DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been received.
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 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
The claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter because the claim(s) as a whole, considering all claim elements both individually and in combination, do not amount to significantly more than an abstract idea.
A patent may be obtained for “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” 35 U.S.C. §101. The Supreme Court has held that this provision contains an important implicit exception: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2354 (2014); Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972) (“Phenomena of nature, though just discovered, mental processes, and abstract intellectual concepts are not patentable, as they are the basic tools of scientific and technological work.”). Notwithstanding that a law of nature or an abstract idea, by itself, is not patentable, the application of these concepts may be deserving of patent protection. Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1293–94 (2012). In Mayo, the Court stated that “to transform an unpatentable law of nature into a patent eligible application of such a law, one must do more than simply state the law of nature while adding the words ‘apply it.’” Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1294 (citation omitted).
In Alice, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the framework set forth previously in Mayo “for distinguishing patents that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that claim patent-eligible applications of these concepts.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355. The first step in the analysis is to “determine whether the claims at issue are directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts.” Id. If the claims are directed to a patent-ineligible concept, then the second step in the analysis is to consider the elements of the claims “individually and ‘as an ordered combination”’ to determine whether there are additional elements that “‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.” Id. (quoting Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1298, 1297). In other words, the second step is to “search for an ‘inventive concept’‒ i.e., an element or combination of elements that is ‘sufficient to ensure that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the [ineligible concept] itself.’” Id. (brackets in original) (quoting Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1294). The prohibition against patenting an abstract idea “cannot be circumvented by attempting to limit the use of the formula to a particular technological environment or adding insignificant post-solution activity.” Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 610–11 (2010) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The Court in Alice noted that “‘[s]imply appending conventional steps, specified at a high level of generality,’ was not ‘enough’ [in Mayo] to supply an ‘inventive concept.’” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2357 (quoting Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1300, 1297, 1294).
Examiners must perform a Two-Part Analysis for Judicial Exceptions. In Step 1, it must be determined whether the claims fall into one of the four statutory categories of invention. Claims 1-9 are directed to machines and computer readable media, which fall into the four statutory categories. However, claims that fall within one of the four subject matter categories may nevertheless be ineligible if they encompass laws of nature, physical phenomena, or abstract ideas. See Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 309 (1980).
In Step 2A, it must be determined whether the claimed invention is ‘directed to’ a judicially recognized exception. According to the specification, the disclosure “relates to a recording medium storing instructions and an information processing device” (paragraph 1), which store and/or execute “instructions for organizing a deck” (paragraph 7).
Representative claim 1 recites the following (with emphasis):
“A non-transitory computer readable recording medium storing instructions for organizing a deck comprising setting boxes in which first contents available to a player are respectively set, the instructions causing an information processing device to execute:
in response to a player operation, setting, as a locked content, at least one of the first contents in the setting boxes;
removing, from the setting boxes, any first contents other than the locked content set in the setting boxes;
setting first contents available to the player in the setting boxes from which the first contents have been removed to organize the deck; and
during a quest of a game, invoking the deck in response to a player operation and causing the player to use the first contents set in the deck.
The underlined portions of representative claim 1 generally encompass the abstract idea, with substantially similar features in claims 2 and 8-9. It is clear that the inventive concept here is a set of rules for a game, in which the player assembles a subset (a “team”) of characters from a larger set of characters owned by the player (a “deck”). The dependent claims further define the abstract idea by introducing various rules/features to the game (e.g., automatically assembling a team depending on an in-game quest, removing all characters from the team except for ones “locked” in place by the player, etc.). The abstract idea may be viewed, for example, as:
a method of organizing human activities (e.g., allowing a human player to play a recreational game according to rules of the game method) as discussed in Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593 (2010) and Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank.
