DETAILED ACTION
Introduction
1. This office action is in response to Applicant’s response filed 06/15/2026. Claims 15, 17-22, 24-25, 27-32, 34 are pending in the application. As such, claims 15, 17-22, 24-25, 27-32, 34 have been examined.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. 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
3. The response filed 06/15/2026 has been correspondingly accepted and considered in this Office Action. Claims 15, 17-22, 24-25, 27-32, 34 have been examined.
Response to Arguments
4. Applicant’s amendments and remarks with respect to claims 15, 17-22, 24-25, 27-32, 34 have been fully reconsidered. In response, Examiner respectfully presents that the previous nonstatutory double patenting rejection of claims 15, 17-22, 24-25, 27-32, 34 has been sustained. No Terminal Disclaimer has been received from Applicant.
5. Applicant’s amendments and remarks directed to address the previous rejections to claim(s) 15-34 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101, and under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) as being anticipated by Hossain et al., (S. A. Hossain, A. S. M. M. Rahman, T. T. Tran and A. El Saddik, “Location Aware Question Answering Based Product Searching in Mobile Handheld Devices,” 2010 IEEE/ACM 14th International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real Time Applications, Fairfax, VA, USA, 2010, pp. 189-195), already of record, and hereinafter referred to as HOSSAIN, have been fully considered. In response, Examiner respectfully presents that the previous rejections of said claims under 35 U.S.C. 101 and 102 are earnestly found persuasive. As such, said rejections are withdrawn.
Nonstatutory Double Patenting
6. The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b). The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 15, 17-22, 24-25, 27-32, 34 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over Claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 10,339,823. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of patent ‘823 anticipate the instant claims as presented in the chart below where exemplary independent claims 15 and 1 in the current App. ‘555 and Patent ‘823 correspondingly have been mapped. Independent claims 15 and 25 in the current App. ‘555 are anticipated by independent claims 1 and 9 in the patent ‘823. Dependent claims 17-22, 24; and 27-32, 34 follow likewise the similar mapping to the corresponding dependent claims 2-8, and 10-17 in the patent ‘823.
Present App. 18/377,555:
15. (NEW) An electronic apparatus, comprising: a display; a communication unit; a processor configured to:
receive a user voice including a word by a voice recognition function, transmit the user voice input including the word to a server through the communication unit, receive a search result corresponding to the user voice input from the server through the communication unit, the search result including a keyword associated with the word, obtain at least one question sentence based on the word included in the user voice input and the keyword included in the search result, and control the display to display the at least one question sentence.
U.S. Patent 10,339,823:
1. A display apparatus comprising: a display; an input unit; a communicator; and a processor configured to:
receive at least two words included in speech through the input unit in a first order, generate a plurality of different question sentences which include the at least two words in a plurality of different second orders regardless of the first order in which the at least two words are received, control the display to display the generated plurality of different question sentences, receive a selection of a question sentence from the displayed plurality of different question sentences, transmit information corresponding to the selected question sentence to a server via the communicator, and, based on at least one answer result corresponding to the information being received from the server via the communicator, control the display to display the received at least one answer result to provide an answer result appropriate to a question intention of a user although a non-sentence speech is input.
Allowable Subject Matter
7. Claims 15, 17-22, 24-25, 27-32, 34 would be allowable once the nonstatutory double patenting rejection of said claims 15, 17-22, 24-25, 27-32, 34 is overcome via a Terminal Disclaimer.
Conclusion
8. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See e.g., Rosso et al., (P. Rosso, L. -F. Hurtado, E. Segarra and E. Sanchis, “On the Voice-Activated Question Answering,” in IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C (Applications and Reviews), vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 75-85, Jan. 2012), already of record, disclosing see e.g., an architecture comprising “…Question answering (QA) …one of the most challenging tasks in the field of natural language processing. It requires search engines that are capable of extracting concise, precise fragments of text that contain an answer to a question posed by the user. The incorporation of voice interfaces to the QA systems adds a more natural and very appealing perspective for these systems. This paper provides a comprehensive description of current state-of-the-art voice-activated QA systems. Finally, the scenarios that will emerge from the introduction of speech recognition in QA will be discussed …” (See e.g., Rosso et al., Abstract).
Please, see PTO-892 for more details.
9. 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.
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Edgar Guerra-Erazo whose telephone number is (571) 270-3708. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 7:30a.m.-5:00p.m. EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Bhavesh Mehta can be reached on (571) 272-7453. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/EDGAR X GUERRA-ERAZO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2656
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