Obviousness

An obviousness analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for US patent 9,531,665, based on the provided prior art, is detailed below.

Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art (PHOSITA)

As of the patent's priority date of November 17, 2005, a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA) would have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, along with two to three years of experience in developing web or early mobile applications, particularly those involving client-server architecture, databases, and online advertising or customer relationship management (CRM) systems. This individual would be familiar with common internet advertising models, such as keyword targeting and behavioral targeting, as well as mobile communication protocols like SMS and WAP.

Obviousness Ground 1: US 2006/0178903 A1 (Commoca) in view of General Knowledge in the Art

Independent claims 1 and 7 are rendered obvious by the teachings of US 2006/0178903 A1 ("Commoca") when combined with the general knowledge of a PHOSITA regarding common and well-established competitive advertising strategies.

1. Scope and Content of Commoca:
As established in the prior art analysis, Commoca teaches a server-based system that delivers targeted advertising to mobile users. The key disclosures relevant to the '665 patent are:

• A central server that sends advertisements ("vendor messages") to users.
• The system's ability to receive and log user interactions with those advertisements (an "acceptance"), such as clicking a link or initiating a call.
• A mechanism for advertisers to target subsequent ads to users based on their logged interaction history ("call history" or "session history").

2. Differences Between the Claims and Commoca:
The primary distinction between the claims of the '665 patent and the teachings of Commoca is one of specificity versus generality.

• Claims 1 & 7 recite a specific sequence: a user accepts a first vendor's message, and only after this acceptance, the system sends a message from a second vendor.
• Commoca teaches a general capability: any advertiser can target a user based on that user's prior interaction with any other advertisement logged in the system.

The claims simply describe one specific, and commercially logical, implementation of the general framework disclosed by Commoca.

3. Motivation to Combine Commoca with Known Business Practices:
A PHOSITA would have been motivated to apply the general advertising platform of Commoca to achieve the specific outcome recited in the claims due to a widely known and powerful business incentive: competitive advertising, often called "conquesting."

By 2005, the practice of targeting a competitor's customers was a fundamental pillar of advertising strategy. In the online world, this manifested as bidding on a competitor's branded keywords or using behavioral data to serve ads to users who had visited a competitor's website. A PHOSITA, understanding Commoca's system, would have immediately recognized its utility for this exact purpose.

The motivation is not technical but commercial and would have been readily apparent:

• The Problem: An advertiser (e.g., Domino's Pizza, the "second vendor") wants to find users who are actively in the market for pizza.
• The Solution Taught by Commoca: The Commoca system provides a direct solution by allowing advertisers to target users based on their interaction history.
• The Obvious Application: The most valuable user interaction to target is a user's recent engagement with a direct competitor (e.g., Pizza Hut, the "first vendor"). A user who has just accepted a message from Pizza Hut is a highly qualified lead for Domino's.

Therefore, using the Commoca system to send a Domino's ad to a user immediately after they accepted a Pizza Hut ad is not an inventive step. It is the logical, predictable, and commercially obvious application of the tools Commoca provides, driven by a universally understood advertising strategy. The claims of the '665 patent do not add a novel technical feature but merely claim the result of applying this standard business logic to the existing technical framework of Commoca.

Conclusion

The invention claimed in independent claims 1 and 7 of US patent 9,531,665 would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. The sole cited prior art reference, Commoca (US 2006/0178903 A1), discloses a technical platform capable of carrying out every step of the claimed method. The motivation to configure the Commoca system in the specific manner claimed—sending a second vendor's message after a user accepts a first's—is supplied by the well-known and long-standing business practice of competitive advertising (conquesting). The patent claims a predictable use of a prior art system, which does not rise to the level of a patentable, non-obvious invention under 35 U.S.C. § 103.