DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 July 17, 2026, has been entered.
In the response filed July 17, 2026, Applicant amended claims 1-7, 9, 11-13, 15-17, 19, and 20; canceled claims 8, 10, and 18; and added claims 21-23. Claims 1-7, 9, 11-17, and 19-23, are pending in the current application.
Notice of 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 .
Response to Arguments
Claim 6 was objected to for informalities. Examiner thanks the Applicant for revising and amending the claim language and hereby withdraws the objection from the previous Office action.
Applicant’s arguments for claims 1-7, 9, 11-17, and 19-23, with respect to the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection have been considered but are unpersuasive. Applicant argues that the claims are not directed to an abstract idea. Examiner respectfully disagrees. The amended claims, under broadest reasonable interpretation, describe or set-forth identifying lodging items based on a query with customer reviews and returning the query results to a customer, which amounts to commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations). These limitations therefore fall within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” subject matter grouping of abstract ideas. In addition, the amended claims also, under broadest reasonable interpretation, describe or set-forth generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations in relation to customer reviews and sentiments, which concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion). These limitations therefore fall within the “mental processes” subject matter grouping of abstract ideas.
Applicant argues that the judicial exception is integrated into a practical application as they improve the manner in which lodging items are identified and output in response to a search query. Examiner respectfully disagrees. Here, the alleged improvements are non-technical subjective/abstract improvements, not technical improvements to computers or technological processes, but addresses a business challenge regarding the outputting of relevant items based on an input query. Improved search results output to a customer is directed to, if anything, a business “improvement” (e.g., efficient methods and ways to sell goods to a consumer). That a computer is used to execute this abstract idea serves merely to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. Applicant’s arguments remain unpersuasive.
Applicant argues that the claims amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Examiner respectfully disagrees. The requirement to execute the claimed steps/functions using “a computing system comprising one or more processors,” (claim 1); “a system comprising: a computer-readable storage medium storing program instructions; and one or more processors,” (claim 16); and “at least one of a learning function or a machine learning model,” (claim 12), is equivalent to adding the words “apply it” on a generic computer and/or mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. These limitations do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and therefore do/does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. See § MPEP 2106.05(f).
Viewing the additional limitations in combination also shows that they fail to ensure the claims amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. When considered as an ordered combination, the additional components of the claims add nothing that is not already present when considered separately, and thus simply append the abstract idea with words equivalent to “apply it” on a generic computer and/or mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. Applicant’s arguments remain unpersuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection is hereby maintained.
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.
Claims 1-7, 9, 11-17, and 19-23, 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 1: Claims 1-7, 9, 11-15, 21 and 22, are drawn to a process and claims 16-20 and 23 are drawn to a machine, each of which is within the four statutory categories (e.g., a process, a machine). (Step 1: YES).
Step 2A – Prong One: In prong one of step 2A, the claims are analyzed to evaluate whether they recite a judicial exception.
Claim 1 (representative of claim 16) recites/describes the following steps:
“accessing review data, wherein the review data comprises a plurality of reviews, and wherein each review corresponds to at least one lodging item of a plurality of lodging items, includes the at least one concept among a plurality of concepts, and indicates at least one sentiment associated with the at least one concept;”
“identifying, from the review data, a set of associations, wherein each association of the set of associations indicates that each review of the plurality of reviews: corresponds to a particular lodging item from the plurality of lodging items, includes a particular concept from the plurality of concepts, and indicates a particular sentiment;”
“receiving a query including a search string, wherein the search string includes a first concept…;”
“determining a set of the plurality of lodging items that satisfy the query based at least in part on first distances, in the shared multi-dimensional embedding space, between respective embeddings representing lodging items and the embedding representing the first concept;” and
“outputting the set of the plurality of lodging items in response to the query.”
These steps, under broadest reasonable interpretation, describe or set-forth identifying lodging items based on a query with customer reviews and returning the query results to a customer, which amounts to commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations). These limitations therefore fall within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” subject matter grouping of abstract ideas.
Claim 1 (representative of claim 16) also recites/describes the following steps:
“generating …a set of embeddings …within a shared multi-dimensional embedding space, wherein the set of embeddings includes an embedding representing each lodging item of the plurality of lodging items …and an embedding representing each concept of the plurality of concepts;”
“for each association of the set of associations identified from the review data: determining a distance, in the shared multi-dimensional embedding space, between an embedding representing the particular lodging item of the association and an embedding representing the particular concept included in the association based at least in part on the particular sentiment of the association,” and
“based at least in part on a determination that the particular sentiment of the association is positive, modifying the distance in the shared multi-dimensional embedding space between the embedding representing the particular lodging item and the embedding representing the particular concept so that the distance is reduced,” or
“based at least in part on a determination that the particular sentiment of the association is negative, modifying the distance in the shared multi-dimensional embedding space between the embedding representing the particular lodging item and the embedding representing the particular concept so that the distance is increased;”
“wherein the first concept is represented by an embedding in the multi-dimensional embedding space;”
These steps, under broadest reasonable interpretation, describe or set-forth generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations in relation to customer reviews and sentiments, which concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion). These limitations therefore fall within the “mental processes” subject matter grouping of abstract ideas.
As such, the Examiner concludes that claims 1 and 16 recite an abstract idea (Step 2A – Prong One: YES).
