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
Claims have been examined.
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.
Independent Claims 1, 15, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims are in a statutory category of invention. However, the claims recite a user associated with a first group; and group information identifying each of the plurality of groups, a plurality of pieces of advertisement information, and prohibition information identifying advertisement information, among the plurality of pieces of advertisement information, which is prohibited from being associated with the user belonging to the first group, extract one or more pieces of advertisement information among the plurality of pieces of advertisement information with the user belonging to the first group, exclude advertisement information identified by the prohibition information from extracted one or more pieces of advertisement information, associate resulting advertisement information with the user belonging to the first group, and transmit the one or more pieces of the resulting advertisement information. This is considered in the Abstract Idea grouping of certain methods of organizing human activity - advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claim is directed to an abstract idea with additional generic computer elements. The additional elements are considered a plurality of user devices, wherein a first user device of the plurality of user devices is operated, a computing device configured to communicate with each of the plurality of user devices and access a database storing. These are considered generic. The generically recited computer elements do not add a practical application or meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because they amount to simply implementing the abstract idea on a computer.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional limitations only perform well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions as recognized by the court decisions listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d). Also, the additional hardware elements are: (i) mere instructions to implement the idea on a computer, and/or (ii) recitation of generic computer structure that serves to perform generic computer functions. Viewed separately or 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 amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The claim does not provide significantly more than the identified abstract idea, in that there is no improvement to another technology or technical field, no improvement to the functioning of a computer, no application with, or by use of a particular machine, no transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, no specific limitation other than what is well-understood, routing and conventional in the field, no unconventional step that confines the claim to a particular useful application, or meaningful limitations that amount to more than generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Dependent claims 2-14, 16-19 are not considered directed to any additional non-abstract claim elements. The machine learning and security levels are generic. No technical details or technical steps are provided. Rather, these claims offer further descriptive limitations of elements found in the independent claims and addressed above. While these descriptive elements may provide further helpful description for the claimed invention, these elements do not confer subject matter eligibility to the invention since their individual and combined significance is still not more than the abstract concepts identified in the claimed invention. Hence, these dependent claims are also rejected under 101.
Please see the 35 USC 101 section at the Examination Guidance and Training Materials page on the USPTO website.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for 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 1-5, 7-9, 12-17, 19, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Green (20140289040).
Claim 1, 15, 20. Examiner notes that examples of what criteria is used for prohibiting is open to a broad interpretation based on Applicant Spec. Green discloses a matching system for providing targeted advertising, the matching system comprising:
a plurality of user devices, wherein a first user device of the plurality of user devices is operated by a user associated with a first group (Fig. 2, and see competitors as different groups at [3, 23]); and
a computing device configured to communicate with each of the plurality of user devices and access a database storing (Fig. 1, 2):
group information identifying each of the plurality of groups, a plurality of pieces of advertisement information ([3, 23, 54, 44]), and
prohibition information identifying advertisement information, among the plurality of pieces of advertisement information, which is prohibited from being associated with the user belonging to the first group ([44]),
the computing device is configured to:
extract one or more pieces of advertisement information among the plurality of pieces of advertisement information with the user belonging to the first group ([44]),
exclude advertisement information identified by the prohibition information from extracted one or more pieces of advertisement information (Fig. 2, [3, 23, 54, 44] see competitor and exclusion list),
associate resulting advertisement information with the user belonging to the first group (Fig. 2, [3, 23, 54, 44] see competitor and inclusion and exclusion list), and
transmit the one or more pieces of the resulting advertisement information to the first user device (Figs. 5, 7 show ad info that can be transmitted, Fig. 8 shows provide the ad info).
Claim 2, 16. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of user devices includes a second user device operated by an advertiser who belongs to a second group that is different from the first group, the second user device transmits the advertisement information of the advertiser to the computing device, and the computing device is configured to store the advertisement information received from the second user device in the database (see different groups as different competitors Figs. 1, 2, [3, 23, 54, 44]).
Claim 3. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 1, wherein the group information includes information for identifying either one of a company and a department within a company (see different groups as different competitors/companies [3, 23, 54, 44]).
Claim 4. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 1, wherein the prohibition information includes information indicating a competitive relationship of each of the plurality of groups (see different groups as different competitors/companies [3, 23, 54, 44]).
Claim 5. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 1, wherein the database includes attribute information of the user and action history information of the user (Fig. 7 with attributes of gender, age and geography and where interests reads on action history, also see [69] where purchase history is used to infer interest), and the computing device is further configured to use the attribute information and the action history information to associate one or more pieces of advertisement information among the plurality of pieces of advertisement information with the user belonging to the first group (Fig. 7 and define targeting).
Claim 7. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 5, wherein the attribute information includes at least one of a skill, a possessed qualification, or a department to which the user belongs (see Fig. 5, item 506 and Fig. 7, item 622 which shows skills).
