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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 2/25/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant has amended claims 1, 8 and 15 in the amendment filed on 1/6/2026. Claims 1, 3-8, 10-15 and 17-20 are currently pending in the present application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 1/6/2026 with respect to the claims 1, 3-8, 10-15 and 17-20 have been considered but they are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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, 3-8, 10-15 and 17-20 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.
As per claims 1, 8 and 15; the claims recite “determining a next search phase using a search state classification model trained using training data comprising annotated initial queries” which the underlined feature renders the claims indefinite. The claims provide no guidance as when/how the “annotated initial queries” is being defined or identified as such. Furthermore, what condition and/or how the “initial queries” are being annotated in order to be utilized as training data, and whether the “initial query”, as received from the user and stored in in the search state database, is included in the “annotated initial queries”. Clarifications or corrections are respectfully required.
Note, the dependent claims are also rejected because they depend on and/or do not remedy the deficiencies inherited by their parent claims.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 3-8, 10-15 and 17-20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection as set forth in this Office action.
Reasons for Allowance
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
After further consideration of the prior arts of record and conducting different searches in PE2E - SEARCH, Similarity Search, Google Scholar, and ACM Digital Library, it appears that the prior arts of record such as Krishnan et al. (US 2025/0005050 A1) and Kumar et al. (US 2025/0191082 A1) do not disclose, teach or fairly suggest the limitations as a whole in the independent claims 1, 8 and 15.
The closest prior art, Krishnan et al. (US 2025/0005050 A1) involves in generating a search prompt based on an input portion of an online dialog involving a user of a computing device. The search prompt includes a dialog summarization instruction configured to instruct a generative artificial intelligence model to generate and output a dialog summary. The search prompt is sent to a first generative model. In response to the search prompt, a search query is generated and output by the first generative model based on the dialog summary. The search query is sent to a search system. Search result data is determined based on an execution of the search query by the search system. At least some of the search result data is included in an output portion of the online dialog. The output portion is configured to be displayed at the computing device in response to the input portion of the online dialog.
Another close prior art, Kumar et al. (US 2025/0191082 A1) involves in interactive prompting for a supply chain includes processing circuitry that constructs a knowledge graph based ontologies from a plurality of data sources, the ontologies being related to a product. In a turn-based dialog session, the processing circuitry receives a prompt for the product, identifies at least one ontology-level node in a first layer of the knowledge graph, and generates one or more sub-questions. The processing circuitry outputs the sub-questions via a large language model, receives responses to the sub-questions, identifies one or more second-level nodes in a second, middle layer of the knowledge graph based on the responses, and performs a multi-hop query to identify one or more instance-level nodes in the third layer of the knowledge graph. The processing circuitry outputs, via the large language model, text data corresponding to the instance-level nodes as an answer to the prompt.
Another cited prior art, Gharibi et al. (US 20250103746 A1) involves in providing a privacy aware semantic searching system. A system can include at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory and configured to receive a prompt to a target machine learning model and generate, via a semantic search machine learning model, a sensitivity score for the prompt based on a relevant of the prompt to a sensitive enterprise data. The system can use the score to redact sensitive data from the prompt. The system also can augment the prompt based on enterprise data to improve the prompt for processing by the machine leaning model. The system can include a pre-processing model for redacting and/or augmenting the prompt and a post-processing model for inserting or modifying the output of the machine learning model.
However, none of the prior arts, singular and any order combination, discloses the claimed limitations: “receiving, from a user, an initial query for a search; storing the initial query in a search state database; determining a next search phase using a search state classification model trained using training data comprising annotated initial queries to determine the next search phase based at least in part on the initial query stored in the search state database; and in response to determining the next search phase is a search phase of requesting additional user input, performing operations comprising: generating a user prompt for the user using the initial query; storing the user prompt in the search state database; displaying the user prompt to the user; and receiving, from the user, the user input in response to the user prompt”, as recited in the independent claims 1, 8 and 15. Theses claimed limitations when consider as a whole are allowable over the prior arts of records.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bai D. Vu whose telephone number is (571) 270-1751. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00 - 5:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Tony Mahmoudi can be reached at (571) 272-4078. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BAI D VU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2163 3/20/2026