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 .
Status of Claims
The following is a final office action.
Claims [1-20] are currently pending and have been examined based on their merits.
Claims 1, 5-6, 8, 12-14, and 18-19 have been amended see REMARKS November 12, 2025.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception that is an abstract idea without a practical application or significantly more.
Step 1: Claims 1-7 recite a method (i.e. a series of steps), claims 8-13 recite a system and claims 14-20 recite a non-transitory computer readable media and therefore each claim falls within one of the four statutory categories.
Step 2A prong 1 (Is a judicial exception recited?):
The representative claims 1, 8, and 14 recites: A method, comprising: subsequent to a content item being create, automatically retrieving, the content item, the content item associated with a user; parsing the content item to identify: message content relating to a software service managed; a social media identifier for the content item, the social media identifier including a platform identifier corresponding to the social media platform and a content item identifier corresponding to the content item created; and after identifying the message content: in accordance with a determination that the message content does not include textual data, discarding the content item; and in accordance with a determination that the message content includes textual data, generating a content item descriptor including content extracted from the content item, wherein generating the content item descriptor includes: extracting the content from the content item, the content including message text and metadata of the content item; and providing the content item descriptor as input to analyze the message text and the metadata, to determine a help-seek intent metric for the content, the help-seek intent metric indicating a probability that the content includes a request for help in relation to the software service; receiving the help-seek intent metric; determining whether the help-seek intent metric satisfies an intent criteria; and in accordance with a determination that the help-seek intent metric satisfies the intent criteria: generating a ticket request for creation of a ticket, the ticket request based on the content; in accordance with a determination that the help-seek intent metric does not satisfy the intent criteria, discarding the content item descriptor; receiving a ticket descriptor including ticket identifier and a comment field, the comment field including: a comment, the comment received from an agent, wherein the comment is in regard to the content item and responsive to the identified message content relating to the software service; in response to receiving the ticket: storing a content item record comprising an association between the ticket identifier and the social media identifier for the content item; generating a social media response message, the social media response message based on the comment and including a textual indication of a status of the ticket request.
The claims recite a certain method of organizing human activity. The claims recite a certain method of organizing human activity as the disclosure recites managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people. The claims recite a series of steps to generate a ticket for requesting help based on the intent of a content item. The method recites a series of steps or instructions for retrieving information, determining the intent of the information and if the intent exceeds a threshold level generating a ticket or request based on the data in the information. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
The claims alternatively recite a mental process. As the claims recite series of generating a ticket or request based on the content of a content item. The courts have identified steps of collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying results as reciting mental processes. Furthermore, merely performing observations, evaluations, judgement, and opinions have been identified as being practically performed in the human mind. Therefore, a series of steps for retrieving information such as a content item, determining help-seeking intent of the content item based on textual data and determining if the intent is above a threshold value, to generate and communicate a ticket request based on the textual data would be capable of being performed in the human mind or with simple tools such as pen and paper. A member of a customer support team for example would be capable of mentally viewing or receiving content items such as social media posts, determining their help seeking intent, and generating a ticket or request to help the person based on the content of the post. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong 2 (Is the exception integrated into a practical application?): The claims additionally recite;
Claim 1: A computer, a social media platform, an issue tracking system, a classification engine; communicating the ticket request to the issue tracking system, a social media gateway module of an issue management system, a ticket generation module of the IMS, and communication the social media response message and the content item identifier to the social media platform to cause the social media platform to display the social media response message in relation to the content item.
Claim 8: A computer processing system for generating ticket requests, comprising: a processing unit; non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by the processing unit, cause the computer processing system to perform operations, a social media platform, an issue tracking system, a classification engine; communicating the ticket request to the issue tracking system, a social media gateway module of an issue management system, a ticket generation module of the IMS, and communication the social media response message and the content item identifier to the social media platform to cause the social media platform to display the social media response message in relation to the content item.
Claim 14: A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by a processing unit, cause the processing unit to perform operations, a social media platform, and an issue tracking system, a classification engine; communicating the ticket request to the issue tracking system, a social media gateway module of an issue management system, a ticket generation module of the IMS, and communication the social media response message and the content item identifier to the social media platform to cause the social media platform to display the social media response message in relation to the content item.
