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 .
Response to Arguments
The applicant has overcome the objections of claims 4 and 5, as well as the 112b rejections, due to the amendments.
On pages 8-11, the applicant points to the case McRO Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games America, Inc. in regard to patent eligibility, arguing that the proposed invention improves life cycle assessments (LCAs), specifically the efficiency of extracting chemical synthesis recipes from literature by using natural language processing. However, the invention does not have sufficient detail of unique methods that the computing device uses beyond the general steps a human would perform to carry out the invention, so the present claimed invention is not considered to be analogous to the claims of McRO as far as subject matter eligibility is concerned. For instance, the invention of claim 1 merely obtains the necessary inputs (a text having a recipe and life cycle invention information) that a human would use to determine a recipe from the text, determine an energy utilized, and create an environmental impact estimate, and then recites no further details regarding how this is carried out by the computer other than that it is done by “using natural language processing to determine a recipe”. Thus, the claim is essentially reciting the method a human would use, except that the step of analyzing the text to determine a recipe is done “using natural language processing” rather than by a human mind, and this phrasing appears to cover essentially all ways in which the recited analysis step could be carried out by a computer. This is not analogous to McRO, where the claimed invention recited specific details which would not necessarily have been done by a human trying to achieve the intended goal, so that the claims in McRO recited a specific manner for the computer to accomplish the intended task, rather than monopolizing all ways in which a computer could perform the task previously done by humans.
On pages 11-12, the applicant argues that the elements of claim 1 cannot be practically performed in the human mind and cites MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A). The examiner respectfully disagrees with this argument. Several of the elements could be practically performed in the human mind, at least in relatively simple situations, including analyzing a text from a publication to determine a recipe for chemical synthesis, determining an energy utilized for the action, and creating an estimate of an environmental impact for the product. The limitations that cannot be performed in the human mind are specifically those which refer to the use of a generic computer (“enacted on a computing device”, “using natural language processing”) and those which refer to data gathering by the computer (receiving input of a text and obtaining life cycle inventory information for the reactant). Also, MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A) discusses examples of claims that recite mental processes such as a claim describing "collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis," where the data analysis steps are recited at a high level of generality such that they could practically be performed in the human mind, Electric Power Group v. Alstom, S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353-54, 119 USPQ2d 1739, 1741-42 (Fed. Cir. 2016). As discussed above, the natural language processing methods in the claims are not described with sufficient detail to distinguish the natural language processing methods from the kind of equivalent methods that a human would use to gather literature, analyze text, and determine a recipe for chemical synthesis. (This includes skimming through a reference looking for keywords and relevant passages, which is roughly equivalent to the claimed method of doing word-counts to look for critical paragraphs.) A human mind could determine the energy utilized for an action based upon prior knowledge or using a resource (e.g. a table) with the energy information of chemical reactions. A human mind could then make an estimate on how impactful that reaction may be to the environment based on prior knowledge.
The applicant cites Ex parte Hannun, No. 2018-003323, 2019 WL 7407450 (Apr. 1, 2019). However, the Hannun claims include unique, descriptive steps of a neural network which a human mind would not be able to perform, such as generating a jitter set of audio files from the normalized input audio by translating the normalized input audio by one or more time values, generating a set of spectrogram frames for each audio file; and inputting the audio file along with a context of spectrogram frames into a trained neural network. The applicant does not disclose the same level of detail in the present claims to1 distinguish the natural language processing methods from what a human mind could accomplish and the ways a human mind would accomplish it.
On pages 13-18, the applicant argues that none of the cited prior art teaches or suggests outputting the recipe, wherein the recipe comprises an action and action metadata, the action metadata comprising a reactant. The applicant’s inclusion of outputting the recipe was not present in previous claims, but was added in amended claims 1, 6, 13, and 18. As is discussed below in the 103 rejection, outputting the recipe would have been obvious when combining the teachings of Pinel with the teaching of Morones.
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 1-19 and 21 are rejected under 35 USC 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
At Step 1 of the 101 analysis, the claim is directed to one of the enumerated statutory categories, namely a process.
At Step 2A, Prong 1, the claim recites an abstract idea, as follows (with the abstract idea limitations in bold).
