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 .
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 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.
Examiner Notes
(1) In the case of amending the Claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention. This will assist in expediting compact prosecution. MPEP 714.02 recites: “Applicant should also specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure. See MPEP § 2163.06. An amendment which does not comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.121 (b), (c), (d), and (h) may be held not fully responsive. See MPEP § 714.” Amendments not pointing to specific support in the disclosure may be deemed as not complying with provisions of 37 C.F.R. 1.131 (b), (c), (d), and (h) and therefore held not fully responsive. Generic statements such as "Applicants believe no new matter has been introduced" may be deemed insufficient.
(2) 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.
Remarks
Receipt of Applicant’s Amendment file on 11/25/2025 is acknowledged.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 21 and 31 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection (See new reference of Massari).
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 of this title, 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 21-22, 28, 31-32 and 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilbanks et al. (U.S. 2002/0194201 A1) in view of Massari et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2016/0371355 A1), further in view of Mittal et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0163818 A1).
Regarding claim 21, Wilbanks teaches a computer-implemented method for applying an analysis to a data model ((‘for’ indicates intended use; Minton v. Nat ’l Ass ’n of Securities Dealers, Inc., 336 F.3d 1373, 1381, 67 USPQ2d 1614, 1620 (Fed. Cir. 2003) “whereby clause in a method claim is not given weight when it simply expresses the intended result of a process step positively recited.” Examples of claim language, although not exhaustive, that may raise a question as to the limiting effect of the language in a claim are: (A) “adapted to” or “adapted for” clauses; (B) “wherein” clauses; and (C) “whereby” clauses. Therefore intended use limitations are not required to be taught, see MPEP 2111.04 [R-3])), comprising:
(a) receiving a request to perform an analysis on one or more data objects of a current data model (Fig. 2, paragraph [0069], a data processing engine, can be used to integrate, update and/or query a plurality of databases; also see paragraph [0075], a query may be received; the query may be received from an application or other program with or without direct user intervention; also see paragraph [0061], each of these databases includes records for a plurality of biological/chemical objects, also referred to herein as entities; these databases 202a-202n also generally include an indication of one or more relationship among the various, to thereby define an entity-relationship data structure or model for each of the independent databases; noted, “integrate, update and/or query a plurality of databases” is interpreted as request to perform on data [data objects] of data sources [data model]).
Wilbanks does not explicitly disclose:
(b) accessing a repository that is configured to store a semantic format of the analysis, wherein the semantic format of the analysis is generated by translating a previously built search path into the semantic format defining one or more elements.
Massari teaches: accessing a repository that is configured to store a semantic format of the analysis, wherein the semantic format of the analysis is generated by translating a previously built search path into the semantic format defining one or more elements (paragraph [0038], the RDFE can perform the identification based on a mapping that associates a uniform resource identifier for a resource referenced within the RDF query to a particular table within the database that persist triples for that resource; this mapping further include semantic information for each resource referenced by a triple within triple store table; also see paragraph [0040], in any event, the RDFE can satisfy a search pattern within an RDF query; during the performance of a query, the RDF can retrieve root node; the RDFE continues traversing nodes along the search path until encountering the leaf node with ID=3; the leaf node ID=3 includes a key-value pair, with the “value” representing the identifier of a corresponding source; the RDFE may then translate the value into an RDF object; also see paragraph [0083], the RDF client processes the RDF query and constructs a representation of that query for processing by the RDF parser; also see paragraph [0086], triples can be stored in relational tables and the modules of the personality layer can access those tables and associated indexes using query processing; noted, the stored ‘RDF’ triple is interpreted as “semantic format defining one or more elements”; also see paragraph [0042], subsequent queries can use new triple, when, for example, another RDFE performs an RDF transaction, or when a database client request a SQL query against the same table; also see paragraph [0097]; also see, paragraph [0101], a subsequent query could be for example, a request for the name of the resource identified in the result set of the previous request; in this instance, the RDFE query can search the predicate table “is named” to locate an object with an identifier of 1, and can return the result set with the corresponding literal value).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include accessing a repository that is configured to store a semantic format of the analysis, wherein the semantic format of the analysis is generated by translating a previously built search path into the semantic format defining one or more elements into data analysis of Saeed.
Motivation to do so would be to include accessing a repository that is configured to store a semantic format of the analysis, wherein the semantic format of the analysis is generated by translating a previously built search path into the semantic format defining one or more elements that can minimize the execution of complex structure query language queries (Massari, paragraph [0029], line 10-11).
