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 .
Claims 21-40 are pending in this application.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 21-40 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 6-20 of U.S. Patent No. 11,797,530 in view of Wallace et al., US 8,756,249 (hereinafter Wallace).
Independent claim 21 of the instant application recite substantially the same claim limitations in claims 6 and 15 of US Patent 11,797,530. Claim 6 of US 11,797,530 broadly recites “generating, using a hierarchical embedding model comprising a plurality of layers, respective language-agnostic embeddings of entity records of a cross-language data set,” whereas claim 21 of the instant application recites the similar but more specific limitation “generating embeddings for the first entity record at a plurality of hierarchical levels comprising an entity record level and one or more of: a character level, a token leve, or an attribute level.” Claims 6 and 15 of the discussed patent broadly recite “to generate a similarity score for a pair of entity records whose text attributes are expressed in different languages” and “utilizing a trained version of the machine learning model to detect that the catalog contains a different entity record, expressed in the second language, whose similarity score with respect to the particular entity record exceeds a threshold” whereas claim 21 of the instant application recites similar but more specifically “determining, at the cloud computing environment using embedding representations of at least some entity records of the collection, including a representation for the embeddings for the first record at the plurality of hierarchical levels, that a similarity score between the first entity record and a second entity record of the collection exceeds a threshold, wherein the second entity record comprises one or more text attributes in a second language, wherein the similarity score is determined without translating a text attribute of the first entity record, and wherein the similarity score is determined without translating a text attribute of the second entity record.” Claims 6 and 15 of the discussed patent broadly recite “obtaining a request to include a particular entity record in a catalog, wherein at least some attributes of the particular entity record are expressed in the first language” and “and causing a de-duplication action to be initiated with respect to the particular entity record and the different entity record,” whereas claim 21 similarly recites “obtaining, via one or more programmatic interfaces of a cloud computing environment, a request to add a first entity record to a collection of entity records, wherein the first entity record comprises one or more text attributes expressed in a first language.”
Claim 21 additionally recites “rejecting, at the cloud computing environment, based at least in part on said determining, the request to add the first entity record to the collection.” However, Wallace teaches rejecting, at the cloud computing environment, based at least in part on said determining, the request to add the first entity record to the collection (see Wallace, Fig. 8, col. 12 lines 20-45, “request is received from a client for storing a data object” and “compares first representative data against second representative data” representing determining and “the request is rejected” based on determining). It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art at the time of the invention to modify the claim limitations with the teachings of Wallace to reject storage requests to achieve de-duplication of stored entries.
Independent claims 28 and 35 are similarly rejected as claim 21 above.
Claim 22 recites substantially the same claim limitation as in claim 6 of the US Patent that recites “and training a machine learning model, using the plurality of record representation pairs, to generate a similarity score for a pair of entity records whose text attributes are expressed in different languages.”
Claim 24 recites substantially the same claim limitation as in claim 9 of the US Patent that recites “wherein the first record representation of the record representation pair is based at least in part on an encoding of a non-text attribute of the first entity record, and wherein the second record representation of the record representation pair is based at least in part on an encoding of the non-text attribute of the second entity record.”
Claim 25 recites substantially the same claim limitation as in claims 6, 9 and 15 of the US Patent that recites “wherein the first record representation of the record representation pair is based at least in part on an encoding of a non-text attribute of the first entity record, and wherein the second record representation of the record representation pair is based at least in part on an encoding of the non-text attribute of the second entity record” and “whose similarity score with respect to the particular entity record exceeds a threshold; and causing a de-duplication action to be initiated with respect to the particular entity record and the different entity record.”
Claim 27 recites substantially the same claim limitation as in claims 6 and 14 of the discussed US Patent.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection has been withdrawn.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JENSEN HU whose telephone number is (571)270-3803. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9-5 PT.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sherief Badawi can be reached at 571-272-9782. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JENSEN HU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2169