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
This action is in reply to the communication filed on 01/17/2025.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Double Patenting
“Nonstatutory-type” double patenting rejection based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy and which is primarily intended to prevent prolongation of the patent term by prohibiting claims in a second patent not patentably distinguishing from claims in a first patent. Nonstatutory double patenting includes rejections based on either a one-way determination of obviousness or a two-way determination of obviousness. Nonstatutory double patenting could include a rejection which is not the usual “obviousness-type” double patenting rejection. See MPEP § 804
A nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement.
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
Claims 1-20 provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting over claims 21-40 of patent Application No: 10943144. This is a provisional double patenting rejection since the conflicting claims have not yet been patented. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because they are obvious variation of each other.
Independent claims 1 and 18 of the instant application do not recite the limitations of : modify the content item to indicate the one of the first contact information or the second contact information selected based on the location information associated with the computing device; and provide the content item to the computing device to cause the computing device to generate audio output comprising the content item to indicate, via the audio output, the one of the first contact information or the second contact information selected based on the location information associated with the computing device, the computing device to dial a number of the content provider computing device with the one of the first contact information or the second contact information responsive to input from the computing device.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to include in the instant application to include modify the content item to indicate the one of the first contact information or the second contact information selected based on the location information associated with the computing device; and provide the content item to the computing device to cause the computing device to generate audio output comprising the content item to indicate, via the audio output, the one of the first contact information or the second contact information selected based on the location information associated with the computing device, the computing device to dial a number of the content provider computing device with the one of the first contact information or the second contact information responsive to input from the computing device with the motivation of displaying advertising message to the user in a convenient way to call advertisers and based on user’s precise location and thus increasing marketability and revenue.
This is a provisional double patenting rejection since the conflicting claims have not yet been patented. Applicant is required to either cancel the conflicting claims from all but one application or maintain a clear line of demarcation between the applications. See MPEP § 822.
The subject matter claimed in the instant application is fully disclosed in the referenced patent application and would be covered by any patent granted on that application since the referenced patent application and the instant application are claiming common subject matter, as follows: implementing a click to call functions in a mobile phone via a webpage, by extracting advertiser contact information based on determining prominence score.
Furthermore, there is no apparent reason why applicant would be prevented from presenting claims corresponding to those of the instant application in the other patent application.
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 a judicial exception subject matter, specifically an abstract idea. The analysis for this determination is explained below:
Step 1, determine whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.
In this case, claim(s) 1-17 are directed to a machine (i.e. a system); claim (s) 18-20 are directed to a process (i.e. a method).
The claimed invention is directed to at least one judicial exception (i.e a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. Claim 1 for instance recite(s) the following abstract idea of: “ receive a content item and uniform resource locator (URL) from a content provider, the URL identifying a webpage; detect a first contact information from the webpage; calculate a prominence score for the first contact information based on one or more signals associated with the first contact information; receive, via speech input, a request; modify, based on the prominence score, the content item to include the first contact information; and provide the content item to generate output comprising the content item to indicate, via the output, the first contact information ”.
The limitations as detailed above, as drafted, falls within the “Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas as it relates to commercial interactions of advertising, marketing, or sales activities or behaviors; business relations, because the merely gather data, analyze the data, determine results based upon the analysis, generate tailored content based on the results, and transmit the tailored content. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea (i.e. MPEP Revised Step 2A Prong One=Yes).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claim only recites the additional elements of “system including one or more processors and computing device”. The additional technical elements above are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e. as a generic processor performing a generic computer function of processing, communicating and displaying) such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional technical elements above do not integrate the abstract idea/judicial exception into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. More specifically, the additional elements fail to include (1) improvements to the functioning of a computer or to any other technology or technical field (see MPEP 2106.05(a)), (2) applying or using a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition (see Vanda memo), (3) applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine (see MPEP 2106.05(b)), (4) effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (see MPEP 2106.05(c)), or (5) applying or using 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 (see MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda memo).
