DETAILED 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 .
Response to Amendment
1 This action is in response to the amendment filed on 01/28/2026. Claims 1, 8-17 have been amended. Claims 1-20 remain rejected.
Response to Arguments
2 Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 filed on 09/26/2025, with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 regarding that the updated independent claims 1, 9, and 17 have now overcome this rejection due to the addition of a visualization of various layers and planes, and representations of graphical elements alongside previous limitation. This argument has been considered, and the rejections for 35 U.S.C. § 101 will be dropped. In addition, claims 10-16 have been amended to be consistent to independent claim 9, therefore overcoming the previous objections.
3 Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 9, and 17 filed on 01/28/2026, with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102 regarding that the prior art does not teach the following but not limited to “wherein the first filtered layer is visualized as a first XY plane; determining, by a processor, a first plurality of vertices that correspond to the first filter condition relative to the source vertex”. This argument has been considered, but are moot due to new grounds of rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
4 Regarding claims 2-8, 10-16, and 18-20, they directly/indirectly depend on independent claims 1, 9, and 17 respectively. Applicant does not argue anything other than independent claims 1, 9, and 17. The limitations in those claims, in conjunction with combination, was mostly previously established as explained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5 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.
6 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.
7 Claim(s) 1, 2, 8-10, and 16-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 9710544 B1) in view of Sullivan et al. (US 20120233573 A1).
8 Regarding claim 1, Smith teaches a method of visualizing, within a user interface (UI) ([Page 9; Column 4, Lines 16-22 & 31-36] reciting “FIGS. 1-3 illustrate examples of processes 100, 200, and 300 configured to derive a graph from an input document graph. In many likely commercially relevant use cases, the processes 100, 200, or 300 may tax the limits of the computational resources available. The process of generating a derivative graph, and other use cases, is often constrained by time and computing resources available…In some cases, a single computing device (or virtual machine having a distinct operating system instance or a container instance) may implement the processes 100, 200, or 300, or some embodiments may be implemented in a distributed fashion, with a plurality of computing systems operating in a networked environment…”; [Page 38; Column 28, Lines 38-42] reciting “Computing system 1000 may include one or more processors (e.g., processors 1010a-1010n) coupled to system memory 1020, an input/output I/O device interface 1030, and a network interface 1040 via an input/output (I/O) interface 1050.”; [Page 22; Column 29, Lines 7-13] reciting “I/O device interface 1030 may provide an interface for connection of one or more I/O devices 1060 to computer system 1000. I/O devices may include devices that receive input (e.g., from a user) or output information (e.g., to a user). I/O devices 1060 may include, for example, graphical user interface presented on displays (e.g., a cathode ray tube (CRT) or liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor)…”), graph data comprising vertices interconnected by edges ([Page 16; Column 17, Lines 45-49] reciting “Some embodiments may utilize the derivative graph (e.g., a second graph generated based on a first graph in accordance with one or more techniques described herein) to present a data visualization that show entities or other attributes…”; [Abstract] reciting “Provided is a process including: obtaining a first graph comprising nodes and edges…”), the method comprising:
receiving a selection of a source vertex ([Page 12; Column 10, Lines 40-44] reciting “As indicated in steps 108 and 110, a source node of the first graph (from which the first attribute was selected) may be determined. In some cases, the source node is determined by selecting an attribute, e.g., by iterating through a list of attributes”) that is displayed within the UI ([Page 20; Column 26, Lines 44-48] reciting “In some embodiments, the data visualization module 824 may be operative to prepare data visualizations for display on user devices, e.g., visualizations of the graphs described herein. In some cases, such visualizations may include physics-based arrangements of nodes within a display”);
generating and displaying within the UI a first filtered layer corresponding to a first filter condition relative to the source vertex ([Page 9; Column 3, Lines 35-41] reciting “…some embodiments generate a derivative graph (or multiple derivative graphs) from the original semantic graph, including determining respective edge weights for the derivative graph edges that indicate respective amounts of similarity between attributes of the original graph nodes, where nodes of the generated derivative graph represent or otherwise correspond to the attributes of the original graph nodes.”; [Page 12; Column 10, Lines 42-44] reciting “In some cases, the source node is determined by selecting an attribute, e.g., by iterating through a list of attributes constituting nodes…”; [Page 20; Column 26, Lines 52-57] reciting “In some cases, this entails displaying and manipulating thousands of vertices and edges in an environment on user devices not known for speed. At the same time, in some use cases, users desire a relatively large amount of data on display, while keeping a responsive frame rate.”), ;
