DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 February 18, 2026 has been entered.
Claims 1, 13, and 20 has been amended. Claims 1-20 remain pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DeVries (US Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0341630) in view of Tran (US Patent No. 11,468,527) and further in view of Blaya et al (US Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0117617), hereinafter Blaya.
DeVries teaches a document generation system to generate a document that forms the basis for a patent application. Regarding claim 1, DeVries teaches a method for preparing a patent application based on claims [abstract; Fig 2-13; Fig21; para 0005-0006], comprising: a user interface for writing a patent application [para 0030 – I/O], providing a claim based on phrases that are separated based on a phrase variant, the phrase variant including at least one of an adjective phrase and a verb phrase [Fig 2-13; Fig 21; claim text…tree structure…parsing….phrases/objects…noun phrases/verb phrases…fragment processing…para 0005-0006; 0009; 0034-0036; 0038-0041; 0044; 0045-0048; 0050-0068; 0069-0082; 0105-0130]; determining that a first phrase of the claim is included in an object of the plurality of objects [Fig 2-13; Fig 21; para 0005-0006; 0009; 0034-0036; 0038-0041; 0044; 0045-0048; 0050-0068; 0069-0082; 0105-0130]; creating and displaying a first object within the user interface based on the first phrase [Fig 2-13; fragment processing…para 0005-0006; 0009; 0034-0036; 0038-0041; 0044; 0045-0048; 0050-0068; 0069-0082; 0105-0130]; and converting the plurality of objects in the user interface into the patent application including content based on the plurality of objects within the user interface [(210)/(2118); Fig 2-13; Fig 21; para 0005-0006; 0009; 0034-0036; 0038-0041; 0044; 0045-0048; 0050-0068; 0069-0082; 0105-0130]. DeVries fails to teach all the details of the user interface to include displaying a user interface for writing a patent application, the user interface including a plurality of objects that can be converted into content/sentences for the patent application or object drag/drop functionality, where a phrase is draggable within the interface. In a similar field of endeavor, Tran teaches a patent drafting system that provides displaying a user interface with displayed objects [Figure 3B] for drafting the application, providing objects used for generating the application (including sentences based on objects col. 14, lines 10-41), claim tree/structures, and drag/drop features for moving claims [Fig 2A, 3B, 3C, col. 11, lines 33-34], allows a user to select claim elements [col. 11, lines 57-58] and add new claims [col. 11, lines 35-36], (where dragging phrases or elements of a claim to place the element within the new claim allows for dragging phrases, a feature that is routine functionality in a GUI) and teaches the system provides visually based tools to create an intuitive environment in which a patent application may be developed, with tools are that are simple to use yet sophisticated in their functionality [col. 3, lines 40-52]. One having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention would have recognized the advantages of implementing the user interface featuring and functionality suggested by Tran, in the system of DeVries, and the results would be predictable in in providing visually based tools to create an intuitive environment in which a patent application may be developed, with tools are that are simple to use yet sophisticated in their functionality, as suggested by Tran.
DeVries fails to specifically teach, but Blaya teaches generating sentences wherein the sentences are organized based on a hierarchical relationship [Abstract, para 0011; 0017-0018] and teaches the invention provides for generating concise documents. One having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention would have recognized the advantages of implementing the ranking sentence processing suggested by Blaya in the system of DeVries/Tran and the results would have been predictable in providing concise documents, as suggested by Blaya, and thereby provide an improved system.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of DeVries, Blaya and Tran teaches the plurality of objects are nodes within a tree view component [DeVries --( 2104-2116); Fig 2-13; Fig 21; para 0005-0006; 0009; 0034-0036; 0038-0041; 0044; 0045-0048; 0050-0068; 0069-0082; 0105-0130].
Regarding claim 3, the combination of DeVries, Blaya and Tran teaches constructing a sentence based on the first phrase, a subject of the first phrase, and a context associated with the first phrase [DeVries fragment processing--( 2104-2116); Fig 2-13; Fig 21; para 0005-0006; 0009; 0034-0036; 0038-0041; 0044; 0045-0048; 0050-0068; 0069-0082; 0105-0130; Blaya’s and Tran’s sentence generation].
Regarding claims 4-6, the combination of DeVries, Blaya and Tran teaches identifying a description in a different document or document section that corresponds to a claim term in the first phrase; and injecting the description into the sentence based on the description [DeVries --document references -- Fig 2-13; Fig 21; para 0005-0006; 0009; 0034-0036; 0038-0041; 0044; 0045-0048; 0050-0068; 0069-0082; 0105-0130; Tran’s user interface and detailed description].
Regarding claims 7-8, the combination of DeVries, Blaya and Tran teaches displaying a user interface to edit the sentence [Tran’s user interface Fig 2A, 3B, 3C].
Regarding claim 9, the combination of DeVries, Blaya and Tran teaches constructing a graph including a plurality of nodes associated with at least a portion of phrases from a set of claims based on a context and a subject for each phrase of the portion of phrases, wherein the set of claims that includes the claim, and wherein each phrase correspond to a node in the graph [DeVries --(tree structure) Fig 2-13; Fig 21; para 0005-0006; 0009; 0034-0036; 0038-0041; 0044; 0045-0048; 0050-0068; 0069-0082; 0105-0130].
Regarding claim 10, the combination of DeVries, Blaya and Tran teaches inserting at least one metadata node into the graph based on a context of child content, wherein the at least one metadata node defines a collapsible parent node that provides a context associated with child nodes [DeVries --(tree structure; child/parent statements) Fig 2-13; Fig 21; para 0005-0006; 0009; 0034-0036; 0038-0041; 0044; 0045-0048; 0050-0068; 0069-0082; 0105-0130].
Regarding claim 11, the combination of DeVries, Blaya and Tran teaches inserting metadata into a document of the patent application that identifies at least one object of the plurality of objects in the user interface [Tran’s application sections – col. 8, line 58 to col. 9, line 40].
Regarding claim 12, the combination of DeVries, Blaya and Tran teaches reading the document of the patent application and embedded into content associated with the document; and restoring a state of the plurality of objects based on the metadata [Tran’s application sections/verifications – col. 8, line 58 to col. 9, line 40; col.10, line 15 to col. 13, line 38].
,The system claims of 13-19 and the non-transitory computer readable medium claim of 20 are rejected under similar rationale as claims 1-12.
Conclusion
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ANGELA A. ARMSTRONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2659
/ANGELA A ARMSTRONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2659