Rather, the limitations merely add the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea (see MPEP 2106.05(f)), or generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)). Thus, the claim is “directed to” an abstract idea (i.e. MPEP Step 2A Prong Two=Yes)
When considering Step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test, the claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
More specifically, as discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of using the additional elements of: “system including one or more processors and computing device” to perform the claimed functions amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component.
“Generic computer implementation” is insufficient to transform a patent-ineligible abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention (See Affinity Labs, _F.3d_, 120 U.S.P.Q.2d 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2016), citing Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2352, 2357) and more generally, “simply appending conventional steps specified at a high level of generality” to an abstract idea does not make that idea patentable (See Affinity Labs, _F.3d_, 120 U.S.P.Q.2d 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2016), citing Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1300). Moreover, “the use of generic computer elements like a microprocessor or user interface do not alone transform an otherwise abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter (See FairWarning, 120 U.S.P.Q.2d. 1293, citing DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014)). As such, the additional elements of the claim do not add a meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because they would be generic computer functions in any computer implementation. Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of the computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation.
The Examiner notes simply implementing an abstract concept on a computer, without meaningful limitations to that concept, does not transform a patent-ineligible claim into a patent-eligible one (See Accenture, 728 F.3d 1336, 108 U.S.P.Q.2d 1173 (Fed. Cir. 2013), citing Bancorp, 687 F.3d at 1280), limiting the application of an abstract idea to one field of use does not necessarily guard against preempting all uses of the abstract idea (See Accenture, 728 F.3d 1336, 108 U.S.P.Q.2d 1173 (Fed. Cir. 2013), citing Bilski, 130 S. Ct. at 3231), and further the prohibition against patenting an abstract principle “cannot be circumvented by attempting to limit the use of the [principle] to a particular technological environment” (See Accenture, 728 F.3d 1336, 108 U.S.P.Q.2d 1173 (Fed. Cir. 2013), citing Flook, 437 U.S. at 584), and finally merely limiting the field of use of the abstract idea to a particular existing technological environment does not render the claims any less abstract (See Affinity Labs, _F.3d_, 120 U.S.P.Q.2d 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2016), citing Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358; Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1294; Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 612 (2010); Content Extraction & Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, Nat’l Ass’n, 776 F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2014); buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
Applicant herein only requires a general-purpose computers communicating over a general purpose network (as evidenced from paragraphs 85 and 105); therefore, there does not appear to be any alteration or modification to the generic activities indicated, and they are also therefore recognized as insignificant activity with respect to eligibility. Finally, the following limitations are considered insignificant extra solution activity as they are directed to merely receiving, storing and/or transmitting data:
receive a content item and uniform resource locator (URL) from a content provider computing device, the URL identifying a webpage;
receive, via speech input from a computing device, a request; modify, based on the prominence score, the content item to include the first contact information;
provide the content item to the computing device to cause the computing device to generate output comprising the content item to indicate, via the output, the first contact information;
Thus, taken individually and in combination, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea) (i.e. MPEP Step 2B=No).
For the same reason these elements are not sufficient to provide an inventive concept. For these reasons, there is no inventive concept in the claim, and thus the claim is not patent eligible. Same Judicial analysis is applied here to independent claim (s) 18.
The dependent claims 2-17, 19-20 appears to merely further limit the abstract idea of Certain methods of organizing Human Activity” as it relates to commercial interactions of advertising, marketing, or sales activities or behaviors; business relations), which is considered part of the abstract idea and therefore only further limit the abstract idea (i.e. MPEP Step 2A Prong One=Yes), does/do not include any new additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and as such are “directed to” said abstract idea (i.e. MPEP Step 2A Prong Two=Yes); and do not add significantly more than the idea (i.e. MPEP Step 2B=No). Thus, the dependent claims further narrows the abstract idea and/or recite additional elements previously rejected in the independent claims 1 and 18.
