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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on June 8, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment and Arguments
Claims 1 and 3-20 are pending and are being examined in this application.
Applicant's arguments with respect to 103 rejections have been considered, but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection provided below.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 4 would be allowable, once the 112(b) rejections are overcome, if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1 and 3-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Independent claims 1, 8, and 16 recite “storing, in a metadata database, an entry for the document that associates a document reference with molecule data retrieved from the molecule reference and with a molecule representation extracted from the document.” Antecedent basis errors render the bolded terms indefinite. It is unclear whether “molecule data” refers to the molecule data retrieved from the molecule reference in the retrieving step or to other molecule data. It is also unclear whether “a molecule representation” refers to the molecule representation converted from the image in the converting step or to another molecule representation.
The independent claims further recite “in response to a request that includes an individual molecule representation of the molecule, returning, from the metadata database, the document reference and a reference to another document associated with the molecule data, wherein the other document includes a different representation of the molecule than the molecule representation extracted from the document.” Again, antecedent basis errors render the bolded terms indefinite. This limitation suffers from the same issues noted above with respect to the terms “molecule data” and “the molecule representation.” It is also unclear whether the “individual molecule representation” refers to the molecule representation that was stored in the metadata database entry in the storing step, to the molecule representation converted from the image in the converting step, or to another molecule representation.
For purposes of examination, the above limitations will be interpreted at a high-level as storing documents in association with molecule data and molecule representations in a metadata database, then retrieving all documents associated with a query comprising a molecule representation from the metadata database.
Claims 3-7, 9-15, and 17-20 depend from claims 1, 8, and 16 and are rejected for the same reasons.
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.
Claims 1 and 5-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (CN 115458077A, translation provided) in view of Appalaraju et al. (US Pub. 20240152510
Referring to claim 1, Li discloses A method comprising:
extracting an image of a molecule from a document [fig. 5; abstract; pg. 6, second half; pg. 7, par. 3; pg. 8, par. 3; pg. 12, par. 2; claim 1; image data of a molecule is extracted from a document (e.g., a patent document)];
converting the image to a molecule representation [fig. 5; abstract; pg. 6, second half; pg. 7, par. 3; pg. 8, par. 3; pg. 12, par. 2; claim 1; the image data is converted to a molecular structure represented in the SMILES format];
querying a molecule reference with the molecule representation [fig. 5; abstract; pg. 6, second half; pg. 7, par. 3; pg. 8, par. 3; pg. 12, par. 2; claim 1; the molecular structure is looked up in a space database];
retrieving molecule data from the molecule reference [fig. 5; abstract; pg. 6, second half; pg. 7, par. 3; pg. 8, par. 3; pg. 12, par. 2; claim 1; the space database returns information about the molecule that is associated with the molecular structure]; and
in response to a request that includes an individual molecule representation of the molecule, returning... [fig. 5; abstract; pg. 6, second half; pg. 7, par. 3; pg. 8, par. 3; pg. 12, par. 2; claim 1; note lookups in the space database using the molecular structure to return the associated information].
Li does not appear to explicitly disclose storing, in a metadata database, an entry for the document that associates a document reference with molecule data retrieved from the molecule reference and with a molecule representation extracted from the document; and in response to a request that includes an individual molecule representation of the molecule, returning, from the metadata database, the document reference and a reference to another document associated with the molecule data, wherein the other document includes a different representation of the molecule than the molecule representation extracted from the document.
However, Appalaraju discloses storing, in a metadata database, an entry for the document that associates a document reference with molecule data retrieved from the molecule reference and with a molecule representation extracted from the document [abstract; pars. 17, 18, 21-23, 38-40, 43, and 48-50; content is extracted from a document (e.g., images and text), converted into a set of descriptors comprising various metadata about entities in the document, and stored in association with the document in a repository]; and in response to a request that includes an individual molecule representation of the molecule, returning, from the metadata database, the document reference and a reference to another document associated with the molecule data, wherein the other document includes a different representation of the molecule than the molecule representation extracted from the document [abstract; pars. 17, 18, 21-23, 38-40, 43, and 48-50; a similarity-based search, which includes structural comparisons, is performed on the repository in response to receiving search terms referencing any of the various metadata; the repository returns documents associated with the various metadata].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the processing of image data and text data from a document taught by Li so that the image data and the text data (i.e., structured information) are associated with the document in a repository as taught by Appalaraju, with a reasonable expectation of success. The motivation for doing so would have been to accurately and efficiently extract content about related entities from images or other representation of target data objects [Appalaraju, par. 17].
