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 .
Claim Interpretation
As per Claim 1 (and similarly claims 8 and 15):
“NLP” in line 2 of claim 1 is interpreted as an acronym for “natural language processing” (see Specification, paragraph 8).
“the question” in line 7 of claim 1 is interpreted as referring to “a question” in line 6 of claim 1 (not to an ambiguous one of “duplicate questions” or an ambiguous one of “the extracted questions”).
As per Claim 5 (and similarly claims 12 and 19):
“the pre-training of each model” in line 3 of claim 5 is interpreted as referring to “pre-training [of] a plurality of AI transformer models” in line 2 of claim 5).
As per Claim 7 (and similarly claim 14):
“the interface” in line 2 of claim 7 is interpreted as referring to “an interface with the meeting audio/video” in lines 1-2 of claim 7 (not to either of “an attendee interface” or “a presenter interface” in the last line of claim 1).
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 6, 8, 13, and 15, are objected to because of the following informalities:
As per Claim 1 (and similarly claims 8 and 15):
“one or more group” in line 5 of claim 1 should be --one or more groups—(grammar).
As per Claim 6 (and similarly claim 13):
“the one or more group” in line 2 of claim 6 should be –the one or more groups—(grammar).
Claim 18 is not objected to, but Applicant can, at Applicant’s discretion, amend claim 18 to depend on claim 15 and not on claim 17 (there does not appear to be a reason why claim 18 needs to depend on claim 17, and equivalent claims 4 and 10 depend on their respective independent claims).
Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-20 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.
As per Claim 1 (and similarly claims 8 and 15):
“the answerable questions” in line 8 of claim 1 lacks antecedent basis (line 7 only establishes that “the question” [a singular question] is answerable)
“the answerable questions” in line 9 of claim 1 lacks antecedent basis (as a consequence of “the answerable questions” in line 8 of claim 1 lacking antecedent basis).
As per Claim 2 (and similarly claims 9 and 16):
“the weighted factors” in line 1 of claim 2 lack antecedent basis when “one or more weighted factors” in line 4 of claim 1 refers to only one weighted factor.
As per Claim 3 (and similarly claims 11 and 17):
“the presenter” in “the presenter’s past meetings” in line 3 of claim 3 (recited twice in line 3 of claim 3) is ambiguous (line 1 of claim 3 recited “a presenter’s profile” and line 2 of claim 3 recites “a presenter”, and these two presenters are not necessarily the same, and so it is not clear which presenter is the one that “the presenter” in “the presenter’s past meetings” in line 3 of claim 3 when the two presenters are different).
“the presenter” in line 4 of claim 3 is ambiguous (same issue as discussed in the previous paragraph).
As per Claim 4 (and similarly claims 10 and 18):
“the online meeting attendees whose questions are included in the group of duplicate questions” lacks antecedent basis (claim 1 establishes that “one or more group of duplicate questions” are “present[ed]… to a subset of online meeting attendees”, but never establishes that any of the online meeting attendees were the source of any of the questions [as opposed to where questions are presented to attendees, where the questions were asked by people other than the attendees]).
“the group of duplicate questions” in line 2 of claim 4 is ambiguous when “one or more group of duplicate questions” in line 5 of claim 1 refers to more than one group of duplicate questions [in which case, which group of the multiple question groups is the one that “the group of duplicate questions” in line 2 of claim 4 is supposed to refer to?])
As per Claim 6 (and similarly claim 13):
“the one or more group of duplicate questions from the subset of online meeting attendees” in lines 2-3 of claim 6 lacks antecedent basis as a complete phrase (claim 1 establishes that “one or more group of duplicate questions” are “present[ed]… to a subset of online meeting attendees”, but never establishes that any of the online meeting attendees were the source of any of the questions [as opposed to where questions are presented to attendees, where the questions were asked by people other than the attendees])
As per Claim 7 (and similarly claim 14):
“the meeting audio/video” in lines 1-2 of claim 7 lacks antecedent basis.
“displaying an interface with the meeting audio/video” in lines 1-2 of claim 7 is unclear, because it is not clear if this refers to:
1. where an interface “with”/including the meeting audio/video is displayed
or
2. where the interface is presented “with”/along-with/alongside/together-with the meeting audio/video.
As per Claim 12:
Claim 12 is unusual because it claims where the computer program product of claim 8 “further compris[es]” steps, where computer program products, systems, etc. are typically defined by their components and where methods are typically defined by their steps.
Applicant fairly clearly meant to claim –where/wherein the method further comprises--.
As per Claim 13 (in addition to the issues pertaining to claim 6, discussed above):
Similar to claim 12, claim 8 recites where the computer program product of claim 8 does something, not where the program code, when executed, causes the processor of the computer to perform further method steps.
