Notice of Pre-AIA or 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 .
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns, paragraphs, figures and line numbers in the
references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although
the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the
specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It
is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the
references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as
the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner. The entire
reference is considered to provide disclosure relating to the claimed invention. The claims &
only the claims form the metes & bounds of the invention. Office personnel are to give
the claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure.
Unclaimed limitations appearing in the specification are not read into the claim. Prior art was
referenced using terminology familiar to one of ordinary skill in the art. Such an approach is
broad in concept and can be either explicit or implicit in meaning. Examiner's Notes are
provided with the cited references to assist the applicant to better understand how the
examiner interprets the applied prior art. Such comments are entirely consistent with the
intent & spirit of compact prosecution.
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 1-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
Claim 1.
STEP 1: Yes. The claim recites a “computer-implemented method” which is a process.
STEP 2A PRONG ONE:
The claim recites multiple mathematical relationships, formulas, equations, or calculations.
"testing elements of a given set V of objects to determine which of qualities in a given list S of potential qualities each of them has;” This is defining a mathematical relationship which falls under the mathematical grouping.
"identifying subsets of S as CloQs: as groups of qualities from S that often occur together in the objects of V in that the subsets form a tangle of S;" This is defining a mathematical relationship which falls under the mathematical grouping.
“computing a nested set T of no more than IVI Boolean expressions of qualities from S that suffice to distinguish the CloQs, in that for any two CloQs there exists a combination t E T of qualities which is shared by the qualities in one of the two CloQs but not by those in the other of the two CloQs; and,” This is defining a mathematical relationship which falls under the mathematical grouping.
"if the qualities in S have no CloQ, computing a nested set T of no more than IVI Boolean expressions of qualities from S which, between them, witness that no CloQ exists in S.” This is defining a mathematical relationship which falls under the mathematical grouping.
STEP 2A PRONG TWO: The claim does not integrate the exception into a practical application.
STEP 2B: The claim does not recite an inventive concept or significantly more than the
exception.
Conclusion: Claim 1 is directed to a mathematical concept, not integrated into a practical
application and lacks an inventive concept. Therefore, it is ineligible under 35 U.S.C 101.
Regarding claims 2-13 and 17-19:
Claims 2-13 and 17-19 are ineligible under 35 U.S.C 101 for the same reasons as claim 1. These claims just define more mathematical relationships or define variables. These claims do not provide a technical improvement or provide an inventive concept.
Claim 14.
STEP 1: Yes. The claim recites “A system” which is a Machine.
STEP 2A PRONG ONE:
The claim recites multiple mathematical relationships, formulas, equations, or calculations.
“A system for artificial exploitation of a data set containing relations of objects each with at least one respective quality, the objects each being an element of a given set V, the qualities each being included in a given list S of potential qualities,” This is defining a mathematical relationship which falls under the mathematical grouping.
“to search for subsets of S as CloQs: as groups of qualities from S that often occur together in the objects of V and form a tangle of S; and” This is defining a mathematical relationship which falls under the mathematical grouping.
“if such CloQs exist for the data set, to compute a nested set T of at most IV Boolean expressions of qualities from S that suffice to distinguish the CloQs, in that for any two CloQs there exists a combination t E T of qualities which is shared by the qualities in one of the two CloQs but not by those in the other of the two CloQs.” This is defining a mathematical relationship which falls under the mathematical grouping.
STEP 2A PRONG TWO: The claim does not integrate the exception into a practical application. The limitation of “wherein the system comprises at least one computer configured” recites a generic computer component. Therefore, it is not significantly more than the abstract idea and does not provide a practical application.
STEP 2B: The claim does not recite an inventive concept or significantly more than the
exception. The “computer” recited is a generic computer used as a tool to perform the abstract idea.
Conclusion: Claim 14 is directed to a mathematical concept, not integrated into a practical
application and lacks an inventive concept. Therefore, it is ineligible under 35 U.S.C 101.
