T 0789/22 (SMS-based article delivery/HONOR) of 12.9.2024

Summary of Facts and Submissions

I. The appellant lodged an appeal against the decision of the examining division to refuse the present European patent application for lack of inventive step (Article 56 EPC) with respect to the claims of a main request and two auxiliary requests.

II. The appealed decision referred, inter alia, to the following prior-art document:

D1: WO 2014/019466 Al.

III. In a communication pursuant to Article 15(1) RPBA, the board stated its negative preliminary opinion on the admittance and allowability of the main request and auxiliary requests I, II and III.

IV. In response to that communication, the appellant submitted further arguments and filed a new auxiliary request Ia corresponding to the main request on which the appealed decision was based. It further informed the board that it would not be attending the arranged oral proceedings.

The appellant's final requests were that the decision under appeal be set aside and that a patent be granted on the basis of the claims of any of five requests:

- main request and auxiliary requests I, II and III, all of them filed with the statement of grounds of appeal,

- auxiliary request Ia, filed in response to the board's preliminary opinion.

V. The board subsequently cancelled those oral proceedings (see Article 12(8) RPBA).

VI. Claim 1 of the main request reads as follows:

"A method for pushing a notification on a mobile terminal with a display, the method being performed by the mobile terminal and comprising:

obtaining a to-be-notified event, wherein the

to-be-notified event is an express event for which a notification needs to be pushed to a user, and wherein obtaining the to-be notified event comprises:

obtaining a push message and/or a user operation record, and determining that the content of the push message and/or the user operation record is related to the

to-be-notified event;

determining a first notification condition based on the to-be-notified event, wherein the first notification condition comprises detecting a first express status of the express event;

displaying a notification SMS message about a first notification page when the first notification condition is met,

wherein the notification SMS message comprises the first express status,

wherein the first notification page is used to display first association information of the to-be-notified event, and the first association information comprises the content of the notification SMS message, an express service company, article delivery details, and first operation association information of the

to-be-notified event;

displaying the first notification page in response to a case in which an operation input for the notification SMS message is detected;

determining a second notification condition based on the to-be-notified event, wherein the second notification condition comprises detecting a second express status of the express event;

displaying an update of the notification SMS message about a second notification page when the second notification condition is met,

wherein the update of the notification SMS message comprises the second express status,

wherein the second notification page is used to display second association information comprising the content of the update of the notification SMS message, the express service company, an update of the article delivery details, and second operation association information of the to-be-notified event,

wherein the notification SMS message and the update of the notification SMS message are displayed in a form of a notification list; and

displaying the second notification page in response to a case in which an operation input for the update of the notification SMS message is detected;

wherein the method further comprises:

returning to the notification list in response to detecting an operation input to close the first or second notification page while the respective one of the first and second notification pages is displayed."

Claim 1 of auxiliary request I differs from claim 1 of the main request in the replacement of the phrase

"obtaining a push message and/or a user operation record"

by the wording

"receiving a push message and/or obtaining a user operation record".

Claim 1 of auxiliary request Ia reads as follows:

"A method for pushing a notification on a mobile terminal with a display, the method being performed by the mobile terminal and comprising:

obtaining a to-be-notified event, wherein the

to-be-notified event is an express event for which a notification needs to be pushed to a user, and wherein obtaining the to-be notified event comprises obtaining a push message and/or a user operation record, and determining that the content of the push message and/or the user operation record is related to the

to-be-notified event;

determining a first notification condition based on the to-be-notified event, wherein the first notification condition comprises detecting a first express status;

displaying a notification SMS message about a first notification page when the first notification condition is met;

displaying the first notification page in response to a case in which an operation input for the notification SMS message is detected;

wherein the notification SMS message comprises the first express status;

wherein the first notification page is used to display first association information of the

to-be-notified event, and the first association information comprises the content of the notification SMS message, an express service company, article delivery details, and first operation association information of the to-be-notified event; and

