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 .
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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.
Claims 1 and 2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (Publication No. 2013/0227104 filed July 20, 2012) and Lai et al. (Publication No. 2018/0109485 filed September 21, 2017, hereinafter Lai).
Regarding Claim 1, Lee teaches a communities index database (see figure 3, element 400, community index database) configured to host one or more communities ([0073] the hosting of one or more communities is providing by an allocation to each community a community group ID, the community group ID to each of the communities identifies the community group to which the corresponding community belongs), wherein the communities index database indexes information with user input regarding information for each of the one or more communities (see [0087] a user interface allowing a user to input search condition information and receive search condition information that is a topic-based user query. See [0084] the topic-based community index generation provides a user of the community with a diversity of topics.)
Lee teaches an agent configured to access the information ([0064] the community networking managing unite create a community network to include the communities extracted by the community extracting unit) and user input indexed in the communities index database (see [0087] a user interface allowing a user to input search condition information and receive search condition information that is a topic-based user query. See [0084] the topic-based community index generation provides a user of the community with a diversity of topics) and provide a search function to members of each of the one or more communities ([0087] For example, the community searching unit 500 provides a user interface allowing the user to input the search condition information, and receive the search condition information that is a topic-based user query. The community searching unit 500 also searches for a community group corresponding to the input search condition information from the community index database 400.).
However, Lee does not expressly teach a user interface that controls and grants access to the one or more communities with access limited to members of each of the one or more communities, wherein the user interface comprises a submission interface configured to allow a user to designate information to be indexed in the one or more communities, wherein the submission interface enables a user to provide the user input regarding the information.
Lai teaches a user interface that controls and grants access to the one or more communities with access limited to members of each of the one or more communities (see [0083] figure 7 includes a graphical user interface that displays an access model customization window, the access model window allows a system administrator or authorized community member to customize the rights and restrictions a user has to initiate actions and retrieve social network data in one or more communities), wherein the user interface comprises a submission interface configured to allow a user to designate information to be indexed in the one or more communities (see [0113- 0115] user Eddie is having difficulty finding information regarding investment for retirement information on company Charles’ public website. User Eddie enters into company Charles community homepage. At Charles’ website, Eddie enters his user ID and password. Now, Eddie is a customer of the Charles organization. Eddie click on an ask button. His question is posted to Mary Lin’s profile feed. Mary Lin is a customer service representative at company Charles. Mary can now enter a comment in response to Eddie’s post. Mary Lin has created a CRM object in the form of a case to work on Eddie’s question and track the progress of her investigation. The submission interface including Charles community homepage where customer Eddie accesses his profile page by clicking on a tab. Eddie is prompted with a notification to link his Charles user profile with one or more social networking systems identified in pane (element 1308). Eddie can enter a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn user ID and password. The designated information to be indexed in the one or more communities is customer Eddie’s profile. Eddie’s profile information is linked to one or more social networking systems that are identified in pane (element 1308). Further, customer Eddie’s profile (e.g., user ID and password) from social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are stored in one or more user ID database tables maintained to identify members of the Charles community (e.g. designated information is now indexed in one or more communities ), wherein the submission interface enables a user to provide the user input regarding the information (a user, customer service representative, Mary Lin, creates a CRM object in the form of a case work on Eddie’s question (e.g., user input regarding the information)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate the concept of Lee’s method of generating community information for groups belonging to one or more communities with the method of Lai’s generating community information because Lee’s generating community information includes a topic-based community where topics are generated and shared by members of the vast community network but does not include granting access to the one or more communities with access limited to members of each of the one or more communities. Lai teaches granting access to the one or more communities with access limited to members of each of the one or more communities including an identified community and monitoring the community’s feed and access files stored for that community. Incorporating the granting access to the one or more communities with access limited to members by Lai into the generating community information method of Lee would improve Lee’s generating community information to enable the community members to access other community topics of various communities within a social networking environment while limiting access to confidential information of each community subscribed within the social networking sites.