Regarding claims 15-16:
Claims 15-16 are ineligible under 35 U.S.C 101 for the same reasons as claim 14. These claims just define more mathematical relationships or define variables. These claims do not provide a technical improvement or provide an inventive concept.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-2, 14-15, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al. “Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”].
Regarding Claim 1, Diestel Teaches
A computer-implemented method to use a mathematical theory of tangles of abstract separation systems to identify, and distinguish, clusters of qualities (CloQs) amongst potential qualities of given objects, by way of:
testing elements of a given set V of objects to determine which of qualities in a given list S of potential qualities each of them has;
“Tangles were first introduced by Robertson and Seymour [9]. The shift of paradigm that they have brought to the study of connectivity in graphs is that while large cohesive objects such as grids orient all the low-order separations of G in a consistent way (namely, towards them), it is meaningful to consider consistent orientations of all the low-order separations of G as ‘objects’ in their own right: one lays down some axioms saying what ‘consistent’ shall mean, and then various sensible notions of consistency give rise to different types of tangle, each a way of ‘consistently’ orienting all the low-order separations, but in slightly different senses of consistency.” (Introduction).
“A picture on X is a map π : Π → 2 n, where we think of the elements of 2 n = {0, 1} n as giving each of n parameters a value 0 or 1. Think of these parameters as brightness, colour and so on.” (Pg. 10).
identifying subsets of S as CloQs: as groups of qualities from S that often occur together in the objects of V in that the subsets form a tangle of S;
“The coherent regions of our image should thus correspond to tangles, or profiles,4 of some order, the higher the greater their perceived coherence.” (Pg. 9).“Tangles were first introduced by Robertson and Seymour [9]. The shift of paradigm that they have brought to the study of connectivity in graphs is that while large cohesive objects such as grids orient all the low-order separations of G in a consistent way (namely, towards them), it is meaningful to consider consistent orientations of all the low-order separations of G as ‘objects’ in their own right: one lays down some axioms saying what ‘consistent’ shall mean, and then various sensible notions of consistency give rise to different types of tangle, each a way of ‘consistently’ orienting all the low-order separations, but in slightly different senses of consistency.” (Introduction).
computing a nested set T of no more than IVI Boolean expressions of qualities from S that suffice to distinguish the CloQs, in that for any two CloQs there exists a combination t E T of qualities which is shared by the qualities in one of the two CloQs but not by those in the other of the two CloQs; and,
“The tangle-tree theorem provides a nested set of separations that efficiently distinguish all the distinguishable tangles in a graph.”. (Abstract).
“Theorem 2.3. (The non-canonical tangle-tree theorem for profiles [6]) Let U~ = (U, ~ ≤ , ∗ , ∨, ∧, | |) be a submodular universe of separations. For every set P of pairwise distinguishable robust and regular profiles in U~ there is a regular tree set T ⊆ U~ of separations such that: 7 (i) every two profiles in P are efficiently distinguished by some separation in T; (ii) no proper subset of T distinguishes P; (iii) for every P ∈ P the set P ∩ → T extends to a unique consistent orientation OP of T. This map P 7→ OP from P to the set O of consistent orientations of T is bijective.” (Pg. 7-8).
if the qualities in S have no CloQ, computing a nested set T of no more than IVI Boolean expressions of qualities from S which, between them, witness that no CloQ exists in S.
“Theorem 2.5. (Tangle duality theorem for abstract separation systems) Let (U, ~ ≤ , ∗ , ∨, ∧) be a universe of separations containing a separation system ( → S, ≤ , ∗ ). Let F ⊆ 2 →S be a standard set of stars. If → S is F-separable, exactly one of the following assertions holds: (i) There exists an S-tree over F. (ii) There exists an F-tangle of S.” (Pg. 9).