As per Claim 14 (in addition to the issues pertaining to claim 7, discussed above):
Claim 14 has the same issue as claim 12.
As per Claim 15 (in addition to the issues pertaining to claim 1, discussed above):
“the processors” in line 3 of claim 15, and in line 5 of claim 15, lacks antecedent basis when “one or more processors” in line 2 of claim 15 refers to only one processor.
As per Claim 19:
Claim 19 is unusual because it claims where the computer system of claim 15 “further compris[es]” steps, where computer program products, systems, etc. are typically defined by their components and where methods are typically defined by their steps.
Applicant fairly clearly meant to claim –where/wherein the actions further comprise--.
As per Claim 20:
Claim 20 includes the same issue as claim 19.
The dependent claims include the issues of their respective parent claims.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 8, and 15, would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20, would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
As per Claim(s) 1 (and similarly claim[s] 8 and 15, and consequently claim[s] 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20, which depend on claim[s] 1, 8, and 15), the prior art of record does not teach or suggest the combination of all limitations in claim(s) 1, including (i.e. in combination with the remaining limitations in claim[s] 1) A method, comprising: extracting, by NLP, questions from chat window input in real-time during an online meeting; aggregating the extracted questions into one or more groups of duplicate questions, based on one or more weighted factors; presenting one or more group of duplicate questions to a subset of online meeting attendees; predicting whether a question is answerable, based on a plurality of answerability factors; based on determining that the question is answerable, predicting an amount of time to answer the answerable questions; filtering and prioritizing a subset of questions from a pool of the answerable questions, based on a level of attendee interest, and a sum of predicted answering times being less than or equal to a Q&A session time; sequencing the filtered and prioritized questions based on sequencing factors, wherein the sequencing factors include contextual factors and conceptual factors; and updating both an attendee interface and a presenter interface with the sequenced questions.
I. time for questions and time allotted for a session.
2012/0237916 teaches “If there is a question that fails to satisfy the minimum question time requirement, a question with the lowest priority (a question to be displayed last) is not displayed to be handled after the session and is thus deleted from scheduling of the question time. Such an arrangement allows the question-and-answer session to focus on questions with high priority within a limited amount of time available. Alternatively, if there are no questions that fail to satisfy the minimum question time requirement (specifically, if there is time left after the minimum question time is allotted to each question), a greater amount of time is allotted to questions with higher priority (a question to be displayed first). Such an arrangement allows a longer time to be spent on the question-and-answer session for questions with high priority within a limited amount of time available. A scheduling method will be described in detail later” (paragraph 66). Paragraph 144 describes merging question time allotted to each question ID to set a total question time. This reference does not appear to describe where question times are summed/added and then compared to an available amount of time, and does not appear to describe predicting an amount of time to answer questions based on determining that at least one question is answerable. This reference does not appear to filter/prioritize a subset of questions from a pool of answerable questions whose amount of time to be answered is predicted based on determining that a question is answerable.
2012/0329031 teaches “The question information generating unit 204 acquires a presentation image Q as illustrated in FIG. 5 from the storage unit 103 of the information display apparatus 100 and displays the presentation image Q on the display screen so as to allow the questioner to manually input question weighting information (for example, the priority of a question or the degree of importance on a participant). In this manner, the questioner can freely add weights to the questions according to the contents of the presentation or the importance of the question” (paragraph 73) and “An information display apparatus includes a display control unit configured to control display of a question that is received and then stored; a request receiving unit configured to receive a display request to display the question; a generating unit configured to generate a schedule table in which an order of displaying questions and display durations of the respective questions are associated with each other so that a sum of the display durations of the questions becomes equal to or shorter than a question-and-answer time indicating a predetermined duration of a question-and-answer session; and a notifying unit configured to issue a notice of a timing at which each display duration ends based on the schedule table. The display control unit switches display of the questions in accordance with the order. When a predetermined condition is satisfied after the schedule table is generated, the generating unit adjusts the schedule table” (Abstract) and “FIG. 20 is a flowchart illustrating an example of the number-of-questions reduction process. The page managing unit 105 deletes a question having the lowest priority among the remaining questions (the unhandled questions) in the schedule table (Step S81). Subsequently, the page managing unit 105 determines whether the display duration of the deleted question is equal to or longer than the total reduction time (whether the total reduction time is ensured) (Step S82). When it is determined that the total reduction time is ensured (YES at Step S82), the process ends. On the other hand, when it is determined that the total reduction time is not ensured (NO at Step S82), the process returns to Step S81, at which a question having the lowest priority is deleted from among the remaining questions (the questions except for the question that has been deleted in the previous process), and then the determination at Step S82 is performed again” (paragraph 109). This reference does not appear to filter/prioritize a subset of questions from a pool of answerable questions whose amount of time to be answered is predicted based on determining that a question is answerable.
