DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to the Application filed on 06/26/2023. Claims 7 and 9-26 are pending and have been examined.
Any previous objection/rejection not mentioned in this Office Action has been withdrawn by the examiner.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 13, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. 18/269,572, filed on 01/15/2021.
Response to Arguments
With respect to the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections for claims 7 and 9, the applicant asserts that as explained in MPEP § 2106.04, claims that are directed to an improvement in the functioning of a computer are not directed to an abstract idea. The claimed process, which includes vectorizing an abductive logical expression, acquiring an associative logical expression from a trained associative memory based on vector proximity, and constructing a new output logical expression through specific substitutions, is a specific technological solution to the technological problem of how a computer system can generate answers when its knowledge base has gaps.
Examiner respectfully disagrees, it is not clear from the applicants’ arguments, claims, or specification how this improves the functioning of a computer as it is a method of processing questions. No part of the claims changes or improves a computing device in any meaningful way. The limitations are purely for processing a natural language questions in a manner that a human mind could be capable of.
Applicant further asserts that these steps cannot be practically performed in the human mind, contrary to the Examiner’s analogy. The vectorization and associative memory steps are technical processes that improve the computer's ability to process information and reason beyond its explicitly programmed rules. This is analogous to Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327 (Fed. Cir. 2016), where claims directed to a specific self-referential table structure for a computer database were found patent-eligible because they were directed to an improvement in the functioning of the computer itself.
Examiner respectfully disagrees, Enfish, LLC v. Microsft Corp. is in regards to a specific logical model that improves a database. This is not analogous to a natural language processing method. Furthermore, this case shows a clear aspect of the computing device (the database) that is being improved while the claims of the instant application do not.
Applicant further asserts that the ordered combination of limitations amounts to an inventive concept. The specific sequence of constructing a plurality of abductive logical expressions, vectorizing one such expression, using that vector to acquire an associative logical expression, and then constructing an output logical expression using the associative expression and the original search expression is a specific, unconventional technological process. This process is not merely a generic instruction to "apply it on a computer,” but a specific implementation that improves the computer's question-answering capabilities. This is analogous to McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games America inc., 837 F 3d 1299 (ed. Cir. 2016), where a specific, ordered combination of steps using rules, rather than human animators, was found to be a patent-eligible application. Similarly, the claims here recite a specific technological pathway to generate an answer, which is not routine or conventional.
Examiner respectfully disagrees, McRO v. Bandai is in regards 3D modelling techniques and is not analogous to a logic based natural language processing method. Furthermore, the instant application is not clearly improving an aspect of the computing device, merely proposing an alternative method of processing natural language inputs. The alternative method proposed is one that can be performed by the human mind and the claims are merely applying it via a computing device.
With respect to the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections for claims 7 and 9, the applicant asserts that a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have been motivated to combine the teachings of these references to arrive at the subject matter of the claims. Yamamoto teaches an abduction apparatus for generating candidate hypotheses and selecting the best one as an explanation based on probability calculations. The goal in Yamamoto is to select the most probable hypothesis. Zhao et al. teaches a method for rewriting a user's input query by vectorizing it and finding similar queries from user session data. The goal in Zhao is to substitute the user's query with a better one. The alleged motivation to combine these references—to “provide more relevant results" —is a conclusory statement. There is no teaching in the references that would suggest to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Yamamoto's probability-based selection mechanism with Zhao's vectorization technique.
Examiner respectfully disagrees, Yamamoto is meant to teach the most prominent portion of the which is a query, represented in a logical form, being converted to different logic expressions according to inference rules that dictate the conversions. The fact that one of these conversions is selected based on a probability does not affect how relevant it is to the instant application as the instant application does not state any specific method of choosing a conversion. Zhao is meant to teach the concept of finding associated expressions by vectorization. Essentially, Yamamoto and Zhao, at a high level, teach similar ideas of finding a plurality of related outputs for a singular natural language input. If someone was aware of both of these methods it would have been obvious to implement both to increase the number of potential outputs based on both inference rule and vectorization methods as they have similar goals in a similar field of invention.
Applicant further asserts, the proposed modification is technically incongruous. Zhao applies vectorization to the input query. The pending claims apply vectorization to an abductive logical expression, which does not correspond to an input query. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have no reason to take a technique for improving input queries and apply it to an abductively-derived hypothesis, a fundamentally different data object used for a different purpose within Yamamoto's framework. Such a modification would be contrary to the explicit teaching of Yamamoto, which directs the evaluation of such hypotheses based on probability. As noted in the MPEP § 2143, the proposed modification should be “within the capabilities of one of ordinary skill in the art." Modifying the core logic of Yamamoto by integrating an unrelated technique from Zhao that operates on a different data object would not have been a matter of routine skill or interest.
