Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
DETAILED ACTION
2. The request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for Continued Examination under 37 CFR 1.114, the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant’s submission filed 6/25/2026 has been entered. An action on the RCE follows.
Summary of claims
3. Claims 1-20 are pending,
Claims 1, 8, 15 are amended,
Claims 1, 8, 15 are independent claims,
Claims 1-20 are rejected.
Response to Arguments
4. Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed on 6/25/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-20 under 103 have been fully considered and are not persuasive.
First, with respect to the newly added features cited in claim 1, read as, “wherein the application preview menu is displayed without invoking the first application,” Applicant provided paragraphs [0049]-[0053], [0059]-[0062] and Figs. 5, 11-13 as supporting. Examiner respectfully disagrees. The specification in the publication of the present application [0059] is reproduced here:
[0059] In another embodiment of the present invention, the user can access a preview menu associated with an application found in application menu 500. The preview menu allows a user to preview information from selected applications without invoking the entire application. Thus, the preview menu acts as a navigation management GUI that aids the user through convenient, configurable, high speed access to information contained in those applications. In a user environment where the application runs locally, the entire application would not need to be completely started or shut down in order to view the preview. In a server environment, the entire application would not need to run all the way downstream to the user, but rather only relevant user specific data would be transported to the user and rendered within the preview menu.
Please note paragraph [0059] indicates the preview menu allows a user to preview information from selected applications without invoking the entire application, not “without invoking the application at all”. Since the preview menu is acting as a navigation management GUI that aids the user through access to information contained in the application, and the preview menu presents a summary of the selected application as shown in Fig. 11, the preview menu needs to retrieve data and updates from the selected application, the entire application would not need to be completely started in order to view the preview, but parts of the selected application still need to run/invoke.
Second, Applicant argued on pages 8-10 that Nichols, Saunders and Owens did not teach a notification preview displayed without invoking the [entire] application. Examiner respectfully disagrees and submits Owens discloses in Fig. 9 a mail folder 905 adjacent to the email module 140, the sidebar 105 periodically polls the user’s email server to determine if the user received any new emails and can monitor whether another email application running on the user’s computer has received a new email, the other application can inform the sidebar that an alert was received, the user can receive emails informing the user that changes were posted to a community website by another community user, and the user can receive an email informing them that an update has been made to their online photo sharing service ([0151]-[0153]), that is, the mail folder 905 is acting as a preview/summary of the email module 140 and allowing user to view and access the contents in the email module in a convenient way and the newly updated message is displayed in the mail folder 905 without invoking the entire email application.
Third, Applicant argued on pages 10-11 that the proposed combination is improper because it would change the principle of operation of Nichols. Examiner respectfully disagrees and submits that both Nichols and Owens provide user an integrated user interface for a user to select and interact with one or more password protected applications, Nichols discloses providing a list including all websites/applications, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to modify the invention of Nichols using the teachings of Owens to include displaying detail information associated with the selected application adjacent to the selected application, the combination of Nichols and Owens may allow user to view/navigate more details information associated with the selected application directly in one interface. Accordingly, the combination of Nichols and Owens is proper.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
5. Claims 1, 8, 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Claims 1, 8, 15 cite “the application preview menu is displayed without invoking the first application”, based on the description in paragraph [0059], the preview menu allows a user to preview information from selected applications without invoking the entire application, not “without invoking the application at all”. Since the preview menu is acting as a navigation management GUI that aids the user through access to information contained in the application, and the preview menu presents a summary of the selected application as shown in Fig. 11, the preview menu needs to retrieve data and updates from the selected application, the entire application would not need to be completely started in order to view the preview, but parts of the selected application still need to run/invoke.
