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
Claims 1-20 have been examined.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection. On 2/17/26, Applicant amended the independent claims. Applicant’s Remarks address these new features. See the new 103 addressing these new features.
Also, the 101 is still found to apply. No new additional elements beyond the generic have been added. See the 101 below.
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.
Independent Claims 1, 8, 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims are in a statutory category of invention. However, the claims recite detecting a request to display content; in response to detecting the request to display content, sending, a request for content; after sending the request for content, receiving, a first set of content items as a response to the request for content; and in response to receiving the first plurality of content items and as a response to the request to display content: in accordance with a determination that a first set of one or more criteria is satisfied, wherein the first set of one or more criteria includes a criterion that is satisfied based on, presenting, , a representation for each content item in a second set of one or more content items, wherein the first set of content items includes the second set of one or more content items; and in accordance with a determination that a second set of one or more criteria is satisfied, wherein the second set of one or more criteria includes a criterion that is satisfied based on data, presenting, , a representation for each content item in a third set of one or more content items without presenting the second set of one or more content items, wherein the third set of one or more content items is different from the second set of one or more content items, wherein the first set of content items includes the third set of one or more content items, and wherein the second set of one or more criteria is different from the first set of one or more criteria, criteria as pattern of use. This is considered in the Abstract Idea grouping of certain methods of organizing human activity - advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claim is directed to an abstract idea with additional generic computer elements. The additional elements are considered a client device that includes a display, a server device different from the client device. These are considered generic. The generically recited computer elements do not add a practical application or meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because they amount to simply implementing the abstract idea on a computer.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional limitations only perform well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions as recognized by the court decisions listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d). Also, the additional hardware elements are: (i) mere instructions to implement the idea on a computer, and/or (ii) recitation of generic computer structure that serves to perform generic computer functions. Viewed separately or as a whole, these additional claim elements do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claims amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The claim does not provide significantly more than the identified abstract idea, in that there is no improvement to another technology or technical field, no improvement to the functioning of a computer, no application with, or by use of a particular machine, no transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, no specific limitation other than what is well-understood, routing and conventional in the field, no unconventional step that confines the claim to a particular useful application, or meaningful limitations that amount to more than generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Dependent claims 2-7, 9-13, 15-20 are not considered directed to any additional non-abstract claim elements. The use of metadata and anonymization is considered generic. Rather, these claims offer further descriptive limitations of elements found in the independent claims and addressed above. While these descriptive elements may provide further helpful description for the claimed invention, these elements do not confer subject matter eligibility to the invention since their individual and combined significance is still not more than the abstract concepts identified in the claimed invention. Hence, these dependent claims are also rejected under 101.
Please see the 35 USC 101 section at the Examination Guidance and Training Materials page on the USPTO website.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fastlicht (20140304247) in view of Wyatt (12348596).
Claim 1, 8, 14. Fastlicht discloses a method for performing local content personalization, the method comprising:
at a client device that includes a display (Fig. 1c):
detecting a request to display content ([4]; Fig. 3);
in response to detecting the request to display content, sending, to a server device different from the client device, a request for content (Fig. 3);
after sending the request for content, receiving, from the server device, a first set of content items as a response to the request for content ([21]; also note initial results at [30]); and
in response to receiving the first plurality of content items and as a response to the request to display content:
in accordance with a determination that a first set of one or more criteria is satisfied, wherein the first set of one or more criteria includes a criterion that is satisfied based on a profile of the client device, presenting, via the display, a representation for each content item in a second set of one or more content items, wherein the first set of content items includes the second set of one or more content items ([21, 22] and see filter with criteria/preferences that are applied by the client device; also see [30] and filtering the initial results with criteria at the client device; also for profile, Examiner notes Applicant Spec at [34, 3] and Fastlicht discloses presenting content based on subject matter, [21] and claim 3, and that this focused content can be based on profile “[33]… a user profile database 305 and similar databases and data structures to track content and configuration for focused content aggregation.”).
While Fastlicht discloses content based on criteria like profile (see preceding), Fastlicht does not explicitly disclose profile as a pattern of use. However, Examiner notes Applicant Spec at [34, 3] and Fastlicht discloses presenting content based on subject matter, [21] and claim 3, and that this focused content can be based on profile which is similar to pattern of use “[33]… a user profile database 305 and similar databases and data structures to track content and configuration for focused content aggregation.” And, Wyatt further discloses demographic info of a particular request and that this includes historical data associated with the request 7:15-25 “…Likewise, as shown at step 515, demographic information associated with the network appliance 105 which has generated the current request is reviewed. That demographic information is historical data, developed based on prior requests that have been filtered by, for example, the process of FIG. 5, and then associated as metadata back to the remote network appliance that generated the current request.”. And Wyatt discloses the metadata describes the content requested 9:40-45 “The remote appliances produce metadata 710 describing the content requested by a consumer (not shown),” and is used to predict relevant content for the particular user(s), 1:65-2:20. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Wyatt’s tracking historical data on user requests and using this to better provide relevant content to Fastlicht’s tracking user profile to better provide relevant content. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better provide relevant content.
