DETAILED ACTION
Introduction
This office action is in response to Applicant’s submission filed on June 11, 2026.
Claims 1, 5, 10 and 15 have been amended. Claims 1-20 are pending in the application. As such, claims 1-20 have been examined.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 11, 2026 has been entered.
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 .
Drawings
The drawings were received on December 27, 2023. These drawings have been accepted and considered by the Examiner.
Response to Amendments and Arguments
In view of the amendments to the claims, the amendments to claims 1, 5, 10 and 15, have been acknowledged and entered.
In view of the arguments and amendments to the claims, the rejections to claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 have been withdrawn.
In light of the amendments to the claims, new grounds for rejection for claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 103 are provided in the response below. New grounds for rejection is based at least upon the following new elements:
executing a pre-trained artificial intelligence (AI) model to generate a communication assistance message for the first participant at least based on the live communication data during the communication session, wherein the communication assistance message comprisesa recommended talking point for the first participant to interact with the second participant during the communication session.
Applicant’s arguments regarding the prior art rejections under 35 U.S.C 102 and 103, received on June 11, 2026, have been fully considered.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 have been considered, are directed to the newly amended matter in the claims, are not considered to be persuasive, and are addressed accordingly in the updated rejection rationale below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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, 4, 10 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rodriguez Bravo et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20230290348 A1), hereinafter Rodriguez, in view of Qu et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20240420180 A1), hereinafter Qu.
Regarding claims 1, 10 and 15, Rodriguez teaches a method, a system, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium (Rodriguez in [0003, 0004, 0005] teaches a method, a system, and a CRM for using an AI assistant during a meeting)
comprising:
[claim 10 only] a communications interface (Rodriguez in [0072, Fig. 6] teaches using devices with communication interfaces);
[claim 10 only] a non-transitory computer-readable medium (Rodriguez in [0022] teaches using a computer readable storage medium or media, as used herein, is not to be construed as being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freely propagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagating through a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulses passing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmitted through a wire;
and
[claim 10 only] one or more processors communicatively coupled to the communications interface and the non-transitory computer-readable medium, the one or more processors configured to execute processor-executable instructions stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium to (Rodriguez in [0026] teaches using processors which execute instructions):
[claim 15 only] comprising processor-executable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to (Rodriguez in [0026] teaches using processors which execute instructions):
establishing a communication session related to a predetermined topic between a first participant and a second participant (Rodriguez in [0076] teaches a facilitator, e.g., primary user, initiates the conference call, and there is an agenda for the meeting);
receiving an assistance request from a client device associated with the first participant (Rodriguez in [0069, Fig. 5] teaches the primary user uses a personal device to communicate with the AI assistant, and in [0081] teaches the primary user may speak a command to the AI assistant);
accessing live communication data associated with the communication session (Rodriguez in [0074] teaches the AI assistant monitors the conference call for context information in order to process commands properly, and in [0004] teaches identify by the Primary AI Assistant a possible scheduling or task item based on keywords and phrases spoken during the conference call, and wherein the prompting is performed during the conference call);
executing a pre-trained artificial intelligence (AI) model to generate a communication assistance message for the first participant at least based on the live communication data during the communication session (Rodriguez in [0078] teaches the AI assistant provides a summary of the conference call along with actions that should be taken, and in [0004] teaches identify by the Primary AI Assistant a possible scheduling or task item based on keywords and phrases spoken during the conference call, and wherein the prompting is performed during the conference call);
wherein the communication assistance message [comprisesa recommended talking point for the first participant to interact with the second participant] during the communication session (Rodriguez in [0004] teaches identify by the Primary AI Assistant a possible scheduling or task item based on keywords and phrases spoken during the conference call, and wherein the prompting is performed during the conference call [note: here the scheduling facilitates communication by allowing the first participant to positively confirm a meeting or task has been created]);
and
providing the communication assistance message to the client device associated with the first participant during the communication session (Rodriguez in [0081] teaches the AI assistant provides a summary of the conference call to the primary user).
Rodriguez does not teach, however Qu teaches
wherein the communication assistance message comprisesa recommended talking point for the first participant to interact with the second participant during the communication session (Qu in [0026] teaches automatically providing guidance (e.g., displayed on a user interface of a computing system) to sales agents to suggest talking points regarding particular products to be promoted during discussions with a prospective customer).
Qu is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of systems which assist sales agents. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rodriguez further in view of Qu to allow for automatically providing guidance (e.g., displayed on a user interface of a computing system) to sales agents to suggest talking points regarding particular products to be promoted during discussions with a prospective customer. Motivation to do so would allow for providing guidance to sales agents (Qu [0026]).