Regarding Claim 2, Lee teaches a search function of the agent provides access to the web in addition to the information and user input indexed in the communities index database ([0024] The community searching unit is further configured to search the community index database for a hierarchical structure of the topic included in the search condition information, a community group corresponding to the topic, and communities belonging to the community group corresponding to the topic.).
Claims 3-14 and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable Lee (Publication No. 2013/0227104 filed July 20, 2012) and Lai et al. (Publication No. 2018/0109485 filed September 21, 2017, hereinafter Lai) over as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Pemble et al. (Patent No. 10,740,416 filed August 4, 2016, hereinafter Pemble).
Regarding Claim 3, Lee teaches a website (see [0006], websites).
Lai teaches a website ([0027] community-specific web pages).
Lee nor Lai teach the user interface comprises a browser extension and a website.
However, Pemble teaches the user interface comprises a browser extension and a website (column 7, lines 39-45, column 8, lines 25-38, web browser extension).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the concept of Lee’s and Lai’s method of generating community information with the method of Pemble’s web browser extension because Lee’s generation of community information includes a topic-based community where topics are generated and shared by members of the vast community network but does not include a browser extension. Lai’s generation of community information includes multiple communities of a social networking system but does not include a browser extension. Pemble teaches a web browser extension including being associated with an online resource browsing component. Incorporating the browsing extension by Pemble into the generation of community information methods of Lee and Lai would improve Lee’s and Lai’s generation of community information to enable the web browser extension to present a web interface for providing information about entities information associated with entity entries in an entity database.
Regarding Claim 4, Pemble teaches the user interface is configured to accept user submissions from the browser extension and the website (column 7, lines 39-45, column 8, lines 25-38, web browser extension).
Regarding Claim 5, Lai teaches the agent provides automatic search results and generated questions through the response to a selection of a portion of a web page by the user (see [0115] Eddie enters a question (element 1504); Eddie clicks an ask button (element 1512) the question; Mary can then enter a comment (element 1608) in response to Eddie’s post (element 1504)).
Regarding Claim 6, Lee teaches the automatic search results are provided by the agent via a search of the communities database ([0046] The term “query plan” generally refers to one or more operations used to access information in a database system.).
Regarding Claim 7, Lai teaches the user interface is configured to permit a user to indicate satisfaction of automatic search results an interaction database that saves coupling of results ([0140] save/saved) that satisfy user needs with the web page (customer service representative, Mary Lin, provides a solution to customer Eddie’s question, see [0118], also additional conditions is satisfied [0101]).
Regarding Claim 8, Lai teaches the user interface is configured to permit a user to indicate satisfaction of an automatic search result provided by the agent, an interactions database saves coupling results that satisfy user needs with a web page viewed by a user that provided the automatic search result (customer service representative, Mary Lin, provides a solution to customer Eddie’s question, see [0118], also additional conditions is satisfied [0101]).
Regarding Claim 9, Lai teaches a user to select portions of a web page to cause the agent to provide automatic the agent to provide automatic search results and generated questions ((see [0115] Eddie enters a question (element 1504); Eddie clicks an ask button (element 1512) the question; Mary can then enter a comment (element 1608) in response to Eddie’s post (element 1504))), the automatic search results are provided from the communities index wherein the user interface is further configured to allow the user to accept the automatic search results or conduct further searching of the communities index and the web ((see [0113- 0115] community index and the web).
Regarding Claim 10, Pemble teaches a search and a cache (column 17, line 67, cache (element 704)). Lee teaches a search index and the index (see [0087] a user interface allowing a user to input search condition information and receive search condition information that is a topic-based user query.) of communities index database (see figure 3, element 400, community index database).
Regarding Claim 11, Lai teaches the user interface provides a community search which can be limited communities index database to user submissions or particular communities from among the one or more communities ([0106] users having access to particular communities).
Regarding Claim 12, Lai teaches the user interface comprises automatically capturing a URL of a website when the user launches the viewing of the website (see [0091] “URL orgb.force.com/community-orgb1”).
