DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is responsive to amendments and arguments filed on February 19th, 2026. Claims 1, 6, 8-9 and 15 are amended. Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined; hence this action is made FINAL.
Any previous objections/rejections not mentioned in this Office Action have been withdrawn by the Examiner.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on September 28th, 2023, and September 4th, 2024 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendments and Arguments
With regard to rejections made under 35 U.S.C. 103, Applicant argues, “Keslin describes a system that identifies collaboration sites associated with a user.’ See Keslin at Abstract. However, the sites referenced in Keslin are internal organizational constructs within a single collaboration service (such as the referenced Sharepoint service), rather than data feeds extracted from an application integration that collects thread data from a computer application external to the content management system. Indeed, Keslin describes where an overarching ‘collaboration service 103 identifies which collaboration sites are associated with user 112... this may be accomplished by, for example, checking a profile associated with user 112 that may include a list of his or her sites.’ Id. at [0031]. As further evidence, the sites referenced in Keselin are not accessed via an application integration or similar connector, and thus Keslin fails to teach, describe, or suggest ‘establishing, for a user account of a content management system, an application integration with a computer application external to the content management system, the application integration configured to collect thread data from the computer application external to the content management system,’ as in currently amended independent claim 1, and as similarly recited in currently amended independent claims 8 and 15,” (emphasis original, page 15 of Remarks).
Applicant’s arguments are not persuasive. Keslin teaches, at various points, systems that describe the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claimed invention. For example, at paragraph [0006], Keslin teaches, “Provided herein are systems, methods, and software to enhance the user experience with collaboration services. In at least one implementation, the presentation of a user interface to a collaboration service is enhanced by identifying collaboration sites associated with a user and identifying events that occurred with respect to the collaboration sites. Active summaries are then surfaced in the user interface that correspond to the collaboration sites associated with the user. In addition, active elements are surfaced in the active summaries that are indicative of at least the events that occurred with respect to the collaboration sites associated with the user,” in paragraphs [0019]-[0022], “Implementations disclosed herein enable enhanced user experiences with respect to collaboration services. Active summaries of the various collaboration sites for a user may be presented in a user interface to a collaboration service. Each of the active summaries includes active elements through which information may be surfaced that is indicative of events that occur in association with the collaboration sites… In various implementations the active elements may include site icons for launching the collaboration sites. The icons can include a link or other data that, when selected, launches a corresponding one of the collaboration sites… The active elements may also include news feed elements for interacting with news feeds associated with the collaboration sites. The news feed elements may include various news feed functions that allow a user to interact with the news feeds through the active elements, such as a post function, a reply function, and a like function… Other examples of the active elements include documents icons for launching documents associated with a user's collaboration sites. The documents may be selected and surfaced in the active summaries based on their relevance, recentness, or based on some other criteria,” and in paragraph [0025]-[0027], “Collaboration service 103 runs on service platform 101, while collaboration application 113 runs on application platform 111. Collaboration service 103 employs collaboration process 200 to facilitate enhanced user interfaces to the service. Collaboration application 113 employs collaboration process 300 to facilitate enhanced user interfaces to the services… In operation, user 112 interacts with collaboration service 103 by way of a user interface 115 to collaboration service 103 rendered on application platform 111 by collaboration application 113. Collaboration application 113 may initiate various access attempts on behalf of user 112 to access collaboration service 103… In response to an access attempt, collaboration service 103 communicates active summaries and active elements identified for user 112. It may be appreciated that collaboration service 103 may communicate other data and information in addition to the active summaries and active elements, Collaboration application 113 receives and renders the active summaries and active elements in a home page 117 in user interface 115.”
Further, in Figure 4, Keslin shows a system that uses a Collaboration Service to connect user applications to the collaboration sites where activity data is collected. Taken as a whole, the teachings of Keslin describe a system that uses software connections to collect and deliver activity information to users, wherein the information collected need not be hosted within the same application as the one used for final presentation of the activity information. While Keslin may not use the term of art “application integration” or “application programming interface,” the methods taught by Keslin perform the functions of those devices, and thus reads on the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims. Accordingly, the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103 citing Vikramaratne and Keslin are maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1-2, 8, 10 and 13 and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0108271 to Vikramaratne (hereinafter, "Vikramaratne") in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2015/0331578 to Keslin et al. (hereinafter, "Keslin").
