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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1 and 8-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asako et al. (JP 2007277188) in view of Nakabayashi (US 2021/0193274).
Regarding to claims 1 and 8-9:
Asako et al. discloses an information processing apparatus comprising at least one processor,
wherein the processor is configured to:
receive input of structure data indicating a structure of a chemical substance and an evaluation function for evaluating specific performance of the chemical substance (Abstract: An input/output terminal 150 being an input means of compound information to be searched. Page 3, 1st paragraph: The structure information of the compound or the compound structure is registered in the input/output terminal);
extract a known chemical substance having the same basic structure as a basic structure of an input structure indicated by the input structure data from a database in which structure data indicating a structure of a chemical substance is recorded for each of a plurality of known chemical substances, the basic structure being a structure forming a skeleton of the chemical substance (FIG. 5 shows the known chemical substances (column 502) having the same basis structure including a skeleton (columns 503 and 505) extracted from the database 120); and
derive an index value related to the specific performance for the generated structure; derive an evaluation value of the novel structure based on the derived index value and the evaluation function; and display the novel structure according to the evaluation value (page 6, 5th paragraph: The search result display area 470 (FIG. 4) displays a similar structure search result together with a similarity score derived by the similarity score deriving function).
Asako et al. however does not teach generating a novel structure in which the input structure is modified based on the structure of the extracted known chemical substance or a novel structure in which the structure of the extracted known chemical substance is modified, wherein the modification is carried by adding/deleting a partial structure associated with the basic structure of the extracted known chemical substance to the input structure.
Nakabayashi discloses a method for searching a compound to generate a candidate structure comprising adding/deleting an atom or atomic group to/from the chemical structure to generate an objective structure (paragraph [0128]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Asako’s method to include adding/deleting an atom or atomic group to/from the chemical structure to generate an objective structure in order to gain the capable of efficiently searching a structure of a compound as taught by Nakabayashi (Abstract).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 03/25/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In response to Applicant’s Remarks, the Examiner cites that in Nakabayashi, paragraph [0128], at least teaches “choosing to delete an atom from the compound structure, deleting selected atom from the atoms included in the compound structure, thereby obtaining a modified compound structure”; as a result, the selected atom to be deleted reads on the claimed partial structure.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 LAM S NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2151.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, DOUGLAS RODRIGUEZ, can be reached on 571-431-0716. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/LAM S NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853
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