determining, by a processor, a first plurality of vertices that correspond to the first filter condition relative to the source vertex ([Page 8; Column 2, Lines 5-19] reciting “…for each of the first-graph nodes, selecting one or more nodes for a second graph from attributes of the unstructured text documents to which the first-graph node corresponds, wherein the attributes are entities mentioned in the unstructured text documents or other features of the unstructured text document, and wherein each of the second-graph nodes corresponds to a respective selected attribute; and for each pair of the second-graph nodes, determining a respective edge weight indicating similarity between a first entity corresponding to a first node of the respective pair and a second entity corresponding to a second node of the respective pair, wherein determining the respective edge weight comprises: determining a source node of the first graph from which the first entity was selected…”; [Page 19; Column 23, Lines 42-49] reciting “In some embodiments, a corresponding graph may be constructed, with documents, paragraphs, entities, sentiments, or terms as nodes, and weighted edges indicating relationships, like similarity, relatedness, species-genus relationships, synonym relationships, possession relationships, relationships in which one node acts on another node, relationships in which one node is an attribute of another, and the like.”); and
automatically placing the first plurality of vertices that correspond to the first filter condition on the first filtered layer ([Claim 19] reciting “…for each of the evaluation nodes of the first graph, extracting the attributes from a plurality of metadata attributes of documents corresponding to one or more of the first-graph nodes…”; [Column 10, Lines 61-62] reciting “…selecting a node of the first graph from a plurality of nodes adjacent the source node in the first graph.”), wherein each of the plurality of vertices are represented by a graphical element ([Page 17; Column 19, Lines 45-50] reciting “In some cases, visual weight or visual attributes of displayed graphs, like node or edge size, color, drop shadow, transparency, or attributes of a physics-based simulation (like in a force directed layout of a graph) may be modified based on quality measures for individual nodes or edges.”), the automatically placing comprising visually arranging the graphical elements on the within the UI ([Page 20; Column 26, Lines 44-55] reciting “In some embodiments, the data visualization module 824 may be operative to prepare data visualizations for display on user devices, e.g., visualizations of the graphs described herein. In some cases, such visualizations may include physics-based arrangements of nodes within a display, like a force-directed layout. In some cases, graph generation and visualization preparation takes place on computational linguistics system 802, and resulting interactive visualizations run (e.g., entirely) in a web browser of a user device. In some cases, this entails displaying and manipulating thousands of vertices and edges in an environment on user devices not known for speed.”).
9 Smith does not explicitly teach …wherein the first filtered layer is visualized as a first XY plane… the automatically placing comprising visually arranging the graphical elements on the first XY plane within the UI.
10 Sullivan teaches …wherein the first filtered layer is visualized as a first XY plane… the automatically placing comprising visually arranging the graphical elements on the first XY plane within the UI ([0023] reciting “In various embodiments, hierarchical information, such as a tree structure, may be organized into graphical nodes and graphical layers using various tree map structure techniques…Once a desired set of hierarchical information has been surfaced to a top layer, the top layer may be manipulated to present the hierarchical information in different ways, such as a three dimensional orthographic projection view, a two dimensional flat view, different graphical charts or tables, different viewing angles and perspectives, and so forth.”; [0079] reciting “GUI view 1000 illustrates a case where the top layer 506 shown by the GUI view 900, which includes a combination of graphical tiles 502-4, 502-7 from the graphical layer 504-3 and graphical tiles 502-10, 502-11, 502-12, 502-13, 502-14, 502-15, 502-16 and 502-17 from the graphical layer 504-4, is switched between a three dimensional orthographic view to a two dimensional flat view. When in the top layer 506 is shown in a two dimensional flat view, it appears as a tree map structure 1002. The GUI view 1000 may be toggled back to a three dimensional orthographic view (e.g., as shown by the GUI view 900) by selecting the navigation control 902-4.”).
11 It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the method (taught by Smith) to incorporate the teachings of Sullivan to provide a type of xy or flat plane that utilizes a type of GUI and different layers that are provided by the teachings of Smith. Doing so would improve affordability, scalability, modularity, extendibility, or interoperability for an operator, device or network as stated by Sullivan ([0023] recited).
