DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 § 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.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claim 17 is drawn to a computer readable storage medium storing programs with instructions, where the computer readable medium can be transitory, i.e., is not explicitly limited as disclosed as only being non-transitory computer readable media; therefore, fails to fall within a statutory category of invention. Applicant should note that adding “non-transitory” to the claims to limit the claimed computer readable medium to being statutory would be acceptable to overcome the above rejection.
A claim directed to a computer readable medium storing computer executable instructions is non-statutory, where the computer readable medium can be a signal, a carrier wave, or a data structure, per se, which are non-statutory as noted, infra.
A claim directed to a signal, a carrier wave, or a data structure, per se, is non-
statutory because it is not:
A process, or
A machine, or
A manufacture, or
A composition of matter.
For purposes of examination and to expedite prosecution, the Examiner will consider Claim 17 as reciting a “non-transitory” computer readable storage medium with respect to the prior art of record.
Prior Art
In the prior art of Lee (United States Patent Application Publication US 2019/0212776 A1), it has been shown to provide an apparatus that identifies another apparatus based on a connection and to operate an operating system corresponding the identified another electronic apparatus, but Lee fails to show the initial apparatus displaying a first user interface in accordance with its own associated first operating environment before connection to said another apparatus. Furthermore, Lee fails to show switching to a third operating environment that is different from a first and second operating environments to perform operations that are different from said first and second operations.
Allowable Subject Matter
The subject matter of Claims 1 – 16 is allowable of the prior art of record.
The subject matter of Claim 17 would be allowable over the prior at of record if amended to overcome the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection set forth above.
Specifically, refer back to the disclosure of Lee described above and notice that Claims 1 – 16 recite limitations in excess of those disclosed by Lee.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRIAN M BUTCHER whose telephone number is (571)270-5575. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday from 6:30 AM to 3:00 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Ke Xiao, can be reached at (571) 272 - 7776. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BRIAN M BUTCHER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2627 August 07, 2026
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