determining a second notification condition based on the to-be-notified event, wherein the second notification condition comprises detecting a second express status;

displaying an update of the notification SMS message about a second notification page when the second notification condition is met;

displaying the second notification page in response to a case in which an operation input for the update of the notification SMS message is detected;

wherein the update of the notification SMS message comprises the second express status;

wherein the second notification page is used to display second association information comprising the content of the update of the notification SMS message, the express service company, an update of the article delivery details, and second operation association information of the to-be-notified event;

wherein the notification SMS message and the update of the notification SMS message are displayed in a form of a notification list; and

wherein the method further comprises:

returning to the notification list in response to detecting an operation input to close the first or second notification page while the respective one of the first and second notification

pages is displayed."

Claim 1 of auxiliary request II differs from claim 1 of auxiliary request I in the deletion of the phrases

"and/or obtaining a user operation record" and "and/or the user operation record".

Claim 1 of auxiliary request III differs from claim 1 of auxiliary request II in the following addition at the very end of the claim:

",

determining a notification cleaning condition based on the to-be-notified event, the notification cleaning condition comprises at least any one of the following: a cleaning time condition, a cleaning place condition, and a cleaning user behavior condition; and

deleting the currently displayed first notification page or the currently displayed second notification page of the to-be-notified event when the notification cleaning condition is met".

Reasons for the Decision

1. MAIN REQUEST

Claim 1 of the main request comprises the following limiting features:

A method for pushing a notification on a mobile terminal with a display, the method being performed by the mobile terminal and comprising:

(a) obtaining a to-be-notified event, wherein the

to-be-notified event is an express event for which a notification needs to be pushed to a user, and wherein obtaining the to-be notified event comprises:

(a.1) obtaining a push message and/or a user operation record, and determining that the content of the push message and/or the user operation record is related to the to-be-notified event;

(b) determining a first notification condition based on the to-be-notified event, the first notification condition comprises detecting a first express status of the express event;

(c) displaying a notification SMS message about a first notification page when the first notification condition is met,

(c.1) the notification SMS message comprises the first express status,

(c.2) the first notification page is used to display first association information of the

to-be-notified event, and the first association information comprises the content of the notification SMS message, an express service company, article delivery details, and first operation association information of the

to-be-notified event;

(d) displaying the first notification page in response to a case in which an operation input for the notification SMS message is detected;

(e) determining a second notification condition based on the to-be-notified event, the second notification condition comprises detecting a second express status of the express event;

(f) displaying an update of the notification SMS message about a second notification page when the second notification condition is met,

(f.1) the update of the notification SMS message comprises the second express status,

(f.2) the second notification page is used to display second association information comprising the content of the update of the notification SMS message, the express service company, an update of the article delivery details, and second operation association information of the

to-be-notified event,

(g) the notification SMS message and the update of the notification SMS message are displayed in a form of a notification list;

(h) displaying the second notification page in response to a case in which an operation input for the update of the notification SMS message is detected;

(i) returning to the notification list in response to detecting an operation input to close the first or second notification page while the respective one of the first and second notification pages is displayed.

1.1 Admittance (Article 12 RPBA)

1.1.1 The appellant submitted that the main request was almost identical to the main request based on which the examining division refused the application. Concerning present claim 1, the only difference was the feature "of the express event" according to features (b) and (e) for indicating that the first/second express statuses referred to "of the express event", which was implied by the relevant embodiment described in paragraphs [0272] to [0276] of the description and Figures 13(a) to (g) as originally filed. This just resembled a slight, self-explaining minor wording adaptation. Furthermore, several features were shifted within claim 1 to a different position for significantly increasing the legibility of its wording. However, no additional features were introduced by that.

1.1.2 The board disagrees. This claim request was filed only with the statement of grounds of appeal. Hence, this request may be admitted only at the discretion of the board (Article 12(4) RPBA).

