DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response the communications filed on 05/29/2026 in which claims 21, 30 and 37 are amended, and therefore claims 21-40 are pending.
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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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 05/29/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(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.
Claim 29 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 29 recites the limitation “the plurality of entities.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For examination purposes examiner has interpreted “the plurality of entities” to be “a plurality of entities.”
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.
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Claims 21-40 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more
Step 1: Claims 21-29 recite a method. Claims 30-36 recite a non-transitory medium. Claims 37-40 recite a system comprising a processor and memory. Therefore, claims 21-29 are directed to a process, claims 30-36 are directed to a manufacture, and claims 37-40 are directed to a machine.
With respect to claims 21, 30 and 37:
2A Prong 1: The claim recites a judicial exception.
capturing… interaction information for the source entity-relation pair information and the neighborhood entity-relation pair information, wherein the interaction information comprises a source intermediate embedding corresponding to the source entity-relation pair information and one or more neighborhood intermediate embeddings corresponding to the neighborhood entity-relation pair information; (mental process – evaluation or judgement; under BRI, capturing/evaluating interaction information for the source pair input and neighborhood pair input, in light of specification [0080]-[0081] “capture (e.g., 710), by the first level transformer block (e.g., 450), interaction information for the source entity-relation pair input (e.g., 406, 408) and interaction information for the neighborhood entity-relation pair input (e.g., 418, 420, 428, 430);”)
aggregating… the source intermediate embedding and the one or more neighborhood intermediate embeddings to generate an aggregated representation; (mental process – evaluation or judgement; under BRI, aggregating the interaction information for those pairs, in light of specification [0081] “aggregate (e.g., 712), by a second level transformer block (e.g., 452), the interaction information for the source entity-relation pair input (e.g., 406, 408) and the interaction information for the neighborhood entity-relation pair input (e.g., 418, 420, 428, 430);”)
selecting one of the link predictions to be a target node for the incomplete triplet (mental process – evaluation or judgement; under BRI, selecting one of the predictions, in light of specification [0081] “select (e.g., 716) the highest ranked link prediction to be the target entity for the knowledge graph (e.g., 100);”)
adding the target node to the incomplete triplet in the knowledge graph (mental process – evaluation or judgement; under BRI, adding the node to the triplet, in light of specification [0081] “and add (e.g., 734) the target entity to the knowledge graph (e.g., 100).”)
2A Prong 2: The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application.
(claim 30) A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions for completing an incomplete triplet in a knowledge graph, the instructions when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the computing device to (claim 37) A system for completing an incomplete triplet in a knowledge graph, the system comprising: a processor; memory storing computer-executable instructions, which when executed, cause the system to (mere instructions to apply an exception – MPEP 2106.05(f), (2) invoking generic computer components)
receiving… a source entity-relation pair information from the knowledge graph (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting)
receiving… neighborhood entity-relation pair information from the knowledge graph (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting)
providing… link predictions for the incomplete triplet based on the aggregated representation (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting, in light of specification [0081] “output (e.g., 714), by the second level transformer block (e.g., 452), link predictions (e.g., 448) based on the aggregated interaction information”)
by a first transformer… by the first transformer… by the first transformer… by a second transformer different from the first transformer… by the second transformer (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (1) Whether the extra-solution limitation is well known)
Since the claim as a whole, looking at the additional elements individually and in combination, does not contain any other additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
2B: The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
(claim 30) A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions for completing an incomplete triplet in a knowledge graph, the instructions when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the computing device to (claim 37) A system for completing an incomplete triplet in a knowledge graph, the system comprising: a processor; memory storing computer-executable instructions, which when executed, cause the system to (mere instructions to apply an exception – MPEP 2106.05(f), (2) invoking generic computer components)
receiving… a source entity-relation pair information from the knowledge graph (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting, and WURC: receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 - MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i))
receiving… neighborhood entity-relation pair information from the knowledge graph (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting, and WURC: receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 - MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i))
providing… link predictions for the incomplete triplet based on the aggregated representation (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting, and WURC: receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 - MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i); in light of specification [0081] “output (e.g., 714), by the second level transformer block (e.g., 452), link predictions (e.g., 448) based on the aggregated interaction information”)
by a first transformer… by the first transformer… by the first transformer… by a second transformer different from the first transformer… by the second transformer (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (1) Whether the extra-solution limitation is well known); in light of spec. [0006] and [0026] “The model includes two different Transformer blocks.” The hierarchical two-transformer architecture is an architecture of multiple transformer blocks, which is well-known and in common use, i.e. multi-layer transformer is a common use in Large Language Models (LLMs). BERT, GPT, UNILM are all architectures with multiple transformer blocks.)
