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
1. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 05/18/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
2. This in response to an RCE amendment filed 05/18/2026. No claims have been added. Claim 1,9, 10 and 18 have been amended. No claims have been canceled. Claims 1-20 are still pending in this application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-8, 10-17 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Anderson et al. (US PAT # 10,742,572 B2) in view of McGann et al. (US PAT # 11,245,793 B2) and further in view of Lim et al. (Pub.No.: 2019/0104093 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 10 and 19, Anderson teaches a system (system 100 as seen in Fig. 1), method (see col. 13, line 13) and computer-readable medium (see col. 8, lines 47-67), comprising:
a network interface to a communications network (see element 916, col. 7, line 43 and Fig. 3); and
at least one processor (reads on element 902, see col. 7, lines 38-64 and Fig. 3) coupled with a computer memory comprising computer-readable instructions (reads on element 904, see col. 7, lines 38-64 and Fig. 3); and
wherein the at least one processor executes the computer-readable instructions to:
execute a first specialized virtual agent comprising a first set of abilities (this reads on master chatbot 130 have unique specialties which streamlines design and maintenance of source code for each of the master chatbot 130. The master chatbot 130, for example, may be programmed to provide a wide variety of general information regarding a diversity of topics, see col. 4, line 51 through col. 5, line 3);
execute a second specialized virtual agent comprising a second set of abilities comprising at least one ability of the second set of abilities absent from at least one ability of the first set of abilities (reads on modular chatbot 150 may be programmed to provide more detailed information regarding a more limited range of topics, such as automotive knowledge, medical information, product inventory information, etc. which is not provided in master chatbot 130, which may be programmed to provide a wide variety of general information regarding a diversity of topics only, see col. 4, line 51 through col. 5, line 3);
engage the first specialized virtual agent in a communication (reads on master chatbot 130, see col. 2, lines 25-32 and Fig. 1), via the network interface (reads on network interface 916, see col. 4, line 3-5), with a customer communication device utilized by a customer (reads on user computer 110, see col. 2, line 62 and Fig. 1); and
upon determining that the first set of abilities is lacks a required ability to resolve the work item, directly transfer by the first specialized agent, the communication to the second specialized virtual agent based on the second sets of abilities (reads on scenario, if the bot acting as the master chatbot 130 is capable of responding to a received chat message, the master chatbot 130 responds directly. On the other hand, if the master chatbot 130 determines it is incapable of responding to the chat message, the master chatbot 130 issues a request via network 170 for modular chatbots 150 (peers) capable of responding to the chat message. The master chatbot 130 receives responses from the modular chatbots 150 indicating each is capable or not capable of responding to the chat message, and the responses are subsequently validated by the master chatbot 130 that the modular chatbot is 150 is actually capable of responding to the chat message successfully. If the modular chatbot 150 is successfully validated, the master chatbot 130 forwards the chat message to the capable modular chatbot 150 for response directly to the user computer 110 which transmitted the one or more chat messages, see col. 2, lines 46-63).
Anderson features are already addressed in the rejection of claim 1, 10 and 19, Anderson does not specifically teach “wherein the communication comprises content provided by the customer corresponding to a work item” as recited in the claims.
However, McGann teaches a customer may utilize voice or chat communication to request balance inquiry, where this scenario can be one example among other examples for detecting the intent associated with the received communication (i.e., task) (see col. 21 through col. 23).
Thus, it would have been obvious for one of an ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the feature of providing specific contact center work item, as taught by McGann into the Orchestration of Anderson, in order to enable efficient handling of the work item by the specialized virtual agent (e.g., bot).
Note that Anderson teaches chatbot/agent transfer when a first chatbot cannot respond to a user input. McGann teaches selecting agents based on availability and condition.
Both Anderson and McGann do not specifically teach “wherein the first specialized virtual agent has a pre-existing awareness of the second specialized virtual agent based on a predefined association and independent of any query or discovery operation for the second specialized virtual agent, at a time of determining that the first set of abilities lacks the required ability to resolve the work item”.
However, Lim teaches an orchestration platform having “deep links” or “predetermined association between inputs or intents, and bots for responding to the associated inputs or intents” and selecting a bot from a set of bots according to the intent pf the input (see [0089] and [0093]).
Thus, it would have been obvious for one of an ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Anderson’s chatbot transfer system to use Lim’s predetermined intent-to-bot associations so that the appropriate second bot/agent is known from a predefined association before transfer, thereby improving routing efficiency and avoiding runtime discovery overhead. Therefore, the combination teaches or renders obvious the claimed pre-existing awareness based on a predefined association and independent of a query or discovery operation.
Regarding claims 2 and 11, the combination of Anderson, McGann and Lim teaches wherein the at least one processor executes the computer- readable instructions to further determine that the required ability matches at least one ability of the second set of abilities (reads on the scenario of master chatbot 130 determines it is incapable of responding to the chat message, the master chatbot 130 issues a request via network 170 for modular chatbots 150 (peers) capable of responding to the chat message, see col. 2, lines 46-63 of Anderson).
Regarding claims 3 and 12, the combination of Anderson, McGann and Lim teaches wherein the at least one processor executes the computer- readable instructions to further:
execute a third specialized virtual agent comprising a third set of abilities, wherein at least one ability of the third set of abilities is absent from both the first set of abilities and the second set of abilities (Note that in Anderson, modular chatbots specialized in respective domains and it is clearly cited that Anderson teaches many specialized bots, each with distinct domain abilities (see col.4, line 51 through col. 5, line 18) which is here interpreted by the examiner as the “third specialized virtual agent absent from both …etc.”); and
wherein transfer of the communication to the second specialized virtual agent is performed upon determining a better degree of match between the required ability to at least one ability of the second set of abilities compared to a degree of match between the required ability and the third set of abilities (reads on the selection of the best fit modular chatbot which inherently involves comparing of required abilities against the abilities of multiple bots, see col. 6, lines 24-40 of Anderson).
