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 .
Applicant's Response
In Applicant's Response dated 2/9/2026, Applicant amended the Claims and argued against all objections and rejections set forth in the previous Office Action.
All objections and rejections not reproduced below are withdrawn.
The prior art rejection of the Claims under 35 U.S.C. 103 previously set forth are withdrawn.
The examiner appreciates the applicant noting where the support for the amendments are located in the specification.
The Application was filed on 06/26/2023 which is a continuation of 16/538,484 filed on 8/12/2019, which is continuation of 16/513,668 filed 07/16/2019 with a priority to 62/698,719 filed 7/16/2018.
Claim(s) 8-15 are pending for examination. Claim(s) 8 is/are independent claim(s).
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they include the following reference character(s) not mentioned in the description:
Fig. 4 shows an elements ‘412, ‘414, ‘416, ‘420 which is not described in the specification.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d), or amendment to the specification to add the reference character(s) in the description in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(b) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The specification is objected to as failing to provide proper antecedent basis for the claimed subject matter. See 37 CFR 1.75(d)(1) and MPEP § 608.01(o). Correction of the following is required:
The recited “subset” of Claims 8, 9, 10, 11, 15.
The recited “reflect” of Claims 9, 13.
The recited “selected” of Claims 8, 11, 14.
The recited “distinct links” of Claims 8, 11, 15. (¶ 0061 discloses “the user may desire results that are distinctly different from recommendations and preferences based on the user's profile. Specifically, the user may desire Contra-Personalization” but not “distinct links”).
The recited “function of outputs” of Claims 8.
The recited “relative contribution” of Claims 9. (¶ 0103 discloses “features that contribute” and ¶ 0037 discloses “relatively long” ¶ 0078 discloses “relatively high”, ¶ 0087 discloses “relative interest”, ¶ 0089 discloses “relative size” and “relative interest”.)
The Specification does not mention the claimed term(s). Thus, there is no support or antecedent basis for the recited term(s) that allows the meaning of the term to be ascertained, as required in 37 CFR 1.75(d)(1).
The applicant may amend the specification to include the term(s) and provide antecedent basis without introducing new matter into the specification, or the term(s) may be removed from the claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 8-15 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 recites “wherein, for a second subset of the relations, a relation between a selected pair of nodes is represented by two or more distinct links, each distinct link being independently computed by a different personalization engine;”
The specification does not disclose a “subset of the relations” nor does the specification disclose “distinct links”.
Claim 9 recites “wherein, for the first subset of the relations, the single link includes a structure reflecting relative contributions from the at least two different personalization engines that computed the single link.”
The specification discloses “For example, the relatively long line between the category 102e (politics) and the topic 102f (Trump) indicates a high numerical value, and correspondingly higher weight of member_of link 214.” (Published specification ¶ 0037). This “relatively long line” indicates a “higher weight” not a “relative contribution” In the specification: ¶ 0103 discloses “features that contribute”, ¶ 0037 discloses “relatively long”, ¶ 0078 discloses “relatively high”; ¶ 0087 discloses “relative interest”, ¶ 0089 discloses “relative size” and “relative interest”, ¶ 0103 discloses “features that contribute”. But none of these paragraphs disclose “relative contribution”. Even if this paragraph discloses “relative contribution”, this one single example of a specific “long line” does not support the broad claim language of all possibilities for “a structure reflecting relative contributions”. In addition the specification does not disclose “subset” nor “relative contributions”
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) 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gill; Iddo US Pub. No. 2017/0206276 (Gill) in view of Martin; Scott US Pub. No. US 2019/0325863 (Martin) in view of Narayanan; Srinivas et al. US Pub. No. 2016/0048601 (Narayanan).
