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 .
Applicant’s filing dated 03/20/2024 has been received and made of record.
Application 18/611,225 claims the benefit of Provisional Application 63/460,194, filed 04/18/2023.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending in Application 18/611,225.
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 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claim is drawn to "A machine-storage medium". The specification exemplifies the readable medium as including transmission or communication media such as a "carrier wave" (see Paragraph [0263], ““Machine-readable storage medium” refers to both machine-storage media and transmission media”). Thus, the claim as a whole covers a transitory signal, which does not fall into any of the four statutory categories of invention (process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter). Note that Applicant has also redefined the term “non-transitory machine-readable storage medium” to include transmission media (see Paragraph [0266]). Examiner recommends that Applicant amend the claim language and the specification to clarify that only a non-transitory storage medium (not including a transmission medium) is covered by claim 15 (and its dependent claims).
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter, specifically an abstract idea or mental process without significantly more. Representative claims 1, 8, and 15 recite a method, machine, and medium for providing a chatbot response in a group chat by means of receiving a mention including a chat prompt, generating a prompt from the chatbot mention, generating a response to the prompt, and providing the prompt to the group chat. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because they amount to an abstract idea or mental process not tied to any particular application beyond conversation. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements provided by the claim amount to merely using a computer as a tool to apply an abstract idea, or instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer. As such, the limitations are directed towards the abstract grouping of abstract ideas or mental processes in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) II).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (see MPEP 2106.04(d)), the additional elements provided by the claim amount to merely using a computer as a tool to apply an abstract idea, or instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer, which are recited at a high level of generality and are the mere use of a computer as a tool to perform the abstract ideas. See MPEP 2106.05(f). Simply applying the abstract idea by means of generic computing components is not a practical application of the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), the claim does not apply the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)), the claim does not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (MPEP 2106.05(c)), and the claim does not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e)).
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claim recites the additional limitations of generic computer elements which do not constitute “significantly more”. As such, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claim is directed to abstract ideas.
The dependent claims also do not recite any limitations that would remedy the deficiencies outlined above and are therefore subject to the same rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-2, 5, 7-9, 12, 14-16, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koh (US 2019/0392926 A1) and further in view of Greyboi (“Prompt Engineering: Pre-prompting to improve your chatbot’s semantic lookup”).
Regarding claims 1, 8, and 15 Koh discloses A method (Koh: Claim 1, “method”)/machine (Koh: Claim 15, “system”)/machine-storage medium storing executable instructions that, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations (Koh: Paragraph [0047], “a controller including at least one processor 220 (e.g., CPU) and at least one memory device 230 (which can include one or more computer-readable storage mediums)”) comprising:
one or more processors (Koh: Paragraph [0047], “a controller including at least one processor 220 (e.g., CPU) and at least one memory device 230 (which can include one or more computer-readable storage mediums)”);
and one or more memories storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the machine to perform operations (Koh: Paragraph [0047], “a controller including at least one processor 220 (e.g., CPU) and at least one memory device 230 (which can include one or more computer-readable storage mediums)”) comprising:
receiving, by one or more processors (Koh: Paragraph [0047], “a controller including at least one processor 220 (e.g., CPU) and at least one memory device 230 (which can include one or more computer-readable storage mediums)”), a chatbot mention message from a user system of a user in a group chat session, the chatbot mention message comprising a chatbot prompt created by the user (Koh: Paragraph [0094], “ displaying a response by the AI medical assistant in response to a user input 1110 within a conversation with one or more other users (e.g., individual chat, group chat)… user input 110 may include a callout or tag (e.g., “@ [assistant name]”) accompanying a particular user query to invite a response from the AI medical assistant though the user is not directly in a one-on-one conversation with the AI medical assistant”);
generating, by the one or more processors, a chatbot response message using the prompt (Koh: Figure 4B and Paragraph [0068], “a response to the user input may be generated (450) based at least in part on the ranked relevance scores for content candidates”);
and providing, by the one or more processors, the chatbot response message to one or more other user systems of one or more other users in the group chat session (Koh: Paragraph [0094], “ displaying a response by the AI medical assistant in response to a user input 1110 within a conversation with one or more other users (e.g., individual chat, group chat)… user input 110 may include a callout or tag (e.g., “@ [assistant name]”).
