Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
DETAILED ACTION
1. This Office Action is in response to the amendment filed on 10/29/2025.
Claim 20 has been amended.
Claims 1-19 have been canceled.
Claims 20-23 and 25 are pending.
Response to Arguments
2. Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 20-23 and 25 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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 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.
4. 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.
5. Claims 20-23 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gross (US 20130159116), in view of Truve et al (US 20100299324).
Claim 20:
Gross suggests a computer-based apparatus for extracting information from a collection of stored, machine-readable electronic documents from a plurality of different sources, comprising: an interface for accessing at least a subset of the electronic documents each including different machine-readable information, and each with an identified source [Gross: Figures 1 and 7 and paragraph 11]. Gross suggests a source ranker responsive to verified information about one or more facts about which information is included in documents from a plurality of the sources and being operative to provide a measure of source quality to the information extraction subsystem [Gross: Paragraphs 11, 87, 95 and 138 (“timeliness score” or “reputation or trust score” of the source)]. Gross suggests wherein the source ranker is based on a temporal proximity measure for events in the documents how quickly a source reacts to one or more documents, and [Gross: Paragraphs 13 and 87 (“timeliness score”’)]. Gross suggests a predictive search information derivation subsystem operative to electronically derive predicted search information based on results of the source ranker [Gross: Paragraphs 61, 152, 153, 154 and 156]. Gross suggests a user interface to provide a plurality of users with access to the predicted search information [Gross: Paragraphs 61, 152, 153, 154 and 156].
Truve suggests predicted search information that is predicted to be inputted by end users in response to a predicted future fact [Truve: Paragraphs 40, 42 and 71 (“The system also maintains fact counts, page context rank, and user click counts to be used in qualifying fact information. These are used to categorize and rank facts and information about facts.”, “quantitative searching solutions could be provided” and “feedback mechanisms to re-evaluate this ranking”)] [Truve: Paragraph 54 (“The entity ranking can be based on co-occurrence with other facts and their rankings. The ranking can be based on a ranking of source credibility for data source providers associated with the descriptor entries. A same source provider can have different credibility values for different sources that it provides”, i.e., factual data determination)] [Truve: Paragraphs 32, 52 and 132 (“They can also be predicted based on a variety of prediction methods”)].
Both references (Gross and Truve) taught features that were directed to analogous art and they were directed to the same field of endeavor, such as data processing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made, having the teachings of Gross and Truve before him/her, to modify the system of Gross with the teaching of Truve in order to predict user search based on user [Truve: Paragraphs 40, 42, 52, 71 and 132].
Claim 21:
The combined teachings of Gross and Truve suggest wherein the source ranker is operative to evaluate a measure of how well a source is followed by other sources [Gross: Paragraphs 11, 13, 87, 95 and 138].
Claim 22:
The combined teachings of Gross and Truve suggest wherein the source ranker is operative to evaluate whether a source reacts to events in documents first [Gross: Paragraphs 11, 13, 87, 95 and 138 ( “timeliness” or “recent”)].
Claim 23:
The combined teachings of Gross and Truve suggest wherein the source ranker is topic- specific [Gross: Paragraphs 33, 39 and 70].
Claim 25:
The combined teachings of Gross and Truve suggest wherein the predictive search information derivation subsystem is operative to electronically derive a search query based on results of the source ranker [Gross: Paragraphs 11, 13, 87, 95 and 138].
Conclusion
6. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to [Hung D. Le], whose telephone number is [571-270-1404]. The examiner can normally be communicated on [Monday to Friday: 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.].
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Apu Mofiz can be reached on [571-272-4080]. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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~TBD~
Hung Le
12/15/2025
/HUNG D LE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2161