Claim 8:
Gill teaches:
A computer-implemented system for personalizing content for delivery to a user, comprising:
a graph database storing data representative of user interactions with content and data indicative of content entities of interest [¶ 0030, Fig. 1] (user to entity graph is created, interest in mountain bike and helmet) [¶ 0050, Fig. 8] (user to entity graph is updated), the data being stored as nodes [¶ 0031] (entities can be categorized) [¶ 0043] (algorithm for creating a social graph) [¶ 0037] (user to entity graph, nodes with edge weights connecting entities); and
…
wherein the one or more processors are configured to analyze relations between pairs of the nodes and to represent the analyzed relations within the graph database [¶ 0028, 41-42] (user engagement level, amount of time interacting with an entity, different weights for each online activity) [¶ 0030, Fig. 1] (user to entity graph is created, interest in mountain bike and helmet) [¶ 0050, Fig. 8] (user to entity graph is updated) [¶ 0005-6] (a social graph with relationships between people could also be a “link” “structure”];
wherein, for a first subset of the relations, a relation between a selected pair of nodes is represented by a single link, the single link being computed as a function of outputs from at least two different personalization engines [¶ 0010, 41, 68] (online behavior could be “implicit”) [¶ 0038-39] (explicit keywords, implicit and explicit actions, implicit trust relationship, explicit trust action, implicit association) and a second of the engines capturing intra-session and extra-session user actions [¶ 0047-50] (update graph structure with online activity, online activity could be “intra-session”) [Claim 3] (user activity offline, offline could be “extra-session”) [¶ 0043, 58] (user presented with list of recommended entities);
…
wherein a structure of each link is a function of at least one of user explicit actions, user implicit behaviors, analytical similarity processing, or administrative input [¶ 0010, 41, 68] (online behavior could be “implicit”) [¶ 0038-39] (explicit keywords, implicit and explicit actions, implicit trust relationship, explicit trust action, implicit association) and a second of the engines capturing intra-session and extra-session user actions [¶ 0047-50] (update graph structure with online activity, online activity could be “intra-session”) [Claim 3] (user activity offline, offline could be “extra-session”) [¶ 0043, 58] (user presented with list of recommended entities); and
wherein the one or more processors are further configured to personalize content for presentation to the user based at least in part on the single links and the two or more distinct links [¶ 0010-12, 27] (derived from level of similarity of tastes between the two nodes, or users) [¶ 0038, 41] (user recommendations and real time automatic personalization derived from graphs) [¶ 0031, 34] (user to entity category) [¶ 0051-57] (user community graph used for recommendation) [¶ 0042] (group user into communities of similar taste) [¶ 0002] (recommender system for news).
Gill discloses, but Martin also discloses:
Gill teaches: [Claim 3] (user activity offline), but Martin also teaches:
… extra-session user actions … [¶ 0054, 65] (offline aggregators).
Gill does not appear to explicitly disclose “one or more processors executing a plurality of personalization engines;”
However, the disclosure of Martin teaches:
one or more processors executing a plurality of personalization engines;
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of recommendation based on user taste in Gill and the method of personalized and contextual content in Martin, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of personalization link categories in Martil could be applied to the recommendations in Gill. Gill and Martin are similar devices because each track behavior and recommend content. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, to help the user “effectively and efficiently digest the obtained information” [Martin: ¶ 0006] and “in order to create an improved recommendation system” [Gill: ¶ 0001].
Gill and Martin do not appear to explicitly disclose “a relation between a selected pair of nodes is represented by two or more distinct links”.
However, the disclosure of Narayanan teaches:
wherein, for a second subset of the relations, a relation between a selected pair of nodes is represented by two or more distinct links, each distinct link being independently computed by a different personalization engine [¶ 0035, 40-43] (newsfeed) [¶ 0072] (offline) [¶ 0017, 53-54, 64-66, 101] (strength of the connections) [¶ 0064-66, 97-100] (weight their relevancy, offline, current web page; fig. 3-each edge may be classified or characterized by an edge type of a plurality of edge types that define, indicate, or characterize the connection between the pair of nodes connected by the edge);
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of recommendation based on user taste in Gill and the method of personalized and contextual content in Martin and the method of content recommendation in Narayanan, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of multiple types of links in Narayanan could be applied to the personalization link categories in Martil and to the recommendations in Gill. Narayanan, Gill and Martin are similar devices because each track behavior and recommend content. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, so a “user may also easily determine what other hubs those friends are connected to” [Narayanan: ¶ 0055].