Examiner respectfully disagrees, the abductive expression still contains natural language words as can be seen in examples from the specification such as “hate (Steve, Company ABC)”. The method of vectorizing words and mapping them in a vector space would be relevant regardless of whether it was an input query or an abductive logical expression. For mapping purposes, you can consider the “candidate hypothesis” in Yamamoto (the expression found from the inference rule) to be mapped to the “input query” of Zhao.
Applicant further asserts, Specifically, claim 7, and similarly claim 9, recites "to construct an output logical expression by substituting another solution obtained by collation between the search logical expression and the associative logical expression into the associative logical expression". The Office Action acknowledges that Yamamoto fails to teach these features. The Office Action directs to Zhao. Zhao teaches merely substituting the rewrite for the initial query to perform a search. It does not teach the specific collation and substitution step recited in the claim, which refers to three separate elements (the search logical expression, the associative logical expression, and a solution derived from their collation) to construct the output logical expression. Galitsky teaches generating an answer from a final logical form but does not disclose this specific construction method.
Examiner respectfully disagrees, Zhao et al. uses both the initial input and the associative queries created to provide search results. As this is providing one set of search results it means that the initial input and additional queries are being collated together. Galitsky is then brought purely to show a generation of an output sentence from the output logic. In this instance the system of Yamamoto would create logic form results based on inference rules, Zhao would be vectorizing the words from the logic form to provide alternative results based on the output of Yamamoto, and Galitsky would be converting that logic output to a natural language output. Zhao and Galitsky are merely adding some additional capabilities to Yamamoto and would be obvious combinations as they are in a similar technology area working towards similar goals.
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 7 and 9-26 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claims 7 and 9 recite an information processing apparatus comprising: [processing circuitry]
to acquire a question sentence;
to convert the question sentence acquired into a search logical expression described by predicate logic;
to extract a plurality of inference rules related to the search logical expression by using the search logical expression;
to construct a plurality of abductive logical expressions by substituting one solution obtained by collation between the search logical expression and the plurality of inference rules into the plurality of inference rules;
to vectorize one abductive logical expression among the plurality of abductive logical expressions;
to acquire, among a plurality of associative logical expressions on which associative memory training has been performed, an associative logical expression associated from the one abductive logical expression vectorized;
to construct an output logical expression by substituting another solution obtained by collation between the search logical expression and the associative logical expression into the associative logical expression;
and a generation unit to generate an answer sentence from the output logical expression.
The limitations in these claims, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. An example of this process being done by the human mind could be someone using cheat sheet they created to systematically answer questions. The cheat sheet they created contains templates that questions can be formulaically assigned to and lines connecting templates that are related/connected to each other. The person could receive a question by someone else asking them one. The person could then use their cheat sheet to change the question into a logic expression using one of the templates. Then, by following the connected lines on the cheat sheet the person could find all the related templates as a form of inference rule. The person could observe which connections lead into the question template with a cause-and-effect relationship and select those templates as abductive logic expressions. The person could select one of these related templates and convert it to a numerical representation (vectorize) in any number of ways using various mathematical formulas. Then, using the numerical representation, find any associated templates with a predefined system of connecting these numerical representations. Next the person could use information from the initial question template and the associated templates found to decide which would be the most relevant output template. Finally, use the output template and the words from the question to construct an answer in regular language. 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. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, claim 7 recites processing circuitry as an additional element. The processing circuitry is described by the “processor” in paragraph 31 of the specification as a well-known computer component. It is an example of generic computer components being used as a tool to perform the abstract idea. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 10 recites wherein collation between the search logical expression and the plurality of inference rules comprises comparing the search logical expression and the plurality of inference rules to derive a solution for a variable common between the search logical expression and the plurality of inference rules, and the collation between the search logical expression and the associative logical expression comprises comparing the search logical expression and the associative logical expression to derive a solution for a variable common between the search logical expression and the associative logical expression.
The limitations in this claim, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. From the independent claim example, a human using a cheat sheet to convert a question to a logical form by following the steps could find the recommended outputs for the logic expression using the cheat sheet. They could then follow the guidance of the cheat sheet to put terms from the input into the output expression. Similarly, a human could follow this same process of substituting words from the input into the output for related output found in the cheat sheet. The substitution could be done following rules of the cheat sheet or by using prior knowledge of the question format. 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. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim does not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claim is not patent eligible.