Claim 1 recites:
” A method enacted on a computing device, the method comprising:
receiving input of a text from a publication comprising a description of a chemical synthesis of a product;
analyzing the text using natural language processing to determine a recipe for the chemical synthesis, the recipe comprising an action and action metadata, the action metadata comprising a reactant;
outputting the recipe;
obtaining life cycle inventory information for the reactant;
determining an energy utilized for the action; and
creating an estimate of an environmental impact for the product.”
The above limitations in bold are mathematical concepts and mental processes that may be carried out in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. These limitations are therefore considered to be parts of an abstract idea.
At Step 2A, Prong 2, the abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application. The only additional elements recited in the claim (beyond the abstract idea limitations identified above) are “receiving input of a text,” “outputting the recipe,” and “obtaining life cycle inventory information.” The “receiving” and “obtaining” steps are considered to be insignificant extra-solution activity, merely data gathering for the abstract idea calculation and/or mental process. The “outputting” step is merely outputting an intermediate result of the abstract idea mental/mathematical process. As such, these additional element limitations do not impose a meaningful limitation to the abstract idea, and do not integrate the claim into a particular practical application.
The claim does not recite applying the abstract idea with, or by use of, any particular machine, nor does the claim affect a real-world transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing.
At Step 2B, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons as discussed above with respect to Prong 2.
Claim 1 is therefore rejected as ineligible under 35 USC 101.
Claims 13 and 18 are analogous to claim 1, except that claim 13 additionally adds the “determine” step to the abstract idea. Claim 13 recites a logic subsystem and a storage subsystem which are additional elements separate from the abstract idea that need to be considered at Prong 2 of the 101 analysis. However, these additional elements are merely generic computer components that are invoked as a tool to perform the abstract idea, which does not cause the claim as a whole to integrate the abstract idea into a particular practical application or provide significantly more than the recited abstract idea. Claims 13 and 18 are therefore rejected as ineligible under 35 USC 101 as well.
Dependent claim 3 adds the recited “extracting” step to the abstract idea limitations discussed above. It thus extends the abstract idea without adding any additional elements. Dependent claim 5 adds the recited “using” step to the abstract idea limitations. Dependent claim 6 adds the recited “outputting” step to the abstract idea limitations. Dependent claim 8 adds the recited “generating” step to the abstract idea limitations. Dependent claim 10 adds the recited “using” step to the abstract idea limitations. Dependent claim 11 adds the recited “updating” step to the abstract idea limitations. Dependent claim 12 adds the recited “storing” step to the abstract idea limitations. Dependent claim 21 further adds to the abstract idea by further defining the action of the recipe. None of these dependent claims recite any further additional elements which would cause the claim as a whole to integrate the recited abstract idea into a particular practical application at Prong 2, or provide significantly more than the recited abstract idea at Step 2B. Claims 3, 5, 6, 8, 10-12, and 21 are therefore rejected as ineligible under 35 USC 101 as well.
The analysis of Claims 2, 4, 7, 9, 14, 16, 17 is analogous to that of claims 1, 3, 5, 6, 3, 8, 12 respectively, and they are therefore rejected as ineligible under 35 USC 101 for analogous reasons.
Claim 15 is analogous to claims 13 and 5 and is therefore rejected as ineligible under 35 USC 101 for analogous reasons.
Claim 19 is analogous to claims 18 and 5 and is therefore rejected as ineligible under 35 USC 101 for analogous reasons.
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 1-2; 10; 12-13; 17-18, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Morones et al. (US20200372977; hereinafter Morones) in view of Huizenga et al. (US20130066752; hereinafter Huizenga), and further view of Pinel et al. (US 9519620; hereinafter Pinel).
Regarding Claim 1, Morones teaches: A method enacted on a computing device, the method comprising: receiving input of a text from a publication comprising a description of a chemical synthesis of a product [¶0014 discloses that Chemical Analysis Application retrieves Chemical Literature including publications that include reactions between chemicals, and ¶0019 discloses that such reactions synthesize products]; analyzing the text using natural language processing to determine a recipe for the chemical synthesis [¶0024 discloses that natural language processing is used to identify chemical combinations, reactions, resulting products, including energy released (and this information about reactions and their resulting products is considered a disclosure of a recipe)], the recipe comprising an action [¶0019 discloses reactions involving chemicals to produce at least one product, which involves at least one action (e.g. combining the chemicals to produce the product)] and action metadata [¶0019 discloses metadata such as the substrate, reactant, and reagent related to the reaction] the action metadata comprising a reactant [¶0019 discloses a reactant as mentioned before].
