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 .
This office action is in response to the amendment filed on 07/31/2026.
Status of claims:
Claims 35-39 are newly added.
Claims 2-5, 7, 10-13, 15, 18-20, 23, 25-29 are canceled.
Claims 1, 6, 8-9, 14, 16-17, 21-22, 24 and 30-39 are amended and pending for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) filed on 9/10/2025 and 07/31/2026 comply with the provisions of M.P.E.P 609. It has been placed in the application file. The information referred to therein has been considered as to the merits.
Remarks
This office action is in response to the amendment filed on 07/31/2026. Applicant Applicants' arguments with respect to the amended claims have been considered in view of the new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by amendment.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 6, 8-9, 14, 16-17, 21-22, 24 and 30-39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
- Claims 1, 9 and 17 recite the amended limitations “rewriting..…, wherein rewriting the listing request query into multiple rewritten queries further comprises converting the listing request query into an embeddings space of an embedding neural network trained on listing request query embeddings and wherein the multiple rewritten queries are identified as nearest embeddings in the embeddings space; generating approximate search results…; ranking listings of the approximate search results…”. which render the claims indefinite because the claims provide no guidance to how the steps of converting the listing request query into an embeddings space and the multiple rewritten queries are identified as nearest embeddings in the embeddings space are identified and processed. The applicant is required for clarification/correction.
“generating approximate search results…”. which renders the claim indefinite because the claims provide no guidance as to how the steps of generating approximate search results are determined and performed/processed. The applicant is required for clarification/correction.
“ranking listings of the approximate search results…”. which renders the claim indefinite because the claims provide no guidance as to how the step of ranking listings are identified and performed/processed.
- All dependent claims are rejected for incorporating the deficiency of their respective based claims.
Applicant is reminded that although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims (See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 6, 8-9, 14, 16-17, 21-22, 24 and 30-39 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph rejections set forth in this office action.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Loan T. Nguyen whose telephone number is (571) 270-3103. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm, Thursday-Friday from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aleksandr Kerzhner can be reached on (571) 270-1760. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-270-4103. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
09/18/2026
/LOAN T NGUYEN/Examiner, Art Unit 2165
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