DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s Response and Supplemental Response, both filed 02/18/2026, amended claims 1-6, 9, 11-14, 16-18, 22, 24, 25 & 27. Claim 26 was canceled. Therefore, claims 1-25 & 27 are pending.
The rejections under §§ 112(b) & (d) have been withdrawn due to Applicant’s amendments.
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.
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.
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 1-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over:
(i) Rusnak (US 2023/0029420 A1, hereinafter “Rusnak”) in view of
(ii) Leitersdorf (US 2011/0004588 A1, hereinafter “Leitersdorf”).
Rusnak teaches:
1. A method comprising:
determining by a searching system, at a first time instance, one or more first search results for a first query comprising one or more query terms associated with a first concept [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0030 & 0031];
modifying the first query, based on the determined one or more first search results, to include one or more modified query terms associated with one or more concepts hierarchically related to the first concept [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0031 & 0032]; and
determining at a subsequent time instance one or more subsequent search results for the modified query comprising the one or more modified query terms [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0046 & 0047].
Rusnak does not explicitly teach including determining, based on a machine learning hierarchical concept-identifying model configured to generate resulting labels defined in a hierarchical ontology, the one or more hierarchical concepts from the hierarchical ontology in response to the first query, the modifying of the first query yielding a modified query.
However, Leitersdorf teaches
including determining, based on a machine learning hierarchical concept-identifying model configured to generate resulting labels defined in a hierarchical ontology, the one or more hierarchical concepts from the hierarchical ontology in response to the first query, the modifying of the first query yielding a modified query [Leitersdorf, ¶¶ 0060 & 0061].
Rusnak and Leitersdorf are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, information retrieval. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to apply the ontology query expansion techniques taught by Leitersdorf to Rusnak to achieve the predictable result of improved options for expanding and evaluating query terms leveraging a robust ontology.
The combination of Rusnak and Leitersdorf teaches:
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first concept and the hierarchically related one or more concepts are arranged in the hierarchical ontology [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0049].
3. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the first query comprises: including revised query terms in the modified query to cause the searching system to search content directed to a broader concept that is at a parental hierarchical level in relation to the first concept [Leitersdorf, ¶¶ 0060 & 0061].
4. The method of claim 3, wherein modifying the first query comprises: modifying the first query to include the revised query terms directed to the broader concept in response to a determination that fewer than a threshold number of respective one or more answer scores computed for the one or more first search results exceed a score threshold representative of a satisfactory answer [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0039 & 0040].
5. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the first query comprises: including in the modified query revised one or more terms to cause the searching system to search for content directed to one or more child concepts that are at a child hierarchical level in relation to the first concept [Leitersdorf, ¶¶ 0061-0063].
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: presenting to a user multiple search results for the first query [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0046 & 0047]; wherein modifying the first query comprises modifying the first query to include drilled- down query terms determined for one of the multiple search results selected by the user [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0046 & 0047].
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the drilled-down query terms are directed to concepts at a lower hierarchical level than the first concept [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0049].
8. The method of claim 7, further comprising: determining after obtaining the one or more subsequent search results for the modified query whether to re-present the multiple search results for the first query or to further modify the modified query based on further drilled down concepts at a child hierarchical level of the lower hierarchical level [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0046 & 0047].
9. The method of claim 6, wherein presenting to the user the multiple search results for the first query comprises: identifying multiple question-answer pairs relevant to the first query that are additionally associated with concepts at a next lower hierarchical level than the first concept [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0070]; and presenting to the user at least some of the multiple question-answer pairs [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0070]; wherein modifying the first query to include drilled-down query terms comprises modifying the first query based on a question portion of a question-answer pair selected from the at least some of the multiple question-answer pairs [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0070].
10. The method of claim 1, further comprising: iteratively repeating the modifying and determining of search results based on answer scores computed for respective search results in search iterations [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0046 & 0047].
11. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the one or more hierarchical concepts comprises: generating, according to a machine learning concept-identifying model located upstream to the machine learning hierarchical concept-identifying model, one or more labels representative of the first concept associated with the first query [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0037 & 0038]; and processing the one or more generated labels using the machine learning hierarchical concept-identifying model to determine the one or more hierarchical concepts [Rusnak, ¶¶ 0037 & 0038].
12. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the first query comprises: identifying one or more ambiguity categories associated with multiple matches from the one or more first search results, at least one of the one or more identified ambiguity categories being associated with at least some of the multiple matches and including different respective values associated with the at least some of the multiple matches [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0027]; obtaining disambiguation information relevant to the at least one of the one or more identified ambiguity categories [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0027]; and selecting at least one of the multiple matches based on the obtained disambiguation information relevant to the at least one of the one or more identified ambiguity categories [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0027].
13. The method of claim 12, wherein obtaining the disambiguation information comprises one or more of: obtaining query contextual information for the first query [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0027]; or generating prompt data to prompt a user to provide clarification information [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0027]; and wherein selecting at least one of the multiple matches comprises selecting at least one of the multiple matches based, at least in part, on the query contextual information or on the clarification information provided by the user in response to the generated prompt data [Leitersdorf, ¶ 0027].
Claim 14 recites limitations corresponding to claim 1 & 12.
Claims 15-23 recite limitations corresponding to claims 2-10, respectively.
Claim 24 recites limitations recited in claim 1.
Claims 25 & 27 recite limitations corresponding to claims 11 & 13, respectively.
Therefore, claims 14-25 & 27 are rejected for the same reasons discussed above for claims 1-13.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant’s arguments will be addressed in the same claim ordering presented in the Remarks. In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually – particularly those directed to a reference which was not applied for a disputed limitation – one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Claim 1: The claim, as presented, only requires concepts be hierarchically related to the first concept. Rusnak teaches at paragraph [0032] that “one example factor includes a relevance of the suggestions in the list of ranked candidate results 18 to the prefix 14.” Applicant’s narrow reading of a concept is not recited in the claims, and the term is interpreted broadly. A prefix and a relevance-ranked result are related in a hierarchy compared to other possibilities. Regarding the portions directed to Lietersdorf, paragraph [0063] describes the revision process.
Claim 14 (which is claims 1 & 12 combined): Lietersdorf paragraph [0027] teaches: “It is noted that this procedure is unlike a known technique in the art commonly referred to as query expansion” and “To a certain degree, the expansion and augmentation of the user's medical search query is executed to disambiguate the user's medical search query.” Further, “it is an assumption of the disclosed technique that user's of a medical search engine submit search queries which have medical relevance. Given this assumption, the medical search query of the user in procedure 104 can be analyzed semantically based on a medical ontology.”
Claims 3 & 5: Leitersdorf’s cited paragraphs teach expanding terms according to weights.
Claims 6-9 & 19-22: Leitersdorf’s cited paragraphs teach expanding terms according to weights. Drilling-down is interpreted to be consistent with the broad recitation of claim 7, the concepts being at a lower hierarchical level than the first concept. Applicant may amend the claims to be more specific if a particular architecture is intended.
Claims 10 & 23: Rusnak’s paragraph [0048] teaches dynamic query expansion as the user types. Paragraph [0049] teaches results change as the user types.
Claims 11 & 25: Rusnak describes usage of multiple machine learning models throughout paragraphs [0036] through [0041]. Paragraph [0038] expands on the introduced models to describe two binary gating models working together.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/Scott A. Waldron/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2152 03/07/2026