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 .
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-15 were previously pending and subject to a non-final rejection dated July 2, 2025. In the Response, submitted on January 2, 2026 claim 1 was amended. Therefore, claims 1-15 are currently pending and subject to the following final rejection. Examiner notes Page 2 of the Response states “Claims 1 and 11 are currently amended. Claims 2-6 and 8-10 are presently cancelled.” However, no amendments to 11 were presented and claims 2-6 and 8-10 were not cancelled and remain pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s Remarks on Page 5 of the Response, regarding the previous rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) have been fully considered but are not found persuasive.
On Page 5 of the Response, Applicant states “The Applicant has made the requested amendments and traversed the rejection. The Applicant thanks the Office for their review and direction.” However, no amendments were made to overcome the rejection. Therefore, the indefinite rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) is maintained in the final rejection below.
Applicant’s Remarks on Pages 5-8 of the Response, regarding the previous subject matter eligibility rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but are not found persuasive.
On Pages 5-6 of the Response, Applicant states “As amended, claim 1 is not directed to an abstract idea, but instead recites a specific, computer-implemented response selection pipeline that integrates information retrieval, deterministic keyword-based candidate gating, and a multi-head attention-based classifier in a manner that improves the functioning of computer-implemented response selection systems.”
Examiner respectfully disagrees and notes nothing in the specification explains how the “integrat[ing] information retrieval, deterministic keyword-based candidate gating, and a multi-head attention-based classifier” improves the functioning of a computer as alleged. See MPEP 2106.05(a) discussing that “a bare assertion of an improvement without the detail necessary to be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art…the examiner should not determine the claim improves technology.” Thus, Applicant’s arguments are not found persuasive.
On Page 6 of the Response, in discussing Step 2A, Prong One, Applicant argues “Claim 1 does not merely recite organizing human activity or mental processes. Rather, the claim recites specific operations performed by computing components, including a document store accessed through an information retrieval system, structured clusters keyed by unique (R,B) response pairs, and a multi-head attention-based binary classifier. These operations cannot be performed in the human mind and require computer implementation.”
Examiner respectfully disagrees and notes merely reciting “computing components" (i.e., a document store that is accessible through an Information Retrieval System, and a multi-head attention-based binary classifier) at a high-level of generality, does not take the claims out of the grouping of a certain method of organizing human activity. See Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), N.A., 792 F.3d 1363, 1366, 115 USPQ2d 1636, 1639 (Fed. Cir. 2015) holding that “An abstract idea does not become nonabstract by limiting the invention to a particular field of use or technological environment, such as the Internet [or] a computer”. Thus, Applicant’s arguments are not found persuasive.
On Pages 6-7 of the Response, in discussing Step 2A, Prong Two, Applicant argues “Even if the claim were viewed as reciting an abstract idea at a high level, claim 1 as amended integrates any such idea into a practical application. Specifically, claim 1 now recites a deterministic, staged candidate-selection and gating architecture that materially constrains how candidate responses are generated and evaluated:
. candidate (Q,R,B) triples are retrieved using an information retrieval system and
organized into clusters corresponding to unique response pairs;
. prior to classification, candidate selection is deterministically gated using cluster-level whitelist and blacklist keyword sets, such that:
o candidates are added when whitelist keywords are present in the user input;
o candidates are removed or suppressed based on blacklist keyword evaluation; and
. only candidates remaining in a bounded candidate pool are passed to the multi-head attention-based binary classifier.
This sequence is not a generic use of a classifier to automate customer service. Instead, the claim recites a concrete control flow that governs how computational resources are used, limits the candidate space evaluated by the neural model, and enforces response-specific gating rules prior to classification.
As a result, the claim applies the underlying techniques in a specific technical manner to improve computer-implemented response selection systems by reducing unnecessary classification operations, limiting false positives, and enforcing response-specific eligibility constraints before model inference. This constitutes integration into a practical application under the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance and subsequent USPTO Al guidance.