The prior art further renders obvious in accordance with a determination that a second set of one or more criteria is satisfied, wherein the second set of one or more criteria includes a criterion that is satisfied based on the pattern of use of the client device, presenting, via the display, a representation for each content item in a third set of one or more content items without presenting the second set of one or more content items, wherein the third set of one or more content items is different from the second set of one or more content items, wherein the first set of content items includes the third set of one or more content items, and wherein the second set of one or more criteria is different from the first set of one or more criteria (see Fastlicht at [21, 22] and note that multiple, different channels can be created and that multiple, different channels can exist, hence, there is one channel based on a first set of criteria at the client device and a second channel based on a different set of criteria at the client device; also see Fastlicht at [30] and filtering the initial results with criteria at the client device and note that this can be done on a channel by channel basis so multiple channels with different criteria can be created; also for pattern of use, see the obviousness statement above and the motivation is the same here).
Claim 2, 9, 15. Fastlicht further discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first set of one or more criteria includes a criterion that is satisfied based on a historical content viewing pattern detected via the client device (see user profile and track at [33, 37, 45]; note suggestions and suggested channel at [44, 45]; note in [37] that user profile info is at client device).
Claim 3, 10, 16. The prior art further renders obvious the method of claim 1, wherein the second set of one or more content items correspond to a first application, and wherein the pattern of use of the client device corresponds to a second application different from the first application (see Fastlicht application at client device at [17] or app on mobile device at [21]; see Fastlicht and the first or different application is the website, network source, where the content comes from [3, 4, 19]; also for pattern of use, see the obviousness statement above and the motivation is the same here).
Claim 4, 11, 17. Fastlicht further discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: after sending the request for content, receiving, from the server device, data corresponding to the first set of content items as a response to the request for content, wherein the data is associated with the first set of content items, and wherein the first set of one or more criteria includes a criterion that is satisfied based on the data corresponding to the first set of content items ([21, 22, 30]). Fastlicht does not explicitly disclose using metadata associated with and separate from the content for the content filtering. However, Wyatt discloses presenting filtered content to a user (Fig. 1) and further discloses using metadata associated with and separate from the content for the content filtering (1:65-2:20). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Wyatt’s use of metadata for content filtering to Fastlicht’s content filtering. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better content filter.
Claim 5. Fastlicht further discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the second set of one or more content items includes a plurality of different content items (Fig. 1c).
Claim 6, 12, 18. The prior art further renders obvious the method of claim 1, wherein the request to display content was detected via a first application, and wherein the pattern of use of the client device corresponds to a second application different from the first application (see Fastlicht and application at client device at [17] or app on mobile device at [21]; see Fastlicht and the first or different application is the website, network source, where the content comes from [3, 4, 19]; also for pattern of use, see the obviousness statement above and the motivation is the same here).
Claim 7, 13, 19. Fastlicht further discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: while presenting a representation for each content item in the second set of one or more content items, detecting selection of a first representation of a content item; and after detecting the selection of the first representation of the content item, providing, to the server device, data corresponding to the selection of the first representation of the content item (see user profile and track at [33, 37, 45]; note suggestions and suggested channel at [44, 45]; note in [37] that user profile info is at client device).
Fastlicht does not explicitly disclose anonymized data corresponding to the selection of the first representation of the content item. However, Fastlicht discloses maintaining user content information privately [41]. And, Wyatt discloses presenting filtered content to a user (Fig. 1) and further discloses anonymized data corresponding to the selection of the first representation of the content item (6:10-15). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Wyatt’s anonymizing to Fastlicht’s privating. One would have been motivated to do this in order to protect privacy.
Claim 20. The prior art further renders obvious the method of claim 1, wherein the pattern of use is detected by monitoring user content consumption behavior (see Wyatt and historical user data at 7:15-25, “That demographic information is historical data, developed based on prior requests…” and the motivation to combine is the same as provided in the independent claim above).
Conclusion
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Examiner notes related parent CON application 16708846 and it’s affirming PTAB decision on 11/14/24;
b) Kruger discloses using metadata and anonymizing;
c) Cooke, Chitturi [65] disclose content filtering by client.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
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/ARTHUR DURAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622 2/26/2026