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 .
Application Status
Present office action is in response to the amendment filed 08/18/2025. Claims 1, 3, 7-8, 13, 15-16, and 19 are amended. Claims 1-20 are currently pending in the application.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract idea without significantly more.
In regard to independent claim 7 analyzed as representative claim:
Step 1: Statutory Category?
Independent Claim 7 recites “a method comprising:”. Independent Claim 7 falls within the “process” category of 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Step 2A – Prong 1: Judicial Exception Recited?
The Independent Claim 7/Revised 2019 Guidance Table below identifies in italics the specific claim limitations found to recite an abstract idea and in bold the additional (non-abstract) claim limitations that are generic computer components.
Independent Claim 7
Revised 2019 Guidance
A method comprising:
A method (method) is a statutory
subject matter class. See 35 U.S.C.
§ 101 (“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.”).
[L1] receiving, from a first client device, an indication to start a narrative;
The “first client device” is an additional non-abstract limitation.
Receiving an indication to start a narrative represents insignificant extra-solution activity (i.e., data gathering). See 2019 Memorandum, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55 n.31; see also MPEP § 2106.05(g).
Abstract:, “receiving an indication to start a narrative …” could be performed as a mental process, i.e., concept performed in the human mind or using pencil and paper (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) and a “[c]ertain method[] of organizing human activity. . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)” to the extent that humans (person/educator) have long received written instructions and/or the sound of a bell to start a class (reading class).
[L2] generating, by a reading engine, a first chapter of the narrative based on the first client device, wherein the first chapter comprises a first set of challenge words;
The “reading engine” and “first client device” are additional non-abstract limitation.
Abstract:, “generating a first chapter of the narrative …” could be performed as a mental process, i.e., concept performed in the human mind or using pencil and paper (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) and a “[c]ertain method[] of organizing human activity. . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)” to the extent that humans (person/educator) have long generated text for student consumption, mentally and/or using pen and paper.
[L3] monitoring, by the reading engine, a reading of the first chapter by the first client device;
The “reading engine” and “first client device” are additional non-abstract limitation.
Abstract: “monitoring a reading of the first chapter” could be performed alternatively as a mental process, i.e., concept performed in the human mind or using pencil and paper (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) and a “[c]ertain method[] of organizing human activity. . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)” to the extent that humans (person/educator) have long observed students reading.
[L4] determining, by the reading engine, one or more low fluency words based on the reading of the first chapter of the narrative by the first client device;
The “reading engine” and “first client device” are additional non-abstract limitation.
Abstract: “determining one or more low fluency words based on the reading” could be performed alternatively as a mental process, i.e., concept performed in the human mind or using pencil and paper (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) and a “[c]ertain method[] of organizing human activity. . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)” to the extent that humans (person/educator) have long determined information mentally and/or using pen and paper.
[L5] providing, by the reading engine, two or more narrative options for continuing the narrative present in the first chapter;
The “reading engine” is an additional non-abstract limitation.
Abstract: “providing two or more narrative options for continuing the narrative present in the first chapter” could be performed alternatively as a mental process, i.e., concept performed in the human mind or using pencil and paper (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) and a “[c]ertain method[] of organizing human activity. . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)” to the extent that humans (person/educator) have long provided information verbally and/or in writing.
[L6] receiving, by the reading engine, a selection of a first narrative option of the two or more narrative options for continuing the narrative;
The “reading engine” is an additional non-abstract limitation.
Receiving a selection of a first narrative option of the two or more narrative options represents insignificant extra-solution activity (i.e., data gathering). See 2019 Memorandum, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55 n.31; see also MPEP § 2106.05(g).
Abstract:, “receiving selection of a first narrative option of the two or more narrative options” could be performed as a mental process, i.e., concept performed in the human mind or using pencil and paper (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) and a “[c]ertain method[] of organizing human activity. . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)” to the extent that humans (person/educator) have long received verbal or written information.
[L7a] automatically generating, by the reading engine, a complete second chapter of the narrative responsive to selection of the first narrative option, wherein: the second chapter comprises a second set of challenge words, the second set of challenge words comprises the one or more low fluency words;
The “reading engine” is an additional non-abstract limitation.