12 Regarding claim 2, Smith in view of Sullivan teaches the method of claim 1 (see claim 1 rejection above), further comprising: generating a second filtered layer corresponding to a second filter condition relative to the source vertex (Smith; [Page 9; Column 3, Lines 35-41] reciting “…some embodiments generate a derivative graph (or multiple derivative graphs) from the original semantic graph, including determining respective edge weights for the derivative graph edges that indicate respective amounts of similarity between attributes of the original graph nodes, where nodes of the generated derivative graph represent or otherwise correspond to the attributes of the original graph nodes.”; [Page 12; Column 10, Lines 42-44] reciting “In some cases, the source node is determined by selecting an attribute, e.g., by iterating through a list of attributes constituting nodes…”);
automatically placing a second plurality of vertices that correspond to the second filter condition on the first filtered layer (Smith; [Claim 19] reciting “…for each of the evaluation nodes of the first graph, extracting the attributes from a plurality of metadata attributes of documents corresponding to one or more of the first-graph nodes…”; [Page 12; Column 10, Lines 61-62] reciting “…selecting a node of the first graph from a plurality of nodes adjacent the source node in the first graph.”; [Column 9; Lines 37-41] reciting “In some embodiments, a second graph may be derived from the first graph, such that the second-graph nodes respectively correspond to attributes of the first graph nodes (e.g., entities mentioned in documents, products offered by businesses, past occupations of people, etc.)”).
13 Regarding claim 8, Smith in view of Sullivan teaches the method of claim 1 (see claim 1 rejection above), wherein the visually arranging comprises visually moving the first plurality of vertices onto the first XY plane (Sullivan; [Abstract] reciting “and parse the hierarchical information into a tree data structure, an orthographic generator component operative to generate a graphical tile for each node, arrange graphical tiles for each hierarchical level into graphical layers, and arrange the graphical layers in a vertical stack, and an orthographic presentation component operative to present a three dimensional orthographic projection of the hierarchical information with the stack of graphical layers each having multiple graphical tiles.”; [0049] reciting “The logic flow 200 may arrange the graphical layers in a vertical stack at block 208. For example, the orthographic presentation component 126 may arrange the graphical layers in a vertical stack based on a defined order, from a top layer to a bottom layer along a vertical axis approximately perpendicular to a horizontal plane for a given layer.”).
14 Claim 9 has similar limitations as of claim 1, therefore it is rejected under the same rationale as claim 1.
15 Claims 10 and 18 has similar limitations as of claim 2, therefore it is rejected under the same rationale as claim 2.
16 Claim 16 has similar limitations as of claim 8, therefore it is rejected under the same rationale as claim 8.
17 Regarding claim 17 specifically, Smith teaches a display configured to display a user interface (UI) (Smith; [Page 16; Column 18, Lines 25-27] reciting “In some embodiments, the second graph, or the clustered second graph, may be displayed with the techniques described below for causing graphs to be displayed.”; [Page 9; Column 4, Lines 16-22 & 31-36] reciting “FIGS. 1-3 illustrate examples of processes 100, 200, and 300 configured to derive a graph from an input document graph. In many likely commercially relevant use cases, the processes 100, 200, or 300 may tax the limits of the computational resources available. The process of generating a derivative graph, and other use cases, is often constrained by time and computing resources available…In some cases, a single computing device (or virtual machine having a distinct operating system instance or a container instance) may implement the processes 100, 200, or 300, or some embodiments may be implemented in a distributed fashion, with a plurality of computing systems operating in a networked environment…”; [Page 38; Column 28, Lines 38-42] reciting “Computing system 1000 may include one or more processors (e.g., processors 1010a-1010n) coupled to system memory 1020, an input/output I/O device interface 1030, and a network interface 1040 via an input/output (I/O) interface 1050.”; [Page 22; Column 29, Lines 7-13] reciting “I/O device interface 1030 may provide an interface for connection of one or more I/O devices 1060 to computer system 1000. I/O devices may include devices that receive input (e.g., from a user) or output information (e.g., to a user). I/O devices 1060 may include, for example, graphical user interface presented on displays (e.g., a cathode ray tube (CRT) or liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor)…”);
