DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This action is responding to application papers dated 4/11/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending in the application.
Note that the specification explicitly states that a computer-readable storage medium is not a signal, such as a carrier signal or a propagating signal and does not constitute a signal per se ([0142]). Therefore, the computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 20 is considered non-transitory.
The term, “trigger”, is interpreted as an action or event that happens before the presentation or automatic execution, it can be a setup step or rule, signal etc., not the actual presentation or execution.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 11 and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities: “AI” on its first appearance should be “artificial intelligence (AI).” Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-20 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.
Per claims 1, 11 and 20, it is unclear whether the target code and the computer program are compiled by the same compiler or whether the API is exposing the target code’s semantic information to a separately compiled diagnostic program if they were different compilation units and how the API bridges that gap session? Furthermore, the term, “representation” of the computer program is not defined in the specification, therefore, it is unclear what constitutes a representation of the computer program as a representation can change from one context to another.
Claims 2 and 3 recite the limitation “the computing system.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims. Interpretation: “A system” on line 1 in claim 1 is interpreted as a computing system.
Per claims 2-10, 12-19 are rejected because they depend on claims 1 and 11 respectively.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: on [0066], it appears that “(e.g., be)” is incomplete.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. Specifically, claims 1-20 are directed to an abstract idea.
Per claim 1, the claim is directed to an idea of itself, mental processes that can be performed in the human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper. The steps of converting the user-generated request, generating the computer program can be pure mental process because a developer can convert or reformat the request manually such as converting user’s plain language question into a structured prompt with a specified format so the AI model can act on it and generating a computer program can be done by a developer, using a pen and paper through observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion, Under Prong 1.
Under Prong 2, the additional limitations, the steps of receiving a user-generated request, receiving a response from the AI model, providing the AI prompt as an input, triggering presentation or automatic execution are mere data gathering, transmission for the mental steps and applying the mental steps or outputting the result at best which are insignificant extra solution activities while the AI model, a processor system and a memory are recited as generic learning algorithm and computer components described at a high level of generality for applying or performing the abstract idea and therefore, they do not indicate any integration of the abstract idea into a practical application as the mental steps are merely applied with generic computing components. See MPEP see MPEP 2106.05(f) /2106.05(h). The AI model is used as a mere tool to process the query and return a response. The computer program can configure itself to determine the information at runtime of the computer program, however, the claim as recited does not limit the triggering step to include the actual execution of the computer program where the runtime and compile time are involved. The triggering step can include only the mere display of the representation of the computer program without actual execution. In addition, the term, “trigger” is an action or event that happens before the presentation or automatic execution, it can be a setup step or rule, signal etc. not the actual presentation or execution. Also, a “representation” (or, at best, static code implementation) does not indicate automatic execution of the program that configures the program at runtime. As recited, the AI model merely receives the input prompt, generate and output the program. Therefore, the additional limitations do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind, but for the recitation of generic computer components or insignificant extra solution activities (e.g. processors, devices, program instructions), then it falls within the "Mental Processes" grouping of abstract ideas (2019 PEG step 2A, Prong 1: Abstract idea grouping? Yes, Mental Process). At most, the steps of receiving and triggering of presentation are not found to include anything more than what is well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field. In this case, it is noted that the claimed extra-solution of data gathering and outputting/displaying is acknowledged to be a well-understood, routine, conventional activity court recognized as WURC examples in MPEP 2106.05(d)(ll), for example, data gathering, and retrieving, storing data, updating, transmitting, and displaying a result - Symantec, Versata Dev, Content extraction, Electric Power Group). Insignificant extra solution activities or mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Viewing the limitations individually and as a combination, the additional elements merely perform data gathering, transmission and presenting/displaying and the mental steps using generic computing components as tools without integrating the abstract idea into a practical application. For at least these reasons, claim 1 is not patent eligible.
Per claims 2-10, these claims are directed to the same idea itself as in claim 1, reciting details of data and the mental steps without adding any other additional element that is significantly more. The step of automatically generating a second AI prompt is merely automation of writing user prompt and automating a mental process by using a generic computer does not make the abstract idea to be automatically patent eligible. See MPEP see MPEP 2106.05(f) /2106.05(h). Therefore, the claims are rejected for the same reasons as in claim 1.
Per claims 11-19, these claims are directed to the same idea itself as in claims 1-10, reciting the data, additional elements and the mental steps without adding any other additional element that is significantly more. Therefore, the claims are rejected for the same reasons as in claims 1-10.
Per claim 20, this claim is directed to the same idea itself as in claim 1 reciting details of data, additional elements including the medium recited at the preamble and the mental steps without adding any other additional element that is significantly more. Therefore, the claim is rejected for the same reasons as in claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 are allowed over the prior arts.
While US20230418574 (cited) teaches using a semantic tree of a compiler to execute a semantic code query against source code, US11550556 teaches a compiler that efficiently processes semantic analysis, US 20240281219 teaches intelligently generating code segments by receiving a request to modify computer code, applying code description to a code generation network to obtain a code segment suggestion and presenting the code segment suggestion on a display, US20250094167 teaches an AI to output a solution to a runtime error to a graphical user interface (GUI) of a software developer; US20250245122 teaches assembling a prompt for a LLM for a proposed fix including a natural language explanation of the proposed fix, suggested source-code changes, and selectable options for accepting, rejecting, and editing the fix suggestion, ultimately the prior arts of record, taken alone or in combination, do not teach cause the AI model to generate the computer program, which comprises configuring the computer program to determine, at runtime of the computer program, the information regarding the instance of the attribute in the target code using semantic information about the target code that is gathered by a compiler at compile time of the target code and that is provided to the computer program by an application programming interface (API) that is available to the computer program at compile time of the computer program, by providing the AI prompt as an input to the AI model, the AI prompt requesting that the AI model generate the computer program; receive a response to the AI prompt from the AI model, the response to the AI prompt comprising the computer program; and trigger at least one of the following: presentation of a representation of the computer program to a user via a user interface; automatic execution of the computer program against the target code.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US20240256423 is related to fixing syntactic mistakes and semantic mistakes by combining multimodal prompts.
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/INSUN KANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2193
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