DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
2. A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on January 20, 2026. has been entered.
Response to Amendment
3. This Office Action is responsive to the Applicant’s request for continued examination (RCE) filed on January 20, 2026. 4. Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1, 10, and 19 are in independent form.
5. Claims 1, 10, and 19 are amended.
Response to Arguments
6. Applicant’s arguments, see “Rejections of claims 1-7, 9-16, and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103”, filed December 12, 2025, have been carefully considered. The arguments are related to newly added limitations. Based on the claim amendments, new reference have been incorporated.
Information Disclosure Statement
7. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submission on January, 10, 2026 have been reviewed and the references are considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
8. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rogynskyy et al. US20190361934A1 (hereinafter Rogynskyy) in view of Butin et al. US20100205529A1 (hereinafter Butin), further in view of Faulkner et al. U.S. Patent 10,762,060 B1 (hereinafter Faulkner) and further in view of Gupta et al. US 2018/0196812A1 (hereinafter Gupta).
Regarding claim 1, Rogynskyy discloses a method comprising: linking, by a processor, a pair of nodes within a set of nodes of a nodal data structure based on a first node within the pair of nodes having an identifier (Rogynskyy [0187] e.g., “…the node pairing engine 240 can determine how many interactions recently between the two nodes. The node pairing engine 240 can determine whether the connection between the two nodes is cold or warm based on a length of time since the two nodes were involved in an electronic activity or an amount of electronic activity between the two nodes. For instance, the node pairing engine 240 can determine that the connection strength between two nodes is cold if the two nodes have not interacted for a predetermined amount of time, for instance a year. In some embodiments, the predetermined amount of time can vary based on previous electronic activity or past relationships by determining additional information from their respective node profiles”), that satisfies a relevance threshold with respect to a second node within the pair of nodes (Rogynskyy [0628] e.g., “Responsive to the match score satisfying the match score threshold, the node graph generation system 200 can link the electronic activity to the node profile”), wherein each node within the set of nodes represents an action performed on at least one computing device of a plurality of computing devices (Rogynskyy [0085] e.g., “The electronic activity parser 210 can be configured to parse the electronic activity to identify one or more values of fields to be used in generating node profiles of one or more nodes and associate the electronic activities between nodes for use in determining the connection and connection strength between nodes”, see also [0110] e.g., “the node profile manager 220 can compute a match score between the electronic activity and a candidate node profile by comparing the strings or values of the electronic activity match corresponding values of the candidate node profile. The match score can be based on a number of fields of the node profile including a value that matches a value or string in the electronic activity”, see also [0705]), wherein the action includes at least one of creating a task, transmitting a message, or interacting with data corresponding to a node within the set of nodes (Rogynskyy [0093] e.g., “Examples of some fields of group nodes can include i) Company or Organization name; ii) Address of Company; iii) Phone; iv) Website; v) Social media handle; vi) LinkedIn handle; among others. Each of the fields can be a multidimensional array”, see also [0704] e.g., “In some embodiments, non-email electronic activity can include meetings or phone calls. The metadata of such non-email electronic activity can include a duration of the meeting or call, one or more participants of the meeting or call, a location of the meeting, locations associated with the initiator and recipient of the phone call, in addition to other information that may be extracted from the metadata of such electronic activity, see also [0063] e.g., “electronic activity can include any type of electronic communication that can be stored or logged. Examples of electronic activity can include electronic mail messages, telephone calls, calendar invitations, social media messages, mobile application messages, instant messages, cellular messages such as SMS, MMS, among others…”, see also [0718] e.g., “The node pairing engine 240 can identify response emails from the first node as responses based on the RE: string being in the subject line of the email. For example, the node pairing engine may determine that emails having the same or similar RE: string belong to a common email thread, in which some emails may be responses to others in the thread”); determining, by the processor, the at least one node within the set of nodes of the nodal data structure associated with the electronic content accessed by the at least one