Accordingly, the claim fails to recite any improvements to another technology or technical field, improvements to the functioning of the computer itself, use of a particular machine, effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, adding unconventional steps that confine the claim to a particular useful application, and/or meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular environment. See 84 Fed. Reg. 55. Viewed individually or as a whole, these additional claim element(s) do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-5, 7-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 as being unpatentable over Altberg et al, US Pub No: 2008/0194260 A1 in view of Zhang, US Pat No: 9449080 B1.
Claims 1-2, 17-18:
Altberg discloses:
receive a content item and uniform resource locator (URL) from a content provider computing device, the URL identifying a webpage (see at least paragraph 51 (Each advertiser 16 has a web page 20 which in accordance with the paid placement, and paid inclusion advertising models described above, may be included in a results page of a key word search initiated by a user of a client 10, which search is performed by an online search engine 19. Based on the paid placement, or the paid inclusion models, the web page 20 of an advertiser 16 is included within a results page compiled by the search engine 19 and sent via the communications path 12 to the client 10 that initiated the search, so that the web page 20 may be selected or viewed by a user of the client 10 that requested the search); paragraph 85 (The advertisement does not show the advertiser's complete phone number, but instead contains a hyperlink to reveal the advertiser's phone number, or the remaining portion of the telephone number);
detect a first contact information from the webpage (see at least paragraph 85 (The advertisement does not show the advertiser's complete phone number, but instead contains a hyperlink to reveal the advertiser's phone number, or the remaining portion of the telephone number); and Fig 9 with the associated text;
receive, via speech input from a computing device, a request (see at least paragraph 132 (The user selection may be in the form of a keyboard/keypad input, a touch pad input, a track ball input, a mouse input, a voice command, etc);
provide the content item to the computing device to cause the computing device to generate output comprising the content item to indicate, via the output, the first contact information ( see at least paragraph 57 (The text creation logic 50 allows Burt to input for e.g. the text “Burt's Plumbing in San Francisco. Check out our special deals,” which will be included in the advertisement when it is rendered);
Altberg does not specifically disclose, But Zhang however discloses:
calculate a prominence score for terms within documents (see at least column 8, lines 25-35 ( In some embodiments, for the purpose of more effectively tagging the document, as well as for searching information related to the document contents, special terms can be assigned with larger importance values, and be selected and extracted based on their grammatical or semantic attributes. For example, for tagging a document or an email, terms such as the name of a task, a due date, a calendar event, or a question, an event or action name, or a name of an entity of special interest, etc., can be assigned larger importance or weight values as needed); column 8, lines 53-64 (In some embodiments, other attributes associated with a term can also be used in determining the importance of the term. For example, the distributional attributes, such as the position of a term in the document, or in a sentence or a paragraph, or the position of the sentence or paragraph containing the term in the document, and the frequency of occurrence of the term, etc., can be used in determining the importance of the term; Furthermore, as is described in more detail in the referenced disclosures, the importance of a term can further be determined based on the importance or prominence measure of the term in the current document and the importance or prominence measure of the same term in other documents); Column 28, lines 30-35 (different visual effects can be applied to the results in different strength score ranges, such as highlighted in different colors or displayed in different font style or size, etc, to facilitate the selection and review process);
modify, based on the prominence score content items to include information ( column 8, lines 9-24 (grammatical attributes, such as whether a term is in the subject or predicate position of a sentence, or is a head or modifier in a multi-word phrase, etc., can be used to determine the importance of a term in the text content. Other grammatical attributes also include the parts of speech of the terms in a particular context, etc. Furthermore, semantic attributes, such as whether a term is the name of a physical or abstract object, a person, or an attribute or property of an object or person; or whether it is in a semantic role of an actor/agent, recipient, or instruments, etc.; or whether a term carries a positive or negative opinion, or whether a term is associated with a positive or negative comment, etc., can all be used for determining the importance of the term in the text content, such as by assigning a weight value to the term based on one or more of the attributes ; column 26, lines 19-31 (For example, grammatical analysis can be performed to identify whether a word is a noun or a verb or an adjective, or in a grammatical role of a subject, or object, a modifier or a head of a phrase, etc., and such information can be used to assign different weight values to different terms, which can further be used as a measure of relevance to a search query);
displaying content items based on the prominence scores ( Column 13, lines 39-44 (term importance scores as calculated using the various methods described above can also be displayed along with the terms, and users can select the suggested terms as well as edit the terms or their corresponding importance score values to customize the search, or to indicate how important a term is for the search);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to have combined the teaching of Altberg’s methods and system to connect users of Mobile devices to advertiser’s contact information via webpage with the teaching of Zhang of using prominence score to determine importance of information and/ or terms score of topic within web page with the motivation of providing consumers with more precise and efficient method to locate advertisers by formulating a good query as taught by Zhang (column 1 , lines 49-62) over that of Alberg.
