold is established as a function of waitlisted enrollees, the CMS system automatically enrolls the waitlisted students in the new course section. (step 306) The CMS system may provide notifications of new courses to an institution's SIS system through an API which may further initiate a sequence of automated steps to associate additional student information with course section information. (step 308)
b) providing a plurality of computing devices for communicating with the plurality of users
in the educational community;
Allen [0031] Turning now to the drawings, FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary data exchange system 1 comprising, in one embodiment, a host CMS system 2 including a host server 3 and a database 4, a client SIS system 5 including a client computer 6 and a database 7, with client SIS system 5 communicating with host system 2 through a network 10. System 1 further includes an administrator user computer 8 and student user computer 9 communicating with client SIS system 5 and/or host system 2 through network 10.
c) providing at least one server in communication with each of the plurality of computing devices, each the at least one server having at least one data storage device coupled thereto and configured to host a plurality of electronic portfolios, each electronic portfolio associated with one or more users of the plurality of users in the educational community; and
Allen [0031] Turning now to the drawings, FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary data exchange system 1 comprising, in one embodiment, a host CMS system 2 including a host server 3 and a database 4, a client SIS system 5 including a client computer 6 and a database 7, with client SIS system 5 communicating with host system 2 through a network 10. System 1 further includes an administrator user computer 8 and student user computer 9 communicating with client SIS system 5 and/or host system 2 through network 10.
d) wherein the at least one server is configured such that one or more users may associate one or more digital items with each electronic portfolio, and the plurality of users may take actions on the digital items in each electronic portfolio depending on authorization criteria,
Allen discloses the elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose above limitation. However, Gross discloses:
Gross claim 5, A method of creating and providing access to a student digital portfolio that aggregates and centralizes information about a student in a school for collaboration among school staff, comprising the steps of: receiving first student information from teachers of the student; storing the student information; receiving second student information from a student information system for the school; providing a digital drop box for the input by the student of student work; storing a student plan for the student created by the school staff; aggregating the first student information, the second student information, the student work and the student plan based upon identify of the student and schedule information relating to the student from the student information system; and providing access to the school staff to the aggregated information.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Allen to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Gross for the purpose of providing information on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to Gross’s analogous art from the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, see below extract from the abstract:
A system and method is provided for the collection and automate dispatching of assignments and news from a teacher to their students and parents. This involves registering members and assigning them roles, scopes and groups based on scheduling and other data pulled from the school/district's database, capturing assignment data from the teacher or student assistant through a web form, constructing custom homepages and assignment messages for each student and parents, and transmitting those messages to the right parties.
wherein the authorization criteria comprises at least one global configuration profile associated with the plurality of electronic devices.
Allen discloses elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose above limitation. However, Abzarian discloses:
Abzarian [0056] If it is determined in block 708 that there are no global configuration options set, the process continues to block 710, wherein the group and network security policies are queried to determine whether they contain any per-profile configuration options that apply to the current profile of the computer system. Similar to the global configuration options, per-profile configuration options may be any suitable setting that controls security of a computer system. For example, if the computer system is operating according to the "public" profile, and a group/network security policy enables the "Shields Up" configuration option in the "public" profile, then the process 700 returns TRUE to indicate that some elements of a merged security policy are controlled by a group or network security policy and therefore may override settings of user and/or administrator security policies and prevent operations to make changes to the user and/or administrator security policies from being effective.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Allen to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Abzarian for the purpose of indicating that some elements of a merged security policy are controlled by a group or network security policy and therefore may override settings of user and/or administrator security policies and prevent operations to make changes to the user and/or administrator security policies from being effective.
Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to Abzarian’s analogous art which is reasonably pertinent to the problem faced by the inventor see [0055] If no connection security rules are found in block 706, the process continues to block 708, wherein the process determines whether the group or network security policy for the specified profile has set configuration options globally (i.e., for all profiles rather than the profile specified in block 702).
wherein the at least one server is configured to:
provide for the creation of a collection of digital items in an electronic portfolio the collection comprising digital items from the plurality of electronic portfolios or outside the system
during or after creation of the collection, receive at least one tag associated with a digital item,
search and identify digital items in the plurality of electronic portfolios with associated tags that match the at least one tag, and
Allen discloses elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose above limitation. However, Evje discloses:
Evje [0041] In step 16, the contextual link engine 109 receives the message communicated from the client machine in step 14. In step 17, in response to the receipt of this message, the contextual link engine 109 searches over the library of media content item references maintained therein (step 1) to select zero or more media content item references whose corresponding tag(s) match the tag(s) of the media content item identified by the message received in step 16. The selection process of step 17 provides for contextual matching and can be rigid in nature (e.g., requiring that the tag(s) of the selected media content item references match all of the tags of the user-selected media content item). The selection process of step 17 can also be more flexible in nature based on similarity between the tag(s) of the selected media content item references and the tag(s) of the user-selected media content item. A weighted-tree similarity algorithm or other suitable matching algorithm can be used for the similarity-based matching. The selected media content item reference(s) are added to a list, which is preferably ranked according to similarity with the tag(s) of the user-selected video content item.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Allen to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Evje for the purpose of selecting media content item references whose corresponding tag(s) match the tag(s) of the media content item identified by the message.
update the collection of digital items in a corresponding electronic portfolio by adding an identified digital item.
