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 .
DETAILED ACTION
The action is in response to claims dated 3/29/2023.
Claims pending in the case: 1-20
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.
Claim 2-3 and 12-13 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 pre-AIA the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 2 and 12 recites “identify missing content data based on the case record, the missing content data being content data that improves a confidence score”. The specification does not provide any specifics on how missing content data is being identified. There is no explanation on how confidence score is being improved and how it may be used to identify missing data in the current specification. The applicant is requested to identify the paragraphs and lines in the specification that supports this limitation.
All claims dependent on this claim are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) due to the virtue of their respective direct and indirect dependencies.
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(s) 1-20 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim(s) 1, 11 and 20 in the relevant part read: “execute a machine learning model configured to output a predicted value amount”. Based on the claim language, it is unclear what is being predicted by the “predicted value amount”. It is unclear what the model is doing and what its output is. As such, a person of reasonable skill in the art would not be apprised of the metes and bounds of the invention.
For the purpose of examination, the limitation is interpreted as any parameter being evaluated by a model.
All claims dependent on this/these claim(s) are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) due to the virtue of their respective direct and indirect dependencies.
Claim(s) 1-20 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim(s) 1, 11 and 20 in the relevant part read: “identify missing content data based on the case record, the missing content data being content data that improves a confidence score”. Based on the claim language, it is unclear what may be considered as missing content. It is also unclear what criteria may “improve a confidence score”. As such, a person of reasonable skill in the art would not be apprised of the metes and bounds of the invention.
For the purpose of examination, a reasonable interpretation was not possible.
All claims dependent on this/these claim(s) are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) due to the virtue of their respective direct and indirect dependencies.
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 (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, 7-8, 11, 17-18, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu (CN 114519508 – please refer to attached for claim mapping) in view of Liao (US 20220188674).
Regarding Claim 1, Xu teaches, An analytics computing device comprising a processor in communication with a memory, the processor configured to:
store, in the memory, a plurality of documents in association with a case identifier (Xu: Pg. 3: [2-3]: use legal documents of a case);
electronically extract content data from the plurality of documents using a … analysis engine (Xu: Pg. 3: [2], Pg. 4 [1]: extract document content);
generate a case record in the memory including the extracted content data associated with the case identifier, the case record having a predefined data format (Xu: Pg. 3: [5], Pg. 6 [4-5]: generate a data set with case record);
execute a machine learning model configured to output a predicted value amount by inputting at least a portion of the extracted content data included in the case record into the machine learning model, the machine learning model trained using a plurality of historical case records and a plurality of historical value amounts associated with the historical case records, the historical case records including historical content data and having the predefined data format (Xu: Pg. 11: [1]: obtain a score representing probability of client defaulting, Pg. 6 [2, 4]: use historical data for evaluation); and
cause the predicted value amount outputted by the machine learning model to be displayed (Xu: Pg. 11: [1]: obtain a score representing probability of client defaulting);
However, Xu does not specifically teach,
using semantic analysis;
Liao teaches, using semantic analysis (Liao [18-19]: semantic analysis used to analyze data in the machine learning process);
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Xu and Liao because the combination would enable using semantic analysis for feature extraction in input data to a model. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings because the combination would improve time by using semantic analysis for data analysis as is common in the art.
Regarding claim 7, Xu and Liao teach the invention as claimed in claim 1 above and, wherein the processor is further configured to provide user interface data to one or more user computing devices, the user interface data configured to cause the one or more user computing devices to display a user interface (Xu: Pg. 4 [4]: provide risk assessment to user) (Liao: [32, 55]: provide data to user on user interface).
Regarding claim 8, Xu and Liao teach the invention as claimed in claim 7 above and, wherein the user interface is configured to display the predicted value amount output by the machine learning model (Xu: Pg. 4 [4], PG. 11 [1]: provide risk assessment value to user) (Liao: [32, 55]: provide data to user on user interface).