The additional elements of generic computer elements to receive and transmit information as well as perform the abstract idea of retrieving content items, determining a help seeking intent, and generating a ticket request based on the textual data of the content item is not an improvement to a technology or technical field. The additional elements merely recite using generic computer elements to perform the steps of receiving, analyzing, and transmitting information. Therefore, the limitations merely amount to adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) to the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f). Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Step 2B (Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more that the judicial exception?): As discussed above, the additional imitations amount to adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f). The additional elements do not recite an improvement to a technology or technical field but merely utilize the generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea of retrieving a content item, determining a help seeking intent associated with the content item based on textual data, determining whether the intent exceeds a threshold, and generating a ticket request based on the textual data of the content item. Therefore, the additional elements do not direct the claims to significantly more.
The dependent claims 2-7, 9-13, and 15-20 further narrow the abstract idea of determining the help-seeking intent and tracking the status of a ticket generated including the messages communicated to resolve the ticket associated with an identifier, recited in the independent claims 1, 8, and 14 and are therefore directed towards the same abstract idea.
The dependent claims do not recite any further additional elements that were not disclosed in the above analysis.
Therefore, claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
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.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gordon (US 2013/0179440) in view of Gupta (US 2019/0026653) further in view of Famous (US 2012/0072358).
Claims 1, 8, and 14: Gordon discloses (Claim 1) a computer-implemented method, comprising: (Claim 8) A computer processing system for generating ticket requests, comprising: a processing unit; non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by the processing unit, cause the computer processing system to perform operations comprising: (Claim 14) A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by a processing unit, cause the processing unit to perform operations comprising: subsequent to a content item being created at a social media platform, automatically retrieving, by a social media (SM) gateway module of an issue management (IMS), the a content item from the social media platform, the content item associated with a user (Paragraph [0019]; [0028-0029]; [0033-0034]; [0066]; Fig. 1, various embodiments may be discussed with reference to a company support department that accepts multiple textual channels as means of a customer communication. In some embodiments, systems include an intention monitor, an analysis engine, and a workflow engine. Intention monitor receives content items from various communication channels and selects various communication items for further processing. A communication channel can be any system that can post or deliver a content item (The examiner notes that the broadest reasonable interpretation of a message content would include content items in a communication channel). Thus communication channels may include websites, social networking services, audio channels, etc. Workflow engine receives parameters related to content items and determines an action with respect to the content item based on the parameters. Some embodiments of the invention may contain a customer relationship management system. The system identifies characteristics about the individual poster. This information can be extracted either from the communication channel (e.g. via profile information), via 3Rd party network information, or via connections to known contact information);
parsing the content item, by the SM gateway module, to identify: message content relating to a software service managed by an issue tracking system (Paragraph [0019]; [0028-0029]; [0033-0034]; Fig. 1, various embodiments may be discussed with reference to a company support department that accepts multiple textual channels as means of a customer communication. In some embodiments, systems include an intention monitor, an analysis engine, and a workflow engine. Intention monitor receives content items from various communication channels and selects various communication items for further processing. A communication channel can be any system that can post or deliver a content item. Thus communication channels may include websites, social networking services, audio channels, etc. Workflow engine receives parameters related to content items and determines an action with respect to the content item based on the parameters (The examiner notes that the broadest reasonable interpretation of identifying if message content relates to a software service would include a system for receiving content items from various communication channels and analyzing the content based on a series of parameters to determine an action to be taken). Some embodiments of the invention may contain a customer relationship management system);
and in accordance with a determination that the message content includes textual data, generating, by the SM gateway module a content item descriptor including content extracted from the content item, wherein generating the content item descriptor includes: extracting content from the content item, the content including message text and metadata of the content item (Paragraph [0019]; [0028-0029]; [0031-0034]; Fig. 1, various embodiments may be discussed with reference to a company support department that accepts multiple textual channels as means of a customer communication. In some embodiments, systems include an intention monitor, an analysis engine, and a workflow engine. Intention monitor receives content items from various communication channels and selects various communication items for further processing. A communication channel can be any system that can post or deliver a content item. Workflow engine receives parameters related to content items and determines an action with respect to the content item based on the parameters. Some embodiments include an analysis engine that receives selected content items form the intention monitor and applies various heuristics to content items in order to calculate various parameters regarding the content item. Such parameters may include a sentiment value for a content item, a natural language analysis of committing language in the content item, etc.);
