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 .
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c) is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/01/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 5 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 5 recites “a begging of the character”. It appears applicant intended to express “a beginning of the character”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) provides detailed rules for determining subject matter eligibility for claims in §2106. Those rules provide a basis for the analysis and finding of ineligibility that follows. MPEP §2106(III) states that examiners should determine whether a claim satisfies the criteria for subject matter eligibility by evaluating the claim in accordance with the flowchart in this section.
Claims 1-6, 10-16 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101. The claimed invention is directed to unpatentable subject matter because the claimed invention recites a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more to integrate the exceptions into a patent-eligible practical application, and the claims lack an inventive concept. The following analysis follows the flowchart in MPEP §2106.
Step 1 (Statutory category)
Claims 1–6 and 10–12 are directed to a process (method). Claim 13–16 and 20 are directed to a machine/system. The claims fall within the statutory categories of § 101. See MPEP § 2106.
Step 2A, Prong One (Does the claim recite a judicial exception?)
The claims recite a series of information-processing operations involving the manipulation and organization of data and application of mathematical techniques:
For example, in claim 1: converting an Arabic Rasm to machine-readable symbols; removing components to generate a normalized sequence; consolidating character forms; tokenizing; padding; inputting tokens to a recurrent neural network trained by mapping inputs to outputs; mapping outputs to words/rasm and generating a training set.
Claim 13 recites substantially similar operations performed by “processing circuitry.”
These limitations describe mathematical concepts (e.g., sequence-to-sequence mappings, tokenization/padding, model training and inference) and mental processes (organization and manipulation of information) implemented using a neural network. Such activities are abstract ideas.
Accordingly, the claims recite a judicial exception.
Step 2A, Prong Two (Is the exception integrated into a practical application?)
The claims do not integrate the exception into a practical application. The additional elements consist of generic computing components and high-level functional language:
“Processing circuitry” (claim 13) performing routine data-processing functions.
“Recurrent neural network” (claims 1, 6, 11, 13, 16) used in a conventional manner to map inputs to outputs.
Pre- and post-processing steps such as normalization, consolidation of character forms, tokenization, padding, and mapping outputs to words and training sets (claims 1–6, 10–12, 13–16, 20) are recited at a high level without specific, non-conventional configurations or constraints.
The claims do not include a specific improvement to computer functionality or a particular machine that imposes meaningful limits on the application of the abstract idea. Rather, they amount to instructions to apply the abstract processing on generic hardware. Therefore, the claims are directed to the abstract idea and do not integrate it into a practical application.
Step 2B (Do the claims recite significantly more than the abstract idea?)
Considered individually and in combination, the additional elements are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known in the field:
Generic “processing circuitry” performing data manipulation (claim 13).
Use of a recurrent neural network in its ordinary capacity to process token sequences and output mapped sequences (claims 1, 6, 11, 13, 16).
Routine data preparation and post-processing (normalization, consolidation, tokenization, padding, mapping outputs to words/rasm/training sets).
The claims do not recite a specific, unconventional technological solution, architecture, or arrangement that yields an inventive concept. No particularized parameters or constraints are recited that would transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter.
Conclusion
Claims 1–6, 10–16 and 20 are directed to an abstract idea and do not include additional elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Accordingly, these claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
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 1-20 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Independent claims 1 and 13 recite a term “the Arabic Rasm with dots” which has insufficient antecedent basis. The antecedent basis limitations only mention a term “an Arabic Rasm”. It is unclear whether a term “the Arabic Rasm with dots” refer to previously mentioned Arabic Rasm or other Arabic Rasm. Dependent claims 2-12 and 14-20 include all limitations of their corresponding independent claims 1 or 13. These dependent claims are also rejected.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) set forth in this Office action.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter.
Independent claims 1 and 13 recite specific and ordered limitations of processing Arabic Rasm (a sequence of steps of: “converting …”; “removing …”; “consolidating …”; “performing …”; “applying …”). The processed tokens are inputted into a recurrent neural network to generate Arabic Rasm with dots as training sets for the recurrent neural network.
When considering all limitations as a whole, prior art of record, either alone or in combination, does not teach or suggest the ordered limitations recited in each of independent claims. Therefore, prior art of record fails to anticipate or render obvious the claimed invention. Dependent claims 2-12 and 14-20 further limit their corresponding independent claims 1 and 13, respectively. These dependent claims are also allowable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The examiner discovered several relevant prior art references that are related to one or more concepts disclosed by the instant application. These references are included in the attached PTO-892 form for completeness of the record.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jialong He, whose telephone number is (571) 270-5359. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday, 8:00AM – 4:30PM, EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Pierre Desir can be reached on (571) 272-7799. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JIALONG HE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2659
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