Examiner respectfully disagrees and notes retrieving “candidate (Q,R,B) triples…organized into clusters corresponding to unique response pairs”, “prior to classification, candidate selection is deterministically gated using cluster-level whitelist and blacklist keyword sets, such that: o candidates are added when whitelist keywords are present in the user input; o candidates are removed or suppressed based on blacklist keyword evaluation; and only candidates remaining in a bounded candidate pool are passed to the multi-head attention-based binary classifier”, “enforc [ing] response-specific gating rules prior to classification”, “reducing unnecessary classification operations, limiting false positives, and enforcing response-specific eligibility constraints before model inference” are limitations or descriptions that recite the abstract idea of a certain method of organizing human activity (e.g., commercial interactions or managing interactions between people). Specifically the above-described keyword-based filtering of data, response-specific gating of data, and response-specific eligibility constraints recite an abstract idea. Nothing in the claims describes how the actual multi-head attention-based binary classifier is improved such that the claims recite a technical improvement. Examiner suggests Applicant amend the claims to explain how the multi-head attention-based binary classifier makes the determination (of if the candidate represents a response that is to be sent to the business and the user) with the remaining Q,R,B triples remaining in the candidate pool; such that the claims recite a practical application of the abstract idea.
Furthermore, it is unclear how “the claim recites a concrete control flow that governs how computational resources are used, limits the candidate space evaluated by the neural model”, as the specification is silent on governing computational resources and limited candidate space . As discussed above, “a bare assertion of an improvement without the detail necessary to be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art…the examiner should not determine the claim improves technology.” Thus, Applicant’s arguments are not found persuasive.
On Pages 7-8 of the Response, in discussing Step 2B, Applicant argues “Claim 1 also recites an inventive concept. The combination of: " organizing candidate responses into clusters keyed by unique (R,B) pairs, . maintaining per-cluster whitelist and blacklist keyword sets, . deterministically gating candidates prior to classification, and . applying a multi-head attention-based classifier only to a filtered candidate pool amounts to significantly more than the use of generic computer components to automate a business practice. The Examiner characterizes the information retrieval system, document store, and classifier as generic. However, the claim is not directed to these components in isolation, but to their specific ordered combination and interaction, which the specification describes as solving technical problems associated with candidate explosion, misclassification, and inefficient inference in hybrid IR-and-neural response systems. Nothing in the cited prior art or in conventional customer-service automation teaches or suggests this particular staged architecture in which deterministic keyword-based cluster gating constrains neural classification at runtime.”
Examiner respectfully disagrees and notes “organizing candidate responses into clusters keyed by unique (R,B) pairs, . maintaining per-cluster whitelist and blacklist keyword sets, . deterministically gating candidates prior to classification” are limitations that describe the abstract idea. Examiner further notes the high-level recitation of passing data to “a multi-head attention-based binary classifier” does no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., machine learnings) , as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(h).
Lastly, as discussed above, “a bare assertion of an improvement without the detail necessary to be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art…the examiner should not determine the claim improves technology.” Applicant’s specification is silent on “solving technical problems associated with candidate explosion, misclassification, and inefficient inference in hybrid IR-and-neural response systems” as alleged. Thus, Applicant’s arguments are not found persuasive.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation “the staff at the business” in line 5. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For examination purposes, the claim will be interpreted as reciting “staff at a business”.
Claim 1 recites “the customer query, Q,” in line 13. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For examination purposes, the claim will be interpreted as reciting “a customer query, Q,”.
As interpreted above, claim 1 recites “a customer query, Q” in line 13, and “given a query, Q” in line 15. It is unclear whether the “given a query, Q” is the same as “a customer query, Q” as they are both assigned the variable “Q” or different queries (as line 16 states “wherein all the different Q’s”. For examination purposes, the claim will be interpreted as the latter. Claims 2-15 are rejected by virtue of dependency.
Claim 1 recites “given a query, Q: providing a plurality of corresponding (Q,R,B) triples, wherein all the different Q’s….are organized.” It is unclear what is meant by “all the different Q’s”. For examination purposes, it will be meant as reciting “all the different variations of the customer query, Q” from the previous limitations. Claims 2-15 are rejected by virtue of dependency.
Claim 5 recites the limitations “the entire conversation session”, “the previous sent and received messages” and “the most recent message from the customer to the business.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitation in the claims. For examination purposes, the claim will be interpreted as reciting “an entire conversation session”, “previous sent and received messages” and “a most recent message from the customer to the business”.