and providing, by the IMS, the content item descriptor as input to a classification engine configured to analyze the message text and metadata of the content item (Paragraph [0019]; [0028-0029]; [0031-0034]; Fig. 1, various embodiments may be discussed with reference to a company support department that accepts multiple textual channels as means of a customer communication. In some embodiments, systems include an intention monitor, an analysis engine, and a workflow engine. Intention monitor receives content items from various communication channels and selects various communication items for further processing. A communication channel can be any system that can post or deliver a content item. Workflow engine receives parameters related to content items and determines an action with respect to the content item based on the parameters. Some embodiments include an analysis engine that receives selected content items form the intention monitor and applies various heuristics to content items in order to calculate various parameters regarding the content item. Such parameters may include a sentiment value for a content item, a natural language analysis of committing language in the content item, etc.);
generating, by the ticket generation module, a ticket request for creation of a ticket, the ticket request based on the content (Paragraph [0019]; [0028-0029]; [0031-0034]; [0103-0107]; Fig. 1, various embodiments may be discussed with reference to a company support department that accepts multiple textual channels as means of a customer communication. In some embodiments, systems include an intention monitor, an analysis engine, and a workflow engine. Intention monitor receives content items from various communication channels and selects various communication items for further processing. A communication channel can be any system that can post or deliver a content item. Workflow engine receives parameters related to content items and determines an action with respect to the content item based on the parameters (The examiner notes that the broadest reasonable interpretation of an action that can be performed based on content items would include generating a ticket request based on the textual data of the content item). Some embodiments include an analysis engine that receives selected content items form the intention monitor and applies various heuristics to content items in order to calculate various parameters regarding the content item. Such parameters may include a sentiment value for a content item, a natural language analysis of committing language in the content item, etc. In an example John wants to sell his music collection and posts his intention to do so through the Twitter app. ACME shipping corporation regularly monitors twitter and their system discovers a match in john’s post with customer search terms they regularly track. The system sends John’s post to their analysis engine where intent to ship is determined through an analysis of committing language. The analysis engine determines John’s location from data, establishes that John intends to ship his boxes the week before Christmas, and notes there have been recent airport closure in John’s area. This data is then forwarded to the workflow engine. The system creates a ticket in the ACME CRM system with the content of the twitter post);
and communicating, by the IMS, the ticket request to the issue tracking system (Paragraph [0019]; [0028-0029]; [0031-0034]; [0103-0107]; Fig. 1, various embodiments may be discussed with reference to a company support department that accepts multiple textual channels as means of a customer communication. In some embodiments, systems include an intention monitor, an analysis engine, and a workflow engine. Intention monitor receives content items from various communication channels and selects various communication items for further processing. A communication channel can be any system that can post or deliver a content item. Workflow engine receives parameters related to content items and determines an action with respect to the content item based on the parameters. Some embodiments include an analysis engine that receives selected content items form the intention monitor and applies various heuristics to content items in order to calculate various parameters regarding the content item. Such parameters may include a sentiment value for a content item, a natural language analysis of committing language in the content item, etc. Some embodiments of the invention may contain a customer relationship management system. The CRM system may be used for various purposes. The CRM may receive updates, queue entries, task requests, etc. as a result of actions performed by the workflow engine. In an example John wants to sell his music collection and posts his intention to do so through the Twitter app. ACME shipping corporation regularly monitors twitter and their system discovers a match in john’s post with customer search terms they regularly track. The system sends John’s post to their analysis engine where intent to ship is determined through an analysis of committing language. The analysis engine determines John’s location from data, establishes that John intends to ship his boxes the week before Christmas, and notes there have been recent airport closure in John’s area. This data is then forwarded to the workflow engine. The system creates a ticket in the ACME CRM system with the content of the twitter post).
Gordon discloses a system of determining the intent of a social network communication and generating a ticket or an action in response to the communication, however Gordon does not disclose the following claim limitation: a social media identifier for the content item at the social media platform, the social media identifier including a platform identifier corresponding to the social media platform and a content item identifier corresponding to the content item created at the social media platform; and after identifying the message content: in accordance with a determination that the message content does not include textual data, discarding the content item; the classification engine further configured to determine a help-seek intent metric for the content, the help-seek intent metric indicating a probability that the content includes a request for help in relation to the software service; receiving, by the IMS, the help-seek intent metric from the classification engine; determining, by the ticket generation module of the IMS, whether the help-seek intent metric satisfies an intent criteria; and in accordance with a determination that the help-seek intent metric satisfies the intent criteria: generating a ticket request for creation of a ticket, the ticket request based on the content; in accordance with a determination that the help-seek intent metric does not satisfy the intent criteria, discarding the content item descriptor; and subsequent to communicating the ticket request to the issue tracking system, receiving, by the IMS from the issue tracking system, a ticket descriptor including a ticket identifier and a comment field, the comment field including: a comment, the comment received via an issue tracking system interface of the issue tracking system from an agent associated with the issue tracking system, wherein the comment is in regard to the content item and responsive to the identified message content relating to the software service; and in response to receiving the ticket from the issue tracking system: storing, by the IMS, a content item record comprising an association between the ticket identifier and the social media identifier for the content item at the social media platform; generating, by the IMS, a social media response message, the social media response message based on the comment and including a textual indication of a status of the ticket request; and communicating the social media response message and the content item identifier to the social media platform to cause the social media platform to display the social media response message in relation to the content item.