Regarding Claim(s) 11 and 20, this/these claim(s) is/are similar in scope as claim(s) 1. Therefore, this/these claim(s) is/are rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim(s) 17-18, this/these claim(s) is/are similar in scope as claim(s) 7-8 respectively. Therefore, this/these claim(s) is/are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim(s) 2-3, 12-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu (CN 114519508 – please refer to attached for claim mapping) in view of Liao (US 20220188674) and Patel (US 20200058381).
Regarding claim 2, Xu and Liao teach the invention as claimed in claim 1 above and,
wherein the processor is further configured to identify … content data based on the case record, the … content data being content data that improves a confidence score associated with generating the predicted value amount by the machine learning model (Liao: [20, 43]: generate explanation of the confidence score (indication of missing data));
However, Xu and Liao does not specifically teach, identify missing content data;
Patel teaches, identify missing content data (Patel: [163, 165]: analyze document and identify content issues; [92, 147-148]: missing content);
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Xu, Liao and Patel because the combination would enable using a model to identify content issues and generate and alert for the issue. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings because the combination facilitates recording and executing of decisions using one centralized system (see Patel [1]).
Please refer to the 112 rejections above.
Regarding claim 3, Xu, Liao and Patel teach the invention as claimed in claim 2 above and, wherein the processor is further configured to: generate an electronic request for the missing content data; receive a response to the electronic request including the missing content data; parse the response to extract the missing content data; and update the case record to include the extracted missing content data (Patel: [163, 165]: analyze document and identify content issues; [92, 147-148]: missing content may be addresses using rules to generate alerts and requests) .
Regarding Claim(s) 12-13, this/these claim(s) is/are similar in scope as claim(s) 1-2 respectively. Therefore, this/these claim(s) is/are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim(s) 4-6, 14-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu (CN 114519508 – please refer to attached for claim mapping) in view of Liao (US 20220188674) in further view of Kang (US 20180285744).
Regarding claim 4, Xu and Liao teach the invention as claimed in claim 1 above and, Kang further teaches, wherein the processor is further configured to extract text data from the plurality of documents using optical character recognition (Kang: [15, 45]: OCR may be used for data processing);
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Xu, Liao and Kang because the combination would enable using OCT for information extraction. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings because the combination facilitates using known and established processes in the art like OCR to extract information form raw data and generate a knowledge base of usable data (see Kang [2]).
Regarding claim 5, Xu, Liao and Kang teach the invention as claimed in claim 4 above and, wherein the processor is further configured to extract content data from the text data using machine learning techniques (Kang: [15, 44, 46-47]: context extraction from speech data which may be done using machine learning).
Regarding claim 6, Xu and Liao teach the invention as claimed in claim 1 above and, Kang further teaches, wherein the processor is further configured to: record one or more telephone calls; and extract content data from the recorded one or more telephone calls (Kang: [15, 44, 46-47]: content extraction from recorded speech information);
The same motivation to combine stated above applies.
Regarding Claim(s) 14-16, this/these claim(s) is/are similar in scope as claim(s) 4-6 respectively. Therefore, this/these claim(s) is/are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim(s) 9-10, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu (CN 114519508 – please refer to attached for claim mapping) in view of Liao (US 20220188674) in further view of Dolan (US 20210049552).
Regarding claim 9, Xu and Liao teach the invention as claimed in claim 7 above and, Dolan further teaches, wherein the user interface is configured to prompt a user to upload at least one of the plurality of documents (Dolan: [56]: prompt for a document);
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Xu, Liao and Dolan because the combination would enable using an interface for displaying and managing documents as is common in the art.
Regarding claim 10, Xu and Liao teach the invention as claimed in claim 7 above and, Dolan further teaches, wherein the user interface is configured to display at least one of the plurality of documents (Dolan: [28-29]: interface displaying documents);
The same motivation to combine stated above applies.
Regarding Claim(s) 19, this/these claim(s) is/are similar in scope as claim(s) 9. Therefore, this/these claim(s) is/are rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure in attached 892.
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/Mandrita Brahmachari/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2144