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
1. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 05/05/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
2. This in response to an RCE amendment filed 05/05/2026. No claims have been added. No claims have been canceled. Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8 have been amended. Claim 1-8 are still pending in this application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
Claim(s) 1-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Spector (Pub.No.: 2011/0071880 A1) in view of Brydon (US PAT # 9,654,640 B1) and further in view of Siddiqui et al. (US PAT # 10,264,128 B1).
Regarding claims 1, 7 and 8, Specter teaches an information processing apparatus, method and a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising:
a processor programmed (see [0056]) to:
in response to determined urgency level meeting a predetermined condition, inquiry to a person in charge of a second or later response that is a stage subsequent to a first response as a first point of contact (reads on the parse logic 610 if it receives an emergency request transmission will parse the user identifier, the user location, and the emergency type and pass the information to the proximity determination logic. The parse logic will also pass the emergency level, the emergency type and at least the user identifier to the emergency level logic 650. If the emergency level logic determines that the emergency level is high, the emergency level logic will have the responder determination logic 630 locate the closest responder to the emergency location. The responder determination logic 630 retrieves responder profile information 620 for the specified emergency type and passes the information to the proximity determination logic 640 for determining the responder that is closest in proximity to the emergency. Once the proximity information is passed from the proximity determination logic 640 to the responder determination logic 630, the responder determination logic 630 generates a request 691 to one or more of the proximate responders, see [0056]).
Specter features addressed in the rejection of independent claims 1 and 7-8. However, Spector does not specifically teach “receive an inquiry regarding a failure or use of an apparatus” and “analyze a content of the received inquiry to determine a category and an urgency level of the inquiry” as recited in independent claims 1, 7 and 8.
Yet, Brydon teaches receiving customer service inquiries including technical service inquiries relating to products, devices, installation and troubleshooting, i.e., inquirers regarding a failure or user of an apparatus (see col. 3-5; request I/O receiving inquiries). Bryson further teaches analyzing the content of such inquiries via an inquiry Parser to determine topic characteristics and category of the inquiry (see col. 6, lines 1-65).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the applicant’s claimed invention to incorporate Brydon’s inquiry parsing and topic categorization framework (inquiry parser 140 determining topic characteristics) into the Spector’s parsing/identifying and using “emergency level” (urgency level) because both references explicitly process an incoming request/inquiry by parsing its content/metadata and then using the derived information to drive downstream handling (e.g., responder selection/dispatch inspector; experts matching/routing in Brydon). This is a predictable use of known urgency-level classification in a request-handling system.
Spector and Brydon do not expressly teach “determine whether assignment of the content” and “is prohibited, and if the assignment is not prohibited, assign the content of the inquiry directly to the person in charge of the second or later response without assigning the content of the inquiry to a person in charge of the first response”.
However, Siddiqui teaches a dynamic contact management system for managing customer service center and determining which actions are permitted to betaken with respect to customer contacts and assigning customer contacts to agent determined likely to resolve the contact (see abstract and Figs.2A and 2B with corresponding texts). Siddiqui further teaches that customer service center agents may be organized by authority hierarchy/level, where lower-level/higher-level agents may be permitted to perform a second set of actions having greater authority (see Fig. 4 and corresponding text and Figs.2A and 2B with corresponding texts).
Siddiqui also teaches that the contact manager may compare a dynamic score with threshold of an authority hierarchy and determine that an agent should be authorized at a higher level, identify actions available/authorized for an agent account, dynamically determine permitted actions, and temporarily authorize the agent account to perform the determined actions without requiring manual approval by another agent account, see (Fig. s and corresponding text).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the applicant’s claimed invention to further modify Spector and Brydon with Siddiqui’s authorization/authority-level contact assignment frame work so that, after the urgency level and inquiry content are determined, the system determines whether assignment to a higher-level/second-response person is permitted or prohibited and , when no prohibited, assigs the inquiry directly to the authorized higher-level person without first assigning it to a lower-level first-response person, to reduce delay and improve resolution of customer contacts by routing the inquiry to an authorized agent who has authority to perform the required action, as taught by Siddiqui.