Abstract:, “a second chapter of the narrative responsive to selection of the first narrative option, wherein: the second chapter comprises a second set of challenge words, the second set of challenge words comprises the one or more low fluency words” could be performed as a mental process, i.e., concept performed in the human mind or using pencil and paper (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) and a “[c]ertain method[] of organizing human activity. . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)” to the extent that humans (person/educator) have long generated text for student consumption, mentally and/or using pen and paper.
[L7b] generating, by the reading engine, a second chapter of the narrative based on the first narrative option, wherein: the second chapter of the narrative is coherent with the first chapter of the narrative;
The “reading engine” is an additional non-abstract limitation.
Abstract:, “a second chapter of the narrative based on the first narrative option, wherein: the second chapter of the narrative is coherent with the first chapter of the narrative” could be performed as a mental process, i.e., concept performed in the human mind or using pencil and paper (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) and a “[c]ertain method[] of organizing human activity. . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)” to the extent that humans (person/educator) have long generated text for student consumption, mentally and/or using pen and paper.
It is apparent that, other than reciting the “first client device”, and “reading engine” additional non-abstract limitations noted in the Independent Claim 7/Revised 2019 Guidance Table above, nothing in the claim precludes the steps from practically being performed by a human as a certain method of organizing human activity. . . managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions), in the mind, and/or using pen and paper. The mere nominal recitation of the “first client device”, and “reading engine” and automation of a manual process does not take the claim out of the certain method of organizing human activity and mental processes groupings. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea under Step 2A: Prong 1.
Step 2A – Prong 2: Integrated into a Practical Application?
The body of the claim, as noted in the Independent Claim 7/Revised 2019 Guidance Table above, recites the additional limitations of the “first client device”, and “reading engine”. The originally filed Specification provides supporting exemplary descriptions of generic computer components: at least ¶ 34: … the operational environment 100 includes an application service 101, a reading engine 110, and client devices 120, 130 and 140. The application service 101 employs one or more server computers 103 co-located with respect to each other or distributed across one or more data centers. Example servers include web servers, application servers, virtual or physical servers, or any combination or variation thereof, of which computing system 1201 in Figure 12 is broadly representative; ¶ 35: The client devices 120, 130, and 140 communicate with application service 101 via one or more internets and intranets, the Internet, wired and wireless networks, local area networks (LAN s ), wide area networks (WAN s ), or any other type of network or combination thereof. Examples of the client devices 120, 130, and 140 may include personal computers, tablet computers, mobile phones, gaming consoles, wearable devices, Internet of Things (loT) devices and any other suitable devices, of which computing system 1201 in Figure 12 is also broadly representative, ¶ 36: … The applications may be natively installed and executed applications, web-based applications that execute in the context of a local browser application, mobile applications, streaming applications, or any other suitable type of application. Example services and resources provided by the application service 101 include front-end servers, application servers, content storage services, authorization and authentication services, and the like… ; ¶ 51: The system 300 includes the reading engine 310 and a client device 330, which may be the same or similar to the reading engine 110 and the client device 130, respectively …; ¶ 59: As part of the reading exercise, the student 350 reads the first chapter out loud. That is, the student verbalizes each word of the first chapter as sound 302. The sound 302 from the student 350 reading the first chapter is captured by a microphone 306. The microphone 306 may be part of the client device 330 or may be separate from the client device 330 but operably coupled to the client device 330 such to provide the sounds 302 from the student's reading to the reading application 321. The lack of details about “first client device”, and “reading engine” indicates that the above-mentioned additional elements are generic computer component, performing generic functions. See Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Erie Indem. Co., 850 F.3d 1315, 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (“The claimed mobile interface is so lacking in implementation details that it amounts to merely a generic component (software, hardware, or firmware) that permits the performance of the abstract idea, i.e., to retrieve the user-specific resources.”). The claim does not recite (i) an improvement to the functionality of a computer or other technology or technical field (see MPEP § 