Prosecution Insights
Last updated: May 29, 2026
Application No. 18/593,725

Entertainment Character Interaction Quality Evaluation and Improvement

Non-Final OA §102§103
Filed
Mar 01, 2024
Priority
May 19, 2023 — provisional 63/467,847
Examiner
ISKENDER, ALVIN ALIK
Art Unit
2654
Tech Center
2600 — Communications
Assignee
Disney Enterprises Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
48%
Grant Probability
Moderate
1-2
OA Rounds
1y 0m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 48% of resolved cases
48%
Career Allowance Rate
12 granted / 25 resolved
-14.0% vs TC avg
Strong +60% interview lift
Without
With
+60.3%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 3m
Avg Prosecution
12 currently pending
Career history
47
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
0.8%
-39.2% vs TC avg
§103
88.8%
+48.8% vs TC avg
§102
10.4%
-29.6% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 25 resolved cases

Office Action

§102 §103
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 . Allowable Subject Matter Claims 6-8, 15-17, 20 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. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action: A person shall be entitled to a patent unless – (a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. (a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Claim(s) 1-2, 4-5, 10-11, 13-14, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Gelfenbeyn (US 20230351118 A1). Claim 1: Gelfenbeyn discloses a system comprising: a hardware processor; ([0006]) a memory storing a software code; ([0006]) the hardware processor configured to execute the software code to: receive dialogue data, the dialogue data identifying a character, a storyline including the character, and a speech for the character intended to at least one of advance the storyline or achieve a goal of the speech; ([0072]: dialogue output; [0075]: language responses configured to advance goal and reflect a character personality) assess, using the dialogue data, a plurality of quality assurance (QA) metrics of the speech, the plurality of QA metrics including at least one of: (i) a fluency of the speech, (ii) a responsiveness of the speech to speech by an interaction partner of the character, (iii) a consistency of the speech with the goal of the speech, (iv) a consistency of the speech with a character profile of the character, or (v) a consistency of the speech with a story-world of the storyline; ([0050]: verify a relevancy of the response; [0064]-[0065]: process the text through a goals model) determine, using the plurality of QA metrics, whether the speech is suitable for advancing the storyline; ([0050]: verify a relevancy of the response; [0064]-[0065]: process the text through a goals model) when determining determines that the speech is suitable for advancing the storyline or achieving the goal, approve the speech; ([0050]: verify a relevancy of the response; [0064]-[0065]: process the text through a goals model) when determining determines that the speech is unsuitable for advancing the storyline or achieving the goal, flag the speech as being unsuitable. ([0050]-[0056]: control, modify, or filter LLM output) Claim 2: Elements of claim 1 are disclosed as described above. Gelfenbeyn further discloses the system wherein when determining determines that the speech is unsuitable for advancing the storyline or achieving the goal, the hardware processor is further configured to execute the software code to: at least one of: identify one or more segments of the speech determined to be unsuitable, or provide a recommendation for improving the speech to render the speech suitable. ([0028], [0050]: change words in the response or filter unsafe words) Claim 4: Elements of claim 1 are disclosed as described above. Gelfenbeyn further discloses the system further comprising: at least one trained machine learning (ML) model; ([0028]: LLM) wherein assessing at least one of the plurality of QA metrics is performed using the at least one trained ML model. ([0063]-[0064]: e.g. goals model) Claim 5: Elements of claim 4 are disclosed as described above. Gelfenbeyn further discloses the system wherein the at least one trained ML model comprises at least one of a large language model or a multimodal foundation model. ([0028]: LLM) Claims 10-11, 13-14, 19 contain limitations analogous to those described above and are thus rejected in a similar fashion. 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. Claim(s) 3, 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gelfenbeyn in view of Tiwari (US 20240070399 A1). Claim 3: Elements of claim 1 are disclosed as described above. Tiware discloses, but Gelfenbeyn does not disclose the system wherein the hardware processor is further configured to execute the software code to: display, via a user interface (UI), a summary of the dialogue data for review by a system administrator; (Figure 5: analysis of dialogue meant to be uttered by a digital character [0011]: manual review of dialogue) wherein assessing the plurality of QA metrics includes receiving one or more evaluations of the speech as input from the system administrator via the UI. (Figure 5: analysis of dialogue meant to be uttered by a digital character [0011] manual review of dialogue) It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to evaluate dialogue data with a human administrator as disclosed by Hida when performing the method of Gelfenbeyn because it constitutes the use of a known technique to improve similar methods in the same way. Claim 12 is analogous to claim 3 and is thus rejected in a similar fashion. Claim(s) 9, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gelfenbeyn in view of Hida (US 20240143942 A1). Claim 9: Gelfenbeyn further teaches the system wherein to assess the consistency of the speech with the story-world of the storyline, the hardware processor is further configured to execute the software code to: generate a vector projection of the speech into an embedding space; ([0061]: dialogue may be in the form of embeddings) compare the vector projection of the speech with a vector representation of a description of the story-world; ([0050], [0064]: use goals and dialogue embeddings to determine relevancy) Gelfenbeyn does not teach, but Hida does teach: wherein comparing comprises one of computing (i) a cosine similarity of the vector projection and the vector representation, or (ii) a Euclidean distance of the vector projection from the vector representation. ([0097], [0101]: semantic similarity) It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use semantic similarity to compare dialogue to a subject as it is a known metric for determining the degree of relevance (see Hida [0101]). Claim 18 is analogous to claim 9 and is rejected in a similar fashion. Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALVIN ISKENDER whose telephone number is (703)756-4565. The examiner can normally be reached M-F. 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, HAI PHAN can be reached at (571) 272-6338. 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. /ALVIN ISKENDER/ Examiner, Art Unit 2654 /HAI PHAN/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2654
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Mar 01, 2024
Application Filed
Apr 29, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102, §103 (current)

Precedent Cases

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
48%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+60.3%)
3y 3m (~1y 0m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 25 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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