DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . It is responsive to the submission dated 04/08/2025. Claims 1-20 are presented for examination, of which, claims 1, 11 and 17 are independent claims.
Information Disclosure Statement
2. The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on 04/08/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97 and are being considered by the Examiner.
Claim Interpretation
3. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f): (f) Element in Claim for a Combination. — An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
4. This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AlA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier.
Such claim limitation(s) is/are: a “capacity management module” in claim 1.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AlA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
A review of the specification shows that the “capacity management module” to be corresponding to a structure, as described in the specification at paragraph 39.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AlA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AlA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
5. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
6. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
In claims 1, 11 and claim 17, the limitation reciting: “monitoring a first quantity of users entering, leaving, and occupying the virtual space” renders the claim indefinite, because the claimed language implies that a person is monitoring the entering, leaving and staying of different peoples. In this case, this would be an abstract idea-a judicial exception that is not integrated into a practical application.
Also, in claims 1, 11 and 17, the term “fill threshold” is vague, as it is not clearly defined by the claims nor do the term has a self-explicit meaning in the field of invention in question.
Claim 11 is indefinite for reciting steps written with broadly functional claimed language that only describes the function of the invention as opposed to how it is carried out.
Particularly, claim 11 recites a method for capacity management of virtual environments in a network, comprising (the steps of):
receiving a request to join a virtual environment at a network, wherein the request identifies a user; determining that a first quantity of users in the virtual environment does not exceed a predetermined fill threshold; permitting the user to join the virtual environment after determining that the first quantity of users already in the virtual environment does not exceed the predetermined fill threshold; monitoring the first quantity of users entering, leaving, and occupying the virtual environment; determining that the first quantity of users in the virtual environment exceeds the predetermined fill threshold; and based on determining that the first quantity of users in the virtual environment exceeds the predetermined fill threshold, creating a duplicate virtual environment.
These steps, as claimed, appear to provide a series of concatenated block box experiments, of which only inputs and outputs are specified. The cited steps in the claim provide no concrete functional or structural features that explain:
Who/what is doing the sending or receiving of the request; how the quantity of users are determined before the joining is decided; and also how doing the permitting, the monitoring and creating steps are performed.
The specification (see paras. 21-22, 52 and 58-59) only recites the limitations in question, including a person who wants to design a virtual store, using his smartphone, may set a predetermined fill threshold, such as 60%, of the design capacity and then follows to describe that a virtual store is recreated according to the predetermined fill. The specification, however, provides no sufficient details identifying how the desired functions are achieved.
The wording of claim 11 are not only unduly broad with respect to the description of the embodiments and figures but also renders unclear the subject matter for which protection is sought regarding a technical effect to be achieved. The ordinary skill in the art would not be able to draw a clear boundary between what is and is not covered by the claim. Accordingly, since the functional limitations fail to limit the claims, to make clear the scope of the claims, the applicant, in response to this office action, is suggested to amend the claims such that it expressly recites the corresponding structure, or material for performing the claimed function and clearly links or associates the structure, material, or acts to the claimed function, without introducing any new matter(s).
The lack of details causes the representative steps of claim 11 to appear to recite an abstract idea, including mental processes, of which, a store owner, looking to buy or rent a retail place, in his/her mind or on paper, is estimating and deciding how big or small of a place is needed to display and sell products to potential customers, based on the quantity of items he/she already owns, so that he/she won’t have pay for unneeded space. Mental processes are “concepts performed in the human mind (including observation, evaluation, judgement and opinion)’. In this case, the steps of receiving, determining, permitting, monitoring and comparing of data to recreate a known data or image would be considered an observation and evaluation of data to yield a result based on judgement and opinion of the person doing the observation and evaluation. Likewise, the steps of sending a request to join and then [doing the] joining would be considered a judgement and opinion of a person after an observation.
Thus, representative claim 11, as recited, can be broadly interpreted as directing to abstract ideas.
