DETAILED ACTION
Acknowledgements
This Office Action is in response to Applicant’s correspondence filed on 12/30/25.
The Examiner notes that citations to United States Patent Application Publication paragraphs are formatted as [####], #### representing the paragraph number.
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.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-7, 12-15, 18 are currently pending.
Claims 1-7, 12-15, 18 are rejected as set forth below.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/30/25 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 101
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 13 have been fully considered and is persuasive. The rejection (and corresponding rejections to its dependent claims, if applicable) is withdrawn.
In light of the pending 35 USC 112(a) rejections, the Examiner notes that the withdrawal of the 35 USC 101 rejection is contingent on the current claim limitations.
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 112(a)
Applicant’s arguments with respect to Paragraphs 14, 16 of the Final Rejection have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection (and corresponding rejections to its dependent claims, if applicable) is withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to Paragraph 18 of the Final Rejection have been fully considered but are not persuasive. The rejection (and corresponding rejections to its dependent claims, if applicable) is maintained.
The Specification merely repeats the claimed limitation of an artificial intelligence model generating the classifications that categorize the one or more incidents based upon the textual descriptions of the incidents and the location information without disclosing the necessary steps and/or flowcharts to perform the claimed limitation ([0023]). See MPEP 2161.01(I).
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 103
Applicant' s arguments with respect to claims 1-7, 12-15, 18 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(a)
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-7, 12-15, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
As per claims 1, 13, the limitation “generating the classifications that categorize the one or more incidents based upon the textual descriptions of the incidents and the location information extracted from the metadata" fails to comply with the written description requirement. Specifically, the Specification does not sufficiently disclose the computer/algorithm required to perform the claimed function of an artificial intelligence model generating the classifications that categorize the one or more incidents based upon the textual descriptions of the incidents and the location information. The Specification merely repeats the claimed limitation without disclosing the necessary steps and/or flowcharts to perform the claimed limitation ([0023]). See MPEP 2161.01(I): (“When examining computer implemented functional claims, examiners should determine whether the specification discloses the computer and the algorithm (e.g., the necessary steps and/or flowcharts) that perform the claimed function in sufficient detail such that one of ordinary skill in the art can reasonably conclude that the inventor invented the claimed subject matter.… If the specification does not provide a disclosure of the computer and algorithm in sufficient detail to demonstrate to one of ordinary skill in the art that the inventor possessed the invention including how to program the disclosed computer to perform the claimed function, a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph, for lack of written description must be made.”).
By virtue of their dependence, the dependent claims are similarly rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 1-7, 12-15, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over United States Patent No. 11030579 to Campbell in view of United States Patent Application Publication No. 20230078210 to Kolaxis.
As per claims 1, 13, Campbell teaches:
A method for updating users regarding incidents for an organization, the method comprising: receiving, by a computing system, one or more reports of one or more incidents relating to the organization in a plurality of report modalities, at least two of which are different from each other; generating, by the computing system, information about each of the one or more incidents based on the one or more reports received by the computing system, wherein the information includes attributes defining characteristics of the one or more incidents and classifications defining a type of the one or more incidents; (Fig 1; col 3 lines 52-68, “An embodiment of the present invention may operate for a single entity, as well as a community of entities. For example, a community of financial institutions may implement a central system for monitoring incidents that may affect similarly situated entities (e.g., regional banks, national banks, branch locations, conglomerate, business including affiliates and subsidiaries, etc.)”; col 4 line 38 – col 5 line 2, “As shown in FIG. 1, an incident/event 102 may be detected by Processor 104. Notice of the event may be submitted automatically or manually. The event may be an external event or internal event. For example, an internal event may include a security breach from within the company, e.g., an employee or contractor stealing data or property, misappropriation of funds, insider trading, etc. Others examples may include loss of data, mishandling of data, loss of storage medium and/or other equipment, etc. An external event may be a cyber-attack. The event may also be weather related (e.g., natural disaster, hurricane, severe storm, drought etc.). The event may also be a physical event, such as damage to a central unit, etc. Other events or incidents may be identified. A system of an embodiment of the present invention may classify incidents according to sensitivity and may further restrict sensitive issue notifications to those with appropriate need-to-know credentials, e.g., non-public reputational information on public companies, or sensitive civilian or military incidents. Processor 104 may then generate a message pertaining to the event and also identify recipients and any requirements for notification of the event.”; col 4 line 38 – col 5 line 2; col 5 lines 35-39, “Also, various forms of data may be shared, exchanged and/or otherwise transmitted between the entity and recipients. Data may include documents, images, photos, audio, video, maps, static data, interactive data, etc.”)
