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
Status
This instant application No. 18/204121 has claims 1-20 pending.
Priority / Filing Date
Applicant did not claim for any domestic or foreign priority. The effective filing date of this application is May 31, 2023.
Information Disclosure Statement
As required by M.P.E.P. 609(C), the Applicant’s submissions of the Information Disclosure Statements dated October 25, 2024 and March 13, 2026 are acknowledged by the Examiner and the cited references have been considered in the examination of the claims now pending. As required by M.P.E.P. 609 C(2), a copy of each of the PTOL-1449s initialed and dated by the Examiner is attached to the instant Office action.
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.
4. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 2A Prong One:
Independent claim 1 recite:
creating a decision engine with the large language model and the objective inputs,
selecting an action with the decision engine in response to the state information;
Independent claim 10 recite:
select an action in response to state information;
wherein the emulator generates emulated inputs in response to the action selected by the decision engine.
Independent claim 17 recite
selecting an action with the decision engine in response to the state information;
All of the above limitations of the independent claims 1, 10 and 17 are process steps that cover mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Said limitations in Claims 1, 10 and 17 are a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitations in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. Other than reciting “an agent computing device”, “a decision engine”, “a state detector” “a large language model” and “an emulator” in the claims nothing in the claim elements precludes the steps from practically being performed in the mind. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “mental processes” grouping of abstract ideas. As such claims 1, 10, and 17 recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong Two:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims recite additional element of “an agent computing device”, “a decision engine”, “a state detector”, “a large language model” and “an emulator” to perform the claimed steps at a high level of generality such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer/software components. These additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
The additional claim elements of “receiving one or more objective inputs” , “obtaining at least one of video information, audio information, and software state data from the interactive software application at the state detector”, “transmitting state information from the state detector to the decision engine based at least partially on the at least one of video information, audio information, and software state data”, “transmitting the action to the emulator” and “transmitting at least one emulated input of the action to the interactive software application” are merely data gathering/data output steps and is insignificant extra-solution activity. As such these additional elements also do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Step 2B:
Finally, the pre-processing step of receiving/outputting measured values is categorized as insignificant extra solution activity under 2106.05(g). claims 1, 10 and 17 only recite “an agent computing device”, “a decision engine”, “a state detector”, “a large language model” and “an emulator” to perform the claimed steps and therefore only recite a general purpose computer/software module rather than a specific machine under MPEP 2106.05(b), and are directed to mere instructions to apply the exception under MPEP 2106.05(f), and do not result in anything significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements have been considered both individually and as an ordered combination in the significantly more consideration. The inclusion of the software or memory and controller to perform the selecting and generating steps amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer/software elements cannot provide an inventive concept. claims 1, 10, and 17 are not patent eligible.
The dependent claims include the same abstract ideas recited in the independent claims, and merely incorporate additional details that narrow the abstract ideas and fail to add significantly more to the claims.
The dependent claims 2, 3 and 16 recite additional details of the application module that includes events and actions of interactive software application- all of these elements are additional elements that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the abstract idea of a mental process performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper.
The dependent claims 4, 5 ,6 ,7, 11, 12 and 15 recite the types of objective input, emulator type and the type of the state detector - all of these elements are additional elements that that covers mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the abstract idea of a mental process performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper.
The dependent claims 8, 9, 13 and 14 recite the types of decision engine - all of these are additional elements that cover mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the abstract idea of a mental process performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper.
The dependent claims 18, 19 and 20 recite the transmitting of the emulated input- all of these elements are additional elements that cover mental processes including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion that could be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the abstract idea of a mental process performed in the human mind, or with the aid of pencil and paper.
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 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 of this title, 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.
5. Claims 1-7, 10-12 and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over O'Malia et al. hereafter O'Malia (Pub. No.: US 2022/0036153 A1), in view of Timothy Beacham hereafter Beacham (Patent No.: US 11,374,847 B1).
Regarding Claim 1, O’Malia discloses a method of creating an autonomous agent for interacting with an interactive software application (O’Malia: abstract, [0044]); Perry: abstract), the method comprising:
obtaining a state detector (O’Malia: [0022], [0024], [0025]; Perry: [0078], [0079]);
receiving one or more objective inputs at a large language model (O’Malia: [0016] [0017]) ;
creating a decision engine with the large language model and the objective inputs (O’Malia: [0030] [0036]; Perry: [0082]);
obtaining at least one of video information, audio information, and software state data from the interactive software application at the state detector (O’Malia: Figure 2, [0062]-[0070]);
transmitting state information from the state detector to the decision engine based at least partially on the at least one of video information, audio information, and software state data (O’Malia: Figure 2, [0062]-[0070]);
selecting an action with the decision engine in response to the state information (O’Malia: [0031], [0049]-[0051]);
transmitting at least one emulated input of the action to the interactive software application (O’Malia: [0037], [0038], [0069]).
O’Malia do not explicitly disclose
obtaining an emulator;
and
transmitting the action to the emulator.
Beacham disclose:
obtaining an emulator (Beacham: column 45 lines 15-27);
transmitting the action to the emulator (Beacham: column 45 lines 15-27; column 47 lines 31-37).
O’Malia and Beacham are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor. They both relate to emulation and computer modeling.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above large language based AI Agent modelling, as taught by O’Malia, and incorporating the use of an emulator in the model, as taught by Beacham.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification in order to improve the functioning of the AI Agent.