one or more processors executing instructions and coupled to the display, the processors adapted to (Smith; [Page 8; Column 2, Lines 30-34] reciting “Some aspects include a system, including: one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that when executed by the processors cause the processors to effectuate operations of the above-mentioned process.”; [Column 19, Lines 41-45] reciting “In some embodiments, results may be stored in memory, e.g., in the graph repository 822 in association with the corresponding graph, or results may be transmitted to a user device for display in a web browser, e.g., in response to a query for a specific graph.”):
receive graph data comprising vertices interconnected by edges (Smith; [Page 21; Column 27, Lines 20-22] reciting “To visualize graph relations, some embodiments of data visualization module 824 may arrange vertices (also referred to as nodes) and edges using a physics simulation”);
display the graph data within the UI (Smith; [Column 18, Lines 25-27] reciting “In some embodiments, the second graph, or the clustered second graph, may be displayed with the techniques described below for causing graphs to be displayed.”; [Page 9; Column 4, Lines 16-22 & 31-36] reciting “FIGS. 1-3 illustrate examples of processes 100, 200, and 300 configured to derive a graph from an input document graph. In many likely commercially relevant use cases, the processes 100, 200, or 300 may tax the limits of the computational resources available. The process of generating a derivative graph, and other use cases, is often constrained by time and computing resources available…In some cases, a single computing device (or virtual machine having a distinct operating system instance or a container instance) may implement the processes 100, 200, or 300, or some embodiments may be implemented in a distributed fashion, with a plurality of computing systems operating in a networked environment…”; [Page 38; Column 28, Lines 38-42] reciting “Computing system 1000 may include one or more processors (e.g., processors 1010a-1010n) coupled to system memory 1020, an input/output I/O device interface 1030, and a network interface 1040 via an input/output (I/O) interface 1050.”; [Page 22; Column 29, Lines 7-13] reciting “I/O device interface 1030 may provide an interface for connection of one or more I/O devices 1060 to computer system 1000. I/O devices may include devices that receive input (e.g., from a user) or output information (e.g., to a user). I/O devices 1060 may include, for example, graphical user interface presented on displays (e.g., a cathode ray tube (CRT) or liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor)…”);
18 The remaining parts of Claim 17 has similar limitations in claim 1 above (in which Smith in view of Sullivan teaches), therefore it is rejected under the same rationale as claim 1.
19 Claim(s) 3, 6, 11, 14, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 9710544 B1) in view Sullivan et al. (US 20120233573 A1) as of claim 1, further in view of Georgopoulos et al. (US 20220100800 A1).
20 Regarding claim 3, Smith in view of Sullivan teaches the method of claim 1 (see claim 1 rejection above), but does not explicitly teach wherein the first filter condition comprises a predefined pattern relative to the source vertex.
21 Georgopoulos teaches wherein the first filter condition comprises a predefined pattern relative to the source vertex ([0099] reciting “Example 5: The method according to any of the preceding examples, wherein starting points of said random walks are selected from a group comprising: a randomly selected leave of said existing knowledge graph, a root of said existing knowledge graph, and a selected vertex of said existing knowledge graph, wherein said selection is performed based on a predefined rule.”).
22 It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the method (taught by Smith in view of Sullivan) to incorporate the teachings of Georgopoulos to provide a predefined rule or pattern that is relative to the source vertex or node from the graphs provided by Smith in view of Sullivan, which would have included the use of the attributes provided by Smith in view of Sullivan. Doing so would allow a proper way to incorporate in a result in a sequence of vertices and edges as stated by Georgopoulos ([0064] recited).
23 Regarding claim 6, Smith in view of Sullivan and Georgopoulos teaches the method of claims 3 (see claims 1 and 3 rejections above), wherein the first filtered condition is a hop count relative to the source vertex (Smith; [Page 13; Column 11, Lines 56-58] reciting “In some cases, the number of hops in the first graph may also be probabilistic, or a threshold number may be explored.”; [Page 24; Column 34; Lines 60-64] reciting “…wherein determining the entity-similarity value comprises: determining a probability of traversing the first graph from the source node to a destination node within less than a threshold amount of hops…”).
24 Claims 11 and 19 has similar limitations as of claim 3, therefore it is rejected under the same rationale as claim 3.
25 Claim 14 has similar limitations as of claim 6, therefore it is rejected under the same rationale as claim 6.
26 Claim(s) 4-5, 12-13, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 9710544 B1) in view of Sullivan et al. (US 20120233573 A1) as of claim 1, further in view of Miyadai et al. (US 20020140699 A1).