2106.05(a)); (ii) a “particular machine” to apply or use the judicial exception (see MPEP § 2106.05(b)); (iii) a particular transformation of an article to a different thing or state (see MPEP § 2106.05(c)); or (iv) any other meaningful limitation (see MPEP § 2106.05(e)). See 84 Fed. Reg. at 55. The claimed invention merely implements the abstract idea using instructions executed on generic computer components, as shown in bold above, and as supported in the above noted pertinent portions of the Specification. The instant claim merely uses a programmed computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea. See MPEP § 2106.05(f). The data gathering steps ([L1] and {L6}) reflect the type of extra-solution activity (i.e., activities in addition to the judicial exception) the courts have determined insufficient to transform judicially excepted subject matter into a patent-eligible application when they are claimed in a merely generic manner. See MPEP § 2106.05(g); see, e.g., CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“We have held that mere ‘[data-gathering] step[s] cannot make an otherwise nonstatutory claim statutory.”’ (alterations in original) (quoting In re Grams, 888 F.2d 835, 840 (Fed. Cir. 1989))); iLife Techs., Inc. v. Nintendo of Am., Inc., 839 F. App’x 534, 536–37 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (system that evaluates and communicates body movements using sensors without details for performing those functions merely recites a system for sensing information, processing collected information, and transmitting processed information, and merely gathering and processing data is an abstract idea). The instant claim as a whole merely uses computer instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer or, alternatively, merely uses a computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea. The claim limitations amount to merely indicating a field of use or technological environment (a computer) in which to apply a judicial exception and, as such, cannot integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. See MPEP § 2106.05(h). Hence, as per MPEP §§ 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h), the additional elements in claim 7, namely the “first client device”, and “reading engine” do not, either individually or in combination, integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Because the abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application, the claim is directed to the judicial exception. (Step 2A, Prong 2: NO).
Step 2B: Claim provides an Inventive Concept?
As discussed with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements in the claim amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. The same analysis applies here in Step 2B, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. The fact that the Specification (See Spec. ¶¶ 34, 35, 36, 51, 59) does not further describe the “first client device”, and “reading engine”, indicates that the additional elements are sufficiently well-known that the specification does not need to describe the particulars of such additional elements to satisfy 35 U.S.C. § 112(a). See MPEP 2106.05(d), as modified by the USPTO Berkheimer Memorandum. Hence, the additional elements are generic, well-understood, routine, and conventional computing elements. The use of the additional elements either alone or in combination amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept, and thus the claim is patent ineligible. (Step 2B: NO).
In regard to independent Claim 1:
Independent claim 1 recites “a system”, which falls within the “machine” category of 35 U.S.C. § 101. The claim recites a system comprising:” generic computer elements, namely, “one or more computer readable storage media”, “one or more processors”, “computing system”, “first client device”, and “reading engine”. Similarly to representative independent Claim 7, the additional elements are generic, well-understood, routine, and conventional computing elements performing steps similar to those of representative independent Claim 7. As a result, independent claim 1 is rejected similarly to representative independent Claim 7.
In regard to independent Claim 15:
Independent claim 15 recites “computer readable storage media”, which is interpreted, in view of the originally filed Specification (¶¶ 14, 15), to include patent-ineligible transitory signals because neither the claim nor the Specification defines “computer readable-media” so as to exclude transitory media. Consequently, the claimed “computer readable storage media” encompasses transitory media, which is not patent eligible. See Ex parte Mewherter, 107 USPQ2d 1857 (PTAB 2013) (precedential); see also In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1356–57 (Fed. Cir. 2007); and U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer Readable Media, 1351 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 212 (Feb. 23, 2010). (Step 1: NO).
However, because independent claim 15 could be amended to fall within a
statutory category, the subject matter eligibility analysis continues under that
assumption. The claim recites processor-executable instructions configured to cause one or more processors (generic, well-understood, routine, and conventional computing element(s)) to perform steps similarly to representative independent Claim 7, by the same elements of representative independent Claim 7. As a result, independent claim 15 is rejected similarly to representative independent Claim 7.