Regarding Claim 2, Diestel teaches
The method according to Claim 1, wherein S extends to all bipartitions, or separations, s of V of increasing order, where an order of s is lower if s separates fewer pairs of objects in Vthat are similar, in the sense of any given similarity function, in terms of the qualities in S and wherein the order of s is higher if s separates more pairs of objects in V that are similar, so that
the tangles identified, and distinguished, are tangles of the set Sk of separations of V of order less than k (which may or may not include the qualities in S of order < k themselves), giving rise to clusters of separations (CloSs) of increasing order that become more and more specific as k grows;
“Our universe U~ contains no nontrivial small separations, since A∗ 6⊆ A for all A ( Π. Every tree set in U~ and every profile in U~ will therefore be regular. Also, all profiles and sets of pairwise distinguishable profiles in U~ will be robust in the sense of [6]; see the definitions there. We define the order of a separation A ∈ U~ as |A| := X N − δ(e) | e ∈ ∂A ,” (Pg. 11).
a first set T is a separation of V, which are efficient in that T contains, for any two CloSs, a separation of lowest possible order that distinguishes these two CloSs in that one of the two CloSs contains this separation but the other of the two CloSs does not;
“Theorem 2.3. (The non-canonical tangle-tree theorem for profiles [6]) Let U~ = (U, ~ ≤ , ∗ , ∨, ∧, | |) be a submodular universe of separations. For every set P of pairwise distinguishable robust and regular profiles in U~ there is a regular tree set T ⊆ U~ of separations such that: 7 (i) every two profiles in P are efficiently distinguished by some separation in T; (ii) no proper subset of T distinguishes P; (iii) for every P ∈ P the set P ∩ → T extends to a unique consistent orientation OP of T. This map P 7→ OP from P to the set O of consistent orientations of T is bijective.” (Pg. 7-8).
a second set T now witnesses that a set Sk of separations of order less than a fixed k has no CboS.
“Theorem 3.4. For every picture π on a canvas (X, N) and every integer k > 0, either π has a region of cohesion at least k, or there exists a laminar set L of lines of order < k all whose splitting stars are void 3-stars or single pixels. For no picture do both these happen at once.” (Pg. 13).
Regarding Claim 14, Diestel teaches
A system for artificial exploitation of a data set containing relations of objects each with at least one respective quality, the objects each being an element of a given set V, the qualities each being included in a given list S of potential qualities, wherein the system comprises at least one computer configured
to search for subsets of S as CloQs: as groups of qualities from S that often occur together in the objects of V and form a tangle of S; and
“Let ( → S, ≤ , ∗ ) be a separation system inside a universe (U, ~ ≤ , ∗ , ∨, ∧). An orientation P of S is a profile (of S or → S) if it is consistent and satisfies For all → r , →s ∈ P the separation ← r ∧ ←s = ( → r ∨ →s ) ∗ is not in P. (P)” (Pg. 6).
“As mentioned in the introduction, tangles are intrinsically large objects from a complexity point of view: a tangle of order k, or a k-profile, has to orient every separation of order less than k, of which there can be many and which also have to be found.”. (Pg. 14).
if such CloQs exist for the data set, to compute a nested set T of at most IV Boolean expressions of qualities from S that suffice to distinguish the CloQs, in that for any two CloQs there exists a combination t E T of qualities which is shared by the qualities in one of the two CloQs but not by those in the other of the two CloQs.
“Theorem 2.5. (Tangle duality theorem for abstract separation systems) Let (U, ~ ≤ , ∗ , ∨, ∧) be a universe of separations containing a separation system ( → S, ≤ , ∗ ). Let F ⊆ 2 →S be a standard set of stars. If → S is F-separable, exactly one of the following assertions holds: (i) There exists an S-tree over F. (ii) There exists an F-tangle of S.”. (Pg. 9).
“Theorem 3.4. For every picture π on a canvas (X, N) and every integer k > 0, either π has a region of cohesion at least k, or there exists a laminar set L of lines of order < k all whose splitting stars are void 3-stars or single pixels. For no picture do both these happen at once.”. (Pg. 13).
Regarding Claim 15, Diestel teaches
The system according to claim 14, wherein the at least one computer is further configured to compute, if no CloQ exists for the data set, a nested set T of at most V Boolean expressions of qualities from S which, between them, witness that no CloQ exists in S.