Claim 3:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
wherein the signal corresponds to a number of times the respective contact information is shown on the webpage ( see at least paragraph 85 (In process 1504, the advertisement engine 74 monitors the number of click-throughs to reveal the advertiser's number); paragraph 89 ( FIG. 17, in process 1702 an advertiser is given one telephone number for a set of demand partners. In process 1704, credits to the demand partners for calls placed to the advertiser's listed telephone number are prorated based on a number of page views for the advertiser's telephone number listing via the respective demand partners. For example, if 70% of the advertiser's page views are accessed via demand partner ABC, and 30% of the advertiser's page views are accessed via demand partner XYZ, the ABC demand partner would receive 70% and the demand partner XYZ would receive 30% of the credits payable to the demand partners for calls placed to the advertiser's listed telephone number);
Claim 4:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
wherein the signal corresponds to a number of other contact information detected on the webpage (see at least FIG 9 with the associated text, (Featured directory listings) ;
Claim 5:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
wherein the signal corresponds to a typographic emphasis of a respective contact information (see at least FIG. 9 with the associated text ( (items DREAM Car rentals and RENT – A vette are displayed in BOLT);.
Claim 7:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
wherein the signal corresponds to a text located near the respective contact information within the webpage (see at least fig 32 with the associated text ( a message (3205) is displayed on the mobile phone after the user selects a speed dial button for taxi. After the connection provider determines the geographic area "San Francisco" for the mobile phone and selects the taxi provider "Metro Cab", a message of "Connecting to Metro Cab in San Francisco Area. Please wait for the connection . . . " is displayed);
Claims 8, 19:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
receive, from the computing device of the content provider, a uniform resource locator ("URL") associated with the content item (See at least paragraph 51 (Each advertiser 16 has a web page 20 which in accordance with the paid placement, and paid inclusion advertising models described above, may be included in a results page of a key word search initiated by a user of a client 10, which search is performed by an online search engine 19. Based on the paid placement, or the paid inclusion models, the web page 20 of an advertiser 16 is included within a results page compiled by the search engine 19 and sent via the communications path 12 to the client 10 that initiated the search, so that the web page 20 may be selected or viewed by a user of the client 10 that requested the search);
Altberg does not specifically disclose,but Zhang however discloses:
access webpage via the URL to determine the prominence score for a plurality of information on the webpage (see at least column 13, lines 48-55 ( FIG. 6 is an illustration of providing term importance scores and user interface objects for the user to indicate the importance of a term for the search purpose. In FIG. 6, term importance scores (630) are provided in the display area 620, and the user can edit the values to customize the search. In some other embodiments, user interface objects (650) corresponding to each term for the user to indicate the desired importance are also provided in the display area 640);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to have combined the teaching of Altberg’s methods and system to connect users of Mobile devices to advertiser’s contact information via webpage with the teaching of Zhang of using prominence score to determine importance of information and/ or terms score of topic within web page with the motivation of providing consumers with more precise and efficient method to locate advertisers by formulating a good query as taught by Zhang (column 1 , lines 49-62) over that of Alberg.