Regarding claims 1, 8 and 15, Vikramaratne teaches a method, system and non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising: generating, for display on a client device associated with the user account, an aggregated feed interface depicting a plurality of aggregate summaries of the thread data extracted from the plurality of data feeds corresponding to the plurality of computer applications associated with the user account, wherein one or more data feeds of the plurality of data feeds comprises channels of computer data indicating a computer process performed to execute a function indicated by thread data of the one or more data feeds (paragraph [0034], "More specifically, the collaboration activity summarization scenario 1B00 depicts a set of representative collaboration system interaction events 122 that are associated with a set of users interacting with collaboration objects in a collaboration system. For example, representative collaboration system interaction events 122 indicate that 'Bob viewed file contract.docx on Aug. 28, 2017', 'Sally edited file plan.pptx on Aug. 28, 2017', and that other interaction events have occurred," and paragraph [0038], "The set of collected interaction events may be constrained by a certain time period (e.g., last 30 days), a certain group of users (e.g., users in the same division as the subject user), and/or other constraints.");identifying, from among the plurality of data feeds, a subset of thread data corresponding to a topic (paragraph [0033], "As can be observed in the embodiment of FIG. 1B, the collaboration activity funnel 106 further illustrates that a set of interaction event groups 1141 and a set of candidate data subsets of human-readable information (e.g., such as the shown candidate summary pages 1161) are generated to facilitate the aforementioned transformation from a corpus of computer representations of events into human-readable information summaries," and paragraph [0048], "The interaction event groups identified are stored in a specialized data structure as a set of summary data 358. Specifically, and as depicted in group attributes 368, such a specialized data structure can comprise data records (e.g., table rows or object instances) that each relate a group described by a group identifier (e.g., stored in an 'groupID' field) with an event identifier (e.g., stored in an 'eventID' field), an object identifier (e.g., stored in an 'objectID' field), an object parent identifier (e.g., a folder or directory identifier stored in a 'parentID' field), a user identifier (e.g., stored in a 'userID' field), an interaction type description (e.g., stored in an 'action' field), an event timestamp (e.g., stored in a 'time' field), a department identifier (e.g., stored in a 'dept' field), an event score value (e.g., stored in an 'eScore' field), an event highlight indicator (e.g., stored in a 'highlight' field), and/or other group attributes.");generating an aggregate summary corresponding to the subset of thread data (paragraph [0039], "A plurality of candidate summary pages that comprise combinations of one or more summary entries are generated (step 240). Candidate summary scores for individual ones of the plurality of candidate summary pages are determined (step 250)."); andproviding the aggregate summary for display within the aggregated feed interface on the client device (paragraph [0039], "At least one higher (or highest) scored summary page is then presented to the subject user (step 260). For example, a scored summary page can be presented as a human-readable data subset that is laid out in a graphical user interface that comprises several ordered groupings of data and/or icons and/or other visual screen devices.").
Vikramaratne does not explicitly teach “establishing, for a user account of a content management system, an application integration with a computer application external to the content management system, the application integration configured to collect thread data from the computer application external to the content management system,” or “extracting, for the user account of the content management system, thread data from a plurality of data feeds corresponding to a plurality of computer applications associated with the user account, wherein the plurality of data feeds comprises at least one data feed extracted from the application integration that collects the thread data from the computer application external to the content management system, the computer application associated with the user account,” and thus, Keslin is introduced.