Wilbanks as modified by Maasari further teach:
wherein the previously built search path is executed over a data model that is different from the current data model (Wilbanks, paragraph [0061], the entity-relationship data structure for each database may be thought as defining an ontology, which provides a vocabularies of terms and some specification of their meaning and/or relationship among one another; some of the databases may constitute a relational database model that does not explicitly contain entity relationship data structure…; data models can be integrated with other databases that include an ontology, to provide an ontology context for data model as well; a priori knowledge of the semantics of the ontology that is represented by the associated biological/chemical databases is built into loader of that ontology’s external data files; also see paragraph [0086], creating biological entities with many different aliases, parents, and children…; also see paragraph [0075], the query may identify or specify path type through the entity-relationship model; queries may represent discovery processes that are recorded and reused; also see paragraph [0077], also see paragraph [0122], creating an ontology network from a plurality of independent ontologies, to thereby provide a foundation for discovery; noted, reusing the query of identifying the path through the entity-relationship model of ontologies of different data sources, that is interpreted as “wherein the previously built search path is executed over a data model that is different from the current data model”).
Wilbanks as modified by Maasari do not explicitly disclose:
(c) determining said analysis is executable on the current data model by at least determining whether the one or more elements of the semantic format of the analysis is not missing from one or more elements of a semantic representation of the current data model; and (d) upon determining said analysis is executable, applying said analysis on the one or more data objects of the current data model.
Mittal teaches: (c) determining said analysis is executable on the current data model by at least determining whether the one or more elements of the semantic format of the analysis is not missing from one or more elements of a semantic representation of the current data model (paragraph [0061], “Barrack Obama” can be determined to be a concept of the query, and “Age” can be determined to be an attribute of the concept “Barack Obama”; also see Fig. 4, the response indicates that the query is unanswerable over the ontology; this response can be generated if the query includes elements not present in the ontology, also see Fig. 5, paragraph [0071], if it is determined that the query input is answerable, then the ontology structure is analyzed, noted, when the ontology structure is unanswerable when element is not present in the ontology; thus, determination of answerable when element are there, which read on as claim; also see paragraph [0066], [0067]);
and (c) upon determining said analysis is executable, applying said analysis on the one or more data objects of the current data model (paragraph [0071], if it is determined that the query input is answerable, where the ontology structure is analyzed; also see paragraph [0060], line 18-23, after elements provided in the query input are compared and mapped to corresponding elements in the ontology, a logical path in the ontology can be identified to accurately retrieve a response to the query).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include determining said analysis is executable on the current data model by at least determining whether the one or more elements of the semantic format of the analysis is not missing from one or more elements of a semantic representation of the current data model; and upon determining said analysis is executable, applying said analysis on the one or more data objects of the current data model into data analysis of Saeed.
Motivation to do so would be to include determining said analysis is executable on the current data model by at least determining whether the one or more elements of the semantic format of the analysis is not missing from one or more elements of a semantic representation of the current data model; and upon determining said analysis is executable, applying said analysis on the one or more data objects of the current data model as condensing the logical path followed in the ontology can improve information retrieval efficiency, and accordingly have benefits with respect to computing resources (Mittal, paragraph [0027], line 5-8).
Regarding claim 22, Wilbanks as modified by Maasari and Mittal teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 21, further teach wherein the one or more data objects are stored in at least one defined fixed data structure (Maasari, paragraph [0083], the RDF client processes the RDF query and constructs a representation of that query for processing by the RDF parser; also see paragraph [0086], triples can be stored in relational tables and the modules of the personality layer can access those tables and associated indexes using query processing).
Regarding claim 28, Wilbanks as modified by Saeed and Mittal teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 21, further teach: wherein the one or more elements of the semantic format of the analysis are extracted from one or more triples of the semantic format of the analysis (Mittal, paragraph [0059], analyzing the query input can include formatting the query input into triple store (e.g., subject-predicate-object) format; the format data can then be analyzed to determine its ontological characteristic).
As per claims 31-32, these claims are rejected on grounds corresponding to the same rationales given above for rejected claims 21-22 and are similarly rejected.
As per claim 38, this claim is rejected on grounds corresponding to the same rationales given above for rejected claim 28 and is similarly rejected.
Claims 23 and 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilbanks et al. (U.S. 2002/0194201 A1) in view of Massari et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2016/0371355 A1) and Mittal et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0163818 A1), further in view of Bhardwaj et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2018/0365297 A1).