Devlin (“BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding”) teaches (Devlin, p. 3, Model Architecture “In this work, we denote the number of layers (i.e., Transformer blocks) as L”)
Horsuwan (“A Comparative Study of Pretrained Language Models on Thai Social Text Categorization”) teaches (Horsuwan, p. 2, 5.1 Implementation Details “GPT… The resulting model has 12 layers of transformer each with 12 self-attention heads… BERT. We used the publicly available BERT_BASE… 12 self-attention heads, and 12 transformer blocks.”)
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Dong (“Unified Language Model Pre-training for Natural Language Understanding and Generation”) teaches transformer Block 1, transformer Block 2… transformer Block L in Figure 1.
Considering the additional elements individually and in combination, and the claim as a whole, the additional elements do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
With respect to claims 22, 31 and 39:
2A Prong 1: The claim recites a judicial exception.
further comprising: determining neighborhood relational information from the knowledge graph (mental process – evaluation or judgement, determine relational information)
converting the neighborhood relational information into the neighborhood entity-relation pair information (mental process – evaluation or judgement, convert the relational information)
With respect to claims 23 and 32:
2A Prong 1: The claim recites a judicial exception.
wherein providing the link predictions for the incomplete triplet includes: aggregating the interaction information for the source entity-relation pair information and the interaction information for the neighborhood entity-relation pair information (mental process – evaluation or judgement, aggregate the interaction information)
2A Prong 2: The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application.
providing target entity predictions based on the aggregated interaction information (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting; in light of specification [0081] “output (e.g., 714), by the second level transformer block (e.g., 452), link predictions (e.g., 448) based on the aggregated interaction information”)
Since the claim as a whole, looking at the additional elements individually and in combination, does not contain any other additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
2B: The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
providing target entity predictions based on the aggregated interaction information (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting, and WURC: receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 - MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i); in light of specification [0081] “output (e.g., 714), by the second level transformer block (e.g., 452), link predictions (e.g., 448) based on the aggregated interaction information”)
Considering the additional elements individually and in combination, and the claim as a whole, the additional elements do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
With respect to claims 24, 33 and 38:
2A Prong 1: The claim recites a judicial exception.
further comprising: converting the incomplete triplet from the knowledge graph to the source entity-relation pair information, wherein the incomplete triplet is missing one of a subject or an object (mental process – evaluation or judgement, convert the triplet)
With respect to claims 25, 34 and 40:
2A Prong 1: The claim recites a judicial exception.
wherein selecting the one of the link predictions to be a target node for the incomplete triplet comprises (mental process – evaluation or judgement, select one of the link predictions)
ranking the link predictions based on a plausibility score (mental process – evaluation or judgement, rank the link predictions)
selecting the highest ranked link prediction to be the target node for the incomplete triplet (mental process – evaluation or judgement, select the highest link prediction)
With respect to claims 26 and 35:
2A Prong 2: The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application.
wherein the source entity-relation pair information further comprises a token embedding, a source embedding, and a predicate embedding (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting. Claim 21 recites “receiving a source entity-relation pair information” which is insignificant extra-solution activity.)
Since the claim as a whole, looking at the additional elements individually and in combination, does not contain any other additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
2B: The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
wherein the source entity-relation pair information further comprises a token embedding, a source embedding, and a predicate embedding (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting, and WURC: receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 - MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i). Claim 21 recites “receiving a source entity-relation pair information” which is insignificant extra-solution activity.)
Considering the additional elements individually and in combination, and the claim as a whole, the additional elements do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
With respect to claim 27:
2A Prong 2: The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application.
wherein the token embedding is a classification token (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting. Claim 26 recites “the source entity-relation pair information further comprises a token embedding…” which is insignificant extra-solution activity.)
Since the claim as a whole, looking at the additional elements individually and in combination, does not contain any other additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
2B: The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
wherein the token embedding is a classification token (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting, and WURC: receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 - MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i). Claim 26 recites “the source entity-relation pair information further comprises a token embedding…” which is insignificant extra-solution activity.)