Keslin teaches establishing, for a user account of a content management system, an application integration with a computer application external to the content management system, the application integration configured to collect thread data from the computer application external to the content management system (Keslin paragraph [0045], "In operation, user 412 accesses various ones of the collaboration sites hosted by collaboration service 403 via user interface 415, which is generated at least in part by collaboration application 413," and paragraph [0046], "Collaboration application 413 interfaces with collaboration service 403 to provide user 412 with access to collaboration sites 440, 450, and 460. Collaboration application 413 also provides home page 417, which is a page from which user 412 can navigate to his or her various collaboration sites. Home page 417 includes active summaries that correspond to the sites associated with user 412."); andextracting, for a user account of a content management system, thread data from a plurality of data feeds corresponding to a plurality of computer applications associated with the user account, wherein the plurality of data feeds comprises at least one data feed extracted from an application integration that collects thread data from a computer application external to the content management system, the computer application associated with the user account (paragraph [0030], "In response to access attempts associated with user 112, collaboration service 103 identifies which collaboration sites are associated with user 112 (step 201). This may be accomplished by, for example, checking a profile associated with user 112 that may include a list of his or her sites. In another example, site profiles for various sites may be checked to determine if user 112 is included in a list of users for each site," and paragraph [0031]. "Events may then be identified that occurred in association with the sites associated with user 112 (step 203).").
Vikramaratne and Keslin are considered analogous because they are each concerned with reporting activity to users. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne with the teachings of Keslin for the purpose of improving activity report relevance. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claims 2, 10 and 16, Vikramaratne teaches a method, system and non-transitory computer-readable medium wherein generating the aggregated feed interface comprises generating, for display on the client device, a user interface that includes a visual indication of a data feed used as a source of the subset of thread data for generating the aggregate summary (paragraph [0039], "A summary entry is created for each interaction event group to visually represent the group (step 230). As an example, a summary entry with the label 'Bob and 4 others worked with this file (report.docx) yesterday' might summarize at least five recorded interaction events.").
Regarding claim 13, Vikramaratne teaches The system of claim 8, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to: rank the plurality of aggregate summaries of the thread data extracted from the plurality of data feeds according to relevance to the user account (paragraph [0050], "In other embodiments, the “eScore”, the “hScore”, and/or the “pScore” are calculated by a summary page scoring agent 318 at the collaboration summary generator 104. Specifically, the summary page scoring agent 318 scores the candidate summary pages to facilitate selection of at least one summary page to present as a collaboration activity summary page 1283 to a subject user (e.g., user 308N)."); andmodify the aggregated feed interface to present the plurality of aggregate summaries based on ranking the plurality of aggregate summaries (paragraph [0024], " A respective score for each candidate summary page is then determined. The summary page scores are consulted to select at least one summary page (e.g., a highest scoring summary page, or at least a higher scoring summary page) to deliver to the user.").
Claims 3, 6-7, 11-12 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vikramaratne and Keslin as applied to claims 1, 8 and 15 above, further in view of U.S. Patent 10,649,623 to Milvaney et al. (hereinafter, "Milvaney").
Regarding claims 3 and 11, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach a method or system “further comprising extracting the thread data from the plurality of data feeds associated with the user account by: extracting, from one or more data feeds of the plurality of data feeds, digital communications associated with other user accounts in communication with the user account; and extracting, from at least one data feed of the plurality of data feeds, contextual activity data indicating computer processes performed to execute a function indicated by thread data within the at least one data feed,” and thus, Milvaney is introduced.