Dependent claims 2 and 17 recite the same abstract idea as the independent claims because they recite the limitations that further define the data from the abstract idea of generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations, which amounts to mental processes. Claims 2 and 17 are rejected due to being abstract and do not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claim 3 recites the same abstract idea as the independent claim because it recites the limitation that further defines the process of the abstract idea of identifying lodging items based on a query with customer reviews and returning the query results to a customer, which amounts to commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations). Claim 3 is rejected due to being abstract and does not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claim 4 recites the same abstract idea as the independent claim because it recites limitations that further define the process of the abstract idea of generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations, which amounts to mental processes. Claim 4 is rejected due to being abstract and does not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claims 5 and 18 recite the same abstract idea as the independent claims because they recite limitations that further defines the data from the abstract idea of generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations, which amounts to mental processes. Claims 5 and 18 are rejected due to being abstract and do not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claim 6 recites the same abstract idea as the independent claims because it recites limitations that further defines the data from the abstract idea of generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations, which amounts to mental processes. Claim 6 is rejected due to being abstract and does not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claims 7 and 19 recite the same abstract idea as the independent claims because they recite limitations that further defines the data from the abstract idea of generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations, which amounts to mental processes. Claims 7 and 19 are rejected due to being abstract and do not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claim 9 recites the same abstract idea as the independent claim because it recites limitations that further defines the data of the abstract idea of identifying lodging items based on a query with customer reviews and returning the query results to a customer, which amounts to commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations). Claim 9 is rejected due to being abstract and does not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claim 11 recites the same abstract idea as the independent claim because it recites limitations that further defines the data from the abstract idea of generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations, which amounts to mental processes. Claim 11 is rejected due to being abstract and does not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claim 12 recites the same abstract idea as the independent claim because it recites limitations that further defines the abstract idea of generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations, which amounts to mental processes. Claim 12 recites the additional element of “at least one of a learning function or a machine learning model,” which is analyzed in the steps below.
Dependent claims 13 and 20 recite the same abstract idea as the independent claims because they recite the limitations that further the abstract idea of identifying lodging items based on a query with customer reviews and returning the query results to a customer, which amounts to commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations). Dependent claims 13 and 20 recite the same abstract idea as the independent claims because they recite limitations that further define the abstract idea of generating embeddings in a multi-dimensional embedding space and modifying a distance between associations, which amounts to mental processes Claims 13 and 20 are rejected due to being abstract and do not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claim 14 recites the same abstract idea as the independent claim because it recites a limitation that further defines the process of the abstract idea of identifying lodging items based on a query with customer reviews and returning the query results to a customer, which amounts to commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations). Claim 14 is rejected due to being abstract and does not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Dependent claim 15 recites the same abstract idea as the independent claim because it recites a limitation that further defines the process of the abstract idea of identifying lodging items based on a query with customer reviews and returning the query results to a customer, which amounts to commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations). Claim 15 is rejected due to being abstract and does not recite any additional elements/limitations.
Step 2A – Prong Two:
The claims recite the additional elements/limitations of: “a computing system comprising one or more processors,” (claim 1); and “a system comprising: a computer-readable storage medium storing program instructions; and one or more processors,” (claim 16).
The dependent claims also recite the additional elements/limitations of: “at least one of a learning function or a machine learning model,” (claim 12).
The requirement to execute the claimed steps/functions using “a computing system comprising one or more processors,” (claim 1); “a system comprising: a computer-readable storage medium storing program instructions; and one or more processors,” (claim 16); and “at least one of a learning function or a machine learning model,” (claim 12), is equivalent to adding the words “apply it” on a generic computer and/or mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. These limitations do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and therefore do/does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. See § MPEP 2106.05(f).
Remaining dependent claims 2-7, 9-15, 17, and 19-23, either recite the same additional elements as noted above or fail to recite any additional elements (in which case, note prong one analysis as set forth above – those claims are further part of the abstract idea as identified by the Examiner for each respective dependent claim).
The Examiner has therefore determined that the additional elements, or combination of additional elements, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Accordingly, the claims are directed to an abstract idea (Step 2A – Prong two: NO).
Step 2B:
As discussed above in “Step 2A – Prong 2,” the requirement to execute the claimed steps/functions using “a computing system comprising one or more processors,” (claim 1); “a system comprising: a computer-readable storage medium storing program instructions; and one or more processors,” (claim 16); and “at least one of a learning function or a machine learning model,” (claim 12), is equivalent to adding the words “apply it” on a generic computer and/or mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. These limitations therefore do not qualify as “significantly more.” See MPEP § 2106.05(f).
Viewing the additional limitations in combination also shows that they fail to ensure the claims amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. When considered as an ordered combination, the additional components of the claims add nothing that is not already present when considered separately, and thus simply append the abstract idea with words equivalent to “apply it” on a generic computer and/or mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer.
Remaining dependent claims 2-7, 9-15, 17, and 19-23, either recite the same additional elements as noted above or fail to recite any additional elements (in which case, note prong one analysis as set forth above – those claims are further part of the abstract idea as identified by the Examiner for each respective dependent claim).
The Examiner has therefore determined that no additional element, or combination of additional claims elements is/are sufficient to ensure the claims amount to significantly more than the abstract idea identified above (Step 2B: NO).
Indication of Novel and Non-Obvious Subject Matter
Claims 1-7, 9, 11-17, and 19-23, recite novel and non-obvious subject matter. No claim is allowed.
Prior Art of Record
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the applicant’s disclosure.
Xiao et al. (US 2022/0318499 A1) discloses machine learning-based techniques for assisted electronic message composition in a vertical messaging context. The vertical messaging context may be any electronic messaging context in which senders repetitively compose electronic messages to send to recipients where the messages are not identical but nonetheless have common tone, sentiment, content, and structure. The techniques assist users that compose electronic messages in a particular vertical messaging context in composing those messages quickly, with few or no grammatical errors, and with a likelihood of being positively received by the recipients of the messages.
Conclusion
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/Patrick Kim/Examiner, Art Unit 3629
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