Claim 11 recites wherein the processing circuitry is further to: calculate, for each of the plurality of abductive logical expressions, a lacking amount, and choose, from the plurality of abductive logical expressions, one abductive logical expression based on the lacking amount.
The limitations in this claim, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. A human is capable of calculating a lacking amount as described in the specification it is just a ratio variable to words. 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. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim does not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claim is not patent eligible.
Claim 12 recites wherein the lacking amount is a ratio of a number of variables to a number of words included in the abductive logical expression.
The limitations in this claim, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. A human is capable of calculating a ratio as this can be as simple as counting the number of words and variables. 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. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim does not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claim is not patent eligible.
Claims 13 and 14 recite wherein the processing circuitry is to choose, from the plurality of abductive logical expressions, an abductive logical expression having the lacking amount that is less than a predetermined threshold as the one abductive logical expression.
The limitations in these claims, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. A human is capable of finding a ratio and determining if its above or below a desired value. 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. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims do not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims are not patent eligible.
Claims 15-18 recite wherein the processing circuitry is further to discard one or more of the plurality of abductive logical expressions based on the lacking amount.
The limitations in these claims, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. From the independent claim example, a human could follow the cheat sheet find all of the abductive logical expression to their input and then count the words/variables to find a ratio and not use anything above the threshold ratio. 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. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims do not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims are not patent eligible.
Claims 19-22 recite wherein the processing circuitry is to discard one or more of the plurality of abductive logical expressions having the lacking amount that is equal to or more than a predetermined threshold.
The limitations in these claims, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. From the independent claim example, a human could follow the cheat sheet find all of the abductive logical expression to their input and then count the words/variables to find a ratio and not use anything above or equal to the threshold ratio. 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. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims do not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 23 recites wherein to acquire the associative logical expression, the processing circuitry is to acquire an associative logical expression in which a distance between a vector of the associative logical expression and a vector of the chosen abductive logical expression is within a predetermined distance range.
The limitations in this claim, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. From the independent claim example, a human can vectorize the results of their cheat sheet by using various mathematical formulas. They could then follow the cheat sheets guidance for an acceptable difference between vectorized forms and do any equation to find all of the acceptable terms within that distance. These terms could then be selected as the associative logic expressions for their initial question. 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. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim does not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claim is not patent eligible.
Claim 24 recites wherein the processing circuitry is further to select the associative logical expression from a plurality of acquired associative logical expressions based on a match of proper nouns.
The limitations in this claim, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. A human can identify matching proper nouns and select expressions based on that. 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. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim does not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claim is not patent eligible.
Claim 25 recites wherein the processing circuitry is to construct the output logical expression by further replacing a word of the associative logical expression with a word of the chosen abductive logical expression.
The limitations in this claim, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. From the independent claim example, a human could follow a cheat sheet to find associative logic expressions and then populate it with the words from an abductive logic expression by directly copying them or following set rules from the cheat sheet. 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. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim does not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claim is not patent eligible.
Claim 26 recites wherein the output logical expression comprises a first output logical expression constructed by substituting the another solution into the search logical expression and a second output logical expression constructed from the associative logical expression.
The limitations in this claim, as drafted, are a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. From the independent claim example, a human could get two output expression from the cheat sheet, one being directly from the inference rule, substituted with terms from the input. The other being one associated with that one, also with words substituted from the input. 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. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim does not recite any additional elements that were not present in the independent claim. Accordingly, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claim is not patent eligible.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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 7, 9, and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Publication 12169790 B2 (Yamamoto) in view of US Patent Application Publication 20210073224 A1 (Zhao et al.) and US Patent Publication 11829420 B2 (Galitsky).