Morones does not teach: outputting the recipe.
Pinel teaches: a visualization processor that presents recipes to the user [see column 9 lines 65-67 through column 10 lines 1-24].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Morones with the teachings of Pinel, namely outputting the recipe in order for the user to view the recipe extracted for the literature.
Morones further teaches: creating an estimate of an environmental impact for the product [¶0015-0024, in particular paragraph ¶0015 discloses identifying identifies potential toxic and environmental effects].
Morones does not disclose determining an energy utilized for the action.
However, Morones in ¶0024 discloses determining an energy produced by the reaction that produces the product. Chemical reactions are known to be either endothermic (utilizing energy) or exothermic (producing energy), so for endothermic reactions it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art for Morones to determine an energy utilized for the reaction, motivated by the desire to properly characterize the reaction.
Morones also does not disclose obtaining life cycle inventory information for the reactant.
Huizenga teaches obtaining life cycle inventory information for various goods and/or services [¶0018 discloses automating collecting life cycle inventory data for all phases of production of goods, which can be used to generate an environmental and/or social impact score for the product including all its energy, manufacturing, storage, distribution aspects, as discussed in ¶0032].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, and Pinel to incorporate the teachings of Huizenga, namely by including a step of obtaining life cycle inventory information for the chemicals, reactants, reagents, energy utilized or produced, and products of its chemical reaction. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to obtain the benefit of generating a more complete and accurate environmental impact estimate for the reaction.
Regarding Claim 2, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 1.
Morones in view of Pinel and Huizenga (as discussed above) renders obvious: creating an estimate of the environmental impact for the product comprises creating a life cycle inventory for the product, the life cycle inventory for the product comprising the life cycle inventory information for the reaction and also the energy utilized for the action. As discussed above, Huizenga teaches obtaining life cycle inventory information for the chemicals, reactants, reagents, energy utilized or produced, and products of its chemical reaction. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use such a life cycle inventory for the product in order to generate a more complete and accurate environmental impact estimate.
Regarding Claim 10, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 1.
Morones in view of Pinel and Huizenga (as discussed above) renders obvious: obtaining the life cycle inventory information for the reactant comprises using a life cycle inventory database [see summary and abstract: data hub] to obtain the life cycle inventory information for the reactant. As discussed above, Huizenga teaches obtaining life cycle inventory information for the chemicals, reactants, reagents, energy utilized or produced, and products of its chemical reaction. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use such a life cycle inventory data base for the reactant in order to obtain LCI data.
Regarding Claim 12, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 2. Morones in view of Pinel and Huizenga (as discussed above) renders obvious: creating a life cycle inventory for the product. Morones further teaches: generating and storing a confidence value for the predicted toxicity score, based on the probabilistic analysis [see ¶0029; claims 7, 14 and 20].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones and Pinel to incorporate this teaching of Huizenga, namely by creating a life cycle inventory of the product and then generating a confidence value to the LCI. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to know how much confidence to have in the estimated environmental impact.
Regarding Claim 13, Morones teaches a computing device [see ¶0059], comprising: a logic subsystem [see ¶0060 programmable logic circuitry; programmable logic array]; and a storage subsystem [see ¶0059 storage medium] holding instructions executable by the logic subsystem [see ¶0059 instructions stored] to receive input of a text from literature [see Fig.4; element 405] comprising a description of a chemical synthesis of each composition [see Fig.4; element 415].
As discussed above in claim 1, Morones teaches: determining a recipe, the recipe comprising an action and action metadata, using natural language processing to extract the action from the text, the action comprising a process in the chemical synthesis, and to extract action metadata regarding a reactant for the process [see ¶0024 discloses that natural language processing is used to identify chemical combinations, reactions, resulting products; see ¶0019 discloses reactions involving chemicals to produce at least one product, which involves at least one action (e.g. combining the chemicals to produce the product)].
Morones does not explicitly teach: output the recipe.