In the same field of endeavor of determining the intent of the content Gupta teaches and after identifying the message content: in accordance with a determination that the message content does not include textual data, discarding the content item (Paragraph [0005]; [0044]; Figs. 2A and 2B some embodiments pertain to noise reduction and smart ticketing for social media communication systems that identifies social media communications from users who are attempting to engage with a brand on a social media platform as “actionable,” and distinguish other communications as “non-actionable,” or noise. Any text-based social media communication may be monitored. In the case that a social media communication includes content other than text (e.g. images) this content may be disregarded, and text included in the communication (if any) may be processed);
the classification engine further configured to determine a help-seek intent metric for the content, the help-seek intent metric indicating a probability that the content includes a request for help in relation to the software service (Paragraph [0005-0006]; [0009]; [0021]; [0052]; some embodiments pertain to noise reduction and smart ticketing for social media communication systems that identifies social media communications from users who are attempting to engage with a brand or entity on a social media platform as “actionable” and distinguish other communications as “non-actionable” or “noise.” Actionable communications refer to those where the interested individual has an intent to engage with the entity or brand. The computer implemented method includes calculating by the computing system and comparing the calculated logarithm with a threshold to predict the class or label of the social media communication. Once the natural logarithm is obtain it is then compared with a threshold to determine whether the value should be set to 1 (actionable) or 0 (noise). For example, if the natural logarithm value is 0.65 and the threshold is 0.61 the communication is determined to be actionable);
receiving, by the IMS, the help-seek intent metric from the classification engine (Paragraph [0005-0006]; [0009]; [0021]; [0052]; some embodiments pertain to noise reduction and smart ticketing for social media communication systems that identifies social media communications from users who are attempting to engage with a brand or entity on a social media platform as “actionable” and distinguish other communications as “non-actionable” or “noise.” Actionable communications refer to those where the interested individual has an intent to engage with the entity or brand. The computer implemented method includes calculating by the computing system and comparing the calculated logarithm with a threshold to predict the class or label of the social media communication. Once the natural logarithm is obtain it is then compared with a threshold to determine whether the value should be set to 1 (actionable) or 0 (noise). For example, if the natural logarithm value is 0.65 and the threshold is 0.61 the communication is determined to be actionable);
determining, by the ticket generation module of the IMS, whether the help-seek intent metric satisfies an intent criteria (Paragraph [0005-0006]; [0009]; [0021]; [0052]; some embodiments pertain to noise reduction and smart ticketing for social media communication systems that identifies social media communications from users who are attempting to engage with a brand or entity on a social media platform as “actionable” and distinguish other communications as “non-actionable” or “noise.” Actionable communications refer to those where the interested individual has an intent to engage with the entity or brand. The computer implemented method includes calculating by the computing system and comparing the calculated logarithm with a threshold to predict the class or label of the social media communication. Once the natural logarithm is obtain it is then compared with a threshold to determine whether the value should be set to 1 (actionable) or 0 (noise). For example, if the natural logarithm value is 0.65 and the threshold is 0.61 the communication is determined to be actionable);
and in accordance with a determination that the help-seek intent metric satisfies the intent criteria: generating a ticket request for creation of a ticket, the ticket request based on the content (Paragraph [0052]; [0079] once the natural logarithm is obtain it is then compared with a threshold to determine whether the value should be set to 1 (actionable) or 0 (noise). For example, if the natural logarithm value is 0.65 and the threshold is 0.61 the communication is determined to be actionable. If the social media communication is actionable a ticket is generated in a smart ticketing application);
in accordance with a determination that the help-seek intent metric does not satisfy the intent criteria, discarding the content item descriptor (Paragraph [0005-0006]; [0009]; [0021]; [0052]; some embodiments pertain to noise reduction and smart ticketing for social media communication systems that identifies social media communications from users who are attempting to engage with a brand or entity on a social media platform as “actionable” and distinguish other communications as “non-actionable” or “noise.” Actionable communications refer to those where the interested individual has an intent to engage with the entity or brand. The computer implemented method includes calculating by the computing system and comparing the calculated logarithm with a threshold to predict the class or label of the social media communication. Once the natural logarithm is obtain it is then compared with a threshold to determine whether the value should be set to 1 (actionable) or 0 (noise). For example, if the natural logarithm value is 0.65 and the threshold is 0.61 the communication is determined to be actionable);
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of determining the intentions of a user’s social media posts and generating ticket for responding to the a user’s desire as disclosed by Gordon (Gordon [0028]) with the system of And after identifying the message content: in accordance with a determination that the message content does not include textual data, discarding the content item; the classification engine further configured to determine a help-seek intent metric for the content, the help-seek intent metric indicating a probability that the content includes a request for help in relation to the software service; receiving the help-seek intent metric from the classification engine; determining whether the help-seek intent metric satisfies an intent criteria; and in accordance with a determination that the help-seek intent metric satisfies the intent criteria: generating a ticket request for creation of a ticket, the ticket request based on the content; in accordance with a determination that the help-seek intent metric does not satisfy the intent criteria, discarding the content item descriptor; as taught by Gupta (Gupta [0052]). With the motivation of helping to determine a user’s intention by determining a value of a social media post (Gupta [0004]).
