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 .
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 14 is 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. The present claim recites “The system of claim 14, wherein . . .” A claim cannot depend on itself, so the scope of the claim is indefinite. For the purposes of examination under prior art, the examiner will interpret the present claim as though it depended on claim 12 (to mirror the structure of similar claims 7 and 20.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Brewer, L. Elizabeth, et al. (“Causal inference in cumulative risk assessment: The roles of directed acyclic graphs,” Environment international 102 (2017): 30-41; hereinafter “Brewer”).
Regarding Claim 1, Brewer teaches a method (section 2 and fig. 1) comprising:
determining, by one or more processors of a computing system, a prior knowledge constraint absent from a searched causal network topology in memory of the computing system (pp. 33-34, including Table 1 and Fig. 3—shown and described are a directed acyclic graph {DAG} of a searched causal network topology that is used for causal inference. Section 4.1-4.2 describes creating a DAG by adding nodes that represent knowledge, i.e. a prior knowledge constraint absent from the network); and
encoding, by the one or more processors, the prior knowledge constraint in the searched causal network topology while maintaining directedness and acyclicity of the searched causal network topology (section 4.1—adding to the network is done in a way that eliminates reciprocal effects, thus maintaining the directedness and acyclicity of the DAG).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 2-3, 8-10, and 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brewer in view of Hunter (U.S. 2021/0073287, hereinafter “Hunter”).
Regarding Claim 8, Brewer teaches a system (section 2 and fig. 1) comprising:
a knowledge encoding module executable by the one or more processors to determine a prior knowledge constraint absent from a searched causal network topology in the memory (pp. 33-34, including Table 1 and Fig. 3—shown and described are a directed acyclic graph {DAG} of a searched causal network topology that is used for causal inference. Section 4.1-4.2 describes creating a DAG by adding nodes that represent knowledge, i.e. a prior knowledge constraint absent from the network); and to encode the prior knowledge constraint in the searched causal network topology while maintaining directedness and acyclicity of the searched causal network topology (section 4.1—adding to the network is done in a way that eliminates reciprocal effects, thus maintaining the directedness and acyclicity of the DAG).
Brewer does not specifically teach the system comprising:
one or more processors; and
memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors, the memory storing computer-executable modules executable by the one or more processors that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform associated operations, the computer-executable modules comprising those of the present claim.
However, Hunter teaches a system comprising: one or more processors; and memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors, the memory storing computer-executable modules executable by the one or more processors that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform associated operations (fig. 13; ¶ [0177]).
All of the claimed elements were known in Brewer and Hunter and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the applicant’s invention to combine the processor and memory of Hunter with the system and modules of Brewer to yield the predictable result of a system comprising: one or more processors; and memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors, the memory storing computer-executable modules executable by the one or more processors that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform associated operations, the computer-executable modules comprising: a knowledge encoding module executable by the one or more processors to determine a prior knowledge constraint absent from a searched causal network topology in the memory; and to encode the prior knowledge constraint in the searched causal network topology while maintaining directedness and acyclicity of the searched causal network topology. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose of improving the efficiency of querying and updating operations (Hunter, ¶ [0073]).
Regarding Claim 15, Brewer teaches operations comprising:
determining a prior knowledge constraint absent from a searched causal network topology in memory of the computing system (pp. 33-34, including Table 1 and Fig. 3—shown and described are a directed acyclic graph {DAG} of a searched causal network topology that is used for causal inference. Section 4.1-4.2 describes creating a DAG by adding nodes that represent knowledge, i.e. a prior knowledge constraint absent from the network); and
encoding the prior knowledge constraint in the searched causal network topology while maintaining directedness and acyclicity of the searched causal network topology (section 4.1—adding to the network is done in a way that eliminates reciprocal effects, thus maintaining the directedness and acyclicity of the DAG).