Regarding claim 4, Rodriguez, as modified above, teaches the method of claim 1.
Rodriguez further teaches
wherein the pre-trained AI model is trained to learn multiple association rules related to the predetermined topic (Rodriguez in [0079] teaches the AI model has been trained on some training data and provides an example of being able to schedule meetings [here the topic is meetings and the rules are for scheduling the meetings]).
Claims 2, 11 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rodriguez, in view of Qu, in view of Ozcaglar et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20200402015 A1), hereinafter Ozcaglar.
Regarding claims 2, 11 and 16, Rodriguez, as modified above, teaches the method, system, and non-transitory computer-readable medium of claims 1, 10 and 15.
Rodriguez teaches generating the communication assistance message for the first participant based on the live communication data associated with the communication session (see claim 1 rejection).
Rodriguez does not teach, however Ozcaglar teaches
further comprising:
[claim 11 only] wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute further processor-executable instructions stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium to:
[claim 16 only] further comprising processor-executable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to:
receiving profile data associated with the second participant, wherein the profile data comprises a gender, a job title, and an organization of the second participant (Ozcaglar in [0032] teaches using a profile of a member which includes gender, age range, nationality, location, language), professional (e.g., job title, professional summary, professional headline, employer, industry, experience, skills, seniority level, professional endorsements), social (e.g., organizations to which the user belongs, geographic area of residence), and/or educational (e.g., degree, university attended, certifications, licenses) attributes);
and
[generating the communication assistance message for the first participant] based on the profile data associated with the second participant [and the live communication data associated with the communication session] (Ozcaglar in [0025-0026] teaches generating recommendations based on the profile information).
Ozcaglar is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of systems which use profile information by a machine learning model to perform tasks. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rodriguez, as modified above, further in view of Ozcaglar to allow for generating recommendations based on the profile information. Motivation to do so would allow for a recruiter and/or another moderator involved in hiring for or placing jobs or opportunities to specify parameters related to candidates for an opportunity and/or a number of related opportunities (Ozcaglar [0041]).
Claims 3 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rodriguez, in view of Qu, in view of Patel et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20220271962 A1), hereinafter Patel.
Regarding claims 3 and 12, Rodriguez, as modified above, teaches the method and system of claims 1 and 10.
Rodriguez further teaches
wherein the live communication data comprises audio data associated with the communication session (Rodriguez in [0074] teaches the AI assistant monitors the conference call for context information in order to process commands properly, and in [0063] teaches the AI assistant receives audio input from a conference call).
Rodriguez does not teach, however Patel teaches
wherein the method further comprises
[claim 12 only] wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute further processor-executable instructions stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium to:
converting the audio data to text data (Patel in [0047] teaches a user may define an audio of a meeting is to be recorded, the video of the meeting is to be recorded, and a transcript of the recording should be prepared).
Patel is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of systems which use AI to perform tasks. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rodriguez, as modified above, further in view of Patel to allow for generating a transcript of a meeting. Motivation to do so would allow for a user to define the manner in which a notification is to be provided (e.g., visually, audibly, and/or the like), enable or disable the intelligent meeting assistant system for some or all virtual meetings, assign priorities to trigger phrases/conditions, and/or configure various other settings (Patel [0015]).
Claims 5, 13 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rodriguez, in view of Qu, in view of Khoury et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20210224858 A1), hereinafter Khoury.
Regarding claims 5, 13 and 17, Rodriguez, as modified above, teaches the method, system, and non-transitory computer-readable medium of claims 4, 10 and 15.
Rodriguez further teaches
[claims 13 and 17 only] wherein the pre-trained AI model is trained to learn multiple association rules related to the predetermined topic (Rodriguez in [0079] teaches the AI model has been trained on some training data and provides an example of being able to schedule meetings [here the topic is meetings and the rules are for scheduling the meetings]),
wherein generating the communication assistance message for the first participant by analyzing the live communication data associated with the communication session using a pre-trained AI model comprises:
[claim 13 only] wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute further processor-executable instructions stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium to:
[claim 17 only] further comprising processor-executable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to:
identifying one or more keywords from a set of communication data corresponding to the second participant (Rodriguez in [0078] teaches Juan (second participant) suggests having another meeting, and the AI assistant proceeds to schedule the new meeting based on the keywords spoken by Juan);
and
identifying a matching association rule for the set of communication data corresponding to the second participant (Rodriguez in [0078] teaches Juan (second participant) suggests having another meeting, and the AI assistant proceeds to schedule the new meeting based on the keywords spoken by Juan [here the rule of scheduling is matched to the words spoken by Juan]);
and
generating the communication assistance message based on the matching association rule (Rodriguez in [0078] teaches the AI Assistant generates the scheduling item and provides it to the appropriate participant).