Milvaney teaches extracting, from one or more data feeds of the plurality of data feeds, digital communications associated with other user accounts in communication with the user account (column 2, lines 39-45, "In some examples, the activities that surround the file may include activities such as conversations around the document (e.g., email communications and/or messaging communications that discuss and/or reference the file), and the like. In one aspect, data comprising a plurality of activities associated with a file may be obtained.");extracting, from at least one data feed of the plurality of data feeds, contextual activity data indicating computer processes performed to execute a function indicated by thread data within the at least one data feed (column 2, lines 31-39, "Aspects of the disclosure are generally directed to creating a file activity feed for display on a user interface of a client computing device. For example, the file activity feed may organize activities related to a file associated with an application and activities that surround a file associated with an application. In some examples, the activities related to the file may include activities such as content changes in the file (e.g., edits and deletions), sharing the file, renaming the file, comments within the file, messaging, and the like.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Milvaney are considered analogous because they are each concerned with reporting activity to users. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Milvaney for the purpose of improving report coverage. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach “The method of claim 1, wherein generating the aggregate summary comprises: identifying, from the subset of thread data, a first digital communication from a first data feed and a second digital communication from a second data feed,” “determining that the first digital communication and the second digital communication comprise at least a threshold amount of overlapping content correspond to the topic,” or “based on determining that the first digital communication and the second digital communication comprise at least the threshold amount of overlapping content corresponding to the topic, generating the aggregate summary by deduplicating the first digital communication and the second digital communication by excluding one or more of the first digital communication or the second digital communication from the subset of thread data used to generate the aggregate summary,” and thus, Milvaney is referenced.
Milvaney teaches The method of claim 1, wherein generating the aggregate summary comprises: identifying, from the subset of thread data, a first digital communication from a first data feed and a second digital communication from a second data feed (column 2, line 64 through column 3, line 7, "In some cases, the plurality of activities may be grouped by identifying patterns and/or similarities among the plurality of activities. In one example, the patterns and/or similarities may be identified based on one or more factors including a number of co-authors, a number of similar activities in a row, a time of the activity, and the like. Using the example described above, two co-authors and five similar activities (e.g., edits) were identified. As such, the file activity feed grouped the plurality of activities into a single, scenario-optimized module of work as two co-authors editing the file.");determining that the first digital communication and the second digital communication comprise at least a threshold amount of overlapping content correspond to the topic (column 2, line 64 through column 3, line 7, "In some cases, the plurality of activities may be grouped by identifying patterns and/or similarities among the plurality of activities. In one example, the patterns and/or similarities may be identified based on one or more factors including a number of co-authors, a number of similar activities in a row, a time of the activity, and the like. Using the example described above, two co-authors and five similar activities (e.g., edits) were identified. As such, the file activity feed grouped the plurality of activities into a single, scenario-optimized module of work as two co-authors editing the file."); andbased on determining that the first digital communication and the second digital communication comprise at least the threshold amount of overlapping content corresponding to the topic, generating the aggregate summary by deduplicating the first digital communication and the second digital communication by excluding one or more of the first digital communication or the second digital communication from the subset of thread data used to generate the aggregate summary (column 2, line 64 through column 3, line 7, "In some cases, the plurality of activities may be grouped by identifying patterns and/or similarities among the plurality of activities. In one example, the patterns and/or similarities may be identified based on one or more factors including a number of co-authors, a number of similar activities in a row, a time of the activity, and the like. Using the example described above, two co-authors and five similar activities (e.g., edits) were identified. As such, the file activity feed grouped the plurality of activities into a single, scenario-optimized module of work as two co-authors editing the file.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Milvaney are considered analogous because they are each concerned with reporting activity to users. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Milvaney for the purpose of improving summary quality. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach “The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the subset of thread data corresponding to the topic comprises: identifying a digital communication from a messaging application associated with the user account; identifying contextual activity data indicating computer processes performed to execute a function using a non-messaging application; and determining that the digital communication and the contextual activity data corresponding to a shared topic across computer applications,” however, Milvaney teaches identifying a digital communication from a messaging application associated with the user account (column 6, lines 13-17, "In one example, the plurality of activities associated with the client computing device 104 may include communications such as Instant Messaging and/or voice communications, comments, email activities, presentation of the file, a time at which the file is printed, a time at which the file is co-authored, and the like.");identifying contextual activity data indicating computer processes performed to execute a function using a non-messaging application (column 6, lines 2-8, "In one example, the plurality of activities may include content changes, communication activities, document content exchanges, permission requests, sharing, printing, a time associated with the activities (e.g., the time the file is printed, the time the file was shared, the time the file was edited), and the like."); anddetermining that the digital communication and the contextual activity data corresponding to a shared topic across computer applications (column 7, lines 45-55, "In some implementations, the grouping component 120 may group two or more activities by identifying a user and/or author and a type of activity for each activity of the plurality of activities. In one case, the grouping component 120 may determine whether the same user/author performed the same type of activity a number of times in a row. If it is determined that the same user/author performed the same type of activity a number of times in a row, the grouping component 120 may group the activities of the same type performed by one user/author into a single module of work for display within the file activity feed.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Milvaney are considered analogous because they are each concerned with reporting activity to users. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Milvaney for the purpose of improving report coverage. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach “The system of claim 8, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to: receive, via the aggregated feed interface displayed on the client device, a user interaction to send a digital communication corresponding to the aggregate summary; and in response to the user interaction: determining, based on the subset of thread data, a computer application for transmitting the digital communication; and generating a code segment that, when executed by the computer application, causes the computer application to provide the digital communication to a target user account,” however, Milvaney teaches receive, via the aggregated feed interface displayed on the client device, a user interaction to send a digital communication corresponding to the aggregate summary (column 14, lines 19-26, "File activity element 308C may be selected and expanded. As such, file activity element 308C may show the time of the email, the people involved in the email, the contents of the email, a feature for responding to the email from the file activity element 308C, and the like. For example, a user may input a response to the email within the file activity element 308C and select a “send” button, for example.");in response to the user interaction: determining, based on the subset of thread data, a computer application for transmitting the digital communication; and generating a code segment that, when executed by the computer application, causes the computer application to provide the digital communication to a target user account (column 14, lines 26-35, "When an additional action (e.g., an additional response and/or conversation associated with the email) occurs, the file activity feed 306 will be updated to include the additional action in a file activity element. In this regard, a user may respond to a communication, such as an email within a file activity element, without opening a communication application, such as an email application. In turn, the file activity feed 306 provides for taking actions on external communications such as email, Instant Messaging, etc.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Milvaney are considered analogous because they are each concerned with reporting activity to users. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Milvaney for the purpose of improving report coverage. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claim 20, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach “The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to: generate an interaction insight indicating reactions from other user accounts to the subset of thread data corresponding to topic of the aggregate summary; and modify the aggregated feed interface to include the interaction insight in relation to the aggregate summary,” however, Milvaney teaches generate an interaction insight indicating reactions from other user accounts to the subset of thread data corresponding to topic of the aggregate summary (column 14, lines 4-8, "In some aspects, the file activity elements 308A-308H are actionable. In one case, when a user selects a file activity element, the user may interact with the file activity element and take further action. For example, file activity element 308B shows a conversation between two users."); andmodify the aggregated feed interface to include the interaction insight in relation to the aggregate summary (column 14, lines 8-14, "File activity element 308B may be selected and expanded. As such, file activity element 308B may show the time of the conversation, the people involved in the conversation, the application used for the conversation, and a button to play the conversation in-line. As such, file activity element 308B is actionable.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Milvaney are considered analogous because they are each concerned with reporting activity to users. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Milvaney for the purpose of improving report quality. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Claims 4-5, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vikramaratne and Keslin as applied to claims 1, 8 and 15 above, further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2012/0179449 to Raskino et al. (hereinafter, "Raskino").
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach “The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the subset of thread data corresponding to the topic comprises identifying one or more of digital communications or contextual activity data corresponding to a common topic shared by the subset of thread data extracted from different data feeds,” and thus, Raskino is introduced.