Claims 9, 20:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
load the webpage; and detect a plurality of contact information from the webpage loaded by the data processing system, the plurality of contact information comprising the first contact information and a second contact information (see at least FIG. 9 with the associated text ( (items DREAM Car rentals and RENT – A vette);
Claims 10-11:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg does not specifically disclose, but Zhang however discloses:
parse the webpage loaded to determine the prominence score for each of plurality of information (see at least column 48, lines 41-49 (FIG. 47 illustrates the detailed steps for calculating the value of the internal term prominence for each term in a document collection. A specific document collection of interest, or the documents to be analyzed, is received (step 4705). The document collection can contain one or more documents. For each document in the specific collection, the document is broken into smaller units of paragraphs (step 4710) and sentences (step 4715). Next, a decision is made whether a syntactic parser is to be used or not (step 4720);
to determine the prominence score for a plurality of information based on an analysis of an object tree of the webpage or an analysis of a result of optical character recognition of the webpage ( see at least column 34, lines 7-35 (FIG. 31 illustrates an example of categorizing document contents using terms with different values on different levels of the node tree. Document 3100 contains text content. When larger weight is placed on grammatical role of subject when determining the first level node in the node tree 3110, subject nouns such as “John” will be selected for the first level node since the word “John” has a number of occurrences in the document as the subject of sentences (3120));
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to have combined the teaching of Altberg’s methods and system to connect users of Mobile devices to advertiser’s contact information via webpage with the teaching of Zhang of using prominence score to determine importance of information and/ or terms score of topic within web page with the motivation of providing consumers with more precise and efficient method to locate advertisers by formulating a good query as taught by Zhang (column 1 , lines 49-62) over that of Alberg.
Claim 12:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
to modify the content item to include the first contact information of the first contact information and location information associated with the computing device ( see at least paragraph 57 ( the module 46 includes location determination logic 54 that builds a geographic location association to Burt's advertisement. In one embodiment, the location determination logic 54 allows Burt to select a particular geographic location of interest, say for example San Francisco, so that Burt's advertisement will be displayed to clients searching within the San Francisco area); paragraph 58 (the telephone number may be an easily recognizable 800 number, modified by a unique extension mapped to Burt's business telephone number. For example, in one embodiment, a number could be the number “1-800-YEL-PAGES-1234.” The 1234 portion of the 800 number is the unique extension that is mapped to Burt's telephone number so that when a searcher calls the number 1 800 YEL PAGES-1234);
Altberg does not specifically disclose, but Zhang however discloses:
to modify the content item based on the prominence score ( column 8, lines 9-24 (grammatical attributes, such as whether a term is in the subject or predicate position of a sentence, or is a head or modifier in a multi-word phrase, etc., can be used to determine the importance of a term in the text content. Other grammatical attributes also include the parts of speech of the terms in a particular context, etc. Furthermore, semantic attributes, such as whether a term is the name of a physical or abstract object, a person, or an attribute or property of an object or person; or whether it is in a semantic role of an actor/agent, recipient, or instruments, etc.; or whether a term carries a positive or negative opinion, or whether a term is associated with a positive or negative comment, etc., can all be used for determining the importance of the term in the text content, such as by assigning a weight value to the term based on one or more of the attributes column 26, lines 19-31(For example, grammatical analysis can be performed to identify; whether a word is a noun or a verb or an adjective, or in a grammatical role of a subject, or object, a modifier or a head of a phrase, etc., and such information can be used to assign different weight values to different terms, which can further be used as a measure of relevance to a search query);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to have combined the teaching of Altberg’s methods and system to connect users of Mobile devices to advertiser’s contact information via webpage with the teaching of Zhang of using prominence score to determine importance of information and/ or terms score of topic within web page with the motivation of providing consumers with more precise and efficient method to locate advertisers by formulating a good query as taught by Zhang (column 1 , lines 49-62) over that of Alberg.
