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
This action is in reply to the claims filed on 06/29/2026.
Claims 1, 14, and 20 are amended.
Claim 10 is cancelled.
Claims 1-9 and 11-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Subject Matter Free of Prior Art
Claims 1-9 and 11-20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Independent claims 1, 14, and 20 were previously amended to incorporate the allowable subject matter of dependent claim 10 (now cancelled) as indicated in the Office Action on 05/21/2025. The two most relevant prior art references Deng (CN 111881363A1) and Han (CN 112232925A) were found to not disclose or render obvious: obtaining a plurality of recommendation scores based on the distance between the target account representation and the target item representation, each of the plurality of recommendation scores indicating a degree of matching between the target account and a respective target item of the target item entity; and determining the target item for the target account of the target account entity from the item entity according to the plurality of recommendations scores (previously recited in claim 10, now recited in independent claims 1, 14, and 20). Deng discloses obtaining a target item representation and target account representation, and determining a degree of matching between the target account and the determined target item (see pgs. 9-10 of the Office Action on 05/21/2025). Han discloses calculating a distance indicating a degree of matching between the target account and the determined target item (see pg. 10 of the Office Action on 05/21/2025). However, neither reference discloses or renders obvious obtaining a plurality of recommendation scores and determining the target item for the target account of the target account entity from the item entity according to the plurality of recommendations scores.
Accordingly, claims 1-9 and 11-20 are considered to be free of prior art rejections but remain rejected under 35 USC 101, as explained below.
Claim Rejections- 35 U.S.C. § 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 1-9 and 11-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Under Step 1 of the subject matter eligibility (SME) analysis described in MPEP 2106.03, the instant claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention identified by 35 U.S.C. 101. In the instant case, claims 1-9 and 11-13 are directed to a method, claims 14-19 are directed to an apparatus, and claim 20 is directed to a manufacture. Claims 1, 14, and 20 are parallel in nature, therefore, the analysis will use claim 1 as the representative claim.
In Step 2A Prong One, it must be considered whether the claims recite a judicial exception. Claim 1, as exemplary, recites abstract concepts including: obtaining an account entity relation between a target account entity and a neighbor account entity of the target account entity from a knowledge graph, and an item entity relation between a target item entity and a neighbor item entity of the target item entity, the target account entity and the neighbor account entity being included in a plurality of account entities, the target item entity and the neighbor item entity being included in a plurality of item entities; based on the knowledge graph input ... extracting ... a plurality of account embedding vectors from the plurality of account entities, an account relation vector embedding vector from the account entity relation, a plurality of item embedding vectors from the plurality of item entities, and an item relation embedding vector from the item entity relation; based on a target item embedding vector of the plurality of item embedding vectors associated with the target item entity, fusing a target account embedding vector of the plurality of account embedding vectors associated with the target account entity and a neighbor account embedding vector of the plurality of account embedding vectors associated with the neighbor account entity through the account relation embedding vector to obtain a target account representation; based on the target account embedding vector of the plurality of account embedding vectors associated with the target account entity, fusing the target item embedding vector of the plurality of item embedding vectors associated with the target item entity and a neighbor item embedding vector of the plurality of item embedding vectors associated with the neighbor item entity through the item relation embedding vector to obtain a target item representation; based on a distance between the target account representation and the target item representation, determining a plurality of recommendation scores, each of the plurality of recommendation scores indicating a degree of matching between a target account of the target account entity and a respective target item of the target item entity; and determining a target item for the target account of the target account entity from the target item entity according to the plurality of recommendation scores; and presenting ... the determined target item to a user associated with the target account of the target account entity when the user sends an inquiry for commodity recommendation ... wherein: recommendation accuracy of the determined target item presented to the user is being improved based on the target account representation of features of the target account and the target item representation of features of the target item.
These recited limitations recite the abstract idea of “determining a target item for a target account” which falls within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas as it relates to commercial interactions of sales activities or behaviors. The claimed method generates an item recommendation which is sales activity. Accordingly, claims 1, 14, and 20 recite an abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.04.
In Step 2A, Prong Two Examiners evaluate whether the claim recites additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Instant claims 1, 14, and 20 recite additional elements including: an input embedding layer of an artificial intelligence (AI) model; an interactive attention layer of the AI model; a prediction layer of the AI model; a terminal; processing circuitry and a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions executable by at least one processor.
One consideration when determining whether a claim integrates a judicial exception into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two or recites significantly more than a judicial exception in Step 2B is whether the additional elements amount to more than a recitation of the words "apply it" (or an equivalent) or are more than mere instructions to implement an abstract idea or other exception on a computer. As explained by the Supreme Court, in order to make a claim directed to a judicial exception patent-eligible, the additional element or combination of elements must do "‘more than simply stat[e] the [judicial exception] while adding the words ‘apply it’". Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank. Thus, for example, claims that amount to nothing more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer do not render an abstract idea eligible.