Claim 9 recites “a candidate response to U in the sense that the B is the notification to the staff at the business and the R is the response to be sent to the user”. It is unclear what is meant by “in the sense”. For examination purposes, the claim will be interpreted as reciting “a candidate response to U wherein the B is the notification to the staff at the business and the R is the response to be sent to the user”. Claims 10-15 are rejected by virtue of dependency.
Claim 13 recites the limitation “the dataset”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For examination purposes, the claim will be interpreted as reciting “a dataset”. Claims 14-15 are rejected by virtue of dependency.
Claim 15 recites the limitation “the output of the unified model”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For examination purposes, the claim will be interpreted as reciting “an output of the unified model”.
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 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claims 1-15 are directed to a method (i.e., process) and therefore fall within one of the four statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A, Prong One
Claim 1 recites a series of steps of: implementing a unified model that responds to an incoming customer message or request, comprising: given a user input message, U: identifying a response, R, that is to be sent to the customer, identifying a business notification, B, that is to be sent to the staff at the business, basing the response, R, and the business notification, B, on a common template or a business-specific template or a canned response defined by the business; wherein a unique (R,B) pair comprises a potential response to the input user message, U; storing a plurality of (R,B) pairs; alongside the plurality of (R,B) pairs, storing a set of examples and a set of variations of the customer query, Q, for which each (R,B) pair of the plurality of (R,B) pairs is the appropriate response; given a query, Q: providing a plurality of corresponding (Q,R,B) triples, wherein all the different Q's but same (R,B) are organized under a single, unique, cluster; wherein given user input message, U, retrieving a plurality of candidates (Q,R,B) triples using an information retrieval system that matches user input message, U with the Q of the (Q,R,B) triples; maintaining, for each cluster corresponding to a unique (R,B) pair, a whitelist keyword set, a type-1 blacklist keyword set, and a type-2 blacklist keyword set; adding at least one (Q,R,B) triple from a cluster to a candidate pool when at least one keyword from the whitelist keyword set for the cluster is present in the user input message U; removing a (Q,R,B) triple from the candidate pool when at least one keyword from the type-1 blacklist keyword set for the cluster is present in the user input message U; and suppressing selection of the cluster when no keyword from the type-2 blacklist keyword set is present in the user input message U; and wherein only (Q,R,B) triples remaining in the candidate pool are passed to determine if the candidate represents a response that is to be sent to the business and the user.
The claims as a whole recite a certain method of organizing human activity. The limitations recited above, under broadest reasonable interpretation, recite the abstract idea of a certain method of organizing human activity, e.g., commercial interactions or managing interactions between people. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A, Prong Two
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Claim 1 as a whole amounts to: merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract, or “apply it” or generally links the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
Claim 1 recites the additional elements of: (i) a Document Store that is accessible through an Information Retrieval System (the Document store for organizing data); and (ii) a multi-head attention-based binary classifier.
The additional element of (i) a Document Store that is accessible through an Information Retrieval System (the Document store for organizing data) is recited at a high-level of generality, such that, when viewed as whole/ordered combination, it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception using generic computer components (See MPEP 2106.05(f)).
The additional element of a multi-head attention-based binary classifier, is recited at a high-level of generality, such that, when viewed as whole/ordered combination, it amounts to no more generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., machine learning) (See MPEP 2106.05(h)).
Accordingly, these additional elements, when viewed as a whole/ordered combination do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Thus, the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B
As discussed above with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements amount to no more than: merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract, or “apply it”, and generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use are not a practical application of the abstract idea. The same analysis applies here in Step 2B, i.e., merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract, or “apply it” (See MPEP 2106.05(f)), or generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., machine learning) (See MPEP 2106.05(h)) does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept at Step 2B.
Therefore, the additional elements discussed above do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept at Step 2B. Thus, even when viewed as a whole/ordered combination, nothing in the claims add significantly more (i.e., an inventive concept) to the abstract idea. Thus, the claim is ineligible.
Dependent claims 2-9 further recite details which merely narrow the previously recited abstract idea limitiaitions. For these reasons, as described above with respect to claim 1, these judicial exceptions are not meaningfully integrated into a practical application or significantly more than the abstract idea. Thus, claims 2-9 are also ineligible.