However, as discussed above in claim 1, the combination of Morones and Pinel renders obvious outputting the recipe.
Morones does not teach: based upon the action and the metadata for the action, create a life cycle inventory for the product.
However, Huizenga teaches obtaining life cycle inventory information for various goods and/or services [¶0018 discloses automating collecting life cycle inventory data for all phases of production of goods, which can be used to generate an environmental and/or social impact score for the product including all its energy, manufacturing, storage, distribution aspects, as discussed in ¶0032].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Pinel and Morones’ estimation of environmental impact to incorporate this teaching of Huizenga, namely by including a step of obtaining life cycle inventory information for the chemicals, reactants, reagents, energy utilized or produced, and products of its chemical reaction. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to obtain the benefit of generating a more complete and accurate environmental impact estimate for the product.
It would have further been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to make the life cycle inventory for the product be based on the action and metadata for the action. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to create an accurate estimate of environmental impact for the particular action.
Regarding Claim 17, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 13. Morones further teaches generating and storing a confidence value for the predicted toxicity score, based on the probabilistic analysis [see ¶0029; claims 7, 14 and 20].
Morones does not teach creating a life cycle inventory.
However, Huizenga teaches obtaining life cycle inventory information for various goods and/or services [¶0018 discloses automating collecting life cycle inventory data for all phases of production of goods, which can be used to generate an environmental and/or social impact score for the product including all its energy, manufacturing, storage, distribution aspects, as discussed in ¶0032].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Pinel and Morones’ generation of confidence values to incorporate this teaching of Huizenga, namely by including life cycle inventory in the confidence value calculation. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to help estimate environmental impact.
Regarding Claim 18, Morones teaches: A method enacted on a computing device, the method comprising: receiving input of a text from a publication comprising a description of a chemical synthesis of a product [¶0014 discloses that Chemical Analysis Application retrieves Chemical Literature including publications that include reactions between chemicals, and ¶0019 discloses that such reactions synthesize products]; analyzing the text using natural language processing to determine a recipe for the chemical synthesis [¶0024 discloses that natural language processing is used to identify chemical combinations, reactions, resulting products, including energy released (and this information about reactions and their resulting products is considered a disclosure of a recipe)], the recipe comprising an action [¶0019 discloses reactions involving chemicals to produce at least one product, which involves at least one action (e.g. combining the chemicals to produce the product)] and action metadata [¶0019 discloses metadata such as the substrate, reactant, and reagent related to the reaction] the action metadata comprising a reactant [¶0019 discloses a reactant as mentioned before];
Morones does not teach outputting the recipe, however as discussed above in claim 1, the combination of Morones and Pinel renders obvious outputting the recipe.
Morones does not disclose obtaining life cycle inventory information by using a machine learning model to identify a proxy chemical for which life cycle inventory information is available. However, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga (as discussed in claim 1) renders obvious obtaining life cycle inventory information.
Pinel teaches using a machine learning model [see Fig.2; ¶20 natural language processing system] to identify a proxy chemical [see Fig.2; ¶20: identifying substitutes for ingredients in a recipe based on analyzing chemical association].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga to incorporate this teaching of Pinel, namely by obtaining life cycle inventory information by using a machine learning model to identify a proxy chemical for which life cycle inventory information is available. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to find substitutes for chemicals without life cycle inventory data.
Morones does not disclose determining an energy utilized for the action.
However, Morones in ¶0024 discloses determining an energy produced by the reaction that produces the product. Chemical reactions are known to be either endothermic (utilizing energy) or exothermic (producing energy), so for endothermic reactions it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art for Morones to determine an energy utilized for the reaction, motivated by the desire to properly characterize the reaction and creating a life cycle inventory for the product, the life cycle inventory for the product comprising the life cycle inventory information for the reactant and also the energy utilized for the action.
Morones does not disclose creating a life cycle inventory for the product, the life cycle inventory for the product comprising the life cycle inventory information for the reactant and also the energy utilized for the action.
