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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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) 1-2, 5-6, and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2018/0345078 A1 to Blahnik et al. (Blahnik) and US 6,632,174 B1 to Breznitz.
As to claim 1, Blahnik discloses an activity continuation support device (100) comprising: a memory (104) (Fig. 1, Par. 21); and a processor (102) coupled to the memory (104) (Fig. 1, Par. 21) and configured to: detect user’s performance with certain activity based on a history (e.g. previous week) of an achievement status of a certain person for a goal for the activity (Par. 56); and update the goal based on the history in a case where the user’s performance is detected (Par. 56, e.g., a daily goal for a type of activity may be automatically updated based on the user's performance relative to the daily goal during the previous week).
Blahnik does not expressly disclose user’s performance induces boredom.
Breznitz discloses the user’s performance induces boredom (e.g. too many errors in user’s performance may indicate that the goal is too hard thereby induces boredom) (Col. 5, lines 1-13).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Blahnik with the teaching of Breznitz to provide an improved training exercise thereby improve user’s experience as suggested by Breznitz (Col. 3, lines 51-54).
As to claim 6, Blahnik in view of Breznitz teaches a method of the device of claim 1 above. The limitation of claim 6 is substantially similar to claim 1. Accordingly, claim 6 is rejected based on same analysis as claim 1.
As to claim 2, Blahnik as modified discloses the processor (Blahnik’s 102, Fig. 1, Par. 21; Breznitz’s Col. 2, lines 59-61) is configured to detect the boredom in a case where non-achievement of the goal in the history continues for a predetermined number of times or more (Breznitz’s Col. 5, lines 1-13, e.g. too many errors in user’s performance may indicate that the goal is too hard thereby induces boredom). See claim 1 motivation above.
As to claim 5, Blahnik disclosest he processor is further configured to perform output for proposing a goal updated (Par. 56).
As to claim 8, Blahnik discloses a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing a program for causing a computer to execute the activity continuation support method of claim 6 (Par. 109).
Claim(s) 3 and 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2018/0345078 A1 to Blahnik et al. (Blahnik) and US 6,632,174 B1 to Breznitz; in view of US 2021/0201242 A1 to Niwai et al. (Niwai).
As to claim 3, Blahnik discloses Blahnik discloses an activity continuation support device (100) comprising: a memory (104) (Fig. 1, Par. 21); and a processor (102) coupled to the memory (104) (Fig. 1, Par. 21) and configured to: detect user’s performance with certain activity based on a history (e.g. previous week) of an achievement status of a certain person for a goal for the activity (Par. 56); and update the goal based on the history in a case where the user’s performance is detected (Par. 56, e.g., a daily goal for a type of activity may be automatically updated based on the user's performance relative to the daily goal during the previous week).
Blahnik does not expressly disclose user’s performance induces boredom, and update the goal based on a goal achieved by another person different from the certain person.
Breznitz discloses the user’s performance induces boredom (e.g. too many errors in user’s performance may indicate that the goal is too hard thereby induces boredom) (Col. 5, lines 1-13).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Blahnik with the teaching of Breznitz to provide an improved training exercise thereby improve user’s experience as suggested by Breznitz (Col. 3, lines 51-54).
Niwai discloses update the goal based on a goal achieved by another person different from the certain person (Fig. 3, Par. 90, e.g. selecting goal based on goal achieved by another person having the same job category or same behavior tendency).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Blahnik with the teaching of Niwai to provide an ideal and realistic improvement as suggested by Niwai (Par. 89).
As to claim 4, Blahnik as modified discloses the another person is a person having an attribute similar to an attribute of the certain person in a predetermined standard (Fig. 3, Par. 90, e.g. selecting goal based on goal achieved by another person having the same job category or same behavior tendency). See claim 3 motivation above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 2018/0345081 A1 to Lee et al. teaches a processor may output activity guide information in an exceptive case of a specific level or more, such as a case in which a goal was attained almost consistently, a goal was not attained consistently, or a goal attainment level is consistently very high.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JARURAT SUTEERAWONGSA whose telephone number is (571)270-7361. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Thursday, 8:30AM to 4:00PM, EST.
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/JARURAT SUTEERAWONGSA/Examiner, Art Unit 2623
/CHANH D NGUYEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2623
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