In regard to the dependent claims:
Dependent claims 2-6, 8-14 and 16-20 include all the limitations of respective independent claims 1, 7 and 15 from which they depend and as such recite the same abstract idea(s) noted above for respective independent claims 1, 7 and 15. None of the additional claim activities is used in some unconventional manner nor does any produce some unexpected result. Claims 2-6, 8-14 and 16-20 only provide more detailed limitations of the abstract idea, which do not make the abstract idea(s) any less abstract. Any additional claim elements are each recited as a generic component being used according to its conventional purpose in a conventional manner. See Spec., ¶¶ 34, 35, 36, 51, 59. The Examiner fails to see any claim activity used in some unconventional manner nor does any produce some unexpected result. An invocation to use known technology in the manner it is intended to be used for its ordinary purpose is both generic and conventional. As per MPEP §§ 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h), none of the limitations of claims 2-6, 8-14 and 16-20 integrates the judicial exception into a practical application. While dependent claims 2-6, 8-14 and 16-20 may have a narrower scope than respective independent claims 1, 7 and 15, no claim contains an “inventive concept” that transforms the corresponding claim into a patent-eligible application of the otherwise ineligible abstract idea(s). Therefore, dependent claims 2-6, 8-14 and 16-20 are not drawn to patent eligible subject matter as they are directed to (an) abstract idea(s) without significantly more.
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 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.
Claims 1, 3-9, 11, 12, 15-18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Blau-McCandliss et al. (US 20230142574 A1) (Blau-McCandliss) in view of Jenkins et al. (US 20070288411 A1) (Jenkins).
Re claims 1, 7 and 15:
[Claim 7] Blau-McCandliss teaches or at least suggests a method comprising: receiving, from a first client device, an indication to start a narrative (at least ¶ 3: machine may receive a user's selection of a document that contains some text, and the machine may respond by causing display of the user-selected document on a display screen, resulting in presentation of the text to the user); generating, by a reading engine, a first chapter of the narrative based on the first client device, wherein the first chapter comprises a first set of challenge words; monitoring, by the reading engine, a reading of the first chapter by the first client device; determining, by the reading engine, one or more low fluency words based on the reading of the first chapter of the narrative by the first client device; providing, by the reading engine, two or more narrative options for continuing the narrative present in the first chapter; receiving, by the reading engine, a selection of a first narrative option of the two or more narrative options for continuing the narrative; and generating, by the reading engine, a second chapter of the narrative based on the first narrative option, wherein: the second chapter comprises a second set of challenge words, the second set of challenge words comprises the one or more low fluency words (at least ¶ 16: generate custom text, and after presentation of first custom text generated by the machine, the machine captures audio data (e.g., via a microphone) resultant from the user reading the first custom text aloud. The machine may perform a linguistic analysis of the audio data to assess language skills of the user and accordingly update the skill profile of the user based on the linguistic analysis of the audio data. This updated skill profile may then form a basis for similarly generating more custom text, such as second custom text; ¶ 49: … the user 132 may specify one or more topics of interest in the interest profile 330 for use in generating the custom text in the operation 530, and the interest profile 330 may accordingly list the one or more topics specified by the user 132 … allowing the user 132 to select a specific topic of interest to learn about or study, while being provided with custom text that both discusses the specific topic and contains words specially selected for practicing skills or sub-skills in which the user 132 is deficient, proficient, or any suitable combination thereof; ¶ 59: … the custom text generator 430 previously generated first custom text (e.g., in performing an earlier instance of the operation 530), and now in the operation 830 (e.g., a second instance of the operation 530), the custom text generator 430 is generating second custom text. The second custom text may be generated based on the second set of words (e.g., as determined in the operation 820) …).
