DETAILED ACTION
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, 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pondicherry (US 11,687,827) in view of Huang (US 6,766.056).
Referring to claims 1, 18 and 20, Pondicherry discloses an information providing device (fig. 1, system 100) comprising:
an extractor (fig. 1, extractor 110/130) that extracts
1) identification information (fig. 1, topic 114, entity 134) for identifying each of multiple materials (fig. 4, regulatory text document 400) and
2) property values of each material (fig. 4, entities 406) from one piece of document information (fig. 1, domain-specific document 150);
a deriver (fig. 1, section identifier 140, action processor 170) that derives a confidence level (fig. 11, confidence 1106) for the property values of each material on the basis of a similarity (14:31-42, similarity) of the property value between the material (14:31-42, received domain-specific document 150) and other materials (14:31-42, prior domain-specific document); and
an image processor (fig. 1, GUIs 180) that generates a first image (figs. 9-12, GUI 900/1000/1100/1200) in which the property value of each of the materials are
illustrated in a display mode (fig. 11, GUI) according to the confidence level (14:9-10, confidence level) derived for the property values of the material (fig. 11, features 1102 according to confidence 1106 derived from content), and
illustrated in association with the identification information of the material (fig. 11, associated features 1101, target 1104 and confidence 1106; 14:11-30, such as top keywords 908, topic scores 912), and outputs the first image (2:1-14, GUI displays output) to a display (figs. 9-12, GUI 900/1000/1100/1200).
Huang discloses a confidence level (fig. 6, confidence value generation 67) indicative of reproducibility (12:50-55, confidence value based on similarity for determining reproducibility).
Pondicherry and Huang are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor in determining document similarity. At the time of the filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, having the teaching of Pondicherry and Huang before him or her to modify the confidence level purposes of Pondicherry to include the reproducibility confidence of Huang, thereafter a similarity level among documents is understood for subsequent document processing operations. The suggestion and/or motivation for doing so would be obtaining the advantage of enable tracking documents that may be reproduced (22:60-62) as suggested by Huang. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Pondicherry with Huang to obtain the invention as specified in the instant application claims.
As to claim 2, Pondicherry discloses the device of claim 1, wherein the extractor extracts multiple classes of property values (fig. 12, classes & attributes on LHS 1204; 10:59-63, classes of domain-specific entities) as the property values.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The claim features of image processor GUI outputs as required in dependent claims 3, 5 and 17. The detailed claim features of extractor and deriver as required in dependent claim 6.
Conclusion
Applicant’s amendment necessitated the new grounds of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, this action is made final. See MPEP §706.07(a). 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 in THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filled 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 of the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to examiner Cheng-Yuan Tseng whose telephone number is (571)272-9772, and fax number is (571)273-9772. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday from 09:00 to 17:30 Eastern Time. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Alicia Harrington can be reached on (571)272-2330. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571)273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at (866)217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call (800)786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or (571)272-1000.
/CHENG YUAN TSENG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2615