In claim 16, if the group, which defines the virtual environment, is formed upon identifying other user(s), it is unclear as to how said same group be reassigned to said virtual environment based on closure of a duplicate virtual space. Also, the details of the duplicate virtual environment and what causes said duplicate virtual environment to closed are lacking. As such, the limitation reciting “the group is reassigned to the virtual environment when a duplicate virtual space is closed” renders the claimed subject-matters indefinite.
Thus, the lack of a clearly and precisely defined metes and bounds of the claimed invention leave the reader in doubt as to the meaning of the technical features to which they refer, thereby rendering the definition of the subject-matter of said claims indefinite.
The claims not specifically cited in this rejection are rejected as being dependent upon their rejected base claims.
Double Patenting
6. The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the claims at issue 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 reference 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. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP §§ 706.02(l)(1) - 706.02(l)(3) for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/forms/. The filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
7. Claims 1-10, 11 and 17-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-10, 1 and 11-14, respectively, of U.S. Patent No. 12260497, hereinafter the ‘97 patent.
Although the two claims at issue are not verbatim identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the limitations of the application’s claim and the patent’s claim appear to be an obvious variation of one another as they have somewhat similar structural and functional features.
For examples, claim 1 of the application and claim 1 of the ’97 recites substantially the same claimed features, such as: a method for capacity management of virtual environments (corresponding to capacity management of virtual space of claim 1 of the ’97 patent) in a network, the method comprising:
by a capacity management module (corresponding to metaverse capacity management module of claim 1 of the ’97 patent):
monitoring a first quantity of users (e.g., avatars) entering, leaving, and occupying a virtual environment;
comparing the first quantity of users in the virtual environment with a predetermined fill threshold;
determining that the first quantity of users in the virtual environment exceeds the predetermined fill threshold; and
based on the determining that the first quantity of users in the virtual environment exceeds the predetermined fill threshold, creating a duplicate virtual environment of the virtual environment when the first quantity of users in the virtual environment exceeds the predetermined fill threshold. See the limitations of claim 1 of the ’97 patent.
The only distinction between the instant application claim 1 and claim 1 of the ’97 patent is that the ’97 patent lacks the detail for representing the quantity of avatars in the virtual space as the quantity of users in the virtual environment.
However, considering that the method of claim 1 of the ’97 patent is being performed via a metaverse management module that monitor the number of avatars being shared in a virtual space (see claim 1 of the ’97 patent); the ’97 patent, therefore, obviously encompasses the management of the quantity of users in the virtual environment. The functionality of a metaverse in a virtual space is known in the art to include the use of a virtual world in which users interact while represented by avatars.
Claims 8 and 9 of the ’97 patent clearly define the representation of the quantity of avatars in the virtual space as the quantity of users (customers or salepersons) in the virtual environment.
Accordingly, the artisan skilled in the art at the time the invention was made would have found it obvious to modify the teachings of claim 1 of the ’97 patent to replace the quantity of avatars in the virtual space with the quantity of users in the virtual environment, so as to yield a capacity management of virtual environments in a network, without undue experiments of the features of claim 1 of the instant application.
Thus, the features of claim 1 of the instant application is an obvious variant thereof claim 1 of the ’97 patent.
While the features of an apparatus claim(s) may be recited either structurally or functionally, claims directed to a method must be distinguished from the prior art in terms of structure rather than function. A claim containing a "recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed method or apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed method or apparatus from a prior art if the prior art method or apparatus teaches all the steps or structural and functional limitations of the claim. In the present case, the instant application’s claim 1 is not structurally and functionally distinguishable from the combination of claim 1 of the ’97 patent.
Claims 2-10 of the present application are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 2-10, respectively, of the ’97 patent. Thus, the granting of claims 2-10 of the current application would infringe with the claimed invention found in claims 2-10 of the ’97 patent.
Claim 11 of the present application is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of the ’97 patent for reason similar to the rejection of claim 1 of the instant application, because the limitations of the two claim sets share analogous features. See instant application’s claim 1 rejections above for reasons of obviousness. Thus, the granting of the current application claim 11 would infringe with the claimed invention of claim 1 of the ’97 patent.
Claims 17-20 of the present application are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 11-14, respectively, of the ’97 patent, because these claim sets recite substantially the same claimed features.