Under prong 1, the above analysis demonstrates that the claimed invention encompasses an abstract idea in the form of certain methods of organizing human activity. Under prong 2, the instant claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they merely provide instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely use a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, add only extra solution activity to the abstract idea, and/or generally link the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use. While certain physical elements (e.g., elements that are not an abstract idea such as an “information processing device”) are present in the claims, such features do not effect an improvement in any technology or technical field and are recited in generic (i.e., not particular) ways. Similarly, the abstract idea does not improve the functioning of these physical elements. The claims do not (1) improve the functioning of a computer or other technology, (2) are not applied with any particular machine (only generic gaming components), (3) do not effect a transformation of a particular article to a different state, and (4) are not applied in any meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment (e.g., personal consumer electronics devices), such that the claim, as a whole, is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. See MPEP §§ 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h). Therefore, the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B requires that if the claim encompasses a judicially recognized exception, it must be determined whether the claimed invention recites additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims encompass the following additional element(s) or combination of elements in the claim(s) other than the abstract idea per se: an information processing device comprising a memory and a processor to execute instructions to carry out the abstract idea. Viewed 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.
Furthermore, the specification admits that the “information processing device” of the claimed invention may include “mobile phones and smartphones, tablets, personal computers, video game machines, arcade game machines, and various other such devices” (paragraph 23). As such, a generic mobile device or conventional mobile phone would be capable of meeting the substantive limitations of the claims, as well as other generic computer devices such as laptops and desktops.
In light of these factual findings, the additional claim features discussed above are well-understood, routine, and conventional and/or constitute extra-solution activities.
Taking the claimed elements individually yields no difference from taking them in combination because each element simply performs its respective function as discussed above. The claims do not purport to improve the functioning of a computer itself, nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Instead, the additional features merely amount to an instruction to apply the abstract idea using generic, functional, and conventional components well-known in the art. Viewed 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 amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter. See Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al., 573 U.S. 208 (2014).
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.
Claim(s) 1-4 and 8-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura et al (JP Patent No. 6704383) in view of MLB 9 Innings.
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Figure 1. Screenshot from “MLB 9 Innings New Account Tutorial”, showing the lock function.
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Figure 2. Screenshot from “MLB 9 Innings New Account Tutorial”, where the streamer clarifies the purpose of the lock function.
Regarding claim 1 and substantially similar limitations in claim 8, Nakamura et al, henceforth Nakamura, discloses “a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing instructions for organizing a deck comprising setting boxes in which first contents available to a player are respectively set (see paragraph 30: “In FIG. 4, the player A taps and selects the character character 210 “character X” corresponding to the character “O” from all the character characters 210 possessed, and inserts it into the group formation area 216”), the instructions causing an information processing device to execute: in response to a player operation, setting, as a locked content, at least one of the first contents in the setting boxes (see paragraph 97: the player may “save”/“fix” characters as “regular members”); removing, from the setting boxes, any first contents […] set in the setting boxes (see paragraph 87 and Figs. 17-18: when the player agrees to display the recommended team composition, the current selection of characters is removed and a recommended selection of characters is set in the group formation area); setting first contents available to the player in the setting boxes from which the first contents have been removed to organize the deck (see paragraph 87 and Figs. 17-18: when the player agrees to display the recommended team composition, the current selection of characters is removed and a recommended selection of characters owned by the player is set in the group formation area; “the group presentation unit 142 generates a recommended character group, that is, a recommended character group from the character characters 210 owned by the player A by the following algorithm”); and during a quest of a game, invoking the deck in response to a player operating and causing the player to use the first contents set in the deck (see paragraph 20: the player’s team of characters is used to battle against enemy characters during the game’s “quests”).”
However, Nakamura does not disclose “removing, from the setting boxes, any first contents other than the locked content set in the setting boxes.”
