Avoiding redundant displaying of notifications: technical

The utility underlying the current choice pertains to an association of a number of digital units receiving content material of web companies. By utilizing a synchronisation server, it’s averted that corresponding notifications are displayed redundantly on the digital units. The Board in cost thought-about the utilization of a synchronisation server programmed to trace obtained and considered notifications primarily based on info obtained from the consumer units technical. Here are the sensible takeaways of the choice T 2712/18 (Synchronisation server/APPLE) dated November 14, 2022 of Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.01:

Key takeaways

Technical implementation selections relating to administrative schemes that will not be envisaged by the enterprise particular person are within the sphere of the technically expert particular person.

The invention

The Board in cost summarized the invention underlying the current choice as follows:

1.1 The invention issues an association through which a consumer units up a number of digital units (“plurality of related units” within the claims), for instance a cell phone and a desktop pc, to obtain content material (“notifications”) from Internet companies ([3] and [18]). Looking at Figure 2, in such an association notifications are supplied to native purposes 205A-205D by servers 104A-104D (“a primary server” and “a second server” within the claims of the third auxiliary request). For instance, an e mail server 104C offers emails to a neighborhood e mail utility 205C and a climate server 104D offers climate updates and forecasts to a neighborhood climate utility 205D ([20]).

The downside with this association is that a number of digital units comprise overlapping notifications and the consumer has to sift by way of notifications which they probably already considered on one other gadget ([3] and [33]). The invention seeks to keep away from the redundant show of notifications which have already been considered on one of the consumer’s units ([13]).

1.2 Looking at Figure 3, the invention offers a synchronisation server 108 monitoring which notifications are obtained and which consumer units they’re displayed on ([33]). To this finish, the consumer units inform the synchronisation server about every obtained notification ([31] and [32]).

The synchronisation server additionally receives from a consumer gadget a sign that the consumer chosen and considered a specific notification on it ([41]). Upon receiving such a sign, the synchronisation server sends a sign that the notification has been considered to every consumer gadget on which it’s current ([41] to [43]). Upon receipt of this indication, the consumer units could take away the considered notification from a consumer interface displaying it ([43]).

Fig. 2 of EP 2 669 854 A1

Here is how the invention is outlined in declare 1 of the third auxiliary request:

Is it technical?

The first occasion analyzing division thought-about that the technical facets of declare 1 of the primary request (which usually corresponds to say 1 of the third auxiliary request that has solely submitted throughout the enchantment proceedings with some additional limitations) wouldn’t transcend a normal objective networked pc system performing its generally recognized features. Specifically, the duty of managing notifications was an administrative one and the steps of receiving and sending notifications and indications didn’t per se have technical character. In addition, the analyzing division identified that avoiding presenting duplicate notifications to a consumer was merely an administrative downside (see enchantment choice, gadgets 4.2.1 and 4.2.2).

Against this evaluation, the applicant argued as follows:

4.2.4 The appellant argued that exchanging messages between the synchronisation server and the consumer units was half of the technical answer and the options defining this performance ought to be thought-about for ingenious step.

At the enchantment stage, the Board in cost usually agreed to the applicant’s arguments:

4.2.7 It is established case regulation that the enterprise particular person giving the non-technical necessities to the expert particular person doesn’t have technical appreciation of how enterprise ideas are applied on a pc system (see T 1082/13, Reasons, level 4.8). However, the supply of the synchronisation server and the choice on what digital messages to speak with a view to take away considered notifications from the consumer units require such understanding of pc know-how and contain technical issues on how this know-how can be utilized to implement the above administrative requirement. These steps have the character of a communication protocol. It follows that these options couldn’t be envisaged by the enterprise particular person and are technical implementation selections that are within the sphere of the technically expert particular person.

Hence, the Board discovered that declare 1 of the primary request contains a number of different technical options which applies a fortiori to the narrower unbiased declare 1 of the third auxiliary request:

4.2.8 Accordingly, the Board judges that the next options of claims 1 and seven of the third auxiliary request are half of the technical implementation and, due to this fact, topic to the evaluation of ingenious step:

– offering a consumer gadget programmed to:

– run two purposes and to obtain notifications

for these purposes from two totally different servers

– inform the synchronisation server which

notifications have been obtained and which amongst

them have been considered

– take away a notification from a consumer interface on

which it’s displayed in response to the

indication, from the synchronisation server, that

the notification has been considered

– offering the synchronisation server programmed to

observe obtained and considered notifications primarily based on the

info obtained from the consumer units and to

present to the consumer units the indication {that a}

notification has been considered on one of them.

According to the Board, the technically expert particular person wouldn’t have arrived on the claimed subject-matter when ranging from a normal objective networked pc system. Specifically, the options specifying the use of the synchronisation server and the exchanged messages clearly transcend the routine information of the expert particular person (see merchandise 4.2.9 of the enchantment choice).

Since the analyzing division didn’t assess the claimed subject-matter with regard to the pertinent prior artwork, the Board remitted the case again for additional examination. Thus, the choice below enchantment was put aside.

More info

You can learn the entire choice right here: T 2712/18 (Synchronisation server/APPLE) of November 14, 2022