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 .
Status of the Application
This Action is in response to the Request for Continued Examination filed July 16, 2026. Claims 1, 12 and 19 have been amended. Claims 1-6, 8-17 and 19-20 are pending and have been examined in this application.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 7/16/2026 has been entered.
Drawings
New corrected drawings in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in this application because portions of the drawing are illegible (i.e., Figs. 7-8). Applicant is advised to employ the services of a competent patent draftsperson outside the Office, as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office no longer prepares new drawings. The corrected drawings are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The requirement for corrected drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-6, 8-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claims contain subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 12 and 19 recite the limitation “wherein the media item-level Al model comprises a transformer encoder configured to convert the one or more features sequence features comprising a periodic aggregation of earnings into embedded data” is not support in the specification. Although, the specification mentions that a transformer encoder can convert the sequence features into embedded data, it does not describe how sequence features having periodic aggregation of earnings is converted into embedded data. The claims do not satisfy the written description requirement if sufficient description of how the claimed function is to be performed are not disclosed by the specification, including how to program the disclosed computer to perform the claimed function. See MPEP 2161.01. Claims 2-6, 8-11; 13-17 and 20 by being dependents of claims 1, 12 and 19 respectively are also rejected.
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.
Claims 1-6, 8-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Claims 1-6, 8-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Specifically, claims 1-6, 8-17 and 19-20 are directed toward at least abstract idea without significantly more. In accordance with MPEP § 2106, the rationale for this determination is explained below.
Representative claim 1 is directed towards a method, claim 12 is directed towards a system, claim 19 is directed towards a non-transitory computer-readable medium, which are statutory categories of invention.
Although, claim 1 is directed toward a statutory category of invention, the claim however is directed toward a judicial exception namely an abstract idea. The limitations that set forth the abstract idea recites: identifying, a channel associated with a user of a content sharing platform; providing an indication of one or more features associated with each media item of one or more media items associated with the channel as input to generate predictions reflecting expected earnings from the one or more media items with the particular type of advertisement disabled, and receive the embedded data and the one or more features and process the embedded data and the one or more features to generate the predictions; obtaining one or more outputs, wherein the one or more obtained outputs comprise a prediction reflecting expected earnings from the one or more media items with the particular type of advertisement disabled; providing an indication of one or more features associated with the channel as input to generate predictions reflecting expected earnings from the one or more media items carrying a particular type of advertisement; obtaining one or more outputs, wherein the one or more obtained outputs comprise a prediction reflecting expected earnings from the one or more media items carrying the particular type of advertisement; determining, based on one or more outputs, expected earnings from enabling the particular type of advertisement in one or more media items associated with the channel; generating, based on the expected earnings, a recommendation for the user; and sending, to the user, an indicator referencing the recommendation. These limitations, entail commercial interactions including, advertising, marketing or sales activities and business relations, as well as managing personal behavior including social activities and following rules or instructions. As such, the limitations are directed towards the abstract grouping of Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) II).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed as a whole under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (see MPEP 2106.04(d)), the additional elements provided by the claim amount to insignificant extra-solution activity and merely using a computer as a tool to apply an abstract idea, or instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer. In particular the claim recites the additional elements of: wherein the media item-level Al model comprises a transformer encoder configured to convert sequence features comprising a periodic aggregation of earnings into embedded data, which amounts to obtaining a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated and nominal or tangential addition to the claim. See MPEP 2106.05(g). While, the additional elements of, by a processor; a media item-level artificial intelligence (Al) model, wherein the media item-level Al model is trained to, a plurality of neural network layers comprising one or more rectifier layers and a linear layer configured to; of the media item-level Al model; to a channel-level AI model, wherein the channel-level AI model is trained; of the channel-level AI model; of the media item-level Al model and one or more outputs of the channel-level Al model, which are recited at a high level of generality and are the mere use of a computer as a tool to perform the abstract ideas. See MPEP 2106.05(f). Simply adding insignificant extra-solution activity and applying the abstract idea by computer components is not a practical application of the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), the claim does not apply the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)), the claim does not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (MPEP 2106.05(c)), and the claim does not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e)). Therefore, the claim does not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor does it effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claim is directed to abstract ideas.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional limitations amount to insignificant extra-solution activity and applying the abstract idea via a computer. Viewing these limitations individually, the media item-level Al model comprises a transformer encoder configured to convert the one or more features into embedded data is used tangentially for selecting particular data source or type of data to implement the abstract idea. And, it is well understood, routine and conventional in the art to use a transformer encoder to convert features/content into embedded data. See at least Stokes et al. (US 20220279014 A1); Lim et al. (US 20240378285 A1); Meteer et al. (US 20250370992 A1); Zhang et al. (US 20230334320 A1); Kumar et al. (US 20240362419 A1); Avedissian et al. (US 20200279075 A1); Silveira et al. (US 20250131513 A1).