Blau-McCandliss appears to be silent on but Jenkins, which relates generally to improving cognitive skills in children (¶ 2), teaches or at least suggests receive, by the reading engine, a selection of a first narrative option of the two or more narrative options for continuing the narrative; and automatically generate, by the reading engine, a complete second chapter of the narrative responsive to selection of the first narrative option, wherein: the second chapter comprises a second set of challenge words, the second set of challenge words comprises the one or more low fluency words; and the second chapter of the narrative is coherent with the first chapter of the narrative (at least ¶ 33: The student may then be required to select a textual response from the plurality of textual responses to complete the paragraph; ¶ 209: students work with analogies in two ways, helping them to learn targeted vocabulary in the context of analogies, while also learning to analyze analogies and identify the semantic relationships they convey …; ¶ 227: analogies may be presented with context sentences that make the relationship explicit (e.g., "Banana is a kind of fruit, like cucumber is a kind of ______"). In subsequent levels, e.g., levels 2-4, the analogies may be presented in a non-supportive carrier sentence (e.g., "Banana is to fruit, as cucumber is to ______"); ¶¶ 244, 246, 248; ¶ 367: In a second task of this task group, specifically, a "build a summary" task, the student may be presented with the beginning of a summary, and may be required to complete it by selecting the remaining sentences. The student may be presented with a number (e.g., 4) of sentences and asked to click the one that comes next in the summary … This sequence may be repeated until the summary is completed; ¶ 417: in this task the student may be presented with partial summary of the passage, and may be required to select from among a plurality of sentence to best start/continue/complete the summary for the passage; ¶ 418: The student may be instructed to select the best sentence to start, continue, or complete, the summary for the passage; ¶ 480: All passages may include figurative language (e.g., metaphor) in context, and questioning may guide students to reflect on the meanings of this language; ¶ 505: The student may complete paragraphs by performing various tasks, such as sentence sequencing, where the student may re-order sentences of a paragraph into the correct sequence; and a paragraph cloze task (completion), in which the student may select the best sentence to fill in a blank in the paragraphs, where the sentence may be one of a variety of sentence types, such as, for example, a topic sentence, supporting argument, idiom, linking sentence, and so forth; ¶ 555: The passages may be presented in a set sequence emulating chapters that make up a book or sections that make up an article; ¶ 562: The passages within a level are related as though chapters in a story (fiction) or sections of an article (nonfiction)). Therefore, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have used the passage/analogy completion and word context features of Jenkins and to have modified Blau-McCandliss as claimed because this would amount to no more than applying known techniques to a known method (device, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007) (“The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.”).
[Claim 1] The claim recites a system comprising: one or more computer readable storage media; one or more processors operatively coupled with the one or more computer readable storage media; and an application comprising program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media that, when executed by the one or more processors, direct a computing system (at least Figure 1 and associated text) to at least perform steps similar to those of claim 7. Subsequently, independent claim 1 is rejected similarly to representative independent Claim 7.
[Claim 15] The claim recites a computer readable storage media comprising processor-executable instructions configured to cause one or more processors (at least Figure 1 and associated text) to perform steps similar to those of claim 7. Subsequently, independent claim 15 is rejected similarly to representative independent Claim 7.
Re claims 3 and 16:
[Claims 3 and 16] Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins teaches or at least suggests program instructions to generate, by the reading engine, the first chapter of the narrative based on the first client device cause, when executed by the one or more processors, to further direct the computing system to: determine, by the reading engine, user-based information associated with the first client device; determine, by the reading engine, a first set of challenge words based on the user-based information; and generate, by a content generator of the reading engine, the first chapter of the narrative based on the user-based information and the first set of challenge words (at least Blau-McCandliss: ¶ 15: … generate the custom text by selecting a reference document that contains a reference story and then modifying the reference story to incorporate the set of words determined (e.g., selected) based on the skill profile. The result is a modified reference document (e.g., a modified reference story) that includes the selected words …; ¶ 16: … the machine supports a recursive or otherwise adaptive approach to generate custom text, and after presentation of first custom text generated by the machine, the machine captures audio data (e.g., via a microphone) resultant from the user reading the first custom text aloud. The machine may perform a linguistic analysis of the audio data to assess language skills of the user and accordingly update the skill profile of the user based on the linguistic analysis of the audio data. This updated skill profile may then form a basis for similarly generating more custom text, such as second custom text).