Regarding Claim 13, Lai teaches accepting the user input regarding a submission of a web page or portion of a web page into the communities index ([0103] accepting the submission to gain access to a community).
Regarding Claim 14, Lai teaches allowing users to add submissions to the communities and continuously update their content to reflect utility of the submissions with response to a submission being added and previous submissions in the communities ([0040] information updates presented as items or entries in the feed; [0041] updates/changes to the record).
Regarding Claim 16, Lai teaches the agent provides a user with a list of recommended submissions related to the user’s selected context on a web page being viewed and grouped by what has been submitted by the user (Lai includes a means which essentially comprises recommending, see [0091] where user and one or more communities are prompted to enter user credentials, see [0119] the an “advisor” community tab (element 2412)).
Regarding Claim 17, Lai teaches the agent accesses stored information in the information index database about users including submissions and user behaviors to personalize search results and generated questions for each of the users (personalization is based on the user or the individual community [0053]).
Claims 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (Publication No. 2013/0227104 filed July 20, 2012) and Pemble et al. (Patent No. 10,740,416 filed August 4, 2016, hereinafter Pemble).
Regarding Claim 18, Lee teaches user interfaces to add to and access a communities index database (see figure 3, element 400, community index database) that hosts one or more communities ([0073] the hosting of one or more communities is providing by an allocation to each community a community group ID, the community group ID to each of the communities identifies the community group to which the corresponding community belongs) wherein the communities index database indexes information with user input regarding the information for each of the one or more communities (see [0087] a user interface allowing a user to input search condition information and receive search condition information that is a topic-based user query. See [0084] the topic-based community index generation provides a user of the community with a diversity of topics.); the user interfaces comprising a search interface to the communities index database; and access to an agent configured to access the information ([0064] the community networking managing unite create a community network to include the communities extracted by the community extracting unit) and user input indexed in the communities index database and provide a search function to members of each of the one or more communities (see [0087] a user interface allowing a user to input search condition information and receive search condition information that is a topic-based user query. See [0084] the topic-based community index generation provides a user of the community with a diversity of topics; and [0087] For example, the community searching unit 500 provides a user interface allowing the user to input the search condition information, and receive the search condition information that is a topic-based user query. The community searching unit 500 also searches for a community group corresponding to the input search condition information from the community index database 400.).
However, Lee does not expressly teach a browser extension.
Pemble teaches a browser extension (column 7, lines 39-45, column 8, lines 25-38, web browser extension).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the concept of Lee’s method of generating community information with the method of Pemble’s web browser extension because Lee’s generation of community information includes a topic-based community where topics are generated and shared by members of the vast community network but does not include a browser extension. Pemble teaches a web browser extension including being associated with an online resource browsing component. Incorporating the browsing extension by Pemble into the generation of community information method of Lee would improve Lee’s generation of community information to enable the web browser extension to present a web interface for providing information about entities information associated with entity entries in an entity database.
Regarding Claim 20, Lee teaches the agent provides a user with a list of recommended submissions related to the user’s selected context on a web page being viewed and grouped by what has been submitted by the user or submitted by another member of the communities ([0062]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15 and 19 are 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.
The prior art of record, Lee (Publication No. 2013/0227104), teaches the community searching unit provides a user interface allowing the user to input the search condition information that is a topic-based user query.
Next, the prior art of record, Lai et al. (Publication No. 2018/0109485) teaches the content of such a response can be displayed in an appropriate GUI on the display of computing device.
Lastly, the prior art of record, Pemble et al. (Patent No. 10,740,416) teaches an interface associated with the online resource browsing component, that no entity entry has been identified in the entity database based on the search.
The prior art of record does not render obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art at the time of applicant’s invention nor anticipate the combination of claimed elements including an open-source generative language model and provides the user interface with a “Search the Web” link and a “Generate Answer” link.
Conclusion
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/CHERYL LEWIS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166
March 5, 2026