MLB 9 Innings is a mobile game wherein players collect virtual trading cards of baseball players and assemble a team of players using these virtual trading cards by assigning players from their collection to a limited number of team slots, wherein the cards may be obtained through a random lottery system (gacha). Due to these similarities with the games of Nakamura and the instant application, MLB 9 Innings is considered to belong to the same field of art. MLB 9 Innings teaches a “lock” feature whereby the player can “lock” individual cards to prevent them from accidentally being released, combined, or used as upgrade material (see Fig. 1). This feature has existed since at least October 5, 2021, as evidenced by the upload date “MLB 9 Innings New Account Tutorial.” At 23:32 in the video, the streamer further clarifies that “if you lock this card that means you can’t release them, you can’t combine them, they’re going to be saved on here [the player’s team/collection] for sure; you won’t lose this player [virtual trading card]” (see Fig. 2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the game program of Nakamura so that characters “fixed” or “locked” by the player are not removed from the player’s selected team of characters, as taught by MLB 9 Innings, and they would have been motivated to do so to prevent inconveniencing the player by removing characters the player did not want to be removed.
Regarding claim 2 and substantially similar limitations in claim 9, Nakamura et al, henceforth Nakamura, discloses “a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing instructions for organizing a deck comprising setting boxes in which first contents available to a player are respectively set (see paragraph 30: “In FIG. 4, the player A taps and selects the character character 210 “character X” corresponding to the character “O” from all the character characters 210 possessed, and inserts it into the group formation area 216”), the instructions causing an information processing device to execute: in response to a player operation, setting, as a locked content, at least one of the first contents in the setting boxes (see paragraph 97: the player may “fix” characters as “regular members”); replacing any first contents […] with first contents available to the player in the setting boxes to organize the deck (see paragraph 87 and Figs. 17-18: when the player agrees to display the recommended team composition, the current selection of characters is removed and a recommended selection of characters owned by the player is set in the group formation area, “the group presentation unit 142 generates a recommended character group, that is, a recommended character group from the character characters 210 owned by the player A by the following algorithm”); and during a quest of a game, invoking the deck in response to a player operating and causing the player to use the first contents set in the deck (see paragraph 20: the player’s team of characters is used to battle against enemy characters during the game’s “quests”).”
However, Nakamura does not disclose “replacing any first contents other than the locked content with first contents available to the player in the setting boxes to organize the deck.”
MLB 9 Innings is a mobile game wherein players collect virtual trading cards of baseball players and assemble a team of players using these virtual trading cards by assigning players from their collection to a limited number of team slots, wherein the cards may be obtained through a random lottery system (gacha). Due to these similarities with the games of Nakamura and the instant application, MLB 9 Innings is considered to belong to the same field of art. MLB 9 Innings teaches a “lock” feature whereby the player can “lock” individual cards to prevent them from accidentally being released, combined, or used as upgrade material (see Fig. 1). This feature has existed since at least October 5, 2021, as evidenced by the upload date “MLB 9 Innings New Account Tutorial.” At 23:32 in the video, the streamer further clarifies that “if you lock this card that means you can’t release them, you can’t combine them, they’re going to be saved on here [the player’s team/collection] for sure; you won’t lose this player [virtual trading card]” (see Fig. 2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the game program of Nakamura so that characters “fixed” or “locked” by the player are not replaced by other characters from the player’s collection, as taught by MLB 9 Innings, and they would have been motivated to do so to prevent inconveniencing the player by replacing characters the player did not want to be replaced. Examiner notes that because Nakamura already teaches the function of “fixing” characters as “regular characters” so that they are automatically added to the player’s teams, the inventive step of adding the functionality to prevent these “regular characters” from being accidentally replaced by the player’s operations would be, conceptually speaking, rather small.
Regarding claim 3, Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) discloses “the non-transitory computer readable recording medium according to claim 1, wherein the instructions cause the information processing device to further execute: determining the first contents to be set in the setting boxes depending on the quest of the game (see paragraph 88: the algorithm used by Nakamura’s game program generates a recommended selection of characters based on the attribute of the boss character of the current quest).”
Regarding claim 4, Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) discloses “the non-transitory computer readable recording medium according to claim 1, wherein the instructions cause the information processing device to further execute: in response to a player operation, determining a priority content from among the first contents available to the player, and preferentially selecting the priority content as a first content to be set in one of the setting boxes (see paragraphs 93 and 97: the player may “save”/“fix” characters as “regular members”, which are automatically added to the player’s team for each quest or battle stage).”