Considering the additional elements individually and in combination, and the claim as a whole, the additional elements do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
With respect to claims 28 and 36:
2A Prong 1: The claim recites a judicial exception.
determining a plausibility score for the link prediction based on the token (mental process – evaluation or judgement, determine a score)
2A Prong 2: The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application.
wherein providing link predictions further comprises: providing a token for each link prediction, wherein the token comprises an aggregation of the source embedding and the predicate embedding (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting; in light of specification [0081] “output (e.g., 714), by the second level transformer block (e.g., 452), link predictions (e.g., 448) based on the aggregated interaction information”)
Since the claim as a whole, looking at the additional elements individually and in combination, does not contain any other additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
2B: The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
wherein providing link predictions further comprises: providing a token for each link prediction, wherein the token comprises an aggregation of the source embedding and the predicate embedding (insignificant extra-solution activity – MPEP 2106.05(g), (3) data gathering and outputting, and WURC: receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 - MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i); in light of specification [0081] “output (e.g., 714), by the second level transformer block (e.g., 452), link predictions (e.g., 448) based on the aggregated interaction information”)
Considering the additional elements individually and in combination, and the claim as a whole, the additional elements do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
With respect to claim 29:
2A Prong 2: The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application.
wherein the knowledge graph comprises a plurality of nodes connected by edges, wherein each of the plurality of nodes comprises an entity and each of the edges represents a relationship between two of the plurality of entities (a particular technological environment or field of use – MPEP 2106.05(h))
Since the claim as a whole, looking at the additional elements individually and in combination, does not contain any other additional elements that are indicative of integration into a practical application, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
2B: The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
wherein the knowledge graph comprises a plurality of nodes connected by edges, wherein each of the plurality of nodes comprises an entity and each of the edges represents a relationship between two of the plurality of entities (a particular technological environment or field of use – MPEP 2106.05(h))
Considering the additional elements individually and in combination, and the claim as a whole, the additional elements do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's amendments with respect to 103 Rejection has been fully considered and are sufficient to overcome the rejections. The 103 Rejection have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments with respect to the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive:
Applicant argues: (p. 10-11) A. Claims Do Not Recite an Abstract Idea… The Action's "mental process" analysis remains flawed… But the claims do not merely require making a judgment about a missing node; they require embedding-based computations performed by two different transformers… Those transformer computations are not practically performable in the human mind, with or without pen and paper.
Examiner answers: In step 2A, prong One, the claim is evaluated if it recites a judicial exception. The steps of capturing, aggregating, selecting and adding are mental processes, and therefore the claim recites an exception. Further, the additional elements, i.e. the recitation of the two different transformers, are evaluated if the elements integrate the exception into a practical application or significantly more under step 2A, prong Two and step 2B. The additional elements are not evaluated under step 2A, prong One if they are abstract ideas.
Applicant argues: (p. 11-13) B. Claims Recite Inventive Concept in Practical Applications… the Action falls into the same error by reducing the claimed hierarchical transformer architecture to generalized notions of evaluating information, predicting links, and manipulating a graph, without addressing the specific ordered combination recited in the independent claims… The eligibility inquiry considers the claim as a whole and the ordered combination of elements, not whether individual components can be found in the prior art. Here, amended claim 21 is not directed to a generic multi-layer transformer stack. It recites a specific hierarchical architecture in which graph-neighborhood information is encoded into intermediate embeddings…The Action has not shown that this ordered combination is well-understood, routine, and conventional.
Examiner answers: The applicant appears to argue that the specific hierarchical architecture and the ordered combination (i.e. those mental steps such as capturing/aggregating interaction information, selecting link predictions and adding the node) should be considered as a whole.
In step 2A, prong Two and step 2B, the additional element of leveraging a hierarchical transformer architecture is well known, and Berkheimer analysis with publication Devlin, Horsuwan, Dong demonstrates that the architecture is the well-understood, routine, conventional nature of the additional element(s). Further, when incorporating the exceptions with the additional elements to evaluate the claim as a whole, the ordered combination of elements of mental steps is still ordered abstract steps, i.e. the combination of mental steps does not make it patent-eligible.
Conclusion
The limitations in claim 21
“capturing, by the first transformer, interaction information for the source entity-relation pair information and the neighborhood entity-relation pair information, wherein the interaction information comprises a source intermediate embedding corresponding to the source entity- relation pair information and one or more neighborhood intermediate embeddings corresponding to the neighborhood entity-relation pair information;
aggregating, by a second transformer different from the first transformer, the source intermediate embedding and the one or more neighborhood intermediate embeddings to generate an aggregated representation;”
have not been uncovered.
The closest prior art to the invention is the combination of Nathani and Peters. Nathani teaches the concepts of using a transformer block for source pairs and neighborhood pairs. Peters teaches using two sequential transformer blocks for the input. However, Peters is silent that the input are “source pairs and neighborhood pairs” in a knowledge graph, therefore Peters does not teach the intermediate results are “the source intermediate embedding and the one or more neighborhood intermediate embeddings” as claimed, let alone aggregating those source and neighborhood embeddings to generate an aggregated representation.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SU-TING CHUANG whose telephone number is (408)918-7519. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 8-5 PT.
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/S.C./Examiner, Art Unit 2146
/USMAAN SAEED/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2146
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