Claim 10 recites substantially the same abstract idea as claims 1 and 6-9 and is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
The additional element unencompassed by the abstract idea include a UQRB classifier of the multi-head attention-based binary classifier. The abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because the additional element merely serves to generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., machine learning) (See MPEP 2106.05(h)).
The claim does not include limitations sufficient, either alone or in combination, to amount to significantly more than the claimed abstract idea because the aforementioned additional element merely links the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., machine learning) (See MPEP 2106.05(h)).
Claim 11 recites substantially the same abstract idea as claims 1 and 6-10, and is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
The additional element unencompassed by the abstract idea include an information retrieval system. The abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because the additional element merely serves as generic computer component on which the abstract idea is implemented. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
The claim does not include limitations sufficient, either alone or in combination, to amount to significantly more than the claimed abstract idea because the aforementioned additional element merely serves as generic computer component on which the abstract idea is implemented. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
Dependent claim 12 further recite details which merely narrow the previously recited abstract idea limitiaitions. For these reasons, as described above with respect to claims 1 and 6-11, these judicial exceptions are not meaningfully integrated into a practical application or significantly more than the abstract idea. Thus, claim 12 is also ineligible.
Claim 13 recites substantially the same abstract idea as claims 1 and 6-12 and is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
The additional element unencompassed by the abstract idea includes a generative AI source. The abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because the additional element merely serves to generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., artificial intelligence) (See MPEP 2106.05(h)).
The claim does not include limitations sufficient, either alone or in combination, to amount to significantly more than the claimed abstract idea because the aforementioned additional element merely links the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., artificial intelligence) (See MPEP 2106.05(h)).
Claim 14 recites substantially the same abstract idea as claims 1 and 6-13 and is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
The additional element unencompassed by the abstract idea includes a generative neural architecture. The abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because the additional element merely serves to generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., machine learnings) (See MPEP 2106.05(h)).
The claim does not include limitations sufficient, either alone or in combination, to amount to significantly more than the claimed abstract idea because the aforementioned additional element merely links the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., machine learnings) (See MPEP 2106.05(h)).
Claim 15 recites substantially the same abstract idea as claims 1 and 6-14, and is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
The additional element unencompassed by the abstract idea includes electronically sending data. The abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because the additional element merely serves as generic computer component on which the abstract idea is implemented. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
The claim does not include limitations sufficient, either alone or in combination, to amount to significantly more than the claimed abstract idea because the aforementioned additional element merely serves as generic computer component on which the abstract idea is implemented. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
Allowable over Prior Art
The claims are allowable over the prior art but subject to the above rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) and 35 U.S.C. 101.
The following is the closest prior art:
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0386214 to Ghoche et al. (hereinafter “Ghoche”. Ghoche discloses a natural language workflow policy generated for a workflow to solve customer support tickets, automatically generated from representative tickets. In a ticketing paradigm, there are Question/Answer pairs for a customer support issue corresponding to questions and corresponding answers. A database stores customer support data. This may include an archive of historical tickets, that includes the Question/Answer pairs.
U.S. Patent No. 10,410,626 to Sherstinsky et al. (hereinafter “Sherstinsky”). Sherstinsky discloses an automated response logic configured to generate an automated response to the inquiry, the automated response being based on the topic characteristics of the inquiry and including a pre-determined answer to the inquiry.
Kumar et al., "Automatic question-answer pair generation using Deep Learning," 2021 Third International Conference on Inventive Research in Computing Applications (ICIRCA), Coimbatore, India, 2021, pp. 794-799 (hereinafter “Kumar”). Kumar discloses creating wh-type questions from a paragraph and find its accurate answer as well. This research work introduces a Question Answer Generation (QAG) system by using a deep learning approach for combining Answer Extraction (AE), Question Generation (QG) and Question Answering (QA) models, and using a pre-trained language model - Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformers (BERT).
U.S. Patent Application 2017/0365020 to Banerjee et al. (hereinafter “Banerjee”). Banerjee discloses a rule database that includes an initial level of search restriction by implementing either a whitelist of sites to visit or a blacklist of sites to ignore.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) 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 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.
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/RUPANGINI SINGH/
Examiner, Art Unit 3628