However, Huizenga teaches obtaining life cycle inventory information for various goods and/or services [¶0018 discloses automating collecting life cycle inventory data for all phases of production of goods, which can be used to generate an environmental and/or social impact score for the product including all its energy, manufacturing, storage, distribution aspects, as discussed in ¶0032].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Pinel and Morones’ estimation of its environmental impact to incorporate this teaching of Huizenga, namely by creating a life cycle inventory for the product, the life cycle inventory for the product comprising the life cycle inventory information for the reactant and also the energy utilized for the action. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to obtain the benefit of generating a more complete and accurate environmental impact estimate for the reaction.
Regarding Claim 21, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 1. Morones does not teach: the action comprises one or more of mix, dissolve, dilute, degas, heat, reflux, cool, recover, filter, rinse, purify, distill, precipitate, calcine, sinter, anneal, grind, or mill.
However, Pinel teaches: an instruction graph (500) for a recipe that includes combining, mixing, and heating ingredients of the recipe [see Fig. 5; column 13 lines 26-49].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones and Huizenga with the teachings of Pinel, namely including actions such as mixing in order to properly define the steps in making a product.
Claims 3-4; 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Morones et al. (US20200372977; hereinafter Morones) in view of Pinel et al. (US 9519620; hereinafter Pinel), and further view of Huizenga et al. (US20130066752; hereinafter Huizenga), and Mabotuwana (US20160314278); hereinafter Mabotuwana.
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 1, but does not teach: wherein receiving input of the text comprises receiving a full text of the publication and extracting a paragraph comprising information on the chemical synthesis.
However, Mabotuwana teaches [¶0051] an analogous natural language processing approach that takes a full text and extracts relevant information from particular paragraphs.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga to incorporate the teachings of Mabotuwana to receive full text of the publication and extract a paragraph comprising information on the chemical synthesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to readily obtain relevant information from the publication.
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, and Mabotuwana renders obvious the method of claim 3, and Mabotuwana further teaches: [¶0051] using a rules-based approach to extract relevant information from particular paragraphs. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga to incorporate the teachings of Mabotuwana namely, to use a rules-based approach to extract the paragraph. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to readily extract the relevant information in an automated fashion.
Regarding Claim 14, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 13.
The combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga in view of Mabotuwana (as discussed above) renders obvious: the instructions are executable to extract from the text a paragraph comprising information on the chemical synthesis. As discussed above, Mabotuwana teaches [¶0051] an analogous natural language processing approach that takes a full text and extracts relevant information from particular paragraphs.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga to incorporate the teachings of Mabotuwana to instruct the extraction a paragraph comprising information on the chemical synthesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to readily obtain relevant information from the literature.
Claims 5-6; 8-9; 15-16, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Morones et al. (US20200372977; hereinafter Morones) in view of Pinel et al. (US 9519620; hereinafter Pinel), and further view of Huizenga et al. (US20130066752; hereinafter Huizenga), Mabotuwana, and Byron et al. (US 20180137419; hereinafter Byron).
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, and Mabotuwana renders obvious the method of claim 4, but does not teach: using a classifier to classify words in the text into a plurality of classifications including recognized actions, the recognized actions including the action, and extracting the paragraph based at least upon counting instances of the words in the paragraph classified as the recognized actions.
However, Byron teaches parsing and analyzing documents with recipes including action
words, classifying them with their synonyms [see paragraph ¶0164], and counting instances of the metadata paired with action words [see paragraph ¶0167 counts of instances of a value of the learned attribute (metadata)].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, and Mabotuwana to incorporate the teachings of Byron, namely to extract paragraphs by using the counting instances of the recognized actions. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to increase the chances of extracting a relevant paragraph when more than one count is present in a paragraph.
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 1, but does not teach: analyzing the text to determine the recipe comprises using a classifier to classify words in the text into a plurality of classifications including recognized actions, the recognized actions including the action, and wherein outputting the recipe comprises outputting a linearized representation of words classified as recognized actions.
However, Byron teaches parsing and analyzing text of a recipe, classifying words as objects, pre-condition/post-condition features, attributes, identifying action words with their synonyms [see ¶0164], and generating a temporally ordered action term listing [see ¶0166]. The combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga in view of Byron (as discussed above) renders obvious: analyzing the text to determine the recipe comprises using a classifier to classify words in the text into a plurality of classifications including recognized actions, the recognized actions including the action, and wherein outputting the recipe comprises outputting a linearized representation of words classified as the recognized actions. As discussed above. Byron teaches analyzing the text to determine a recipe, using a classifier to classify action words in the text into classifications and outputting a linearized representation of words classified as actions. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to identify the action words and put them in the proper order in order to make the correct recipe.