Regarding claim 23, Wilbanks as modified by Massari and Mittal teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 21, but do not explicitly disclose: wherein the semantic representation of the current data model is generated by tagging one or more elements of the current data model using one or more terms from a domain ontology of the current data model.
Bhardwaj teaches: wherein the semantic representation of the current data model is generated by tagging one or more elements of the current data model using one or more terms from a domain ontology of the current data model (Bhardwaj, paragraph [0124]-[0125], semantic associations between data records are identified; data records are tagged with at least one class based on association thereof generating the ontology; data-records of the extracted information are tagged with classes (namely, symptoms, disease, organ and so forth); tagging the plurality of data-units, based on the ontology, and establish semantic association between the plurality of data-units, based on the ontology).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include wherein the semantic representation of the current data model is generated by tagging one or more elements of the current data model using one or more terms from a domain ontology of the current data model into data analysis of Wilbanks.
Motivation to do so would be to include wherein the semantic representation of the current data model is generated by tagging one or more elements of the current data model using one or more terms from a domain ontology of the current data model to overcome issue with the existing searching techniques may not always generate optimal results and require a lot of effort (Bhardwaj, paragraph [0004], line 11-12).
As per claim 33, this claims is rejected on grounds corresponding to the same rationales given above for rejected claim 23 and is similarly rejected.
Claims 24 and 34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilbanks et al. (U.S. 2002/0194201 A1) in view of Massari et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2016/0371355 A1), Mittal et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0163818 A1) and Bhardwaj et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2018/0365297 A1), further in view of Sarkar (U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0104032 A1).
Regarding claim 24, Wilbanks as modified by Massari, Mittal, Bhardwaj and Saeed teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 23, but do not explicitly disclose: wherein the one or more terms are displayed on a user interface for a user to tag the one or more elements of the data model.
Sarkar teaches: wherein the one or more terms are displayed on a user interface for a user to tag the one or more elements of the data model (paragraph [0131], tagging Interface tags the item with the concept in this context; this is done with a number of GUI metaphors including drag-and-drop of item into the Directory Window with that context; also see paragraph [0140]-[0141]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include wherein the one or more terms are displayed on a user interface for a user to tag the one or more elements of the data model into data analysis of Wilbanks.
Motivation to do so would be to include wherein the one or more terms are displayed on a user interface for a user to tag the one or more elements of the data model to overcome issue with the existing clustering ability to make relevant groupings is poor (Sarkar, paragraph [0015].)
Claims 25-27 and 35-37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilbanks et al. (U.S. 2002/0194201 A1) in view of Massari et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2016/0371355 A1), Mittal et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0163818 A1) and Bhardwaj et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2018/0365297 A1), further in view of Saeed et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2018/0075161 A1).
Regarding claim 25, Wilbanks as modified by Massari, Mittal and Bhardwaj teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 23, but do not explicitly disclose: wherein the one or more elements of the data model comprise links, attributes, and nodes of the data model.
Saeed teaches: wherein the one or more elements of the data model comprise links, attributes, and nodes of the data model (Saeed, paragraph [0064], Fig. 10 illustrates data model comprising links [linked relationship between nodes], attributes [Name, courseName, deptName…] and nodes [Person, Student, GradStudent…])
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include wherein the one or more elements of the data model comprise links, attributes, and nodes of the data model into data analysis of Wilbanks.
Motivation to do so would be to include wherein the one or more elements of the data model comprise links, attributes, and nodes of the data model for automatic query language generator and query execution system for semantic data (Saeed, paragraph [0029], line 3-4).
Regarding claim 26, Wilbanks as modified by Massari, Mittal and Bhardwaj teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 23, but do not explicitly disclose: wherein the one or more elements of the data model comprise an entity class, a relation between at least two entity classes, or at least one attribute of the entity class.
Saeed teaches: wherein the one or more elements of the data model comprise an entity class, a relation between at least two entity classes, or at least one attribute of the entity class (Saeed, Fig. 10 illustrates wherein the one or more elements of the data model comprise an entity class, a relation between at least two entity classes, or at least one attribute of the entity class [Attribute Name is associated with entity Person])
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include w wherein the one or more elements of the data model comprise an entity class, a relation between at least two entity classes, or at least one attribute of the entity class into data analysis of Wilbanks.
