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 response to the restriction requirement, Applicant elected claims 1-3 and 20 for further examination. As a result, claims 4-19 are withdrawn from further prosecution.
Applicant’s Election with traverse is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground that the searches would be co-extensive and would not unduly burden the examiner. This is not found persuasive because burden is not only based upon searches being co-extensive. Examination and analysis for determination of patentability creates burden. In addition, as MPEP 803 states that “Under the statue an application may properly be required to be restricted to one of two or more claimed inventions if they are able to support separate patents and they are either independent or distinct”. In this case the application contains the inventions that are patentable from each other so the inventions support separate patents.
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.
Claims 1-2 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because:
The claimed system/method even though is directed to a statutory category, the claims fail in determination whether it is directed to any judicial exceptions. The claims, in fact, are simply directed to a method/apparatus of processing input data to output a corresponding data for purpose of displaying the relationship between the input and the output in general without any specific and without including additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (Abstract idea). Without any specific and additional elements, there is no inventive concept sufficient to transform the claimed subject matter into a patent-eligible application. Accordingly, the claims are not patent eligible.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Inomata (WO 2021/250902 (US 2023/0177392 is used as an equivalent reference)) in view of Tatsuya (WO 2021140552).
Regarding to claims 1 and 20:
Inomata discloses a data processing apparatus comprising:
an inference unit configured to predict an objective variable from a plurality of
explanatory variables by using a trained model (FIG. 1: The learning unit 20 (reads on the claimed inference unit) predicts the objective variable 30 from the explanatory variable 10. Abstract: The learning unit 10 estimates an objective variable from an explanatory variable group including one or more explanatory variables); and
a display data generation unit configured to generate data for displaying an
inference result by the inference unit (FIG. 1 and paragraph [0029]: The evaluation item display unit 50 displays a value of each evaluation item on the basis of the estimated value of the objective variable).
Inomata however does not teach wherein the inference unit is configured to set a first explanatory variable selected from the plurality of explanatory variables as a variation value and set second explanatory variables other than the first explanatory variable as fixed values, and predict, by using the trained model, the objective variable when the first explanatory variable is continuously varied within a predetermined variation range, and wherein the display data generation unit generates data indicating a variation of the objective variable with respect to a variation of the first explanatory variable.
Tatsuya discloses an objective variable estimation model for estimating to output an objective variable from an input of a set of explanatory variables (page 6, 6th-7th paragraphs), including an explanatory variable as a variation value in a variable value range (page 7, 9th paragraph) and other explanatory variables as fixed values (page 7, 8th paragraph), wherein the model outputs and graphs the objective variable with respect to the variation of the explanatory variable in the variable value range (page 8, 9th paragraph. FIG. 2B shows the graph of the variation of the objective variable (g(xi)) respective to the variation of the explanatory variable (Xi) in the variation range (a-b)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Inomata’s processor to set the explanatory variables and estimate the objective variable accordingly as disclosed by Tatsuya, in order to display the relationship of the variation of the predicted objective variable and the variation of the input explanatory variable as taught by Tatsuya (FIG. 2B).
Regarding to claim 2: wherein the display data generation unit generates a two-dimensional graph in which the first explanatory variable is represented by a first axis (Tatsuya, FIG. 2B: The explanatory variable Xi), and the objective variable is represented by a second axis (Tatsuya, FIG. 2B: The objective variable( Xi)).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The primary reasons for the indication of the allowability of the claim is the inclusions therein, in combination as currently claimed, of the limitation that wherein the inference unit is configured to select two or more of the first explanatory variables from the plurality of explanatory variables, and predict, by using the trained model, the objective variable when the first explanatory variable is continuously varied within the variation range, for each of the selected two or more of the first explanatory variables, wherein a display unit is connected to the data processing apparatus, and wherein the display data generation unit is configured to generate two or more of the two-dimensional graphs corresponding to the two or more of the first explanatory variables, and display the generated two or more of the two-dimensional graphs on the display unit in a superimposed manner is neither disclosed nor taught by the cited prior art of record, alone or in combination.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LAM S NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2151.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, DOUGLAS RODRIGUEZ, can be reached on 571-431-0716. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LAM S NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853