In the same field of endeavor of managing customer care replies on a social network Famous teaches a social media identifier for the content item at the social media platform, the social media identifier including a platform identifier corresponding to the social media platform and a content item identifier corresponding to the content item created at the social media platform (Paragraph [0017-0018]; [0021]; [0037-0040]; the information from social networking services may be used to initiate communication with customers. For example, the customer contact center may include a contact center server to monitor social networking services for customer service issues. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow or ticket to return information to the customer and resolve the problem. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the workflow or ticket. The agent desktop includes account information, call notes, and social media timeline. The account information includes information related to customer and/or product, which may include information such as the model number, the purchase date, etc. The social media timeline includes one or more social media postings. The social media postings are accessed from social networking services);
and subsequent to communicating the ticket request to the issue tracking system, receiving, by the IMS from the issue tracking system, a ticket descriptor including a ticket identifier and a comment field, the comment field including: a comment, the comment received via an issue tracking system interface of the issue tracking system from an agent associated with the issue tracking system, wherein the comment is in regard to the content item and responsive to the identified message content relating to the software service (Paragraph [0017-0018]; [0037-0040]; the information from social networking services may be used to initiate communication with customers. For example, the customer contact center may include a contact center server to monitor social networking services for customer service issues. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow or ticket to return information to the customer and resolve the problem. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the workflow or ticket. The agent desktop includes account information, call notes, and social media timeline. The account information includes information related to customer and/or product, which may include information such as the model number, the purchase date, etc. The social media timeline includes one or more social media postings. The social media postings are accessed from social networking services);
and in response to receiving the ticket from the issue tracking system: storing, by the IMS, a content item record comprising an association between the ticket identifier and the social media identifier for the content item at the social media platform (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017-0018]; [0021-0022]; [0047]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database);
generating, by the IMS, a social media response message, the social media response message based on the comment and including a textual indication of a status of the ticket request (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017-0018]; [0022]; [0054-0055]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database);
and communicating the social media response message and the content item identifier to the social media platform to cause the social media platform to display the social media response message in relation to the content item (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017-0018]; [0054-0055]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database).
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of determining the intentions of a user’s social media posts and generating ticket for responding to the a user’s desire as disclosed by the combination of Gordon (Gordon [0028]) and Gupta with the system of and subsequent to communicating the ticket request to the issue tracking system, receiving a ticket identifier from the issue tracking system; in response to receiving the ticket identifier from the issue tracking system: storing a content item record comprising an association between the ticket identifier and a content identifier for the content item at the social media platform; generating a first response, the first response responsive to the identified message content relating to the software service and including a textual indication of a status of the ticket request; and responding, via the social media platform, to the content item with the first response as taught by Famous (Famous [0055]). With the motivation of helping to track and monitor the status of customer service tickets so as to provide updates (Famous [0002]).
Claims 2, 9, and 15: Modified Gordon discloses the computer-implemented method as per claim 1, the computer processing system as per claim 8, and the non-transitory computer readable medium as per claim 14. however Gordon does not disclose determining that the help-seek intent metric satisfies a criteria comprises comparing the help-seek metric to a threshold score.
