Detailed Action
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office Action is in response to claims filed on 07/16/2025.
Claims 1-20 are pending; claims 1, 11 and 16 are independent.
Examiner's Notes
The Examiner cites particular sections in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant(s). Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant(s) fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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. 102 that forms the basis for all the rejections under this section made in this Office Action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless—
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-6, 8-9, 11-14 and 16-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by FALLON et al, WO 2013/100952 A1 (FALLON).
FALLON discloses:
Claim 1. An information processing system, comprising:
a first storage unit that stores user information for each notification destination user; (p. 3, ll. 1-11, p. 7, ll. 8-25, a stored user preference includes a default distribution)
a creation unit that creates a workflow plan including a notification destination user in the first storage unit set as a notification destination to be used for notifications required in the workflow plan, the workflow plan being executable without requiring a user to provide user information; (p. 3, l. 31-p. 4, l. 33, a document processing unit generates a job, e.g., a workflow plan based on the received information associated with the document to be processed; the user preference is used for executing the job)
a second storage unit that stores the workflow plan created by the creation unit; and (p. 3, ll. 1-11, wherein any separate devices, e.g., a second storage unit in communication with other system components via public/private network is used as needed)
an execution unit that, when execution of the workflow plan stored in the second storage unit is started, acquires user information of the notification destination user set in the workflow plan as the notification destination from the first storage unit and sends a notification to the notification destination user in accordance with the acquired user information and the workflow plan. (p. 3, ll. 1-11, p. 7, ll. 8-25, p. 8, l. 31-p. 9, l. 7, a default distribution list is retrieved for executing the generated job, e.g., the workflow plan)
Claim 11. A workflow system, comprising: a server device connectable to a plurality of registered user terminals via a network, wherein the server device includes:
a first storage unit that stores user information for each notification destination user; (p. 3, ll. 1-11, p. 7, ll. 8-25, p. 8, l. 31-p. 9, l. 7, a stored user preference includes a default distribution list, the user preference is stored in a remote database, e.g., a server)
a creation unit that creates a workflow plan in conjunction with at least one registered user terminal in the plurality of user terminals, the workflow plan including a notification destination user in the first storage unit set as a notification destination to be used for notifications required in the workflow plan, the workflow plan being executable without requiring a user to provide user information; (p. 3, l. 31-p. 4, l. 33, a document processing unit generates a job, e.g., a workflow plan based on the received information associated with the document to be processed; the user preference is used for executing the job)
a second storage unit that stores the workflow plan created by the creation unit; and (p. 3, ll. 1-11, any separate devices/storage units in communication via public/private network can be used as needed)
an execution unit that, when execution of the workflow plan stored in the second storage unit is started, acquires user information of the notification destination user set in the workflow plan as the notification destination from the first storage unit and sends a workflow notification to the notification destination user in accordance with the acquired user information and the workflow plan. (p. 3, l. 31-p. 4, l. 33, p. 7, ll. 8-25, p. 8, l. 31-7, a default distribution list is retrieved for executing the generated job, e.g., the workflow plan)
Claim 16. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing program instructions which, when executed by a processor of an information processing system, causes the system to perform a method comprising:
creating a workflow plan including a notification destination user in a first storage unit that has been set as a notification destination to be used for notifications required in the workflow plan, the workflow plan being executable without requiring a user of the system to provide user information, the first storage unit storing user information for each notification destination user in the system; (p. 3, ll. 1-11, p. 3, l. 31-p. 4, l. 33, p. 7, ll. 8-25, p. 8, l. 31-p. 9, l. 7, a stored user preference includes a default distribution list, the user preference is stored in a remote database, e.g., a server; a document processing unit generates a job, e.g., a workflow plan based on the received information associated with the document to be processed; the user preference is used for executing the job)
storing the workflow plan in a second storage unit; (p. 3, ll. 1-11, any separate devices/storage units in communication via public/private network can be used as needed)
executing the workflow plan stored in the second storage unit; and acquiring user information of the notification destination user set in the workflow plan as the notification destination from the first storage unit and sending a notification to the notification destination user in accordance with the acquired user information and the workflow plan. (p. 3, l. 31-p. 4, l. 33, p. 7, ll. 8-25, p. 8, l. 31-7, a default distribution list is retrieved for executing the generated job, e.g., the workflow plan)
Claim 2. The information processing system according to claim 1, further comprising:
a third storage unit that stores correspondence information indicating a correspondence between the workflow plan and the notification destination user, wherein the creation unit creates the correspondence information when creating the workflow plan and stores the correspondence information in the third storage unit, and the execution unit determines the notification destination user corresponding to the workflow plan based on the correspondence information stored in the third storage unit, and acquires the user information of the determined notification destination user from the first storage unit. (p. 3, ll. 1-11, wherein any separate devices, e.g., a third storage unit in communication with other system components via public/private network is used as needed; p. 3, l. 31-p. 4, l. 33, p.8, l. 9-p.9, l. 17, a document processing unit generates a job, e.g., a workflow plan based on the received information associated with the document to be processed; the stored user preference and the user history database is used as correspondence information for identifying distribution list)
Claims 12 and 17 are rejected under the same rationale as above.