For instance, claim 17 of the instant application and claim 11 of the patent share the following limitations:
A system for capacity management of virtual environment (e.g., virtual space in the patent’s claim) in a network, the system comprising:
one or more processors; and one or more computer-readable media storing computer-usable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the processors to:
monitoring a first quantity of users (e.g., avatars) entering, leaving, and occupying a virtual environment;
comparing the first quantity of users in the virtual environment with a predetermined fill threshold;
determining that the first quantity of users in the virtual environment exceeds the predetermined fill threshold; and
based on the determining that the first quantity of users in the virtual environment exceeds the predetermined fill threshold, creating a duplicate virtual environment of the virtual environment when the first quantity of users in the virtual environment exceeds the predetermined fill threshold. See the limitations of claim 11 of the ’97 patent.
The only distinction between the application’s claim 17 and claim 11 of the ’97 patent is that the ’97 patent lacks the detail for representing the quantity of avatars in the virtual space as the quantity of users in the virtual environment.
However, considering that the method of claim 11 of the ’97 patent is being performed via a metaverse management module that monitor the number of avatars being shared in a virtual space (see claim 11 of the ’97 patent); the ’97 patent, therefore, obviously encompasses the management of the quantity of users in the virtual environment. The functionality of a metaverse in a virtual space is known in the art to include the use of a virtual world in which users interact while represented by avatars.
Accordingly, the artisan skilled in the art at the time the invention was made would have found it obvious to modify the teachings of claim 11 of the ’97 patent to replace the quantity of avatars in the virtual space with the quantity of users in the virtual environment, so as to yield a capacity management of virtual environments in a network, without undue experiments of the features of claim 1 of the instant application.
Thus, the features of claim 17 of the application is an obvious variant thereof claim 11 of the ’97 patent.
While the features of an apparatus claim(s) may be recited either structurally or functionally, claims directed to a method must be distinguished from the prior art in terms of structure rather than function. A claim containing a "recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed system or apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed system or apparatus from a prior art if the prior art method or apparatus teaches all the steps or structural and functional limitations of the claim. In the present case, the application’s claim 17 is not structurally and functionally distinguishable from the combination of claim 11 of the ’97 patent.
Claims 18-20 of the present application are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 12-14, respectively, of the ’97 patent. Thus, the granting of claims 18-20 of the current application would infringe with the claimed invention found in claims 12-14 of the ’97 patent.
Allowable Subject Matter
8. Claims 1-20 have no art rejection but rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) and obviousness-type double patenting. As the technical features of the wording of said claims are indefinite for the reasons discussed above, the technical effect of the subject-matters of these claims is indeterminate and thus, they cannot be agreed that a problem is solved by each of these diverging claims. Thus, in the absence of a problem being solved, it is not, at present, apparent which part of the application could serve as a basis for a new, allowable claim. A final determination of patentability will be made upon resolution of the above 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) rejections.
Conclusion
9. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Lim Jun-cheol (KR 102507260 B1), discloses a method for creating an instructor avatar in a metaverse virtual space; and a metaverse management unit to output the created virtual instructor avatar to the virtual space of the metaverse (see abstract)). According to Lim, a service server 300 transmits, via communication network, a request from a learner terminal 200 to access learning contents, including a metaverse virtual space in which lectures are conducted, from an instructor terminal 100 (see paras. 6-15 under the DESCRIPTION-OF-EMBODIMENTS section). The instructor avatar access request may include learner identification information (see DESCRIPTION-OF-EMBODIMENTS section, paras. 8 and 29-33 and 56); and creating the virtual instructor avatar 10 to the virtual space of the metaverse corresponding to the classroom according to the amount of learning information setting values set by an instructor for each lecture (see paras. 17-38).
Ross et al. (US 11412011) teaches social networks use a subscription or list model, where users “follow“ (e.g., join) or put other users on a “list,” where one user will receive a connection request to follow another user. See col. 1 lines 27-57.
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WESNER SAJOUS whose telephone number is (571)272-7791. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:30 TO 6:30.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Said Broome can be reached on 571-272-2931. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WESNER SAJOUS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2612
WS
08/07/2026
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