Regarding Claims 7 and 9, Yamamoto teaches an information processing apparatus comprising: processing circuitry. Yamamoto’s method describes various aspects being performed using a processor which is equivalent to processing circuitry (In this case, a processor of the computer functions as the probability calculation unit 2, the closed world assumption probability calculation unit 3, the solution hypothesis determination unit 4, the candidate hypothesis generation unit 5, the candidate hypothesis deletion unit 6, and the output information generation unit 7, and performs processing.) (Column 12, Lines 4-15).
to extract a plurality of inference rules related to the search logical expression by using the search logical expression; Yamamoto receives query in the form of a logical expression (The candidate hypothesis generation unit 5 acquires a query logical formula) (Column 4, Lines 34-43). Then background knowledge is accessed which represents the inference rules as can be seen in Fig. 5. Furthermore, Fig. 8 shows various logical formulas (Element 81) being associated with a plurality of inference rules (Element 82).
to construct a plurality of abductive logical expressions by substituting one solution obtained by collation between the search logical expression and the plurality of inference rules into the plurality of inference rules; Yamamoto identifies candidate hypothesis which are explanations for input query and are equivalent to abductive logical expression (…the probability calculation unit 2 calculates, with respect to each candidate hypothesis generated using observation information (query logical formula) and knowledge information (background knowledge), the probability that the candidate hypothesis is an explanation regarding the observation information.) (Column 3, Line 61 – Column 4, Line 9). Furthermore, the candidate hypothesis must be compatible with the inference rules associated with the input query (…retrieves an inference rule in which a manner of variable substitution is present so as to be equivalent with the conjunction of the first-order predicate logic literals included in the candidate hypothesis, with respect to the first-order predicate logic literals included in the consequent of the inference rule. For example, with respect to a candidate hypothesis q(A), an inference rule p(x)q(x) is backwardly applicable, and an inference rule p(x)r(x) is not backwardly applicable.) (Column 5, Lines 44-56)
Yamamoto does not explicitly teach: to acquire a question sentence; to convert the question sentence acquired into a search logical expression described by predicate logic; to vectorize one abductive logical expression among the plurality of abductive logical expressions; to acquire, among a plurality of associative logical expressions on which associative memory training has been performed, an associative logical expression associated from the one abductive logical expression vectorized; to construct an output logical expression by substituting another solution obtained by collation between the search logical expression and the associative logical expression into the associative logical expression; to generate an answer sentence from the output logical expression.
However, Zhao et al. teaches to vectorize one abductive logical expression among the plurality of abductive logical expressions; Zhao et al. presents a method of finding alternate queries to an initial input query using vectorization. (The various queries are mapped to vectors in a search space using the trained embedding vectors. Embedding vectors mathematically map words or phrases as vectors into a search space.) (Paragraph 43). This same process can be used for a plurality of input queries (Advantageously, since the topic of a given user session may be concentrated (e.g., the user is looking for one thing across multiple search queries in a session), each individual query may be inherently closely related to the context (or other queries) of the session, and hence may be advantageously used to predict other queries within the same session.) (Paragraph 39).
to acquire, among a plurality of associative logical expressions on which associative memory training has been performed, an associative logical expression associated from the one abductive logical expression vectorized; This method identifies a plurality of candidate search queries based upon the initial query (For example, domain-specific word sense disambiguation may be accomplished where an original query is “java” and determined query rewrites include “java trim” with a confidence of 0.885 and “java cabinet” with a confidence of 0.862.) (Paragraph 57). In this instance the original query (java) represents what could be an abductive logical expression instead and the (java trim) and (java cabinet) represent what could be associative logic expressions instead. Due to the fact the logic expressions can be built of words the system presented by Zhao et al. could be applied in the same way.
to construct an output logical expression by substituting another solution obtained by collation between the search logical expression and the associative logical expression into the associative logical expression; The rewrite query is used by being substituted in for the initial query in order to perform the search using the rewrite as well. This is the equivalent to constructing an output as the search results are the output and the rewritten query is meant to provide additional results (The illustrative method further includes determining, by the one or more processors, search results for the product query using the query rewrite.) (Paragraph 3)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention of the instant application to modify the logical abduction apparatus as taught by Yamamota to include using vectorization to obtain associated results as taught by Zhao et al. This would have been an obvious improvement to provide more relevant results withing the system. (Zhao et al., Paragraph 2)
Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. does not explicitly teach: to acquire a question sentence; to convert the question sentence acquired into a search logical expression described by predicate logic; to generate an answer sentence from the output logical expression.