computing device (Rogynskyy [0085] e.g., “…the electronic activity parser 210 … parse the electronic activity to identify one or more values of fields to be used in generating node profiles … and associate the electronic activities between nodes for use in determining the connection and connection strength between nodes.”, see also [0366] e.g., “In some embodiments, the system 200 can authorize or approve the electronic activity if electronic activities have occurred between a node in close proximity in the node graph to the sender node or recipient node”). Rogynskyy does not explicitly disclose: receiving, by the processor from the at least one computing device, a user query entered while the at least one computing device is presenting the electronic content in an active application window, the user query being automatically associated with the electronic content by identifying at least one node corresponding to the electronic content; in response to determining the electronic content accessed by the at least one computing device is associated with the at least one node within the set of nodes of the nodal data structure : limiting, by the processor, a search associated with the user query to one or more nodes within the nodal data structure that are linked to the at least one node; and presenting, by the processor within a unified window presented on the at least one computing device, context data associated with the electronic content and at least one of the identified node and any other node satisfying the user query and linked to the identified node, the context data identifying at least one of a file, a user, or a message associated with the identified node or any other node satisfying the user query and linked to the identified node; and in response to receiving, by the at least one computing device, an interaction with the context data, dynamically updating, by the processor, the window presenting the context data.
Butin discloses receiving, by the processor from the at least one computing device, a user query entered while the at least one computing device is presenting the electronic content in an active application window (Butin [0008] e.g., “… receiving the user action includes at least one of: receiving a mouse movement; receiving a mouse click; and receiving a press of one or more keyboard keys“, see also [0091] e.g., “… automatically determines what is the last application that the user was working on (e.g., according to the last active window), and automatically selects that application as the default guided application … for the next user query”, as the system determines the last active application window and processes the user query in that context), the user query being automatically associated with the electronic content by identifying at least one node corresponding to the electronic content (Butin [0083] e.g., “… “…relevancy to the application's active window; relevancy to a selected object in the application; or the like”, see also [0100] e.g., “…information about an action that the user is currently performing or attempting to perform; for example, selection by the user of multiple cells in a table…”. Butin further evaluates the query based on contextual factors including the active application, active form, selected object, and current user activity). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the device, system, and method for creating interactive guidance with execution of operations taught by Butin into the system and method for identifying node hierarchies and connections using electronic activities taught by Rogynskyy. Such a modification would have allowed the system to structure contextual application elements as nodes, thereby enabling standardized graph-based association and improving retrieval and ranking of query results based on node relationships. The combination of Rogynskyy and Butin does not explicitly disclose: limiting, by the processor, a search associated with the user query to one or more nodes within the nodal data structure that are linked to the at least one node; and presenting, by the processor within a unified window presented on the at least one computing device, context data associated with the electronic content and at least one of the identified node and any other node satisfying the user query and linked to the identified node, the context data identifying at least one of a file, a user, or a message associated with the identified node or any other node satisfying the user query and linked to the identified node; and in response to receiving, by the at least one computing device, an interaction with the context data, dynamically updating, by the processor, the window presenting the context data. However, Faulkner disclose in response to determining the electronic content accessed by the at least one computing device is associated with at least one node within the set of nodes of the nodal data structure (Faulkner [col. 15, lines 51-52[ e.g., “In response to determining that the user has requested to access a file , the analytics server may identify a node within the nodal data structure that represents the requested file”. This shows accessed file (i.e., electronic content), and node representing file (i.e., node associated