Claim 3. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the notification destination user is a user group including a plurality of different users. (p. 4, ll. 14-32, p. 7, ll. 8-25, a distribution list comprises one or more email addresses)
Claims 13 and 18 are rejected under the same rationale as above.
Claim 4. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the notification destination user is a single user. (p. 4, ll. 14-33, p. 7, ll. 8-25, a distribution list comprises one or more email addresses)
Claims 14 and 19 are rejected under the same rationale as above.
Claim 5. The information processing system according to claim 1, further comprising:
a plurality of registered user terminals; and a server device connected to the registered user terminals via a network. (p. 6, ll. 1-7, p. 7, l. 33-p.8, l. 21, p. 8, l. 31-p.9, l. 7, wherein, multiple document processing units are accessed by multiple authenticated users and further document processing units communicate with a remote a remote database/server for retrieving a user distribution list)
Claim 6. The information processing system according to claim 5, wherein the creation unit is one of the plurality of registered user terminal executing a workflow creation program. (p. 3, l. 31-p. 4, l. 33, wherein a document processing unit generates and executes a job, e.g., a workflow plan based on the received information associated with the document; the user preference is used for executing the job)
Claim 8. The information processing system according to claim 5, wherein the first storage unit is a database stored on the server device. (p. 8, l. 31-p. 9, l. 7, the user preference is stored in a remote database, e.g., a server)
Claim 9. The information processing system according to claim 8, wherein the second storage unit is stored on the server device. (p. 3, ll. 1-11, wherein any remote devices, e.g., a second storage unit on server in communication with other system components via public/private network is used as needed)
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 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 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 10, 7, 15 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over FALLON as applied to claims 1, 5, 11 and 16 above, in view of IDS, NAGUMO, Pub. No.: US 2014/0129607 A1 (NAGUMO).
Claim 7. FALLON disclosed the information processing system according to claim 5, FALLON did not specifically disclose but Nagumo discloses wherein the creation unit is one of the plurality of registered user terminal operating in conjunction with a workflow creation program executing on the server device. (Nagumo ¶¶ 45, 77, 94, 168, fig. 7 wherein a user terminal operates in conjunction with a workflow service on a sever device)
FALLON, p. 3, ll. 5-11, discloses that “each system described herein may be implemented by any number of devices in communication via any number of other public and/or private networks. Two or more of devices may be located remote from one another and may communicate with one another via any known manner of network(s) and/or a dedicated connection. Further, each device may comprise any number of hardware and/or software elements suitable to provide the functions described herein as well as any other functions. Other topologies may be used in conjunction with other embodiments”. Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the applied references for disclosing wherein the creation unit is one of the plurality of registered user terminal operating in conjunction with a workflow creation program executing on the server device because doing so would provide for an alternative arrangement of the components as disclosed by Nagumo to be used in FALLON as desired for achieving the same predictable result of processing a document and distributing it according to a distribution list.
Claim 10. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the workflow plan includes:
identifying whether a new file has been added to a first cloud storage folder, performing optical character recognition (OCR) on the new file, sending a result of the OCR on the new file to the notification destination user for confirmation of the result, and storing the new file and the confirmed result of the OCR to a second cloud storage folder. (FALLON, p. 4, l. 14-p. 5, l. 4, p.8, l. 22-p. 9. 7, a new received document is identified and processed using OCR, the processed document is distributed to a designated person. Note that operations such as storing new file and confirmed result are considered as desired operations that can be included in a user preference file to be implemented automatically “if it requires little or no human intervention”; Nagumo, ¶¶ 242-250, wherein the storage result indicates that the result of the OCR is confirmed and stored )
Claims 15 and 20 are rejected under the same rationale as above.
Conclusion
The prior arts made of record in PTO-326 and not relied upon are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/MOHSEN ALMANI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2159
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