Claim 10:
Narayanan teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein, for the first subset of the relations, the at least two different personalization engines comprise a compute engine configured to perform automated analysis of content and an administrative input engine configured to adjust or modify an output of the compute engine [¶ 0035, 40-43] (newsfeed) [¶ 0072] (offline) [¶ 0017, 53-54, 64-66, 101] (strength of the connections) [¶ 0064-66, 97-100] (weight their relevancy, offline, current web page; fig. 3-each edge may be classified or characterized by an edge type of a plurality of edge types that define, indicate, or characterize the connection between the pair of nodes connected by the edge).
Claim 11:
Narayanan teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein, for the second subset of the relations, the two or more distinct links represent a same relation type between the selected pair of nodes and are maintained concurrently within the graph database [¶ 0035, 40-43] (newsfeed) [¶ 0072] (offline) [¶ 0017, 53-54, 64-66, 101] (strength of the connections) [¶ 0064-66, 97-100] (weight their relevancy, offline, current web page; fig. 3-each edge may be classified or characterized by an edge type of a plurality of edge types that define, indicate, or characterize the connection between the pair of nodes connected by the edge).
Claim 12:
Gill teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein at least one of the different personalization engines is configured to compute a link based on user explicit actions and at least one other personalization engine is configured to compute a separate link based on user implicit behaviors [¶ 0010, 41, 68] (online behavior could be “implicit”) [¶ 0038-39] (explicit keywords, implicit and explicit actions, implicit trust relationship, explicit trust action, implicit association) and a second of the engines capturing intra-session and extra-session user actions [¶ 0047-50] (update graph structure with online activity, online activity could be “intra-session”) [Claim 3] (user activity offline, offline could be “extra-session”) [¶ 0043, 58] (user presented with list of recommended entities).
Claim 14:
Narayanan teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein each link stored in the graph database is associated with a numerical value representing a strength of the relation between the selected pair of nodes [¶ 0017, 53-54, 64-66, 101] (strength of the connections) [¶ 0064-66, 97-100] (weight their relevancy, offline, current web page; fig. 3-each edge may be classified or characterized by an edge type of a plurality of edge types that define, indicate, or characterize the connection between the pair of nodes connected by the edge).
Claim 15:
Gill teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured to determine whether a relation is represented using the single link of the first subset or the two or more distinct links of the second subset based on a type of personalization processing performed for the relation [¶ 0035, 40-43] (newsfeed) [¶ 0072] (offline) [¶ 0017, 53-54, 64-66, 101] (adjusting the strength of the connections) [¶ 0064-66, 97-100] (weight their relevancy, offline, current web page; fig. 3-each edge may be classified or characterized by an edge type of a plurality of edge types that define, indicate, or characterize the connection between the pair of nodes connected by the edge).
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gill; Iddo US Pub. No. 2017/0206276 (Gill) in view of Martin; Scott US Pub. No. US 2019/0325863 (Martin) in view of Narayanan; Srinivas et al. US Pub. No. 2016/0048601 (Narayanan) in view of Vanasco; Jonathan Brian US Pub. No. 2010/0274815 (Vanasco).
Claim 9:
Gill, Martin and Narayanan teach all the elements of the claims shown above.
Gill, Martin and Narayanan do not appear to explicitly disclose “”.
However, the disclosure of Vanasco teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein, for the first subset of the relations, the single link includes a structure reflecting relative contributions from the at least two different personalization engines that computed the single link [¶ 0698-725] (Fig. 1, dashed lines and straight lines for different types of connections or “links”) [¶ 0864] ( leftmost and rightmost entities are connected to the base individual through the short-single-line, but are explicitly not connected to the users through networks attached by the long-double-line).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of recommendation based on user taste in Gill and the method of personalized and contextual content in Martin and the method of content recommendation in Narayanan and showing links in Vanasco, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of showing links in Vanasco could be applied to the multiple types of links in Narayanan and the personalization link categories in Martil and to the recommendations in Gill. Vanasco, Narayanan, Gill and Martin are similar devices because each track behavior and recommend content. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, so a “improve relevance of suggestive content” [Vanasco: ¶ 0617].
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gill; Iddo US Pub. No. 2017/0206276 (Gill) in view of Martin; Scott US Pub. No. US 2019/0325863 (Martin) in view of Narayanan; Srinivas et al. US Pub. No. 2016/0048601 (Narayanan) in view of Sachdev; Sanjay et al. US Pub. No. 2016/0036661 (Sachdev).