Referring to claim 5, Li discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising: embedding the molecule data into the document [pg. 4, par. 3; pg. 8, last par. – pg. 9, par. 3; the molecular structure from the image data is fused with the information about the molecule from text data to generate a fusion of the image data and the text information, which is stored in the space database that associates the molecular structure with the information about the molecule (e.g., synthetic property, drug property, and pharmacological activity)].
Referring to claim 6, Li discloses The method of claim 1, wherein converting the image to the molecule representation comprises: providing the image to a structure identification machine learning model [pg. 2, second half; pg. 4, pars. 4-8; pg. 10, par. 2; the image data is converted to the molecular structure via image recognition using machine learning].
Referring to claim 7, Li discloses The method of claim 6, wherein the structure identification machine learning model predicts a location of an atom in the molecule and one or more bonds between atoms of the molecule, and wherein the molecule information is generated from the predicted atom location and the predicted one or more bonds [pg. 3, first half; when the image data and text data is provided as input to the fusion model, the fusion model outputs the molecular structure in the SMILES format (which includes bond information), key and charge classification and coordinate (i.e., location) information and substituent molecule].
Referring to claim 8, see at least the rejection for claim 1. Li further discloses A system comprising: a processing unit; and a computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereupon, which, when executed by the processing unit, cause the processing unit to perform the claimed steps [pg. 7, par. 4; various embodiments may be implemented using instruction code stored in computer accessible memory].
Referring to claim 9, Li discloses The system of claim 8, wherein the molecule data comprises a graphic representation of the molecule obtained from the molecule reference [pg. 4, par. 3; pg. 8, last par. – pg. 9, par. 3; note the fusion of the image data and the text data stored in the space database; see also fig. 3 of Cordeiro, displaying an image of the structured information].
Referring to claim 10, Appalaraju discloses The system of claim 8, wherein the molecule data is displayed in a user interface of an application that displays the document [par. 35; clients may transmit requests and receive corresponding response at client devices (with displays) using programmatic interfaces 177].
Referring to claim 11, see the rejection for claim 3.
Referring to claim 12, see the rejection for claim 6.
Referring to claim 13, Li discloses The system of claim 8, wherein the molecule data comprises a name, a molecular formula, or a molecular weight [abstract; pg. 8, pars. 2 and 3; the information about the molecule includes substituent compounds (i.e., molecular formula)].
Referring to claim 14, Cordeiro discloses The system of claim 8, wherein the molecule data is embedded in the document with a page number of the image [fig. 3; each structured information is associated with a page number of its source image in an XML file].
Referring to claim 15, Li discloses The system of claim 8, wherein the molecule representation comprises a text-based representation [fig. 5; abstract; pg. 6, second half; pg. 7, par. 3; pg. 8, par. 3; pg. 12, par. 2; claim 1; note the SMILES format].
Referring to claim 16, see at least the rejection for claim 1. Li further discloses A computer-readable storage medium having encoded thereon computer-readable instructions that when executed by a processing unit cause a system to perform the claimed steps [pg. 7, par. 4; various embodiments may be implemented using instruction code stored in computer accessible memory].
Referring to claim 17, see the rejection for claim 15.
Referring to claim 18, Li discloses The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the molecule representation comprises a Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry System (SMILES) [fig. 5; abstract; pg. 6, second half; pg. 7, par. 3; pg. 8, par. 3; pg. 12, par. 2; claim 1; note the SMILES format].
Referring to claim 19, Appalaraju discloses The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the individual molecule representation was embedded in another document, and wherein the other document includes another image of the molecule [pars. 18, 21-23, 38-40, 43, 48-50; note the mapping of extracted content between different documents].
Referring to claim 20, Li discloses The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the individual molecule representation was listed in a search result received from the metadata database [par. 25; note that providing the structured information to a search engine would return search results of documents having the structured information aggregated by the metadata aggregator].
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/Grace Park/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2144
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