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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 10/2/2025 has been entered.
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 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 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 5, 6, 9, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28, 30 are/is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thota et al. US2015/0254357 in view of Zeng et al. US7289985 in view of Simon et al. US2014/0365454
Regarding claim 5, Thota teaches: receiving, by a server device from a first user device, a query; (Thota see paragraph0035 system to receive user query from user)
determining that a first plurality of entities is associated with the search query, wherein the first plurality of entities comprises a first entity directly related to the search query and corresponding to a first content item to be provided as a first query result of the search query, and (Thota see paragraph 0023-0025, 0051-0054 query submitted including a search for location such as Saratoga California and search results to have business entities near the specified location and determining other associated adjoining locations or predefined experiences related to query terms)
wherein a candidate query result is associated with a second entity corresponding to a second content item
determining to add the candidate query result to the first query result of the search query, wherein determining to add the candidate query result to the first query result of the search query comprises:
determining that the first entity of the first plurality of entities overlaps with the second entity of the candidate query result; (Thota see paragraphs 0051-0054 user to give query and a predefined experience or related to query is used to return results for example the query “restaurants New York” may use “romantic” to return results)
identifying a third entity of the first plurality of entities associated is the search query; the third entity corresponding to a third content item
determining that the first entity, which overlaps with the second entity of the candidate query result, has a relationship with the third entity defined by a first predicate (Thota see paragraph 0023 -0025 returning query results that include location indicated in query in Saratoga and additional return results in Cupertino which adjoins Saratoga where Saratoga adjoining Cupertino reads on predicate)
providing, based on the first entity, the second entity and the third entity, the first query result for display by the first user device, wherein the first query result identifies the first content item, the second content item and the third content item, and wherein each of the first content item, the second content item and third content item is a item and (Thota see paragraph 0023-0025 0029 0051-0054 query results presented to user for review for example based on daycare based around Saratoga California or in Cupertino or based on predefined experiences)
Thota does not teach: video item search query
video item or an advertisement
providing a relevance descriptor associated with a relationship between the video item search query and the first query result for display by the first user device
However, Zeng teaches: providing a relevance descriptor associated with a relationship between the search query and the first query result for display by the first user device (Zeng see col. 7 lines 63-67 col. 8 lines 1-30 search results to have snippet descriptions that highlight terms used in the search query)
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 a method of querying as taught by Thota as modified to include a description snippet as taught by Zeng for the predictable result of more efficiently determining query results
Thota as modified does not teach: video item search query
video item or an advertisement
Simon teaches: video item search query
video item or an advertisement (Simon see paragraph 0013 0015 0035 0046 0049 search for documents such that one or more entities are selected based on search query and search result is provided in conjunction with each selected entity where document can be video)
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 a method of querying as taught by Thota as modified to include video search as taught by Simon for the predictable result of more efficiently determining query results
Regarding claim 6, Thota teaches: wherein the relevance descriptor is based on the first entity. (Thota see paragraph 0024 query results based on spatial relevance to location specified in query)
Regarding claim 9, Thota as modified further teaches: determining that a fourth entity is directly related to the first query result; and (Thota see paragraph 0024 0025 returning query results that include location in Saratoga California where California reads on fourth entity)
determining that the fourth entity has a relationship with the second entity defined by a first predicate. (Thota see paragraphs 0051-0054 user to give query and a predefined experience or related to query is used to return results)
Regarding claims 21, 22, 24, 27, 28, 30, note the rejection of claim(s) 5, 6, 9. The instant claims recite substantially same limitations as the above-rejected claims and are therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Claim(s) 8 and 10 and 23, 25, 29, 31 are/is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thota et al. US2015/0254357 in view of Zeng et al. US7289985 in view of Simon et al. US2014/0365454 in view of Tian et al. US2020/0394185
Regarding claim 8, Thota does not teach: wherein the relevance descriptor is based on the first predicate
However, Tian teaches: wherein the relevance descriptor is based on the first predicate. (Tian see paragraph 0028 0034 0048 0057 select predicates based on a first predicate and entity in user query and return triples and rank the correlations between first and second predicates based on semantic relevance analysis which reads on relevance descriptor)