“The tangle duality theorem would then point this out by cutting up the entire image into single pixels, in a tree-like way. In the language of complexity theory: the tree-decomposition which the theorem assures us to exist if there is no high-order tangle other than those focusing on a single pixel will be an efficiently checkable witness to the fact there exists no such tangle…” (Pg. 3).
“Theorem 2.5. (Tangle duality theorem for abstract separation systems) Let (U, ~ ≤ , ∗ , ∨, ∧) be a universe of separations containing a separation system ( → S, ≤ , ∗ ). Let F ⊆ 2 →S be a standard set of stars. If → S is F-separable, exactly one of the following assertions holds: (i) There exists an S-tree over F. (ii) There exists an F-tangle of S.”. (Pg. 9).
“Theorem 3.4. For every picture π on a canvas (X, N) and every integer k > 0, either π has a region of cohesion at least k, or there exists a laminar set L of lines of order < k all whose splitting stars are void 3-stars or single pixels. For no picture do both these happen at once.”. (Pg. 13).
“Theorem 3.4. For every picture π on a canvas (X, N) and every integer k > 0, either π has a region of cohesion at least k, or there exists a laminar set L of lines of order < k all whose splitting stars are void 3-stars or single pixels. For no picture do both these happen at once.” (Pg 13).
Regarding Claim 17, Diestel teaches
A non-transitory computer readable storage means comprising instructions stored thereon which, when processed by a computer, carry out the method according to claim 1.
Claim 17 is rejected under the same rationale as given above for claim 1 as this claim teaches similar limitations, but is directed to “A non-transitory computer readable storage means” in contrast to a method of claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 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.
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and Clark et al. GB 2562218 A (2018) [herein “Clark”].
Regarding Claim 3, CLARK teaches
The method according to claim 1, wherein a list of potential qualities comprises a set of qualities each determined by a respective range for a corresponding physical and/or medical parameter, and wherein testing the elements of V comprises, for each element v of V and for each quality q contained in said set,
“The real-time feedback associated with the biometric data from the subject is characterized by instructions associated with the sports activity.” (Background Of Invention)
“In yet another embodiment, when the measured physical parameters are in a range” (DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS)
- measuring, with regard to v, the parameter respectively corresponding to q, and
“In yet another embodiment, when the measured physical parameters are in a range” (DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS)
- determining whether the measured parameter lies in the respective range determining q.
“In yet another embodiment, when the measured physical parameters are in a range” (DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS)
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Clark that uses physical/medical parameters in a determined range with the teachings of Diestels tangles to enable finding groupings and trends in the measured parameters. The motivation for doing so would have been to develop “… a monitoring device for a slow, smooth, and steady type of movement, measuring and improving the physiological quality of a user’s movement, preferably integrated into a mobile device.”. (Field Of Invention).
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and BRUNN et al. US 20190208370 A1 (2019) [herein “BRUNN”].
Regarding Claim 4, BRUNN teaches
A method of detecting mindsets each defined by respective properties and/or opinions shared by a respective plurality of persons of a population, the method comprising:
“In addition to determining a level of connectedness, the graph analyzer (208) can form certain groups into connected interest group, when a group of authors' level of connectedness is greater than a threshold amount. As described above, the threshold amount may be set based on the communication thread, the environment, or any other criteria.” (Para. 54).
- performing the method of claim 1, wherein the set V is a representative subset of a population and wherein the potential qualities contained in the list S each represent a possible property and/or opinion a human may have, and
“In addition to determining a level of connectedness, the graph analyzer (208) can form certain groups into connected interest group, when a group of authors' level of connectedness is greater than a threshold amount. As described above, the threshold amount may be set based on the communication thread, the environment, or any other criteria.” (Para. 54).
- defining the mindsets to be the identified CloQs or CloSs.