Claim 2 recites “wherein the processor programmed to, in a case where the content of the inquiry is assigned to the person in charge of the second response, notify the person in charge of the second response of identification information about a person in charge of a third response that is a stage subsequent to the second response”. Note that Spector teaches assigning the inquiry (emergency) to responders at different levels (tires), including second-level responders after the first, however, Spector does not teach “notify the person in charge of the second response of identification information about a person in charge of a third response that is a stage subsequent to the second response”. Brydon teaches that Routing Logic 165 is configured to route customer service inquiries to more than one expert (associated with more than one of Expert Devices 115). This can occur in various ways. For example, a customer service inquiry may be routed to different experts in a serial manner if a first expert, or set of experts, is unable to provide a satisfactory resolution for a customer service inquiry. The lack of a satisfactory resolution may be determined by the originator of the inquiry (requester) and/or by an elapsed time. A customer service inquiry may be routed to different experts in a serial manner if a first expert (or set of experts) refers the inquiry to a second expert. The second expert may take over responsibility for resolving the inquiry alone, or may work with the first expert to jointly resolve the inquiry. In one example, a response(s) produced by one set of experts may be given to a second set of experts for rating or to provide further input. Optionally, separate responses to an inquiry are provided by different sets (e.g., teams or groups) of experts (see col. 11, lines 36-57). Brydon also teaches when one of these experts starts a response to the inquiry the others are notified. The response of one expert may be viewed by the other experts that were notified (see col. 7, lines 13-18). Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the applicant’s claimed invention to incorporate feature of assigning second or other groups of experts when the first expert saif to respond or resolve received inquiry in addition to notifying any additional assigned expert(s) regarding other expert(s) who were assigned or worked on the inquiry, as taught by Brydon, into the teaching of Spector in order to allow efficient and clear communication regarding the urgent situation and how is that’s being handled by experts. Benefits of that can also include experts rating for evaluation purposes and or training.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Spector, Brydon and Siddiqui teaches wherein the processor is programmed to store details of a response that the person in charge of the third response has made to the inquiry (reads on response Log Storge 185 that stores responses to customer service inquires and stores conversation between a requester and a one or more experts, see Brydon col. 16, lines 45-55).
Claim 4 recites “wherein the processor is programmed to, even in a case where the determined urgency level of the inquiry meets the predetermined condition, when the assigning of the assigning of the content of the inquiry to the person in charge of the second or later response is prohibited, assign the content of the inquiry to the person in charge of the first response”. Note that Spector teaches assigning the inquiry (emergency) to responders at different levels (tires), including second-level responders after the first, however, Spector does not teach “when assigning of the inquiry to the person in charge of the second or later response is prohibited, assign the inquiry to a person in charge of the first response”, as recited in claim 4. However, Brydon teaches that Routing Logic 165 is configured to route customer service inquiries to more than one expert (associated with more than one of Expert Devices 115). This can occur in various ways. For example, a customer service inquiry may be routed to different experts in a serial manner if a first expert, or set of experts, is unable to provide a satisfactory resolution for a customer service inquiry. The lack of a satisfactory resolution may be determined by the originator of the inquiry (requester) and/or by an elapsed time. A customer service inquiry may be routed to different experts in a serial manner if a first expert (or set of experts) refers the inquiry to a second expert. The second expert may take over responsibility for resolving the inquiry alone, or may work with the first expert to jointly resolve the inquiry. In one example, a response(s) produced by one set of experts may be given to a second set of experts for rating or to provide further input. Optionally, separate responses to an inquiry are provided by different sets (e.g., teams or groups) of experts (see col. 11, lines 36-57). Brydon also teaches when one of these experts starts a response to the inquiry the others are notified. The response of one expert may be viewed by the other experts that were notified (see col. 7, lines 13-18). Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the applicant’s claimed invention to incorporate feature of reassigning to another expert if one expert is unable to handle the inquiry, as taught BY Brydon, into the teaching of Spector in view of Siddiqui, in order to process the urgent inquiry without any further delay. Note that an expert may not be able to handle the inquiry for any reason given, such as availability, expertise and many more and not being limited to prohibition factor only.
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Spector, Brydon and Siddiqui teaches wherein the processor is programmed to notify the person in charge of the first response of identification information about the person in charge of the second response (reads on response Log Storge 185 that stores responses to customer service inquires and stores conversation between a requester and a one or more experts, see Spector col. 16, lines 45-55). Brydon also teaches when one of these experts starts a response to the inquiry the others are notified. The response of one expert may be viewed by the other experts that were notified (see col. 7, lines 13-18).
Regarding claim 6, Spector teaches wherein the processor is programmed to, in a case where a difference between an occurrence time of the inquiry and a possible response time of the first response exceeds a predetermined time, assign the content of the inquiry to the person in charge of the second or later response (reads on having the location information is parsed from the transmission and the responder's profile in the responder database is updated with the current location information. The system may be configured so that if the server does not receive a current location for a responder within a predetermined period of time that the server flags the responder's profile entry and the responder's profile is excluded from being used by the decision engine in choosing a responder to dispatch to the emergency. The responder profile contains information about the responder, such as who the responder is, a present location, availability, and specialty, see [0026]).
Conclusion
4. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Rasha S. AL-Aubaidi whose telephone number is (571) 272-7481. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Ahmad Matar, can be reached on (571) 272-7488.
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/RASHA S AL AUBAIDI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2693
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