In the same field of endeavor of determining the intent of the content Gupta teaches determining that the help-seek intent metric satisfies a criteria comprises comparing the help-seek metric to a threshold score (Paragraph [0005-0006]; [0009]; [0021]; [0052]; some embodiments pertain to noise reduction and smart ticketing for social media communication systems that identifies social media communications from users who are attempting to engage with a brand or entity on a social media platform as “actionable” and distinguish other communications as “non-actionable” or “noise.” Actionable communications refer to those where the interested individual has an intent to engage with the entity or brand. The computer implemented method includes calculating by the computing system and comparing the calculated logarithm with a threshold to predict the class or label of the social media communication. Once the natural logarithm is obtain it is then compared with a threshold to determine whether the value should be set to 1 (actionable) or 0 (noise). For example, if the natural logarithm value is 0.65 and the threshold is 0.61 the communication is determined to be actionable);
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of determining the intentions of a user’s social media posts and generating ticket for responding to the a user’s desire as disclosed by Gordon (Gordon [0028]) with the system of determining whether the help-seeking intent associated with the content item exceeds a threshold level of intent as taught by Gupta (Gupta [0052]). With the motivation of helping to determine a user’s intention by determining a value of a social media post (Gupta [0004]).
Claims 3, 10, and 16: Modified Gordon discloses the computer-implemented method as per claim 1, the computer processing system as per claim 8, and the non-transitory computer readable medium as per claim 14. However, Gordon does not discloses further comprising receiving the ticket identifier of a ticket generated by the issue tracking system in response to the ticket request.
In the same field of endeavor of managing customer care replies on a social network Famous teaches further comprising receiving a ticket identifier of a ticket generated by the issue tracking system in response to the ticket request (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017]; [0055]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database).
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of determining the intentions of a user’s social media posts and generating ticket for responding to the a user’s desire as disclosed by the combination of Gordon (Gordon [0028]) and Gupta with the system of further comprising: receiving a ticket identifier of a ticket generated by the issue tracking system in response to the ticket request; and storing the ticket identifier along with a social media platform content identifier of the content item as taught by Famous (Famous [0055]). With the motivation of helping to track and monitor the status of customer service tickets so as to provide updates (Famous [0002]).
Claims 4, 11, and 17: Modified Gordon discloses the computer-implemented method as per claim 3, the computer processing system as per claim 10, and the non-transitory computer readable medium as per claim 16. Gordon further discloses further comprising monitoring a status of the ticket generated by the issue tracking system (Paragraph [0032] in some embodiments, such data may include any of the following, alone or in combination: number of support incidents, status of support incidents, disposition of support incidents, rate of support incidents, etc.)
Claims 5, 12, and 18: Modified Gordon discloses the computer-implemented method as per claim 4, the computer processing system as per claim 11, and the non-transitory computer readable medium as per claim 17. However, Gordon does not disclose further comprising determining whether an update message has to be communicated to the social media platform based on the ticket; upon determining that the update message has to be communicated to the social media platform: retrieving, social media identifier based on the ticket identifier; and communicating the update message to the social media platform along with the social media platform social media identifier to cause the social media platform to display the update message in relation to the content item.
further comprising: determining whether an update message has to be communicated to the social media platform based on the ticket (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017]; [0055]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database);
upon determining that the update message has to be communicated to the social media platform: retrieving, the social media identifier based on the ticket identifier (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017]; [0055]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database);
and communicating the update message to the social media platform along with the social media identifier to cause the social media platform to display the update message in relation to the content item (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017]; [0055]; [0059]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database. Many profile based social networks include a status message features).
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of determining the intentions of a user’s social media posts and generating ticket for responding to the a user’s desire as disclosed by the combination of Gordon (Gordon [0028]) and Gupta with the system of further comprising: receiving an update message from the issue tracking system, the update message comprising the ticket identifier and a corresponding update; determining whether an update message has to be communicated to the social media platform based on the update; upon determining that the update message has to be communicated to the social media platform: retrieving, the social media platform content identifier based on the ticket identifier; and communicating the update message to the social media platform along with the social media platform content identifier to cause the social media platform to display the update message in relation to the content item as taught by Famous (Famous [0055]). With the motivation of helping to track and monitor the status of customer service tickets so as to provide updates (Famous [0002]).