Koh does not explicitly disclose generating, by the one or more processors, a prompt using the chatbot mention message.
However, Greyboi teaches generating, by the one or more processors, a prompt using the chatbot mention message (Greyboi: Page 4, “every time I prompt for the next bot response, I include relevant chunks of the youtube document (alternatively this could be chat history), by taking the user’s input, generating an embedding, grabbing the most relevant results in embedding distance order from the vector db, and stuffing them in the prompt”).
Koh and Greyboi are analogous art in the same field of endeavor as the instant invention as both are drawn to chatbot systems. 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; that is, it would have been obvious to incorporate Greyboi’s enhanced prompting into the system of Koh to allow for improved natural language processing and results.
Koh-Greyboi teaches 2/9/16. The method of claim 1/machine of claim 8/medium of claim 15, further comprising:
storing, by the one or more processors, one or more stored chatbot mention messages and one or more stored chatbot response messages associated with the user (Greyboi: Page 4, “every time I prompt for the next bot response, I include relevant chunks of the youtube document (alternatively this could be chat history), by taking the user’s input, generating an embedding, grabbing the most relevant results in embedding distance order from the vector db, and stuffing them in the prompt”);
and generating a context for the prompt using the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more stored chatbot response messages (Greyboi: Page 4, “every time I prompt for the next bot response, I include relevant chunks of the youtube document (alternatively this could be chat history), by taking the user’s input, generating an embedding, grabbing the most relevant results in embedding distance order from the vector db, and stuffing them in the prompt”).
Koh-Greyboi teaches 5/12/19. The method of claim 2/machine of claim 9/medium of claim 16, wherein the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more stored chatbot response messages are associated with two or more users in the group chat session, and wherein the method further comprises generating, by the one or more processors, a context for the prompt for each user of the group chat session using the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more stored chatbot response messages (Greyboi: Page 4, “every time I prompt for the next bot response, I include relevant chunks of the youtube document (alternatively this could be chat history), by taking the user’s input, generating an embedding, grabbing the most relevant results in embedding distance order from the vector db, and stuffing them in the prompt”; Koh: Paragraph [0066], “user intent and/or medical content may additionally or alternatively be predicted based at least in part on a user's previous search history and/or previous terminology (in chat conversations, note-taking, etc.)”; it is implicit or would be obvious that group messages would be considered for context in the combined system of Koh-Greyboi).
Koh-Greyboi teaches 7/14. The method of claim 1/machine of claim 8, wherein generating the response comprises generating the response using a persona of the chatbot (Koh: Paragraphs [0065] and [0068], “colloquial or shorthand medical terminology may be “learned” by user feedback and used to adjust relevance scores appropriately… the conversation simulator 332 may be configured to present the medical content in a colloquial manner”; the style of the chatbot, which may be user or area specific, can be considered a persona).
Claim(s) 3-4, 10-11, and 17-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koh (US 2019/0392926 A1) and Greyboi (“Prompt Engineering: Pre-prompting to improve your chatbot’s semantic lookup”) as applied above and further in view of Peterson (“You Can Save Your ChatGPT Conversations for Later”).
Koh-Greyboi teaches 3/10/17. The method of claim 2/machine of claim 9/medium of claim 16.
Koh-Greyboi does not explicitly disclose in response to receiving, by the one or more processors, a delete message request from the user, deleting the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more stored chatbot response messages.
However, Peterson teaches this feature (Peterson: Page 3, “It’s easy to delete conversations, if you want: Choose the conversation in question, select the trash can icon, then choose the checkmark to delete it. You can also clear your entire conversation history from the “Clear conversations” options towards the bottom of the sidebar”).
Koh-Greyboi and Peterson are analogous art in the same field of endeavor as the instant invention as both are drawn to chatbot systems. 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; that is, it would have been obvious to incorporate Peterson’s description of conversation deletion into the system of Koh-Greyboi for greater user control of privacy and context.
Koh-Greyboi-Peterson teaches 4/11/18. The method of claim 3/machine of claim 10/medium of claim 17, wherein deleting the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more chatbot prompt messages comprises immediately deleting the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more chatbot prompt messages from a short-term datastore, and deleting the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more chatbot prompt messages from a long term datastore using a message deletion policy (Peterson: Page 3, “It’s easy to delete conversations, if you want: Choose the conversation in question, select the trash can icon, then choose the checkmark to delete it. You can also clear your entire conversation history from the “Clear conversations” options towards the bottom of the sidebar”; this procedure would delete the conversation from both short-term working memory (RAM) and long-term storage (disk) at ChatGPT’s servers).