with content)); presenting, by the processor within a window presented on the at least one computing device, context data associated with the electronic content and at least one of the identified node and [any other node satisfying the user query] and linked to the identified node (Faulkner [col. 16, lines 61-64] e.g., “when a user interacts with a file ( e.g. , clicks on a file and request the file to be opened ) , the analytics server may display the GUI 500 on the user's computer”, see also [col. 18, lines 31-37] e.g., “The GUI 500 may also comprise a graphical component 540, which displays context information associated with File XYZ. Data displayed in the graphical component 540 may be retrieved from metadata stored within the nodal data structure…”. This show GUI, unified window and metadata/context information (i.e., context data)), the context data identifying at least one of a file, a user, or a message associated with the identified node or [any other node satisfying the user query] and linked to the identified node (Faulkner [col. 5, lines 40-51] e.g., “…the analytics server 110 may also execute various predetermined protocols to generate unique identifiers for the above-described files/data, identify related files, create a nodal data structure, periodically scan the electronic data repositories, update the nodal data structure, and display related files and context information on the above-described GUI…”. Faulkner linked nodes); and in response to receiving, by the at least one computing device, an interaction with the context data, dynamically updating, by the processor the window presenting the context data (Faulkner [col. 17, 3-15] e.g., “When the user interacts with the interactive graphical component 520 (e.g., by clicking), the analytics server may display content of File XYZ”, see also [col. 16, line 65] – [col. 17, line 2] e.g., “…analytics server displays the GUI …. in response to the user interacting with the indicator”. Faulkner discloses a graphical user interface that presents context information associated with a file and includes interactive graphical components. Faulkner teaches that “when a file interacts with the interactive graphical component … the analytics server may display content of [the file]” and may present additional information or perform actions in response to the interaction. Faulkner further teaches that GUI is displayed and updated in response to user interactions with files and associated interface elements).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the electronic file management taught by Faulkner into the combined teachings of Rogynskyy and Butin as it yields the predictable results of allowing a data processing system to utilize values of a subset of node profiles to update a record object responsive to matching the record object to the subset of node profiles to increase accuracy of the record object to enable features such as more accurate determination of stages associated with the record object.
The combined teachings of Rogynskyy, Butin and Faulkner does not explicitly disclose limiting, by the processor, a search associated with the user query to one or more nodes within the nodal data structure that are linked to the at least one node. Gupta discloses: limiting, by the processor, a search associated with the user query to one or more nodes within the nodal data structure that are linked to the at least one node (Gupta [0004] e.g., “Based on the identified query elements, the event graph is spanned to identify the matching results”, See also [0032] e.g., “The elements of the query, and their relationships according to the user input, are transmitted to the framework manager 240 to traverse the event graph to identify a content item 150 based on the context by which the content item 150 was interacted with”. This shows “nodes within the nodal data structure” and “linked to the at least one node”. Gupta explicitly ties traversal to “query elements” and “context by which the content item was interacted with”. see also [0027] e.g., “…the ranking engine 280 is operable to rank and sort the results based on a predetermined threshold score associated with each search result, based on the relevancy of the search result to the query elements provided by the query processor 250 to perform the search“. Gupta rank and sort based on a predetermined threshold score. , see also [0033] e.g., “The search manager 270 receives the results of the graph query… which may include identifiers for individual content items 150 that satisfy the graph query or a subgraph of the event graph (representing a view responsive to the graph query)”. This shows that executing the query by “spanning”/”traversing” the event graph implements a graph-scoped evaluation constrained to contextually linked nodes; returning a “subgraph” reflects results limited to the linked neighborhood responsive to the query elements).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the contextual document recall taught by Gupta into the combined teachings of Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner in order to limit query processing to nodes that contextually related within the graph structure, thereby improving efficiency and relevance of search result.