distributing, via an events ticker, based upon the attributes and the classifications, to one or more of a plurality of user devices the information about the one or more incidents; (Fig 1, col 5 lines 3-14, “Processor 104 may provide the message concerning the incident via Interface 106. Based on the user's subscription and/or other preferences, the user may be notified that an incident has been uploaded to the interface. Various other recipients may be informed. As shown in FIG. 1, other recipients may include Business Unit(s) 150, Regulator(s) 152, Customer(s) 154, Government Entity 156, Emergency 158, Employee(s) 160 and/or other recipients represented by 162, which may include news feeds, news organizations, public relations group, media outlets, etc. The communication may be transmitted automatically, periodically and/or the communication may be initiated by an authorized user.”; col 2 line 49 – col 3 line 4, “For example, the system may include an application (“app”) on a mobile device, such as a mobile phone, for receiving alerts and/or a customized alert (e.g., vibrate, chime, etc.). An embodiment of the present invention is directed to an innovative interface for data visualization. The initial dashboard provides main incident details and the ability to view additional information. Each incident may be displayed with various information, including (1) identifying information (e.g., location, time, type of incident, color code, category which may include P1S1, P2S2 where “P” represents priority and “S” represents severity), (2) descriptive information (e.g., an executive summary, impacted businesses/entities, technical summary, etc.) and/or (3) status information (e.g., resolvers, viewers, impacted groups, time to next update, etc.).”)
continually updating the information distributed to the one or more of the plurality of user devices. (Fig 1, col 5 lines 39-43, “Interface 106 may provide status updates, questions and answers, etc. For an event that is long term or otherwise requires additional follow-up, Interface 106 may provide a common forum where current status information may be provided.”)
Campbell does not explicitly teach, but Kolaxis teaches:
at least one of the report modalities includes image data including photographs with metadata associated with the one or more incidents; ([0066], “Then, the one or more photo of the emergency incident is sent together with metadata via email, or via MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), or via a Mobile Application or using any other electronic means (step S2). The photo and corresponding metadata are sent to an emergency services platform 130.”)
generating, by extraction using an artificial intelligence model of the computing system that comprises a multimodal foundation model trained on broad data capable of handling vision and vision-language modalities, information about each of the one or more incidents based on the one or more reports received by the computing system, and wherein the artificial intelligence model processes the information by: analyzing the image data to generate textual descriptions of incidents depicted in the photographs; extracting location information from the metadata associated with the photographs; and generating the classifications that categorize the one or more incidents based upon the textual descriptions of the incidents and the location information extracted from the metadata. ([0071]-[0072], “Given the location of the received emergency photo, it will automatically compare this photo against a database of pre-validated photos from the same location, to verify if the surroundings (e.g. buildings in the background) of the received photo match the ones in the pre-validated photos of the given location. Alternatively, if the location is not available for instance, Exchangeable image file format (Exif-) metadata could not be extracted from a received emergency photo… Then, a computer unit may leverage Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning to identify if the photo illustrates an emergency incident, classifying the photo into different categories of emergencies along with the corresponding probability (step S7). For example, a traffic accident might occur with a confidence of 92%, a fire with a confidence of 75%. An Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning model may additionally identify the degree of severity of the emergency along with the corresponding probability, for example: a minor car accident (having only light material damages, not involving any human injuries) with a confidence of 81%, a major car accident (involving human injuries that may be life-threatening) with a confidence of 91%.”)
One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique of Kolaxis to the known invention of Campbell would have yielded predictable results and resulted in an improved invention. It would have been recognized that the application of the technique would have yielded predictable results because the level of ordinary skill in the art demonstrated by the references applied shows the ability to incorporate such artificial intelligence features into a similar invention. Further, it would have been recognized by those of ordinary skill in the art that modifying the at least one of the report modalities to include image data including photographs with metadata associated with the one or more incidents and modifying the invention to include the steps of generating, by extraction using an artificial intelligence model of the computing system that comprises a multimodal foundation model trained on broad data capable of handling vision and vision-language modalities, information about each of the one or more incidents based on the one or more reports received by the computing system, and wherein the artificial intelligence model processes the information by: analyzing the image data to generate textual descriptions of incidents depicted in the photographs; extracting location information from the metadata associated with the photographs; and generating the classifications that categorize the one or more incidents based upon the textual descriptions of the incidents and the location information extracted from the metadata, results in an improved invention because applying said technique leverages the advantages of using artificial intelligence, i.e. increased speed, efficiency, and accuracy, in order to quickly categorize incidents, thus improving the overall efficiency of the invention.