“In addition to determining a level of connectedness, the graph analyzer (208) can form certain groups into connected interest group, when a group of authors' level of connectedness is greater than a threshold amount. As described above, the threshold amount may be set based on the communication thread, the environment, or any other criteria.” (Para. 54).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of BRUNN that teaches finding similar opinions and connections of people in something like a social network with the teachings of Diestels tangles to enable finding trends and similarities between people’s opinions. The motivation for doing so would have been to design “a system facilities a more accurate dissemination of information, and evaluation of public opinion, within a communication thread by accounting for the effects of connected group of users that share a similar sentiment and so indicating such a connected interest group to a participant”. (Para. 24).
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], BRUNN et al. US 20190208370 A1 (2019) [herein “BRUNN”], and Dailey et al. US 20140281862 A1 (2014) [herein “Dailey”].
Regarding Claim 5, Dailey teaches
A method of appointing a representative body, the method comprising:
- detecting a plurality of mindsets in a population by performing the method according to claim 4, and
“This invention separately provides systems and methods for users to find likeminded people based on their shared opinions, logical perspective, and personal details.”. (Para. 29).
- for at least one determined mindset delegating a person whose opinions match best with the at least one determined mindset.
“… that display one or more lists of those users, platforms and/or parties that best match their votes. In this way, users can find and connect with, like-minded people and organizations. In some exemplary embodiments, … including other common social networking user criteria (in the case of users) and such as number of members, number and/or identity of supporters, and/or any known and/or later-developed criteria, including other common social networking group criteria, in the case of platforms and parties.”. (Para. 111).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Dailey that teaches determining the most likeminded people or user by criterions in a setting such as a social network with the combination of Diestel-BRUNN that teaches finding wider group sentiment and opinions. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide “systems and methods for users to find likeminded people based on their shared opinions, logical perspective, and personal details.”. (Para. 29).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and Ling et al. “Clinical Documents Clustering Based on Medication/Symptom Names Using Multi-View Nonnegative Matrix Factorization” (2015) [herein “Ling”].
Regarding Claim 6, Ling teaches
A method of discovering combinations of medical symptoms, which in combination constitute an illness, the method comprising:
“Clinical documents such as clinical notes contain a lot of valuable information about patients, such as medication conditions (diseases, injuries, medical symptoms, etc.) and responses (diagnoses, procedures, and drugs) [1]. These underutilized resources have a huge potential to improve health care. These types of valuable information extracted from clinical notes can be used to build profiles for individual patients [2], discover disease correlations [3], and enhance patient care.” (Introduction).
- performing the method according to claim 1, wherein the set V is a set of patients and wherein the potential qualities contained in the list S each define a symptom a patient may have, and
“In this paper, we build an integrating system for extracting medication names and symptom names from clinical notes. Then we apply nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) and multi-view NMF to cluster clinical notes into meaningful clusters based on sample-feature matrices. Our experimental results show that multi-view NMF is a preferable method for clinical document clustering.” (Abstract).
- defining the combinations to be the identified CloQs or CloSs.
“Moreover, we find that using extracted medication/symptom names to cluster clinical documents outperforms just using words.” (Abstract).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Ling that teaches using patients’ symptoms to identify clusters and correlations that lead to finding a root illness with the teachings of Diestels tangles to find insights and trends within the patient data. The motivation for doing so would have been to mine “valuable information extracted from clinical notes can be used to build profiles for individual patients [2], discover disease correlations [3], and enhance patient care [4].” (Introduction).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and Satheesh et al. US 20050053908 A1 (2005) [herein “Satheesh”].
Regarding Claim 7, Satheesh teaches
A method of defining teaching modes, the method comprising:
- performing the method according to claim 1, wherein V is a set of students, and wherein the potential qualities contained in the list S each represent a respective teaching technique, a student in V being considered to have such quality if the respective teaching technique has been appraised to be advantageous for the student, and
“The present invention relates to an education management system and method therefor. The present invention also relates to a computer program for monitoring the progress of tutors and students in a classroom environment.”. (Para. 01).
- defining the teaching modes to be the identified CloQs or CloSs.