2022/0366351 teaches “The objective function also needs to take into account certain constraints. Given a time budget allotted for an assessment of the candidate, the total time taken to answer all the questions in the optimal questionnaire needs to be less than the time budget allotted. In the Table 2, it may be noted that there are 3 easy questions, 2 hard questions and 1 question with medium difficulty. As mentioned above, it is assumed that the easy, medium and hard questions take 1, 2, and 3 minutes respectively, to respond. Thus, the total time to answer these questions is 12, which is less than the time budget allotted which is 15 mins (say). It may be noted that the time taken to ask a question is ignored here. Accordingly, in an embodiment, the constraint C1 is configured to select questions such that time taken for responding to the personalized optimal questionnaire is less than or equal to the time budget allotted for the assessment and is represented as” (paragraph 49).
2024/0371089 (LATE filing date) teaches “The Q&A unit 112 of the presentation platform 110 uses the presentation length set by the user and the elapsed time since the presentation commenced to determine whether there is time for the virtual user to pause the presentation to address questions. In some implementations, if the Q&A unit 112 determines that there is insufficient time for the virtual presenter to address the questions during the presentation, the answers to the question are provided in the chat” (paragraph 59). This reference does not qualify as prior art.
2023/0008868 teaches “The generation part 15c generates a question for the user 20 on the basis of the information of the user 20 collected by the collection part 15a and the skill model of the user 20. For example, the generation part 15c generates, as a question for the user 20, a numerical question, a mathematic question, a physical question, a mechanical question, a reading exercise, or a speed chess. The generation part 15c also generates a question set for user authentication on the basis of the skill model of the user 20, and predicts time required for the user 20 to answer the questions correctly. Meanwhile, the generation part 15c stores, in the question set storage 14c, the generated question set, and the predicted time required for the user 20 to answer the questions correctly” (paragraph 41).
2020/0382634 teaches “In a possible implementation, for the AI complexity, the first server may determine, based on the interaction text, an average duration of answering user questions by the AI robot. The first server may learn, from the interaction text, a time point at which the user asks each question and a time point at which the AI robot provides each reply, determine, based on the two time points, a duration of answering each user question by the AI robot, and obtain the AI complexity based on an average value of the duration” (paragraph 111).
2012/0323556 teaches “The grading and timing unit calculates the answering time and determines if the user has answered the questions correctly” (Abstract)
II. level of interest/intrigue/concern for a question.
2003/0227479 teaches “In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the system (or a human actor) uses the audience as a laboratory to test the level of interest that a question can raise and/or to determine an appropriate time to bring up a question. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, different questions (or the same question under different conditions) are presented to different sample groups of the audience. The resulting discussion and/or raking is used to order the questions” (paragraph 431)
2012/0329031 (also cited in I.) teaches “The question information generating unit 204 acquires a presentation image Q as illustrated in FIG. 5 from the storage unit 103 of the information display apparatus 100 and displays the presentation image Q on the display screen so as to allow the questioner to manually input question weighting information (for example, the priority of a question or the degree of importance on a participant). In this manner, the questioner can freely add weights to the questions according to the contents of the presentation or the importance of the question” (paragraph 73) and “An information display apparatus includes a display control unit configured to control display of a question that is received and then stored; a request receiving unit configured to receive a display request to display the question; a generating unit configured to generate a schedule table in which an order of displaying questions and display durations of the respective questions are associated with each other so that a sum of the display durations of the questions becomes equal to or shorter than a question-and-answer time indicating a predetermined duration of a question-and-answer session; and a notifying unit configured to issue a notice of a timing at which each display duration ends based on the schedule table. The display control unit switches display of the questions in accordance with the order. When a predetermined condition is satisfied after the schedule table is generated, the generating unit adjusts the schedule table” (Abstract) and “FIG. 20 is a flowchart illustrating an example of the number-of-questions reduction process. The page managing unit 105 deletes a question having the lowest priority among the remaining questions (the unhandled questions) in the schedule table (Step S81). Subsequently, the page managing unit 105 determines whether the display duration of the deleted question is equal to or longer than the total reduction time (whether the total reduction time is ensured) (Step S82). When it is determined that the total reduction time is ensured (YES at Step S82), the process ends. On the other hand, when it is determined that the total reduction time is not ensured (NO at Step S82), the process returns to Step S81, at which a question having the lowest priority is deleted from among the remaining questions (the questions except for the question that has been deleted in the previous process), and then the determination at Step S82 is performed again” (paragraph 109). This reference does not appear to filter/prioritize a subset of questions from a pool of answerable questions whose amount of time to be answered is predicted based on determining that a question is answerable.
Conclusion
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EY 10/21/2025
/ERIC YEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2658