The AI model including the input embedding model, interaction attention layer, and prediction layer; processing circuitry; terminal; non-transitory computer readable storage medium; and at least one processor are each recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic devices performing generic computer functions) such that it amounts to no more than “apply it” or mere instruction to implement the abstract idea on a computer. Rather than confining the judicial exception to a particular, practical application, the claims contain no restriction on how these elements perform the abstract limitations and no description of the elements themselves. The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instruction to apply an exception with a generic computer. Accordingly, even in combination, these 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. See MPEP 2106.05. Claims 1, 14, and 20 are thus directed to an abstract idea.
Under Step 2B of the SME analysis, if it is determined that the claims recite a judicial exception that is not integrated into a practical application of that exception, it is then necessary to evaluate the additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether they provide an inventive concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself).
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, as discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element(s) individually and in combination are merely being used to apply the abstract idea to a general computer components. For the same reason, the elements are not sufficient to provide an inventive concept. Therefore, the additional elements, alone or in ordered combination, there is no inventive concept in the claim, and thus claims 1, 14, and 20 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claim(s) 2-7, 11, 13, and 15-19 do not aid in the eligibility of the independent claims. These claims merely further define the abstract idea and abstract mathematical concepts without reciting any further additional elements. Thus, dependent claims 2-7, 11, 13, and 15-19 are also ineligible.
Dependent claim 8-9 and 12 recite additional elements including: a convolutional network; an item recommendation model; and training the item recommendation model. These additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they merely amount to no more than a general link of the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use. Even in combination, these additional elements do not act to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application and do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Thus claims 8-9 and 12 are also ineligible.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 06/29/2026 with respect the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejections of claims 1-9 and 11-20 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On page 14 of the Remarks, Applicant argues the amended claims “recite a specific technical implementation” that solves a technical problem – analyzing only low-order information in a knowledge graph which produces inaccurate recommendations and wasteful repeated computer processing. Specifically, Applicant argues that the specific architecture of the interaction attention layer which fuses account and item representations based on knowledge graph entity relations, enables more accurate recommendations “which in turn helps avoid the waste of data resources caused by requiring multiple recommendation analyses, improve the efficient of commodity recommendation, and reduce the amount of data interaction between computer devices”.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claim must be evaluated to ensure the claim itself reflects the disclosed improvement in technology. Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1316, 120 USPQ2d 1353, 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (patent owner argued that the claimed email filtering system improved technology by shrinking the protection gap and mooting the volume problem, but the court disagreed because the claims themselves did not have any limitations that addressed these issues). That is, the claim must include the components or steps of the invention that provide the improvement described in the specification. However, the claim itself does not need to explicitly recite the improvement described in the specification (e.g., "thereby increasing the bandwidth of the channel"). See MPEP 2106.05(a).
Claim 1 does not reflect avoiding repeated execution of a recommendation analysis, and does not recite any data interaction between devices or any mechanisms (like a reduction in the number of performed analysis) that would produce the alleged reduction in computing resource waste. The problem of repeated execution/resource waste and the alleged solution appears only in the Specification, and is not tied to any limitation actually recited in claim 1. Because the claims do not recite steps directed to the proposed solution of avoiding repeated execution or reducing the amount of data interaction between devices, this argument does not establish that the claim integrates or provides significantly more than the abstract idea.
The recited limitation of “fusing, via an interactive attention layer of the AI model, a target account embedding vector ... and a neighbor account embedding vector ... to obtain a target account representation” is an abstract mathematical concept (see Spec. ¶ [0101] “after a plurality of account attention scores are normalized, weighted combination is performed on the normalized attention scores thereby balancing or fusing, by emphasis, the plurality of account attention scores and improving the analysis accuracy”; ¶ [0205]). The “wherein” clause that the recommendation accuracy “is being improved”, is the result of applying mathematical calculations, not a recitation of a technical mechanism that produces the result. A claim to a mathematical technique that produces a more accurate output is still directed to an abstract idea, even if the Specification alleges that the improved output leads to downstream and unclaimed efficiencies because the improvement is to the abstract idea (accuracy of recommendation/computation), and not the functioning of the computer or model itself. See, e.g., SAP America, Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1163, 127 USPQ2d 1597, 1599 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (holding that claims to a ‘‘series of mathematical calculations based on selected information’’ are directed to abstract ideas). Also, and particularly relevant to the present claims, see “organizing information and manipulating information through mathematical correlations” Digitech Image Techs., LLC v. Electronics for Imaging, Inc., 758 F.3d 1344, 1350, 111 USPQ2d 1717, 1721 (Fed. Cir. 2014). The patentee in Digitech claimed methods of generating first and second data by taking existing information, manipulating the data using mathematical functions, and organizing this information into a new form. The court explained that such claims were directed to an abstract idea because they described a process of organizing information through mathematical correlations, like Flook's method of calculating using a mathematical formula. 758 F.3d at 1350, 111 USPQ2d at 1721.
Accordingly, the Examiner maintains that the artificial intelligence model and the mathematical operations it performs to generate a recommended item (sales activity), are generic components applying a mathematical concept, and do not provide integration or significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Claims 1-9 and 11-20 therefore remain rejected under 35 USC 101.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
S. Liang (NPL Reference U) proposes three customized GNNs for different scenarios of knowledge graph representation, including traditional, multimodal, and uncertain knowledge graphs
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.
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/K.G.W./Examiner, Art Unit 3688
/KELLY S. CAMPEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3691