Claims 10 and 19 incorporate substantively all the limitations of claim 1 in a method, comprising: a server (Rogynskyy [Figure 31, element 3100] e.g., “SERVER SYSTEM”), a processor (Rogynskyy [Figure 31, element 3104] e.g., “PRECESSING UNIT”), and a non-transitory computer- readable medium containing instructions that when executed by the processor causes the processor (Rogynskyy [0017] e.g., “the one or more hardware processors are further configured by machine-readable instructions”), and a computer system comprising: a data repository storing data associated with a set of nodes within a nodal data structure (Rogynskyy [0484] e.g., “The source of the electronic activity can be a mail server, a system of record, or any other repository of electronic activities”), a plurality of computing devices having access to the set of data (Rogynskyy [0757] e.g., “Server system 3100 can interact with various user-owned or user-operated devices via a wide-area network such as the Internet”), and a processor in communication with each computing device and the data repository (Rogynskyy [0016] e.g., “The system may include one or more hardware processors configured by machine-readable instructions”) and are rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a method, wherein the context data comprises identification data associated with at least one of a file or a message associated with the at least one node or the at least one other node linked to the at least one node (Faulkner [col. 5, lines 45-51] e.g., “…display related files and context information … [and] metadata … include email/chat communication that are related to each file.").
Regarding claim 3, the rejection of claim 1 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a method, wherein the context data comprises identification data associated with at least one of a uniform resource locator, a note, a task, an event, an email address, or a physical address associated with the at least one node or the at least one other node linked to the at least one node (Faulkner [col. 4, lines 57-60] e.g., “…a file may include a reference to the location of a file/folder by website URL or file/folder path, a file/folder…”, see also [Figure 6A – 6C] described), see also (Rogynskyy [0132] e.g., “For instance, electronic activities include email addresses having domain names us.example.com and uk.example.com may increase a likelihood that both us.example.com and uk.example.com appear to belong to the same company”). The motivation for the proposed combination is maintained..
Regarding claim 4, the rejection of claim 1 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a method, wherein the context data comprises identification data associated with a person, a team, or an organization associated with the at least one node or the at least one other node linked to the at least one node (Faulkner [col. 13, lines 19-33] e.g., "The analytics server may identify all related users and content… connecting nodes representing files and users").
Regarding claim 5, the rejection of claim 1 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a method, wherein the context data is organized based on a category associated with the context data (Faulkner [col. 17, lines 31-39] e.g., "Graphical component 540 displays context information… organized based on file type, owner, tags, and other metadata").
Regarding claim 6, the rejection of claim 1 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a method, wherein at least a first part of the context data is stored in a first data repository and a second part of the context data is stored within a second data repository (Rogynskyy [0373] e.g., " the node graph generation system 200 can further establish links, connections or relationships between member node profiles based on electronic activities exchanged between them or other electronic activities processed by the node graph generation system 200. These established links, connections or relationships and the corresponding node").
Regarding claim 7, the rejection of claim 1 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a method, wherein a first node from the nodal data structure is stored in a first data repository and a second node from the nodal data structure is stored in a second data repository (Faulkner [col. 19, lines 39-43] e.g., " Additionally or alternatively, the analytics server may generate a web-based application (e.g., a website) and/or native desktop and mobile application where registered users can login to access and/or manage different files").
Regarding claim 8, the rejection of claim 1 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a method, wherein the processor executes an artificial intelligence model (Rogynskyy [0163] e.g., “ The tagging engine can deploy artificial intelligence …” Rogynskyy teaches applying artificial intelligence technique, including NLP to analyze electronic activities and generated node profiles) to identify a likelihood of relevance value for each pair of nodes (Gupta [0027] e.g., “… the ranking engine 280 is operable to rank and sort the results based on a predetermined threshold score associated”. Gupta teaches assigning a relevance sore to each search result based on its relevance to a query, and would have been obvious to utilize Rogynskyy’s artificial intelligence analysis to inform the relevance scoring of Gupta in order to determine a likelihood of relevance score for nodes in the graph).
Regarding claim 9, the rejection of claim 1 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a method, further comprising: displaying, by the processor, an input element configured to receive a query term; and displaying, by the processor, data associated with the query term (Rogynskyy [0642] e.g., " the system is able to dynamically update the node profile without any user intervention, while at the same time, compute a confidence score of one or more values of the node profile. This allows a user querying the system to determine ").