Regarding claims 4 and 13, the combination of Anderson, McGann and Lim teaches wherein the first set of abilities differ from the second set of abilities in at least one ability shared between the first set of abilities and the second set of abilities differ in complexity (reads on modular chatbot 150 may be programmed to provide more detailed information regarding a more limited range of topics, such as automotive knowledge, medical information, product inventory information, etc. which is not provided in master chatbot 130, which may be programmed to provide a wide variety of general information regarding a diversity of topics only, see col. 4, line 51 through col. 5, line of Anderson).
Claims 5 and 14 recite “wherein the first set of abilities differ from the second set of abilities in at least one of available computational cycles, memory, bandwidth, or processing speed”. Anderson and McGann features addressed in the above rejection. Although neither Anderson nor McGann does not specifically teach the limitations of claims 5 and 14, however selecting agents based on resource availability/performance would have been an obvious design choice to optimize system efficiency in contact-center orchestration.
Claims 6 and 15 recite “the combination of Anderson and McGann teaches wherein transferring the communication to the second specialized virtual agent further comprises instantiating the second specialized virtual agent and transferring the communication to the second specialized virtual agent thereafter”. Anderson teaches conversation orchestration engine that routes work items to a dialog engine (which could be a bot or human) (see col. 6, lines 24-40). In Anderson, the orchestration engine can instantiate or allocate a dialog engine instance to handle the session. Anderson also describes selecting and engaging a dialog engine to handle a specific customer interaction (see col. 6, lines 24-40 “…the orchestration engine routes the work item to the dialog engine having capabilities that match the identified customer intent…”). Thus, a new session (instance) of the dialog engine is started for that customer.
Claims 7, 16 and 20 recite “wherein the at least one processor executes the computer- readable instructions to: execute a virtual agent discovery service; and determine, by the virtual agent discovery service, that the required ability to resolve the work item is present in a data record of abilities corresponding to the second specialized virtual agent”.
Anderson teaches a master chatbot 130 that evaluates incoming queries and delegates to modular chatbots based on capability/domain (see col. 6, lines 24-40 and col. 4, lines 20-55). The master chatbot 130 selects a modular chatbot trained in a domain corresponding to the detected intent and the system necessarily maintains data structures (records of modular chatbot capabilities/domains) to make this determination. Note, while Anderson does not use the exact term “discovery service,” the examiner is interpreting the “master chatbot orchestration logic” functions as one because it discovers which bot has the needed ability by consulting stored bot-domain associations and the claimed “data record of abilities” to be the records of modular chatbot domains.
Claims 8 and 17 recite “the combination of Anderson and McGann teaches wherein the at least one processor executes the computer- readable instructions to: execute a virtual agent discovery service coupled with a data storage to maintain the second set of abilities; and determine, by the virtual agent discovery service, that the required ability is present in the second set of abilities transferring the communication to a default agent”.
Anderson teaches a conversation orchestration engine that maintains information about dialog engines (bots or human agents), including their capabilities (see col. 6, lines 20–40). This orchestration engine queries stored data about the engines abilities and matches them to customer “work items.” Which fits the role of a virtual agent discovery service coupled with data storage. In addition, Anderson teaches routing the communication to the dialog engine that matches the identified intent (see col.6, lines 25–35) and when no exact match exists, the system transfers to a default dialog engine or escalation path (see col.7, lines 5–20), which here is interpreted by the examiner to be equivalent to “transferring the communication to a default agent.”
4. Claim(s) 9 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Anderson et al. (US PAT # 10,742,572 B2) in view of McGann et al. (US PAT # 11,245,793 B2) in view of Lim et al. (Pub.No.: 2019/0104093 A1) and further in view of Naydonov (Pub.No.: 2018/0183735 A1)
Claims 9 and 18 recite “wherein the first set of abilities and the second set of abilities comprise at least one of secure communication ability, and wait time”.
Anderson and McGann are already addressed in the rejection of claim 1, 10 and 19. Neither Anderson nor McGann nor Lim specifically teach ““wherein the first set of abilities and the second set of abilities comprise at least one of secure communication ability, and wait time”.
However, Naydonov teaches at 321, via the chatbot, the system provides terms of service to the user and, at 325, obtains user acceptance of the terms of service. The particular terms of service can be based on the location determined at 319. At 329, via the chatbot, the system can establish a secure communication channel with client device to prevent disclosure of personal information that may be disclosed when exchanging information for a travel document. For example, chatbot can create a new messaging session with the client device of the user using an encrypted communication protocol. Thus, other users that the traveling user was initially chatting with cannot see the traveling user's answers to the chatbot's subsequent questions [0036].
Thus, it would have been obvious for one of an ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the feature of having the chatbot creating a new messaging session with the client device of the user using an encrypted communication protocol, as taught by Naydonov, into the combination of Anderson, McGann and Lim in order to enhance the security and privacy of user communications, a predictable improvement using known techniques for protecting sensitive information in network-based communication systems.
Conclusion
5. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Rasha S. AL-Aubaidi whose telephone number is (571) 272-7481. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Ahmad Matar, can be reached on (571) 272-7488.
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/RASHA S AL AUBAIDI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2693
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