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 pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
6. Claims 1-20 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jonathan Nichols et al (US Publication 20100017616 A1, hereinafter Nichols), and in view of Stillman Saunders et al (US Publication 20040111644 A1, hereinafter Saunders), and Stephen Owens et al (US Publication 20070157105 A1, hereinafter Owens)
As for independent claim 1, Nichols discloses: A wireless device (Nichols: [0078], personal computers, hand-held computing devices (e.g., PDA, phone, watch) comprising: one or more processors; and a computer-readable medium comprising instructions stored therein, which when executed by the processors, cause the processors (Nichols: [0078], single-processor or multiprocessor computer system) to perform operations comprising: displaying an application menu, in response to receiving a login credential, wherein the application menu includes a first application item that is associated with a first application, and a second application item that is associated with a second application (Nichols: Fig. 9, step 910, present user with a list of hyperlinks associated with a plurality of password protected websites; please note the list is an application menu including plurality of applications, each website is associated with an application; see in Saunders for more details for “each item is associated with an application”); receiving a user selection of the first application item (Nichols: Fig. 9, step 960, log the user into a website associated with the selected hyperlink);
Nichols discloses enabling the user to access a plurality of password protected website/application with a list including all websites/applications, Nichols does not expressly disclose in the list, each item is associated with an application, in an analogous art of integrated authentication application, Saunders discloses: displaying an application menu, in response to receiving a login credential, wherein the application menu includes a first application item that is associated with a first application, and a second application item that is associated with a second application (Saunders: [0043] and Fig. 4, FIG. 4 shows a user interface 40 that is displayed in response to a secured software application entering an access signed-in state. Column 42 indicates the signed-in or logged-in software applications. For example, the first item in the list is a first application Word, the second item in the list is a second application Excel);
Nichols and Saunders are in analogous art because they are in the same field of
endeavor, integrated authentication application. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to modify the invention of Nichols using the teachings of Saunders to expressly include displaying a list including application items in response to a secured credential. The motivation is to provide Nichols’s device with enhanced capability of allowing user to aware the signed-in/signed-out status associated with the application directly.
Further, Nichols discloses displaying a window or tab associated with the selected application presenting notifications associated with the selected application, but Nichols does not clearly disclose the application preview is displayed adjacent to the first application item, in another analogous art of integrated application user interface, Owens discloses: and displaying, in the application menu, in response to the user selection, an application preview menu, wherein the application preview menu provides information about one or more notifications associated with the first application (Owens: Fig. 9, in response to the user selecting the double arrow button in the mail module’s 140 titlebar, display a mail folder slidesheet 905, a plurality of email messages are displayed in 905), and wherein the application preview menu is displayed adjacent to the first application item, and wherein the application preview menu is displayed without invoking the first application (Owens: Fig. 9, the folder slidesheet 905 is displayed adjacent to the mail module 140 and may display alert from other applications, please note the folder slidesheet 905 may be displayed without invoking the entire mail application).
Nichols and Owens are in analogous art because they are in the same field of
endeavor, integrated authentication application. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention, to modify the invention of Nichols using the teachings of Owens to include displaying detail information associated with the selected application adjacent to the selected application. The motivation is to provide Nichols’s device with enhanced capability of allowing user to view the detail information of the selected application in an intuitive way in one interface.
As for claim 2, Nichols-Saunders-Owens discloses: receiving, in the application preview menu, a user selection of at least one notification from among the one or more notifications associated with the first application; and invoking the first application in response to the user selection (Owens: Fig. 9, in the application preview menu 905, user may select a notification 150 and invoke the Mail application).
As for claim 3, Nichols-Saunders-Owens discloses: receiving a user selection for a notification selected from among the one or more notifications associated with the first application; and displaying the notification in a separate display window (Nichols: Fig. 9, step 970, open a web browser window or tab associated with the website; please note the web browser window or tab may display notifications associated with the selected application).
As for claim 4, Nichols-Saunders-Owens discloses: wherein the application preview menu is displayed without a need to invoke the first application (Owens: Fig. 4, the preview menu may be displayed by selecting the menu button 421).
As for claim 5, Nichols-Saunders-Owens discloses: wherein the first application is an email application and wherein the application preview menu displays information regarding one or more received messages (Owens: Fig. 9, the Mail application and the preview menu displays the received email messages).
As for claim 6, Nichols-Saunders-Owens discloses: wherein the first application is a social media application and wherein the application preview menu displays information regarding one or more received messages (Owens: Fig. 4, the Messenger application and the preview menu displays the received IM message).
As for claim 7, Nichols-Saunders-Owens discloses: wherein the first application is an email application and wherein the application preview menu displays information regarding a sender of one or more received messages (Owens: Fig. 9, the Mail application and the preview menu displays the received email messages and the sender information).
As per Claim 8, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 1 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 1 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 9, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 2 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 2 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 10, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 3 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 3 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 11, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 4 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 4 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 12, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 5 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 5 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 13, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 6 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 6 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 14, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 7 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 7 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 15, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 1 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 1 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 16, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 2 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 2 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 17, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 3 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 3 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 18, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 4 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 4 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 19, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 5 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 5 are incorporated herein.
As per Claim 20, it recites features that are substantially same as those features claimed by Claim 6 thus the rationales for rejecting Claim 6 are incorporated herein.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hua Lu whose telephone number is 571-270-1410 and fax number is 571-270-2410. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 7:30 am to 5:00 pm EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Scott Baderman can be reached on 571-272-3644. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 703-273-8300.
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/HUA LU/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2118
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