However, Galitsky teaches a to acquire a question sentence; in an example provided by Galitsky we can see a question sentence (Q: Who are grandparents of Joe?) (Column 5, Lines 62-63).
to convert the question sentence acquired into a search logical expression described by predicate logic; Further examples show the conversion to and from natural language and logic expressions (Q: ?-grandparent(joe, bill)—‘is Joe a grandparent of Bill?’. A: Yes Q: ?-grandparent(Q, karen)—‘Who is a grandparent of Karen?’, A: No Q: -?-grandparent(Q, bill)—‘Who is a grandparent of Bill?’, A: Q=joe; Q=kathy.) (Column 5, Line 64 – Column 6, Line 2).
to generate an answer sentence from the output logical expression. Galinsky shows answers being expressed as both logical forms and answer sentences (Answers are in format ‘text: LF’. A1: Joe is father of Mary: father(joe, mary) A2: Kathy is mother of Mary: mother(kathy, mary) A3: Mary is mother of Bill: mother(mary, bill) A4: Ken is father of Karen: father(ken, karen) Q: Who are grandparents of Joe?) (Column 5, Lines 47-52). It is also stated that the answers are logic expressions generated by the computer (Each answer may be associated with one or more summarized logical forms (SLFs) that have been previously generated by the computing device) (Column 6, Lines 51-53).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention of the instant application to modify the logical abduction apparatus as taught by Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. to include the ability to use natural language for inputs and outputs as taught by Galinsky. This would have been an obvious improvement to facilitate the use of the invention with more popular modern technology such as chatbot and automated agents (Galinsky, Column 1, Lines 46-63).
Regarding Claim 23, Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky teaches the system of claim 7.
Furthermore, Zhao et al. teaches wherein to acquire the associative logical expression, the processing circuitry is to acquire an associative logical expression in which a distance between a vector of the associative logical expression and a vector of the chosen abductive logical expression is within a predetermined distance range.
(As an example, for a target word, queries containing a target word that co-occur in at least three (3) user search sessions within a threshold distance of one another according to the mapped vectors (e.g., with a cosine distance or confidence level greater or equal to 0.9) may be used as embeddings for the neural network. For example, words included in queries such as “ryobi drill bit” and “drill bit ryobi” that are be located within the threshold distance of one another in the vector space may be defined as related.) (Paragraph 62)
The vectors in Zhao et al. are used to find related expression based on a calculated distance. An associated threshold (cosine distance or confidence level greater or equal to 0.9) is used to determine if the distance is sufficient.
Claims 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Publication 12169790 B2 (Yamamoto) in view of US Patent Application Publication 20210073224 A1 (Zhao et al.) and US Patent Publication 11829420 B2 (Galitsky) and further in view of US 20180253417 A1 (Tanaka et al.).
Regarding Claim 24, Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky teach the system of claim 7.
Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky does not explicitly teach: wherein the processing circuitry is further to select the associative logical expression from a plurality of acquired associative logical expressions based on a match of proper nouns.
However, Tanaka et al. teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further to select the associative logical expression from a plurality of acquired associative logical expressions based on a match of proper nouns.
(A description will be given of a process to be performed when a text “Nezmeyland is ten times the size of Oedo Dome.” is received as the original text 103 and the user is Mr. Sting 610. … the proper noun extracting module 110 extracts proper nouns “Nezmeyland” and “Oedo Dome” from the original text 103 with the proper noun storing module 115. … Therefore, the replacing module 135 selects the proper noun pair table 400 formed of pairs of Japanese proper nouns and American proper nouns, and extracts “Illini Dome” corresponding to “Oedo Dome.” The replacing module 135 replaces “Oedo Dome” in the original text 103 with “Illini Dome” to generate the text “Nezmeyland is ten times the size of Illini Dome” as the replacement result 142.) (Paragraphs 63-65).
As can be seen in Fig.6 of Tanaka et al. the output sentence, which in this instance is being mapped to the associative logic expression, is selected based on matching proper nouns. While in this instance the matching nouns are used for translation purposes, it is still showing the selection being made. A proper noun is identified, a replacement is determined, and a new sentence is constructed based on that proper noun.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention of the instant application to modify the logic and inference rule based natural language processing method taught by Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky to select additional expressions based on nouns as taught by Tanaka et al. This would have been an obvious improvement Selecting a noun to replace with an equivalent noun will result in a new sentence of the same meaning (Tanaka et al. Paragraph 66) which is what the inference rule process of Yamamoto et al. and the vectorizing process of Zhao et al. are already trying to accomplish.
Claims 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Publication 12169790 B2 (Yamamoto) in view of US Patent Application Publication 20210073224 A1 (Zhao et al.) and US Patent Publication 11829420 B2 (Galitsky) and further in view of “Labelled Abduction and Relevance Reasoning” (Gabbay et al.).
Regarding Claim 25, Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky teach the system of claim 7.
Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky does not explicitly teach: wherein the processing circuitry is to construct the output logical expression by further replacing a word of the associative logical expression with a word of the chosen abductive logical expression.
