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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This office action is responsive to Request for Continued Examination received on 2/4/2026. Claims 1, 8 and 15 are amended. Claim 21 is newly added. Claim 13 is previously cancelled. Consequently, claims 1-12, 14-21 are pending examination.
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 1-12 and 14-21 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.
Step 1, claims 1-7 are directed to a system. Claims 8-12,14 and 21 are directed to a method. Claims 15-20 are directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium, Each claim falls within the statutory category of subject matter under 101.
Step 2A, Prong One. Claims 1, 8 and 15 are directed to an abstract idea. when considered as a whole, the independent claims recite: receiving a request comprising cryptographic signature, a client identifier, and an utterance, retrieving prior utterances associated with the client identifier, invoking an AI to compare the current utterances to prior utterances and generate similarity assessment, a threshold similarity value, and a set of predetermined rules; and transmitting the utterance with or without performing cryptographic validation based on that decision. These steps describe a mathematical concept of computing similarity metric between natural language inputs and comparing that metric against a threshold value. A mental process of evaluating whether successive inputs are similar to justify waiving an authentication requirement, which is a process that could be performed mentally or with pen and paper given sufficiently simple inputs. And Certain methods of organizing human activity specifically a rules-based security and authentication decision making process governing when identity verification may be waved. The recitation of an “AI model” does not change the analysis. The claims recite the AI model purely in functional terms without specifying its architecture, or technical implementation. A generic functionality recited AI model that receives inputs and outputs a similarity score is itself an abstract idea.
Step 2A, Prong two. The claims recite receiving a chat request, comparing utterances using AI model and making decision to waive or require cryptographic validation. The claims do not recite how the problem is technically solved. They recite only that fewer verification occur when utterances are similar enough. That is a result and not a technical implementation. A claim that recites a desired outcome without specifying the technical means of achieving it does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application (Affinity Labs of Texas v. DIRECT TV).
Step 2B. The additional elements recited in the claims are well understood, routine and conventional in the art. Combining conventional elements in does not produce unconventional result. The elements simply perform their expected functions.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues he following:
Claims 1-12 and 14-20 do not recite a judicial exception.
Response. The claims recite comparing utterance using mathematical similarity metrics and making an authentication decision based on the result. That is mathematical concept and a mental process regardless of the PQC or chatbot context surrounding it. The technological setting does not change what claims are essentially doing.
Citing Examples 39 and 47.
Response.
Example 39. Applicant’s claims are not analogous because Example 39 eligible claim recited specific technical details of how the neural network was structured and trained. Applicant’s claims simply invoke an AI functionality and claim the result. That is exactly the pattern example 39 distinguishes from eligible subject matter.
Example 47’s eligible anomaly detection claims was found patent eligible because it recited specific post detection remedial steps that produced a concrete technical improvement to the system. The current claims do not meet the standard of example 47’s eligible claim.
3- Claims 1-12 and 14-40 integrate the Judicial Exception that they recite into a practical application.
Response. The applicant argues the claims improve functionality by reducing PQC verification overhead. The examiner acknowledges the computational problem is real. however, the claims recite the result of fewer verification without claiming how the result is technically achieved at an architectural or structural level. Claiming a desirable
outcome is not the same as a technical improvement.
4- claims 1-12 and 14-20 recite significantly more than the judicial exception.
Response. The elements such as JWT tokens, vector embeddings, cosine similarity, and chatbot APIs were all well understood, routine and conventional at the time of filing. Combining known elements in their expected manner does not create an inventive concept.
Conclusion
The closest art made of record and is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure (see PTO 890).
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/SARGON N NANO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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