Rodriguez does not teach, however Khoury teaches
mapping the one or more keywords to the multiple association rules (Khoury in [0351] teaches rules being mapped to responses based on keywords).
Khoury is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of systems which use AI to perform tasks. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rodriguez, as modified above, further in view of Khoury to allow for mapping rules to responses based on keywords. Motivation to do so would allow for an approval module to allow a system user to approve or disapprove, and/or to edit, communications prior to its distribution (Khoury [0021]).
Claims 6-7 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rodriguez, in view of Qu, in view of Ruan (US Patent Pub. No. 20240412051 A1).
Regarding claims 6 and 18, Rodriguez, as modified above, teaches the method and non-transitory computer-readable medium of claims 1 and 15.
Rodriguez does not teach, however Ruan teaches
wherein the pre-trained AI model is an apriori algorithm (Ruan in [0048] teaches using an LLM, and in [0049] teaches using an associated rule learning algorithm (e.g., an Apriori algorithm) within the LLM).
Ruan is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of systems which use neural network algorithms to perform tasks. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rodriguez, as modified above, further in view of Ruan to allow for using an Apriori algorithm. Motivation to do so would allow for improving hardware consumption and computing performance by performing neural network operations on dense tensors using sparse value information from original tensors (Ruan [Abstract]).
Regarding claims 7 and 19, Rodriguez, as modified above, teaches the method and non-transitory computer-readable medium of claims 1 and 15.
Rodriguez does not teach, however Ruan teaches
wherein the pre-trained AI model is a large language model (Ruan in [0048, 0109] teaches using an LLM).
Ruan is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of systems which use neural network algorithms to perform tasks. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rodriguez, as modified above, further in view of Ruan to allow for using an LLM. Motivation to do so would allow for improving hardware consumption and computing performance by performing neural network operations on dense tensors using sparse value information from original tensors (Ruan [Abstract]).
Claims 8-9, 14 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rodriguez, in view of Qu, in view of Gao et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20230064763 A1), hereinafter Gao.
Regarding claim 8, Rodriguez, as modified above, teaches the method of claim 1.
Rodriguez does not teach, however Gao teaches
wherein the communication assistance message comprises a recommended action for the first participant (Gao in [0054] teaches provides a set of recommended actions along with a particular support document).
Gao is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of systems which use AI to make recommendations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rodriguez, as modified above, further in view of Gao to allow for providing a set of recommended actions along with a particular support document. Motivation to do so would allow for providing relevant steps and clear checklist items, as well as collaborative intelligence to ease and facilitate a technology adoption process (Gao [0020]).
Regarding claim 9, Rodriguez, as modified above, teaches the method of claim 8.
Rodriguez, as modified above, does not teach, however Gao teaches
wherein the communication assistance message comprises supporting documents associated with the recommended action for the first participant (Gao in [0054] teaches provides a set of recommended actions along with a particular support document).
Gao is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of systems which use AI to make recommendations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rodriguez, as modified above, further in view of Gao to allow for providing a set of recommended actions along with a particular support document. Motivation to do so would allow for providing relevant steps and clear checklist items, as well as collaborative intelligence to ease and facilitate a technology adoption process (Gao [0020]).
Regarding claims 14 and 20, Rodriguez, as modified above, teaches the system and non-transitory computer-readable medium of claims 10 and 15.
wherein the communication assistance message comprises a recommended action for the first participant and supporting documents associated with the recommended action for the first participant (Gao in [0054] teaches provides a set of recommended actions along with a particular support document).
Gao is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of systems which use AI to make recommendations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rodriguez, as modified above, further in view of Gao to allow for providing a set of recommended actions along with a particular support document. Motivation to do so would allow for providing relevant steps and clear checklist items, as well as collaborative intelligence to ease and facilitate a technology adoption process (Gao [0020]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PAUL J. MUELLER whose telephone number is (571)272-1875. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00am-5:00pm (Eastern).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Daniel C. Washburn can be reached at 571-272-5551. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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PAUL MUELLER
Examiner
Art Unit 2657
/PAUL J. MUELLER/Examiner, Art Unit 2657
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