1.1.3 The board has decided not to admit the request into the appeal proceedings (Article 12(4) and (6) RPBA) for the following reasons:

The amendments made therein do not address the actual reasons for the application's refusal. Their sole purpose is to tidy up the claims, even though the examining division never expressed concerns in this respect. Since these amendments are unrelated to the reasons in the appealed decision, they do not constitute an appropriate reaction to the decision itself. Therefore, they should have been submitted already during the examination proceedings (Article 12(6), second sentence, RPBA).

2. AUXILIARY REQUEST Ia

2.1 Admittance (Article 13(2) RPBA)

2.1.1 The claims of auxiliary request Ia were filed after notification of the board's communication under Article 15(1) RPBA.

2.1.2 According to the appellant, auxiliary request Ia was submitted in response to the "quite surprising concerns of the board concerning the admissibility of the main request previously submitted with the grounds of appeal". The appellant contended that all requests refused by the first-instance decision were automatically anyway already part of the appeal proceedings. Since auxiliary request Ia was identical to the main request refused by the examining division, it had to be admitted into the proceedings for this reason alone.

2.1.3 These arguments fail to convince the board. In spite of being identical to the main request on which the appealed decision was based, the filing of auxiliary request Ia still constitutes an "amendment" to the appellant's case under Article 13(2) RPBA (see e.g. T 1312/20, Reasons 2). According to this provision, any amendment to a party's appeal case is not taken into account, unless there are exceptional circumstances, which have been justified with cogent reasons by the party concerned. The board's negative preliminary opinion on the admittance of claim requests filed for the first time with the statement of grounds of appeal is not an "exceptional circumstance". Rather than maintaining the main request on which the appealed decision was based, the appellant deliberately replaced it in its statement of grounds of appeal with a new main request. In doing so, the appellant must have been aware that: (i) the admittance of the new claim request was under the board's discretion conferred by Article 12 RPBA and (ii) such replacement deprived the board from a review of the grounds for the appealed refusal decision in its preliminary opinion.

2.2 Accordingly, there are no "exceptional circumstances", which have been justified with "cogent reasons" in the present case. Thus, the board has decided not to admit auxiliary request Ia into the appeal proceedings either (Article 13(2) RPBA).

3. AUXILIARY REQUESTS I, II AND III

Claim 1 of auxiliary requests I to III comprises the same limiting features as claim 1 of the main request, except for the following amendments made in

feature (a.1):

- receiving a push message and/or obtaining a user operation record, and determining that the content of the push message and/or the user operation record is related to the to-be-notified event [auxiliary request I];

- receiving a push message, and determining that the content of the push message is related to the

to-be-notified event [auxiliary requests II and III],

and the following additions:

(j) determining a notification cleaning condition based on the to-be-notified event, the notification cleaning condition comprises at least any one of the following: a cleaning time condition, a cleaning place condition, and a cleaning user behaviour condition;

(k) deleting the currently displayed first notification page or the currently displayed second notification page of the to-be-notified event when the notification cleaning condition is met [auxiliary request III].

3.1 Admittance (Article 12 RPBA)

3.1.1 These claim requests were also filed for the first time with the statement of grounds of appeal. Again, their admittance is at the board's discretion (Article 12(4) RPBA).

3.1.2 The same conclusions as set out in point 1.1.3 above concerning the shifting of features in claim 1 apply to the present auxiliary requests.

3.1.3 Besides, none of auxiliary requests I to III is convergent with those treated in the appealed decision, which in fact included different limitations now removed from claim 1.

3.1.4 Finally, through the addition of the features of dependent claim 8, which was not discussed in the appealed decision, at least auxiliary request III creates a "fresh case".

3.2 Thus, the board has decided not to admit auxiliary requests I to III into the appeal proceedings.

4. Since there are no admitted claim requests on file, the appeal must be dismissed.

Order

For these reasons it is decided that:

The appeal is dismissed.