Claim 8. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 5, wherein the action history information includes a project viewing history or a search history on the platform (see action and infer interest at [69]).
Claim 9. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 1, wherein the first user device has a display for displaying the advertisement information (Figs. 1-3).
Claim 12. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 1, wherein the prohibition information includes a non-disclosure list that maps an advertiser's company identification to a non-disclosure company identification (see different groups as different competitors/companies [3, 23, 54, 44] and exclusion and exclusion at Fig. 2).
Claim 13. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 1, wherein the prohibition information defines competitive relationships between groups and specifies that advertisements from an originating group are not to be delivered to a competitor group (see different groups as different competitors/companies [3, 23, 54, 44] and exclusion and exclusion at Fig. 2).
Claim 14. Green further discloses the matching system of claim 1, wherein the group information is verified information associated with member registration (see Register and restrictions and limitations at Fig. 5; see creator name and watermark and unique identifier at [33]).
Claim 17. Green further discloses the computing device according to claim 15, wherein the prohibition information includes an advertisement non-disclosure list that includes data mapping an identifier of an originating group of an advertisement to one or more identifiers of prohibited recipient groups based on a competitive relationship (see different groups as different competitors/companies [3, 23, 54, 44] and exclusion and exclusion at Fig. 2).
Claim 17. Green further discloses the computing device according to claim 15, wherein the prohibition information includes an advertisement non-disclosure list that includes data mapping an identifier of an originating group of an advertisement to one or more identifiers of prohibited recipient groups based on a competitive relationship (see different groups as different competitors/companies [3, 23, 54, 44] and exclusion and exclusion at Fig. 2).
Claim 19. Green further discloses the computing device according to claim 15, wherein the group information stored in the database includes verified affiliation data obtained from a user registration process (see Register and restrictions and limitations at Fig. 5; see creator name and watermark and unique identifier at [33]) for a crowdsourcing function of the matching system (see social network at [39] and Fig. 2, item 30 which reads on a crowdsourcing function).
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.
Claims 6, 10, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Green (20140289040) in view of Hen (20220366039).
Claim 6, 18. Green further discloses the matching system according to claim 5, wherein the computing device is configured to input the attribute information and the action history information and extract one or more pieces of advertisement information among the plurality of pieces of advertisement information with the user belonging to the first group, the action history information includes information regarding actions of the user on the advertisement information, and based on the attribute information and the action history information (Fig. 7 with attributes of gender, age and geography and where interests reads on action history, also see [69] where action/purchase history is used to infer interest).
Green does not explicitly disclose into a trained prediction model and the prediction model is trained by machine learning. However, Hen discloses role definition (Abstract) and network security and accounts [1, 3] and using machine learning and training to identify patterns and role definition [33]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Hen’s use of machine learning for content permissions and roles to Green’s content sharing and different competing companies. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better use common technologies like machine learning to assist in providing content.
Claim 10. Green does not explicitly disclose the matching system according to 1, wherein the plurality of user devices includes a requester device operated by the requester and a first applicant device operated by a first applicant, the requester device is configured to transmit, to the computing device, task information for soliciting a contractor and disclosure information indicating a disclosure range of the task information, the computing device is configured to: store the task information together with the disclosure information in the database, determine, based on the disclosure information, task information, among the task information registered in the database, allowed to be disclosed to the first applicant, and transmit, to the first applicant device, the task information allowed to be disclosed to the first applicant. However, Green discloses different parties and competitors and different access and registrations (Figs. 1, 2, 5). And, Hen discloses contractors and sharing information and different levels of information sharing [23, 33, 34]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Hen’s use of different content permissions and roles to Green’s content sharing and different competing companies. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better use common technologies like machine learning to assist in providing content.
Claims 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Green (20140289040) in view of Hen (20220366039) in view of Axe (20050055271).
Claim 11. Green discloses the matching system according to claim 10, wherein the database further stores applicant information based on task of applicants on the platform; and the computing device is further configured to, prior to providing a list of applicants to the requester device, filter the list to exclude applicants who fails to satisfy a predetermined reference value ([23, 59, 63, 67]).
Green does not explicitly disclose evaluation information based on historical task performance or whose evaluation information fails to satisfy. However, Hen discloses action only if pass recommendation score threshold (claim 4). And, alternatively, Axe also discloses exclusive advertising relationships [91] and determine minimum score based on user ratings for providing content/ad [16]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to add Axe’s ad providing and minimum score based on historical evaluation information to Green’s ad providing and exclusion list for content providing. One would have been motivated to do this in order to better exclude ads as appropriate.
Conclusion
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
a) Chow [0295] discloses ad providing and exclusion;
b) Hen, Hill disclose sensitive level of information and access/permission level to information; Nikolaev discloses project management.
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/ARTHUR DURAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622 4/14/26
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