Motivation to do so would be to include wherein the one or more elements of the data model comprise an entity class, a relation between at least two entity classes, or at least one attribute of the entity class for automatic query language generator and query execution system for semantic data (Saeed, paragraph [0029], line 3-4).
Regarding claim 27, Wilbanks as modified by Massari, Mittal and Bhardwaj teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 23, but do not explicitly disclose: wherein the one or more terms are imported automatically and displayed to a user on a user interface.
Saeed teaches: wherein the one or more terms are imported automatically and displayed to a user on a user interface (paragraph [0045],[0048], providing only the data attributes to choose from; this interface can be dynamically generated from a schema ontology…; the user interface can be displayed on the computer and presents one possible user input mechanism by which a user can select keywords for use in a query of semantic web data; the keyword are obtained from the underlying semantic data structures…).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include wherein the one or more terms are imported automatically and displayed to a user on a user interface into data analysis of Wilbanks.
Motivation to do so would be to include wherein the one or more terms are imported automatically and displayed to a user on a user interface for automatic query language generator and query execution system for semantic data (Saeed, paragraph [0029], line 3-4).
As per claims 35-37, these claims are rejected on grounds corresponding to the same rationales given above for rejected claims 25-27 respectively and are similarly rejected.
Claims 29-30 and 39-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilbanks et al. (U.S. 2002/0194201 A1) in view of Massari et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2016/0371355 A1), and Mittal et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0163818 A1), further in view of Saeed et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2018/0075161 A1).
Regarding claim 29, Wilbanks as modified by Maasari and Mittal teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 21, but do not explicitly disclose: wherein applying the analysis on the one or more data objects of the current data model comprises transforming the semantic format of the analysis into a search path that is executable over the one or more data objects of the current model.
Saeed teaches: wherein applying the analysis on the one or more data objects of the current data model comprises transforming the semantic format of the analysis into a search path that is executable over the one or more data objects of the current model (Saeed, paragraph [0070], [0073], Using Student, Course is the next-selected node in the path to the root; using Student, Course and their linking property takesCourse, the algorithm generates a SPARQL statement, such as
1. ?gradstudent university:takesCourse ?course.
2. ?course university:isTaughtBy ?professor.
3. ?professor university:name ?professorname.
4. ?gradstudent university:name?gradstudentname.
5. ?course university:courseName ?coursename.;
a final query is formulated as shown below:
‘SELECT DISTINCT ?gradstudent ?professor
?professorname ?gradstudentname ?coursename
WHERE {
?gradstudent rdf:type universisty:GradStudent.
?profess or rdf:type university:Professor.
?profess or university :name ?profess name.
?gradstudent university:name ?gradstudentname.
?gradstudent university:takesCourse ?course.
?course university:courseName "CS570"’); also see paragraph [0032], this automatic SPARQL Query Formulation (ASQFor) framework is a reusable and extendable, domain-independent approach that requires virtually no end-user training to facilitate semantic querying over knowledge bases represented in RDF; also see paragraph [0074], using SPARQL across semantic data sets that include multiple, disparate data sources).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include wherein applying the analysis on the one or more data objects of the current data model comprises transforming the semantic format of the analysis into a search path that is executable over the one or more data objects of the current model into data analysis of Saeed.
Motivation to do so would be to include wherein applying the analysis on the one or more data objects of the current data model comprises transforming the semantic format of the analysis into a search path that is executable over the one or more data objects of the current model for automatic query language generator and query execution system for semantic data (Saeed, paragraph [0029], line 3-4).
Regarding claim 30, Wilbanks as modified by Maasari, Mittal and Saeed teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 29, wherein the analysis transforming the semantic format of the analysis into the search path comprises identifying one or more operations in the search path and an order thereof (Wilbanks, Fig. 5, paragraph [0075], the query may identify or specify path type through the entity-relationship model; if a path type is identified, the plurality of entities that are linked in an entity-relationship model is traversed along the identified type of path or paths in response to the query; also see paragraph [0076], the query may specify a starting entity and an ending entity, and the operations of block 516 can traverse the plurality of entities that are linked in the entity-relationship model from the starting entity to the ending entity….).
As per claims 39-40, these claims are rejected on grounds corresponding to the same rationales given above for rejected claims 29-30 and are similarly rejected.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KEN HOANG whose telephone number is (571)272-8401. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30am-5:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles Rones can be reached at (571)272-4085. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KEN HOANG/Examiner, Art Unit 2168
/CHARLES RONES/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2168