However, Gabbay et al. teaches wherein the processing circuitry is to construct the output logical expression by further replacing a word of the associative logical expression with a word of the chosen abductive logical expression (From now on, the conversation is a successive attempt by each speaker to push the conversation towards satisfaction of their own ends - S to hire out an expensive car, C to hire a small car. We see immediately the point of indirect answers in dialogue. S offers (4). Rather than reply “no", C provides an indirect answer (5) which is intended to be pre-emptive. She is maximizing to S the relevance of her utterance, since the indirect answer, albeit a priori more costly (cognitively), obviates a whole series of similar questions.) (Pag 18, Paragraph 3).
In Gabbay et al. it can be seen that an output expression is constructed by using words from an abductive expression in an associated expression. At the top of Page 18 an example conversation can be seen that the above quote is explaining. Salesman response 12 can be considered an output expression that is an associative expression to salesman response 10 as it is rephrasing the meaning of that response. Salesman response 12 uses the word “control” from Customer response 9 which is an abductive expression as it is a contextual response to salesman response 4. Essentially, the output (response 12) is an associative response to (response 10) that uses a word from an abductive expression (response 9).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention of the instant application to modify the logic and inference rule based natural language processing method taught by Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky to take terms from the abductive expression and place them into an associative expression as taught by Gabbay et al. This would have been an obvious improvement as this allows the system to respond with indirect answers that maintain relevance to a previous input/result. (Gabbay et al. Page 17, Paragraph 6).
Claims 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Publication 12169790 B2 (Yamamoto) in view of US Patent Application Publication 20210073224 A1 (Zhao et al.) and US Patent Publication 11829420 B2 (Galitsky) and further in view of “e-SNLI: Natural Language Inference with Natural Language Explanations” (Camburu et al.).
Regarding Claim 26, Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky teach the system of claim 7.
Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky does not explicitly teach: wherein the output logical expression comprises a first output logical expression constructed by substituting the another solution into the search logical expression and a second output logical expression constructed from the associative logical expression.
However, Camburu et al. teaches wherein the output logical expression comprises a first output logical expression constructed by substituting the another solution into the search logical expression and a second output logical expression constructed from the associative logical expression.
(In this work, we extend the Stanford Natural Language Inference dataset with an additional layer of human-annotated natural language explanations of the entailment relations. We further implement models that incorporate these explanations into their training process and output them at test time.) (Abstract).
The method of Camburu et al. can be clearly demonstrated in Fig. 1. The system produces two outputs to a natural language input. One persists of terms substituted from the input (search logical expression) and is considered an explanation. The other is a one-word label associated with output result. This shows a natural language input receiving two outputs where one output is associative to the other.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention of the instant application to modify the logic and inference rule based natural language processing method taught by Yamamoto in view of Zhao et al. and Galitsky to produce to output expressions where one is associative to the other as taught by Camburu et al. This would have been an obvious improvement as it could provide additional understanding to the answer which could be considered a higher quality answer (Camburu et al. Introduction, Paragraph 1).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10-22 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101, and if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The closest prior art of record for claim 10 is US Patent Publication 12169790 B2 (Yamamoto) in view of US Patent Application Publication 20210073224 A1 (Zhao et al.).
Yamamoto teaches wherein collation between the search logical expression and the plurality of inference rules comprises comparing the search logical expression and the plurality of inference rules to derive a solution for a variable common between the search logical expression and the plurality of inference rules (Column 3, Line 61 – Column 4, Line 9) and (Column 5, Lines 44-56)
Yamamoto, though, does not disclose and the collation between the search logical expression and the associative logical expression comprises comparing the search logical expression and the associative logical expression to derive a solution for a variable common between the search logical expression and the associative logical expression.
Zhao et al. teaches the collation between the search logical expression and the associative logical expression (Paragraph 3).
However, none of the prior at, either alone or in combination, overcomes the limitations as presented in claim 10 and the other independent claims.
The closest prior art of record for claim 11 is US Patent Publication 12169790 B2 (Yamamoto).
Yamamoto teaches constructing a plurality of abductive logical expressions (Column 3, Line 61 – Column 4, Line 9) and (Column 5, Lines 44-56).
Yamamoto, though, does not disclose wherein the processing circuitry is further to: calculate, for each of the plurality of abductive logical expressions, a lacking amount, and choose, from the plurality of abductive logical expressions, one abductive logical expression based on the lacking amount.
Thus, none of the prior art overcomes the limitations as presented in claim 11 and the other independent claims.
Conclusion
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