27 Regarding claim 4, Smith in view of Sullivan teaches the method of claim 1 (see claim 1 rejection above), and although could teach wherein the generating the first filtered layer is in response to a user request to spawn the first filtered layer (Smith; [Page 20; Column 26, Lines 49-53] reciting “In some cases, graph generation and visualization preparation takes place on computational linguistics system 802, and resulting interactive visualizations run (e.g., entirely) in a web browser of a user device.”), prior art from Miyadai can teach this limitation further.
28 Miyadai teaches wherein the generating the first filtered layer is in response to a user request to spawn the first filtered layer ([Abstract] reciting “A user input is indicative of one of the totals, and a graph is automatically generated using a predefined rule corresponding to the one of the totals indicated by the user input.”; [0072] reciting “Such a choice can be implemented, in one embodiment, by providing the user with a pop-up menu to select a total field that offers the user the option of requesting a graph based on the time series sequence of reports rather than just the current report and the period for the time series graph.”).
29 It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the method (taught by Smith in view of Sullivan) to incorporate the teachings of Miyadai to provide a clearer way to incorporate a user request using the user devices provided by Smith in view of Sullivan to generate layers, which are the specific graphs. Doing so would allow an automatic generation of a graph from various report data as stated by Miyadai.
30 Regarding claim 5, Smith in view of Sullivan and Miyadai teaches the method of claim 4 (see claims 1 and 4 rejections above), wherein the first filter condition comprises an input filter condition provided by a user after the user request (Miyadai; [Abstract] reciting “A user input is indicative of one of the totals, and a graph is automatically generated using a predefined rule corresponding to the one of the totals indicated by the user input.”).
31 Claims 12 and 20 has similar limitations as of claim 4, therefore it is rejected under the same rationale as claim 4.
32 Claim 13 has similar limitations as of claim 5, therefore it is rejected under the same rationale as claim 5.
33 Claim(s) 7 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 9710544 B1) in view of Sullivan et al. (US 20120233573 A1) and Georgopoulos et al. (US 20220100800 A1) as of claims 1, 3, and 6, further in view of Shi et al. (US 20230252469 A1).
34 Regarding claim 7, Smith in view of Sullivan and Georgopoulos teaches the method of claim 6 (see claims 1, 3, and 6 rejections above), but does not explicitly teach wherein the predefined pattern comprises incrementing the hop count by a predefined amount for each layer.
35 Shi teaches wherein the predefined pattern comprises incrementing the hop count by a predefined amount for each layer ([0106] reciting “The graph generation module 206 may then expand one hop outward from the current node at a time. Each time the graph generation module 206 expands outward one hop, it increments the level (e.g., from Level 1 to Level 2, etc.). The graph generation module 206 may record, for each node in the graph, the corresponding level it takes for the graph generation module 206 to reach the node.”; [0121] reciting “The graph generation module 206 may continue to trace transactions originated from the counterparty accounts in a downstream manner until a predetermined number of hops of transactions (e.g., 5 hops, 10 hops, etc.) is reached.”).
36 It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the method (taught by Smith in view of Sullivan and Georgopoulos) to incorporate the teachings of Shi to provide a way to increment the hop count by a predefined amount while utilizing graph generation while going through each node with the specific attributes from Smith in view of Sullivan and Georgopoulos. Doing so would allow specific search strategies for nodes like the breadth-first search as stated by Shi ([0106] recited).
37 Claim 15 has similar limitations as of claim 7, therefore it is rejected under the same rationale as claim 7.
Conclusion
38 The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Karatzas, E., Baltoumas, F. A., Panayiotou, N. A., Schneider, R., & Pavlopoulos, G. A. (2021). Arena3Dweb: interactive 3D visualization of multilayered networks. Nucleic Acids Research, 49(W1), W36-W45 teaches 3d visualization of networks that utilizes multiple layers and various analysis.
39 Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHNNY TRAN LE whose telephone number is (571)272-5680. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thu: 7:30am-5pm; First Fridays Off; Second Fridays: 7:30am-4pm.
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/JOHNNY T LE/ Examiner, Art Unit 2614
/KENT W CHANG/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2614
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