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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 1-8 withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 10/20/2025.
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 9-13 in the reply filed on 10/20/2025 is acknowledged.
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 9-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Independent Claims 9 and 13 relate to the statutory category of method/process and machine/apparatus. The independent claims 9 and 13 recites “generating…a knowledge corpus of a language to be used by the NLP classification model, wherein the knowledge corpus specifies a relationship between words; generating, based on the knowledge corpus, a set of abstract nodes corresponding to equivalence classes of words in the knowledge corpus, wherein each node of the set of abstract nodes represents an equivalence class of the equivalence classes; and generating, based on a training set of input statements including labeled data, relationships between abstract nodes of the set of abstract nodes, wherein each input statement is associated with one of a set of sentiments, wherein the labeled data includes numeric data relating to the sentiment of the set of possible sentiments for corresponding input statements, wherein a relationship between a first node and a second node of the set of abstract nodes is based on an order of the first node and the second node within the sentence, wherein generating a relationship between the first node and the second node includes identifying, for a first input statement of the training set of input statements, a sentiment associated with the first input statement; and incrementing a component of a vector associated with the sentiment associated with the first input statement, wherein the vector is associated with the relationship between the first node and the second node, wherein training includes incrementing pairwise across each input statement, updating the respective relationships between nodes, then moving on to the next vector”. The limitations of claims 9 and 13 of “generating…”, “generating…”, “generating…”, “identifying…”, “incrementing…” as drafted covers mental activity. More specifically, for claim 9, a human is given a group of compiled documents which contain related words. The human then creates a hierarchical graph of similar or equivalent words in the received compiled documents. The hierarchical graph is then used for training purposes to extract the sentiment of the input training data and the relationship between the training data and the words on the hierarchical graph. The graph is continually updated until all of the training data has been addressed.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, Claim 13 recites the additional element of “a processor” which is recited generally in the specification. For example, in paragraph [0038] of the as filed specification, there is a description of using a general purpose operating system. Claims 1 and 13 also recite the additional element of “NLP classification model” which is described as a math based graphical algorithm in paragraph [0028]. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea int a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to the integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of using a computer is noted as a general purpose computer and using a mathematical algorithm is noted as a general purpose language model. The claims are not patent eligible.
With respect to claims 10 and 15, the claims relate to the number of times it took to determine the sentiment of the training data. The claims relate to a mental activity of determining how many times someone had to review the training data to determine its sentiment. No additional elements are present.
With respect to claims 11 and 16, the claims relate to choosing from a list of given sentiments. The claims relate to picking the sentiment of the training data from a given list. No additional elements are present.
With respect to claims 12 and 17, the claims relate to determining the number of times of determining the sentiment of the training based on a mathematical algorithm. The claims relate to a mental activity of solving a mathematical expression based on based on known data. No additional elements are present.
With respect to claims 13 and 18, the claims relate to repeating the process and updating the hierarchical graph until all the training data has been addressed. The claims relate to the mental activity of making sure all there is no data left that has not been addressed. NO additional elements are present.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9-18 would be allowed if the 35 USC 101 rejections above are overcome.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Claims 9 and 14 of the current application teaches similar subject matter as the prior art of Archuleta (US 2021/0326713), Jin (US 11,216,620), and Elisco et al. (US 2022/030071). However, the prior art fails to teach “generating, based on a training set of input statements including labeled data, relationships between abstract nodes of the set of abstract nodes, wherein each input statement is associated with one of a set of sentiments, wherein the labeled data includes numeric data relating to the sentiment of the set of possible sentiments for corresponding input statements, wherein a relationship between a first node and a second node of the set of abstract nodes is based on an order of the first node and the second node within the sentence, wherein generating a relationship between the first node and the second node includes: identifying, for a first input statement of the training set of input statements, a sentiment associated with the first input statement; and incrementing a component of a vector associated with the sentiment associated with the first input statement, wherein the vector is associated with the relationship between the first node and the second node, wherein training includes incrementing pairwise across each input statement, updating the respective relationships between nodes, then moving on to the next vector” as recited in claims 9 and 14.
Claims 10-13, and 15-18 would be allowed for being dependent on allowable base claim if the 35 USC 101 rejections are overcome.
Cited Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Tacchi et al. (US 9,436,760) discloses measuring accuracy of semantic graphs with exogenous datasets.
Tacchi et al. (US 9,715,495) discloses topic-infused document relationship graphs.
New (US 7,720,903) disclosed parsing natural language text with simple links.
Sheth et al. (US 2014/0358523) discloses topic-specific sentiment extractions.
Dubnov et al. (US 2016/0155067) discloses mapping documents to associated outcome based on sequential evolution of their contents.
Hsu (US 2021/0150148) discloses natural language processing.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SATWANT K SINGH whose telephone number is (571)272-7468. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM EST.
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/SATWANT K SINGH/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2653