DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending in this action.
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 § 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 5-8, 12-15 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Conrad et al. (WO-2010141477-A2) [hereinafter “Conrad”] in view of Natterer et al. (WO-2018087190-A1) [hereinafter “Natterer”].
As per claim 1, Conrad teaches a computer-implemented method for summarizing research papers, comprising: obtaining seed data indicating a reference paper (Page 15, para. 6, seed legal document with identifier and metadata); determining a set of related papers based on the seed data, wherein each paper in the set of related papers comprises an abstract (Page 15, para. 6, determining a number of similar cases – each with head notes see Page 12, para. 4); generating, using a machine learning models, summary data for the abstract of each paper in the set of related papers (Page 14, para. 1-3, generating data from each headnote including topics and legal issues – these are interpreted to be a type of summary data); generating one or more content sections based on the summary data for each paper in the set of related papers, wherein each content section comprises an arrangement of the summary data of the set of related papers (Page 2, para. 3, merging headnotes into clusters and into topics using various similarity features) determined based on co-citations with the reference paper (Page 15, para. 6, using co-citation feature to determine clusters and topics for merging); and generating a summary paper comprising the one or more content section (Page 16, para. 4, creating a label with description of legal topics from a clustered group).
Conrad does not explicitly teach generating one or more content sections wherein each content section comprises an arrangement of the summary data generated from the abstracts of the set of related papers wherein the arrangement within each content section is determined by ordering the papers based on co-citation frequency with the reference paper. Natterer teaches generating one or more content sections wherein each content section comprises an arrangement of the summary data generated from the abstracts of the set of related papers (Page 11, lines 1-7, outputting the titles and/or abstracts of the most similar first documents, i.e. summary data) wherein the arrangement within each content section is determined by ordering the papers based on co-citation frequency with the reference paper (Page 19, lines 23-28, calculating a similarity measurement between an incoming document and stored text documents based on co-citations see Page 20, line 10) and (Page 20, lines 11-13, ranking the text documents based on the calculated similarity measurement.
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Conrad with the teachings of Natterer, generating one or more content sections wherein each content section comprises an arrangement of the summary data generated from the abstracts of the set of related papers wherein the arrangement within each content section is determined by ordering the papers based on co-citation frequency with the reference paper, to provide to a user the most relevant options to further analyze and explore based on established pertinent documents.
As per claim 5, the combination of Conrad and Natterer teaches computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising determining the one or more content sections based on one or more science of science measures (Examiner Note: citations and co-citations are indicated in the specification as being examples of “science of science measures” see [0021], [0045] and [0051] of instant specification) (Conrad; Page 16, para. 4, using feature vectors in a ranked fashion to create a merged topic, wherein the feature vectors are created using citations and co-citations see Page 15, para. 6).
As per claim 6, the combination of Conrad and Natterer teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the set of related papers is determined based on topic similarity with a topic indicated in the seed data (Conrad; Page 5, para. 2, related documents determined based on topic similarity with each document associated with the topic).
As per claim 7, the combination of Conrad and Natterer computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the summary data comprises a human-readable set of statements (Conrad; Page 16, para. 4 and 5, merged topics and labels are human-readable statements that represent summary data regarding a legal document and/or a cluster of legal documents).
As per claim 8, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 1. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 12, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 5. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 13, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 6. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 14, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 7. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 15, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 1. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 18, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 5. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 19, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 6. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 20, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 7. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 2, 9 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Conrad and Natterer in view of Quartey et al. (US PGPUB No. 2022/0019609) [hereinafter “Quartey”].
As per claim 2, the combination of Conrad and Natterer teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 1.
The combination of Conrad and Natterer does not explicitly teach wherein the machine learning model comprises a transformer architecture. Quartey teaches wherein the machine learning model comprises a transformer architecture ([0040], generating summary data for a document and headnote using Google’s Text-to-Text Transfer Transformer).
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Conrad and Natterer with the teachings of Quartey, wherein the machine learning model comprises a transformer architecture, to provide the latest and precise predictive models when generating summary data regarding a document.
As per claim 9, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 2. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 16, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 2. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 3 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Conrad and Natterer in view of Tacchi et al. (US Patent No. 9,767,165) [hereinafter “Tacchi”].
As per clam 3, the combination of Conrad and Natterer teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 1.
The combination of Conrad and Natterer does not explicitly teach wherein the one or more content sections are determined using a principal component analysis. Tacchi teaches wherein the machine learning model comprises a transformer architecture (Col. 4, lines 56-67, using principal component analysis for generating a feature vector for a document used to summarize the document).
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Conrad and Natterer with the teachings of Tacchi, wherein the machine learning model comprises a transformer architecture, to provide the latest and precise predictive models when generating summary data regarding a document.
As per claim 10, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 3. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 4, 11 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Conrad, Natterer and Tacchi in further view of Kreulen et al. (US Patent No. 6,862,586) [hereinafter “Kreulen”].
As per claim 4, the combination of the combination of Conrad, Natterer and Tacchi teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 3.
The combination of Conrad, Natterer and Tacchi does not explicitly teach wherein the one or more content sections comprise a cluster of research papers in the set of related papers determined using k-means clustering. Kreulen teaches wherein the one or more content sections comprise a cluster of research papers in the set of related papers determined using k-means clustering (Col. 1, lines 50-60, using toric k-means clustering before summarizing documents).
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Conrad, Natterer and Tacchi with the teachings of Kreulen, wherein the one or more content sections comprise a cluster of research papers in the set of related papers determined using k-means clustering, to employ effective known techniques when processing documents for classification and summary.
As per claim 11, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 4. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 17, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 4. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the objection to claim 1 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The object has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejections have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. In light of the new amendments, a new prior art reference, Natterer has ben introduced and cited to address the features in the claims.
To expedite prosecution, Examiner is open to conducting an after-final interview to discuss claim amendments to overcome the current rejection and/or place the application in condition for allowance.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Lu et al. (US PGPUB No. 2016/0042054), Xu et al. (US PGPUB No. 2018/0373754), Wu et al. ("A method for assessing patent similarity using direct and indirect citation links," 2010 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Macao, China, 2010, pp. 149-152, doi: 10.1109/IEEM.2010.5674439), Alfraidi et al. ("Literature Visualization and Similarity Measurement Based on Citation Relations," 2015 19th International Conference on Information Visualisation, Barcelona, Spain, 2015, pp. 217-222, doi: 10.1109/iV.2015.47) and Win et al. ("Relevancy Prediction of Scientific Articles Using Similarity Measures and Citation Mention Rate," 2024 IEEE Conference on Computer Applications (ICCA), Yangon, Myanmar, 2024, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/ICCA62361.2024.10532877) all disclose various aspects of using predictive models to cluster and summarize documents and papers.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PETER C SHAW whose telephone number is (571)270-7179. The examiner can normally be reached Max Flex.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Carl Colin can be reached at 571-272-3862. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PETER C SHAW/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2493 May 15, 2026
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