Claims 6, 13, and 19: Modified Gordon discloses the computer-implemented method as per claim 4, the computer processing system as per claim 11, and the non-transitory computer readable medium as per claim 17. However, Gordon does not disclose further comprising: receiving an update message from the social media platform, the update message comprising the social media content identifier and a corresponding update; determining whether the update message has to be communicated to the issue tracking system based on the update; upon determining that the update message has to be communicated to the issue tracking system: retrieving the ticket identifier based on the social media identifier; and communicating the update message to the issue tracking system along with the ticket identifier to cause the issue tracking system to display the update message in relation to the ticket.
further comprising: receiving an update message from the social media platform, the update message comprising the social media identifier and a corresponding update (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017-0018]; [0055]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database);
determining whether the update message has to be communicated to the issue tracking system based on the update (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017-0018]; [0055]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database);
upon determining that the update message has to be communicated to the issue tracking system: retrieving the ticket identifier based on the social media identifier (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017-0018]; [0055]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database);
and communicating the update message to the issue tracking system along with the ticket identifier to cause the issue tracking system to display the update message in relation to the ticket (Paragraph [0012-0014]; [0017-0018]; [0055]; a method includes monitoring at least one social medium to identify a social media post by a customer, accessing a database storing a plurality of agent identities, searching the social medium for a reply to the social media post, the reply associated with the one of the plurality of agent identities, and storing the reply to the social media post. In an aspect monitor at least one social medium to identify a social media post associated with one of the customer identities. When a customer posts a problem on a social networking service, the contact center server identifies the post and initiates a workflow ticket. The contact center server may assign one or more agents to the ticket. The return communication to the customer may simply be an email from a contact center agent. The return communication may be recorded by the agent or automatically recorded. The workflows and the open or closed status of the workflows are stored in a customer database).
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of determining the intentions of a user’s social media posts and generating ticket for responding to the a user’s desire as disclosed by the combination of Gordon (Gordon [0028]) and Gupta with the system of further comprising: receiving an update message from the social media platform, the update message comprising the social media platform content identifier and a corresponding update; determining whether the update message has to be communicated to the issue tracking system based on the update; upon determining that the update message has to be communicated to the issue tracking system: retrieving the ticket identifier based on the social media platform content identifier; and communicating the update message to the issue tracking system along with the ticket identifier to cause the issue tracking system to display the update message in relation to the ticket as taught by Famous (Famous [0055]). With the motivation of helping to track and monitor the status of customer service tickets so as to provide updates (Famous [0002]).
Claims 7 and 20: Modified Gordon discloses the computer-implemented method as per claim 1 and the non-transitory computer readable medium as per claim 14. However, Gordon does not disclose further comprising: in accordance with the message text including more than a threshold number of sentences, segmenting the content item into two or more segments before providing the content as input to the classification engine; causing the classification engine to analyze each segment of the content item individually; and aggregating a respective help-seek intent metric for each segment of the content item to determine the help-seeking intent metric of the content item.
In the same field of endeavor of determining the intent of the content Gupta teaches further comprising: in accordance with the message text including more than a threshold number of sentences, segmenting the content item into two or more segments before providing the extracted content as input to the classification model (Paragraph [0047-0049]; Fig. 4, a workflow for converting text to numbers, according to an embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, Word2vec is used, but any suitable mathematical representation of words may be used without deviation. First, the sentence is parsed into individual words. Superfluous characters may be removed. Word2vec is then used on each word to obtain a mathematical representation thereof. Each word is converted into a dimensional word vector and the word vectors for all words in a sentence are averaged, summed, weighted, concatenated, etc. to obtain a dimensional long representation of the word vectors. (The examiner notes that the broadest reasonable interpretation of performing natural language processing to determine a numerical value of a string of characters such as vectorizing a sentence such as is taught by the prior art would include performing the process on text longer than a single sentence to determine a numerical value such as intent));
causing the classification model to analyze each segment of the content item individually (Paragraph [0047-0049]; Fig. 4, a workflow for converting text to numbers, according to an embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, Word2vec is used, but any suitable mathematical representation of words may be used without deviation. First, the sentence is parsed into individual words. Superfluous characters may be removed. Word2vec is then used on each word to obtain a mathematical representation thereof. Each word is converted into a dimensional word vector and the word vectors for all words in a sentence are averaged, summed, weighted, concatenated, etc. to obtain a dimensional long representation of the word vectors);
and aggregating the respective help-seek intent metric for each segment of the content item to determine the help-seeking intent metric of the content item (Paragraph [0047-0049]; Fig. 4, a workflow for converting text to numbers, according to an embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, Word2vec is used, but any suitable mathematical representation of words may be used without deviation. First, the sentence is parsed into individual words. Superfluous characters may be removed. Word2vec is then used on each word to obtain a mathematical representation thereof. Each word is converted into a dimensional word vector and the word vectors for all words in a sentence are averaged, summed, weighted, concatenated, etc. to obtain a dimensional long representation of the word vectors).