Brewer does not specifically teach a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-readable instructions executable by one or more processors, that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations. However, Hunter teaches a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-readable instructions executable by one or more processors, that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations (fig. 13; ¶ [0177]).
All of the claimed elements were known in Brewer and Hunter and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the applicant’s invention to combine the computer readable storage medium of Hunter with the operations of Brewer to yield the predictable result of a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-readable instructions executable by one or more processors, that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: determining a prior knowledge constraint absent from a searched causal network topology in memory of the computing system; and encoding the prior knowledge constraint in the searched causal network topology while maintaining directedness and acyclicity of the searched causal network topology. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose of improving the efficiency of querying and updating operations (Hunter, ¶ [0072]).
Regarding Claims 2, 9, and 16, Brewer/Hunter teaches wherein encoding, by the one or more processors, the prior knowledge constraint comprises encoding, by the one or more processors, an edge of the searched causal network topology in an adjacency matrix (Hunter, ¶ [0072]).
Regarding Claims 3, 10, and 17, Brewer/Hunter teaches wherein the encoded edge is based on a directed or undirected positive relationship of the prior knowledge constraint (Brewer, section 3—directed positive relationships are one of the causal pathways described).
Claims 4-7, 11-14, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brewer in view of Hunter, and further in view of Borboudakis, Giorgos, and Ioannis Tsamardinos (“Incorporating causal prior knowledge as path-constraints in Bayesian networks and maximal ancestral graphs,” arXiv preprint arXiv:1206.6390 (2012); hereinafter “Borboudakis”).
Regarding Claims 4 and 11, Brewer/Hunter does not specifically teach breaking, by the one or more processors, an edge of the searched causal network topology not encoding a prior knowledge constraint. However, Borboudakis teaches breaking an edge of a searched causal network topology not encoding a prior knowledge constraint (section 4, Algorithm 2 and the “Search with Pruning” section—pruning the DAG breaks an edge of the network by removing a node that does not encode a prior knowledge constraint).
All of the claimed elements were known in Brewer/Hunter and Borboudakis and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the applicant’s invention to combine the DAG edge removal of Borboudakis with the searched causal network topology of Brewer/Hunter to yield the predictable result of breaking, by the one or more processors, an edge of the searched causal network topology not encoding a prior knowledge constraint. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose of speeding up a search operation by the use of pruning, as described in Borboudakis, section 6.
Regarding Claims 5, 12, and 18, Brewer/Hunter/Borboudakis teaches wherein the searched causal network topology is derived by iteratively searching, by the one or more processors, an initialized causal network topology in the memory of the computing system based on negative prior knowledge constraints (Borboudakis, section 4).
Regarding Claims 6, 13, and 19, Brewer/Hunter/Borboudakis teaches wherein iteratively searching the initialized causal network topology comprises iteratively updating, by the one or more processors, a design matrix to remove a relationship invalidated by a negative prior knowledge constraint, the negative prior knowledge constraint comprising one of a directed relationship constraint, a preceding relationship constraint, and a succeeding relationship constraint (Hunter, ¶ [0083]—the adjacency matrix is updated as the directed graph is updated. Borboudakis, section 4, describes the search as recursive, which is a form of iteration).
Regarding Claims 7, 14, and 20, Brewer/Hunter/Borboudakis teaches wherein the initialized causal network topology is initialized by the one or more processors based on a prior knowledge-constrained candidate parent set (Brewer, section 4.1 describes initializing the network by creating an initial DAG using prior knowledge. Hunter, ¶ [0073] also describes an initial set of graph vertices based on prior knowledge).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. This art includes:
Feng et al. (U.S. 2019/0102688) teaches estimating causality among observed variables by generating a causality structure that is a directed acyclic graph
Liu et al. (U.S. 2019/0102680) teaches using an A* search in a directed acyclic graph, extracting strong connections to generate a new DAG
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HAL W SCHNEE whose telephone number is (571) 270-1918. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
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/HAL SCHNEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2129
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