“The data of all students stored in the main database allows the administrator to compare the progress of students in each class using the control software. For instance, the improvement of average scores of students in test 2 over test 1 in class may be 10% greater than in class B. If this improvement is consistent over a period of time, it is an indicator to the administrator that the tutor or teaching technique used in class A is better than that of class B.”. (Para. 43).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Satheesh that teach monitoring students’ performance based on teaching modes and techniques with Diestels tangles to find insights in students’ data to improve educational outcomes. The motivation for doing so would have been to “maintain a certain level of standardization in not only the syllabi and actual tests administered, whether online or not, but also in terms of the teaching techniques. Standardization of teaching techniques is important as this will enable students to obtain a reasonably accurate evaluation of their own capability and aptitude for such programs.”. (Para. 006).
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and HERZ et al. US 20010014868 A1 (2001) [herein “HERZ”].
Regarding Claim 9, HERZ teaches
A method of grouping goods in a physical or online store, the method comprising:
- performing the method according to claim 1, wherein the set V is a set of customers of a shop, and wherein the potential qualities each are related to a respective item sold in the shop, wherein a customer in V is considered to have such quality if he has bought the item related to the quality in the shop, and
“The system for the automatic determination of customized prices and promotions automatically constructs product offers tailored to individual shoppers, or types of shopper, in a way that attempts to maximize the vendor's profits.”. (Abstract)
- arranging the goods in the store in one or more groups based on one or more of the identified CloQs or CloSs and/or running at least one advertising campaign based on the one or more of the identified CloQs or CloSs.
“Likely shoppers can be identified, then enticed with the most effective visual and textual advertisements; deals can be offered to them, either on-line or off-line; detailed product information screens can be subtly rearranged from one type of shopper to the next. Furthermore, when a product can be tailored to a particular shopper, a general technique or expert system can offer each consumer an appropriately customized product.”. (Abstract).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of HERZ that teaches finding data points from a customer to advertise/sell to them with the Diestels tangles in order to find groupings or trends of the user to enhance shopping personalization. The motivation for doing so would have been to construct “product offers tailored to individual shoppers, or types of shoppers, in a way that attempts to maximize the vendor's profits.”. (0004).
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and JIA et al. US 20010014868 A1 (2001) [herein “JIA”].
Regarding Claim 10, JIA teaches
A method of grouping clients with respect to their purchase behavior, the method comprising:
- performing the method according to claim 1, wherein the elements of the set V are items offered in a shop, and wherein the potential qualities each are related to a respective customer of the shop, wherein an item in V is considered to have such quality if it has been purchased in the shop by the customer related to the quality,
“A system and method are provided for offering product deals to users based on the online behavior and other information of groups of users. This information associated with multiple users within groups and individuals having common interests in products to be purchased online and information associated with a finite set of data elements in the computer application are analyzed to determine a configuration of the data elements such that user access to relevant information and shopping deals is improved.”. (Abstract)
- determining at least one group of the clients based on at least one of the identified CloQs or CloSs.
“Based on these interest groups, the system may automatically determine the best deal to offer the identified group that will maximize any of a number of key metrics including conversion rate, revenue, margin, or other business criteria.”. (Para. 36)
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of JIA that teaches finding prospective shoppers based on previous data points with Diestels tangles to find customer shopping trends. The motivation for doing so would have been to offer “product deals to users based on the online behavior and other information of groups of users. This information associated with multiple users within groups and individuals having common interests in products to be purchased online and information associated with a finite set of data elements in the computer application are analyzed to determine a configuration of the data elements such that user access to relevant information and shopping deals is improved.”. (Abstract).
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and LÖSER et al. DE 102014114560 B3 (2001) [herein “LÖSER”].