Regarding Claims 10 and 17, the claims recite the same substantive limitations as Claim 1 and are rejected using the same teachings.
Regarding Claim 2, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining an application module including one or more of visual cues, audio cues, objects, textures, characters, animations, and events of the interactive software applications (O’Malia: [0028], [0037], [0062]).
Regarding Claim 16, the claims recite the same substantive limitations as Claim 2 and is rejected using the same teachings.
Regarding Claim 3, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 2, wherein the application module includes at least one action of the interactive software application (O’Malia: [0036], [0037]).
Regarding Claim 4, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 1, wherein the objective input is a linguistic objective input (O’Malia: [0036], [0037]).
Regarding Claim 11, the claims recite the same substantive limitations as Claim 4 and is rejected using the same teachings.
Regarding Claim 5, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 1, wherein the emulator includes an imitation learning model (Beacham: column 47 lines 5-15; column 48 lines 35-57).
Regarding Claim 15, the claims recite the same substantive limitations as Claim 5 and is rejected using the same teachings.
Regarding Claim 6, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 1, wherein the state detector includes a machine vision model (O’Malia: [0022], [0024], [0025], [0038]).
Regarding Claim 7, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 6, wherein the machine vision model compares a first frame of the video information to a second frame of the video information (O’Malia: [0047], [0048], [0062]-[0070]).
Regarding Claim 12, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the system of claim 11, wherein the agent computing device further includes the large language model (O’Malia: [0016], [0017]).
Regarding Claim 18, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 17, wherein transmitting at least one emulated input includes a reaction delay before the at least one emulated input (O’Malia: [0016], [0019], [0043], [0052]).
Regarding Claim 19, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 17, transmitting at least one emulated input includes transmitting a series of emulated inputs or simultaneous emulated inputs (O’Malia: [0016], [0019], [0043], [0046], [0051]-[0052]).
Regarding Claim 20, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 19, wherein transmitting a series of emulated inputs includes an intra-input delay in the series of emulated inputs (O’Malia: [0016], [0019], [0043], [0046], [0051]-[0052]).
6. Claims 8-9, 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over O'Malia et al. hereafter O'Malia (Pub. No.: US 2022/0036153 A1), in view of Timothy Beacham hereafter Beacham (Patent No.: US 11,374,847 B1), further in view of Pillutla et al. hereafter Pillutla (Iterative generation of insight from text collections through mutually reinforcing visualizations and fuzzy cognitive maps, Applied Soft Computing Journal 76 (2019) 459–472).
Regarding Claim 8, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham the method of claim 1, wherein creating a decision engine with the large language model and the objective inputs (O’Malia: [0030] [0036]);
However, the combinations of O’Malia and Beacham do not explicitly disclose:
the large language model creating a fuzzy cognitive map.
Pillutla disclose:
the large language model creating a fuzzy cognitive map (Pillutla: page 460 section 1.1., pages 464-465 sections 3.2).
O’Malia, Beacham and Pillutla are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor. All of them relate to emulation and computer modeling.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above large language based AI Agent modelling, as taught by the combinations of O’Malia, and Beacham incorporating the creation of fuzzy cognitive map, as taught by Pillutla.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do this modification in order to provide strong feedback loop between interactive data exploration and model building, as taught by Pillutla (Pillutla: abstract).
Regarding Claim 9, the combinations of O’Malia, Beacham, Pillutla disclose the method of claim 1, wherein creating a decision engine with the large language model and the objective inputs includes the large language model creating a fuzzy cognitive map library including a plurality of fuzzy cognitive maps (Pillutla: page 460 section 1.1., pages 464-465 sections 3.2, page 467, section 4.2).
Regarding Claims 13 and 14, the claims recite the same substantive limitations as Claims 8 and 9 respectively and are rejected using the same teachings.
Conclusion
7. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Muppalla et al. (Pub. No.: US 2020/0388280 A1) teaches validating actions in a digital assistant-based application, wherein it identifies an application with a conversational Interface and selects an action from an action repository and generates, via a natural language processor, a trigger phrase for input into the application.
Hermann et al. (Pub. No.: US 2021/0110115 A1) teaches a method and apparatus for selecting actions to be performed by an agent interacting with an environment and includes a language encoder model that is configured to receive a text string in a particular natural language, and process the text string to generate a text embedding of the text string.
Yuan et al. (Interactive Machine Comprehension with Information Seeking Agents, 2020, arXiv, pp 1-12) conceptually presents a method that reframes existing MRC datasets as interactive, partially observable environments- specifically, the method“occlude” the majority of a document’s text and add context-sensitive commands that reveal “glimpses” of the hidden text to a model.
Dhiman et al. (Intelligent Assistants Conceptual Dimensions, Contextual Model, and Design Trends, Bus Inf Syst Eng 64(5):645–665 (2022)) defines the domain of intelligent assistants by investigating the historical context of assistance as human work and inductively derive concepts crucial to modeling the context of assistance and develop a conceptual typology of intelligent assistants using 111 published articles.
8. Examiner’s Remarks: Examiner has cited particular columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner. In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Correspondence Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to IFTEKHAR A KHAN whose telephone number is (571)272-5699. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9:00AM-6:00PM (CST). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Emerson Puente can be reached on (571)272-3652. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/IFTEKHAR A KHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2187
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