Claim 13:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
to: receive a request for content for a client device; select the content item responsive to the request; and modify the content item with the first contact information responsive to the request (see at least paragraphs 293-296, paragraph 296 ( For example, if the mobile user wants to talk to a taxi provider in an area different from "San Francisco", the mobile user may select the button "location" (3203). In response to the user selecting the button "location" (3203), the mobile user can be connected to an IVR system to provide an indication of the desired location, or be presented with a user interface to specify the location (e.g., via typing in the zip code, or city name in an entry box, or via selecting an area from a map subsequently displayed on the screen of the mobile phone);
Claim 14:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
receive, via speech input from a client device, the request for content; and provide the content item comprising audio to cause the client device to generate audio output comprising the content item to indicate, via the audio output, the first contact information (see at least paragraph 132 (The user selection may be in the form of a keyboard/keypad input, a touch pad input, a track ball input, a mouse input, a voice command, etc); paragraph 298 (FIG. 32 illustrates an example of guiding the mobile user through the connection process via visual feedback. Alternatively, or in combination, the connection provider can also guide the user via audio/voice messages);
Claim 15:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses:
wherein the computing device comprises a digital assistant, comprising the data processing system to: receive a request for content based on speech input from the digital assistant; and select the content item responsive to the request (see at least paragraph 317 (he search result is presented to the mobile user over the phone connection to the connection provider. For example, after the speed dial button is selected, the search request is provided to the connection provider within, or with, the call to the connection provider. The connection provider connects the mobile phone to an IVR system, which reads the search results to the mobile user (e.g., via a text to speech synthesizer, or via playing back one or more pre-recorded audio clips) and prompts the user to select a service provider for the connection (or confirm a service provider selected by the connection provider);
Claim 16:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
Altberg further discloses
to: modify, for presentation via a second computing device, the content item to include the first contact information with a selectable button for the content item; and serve the content item with the selectable button to the second computing device, the second computing device configured to dial a number of the content provider with the first contact information responsive to a selection of the selectable button (see at least paragraphs 317-320; paragraph 320 (In FIG. 39, speed dial buttons (e.g., 3901) are presented as part of the dial interface of a softphone (e.g., a VoIP software client application running on a personal computer). In one embodiment, the user interface elements for the speed dial feature can also be implemented as hyperlinks, icons, image maps, etc., which can be presented on a tool bar, or within a frame or panel);
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 as being unpatentable over Altberg et al, US Pub No: 2008/0194260 A1 in view of Zhang, US Pat No: 9449080 B1 in view of Shahshahani, US Pub No : 2010/0030647 A1.
Claim 6:
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang discloses the limitations as shown above.
The combination of Altberg/ Zhang does not specifically discloses, but Shahshahani however discloses:
wherein the signal corresponds to a location of the contact information within the webpage (see at least paragraph 100 (a highest ranked advertisement of advertisements 916 may be displayed in a prominent position, such as an upper most banner location. Lesser ranked advertisements of advertisements 916 may be positioned in correspondingly less prominent web page advertisement locations, such as in a right side list of advertisements that shows higher ranked advertisements at the top of the right side list, and lower ranked advertisements at the bottom of the right side list);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to have combined the teaching of Altberg’s/ Zhang’s methods and system to connect users of Mobile devices to advertiser’s contact information via webpage based on prominence score with the teaching of Shahshahan’s advertisement selection for internet search and content pages with the motivation of enables advertisers to increase their visibility in the results page of a search engine query as taught by Shahshahan [7]) over that of Altberg/ Zhang.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Baluja, US Pubno: 2006/0004627 A1, teaches advertisements for devices with call functionality such as mobile phones where serving of one or more ads to a user device considers determined characteristics of a user device, such as whether or not the user device supports telephone calls. At least some ads may include call-on-select functionality. When such an ad is selected (e.g., via a button click), instead of loading a document (e.g., Web page) for rendering, a telephone number associated with the ad by an advertiser can be automatically dialed
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/AFAF OSMAN BILAL AHMED/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622