Raskino teaches identifying one or more of digital communications or contextual activity data corresponding to a common topic shared by the subset of thread data extracted from different data feeds (paragraph [0025], "The entities 42 extracted from each message 16 are compared, and from this comparison, one or more message clusters 44 are identified, comprising messages 16 involving a similar set of entities 42 and likely relating to the same story 12.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Raskino are considered analogous because they are each concerned with summarizing content. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Raskino for the purpose of improving summary quality. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claims 5 and 17, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach “generating the aggregate summary comprises utilizing a summary generation model to combine thread data from multiple data feeds associated with the user account,” however, Raskino teaches utilizing a summary generation model to combine thread data from multiple data feeds associated with the user account (paragraph [0025], "FIG. 3 presents an exemplary scenario 40 featuring some additional detail as to the generation of a summary 36 of a story 12. In this exemplary scenario 40, two stories 12 are related in three messages 16, each generated by a particular message author 14. An automated classifier, configured according to the techniques presented herein, may generate a summary 36 of each story 12 in the following manner… Based on these frequently reported facts 34, the automated classifier may automatically generate a summary 36.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Raskino are considered analogous because they are each concerned with summarizing content. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Raskino for the purpose of improving summary creation efficiency. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vikramaratne and Keslin as applied to claim 8 above, further in view of U.S. Patent 10,977,258 to Liu et al. (hereinafter, "Liu").
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach “The system of claim 8, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to generate the aggregate summary by: identifying a plurality of digital communications corresponding to the topic across multiple data feeds; and based on identifying the plurality of digital communications corresponding to the topic, utilizing a summary generation model to summarize the plurality of digital communications from the multiple data feeds, wherein the summary generation model is based on a large language model,” and thus, Liu is introduced.
Liu teaches identifying a plurality of digital communications corresponding to the topic across multiple data feeds (column 24, lines 27-35, "In particular embodiments, the assistant system 140 may identify segments associated with the plurality of user communications. The segments may be identified by identifying different threads, conversations, or the like within accessed user communication. As an example and not by way of limitation, for accessed work emails from an electronic communication inbox, the assistant system 140 may identify the separate email threads as separate segments to summarize."); andbased on identifying the plurality of digital communications corresponding to the topic, utilizing a summary generation model to summarize the plurality of digital communications from the multiple data feeds (column 24, line 60 through column 25, line 4, "In particular embodiments, the assistant system 140 may perform a topic analysis on the accessed user communication to identify segments. In particular embodiments, the assistant system 140 may analyzing the user communications (e.g., parse the user communications) to identify a topic associated with the user communication. In particular embodiments, the assistant system 140 may identify two separate segments based on change of topics between two consecutive user communications. Each segment may comprise user communications of a same topic. In particular embodiments, multiple segments may be grouped together to be processed to generate a summary."), wherein the summary generation model is based on a large language model (column 21, lines 54-59, "In particular embodiments, the [Conversational Understanding] composer 270 may generate a communication content for the user using the [Natural Language Generator] 271 based on the output of the task completion module 335. In particular embodiments, the NLG 271 may use different language models and/or language templates to generate natural language outputs.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Liu are considered analogous because they are each concerned with summarizing content. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Liu for the purpose of improving summary creation efficiency. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Claims 14 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vikramaratne and Keslin as applied to claim 15 above, further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2020/0226216 to Marin et al. (hereinafter, "Marin").
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach “The system of claim 13, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to rank the plurality of aggregate summaries by utilizing a personalized ranking algorithm specific to the user account, wherein the personalized ranking algorithm weights thread data according to an activity history of the user account across computer applications associated with the plurality of data feeds,” and thus, Marin is introduced.