Regarding claim 11, the rejection of claim 10 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a system, wherein the context data comprises identification data associated with at least one of a file or a message associated with the at least one node or the at least one other node linked to the at least one node (Faulkner [col. 5, lines 45-51] e.g., “…display related files and context information … [and] metadata … include email/chat communication that are related to each file.").
Regarding claim 12, the rejection of claim 10 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a system, wherein the context data comprises identification data associated with at least one of a uniform resource locator, a note, a task, an event, an email address, or a physical address associated with the at least one node or the at least one other node linked to the at least one node (Faulkner [col. 4, lines 57-60] e.g., “…a file may include a reference to the location of a file/folder by website URL or file/folder path, a file/folder…”, see also [Figure 6A – 6C] described), see also (Rogynskyy [0132] e.g., “For instance, electronic activities include email addresses having domain names us.example.com and uk.example.com may increase a likelihood that both us.example.com and uk.example.com appear to belong to the same company”). The motivation for the proposed combination is maintained.
Regarding claim 13, the rejection of claim 10 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a system, wherein the context data comprises identification data associated with a person, a team, or an organization associated with the at least one node or the at least one other node linked to the at least one node (Faulkner [col. 13, lines 19-33] e.g., "The analytics server may identify all related users and content… connecting nodes representing files and users").
Regarding claim 14, the rejection of claim 10 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a system, wherein the context data is organized based on a category associated with the context data (Faulkner [col. 17, lines 31-39] e.g., "Graphical component 540 displays context information… organized based on file type, owner, tags, and other metadata").
Regarding claim 15, the rejection of claim 10 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a system, wherein at least a first part of the context data is stored in a first data repository and a second part of the context data is stored within a second data repository (Rogynskyy [0373] e.g., " the node graph generation system 200 can further establish links, connections or relationships between member node profiles based on electronic activities exchanged between them or other electronic activities processed by the node graph generation system 200. These established links, connections or relationships and the corresponding node").
Regarding claim 16, the rejection of claim 10 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a system, wherein a first node from the nodal data structure is stored in a first data repository and a second node from the nodal data structure is stored in a second data repository (Faulkner [col. 19, lines 39-43] e.g., "Additionally or alternatively, the analytics server may generate a web-based application (e.g., a website) and/or native desktop and mobile application where registered users can login to access and/or manage different files").
Regarding claim 17, the rejection of claim 10 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a system, wherein the processor executes an artificial intelligence model (Rogynskyy [0163] e.g., “ The tagging engine can deploy artificial intelligence …” Rogynskyy teaches applying artificial intelligence technique, including NLP to analyze electronic activities and generated node profiles) to identify a likelihood of relevance value for each pair of nodes (Gupta [0027] e.g., “… the ranking engine 280 is operable to rank and sort the results based on a predetermined threshold score associated”. Gupta teaches assigning a relevance sore to each search result based on its relevance to a query, and would have been obvious to utilize Rogynskyy’s artificial intelligence analysis to inform the relevance scoring of Gupta in order to determine a likelihood of relevance score for nodes in the graph).
Regarding claim 18, the rejection of claim 10 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a system, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to: display an input element configured to receive a query term; and display data associated with the query term (Rogynskyy [0642] e.g., " the system is able to dynamically update the node profile without any user intervention, while at the same time, compute a confidence score of one or more values of the node profile. This allows a user querying the system to determine ").
Regarding claim 20, the rejection of claim 19 is hereby incorporated by reference, Rogynskyy, Butin, Faulkner, and Gupta discloses a computer system., wherein the context data comprises identification data associated with at least one of a file or a message associated with the at least one node or the at least one other node linked to the at least one node (Faulkner [col. 5, lines 45-51] e.g., “…display related files and context information … [and] metadata … include email/chat communication that are related to each file.").
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Conclusion
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/BERHANU MITIKU/Examiner, Art Unit 2156
/AJAY M BHATIA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2156