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 a method of querying as taught by Thota as modified to include the use of predicates as taught by Tian for the predictable result of more efficiently determining query results
Regarding claim 10, Thota does not teach: wherein the relevance descriptor is based on the second predicate, and wherein providing the relevance descriptor comprises determining that the second predicate belongs to a first plurality of predicates associated with relevance descriptors, wherein the first plurality of predicates comprises a subset of a second plurality of predicates, and wherein the second plurality of predicates is to be used to determine a set of entities associated with a query result
However, Tian teaches: wherein the relevance descriptor is based on the second predicate, and wherein providing the relevance descriptor comprises determining that the second predicate belongs to a first plurality of predicates associated with relevance descriptors, wherein the first plurality of predicates comprises a subset of a second plurality of predicates, and wherein the second plurality of predicates is to be used to determine a set of entities associated with a query result (Tian see paragraph 0028 0034 0048 0057 select predicates based on a first predicate and entity in user query and return triples such as “Messi is in Argentina” or “Messi belongs to Barcelona” such that Barcelona and Argentina read on set of entities and rank the correlations between first and second predicates based on semantic relevance analysis which reads on relevance descriptor)
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 a method of querying as taught by Thota as modified to include the use of predicates as taught by Tian for the predictable result of more efficiently determining query results
Regarding claims 23, 25, 29, 31, note the rejection of claim(s) 8 and 10. The instant claims recite substantially same limitations as the above-rejected claims and are therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Claim(s) 11 and 26, 32 are/is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thota et al. US2015/0254357 in view of Zeng et al. US7289985 in view of Tian et al. US2020/0394185 in view of Ebel US2023/0010139
Regarding claim 11, Thota as modified teaches: video item search query; (Simon see paragraph 0046 search for documents such that one or more entities are selected based on search query and search result is provided in conjunction with each selected entity where document can be video)
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 a method of querying as taught by Thota as modified to include video search as taught by Simon for the predictable result of more efficiently determining query results
Thota does not teach: wherein determining the first plurality of predicate relationships comprises curating predicates of the first plurality of predicates for relevance as perceived by a user
However, Tian teaches: wherein determining the first plurality of predicate relationships comprises curating predicates of the first plurality of predicates for relevance as perceived by a user. (Tian see paragraph 0028 0034 0048 0057 select predicates based on a first predicate and entity in user query and return triples such as “Messi is in Argentina” or “Messi belongs to Barcelona”)
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 a method of querying as taught by Thota as modified to include the use of predicates as taught by Tian for the predictable result of more efficiently determining query results
Thota does not teach: determining that a second plurality of entities is directly associated with the user query, wherein the second plurality of entities is a subset of the first plurality of entities, and wherein a third plurality of entities consists of entities comprising the first plurality of entities that do not comprise the second plurality of entities; and
determining that each of the third plurality of entities is related to one or more of the second plurality of entities by a predicate relationship belonging to a first plurality of predicate relationships
Ebel teaches: determining that a second plurality of entities is directly associated with the user query, wherein the second plurality of entities is a subset of the first plurality of entities, and wherein a third plurality of entities consists of entities comprising the first plurality of entities that do not comprise the second plurality of entities; and
determining that each of the third plurality of entities is related to one or more of the second plurality of entities by a predicate relationship belonging to a first plurality of predicate relationships (Ebel see paragraph 0015 0027 0048 0050 segments as a subset of entities defined by a query and a criteria to filter a subset of entities for example all customers purchasing produce more than 200 is segmented into data respective of 2019 and up and segment calculating all data up to 2020 with predicates determining segment membership respective to a timeline)
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 a method of querying as taught by Thota as modified to include the use of segments and entities as taught by Ebel for the predictable result of more efficiently determining query results
Regarding claims 26, 32, note the rejection of claim(s) 11. The instant claims recite substantially same limitations as the above-rejected claims and are therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Response to arguments
Applicant’s argument: Prior art of record does not teach newly amended claims
Examiner’s response: Applicant’s argument is moot as newly amended claims are responded to in the above rejection
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALLEN S LIN whose telephone number is (571)270-0612. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9-5.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kavita Stanley can be reached on (571)272-8352. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ALLEN S LIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2153