Claim 13:
Gill, Martin and Narayanan teach all the elements of the claims shown above.
Gill, Martin and Narayanan do not appear to explicitly disclose “recompute a structure of a link over time”.
However, the disclosure of Sachdev teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein at least one of the personalization engines is configured to recompute a structure of a link over time to reflect decay or evolution of a user's interests [¶ 0014-1630-38] (feedback engine 124 may revise or adjust the connection strengths in the social graph, Slider that allows the user to select values between 0 and 1 (e.g., the connection strengths) [¶ 0031, 45] (slider that allows the user to select values between 0 and 1).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of recommendation based on user taste in Gill and the method of personalized and contextual content in Martin and the method of content recommendation in Narayanan and revising connection strengths in Sachdev, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of revising connection strengths in Sachdev could be applied to the multiple types of links in Narayanan and the personalization link categories in Martil and to the recommendations in Gill. Sachdev, Narayanan, Gill and Martin are similar devices because each track behavior and recommend content. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, to “improve the accuracy of the connection strength and, thus, the accuracy of the social graph” [Sachdev: ¶ 0015].
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Please See PTO-892: Notice of References Cited.
Evidence of the level skill of an ordinary person in the art for Claim 2:
Vaynblat; Dimitri et al. US 20150046566 teaches: weighting for edge, social graph, interactions, web page.
Moon; Seungwhan et al. US 20200410012 teaches: news feed, connection between nodes may be associated with a weight, offline.
Narayanan; Srinivas et al. US 8180804 teaches: news feed, strength of the connections; weight their relevancy, offline, current web page; generating one or more recommendations for display to a user of a social network environment currently viewing a particular web page.
Reitan; Dan US 20130238778 teaches: [0280] Synapse: A connection between nodes with weighting (product); self-adaptive self-learning; customized media content, nightly news feed as broadcast, television show.
Ayan; Necip Fazil et al. US 20160063115 teaches: Fig. 2; topic index, personalize content, node, connection, group membership; user "likes" an article about a brand of shoes the category may be the brand.
Cramer; Mark et al. US 20150032717 teaches: [0020, 35] real time implicit personalization search engine that immediately exploits any new information regarding the user's intent.
Sachdev; Sanjay et al. US 20160036661 feedback engine 124 may revise or adjust the connection strengths in the social graph, Slider that allows the user to select values between 0 and 1 (e.g., the connection strengths.
Evidence of the level skill of an ordinary person in the art for Claim 4:
Hoffman; Michael T. US 20120042280 teaches: news feed, web pages may be customized in terms of appearance and content based on user interests; [0056, fig.8] user's level of strength of interest may be modified using a slider bar.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 8-15 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Citations to Prior Art
A reference to specific paragraphs, columns, pages, or figures in a cited prior art reference is not limited to preferred embodiments or any specific examples. It is well settled that a prior art reference, in its entirety, must be considered for all that it expressly teaches and fairly suggests to one having ordinary skill in the art. Stated differently, a prior art disclosure reading on a limitation of Applicant's claim cannot be ignored on the ground that other embodiments disclosed were instead cited. Therefore, the Examiner's citation to a specific portion of a single prior art reference is not intended to exclusively dictate, but rather, to demonstrate an exemplary disclosure commensurate with the specific limitations being addressed. In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332-33,216 USPQ 1038, 1039 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009, 158 USPQ 275, 277 (CCPA 1968". In re: Upsher-Smith Labs. v. Pamlab, LLC, 412 F.3d 1319, 1323,75 USPQ2d 1213,1215 (Fed. Cir. 2005); In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1264,23 USPQ2d 1780, 1782 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Merck & Co. v. Biocraft Labs., Inc., 874 F.2d 804, 807,10 USPQ2d 1843, 1846 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Fracalossi, 681 F.2d 792,794 n.1, 215 USPQ 569, 570 n.1 (CCPA 1982); In re Lamberti, 545 F.2d 747, 750, 192 USPQ 278, 280 (CCPA 1976); In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385,1390,163 USPQ 545, 549 (CCPA 1969).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN J SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-3825. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 11:00 - 7:30 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, ADAM QUELER can be reached on (571) 272-4140. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Benjamin Smith/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2172 Direct Phone: 571-270-3825
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