Allen discloses elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose above limitation. However, Florance discloses:
Florance [0024] Grade level classroom folders are provided to store digital camera images of student and/or classroom projects which may be imported into student portfolios. Teachers can also use these folders for future assignments to be imported into students' powerfolio behind the appropriate subject title. Staff and student portrait pictures may be imported into classroom projects or student portfolios.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Allen to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Florance for the purpose of importing staff and student portrait pictures into classroom projects or student portfolios.
Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to Florance’s analogous art from the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, see below:
[abstract] A method of organizing and presenting information related to a student's academic career is provided which includes creating a series of folders and subfolders for organizing multimedia information chronologically and hierarchically for each student. The information may be presented in a variety of ways such as by academic subject matter spanning one or more years or by grade level.
Regarding claim 37, reference combination A discloses wherein the authorization criteria includes at least one permission profile associated with at least one of the digital items.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 39 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A in view of Rolfe (US 2005/0027841)
Reference combination A discloses elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose wherein the plurality of users includes at least one user authorized to set at least one global configuration profile. However, Rolfe discloses:
Rolfe [0016] Furthermore, the remote user interface 12a permits a user to enter a plurality of global control and/or configuration commands to the remote-CLI 12, which global commands are simulcasted (e.g., broadcasted simultaneously to two or more network switches 14a, 14b or 14c) over the computer network 16 to the plurality of communication network switches 14a, 14b, 14c.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify reference combination A to obtain above limitation based on the teachings of Rolfe for the purpose of permitting a user to enter a plurality of global control and/or configuration commands.
Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to look to Rolfe’s analogous art which is reasonable pertinent to the problem faced by the inventor, i.e., entering a global control and/or configuration command.
Claim 40 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the authorization criteria includes at least one security profile associated with at least one role, each role including at least one of the plurality of users.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 41 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the digital items include at least one of artifacts, reflections, collections and presentations.
Gross claim 5, A method of creating and providing access to a student digital portfolio that aggregates and centralizes information about a student in a school for collaboration among school staff, comprising the steps of: receiving first student information from teachers of the student; storing the student information; receiving second student information from a student information system for the school; providing a digital drop box for the input by the student of student work; storing a student plan for the student created by the school staff; aggregating the first student information, the second student information, the student work and the student plan based upon identify of the student and schedule information relating to the student from the student information system; and providing access to the school staff to the aggregated information.
Claim 42 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the actions that may be taken include commenting on at least one of the digital items.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 43 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the actions that may be taken include assessing at least one of the digital items.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 44 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the actions that may be taken include at least one of reading, modifying, sharing, and creating at least one of the digital items.
Gross claim 5, A method of creating and providing access to a student digital portfolio that aggregates and centralizes information about a student in a school for collaboration among school staff, comprising the steps of: receiving first student information from teachers of the student; storing the student information; receiving second student information from a student information system for the school; providing a digital drop box for the input by the student of student work; storing a student plan for the student created by the school staff; aggregating the first student information, the second student information, the student work and the student plan based upon identify of the student and schedule information relating to the student from the student information system; and providing access to the school staff to the aggregated information.
Claim 45 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A
Reference combination A discloses wherein the authorization criteria include at least one permission-specific criterion.
Gross abstract, Finally, a system and method for creating student digital portfolios. This involves aggregating information already published to the system along with grades and attendance information pulled from the SIS, student work submitted through digital dropboxes, plans and comments from teachers and staff, membership data, and school participation data as expressed through membership and messaging through the system. This information is available on a single web page accessed through directories, rosters and special groups by school and district staff.
Claim 46 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over reference combination A in view of Higgins (US 2010/0161600).
Reference combination A discloses the elements of the claimed invention as noted but does not disclose wherein the permission-specific criteria include enrollment data for the plurality of users. However, Higgins discloses:
Higgins claim 13. The method of claim 10 wherein if the query in the enrolling step returns data required for enrollment in the selected at least one of the subset of the plurality of services that is sensitive user data, the user is prompted to give permission to the enrolling step to retrieve the sensitive user data.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify reference combination A to obtain above limitation for the purpose of enrolling a user for sensitive services.
Response to Arguments
Applicant Argues:
Applicant respectfully submits that the references alone or in combination do not teach or suggest all of the elements of amended claim 1.
Applicant submits that there are now 5 references in Reference Combination A. The Examiner relies on Calvert with regard to a search for a meta-tag. However, Applicant submits that Calvert only teaches a standard search function for finding materials and then using one of the found materials. See, for example, paragraph [0085]:
[0085] If a suitable object is found in step 622, the object is employed in a tutoring
session in step 624. If no suitable object is found result from the search in step 622, the tutor application has exhausted its search options and must enter a request for
the system administrators or curriculum maintainers to provide such an object in step 626. If the search is conducted in context of an ongoing or real time tutoring session, the tutor application must of course continue with the session and would
therefore mitigate the lack of an appropriate object with either intervention by a live
teacher or they use of a learning-style-neutral object in place of the desired learning- style-specific object.
Applicant submits that Calvert does not teach the creation of a collection of digital items that is saved and can be updated in an electronic portfolio. Further, the collection of digital items is also a digital item. Applicant submits that none of the other references, alone or in combination with Calvert or each other, teach or suggest this element.
As such, Applicant submits that claim 1 is in condition for allowance. Claim 36 has been amended similarly to claim 1 and is also believed to be in condition for allowance.
It is submitted that dependent claims, depending from one of claims 1 or 36, are also patentable over the cited references for at least the same reasons and the additional elements therein. Retraction of Examiner's rejections above is respectfully requested.
Examiner Responds:
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-2, 4-10, 36-37 and 39-46 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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/ETIENNE P LEROUX/Primary Examiner of Art Unit 2161
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