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 .
Claims 1, 3, 5-7, 27-28, and 31-32 are pending for examination. Claim 1 is independent.
Response to Amendment
The office action is responsive to the amendments filed on 07/22/2026. As
directed by the amendments claims 1 and 3 are amended. Claims 2, 4, 8-13, 30,
33 and 34 have been cancelled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 07/22/2026 have been fully considered but they are not fully persuasive.
Applicant arguments regarding 35 U.S.C. § 101 and 35 U.S.C. § 102:
Applicant’s arguments, filed 07/22/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and 35 U.S.C. § 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of failing to comply with written description and being indefinite .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1, 3, 5-7, 27-28, and 31-32 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 recites “wherein the attribute information, the scene information, and the preference information, upon embedding representation, possess high-dimensional sparse features;” Support for this limitation does not appears in the Speciation, drawings, or claims as originally submitted. Based on Examiner review, the nearest support disclosure for this limitation is found in para 0063:
[Para 0063]: In an embodiment, the recommendation reference: information of the reference object may include any one or more selected from the attribute information of the reference: object, the preference information of the target object for the recommendation information, or the scene information for the information recommendation to the reference object. For example, the recommendation reference: information of the reference object may include the attribute: information, the preference: information and the scene infom1ation. In this way, the feature extraction network may fully learn multi-sided sparse features, and the expressive ability of the obtained object feature may be improved effectively.
As Highlighted in the passage above, the specification recites only multi-sided sparse features. Examiner notes that the specification does not appear to disclose sparse features having high dimensionality, as described in the amended limitations.
Dependent claims 3, 5-7, 27-28, and 31-32 do not resolve the 112(a) rejection
from independent claim 1 and are also rejected under 112(a).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 3, 5-7, 27-28, and 31-32 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The term “high-dimensional sparse features” in claim 1 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “high” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The claim does not specify what qualifies a feature representation as high-dimensional and applicants specification does not establish a dimensional threshold or clear standard for high dimensions.
Dependent claims 3, 5-7, 27-28, and 31-32 do not resolve the 112(b) rejection
from independent claim 1 and are also rejected under 112(b).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Lee et al. (US 20240212021 A1) describes a content recommendation learning model.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TEWODROS E MENGISTU whose telephone number is (571)270-7714. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9:30-5:30.
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/TEWODROS E MENGISTU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2127