As per claims 2, 14, Campbell teaches:
wherein at least a subset of the plurality of user devices are visual display devices, and the distributing the information comprises causing the visual display devices to display the events ticker; (col 2 lines 34-41, “An embodiment of the present invention provides an effective mechanism to accurately and timely inform employees and others about incident reports via an interactive interface using a mobile device (e.g., mobile phone, PDA, tablet, reader, etc.) and other devices (e.g., desktop device, processor, computing device, etc.). For example, an employees may access an interface to view updates and details concerning active and past incidents.”)
As per claim 3, Campbell teaches:
wherein at least a subset of the visual display devices each comprise a screen display, and wherein the causing the visual display devices to display the events ticker comprises maintaining a display of the events ticker in a display area located in a screen area on the screen display, the screen area being associated with an active user interface area for a predetermined software application. (col 2 line 49 – col 3 line 4)
As per claim 4, Campbell teaches:
wherein the predetermined software application comprises a messaging application. (col 3 lines 4-6, “Communication functionality may include the ability to connect to a call center or incident bridge, join chat rooms and send notification to other employees, groups, etc.”)
As per claim 5, Campbell teaches:
wherein receiving the one or more reports comprises receiving a plurality of incident reports in a plurality of report modalities, at least two of which are different from each other, and generating the information about each of the one or more incidents comprises generating the information about each of the one or more incidents in the same modality. (col 4 line 38 – col 5 line 2; col 5 lines 35-39, “Also, various forms of data may be shared, exchanged and/or otherwise transmitted between the entity and recipients. Data may include documents, images, photos, audio, video, maps, static data, interactive data, etc.”)
As per claim 6, Campbell teaches:
wherein at least one of the plurality of incident reports is in text, and at least another one of the plurality of incident reports is in audio, pictorial, or video formats. (col 4 line 38 – col 5 line 2; col 5 lines 35-39)
As per claims 7, Campbell teaches:
wherein generating the information about each of the one or more incidents in the same modality comprises generating information about each of the one or more incidents in text. (col 4 line 38 – col 5 line 2)
As per claims 12, Campbell teaches:
wherein a user belongs to the organization, wherein the at least one attribute of the at least one of the one or more incidents comprises a location of the respective reported incident, and wherein the at least one attribute of the user comprises the user’s role in the organization. (col 2 lines 61-65, “Each incident may be displayed with various information, including (1) identifying information (e.g., location, time, type of incident, color code, category which may include P1S1, P2S2 where “P” represents priority and “S” represents severity).”; col 4 lines 47-67, “The event may also be weather related (e.g., natural disaster, hurricane, severe storm, drought etc.). The event may also be a physical event, such as damage to a central unit, etc. Other events or incidents may be identified. Processor 104 may then classify the incident or otherwise assess the type and/or the severity of the incident. For example, a category may be assigned to the event. A system of an embodiment of the present invention may classify incidents according to sensitivity and may further restrict sensitive issue notifications to those with appropriate need-to-know credentials, e.g., non-public reputational information on public companies, or sensitive civilian or military incidents.”)
As per claim 15, Campbell teaches:
wherein at least a subset of the visual display devices each comprise a screen display, and wherein the causing the visual display devices to display the events ticker comprises maintaining a display of the events ticker in a display area located in a screen area on the screen display, the screen area being associated with an active user interface area for a predetermined software application, wherein the predetermined software application comprises a messaging application. (col 2 line 49 – col 3 line 4; col 3 lines 4-6)
As per claim 18, Campbell teaches:
wherein: generating the information about each of the one or more incidents further comprises generating the information about implications of each of the one or more incidents may have for an organization; the distributing to one or more of the plurality of user devices the information about the one or more incidents comprises determining at least one attribute of at least one of the one or more incidents and one attribute of a user of at least one of the plurality of user devices, and determining whether to distribute the at least one of the one or more incidents to the user at least in part based on the at least one attribute of the at least one of the one or more incidents and the at least one attribute of the user; and the user belongs to the organization, wherein the at least one attribute of the at least one of the one or more incidents comprises a location of the respective reported incident, and wherein the at least one attribute of the user comprises the user’s role in the organization. (col 4 lines 52-61; col 4 line 62 – col 5 line 24; col 2 lines 61-65; col 4 lines 47-67)
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
United States Patent Application Publication No. 20140136609 to Churchill discloses an intelligent notification system configured for receiving and processing any suitable input message, determining whether or not an output notification should be sent and for sending such output notifications with the appropriate information to the appropriate parties according to predetermined business rules.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAY HUANG whose telephone number is (408)918-9799. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00a - 5:30p PT.
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/JAY HUANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3619
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