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura et al (JP Patent No. 6704383) in view of MLB 9 Innings, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Kotani et al (JP Patent No. 2021137444),
Regarding claim 5, Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) discloses “the non-transitory computer readable recording medium according to claim 6, wherein the instructions cause the information processing device to further execute […] setting, as a current deck: upon detecting only one completed deck, the completed deck (see reasoning below).”
However, Nakamura is silent on whether “the setting boxes in which the locked contents have been set are displayed differently from the remaining setting boxes,” and Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) does not disclose “causing a display of a terminal device to display a list of completed decks each including at least one of the setting boxes in which the locked content has been set […] and setting, as a current deck: […] a completed deck selected from the list in response to a player operation.”
First, regarding the limitation “the setting boxes in which the locked contents have been set are displayed differently from the remaining setting boxes,” the “locking” feature of MLB 9 Innings is represented by a visual indicator of a padlock being displayed on the portrait of a “locked” card (see the “F.Lindor 16” virtual trading card in the top left of Fig. 2). It would be obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the same or similar visual indicator when combining the teachings of Nakamura and MLB 9 Innings, as discussed earlier in the rejections for claims 1-2 and 8-9, because without such a visual indicator, the player would not be able to tell whether a card is locked or not until they actually try to release or combine the card, which, in the case of the card not being locked, would result in its permanent removal from the player’s collection. Thus, not including a visual indicator of the card’s locked status would nullify the entire purpose of the locking feature, that being preventing the player from accidentally performing irreversible operations on the card in the first place. In the case of Nakamura’s game program, an analogous operation would be generating a recommended formation: if there was no visual indicator that a character had been set as a “regular member,” then the player would not know whether their position in the formation would be maintained until after they had already generated a recommended formation, potentially removing and/or replacing the character the player wanted to keep in the formation. Although not irreversible, this is nonetheless inconvenient to the player and would thus be considered undesirable.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the game program of Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) so that each of the characters “saved”/“fixed” as “regular members” (“locked first content”) would be distinguishable from “non-locked” characters by displaying a visual indicator alongside or on top of the “locked” characters’ portraits, as taught by MLB 9 Innings, because without such a visual indicator the purpose of the “locking” function would be rendered moot.
Kotani et al, henceforth Kotani, teaches a game program wherein a player assembles a deck by assigning cards from a collection to slots in the deck and uses this deck in battle, where the cards may be obtained through a random lottery system (gacha). Due to these similarities with the games of Nakamura, MLB 9 Innings, and the instant application, Kotani is considered to belong to the same field of art. Notably, Kotani teaches recommending deck compositions to the player for use in battle, where multiple recommended decks may be displayed simultaneously to the player (see paragraph 60 and Fig. 8), which reads on the limitation recited in claim 5 of “causing a display of a terminal device to display a list of completed decks.”
Because Nakamura already discloses recommending decks to the player, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate in Nakamura’s game program Kotani’s teaching of listing multiple recommended decks to the player instead of generating only one, especially when considering that Nakamura already entertains the idea of a quest being clearable by multiple formations (see paragraph 94: “Since the recommended formation is not necessarily the strongest formation, a player who wants to enjoy the formation may form a character group that is stronger than the recommended formation;” this directly implies that a particular quest may be clearable by more than one formation). Doing so would present the player with a wider variety of options to choose from when forming a team, which may be desirable by the player to allow them to exercise their personal preference (such as in the case where the player wants to “train” or “level up” a weaker character, or prefers one character over another). Furthermore, Nakamura already discloses recommending characters to fill vacancies in the group formation when the player has assigned one or more characters as “regular members” (see paragraph 93), the latter of which are analogous to the “locked” “first content” recited in the claims. Thus, were Kotani’s teachings to be combined with those of Nakamura and MLB 9 Innings, the result would be a system that recommends multiple group formations, each of which include characters “locked” by the player (assigned as “regular members”) in addition to other characters recommended to fill the vacancies, wherein each “locked” character is displayed with a visual indicator to distinguish them from non-“locked” characters, which reads on the “list of completed decks each including at least one of the setting boxes in which the locked content has been set such that the setting boxes in which the locked contents have been set are displayed differently from the remaining setting boxes.”