Regarding Claim 11, LÖSER teaches
A method of developing drugs, the method comprising:
- performing the method according to claim 1, wherein the set V is a set of pathogens, and wherein the potential qualities contained in the list S each relate to a respective pathogen feature; and
“The steps are: (a) the specification of a first group of physiological and / or pathological parameters of the patient, which are characteristic of the existence of a health disorder, wherein the parameters of the first group are to be determined continuously, …” (Abstract)
- determining, for at least one of the identified CloQs or CloSs, a drug targeting the qualities included in the identified CloQ or CboS, respectively.
“Once this is known, the medical treatment will be adjusted to the actual condition of the patient.”. (Description).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of LÖSER that teaches grouping pathogens by pathological characteristics with Diestels tangles in order to better identify pathogens for patient care. The motivation for doing so would have been to help the “patient by means of a patient data management and / or decision support system.”. (Abstract).
Claim(s) 8, 12, 18, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al. “Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and Liddy et al. US 6026388 A (2000) [herein “Liddy”].
Regarding Claim 12, Liddy teaches
A method of automatically providing a class of a queried text, the method comprising:
- performing the method according to claim 1, wherein the set V is a set of sample texts, and the potential qualities contained in the list S each relate to a respective text characteristic;
“Techniques for generating sophisticated representations of the contents of both queries and documents in a retrieval system by using natural language processing (NLP) techniques to represent, index, and retrieve texts at the multiple levels (e.g., the morphological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, discourse, and pragmatic levels) at which humans construe meaning in writing.”. (Abstract).
- assigning the identified CloQs or CloSs to respective classes;
“Using the text output from the POS tagger, the SFC 100 tags content-bearing words in a text with a disambiguated subject code using an online lexical resource of words whose senses are grouped in subject categories”. (Para. 48).
- determining at least one of the identified CloQs or CloSs which the respectively queried text matches best; and
“Once each content-bearing word in a text has been assigned a single SFC…”. (Para. 50).
- providing the class assigned to the best-matching CloQ or CboS of the queried text.
“Once each content-bearing word in a text has been assigned a single SFC…”. (Para. 50).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Liddy that teaches matching text by its characteristic with Diestels tangles in order to identify text classes better. The motivation for doing so would have been to “represent, index, and retrieve texts at the multiple levels (e.g., the morphological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, discourse, and pragmatic levels) at which humans construe meaning in writing.”. (Abstract).
Regarding Claim 18, Liddy teaches
The method of claim 12, wherein the respective text characteristic comprises syntax and/or a number of appearances of a predetermined word in a respective text.
“Techniques for generating sophisticated representations of the contents of both queries and documents in a retrieval system by using natural language processing (NLP) techniques to represent, index, and retrieve texts at the multiple levels (e.g., the morphological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, discourse, and pragmatic levels) at which humans construe meaning in writing.”. (Abstract).
Claim 18 is rejected for the same rationale as expressed in the above claim 12.
Regarding Claim 19, Liddy teaches
The method of claim 12, wherein the respective classes comprise a topic, a genre, and/or an author.
“Text structurer 140 provides valuable information about the sense and meaning of a text [Liddy94c]. The text structurer is based on discourse theory [VanDijk88] which suggests that textual communication within a given community (journalism, law, medicine), or text of a certain genre (recipe, obituary, folk-tale) has a predictable schema.”. (Para. 75).
“Different text processing can be applied to each. A discourse type or genre can be detected according to source information, author information, or other evidence.”. (Para. 78).
Claim 19 is rejected for the same rationale as expressed in the above claim 12.
Regarding Claim 8, Liddy teaches
A method for providing, responsive to a query of a respective word, a meaning thereof in terms of a set of properties, the method comprising:
- performing the method according to claim 1, wherein the set V is a collection of words, and wherein the potential qualities contained in the list S each relate to a respective property, a word in V being considered to have such property if at least one item represented by the word has the property,
“FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the document processing modules within document processor 50D, and some associated resources. The set of modules that perform the processing to generate the conceptual representation and the term-based representation of each document”. (Para. 33).