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, and Byron renders obvious the method of claim 6, and Byron further teaches: sets of action words are manually tagged with metadata, and sets of actions words are used to generate attributes (metadata) in a knowledge base [see ¶0032]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, Mabotuwana to incorporate the teachings of Byron, namely generating a variable unordered set of action metadata for the recognized actions. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to constrain each action word with certain metadata [see ¶0032].
Regarding Claim 9, the combination of Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, and Byron renders obvious the method of claim 6.
The combination of Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, and Byron (as discussed above) renders obvious: the recognized actions in the linearized representation comprises a plurality of recognized actions, each recognized action having a corresponding variable unordered set of action metadata. As discussed above, Byron teaches creating an ordered set of action words, each with their own corresponding set of attributes or features (metadata). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the metadata in order to place constraints on the action words.
Regarding Claim 15, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious
the method of claim 13. The combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga in view of Byron (as discussed above) renders obvious: the instructions are executable to analyze the text to extract the action by using a classifier to classify words in the text into a plurality of classifications including recognized actions related to synthesis, the recognized actions related to synthesis including the action.
As discussed above, Byron teaches parsing and analyzing documents with recipes including action words, classifying words as objects, pre-condition/post-condition features, attributes, and action words with their synonyms [see ¶0164].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga to incorporate the teachings of Byron, namely to analyze text, classify, and extract words, including action words related to synthesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to extract relevant words and paragraphs related to synthesis.
Regarding Claim 16, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 13. The combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga in view of Byron (as discussed above) renders obvious: the instructions are executable to generate a variable unordered set of action metadata for the action.
As discussed above, Byron teaches: sets of action words are manually tagged with metadata, and sets of actions words are used to generate attributes (metadata) in a knowledge base [see ¶0032]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga to incorporate the teachings of Byron, namely instructing the generation of a variable unordered set of action metadata for the recognized action. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to constrain each action word with certain metadata [see ¶0032].
Regarding Claim 19, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the method of claim 18, but does not teach: using a classifier to classify words in the text into a plurality of classifications including recognized actions related to synthesis, the recognized actions related to synthesis including the action.
As discussed above, Byron teaches parsing and analyzing documents with recipes including action words, classifying words as objects, pre-condition/post-condition features, attributes, and action words with their synonyms [see ¶0164].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga to incorporate the teachings of Byron, namely to analyze text, classify, and extract words, including action words related to synthesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to extract relevant words and paragraphs related to synthesis.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, Mabotuwana, and Byron in view of Kim et al. (KR20230037335A; hereinafter Kim).
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, Mabotuwana, and Byron renders obvious the methods of Claim 6, but does not render obvious: the classifier comprises a specialized classifier for a subfield of chemistry.
However, Kim teaches using natural language processing to classify specific terms in the chemical field, and classifying the terms by the detailed chemical field [see abstract and ¶0014].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, Huizenga, Mabotuwana, and Byron with the teachings of Kim, namely using a specialized classifier for a subfield in chemistry. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to extract more relevant text.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Morones et al. (US20200372977; hereinafter Morones) in view of Pinel et al. (US 9519620; hereinafter Pinel), and further view of Huizenga et al. (US20130066752; hereinafter Huizenga) in view of Kimura (US20070185691; hereinafter Kimura).
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga renders obvious the methods of Claim 2, but does not render obvious: after creating the life cycle inventory for the product, updating a life cycle inventory database.
However, Kimura teaches updating LCI data [see ¶0237] databases when needing up-to-date data for evaluating an environmental impact of a given activity more precisely [see ¶0238].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Morones, Pinel, and Huizenga to incorporate the teachings of Kimura, namely updating the life cycle inventory database after creating life cycle inventory for the product. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this in order to evaluate an environmental impact of a given activity more precisely using up-to-date data [see ¶0238].
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.
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/BRANDON GEORGE MACGREGOR/Examiner, Art Unit 2857
/ANDREW SCHECHTER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2857