Marin teaches The system of claim 13, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to rank the plurality of aggregate summaries by utilizing a personalized ranking algorithm specific to the user account, wherein the personalized ranking algorithm weights thread data according to an activity history of the user account across computer applications associated with the plurality of data feeds (paragraph [0029], "The item information ranking module may rank various topics considering the user's history of expressing interest in those topics, or documents/folders that the user tends to access frequently, etc.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Marin are considered analogous because they are each concerned with summarizing content. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Marin for the purpose of improving summary quality. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Regarding claim 19, the combination of Vikramaratne and Keslin does not explicitly teach “The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to: receive, via the aggregated feed interface displayed on the client device, a user interaction requesting additional information regarding the aggregate summary; and in response to the user interaction, generating, to provide for display within the aggregated feed interface, a response comprising the additional information by analyzing the subset of thread data from which the aggregate summary is generated,” however, Marin teaches receive, via the aggregated feed interface displayed on the client device, a user interaction requesting additional information regarding the aggregate summary (paragraph [0088], "FIG. 6 illustrates a further extension of scenario 100. Here, user 102 has issued a query 602 that requests additional information. The email thread can be processed by a summary refinement module 604, which provides a refined representation 606 in response to the user's query."); andin response to the user interaction, generating, to provide for display within the aggregated feed interface, a response comprising the additional information by analyzing the subset of thread data from which the aggregate summary is generated (paragraph [0093], "The summary refinement module 604 can respond by considering both the collection of information items and the previously-generated summaries for items in that collection. Thus, for example, user 102 has previously been informed that Jen Small has provided a resume for consideration. However, the user has not been informed as to whether Eli has viewed the resume. As a consequence, the refined summary shown in FIG. 6 introduces these new facts to the user.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin and Marin are considered analogous because they are each concerned with summarizing content. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne and Keslin with the teachings of Marin for the purpose of improving summary quality. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vikramaratne, Keslin and Raskino as applied to claim 17 above, further in view of Milvaney.
Regarding claim 18, the combination of Vikramaratne, Keslin and Raskino does not teach “The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to: identify a digital communication from a messaging application associated with the user account; identify contextual activity data indicating computer processes performed to execute a function using a non-messaging application; and determine that the digital communication and the contextual activity data corresponding to a shared topic across computer applications,” and thus, Milvaney is referenced.
Milvaney teaches identify a digital communication from a messaging application associated with the user account (column 6, lines 13-17, "In one example, the plurality of activities associated with the client computing device 104 may include communications such as Instant Messaging and/or voice communications, comments, email activities, presentation of the file, a time at which the file is printed, a time at which the file is co-authored, and the like.");identify contextual activity data indicating computer processes performed to execute a function using a non-messaging application (column 6, lines 2-8, "In one example, the plurality of activities may include content changes, communication activities, document content exchanges, permission requests, sharing, printing, a time associated with the activities (e.g., the time the file is printed, the time the file was shared, the time the file was edited), and the like."); anddetermine that the digital communication and the contextual activity data corresponding to a shared topic across computer applications,” (column 7, lines 45-55, "In some implementations, the grouping component 120 may group two or more activities by identifying a user and/or author and a type of activity for each activity of the plurality of activities. In one case, the grouping component 120 may determine whether the same user/author performed the same type of activity a number of times in a row. If it is determined that the same user/author performed the same type of activity a number of times in a row, the grouping component 120 may group the activities of the same type performed by one user/author into a single module of work for display within the file activity feed.").
Vikramaratne, Keslin, Raskino and Milvaney are considered analogous because they are each concerned with reporting activity to users. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Vikramaratne, Keslin and Raskino with the teachings of Milvaney for the purpose of improving report quality. Given that all the claimed elements were known in the prior art, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
U.S. Patent 12,373,229 to Bar-on et al.
U.S. Patent 10,169,457 to Miller et al.
U.S. Patent 10,691,710 to Reynolds et al.
U.S. Patent 10,908,765 to Hamlin et al.
U.S. Patent 9,501,531 to Sinha et al.
U.S. Patent 8,176,418 to McKeown et al.
U.S. Patent 8,495,105 to Campbell et al.
U.S. Patent 8,578,274 to Druzgalski et al.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0143580 to Chi et al.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2010/0205169 to Narayan et al.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2016/0357770 to Wu et al.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2016/0357820 to Murrett et al.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2017/0357717 to Hughes et al.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0108271 to Vikramaratne.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2021/0144112 to Suri.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2021/0256221 to Beaugh et al.
European Patent Application EP 1933530 to Ishikawa.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SEAN T SMITH whose telephone number is (571)272-6643. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00am - 5:00pm.
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, PIERRE-LOUIS DESIR can be reached at (571) 272-7799. 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.
/SEAN THOMAS SMITH/Examiner, Art Unit 2659
/PIERRE LOUIS DESIR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2659