- determining at least one of the identified CloQs or CloSs which the respectively queried word matches best, and
“If a word in a sentence has a single subject code tag, it is Unique. If there are any subject codes that have been assigned to more than a pre-determined number of words in a sentence, then the codes are Frequent Codes. These two types of codes are used as anchors to disambiguate the remaining words in a sentence that share the same codes.”. (Para. 53).
- providing the determined at least one CloQ or CboS as the meaning of the queried word.
“…providing a set of documents that satisfy a retrieval criterion; and
within the set of documents, so provided, segregating those documents that satisfy only the positive portion of the query from those documents that satisfy both the positive and negative portions of the query.” (Claim 24).
Claim 8 is rejected for the same rationale as expressed in the above claim 12.
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and HORN et al. WO 2007132461 A2 (2007) [herein “HORN”].
Regarding Claim 13, Horn teaches
A method of sequencing DNA and/or proteins, the method comprising:
- performing the method according to claim 1, wherein the set V is a set of DNA or protein molecules, and wherein the potential qualities contained in the list S each refer to an occurrence of specified nucleotides or amino acids, or combinations thereof, at given positions in the DNA or protein molecules, and
“The protein database comprises a plurality of entries, each entry having a sufficiently short predicting sequence and a protein classifier corresponding to the predicting sequence. An unclassified protein sequence can be classifiable by the database via searching therein for a motif of amino acids matching a predicting sequence of the database, thereby attributing to the unclassified protein a protein classifier.” (Abstract).
- classifying the DNA or protein molecules corresponding to these nucleotides or amino acid sequences by the CloQs or CloSs identified.’
“The protein database comprises a plurality of entries, each entry having a sufficiently short predicting sequence and a protein classifier corresponding to the predicting sequence. An unclassified protein sequence can be classifiable by the database via searching therein for a motif of amino acids matching a predicting sequence of the database, thereby attributing to the unclassified protein a protein classifier.” (Abstract).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Horn that teaches classifying proteins by characteristics with Diestels tangles in order to find relations between characteristic in proteins/DNA. The motivation for doing so would have been to help effectuate “a protein classifier corresponding to the predicting sequence, wherein an unclassified protein sequence is classifiable by the database via searching therein for a motif of amino acids matching a predicting sequence of the database, thereby attributing to the unclassified protein a protein classifier.”. (SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION).
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Diestel et al.
“Tangles and the Mona Lisa” (2017) [herein “Diestel”], and Clark et al. GB 2562218 A (2018) [herein “Clark”].
Regarding Claim 16, Diestel teaches
The system according to claim 14, wherein the system further comprises at least one measuring device configured to measure a physical and/or medical parameter and to transmit the measured parameter to the at least one computer.
“This invention aims to create a therapeutic movement monitoring and improvement system. Software, embedded within the device, enables monitoring of the user’s general movement, and provides feedback to improve the slow, smooth and steady nature of the movement.”. (Summary).
“Most preferably, the user operates the movement monitoring and improvement system by holding I affixing the aforementioned system component and doing any low-impact, slow-motion exercise (6), where the person goes without pausing through a series of motions. A preferable combination of the aforementioned portable or wearable devices (2, 3, 4, 5) is used. In case one of these devices lack sufficient data processing hardware or other necessary power, all the raw data is transmitted from wearable devices (3, 4, 5) to another device having more computing power, such as a smartphone (2) or smartwatch (5).”. (Summary).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Clark that uses measured physical/medical parameters in a determined range of data that can be transmitted to other devices with the teachings of Diestels tangles to enable finding groupings and trends in the measured parameters. The motivation for doing so would have been to develop “… a monitoring device for a slow, smooth, and steady type of movement, measuring and improving the physiological quality of a user’s movement, preferably integrated into a mobile device.”. (Field Of Invention).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. “Computing With Tangles” by Grohe et al, “Different clustering algorithms for Big Data analytics: A review” by Dave et al, “Data Clustering: Algorithms and Its Applications” by OYELADE et al, and “Structural submodularity and tangles in abstract separation systems” by Diestel et al.
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/N.E.M./Examiner, Art Unit 2189
/REHANA PERVEEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2189