[Claims 4, 11 and 17] As shown above, Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins teaches or at least suggests program instructions to generate, by a content generator of the reading engine, a second chapter based on the first narrative option, wherein the cover image for second chapter comprises one or more elements related to the first narrative option (at least Jenkins: ¶¶ 23, 24: providing a stimulus set may include providing a set of pictures and corresponding sentences comprising a plurality of pictures and corresponding sentences …; ¶ 227: analogies may be presented with context sentences that make the relationship explicit (e.g., "Banana is a kind of fruit, like cucumber is a kind of ______") …; ¶ 234: a set of pictures or illustrations and corresponding descriptive sentences may be provided; ¶¶ 285-288: a picture display 2408 is provided for displaying pictures, and a sentence box 2410 is included for constructing and displaying descriptive sentences … one of the words or phrases may at least partially describe the displayed picture, e.g., may be from a descriptive sentence (from the set of descriptive sentences) corresponding to the picture; ¶ 367: In a second task of this task group, specifically, a "build a summary" task, the student may be presented with the beginning of a summary, and may be required to complete it by selecting the remaining sentences. The student may be presented with a number (e.g., 4) of sentences and asked to click the one that comes next in the summary … This sequence may be repeated until the summary is completed). In the event the above interpretation of cover image is viewed as not being reasonable, it is common knowledge that reading materials have long been published with chapters, each with descriptive information generally presenting a title, title image, and all the pages for that chapter. As a result, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have used common knowledge of book publishing and modified Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins as claimed because this would amount to no more than applying known techniques to a known method (device, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007) (“The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.”).
[Claims 5 and 9] Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins teaches or at least suggests determining, by the reading engine, one or more additional low fluency words based on a reading of second chapter from the first client device; providing, by the reading engine, two or more additional narrative options for continuing the narrative present in the second chapter; receiving, by the reading engine, a selection of a second narrative option of the two or more additional narrative options; and generating, by the reading engine, a third chapter of the narrative based on the second narrative option, wherein: the third chapter comprises a third set of challenge words, the third set of challenge words comprising the one or more additional low fluency words; and the third chapter of the narrative is coherent with the second chapter of the narrative (at least Blau-McCandliss: ¶ 16: … the machine supports a recursive or otherwise adaptive approach to generate custom text, and after presentation of first custom text generated by the machine - first chapter to second chapter then second chapter to third chapter, and so forth and so on; ¶ 49: … the user 132 may specify one or more topics of interest in the interest profile 330 for use in generating the custom text in the operation 530, and the interest profile 330 may accordingly list the one or more topics specified by the user 132 … allowing the user 132 to select a specific topic of interest to learn about or study, while being provided with custom text that both discusses the specific topic and contains words specially selected for practicing skills or sub-skills in which the user 132 is deficient, proficient, or any suitable combination thereof).
Re claim 6:
[Claim 6] Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins teaches or at least suggests wherein the program instructions to determine, by the reading engine, the one or more low fluency words based on the reading of the first client device cause, when executed by the one or more processors, to further direct the computing system to: identify, by a pronunciation function of the reading engine, within the reading of the first chapter of the narrative one or more of: a mispronunciation; a repetition; an insertion; or an omission (at least Blau-McCandliss: ¶ 28: test the user 132 for proficiency or deficiency in … language skills; ¶ 56: audio data may be generated by (e.g., recorded by) the device 130 as a result of the user 132 reading aloud a first custom text that has been presented to the user 132 by the device 130. The linguistic analysis may detect one or more deficiencies, proficiencies, or any suitable combination thereof, in one or more language skills (e.g., pronunciation skills or sub-skills) by analyzing the voice of the user 132 as the user 132 reads the first custom text aloud …; ¶ 57: … the skill profile 320 may be updated to include a skill corresponding to a detected deficiency or proficiency in the ability of the user 132 to pronounce a word or a sub-component of a word).
[Claim 8] Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins teaches or at least suggests
wherein: monitoring, by the reading engine, the reading of the first chapter by the first client device further comprises receiving, by the reading engine, an audio stream from the first client device of a user of the first client device reading the first chapter; and determining, by the reading engine, one or more low fluency words based on the reading of the first client device further comprises identifying, by the reading engine, one or more low fluency words based on audio within the audio stream (at least Blau-McCandliss: ¶ 16: the machine supports a recursive or otherwise adaptive approach to generate custom text, and after presentation of first custom text generated by the machine, the machine captures audio data (e.g., via a microphone) resultant from the user reading the first custom text aloud. The machine may perform a linguistic analysis of the audio data to assess language skills of the user and accordingly update the skill profile of the user based on the linguistic analysis of the audio data; ¶ 28: test the user 132 for proficiency or deficiency in … language skills; ¶ 35: the skill profile 320 may be or include a language skill profile that specifies one or more language skills with respectively corresponding degrees of proficiency or deficiency for the user 132 …; ¶ 56: audio data may be generated by (e.g., recorded by) the device 130 as a result of the user 132 reading aloud a first custom text that has been presented to the user 132 by the device 130. The linguistic analysis may detect one or more deficiencies, proficiencies, or any suitable combination thereof, in one or more language skills (e.g., pronunciation skills or sub-skills) by analyzing the voice of the user 132 as the user 132 reads the first custom text aloud …; ¶ 57: … the skill profile 320 may be updated to include a skill corresponding to a detected deficiency or proficiency in the ability of the user 132 to pronounce a word or a sub-component of a word).
