DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the filing of 5/4/26. Claims 21-40 are pending and have been considered below.
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 § 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 30-33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
In summary, claims 30-33 recite a “computer-readable storage medium” to perform operations. Because the Specification of the present application does not expressly define this medium as to any particular details, the ordinary meaning of “computer-readable storage medium” recited in the claims includes nonstatutory media (i.e. signals.) Thus, the broadest, reasonable interpretation of “medium bearing instructions” encompasses nonstatutory subject matter (transmission media) that is unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. 101. Examiner suggests adding ‘non-transitory.’
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 21-24, 26-28, 30-32, 34-36, 38-40 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Bhatt (2019/0102078.)
Claim 21, 30, 34: Bhatt discloses a system, comprising:
at least one processor (Fig. 38: processor); and
memory (Fig. 38: system memory) storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to perform a set of operations, the set of operations comprising:
obtaining a plurality of conversation threads associated with content (par. 133; Fig. 9, e.g. 910 list of conversations), wherein the plurality of conversation threads each include a plurality of comments authored by multiple different authors (Fig. 9: 930, messages; par. 133);
inputting the plurality of conversation threads to a trained machine learning model (par. 72, a bot may use a natural language processing (NLP) engine and/or a machine learning model (e.g., an intent classifier) to map end user utterances to specific intents. For example, a machine learning based NLP engine may learn to understand and categorize the natural language conversations from the end users);
receiving, from the trained machine learning model (par. 72, bot), predicted measures of completion (Fig. 9: completed / incomplete; par. 133, conversations may be selected or filtered based on… status (e.g., completed or incomplete; par. 144, time to completion, length, number of states) for the plurality of conversation threads (par. 126, the bot analytic system may enable a user to… track abandoned/completed… conversations);
based at least on the predicted measures of completion, identifying a recommended conversation thread for (intended purpose) completion from the plurality of conversation threads (Fig. 9; Fig. 20; par. 144, paths selected according to a set of one or more filtering criteria; The conversations may be completed or may be incomplete.);
providing, for display at a user interface, the recommended conversation thread (Fig. 20.)
Claim 22, 35: Bhatt discloses the system of claim 21, wherein the set of operations further comprises: sorting the plurality of conversation threads based at least on the predicted measures of completion, resulted in sorted conversation threads; and providing the sorted conversation threads for display at the user interface (Fig. 9; Fig. 20; par. 132-133, 144, paths selected according to a set of one or more filtering criteria; The conversations may be completed or may be incomplete.)
Claim 23: Bhatt discloses the system of claim 22, wherein the set of operations further comprises: outputting, on the user interface, graphical annotations conveying the predicted measures of completion (Fig. 9; Fig. 20; par. 132-133, 144, paths selected according to a set of one or more filtering criteria; The conversations may be completed or may be incomplete.)
Claim 24, 36: Bhatt discloses the system of claim 22, wherein the set of operations further comprises: displaying the sorted conversation threads in response to user input received via the user interface (Fig. 9; Fig. 20; par. 132-133, 144, paths selected according to a set of one or more filtering criteria; The conversations may be completed or may be incomplete.)
Claim 26, 32, 38: Bhatt discloses the system of claim 21, wherein the recommended conversation thread is displayed on the user interface in response to user input directed to the user interface (par. 137, More details of the conversations may be accessed from the bot report.)
Claim 27, 31, 39: Bhatt discloses the system of claim 26, wherein the set of operations further comprises: selecting the recommended conversation thread based at least on the recommended conversation thread having a fewest number of predicted remaining turns before completion (par. 133, The conversations may be selected or filtered based on, for example, the channel, locale, time period, intent, the status (e.g., completed or incomplete), and the final state, and may be sorted according to a user selected order. GUI screen 900 may show a list of conversations 910 that meet the filtering criteria.)
Claim 28: Bhatt discloses the system of claim 27, wherein the user input is directed to a graphical interface element configured to cause the plurality of conversation threads to be filtered by removing one or more other conversation threads other than the recommended conversation thread from the user interface (par. 133, The conversations may be selected or filtered based on, for example, the channel, locale, time period, intent, the status (e.g., completed or incomplete), and the final state, and may be sorted according to a user selected order. GUI screen 900 may show a list of conversations 910 that meet the filtering criteria.)
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) 25, 37 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bhatt.
Claim 25, 37: Bhatt discloses the system of claim 21. However, Bhat does not explicitly disclose: wherein the content is at least one of source code, text of a word processing document, or slides of a presentation document.
The Examiner takes Official Notice of source code, text of a word processing, or slides of a presentation document in association with a conversation (i.e. people hold conversations about documents, code, and slides.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Bhatt with the Official Notice. One would have been motivated to combine the teachings as the invention of Bhatt may readily be utilized in the commercial sector (office workers) where they talk about documents, code, and slides.
Claim(s) 29, 33, 40 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bhatt in view of Tomkins (2021/0295822.)
Claim 29, 33, 40: Bhatt discloses the system of claim 21. However, Bhatt does not explicitly disclose: wherein the trained machine learning model comprises at least one of a transformer or a recurrent neural network.
Tomkins discloses a similar system for LLMs, including: wherein the trained machine learning model comprises at least one of a transformer or a recurrent neural network (par. 37, The machine learning models may include a transformer neural network model such as Elmo, BERT, or the like.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Bhatt with Tomkins so as to take advantage of massive parallelization (fast training) and infinite scalability.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 5/4/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that the claims do not encompass a mere signal. The Applicant argues it’s because the Applicant’s Specification specifies, in par 51: “Computer storage media does not include a carrier wave or other propagated or modulated data signal.”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims recite: “a computer-readable storage medium” which is different from “Computer storage media” in par. 51. Furthermore, “Computer storage media does not include a carrier wave or other propagated or modulated data signal” language is a legal conclusion that may be erroneous, and is not the same as what would need to be seen in the specification, such as presently used at the start of par. 51, “The term computer readable media as used herein may include computer storage media.” However, that language also uses the word, “may”, which means it can “may not,” just as well.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Bechtel (9,258,375) analyzing user activity in a collaborative environment.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/Andrey Belousov/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2172
7/14/26
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