Finally, regarding the limitation of “upon detecting only one completed deck, the completed deck, and upon detecting completed decks, a completed deck selected from the list in response to a player operation,” such a feature would follow logically from the teachings of Kotani when applied to the game program of Nakamura. Nakamura’s game program already requires the player to press a button to see the recommended formation (see paragraph 87 and Figs. 17-18), and when this happens the only one recommended formation (“completed deck”) is assigned as the group formation. Thus, Nakamura already discloses “setting, as a current deck, upon detecting only one completed deck, the completed deck.” Were one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Kotani’s teaching of recommending multiple formations (“decks”) into Nakamura’s game program, the question of how to determine which of the multiple formations (“decks”) to select would naturally arise, because only a single formation (“deck”) may be used in battle. One of ordinary skill in the art would thus further modify the game program of Nakamura (in view of Kotani) to allow the player to decide which of the recommended formations (“decks”) to use in the event that multiple formations (“decks”) are recommended, because giving the player the choice of which deck to use allows the player to exercise their own personal preference, which may be desirable by the player (such as in the case where the player wants to “train” or “level up” a weaker character, or prefers one character over another).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the game program of Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) to recommend multiple formations (“decks”) to the player, as taught by Kotani, wherein each of the multiple formations include characters assigned by the player as “regular members” (“locked first content”), as taught by Nakamura, and wherein the player chooses one of the recommended formations from among the multiple recommended formations to set as the current formation, and they would have been motivated to do so to allow the player to exercise their personal preference regarding which characters to bring to battle.
Claim(s) 6-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura et al (JP Patent No. 6704383) in view of MLB 9 Innings, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Murano (JP Patent No. 2021098051)
Regarding claim 6, Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) discloses “the non-transitory computer readable recording medium according to claim 1.”
However, Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) does not disclose “the instructions cause the information processing device to further execute: in response to a player operation, linking a second content to the locked content and to the first contents set in the setting boxes, and locking, as the locked content, the second content linked to the locked content.”
Murano teaches a game program wherein the player assembles a deck from a collection of characters by assigning characters from the collection to slots in the deck and uses this deck in battle, where the characters may be obtained through a random lottery system (gacha). Due to these similarities with the games of Nakamura, MLB 9 Innings, and the instant application, Murano is considered to belong to the same field of art. Notably, the characters in Murano’s game program (“first content”) may be equipped by the player with various types of equipment (“second content”), including weapons (see paragraphs 283-284 and Fig. 22: “For example, the human character H1 included in the deck 1 is equipped with the weapon HK1. When the operation on the equipment button G104a is accepted, any of the equipment that can be equipped by the human character H1 is selected by the user's operation and is equipped on the character”), which corresponds to the recited limitation of “linking a second content to the […] first contents set in the setting boxes.” Murano notes in paragraph 284 that “depending on the equipment, the character's parameters may change more advantageously depending on the equipment equipped.” If the character’s advantage in battle can change according to the type of equipment equipped by the character, it follows that a recommendation algorithm such as the one taught by Nakamura would factor in the effects of equipment when generating a recommended battle formation.
Accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the recommendation algorithm might suggest changing the equipment equipped by a particular character, and may even swap the equipment equipped by the character for a different set of equipment automatically when given permission by the player. One of ordinary skill in the art would also recognize that a player may, in some instances, find this automatic switching of their character’s equipment undesirable, and that in such instances players would benefit from the inclusion of the ability to “lock” a character’s equipment in much the same way that the player may “lock” a character to ensure they remain in the group formation when generating a recommended formation, as taught by Nakamura. Implementing the ability to “lock” a character’s equipment in this way would thus read on the limitation of “locking, as the locked content, the second content linked to the locked content.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the game program of Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) so that the player may equip the characters with equipment, as taught by Murano, and they would have been motivated to do so to allow the player to increase the advantage of a character in battle, as taught by Murano. Having added equipment to the game program, one of ordinary skill in the art would further recognize that the recommendation algorithm of Nakamura would need to be modified to assess the influence of said equipment on the strength of a character to accurately determine the favorability of a battle’s outcome, and that as a consequence of these modifications, the recommendation algorithm would be able to recommend equipment to improve a character’s advantage in battle.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified the game program of Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings and Murano) to allow the player to “lock” equipment equipped by a character in the same way that the player would already be able to “lock” a character, as taught by Nakamura, and they would have been motivated to do so to allow the player to prevent the recommendation algorithm from replacing a character’s equipment with equipment the player does not want the character to use.
Regarding claim 7, Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings and Murano) discloses “the non-transitory computer readable recording medium according to claim 6.”
However, Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) does not disclose “the instruction cause the information processing device to further execute: determining compatibility between the locked content and the second content, and determining whether to lock the second content to the locked content based on the compatibility.”
Murano teaches a game program wherein the player assembles a deck from a collection of characters by assigning characters from the collection to slots in the deck and uses this deck in battle, where the characters may be obtained through a random lottery system (gacha). Due to these similarities with the games of Nakamura, MLB 9 Innings, and the instant application, Murano is considered to belong to the same field of art. Notably, the characters in Murano’s game program (“first content”) may be equipped by the player with various types of equipment (“second content”), including weapons (see paragraphs 283-284 and Fig. 22: “For example, the human character H1 included in the deck 1 is equipped with the weapon HK1. When the operation on the equipment button G104a is accepted, any of the equipment that can be equipped by the human character H1 is selected by the user's operation and is equipped on the character”), which corresponds to the recited limitation of “linking a second content to the […] first contents set in the setting boxes.” Murano notes in paragraph 284 that “depending on the equipment, the character's parameters may change more advantageously depending on the equipment equipped.” If the character’s advantage in battle can change according to the type of equipment equipped by the character, it follows that a recommendation algorithm such as the one taught by Nakamura would factor in the effects of equipment when generating a recommended battle formation.
Additionally, Murano teaches that, depending on a character’s type (“human character”, “riding monster”, “automatic combat monster”, etc.), the character may not be able to equip certain equipment (see paragraph 283: “[…] the automatic combat monster may also be able to equip the equipment. Also, at least one of the human character and the riding monster may not be able to equip the equipment”). This determination by Murano’s game program of whether a certain character is able to equip certain equipment is analogous to a determination of “compatibility” between the character and the equipment. Thus, Murano teaches the limitation of “determining compatibility between the [first] content and the second content.” If the player was able to “lock” characters and their equipment, as taught by Nakamura (in view of Murano), it follows that the game program would not allow the player to “lock” equipment to a character when the character and the equipment are not compatible, which would read on the limitation of “determining whether to lock the second content to the locked content based on the compatibility.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the game program of Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings) so that the player may equip the characters with equipment, as taught by Murano, and they would have been motivated to do so to allow the player to increase the advantage of a character in battle, as taught by Murano.
Having made this modification, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified the game program of Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings and Murano) to allow the player to “lock” equipment equipped by a character in the same way that the player would already be able to “lock” a character, as taught by Nakamura, and they would have been motivated to do so to allow the player to prevent the recommendation algorithm from replacing a character’s equipment with equipment the player does not want the character to use.
Finally, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the game program of Nakamura (in view of MLB 9 Innings and Murano) to add equipment that can only be equipped by certain types of characters, as taught by Murano, and they would have been motivated to do so to increase the complexity and entertainment value of the game. It follows that the player would not be able to “lock” equipment to a character which is incompatible with that type of equipment, because the player would not be able to equip that character with that type of equipment in the first place.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KENNETH HAROLD JOHANSSON whose telephone number is (571)272-5755. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday from 8:30 to 6:30.
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/K.H.J./
Examiner, Art Unit 3715
/WILLIAM H MCCULLOCH JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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