[Claims 12 and 20] Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins teaches or at least suggests determining, by the reading engine, one or more related words based on the low fluency words; and generating, by the reading engine, the second chapter of the narrative to include the one or more related words (Jenkins: ¶¶ 23, 24: providing a stimulus set may include providing a set of pictures and corresponding sentences comprising a plurality of pictures and corresponding sentences …; ¶ 227: analogies may be presented with context sentences that make the relationship explicit (e.g., "Banana is a kind of fruit, like cucumber is a kind of ______") …; ¶ 234: a set of pictures or illustrations and corresponding descriptive sentences may be provided; ¶¶ 285-288: a picture display 2408 is provided for displaying pictures, and a sentence box 2410 is included for constructing and displaying descriptive sentences … one of the words or phrases may at least partially describe the displayed picture, e.g., may be from a descriptive sentence (from the set of descriptive sentences) corresponding to the picture; ¶ 367: In a second task of this task group, specifically, a "build a summary" task, the student may be presented with the beginning of a summary, and may be required to complete it by selecting the remaining sentences. The student may be presented with a number (e.g., 4) of sentences and asked to click the one that comes next in the summary … This sequence may be repeated until the summary is completed).
[Claim 18] Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins appears to be silent on processor-executable instructions stored in the computer readable storage media to: generate, by the reading engine, a title for the second chapter of the narrative, wherein the title of the chapter corresponds to the first narrative option. However, it is common knowledge that reading materials have long been published with chapters, each with descriptive information generally presenting a title, the title being associated with a topic/subject/theme of the chapter. As a result, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have used common knowledge of book publishing and modified Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins as claimed because this would amount to no more than applying known techniques to a known method (device, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007) (“The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.”).
Claims 2 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins, as applied to claims 1 and 7 and further in view of Fletcher et al. (US 20100092930 A1) (Fletcher).
Re claims 2 and 10:
[Claims 2 and 10] Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins appears to be silent on providing, to a content generator, continuity information for the second chapter of the narrative, wherein the continuity information comprises: information on first chapter of the narrative; and the one or more low fluency words; and generating, by the content generator, the second chapter of the narrative based on the continuity information and the first narrative option. However, the concept and advantages of providing continuity to a contextual story were old and well-known at the time before the effective filing date of the invention, as evident in Fletcher (at least ¶ 14: … The story object 150 may alternatively be added to the blank story scene 130 by clicking, selecting from a menu, or through any suitable interaction; ¶ 19: the step of providing a blank story scene is preferably a user-generated scene from a previous round. This variation functions to provide continuity to the contextual story, and the user preferably updates the user-generated scene to match a current contextual story; ¶ 20: The story objects are preferably displayed as graphics but may alternatively be text, audio, a video, or any suitable multimedia content; ¶ 21: The creating of a user-generated scene is preferably performed through computer interactions such as dragging and dropping actions, selecting from menus, clicking buttons, and/or through any suitable interaction. Creating a user-generated scene preferably includes the sub-steps of adding story objects to the blank story scene S420, adding story objects to a second story object S440, removing, rearranging, or modifying story objects S460 and/or changing a blank story scene S480). Therefore, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have used the continuity to a contextual story feature of Fletcher and modified Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins as claimed because this would amount to no more than applying known techniques to a known method (device, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007) (“The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.”).
Claims 13 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins, as applied to claims 7 and 15 and further in view of Hoover et al. (US 20150154174 A1) (Hoover).