Claim(s) 3-4, 10-11, and 17-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koh (US 2019/0392926 A1) and Greyboi (“Prompt Engineering: Pre-prompting to improve your chatbot’s semantic lookup”) as applied above and further in view of Jayaraman (US 2024/0303739 A1).
Koh-Greyboi teaches 3/10/17. The method of claim 2/machine of claim 9/medium of claim 16.
Koh-Greyboi does not explicitly disclose in response to receiving, by the one or more processors, a delete message request from the user, deleting the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more stored chatbot response messages.
However, Jayaraman teaches this feature (Jayaraman: Paragraph [0106], “during the virtual chat communication session, a user, via a client device executing a software application associated with a financial institution over a communication network, may transmit a verbal or textual command to a virtual support agent (a human support agent or an automated support agent/chatbot) associated with the financial institution. The verbal or textual command may be to: erase/delete all data and information associated with a current virtual chat communication session from any memory, and/or (2) erase/delete in its entirety from memory, the data and information associated with a previous virtual chat communication session (i.e., a virtual chat communication session that was conducted temporally before the current virtual chat communication session), and/or (3) erase/delete from memory selective portions of a previous virtual chat communication session (i.e., a virtual chat communication session that was conducted temporally before the current virtual chat communication session)”).
Koh-Greyboi and Jayaraman are analogous art in the same field of endeavor as the instant invention as both are drawn to chatbot systems. 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; that is, it would have been obvious to incorporate Jayaraman’s conversation deletion feature into the system of Koh-Greyboi for greater user control of privacy.
Koh-Greyboi-Jayaraman teaches 4/11/18. The method of claim 3/machine of claim 10/medium of claim 17, wherein deleting the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more chatbot prompt messages comprises immediately deleting the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more chatbot prompt messages from a short-term datastore, and deleting the one or more stored chatbot mention messages and the one or more chatbot prompt messages from a long term datastore using a message deletion policy (Jayaraman: Paragraph [0106], “during the virtual chat communication session, a user, via a client device executing a software application associated with a financial institution over a communication network, may transmit a verbal or textual command to a virtual support agent (a human support agent or an automated support agent/chatbot) associated with the financial institution. The verbal or textual command may be to: erase/delete all data and information associated with a current virtual chat communication session from any memory, and/or (2) erase/delete in its entirety from memory, the data and information associated with a previous virtual chat communication session (i.e., a virtual chat communication session that was conducted temporally before the current virtual chat communication session), and/or (3) erase/delete from memory selective portions of a previous virtual chat communication session (i.e., a virtual chat communication session that was conducted temporally before the current virtual chat communication session)”; this procedure would delete the conversation from both short-term working memory (RAM) and long-term storage (disk) at the institution’s servers).
Claim(s) 6, 13, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koh (US 2019/0392926 A1) and Greyboi (“Prompt Engineering: Pre-prompting to improve your chatbot’s semantic lookup”) as applied above and further in view of Bowerman (US 8250192 B2).
Koh-Greyboi teaches 6/13/20. The method of claim 1/machine of claim 8/medium of claim 15.
Koh-Greyboi does not explicitly disclose in response to determining, by the one or more processors, that the chatbot mention message is a first chatbot mention message in the group chat session, providing a chatbot notification describing an operation of the chatbot to one or more users in the group chat session.
However, Bowerman teaches this feature (Bowerman: Claim 1, “wherein the command consists of one of a request for help information to obtain a list of commands”; the “first chatbot mention message” can be interpreted specifically as any particular chatbot mention message, including a “help” command sent to the chatbot; if Applicant intends for this to be understood instead as “the first (chronologically) time a chatbot is mentioned”, the claim language should be amended accordingly).
Koh-Greyboi and Bowerman are analogous art in the same field of endeavor as the instant invention as both are drawn to chatbot systems. 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; that is, it would have been obvious to incorporate Bowerman’s help information into the system of Koh-Greyboi for improved ease of use.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Harden (US 2016/0094506 A1) describes a chatbot being invoked within a group chat session to provide social media features.
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/IMAD HUSSAIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453