Before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of determining the intentions of a user’s social media posts and generating ticket for responding to the a user’s desire as disclosed by Gordon (Gordon [0028]) with the system of determining whether the help-seeking intent associated with the content item exceeds a threshold level of intent as taught by Gupta (Gupta [0052]). With the motivation of helping to determine a user’s intention by determining a value of a social media post (Gupta [0004]).
Therefore, claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see REMARKS, filed November 12, 2025, with respect to the rejections of claims 1-20 under U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
The applicant argues that the additional elements are directed to a practical application as they recite an improvement in the technology of identifying and responding to an issue with a software application by receiving a combination of elements that provide for identifying the issue and allowing an agent to response via a user interface of the issue tracking system separate from the social media site. However, the examiner respectfully disagrees as the additional elements are directed to merely apply it. The claims merely recite generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea of receiving and analyzing user posted content to generate a response and a ticket. Merely automating the process of reviewing content and generating a response is not an improvement to a technology or technical field but applying generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea. Additionally, merely receiving a comment via an interface from an agent, wherein the comment is in regard to the content item and storing the content item record; and generating a response message based on the comment including a textual indication of a status and communicating the social media response message and the content item identifier to the social media platform to cause the social media platform to display the social media response message is not an improvement to the technology of a social media network. The claim merely recites a computer performing the basic functions of receiving information such as a ticket identifier and a comment field including a comment received from an agent, storing the content item, generating a response message based on the comment, and communicating the message to the platform. Merely storing and communicating information is not an improvement to the basic functions of a computer system but merely applying computer elements to perform the abstract idea of generating a comment from an agent regarding content from a user and sharing the content with the user.
Therefore, the examiner maintains the current 101 rejection.
Applicant argues that claims 2-7, 9-13, and 15-20 are allowable as being dependent on claims 1, 8, and 14 and therefore are rejected under the same rejection.
Applicant’s arguments, see REMARKS, filed November 12, 2025, with respect to the rejections of Claims 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gordon (US 2013/0179440) in view of Gupta (US 2019/0026653) further in view of Famous (US 2012/0072358) are not persuasive.
Claims 1, 8, and 14: Applicant argues that the current prior art does not disclose the amended claim limitations. However, upon further search and consideration the examiner finds that the current combination of prior art teaches the newly amended claim limitations. Gordon discloses a system of identifying the intentions of user posts on a social media platform by receiving messages and analyzing the content. While Gupta teaches a system of determining a request for help from user posts and generating a ticket to respond to the customer service requests. Gupta further teaches a system of determining if the content includes noise such as non-textual information and deleting the content or marking the content as non-actionable. Famous further teaches a system of generating a workflow ticket in response to identifying a customer support request from a user. Famous further teaches generating a response to a user request. The workflow for a ticket includes generating and storing communications between agents addressing the customer issue and managing any status updates in a database (Famous [0054-0055]). Famous further teaches allowing an agent to response to a problem using the contact center server which is integrated to the social networking service or alternatively the agent may choose to reply directly on the website of the social networking site (Famous [0018]). The examiner finds that the broadest reasonable interpretation of allowing an agent to respond to a request via the contact center server integrated with the social networking service would include allowing the agent to directly respond to a social media post via the interface of the application of the contact center without needing the agent to switch to the social networking website and reply directly. Additionally, the agent desktop may be a software application running a web-based application which includes the social media timeline of the social media posts provided by a user and the agent (Famous [0037]). Therefore, the examiner finds that the current combination of prior art discloses the currently amended claim limitations.
The examiner finds that the combination of the Gordon, Gupta, and Famous as capable of teaching the current claimed limitations. Therefore, claims 1, 8, and 14 are newly rejected under U.S.C. 103.
Claims 2-6, 9-13, and 15-20 were argued as being allowable only as being dependent on claims 1, 8, and 14. Therefore, they are also rejected under the same rejection as above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Li (US 2017/0091629) Intent platform.
Doddmani Manjunath (US 2017/0243303) Social media analytics and response.
Boetje (US 2006/0182230) Systems, methods, and computer program products for automatically pushing a status change message as a result of repair services that are performed on a network.
White (US 2013/0073470) Method and system for providing online trouble ticket servicing.
Klemm (US 2017/0098282) Social media integration in omni-channel customer issue resolution.
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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/COREY RUSS/Examiner, Art Unit 3629