Furthermore, the additional limitations of a processor; media item-level artificial intelligence (Al) model; a channel-level AI model, a plurality of neural network layers, a memory and processing device (claim 12), which do not constitute significantly more because they are simply an attempt to limit the abstract idea to a particular technological environment1. Viewing these limitations as a combination, the additional elements amount to no more than merely applying the exception using generic computer components, executing basic functions of a computer. Merely applying an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Therefore, the limitations of the claim as a whole, when viewed individually and as an ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
A review of dependent claims 2-6, 8-11, likewise, do not recite any limitations that would remedy the deficiencies outlined above. The claims only further add to the abstract idea, with no elements which integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or constitute significantly more. Thus, while they may slightly narrow the abstract idea by further describing it, they do not make it less abstract and are rejected accordingly. Further still, claims 12-17, 19-20 suffer from substantially the same deficiencies as outlined with respect to claims 1-6, 8-11 and are also rejected accordingly.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's filed arguments have been fully considered and have been found persuasive in part.
A. Applicant's arguments regarding the 35 U.S.C. § 112 rejection has been considered and the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, new grounds of rejection are made in view of Applicant’s amendments of claims 1, 12 and 19.
B. Applicant argues in regards to the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection that the claims integrate the exception into a practical application. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The amendments to the claims provide no additional elements which integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or amount to significantly more. In particular, the amendment recitation: a transformer encoder configured to convert sequence features comprising a periodic aggregation of earnings into embedded data, and a plurality of neural network layers comprising one or more rectifier layers and a linear layer configured to receive the embedded data and the one or more features and process the embedded data and the one or more features to generate the predictions, describes the intended use of the AI model. Nevertheless, the specification does not describe that using a transformer encoder to convert features into embedded data improves a model. The only improvement provided is to the abstract idea; the specification states that “recommendations specifically target particular channel owners, accurately convey the beneficial impact of enabling a type of advertisement (e.g., mid-roll ads) in the media items on their channels, and improve the conversion rate of dispatched recommendations.” [0026].
Applicant contends that similar to Example 47, Claim3 amended claim 1 reflects the technical improvement described in the specification by reciting a specific AI architecture and dual-model pipeline that enables personalized predictions. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The instant claimed invention and Example 47 have different claim sets, different fact patterns, different eligibility integration and therefore the two are not analogous. Example 47, Claim 3 was deemed eligible because it trained a machine learning model to generate an ANN that was used to detect anomalies in network traffic. Contrary to Example 47, the instant claimed invention, is directed towards the abstract grouping of Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity and does not provide a technological solution to a technical problem. Providing a dual-model of one predicting a counterfactual scenario (what earnings would be without advertisements) and one predicting an actual scenario (what earnings are with advertisements), addresses an entrepreneurial issue rather than a technological one. Therefore, even assuming arguendo a technical problem was identified, “the judicial exception alone cannot provide the improvement” MPEP 2106.05(a).
Applicant argues the claims amount to significantly more because the WURC evidence is deficient. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Since it was not a single patent or published application proffered but actually 7 publications, that more than satisfies the WURC evidentiary requirement. Furthermore, the rectifier layers and a linear layer provides only a description of the AI algorithm used to apply the abstract idea but does not provide an improvement to said AI algorithm.
As such, the claims, in view of Alice, do not connote an improvement to another technology or technical field; the claims do not amount to an improvement to the functioning of a computer itself; and the claims do not move beyond a general link of the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection is maintained.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Errol CARVALHO whose telephone number is (571)272-9987. The Examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:30-7:00 Alt Fri
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ilana Spar can be reached on 571- 270-7537. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/E CARVALHO/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622
1 See, Alice Corp. Pty Ltd. v. CLS Bank lnt'l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2360 (2014) (noting that none of the hardware recited “offers a meaningful limitation beyond generally linking ‘the use of the [method] to a particular technological environment,’ that is, implementation via computers” (citing Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 610-11 (2010))).