Re claims 13 and 19:
[Claims 13 and 19] Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins appears to be silent on submitting, by the reading engine, the second chapter of the narrative to a quality assurance engine; validating, by the quality assurance function, one or more quality parameters for the second chapter of the narrative; and generating, by the quality assurance function, a quality score for the second chapter of the narrative based on the one or more quality parameters. However, the concept and advantages of using quality control were old and well-known at the time before the effective filing date of the invention, as evident in Hoover (at least ¶ 15: determining a quality of writing metric for the text … ; ¶ 69: … a quality assurance facility to determine how to improve content…; ¶ 17: a system of grammar checking may comprising a grammar checking facility for inferring the quality of content in a text passage …; ¶ 18:… grammar checking may comprise providing a grammar checking facility to grammar check a body of text provided by a device in order to improve the grammatical correctness of the text; executing a process on the grammar checking facility …; ¶ 19: …grammar checking may comprising a grammar checking facility integrated into a computing environment to analyze device generated text for grammatical errors …; ¶ 46: FIG. 24 … grammar checking facility utilizing a rateit engine in association with grammar quality …; ¶ 110: the proofit engine may utilize the text processing engine to verify the corrected error; ¶ 111: … quality assurance algorithms …; ¶ 114: FIG. 23, the text processing engine 102 may optionally send an error 2302B that has been automatically corrected to the proofit engine, such as for verification, and the like; ¶ 119: … The grammar checking facility may also use industry-standard redundancy and quality assurance algorithms …). Therefore, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have used the grammar-checking facility of Hoover and modified Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins as claimed because this would amount to no more than applying known techniques to a known method (device, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007) (“The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.”).
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins, as applied to claim 7 and further in view of Musgrove (US 20060235870 A1).
Re claim 14:
[Claim 14] Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins appears to be silent on submitting, by the reading engine, the first chapter and the second chapter of the narrative to a coherency inspector; and generating, by the coherency inspector, a coherency score for the first chapter and the second chapter of the narrative. However, the concept and advantages of interlinking differing taxonomies of corpora were old and well-known at the time before the effective filing date of the invention, as evident in Musgrove (at least ¶ 20: the clustering module determines relatedness scores between electronic documents of the first and second plurality of electronic documents which is indicative of degree to which identified documents are related to each other; ¶ 62: the clustering module 70 determines relatedness scores between electronic documents of the first and second plurality of electronic documents that indicate the degree to which identified documents are related to each other …; ¶ 86: the electronic documents are analyzed to determine how the documents are related to one another, and are assigned a relatedness score. The table 80 lists the document numbers in a matrix, and displays the determined relatedness scores in the corresponding fields … the table 80 of the illustrated example screen shot shows that electronic document 1 is perfectly related to electronic document 1 with a relatedness score of 100, as expected. Electronic document 2 is related to electronic document 1 by a relatedness score of 16, while document 7 is related to document 5 by a relatedness score of 48, and so forth). Hence, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have used the interlinking differing taxonomies of corpora features of Musgrove and modified Blau-McCandliss in view of Jenkins as claimed because this would amount to no more than applying known techniques to a known method (device, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007) (“The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.”).
Response to Arguments
§112 Rejections
The previous rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) are withdrawn in view of Applicant’s amendment.
§101 Rejections
Step 2A, Prong One - The Claims Are Not Directed to a Judicial Exception Applicant first argues that “As held in Ex parte Xu, Appeal No. 2018-002082, even if claim elements could theoretically be performed in the human mind, they are not directed to a mental process if doing so would render the system so slow or impractical that it lacks utility. That principle directly applies here. Attempting to manually monitor fluency during a live reading session, determine challenge words in real time, and author a coherent narrative branch tailored to both the story arc and the reader's fluency profile is not feasible for a human to execute with sufficient speed or accuracy to be useful. The impracticality is further highlighted in the educational environment
where an instructor would be required to perform the recited steps for multiple students
simultaneously, in real-time. As the application makes clear, the utility of the claimed system arises precisely from the automated, real-time responsiveness provided by the reading engine”. Applicant’s arguments have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The asserted “automated, real-time responsiveness provided by the reading engine” is merely a be