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 .
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 26, 33 and 40 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.
The term “a particular complexity” in the claims is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “a particular complexity” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The claims are given the broadest reasonable interpretation and limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. (Interpretation provided in prior art rejection below as best understood).
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 21, 23-28, 30-35 and 37-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2023/0300086 to Ivanov et al. in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2020/0244605 to Nagaraja et al.
Ivanov et al. ‘086 disclose:
As concerns claim 21, a computer-implemented method, comprising: implementing, at a cloud computing (0001-cloud computing environment) environment, a distributed service (0002-cloud services) using a plurality of auxiliary services (0017-agent/application call ascertain resources available), wherein end users (Fig. 1, 108; 0041-client request) interact with the distributed service in a plurality of modalities including a text modality and an audio modality;
providing, by a scaling orchestrator (Fig. 1, 145-orchestrator) of the distributed service, to a resource manager (Fig. 1, 103, 140; 0016-provide physical resources that enable the operation of workloads; 0016-workloads can include agents) of a first auxiliary service of the plurality of auxiliary services, a scaling request (0020-0021-determine need to request add capacity) indicating a first modality of the plurality of modalities; and
modifying, by the first resource manager, in accordance with the scaling request, a set of resources (0016; 0020-throttle, add capacity to infrastructure; 0021-add capacity; 0048-response) being used at the first auxiliary service at least in part for processing of end user interactions which utilize the first modality.
As concerns claim 28, a system, comprising: one or more computing devices (Fig. 1, 108); wherein the one or more computing devices include instructions that upon execution on or across the one or more computing devices:
implement, at a cloud computing environment (0001-cloud computing environment), a distributed service (0002-cloud services) using a plurality of auxiliary services (0017-agent/application call ascertain resources available), wherein end users interact with the distributed service in a plurality of modalities including a text modality and an audio modality; provide, by a scaling orchestrator (Fig. 1, 145-orchestrator) of the distributed service, to a resource manager (Fig. 1, 103, 140; 0016-provide physical resources that enable the operation of workloads; 0016-workloads can include agents) of a first auxiliary service of the plurality of auxiliary services, a scaling request (0020-0021-determine need to request add capacity) indicating a first modality of the plurality of modalities; and modify, by the first resource manager, in accordance with the scaling request, a set of resources (0016; 0020-throttle, add capacity to infrastructure; 0021-add capacity; 0048-response) being used at the first auxiliary service at least in part for processing of end user interactions which utilize the first modality.
As concerns claim 35, one or more non-transitory computer-accessible storage media (0049) storing program instructions that when executed on or across one or more processors (0049-processor):
implement, at a cloud computing environment (0001-cloud computing environment), a distributed service (0002-cloud services) using a plurality of auxiliary services (0017-agent/application call ascertain resources available), wherein end users interact with the distributed service in a plurality of modalities including a text modality and an audio modality;
provide, by a scaling orchestrator (Fig. 1, 145-orchestrator) of the distributed service, to a resource manager (Fig. 1, 103, 140; 0016-provide physical resources that enable the operation of workloads; 0016-workloads can include agents) of a first auxiliary service of the plurality of auxiliary services, a scaling request (0020-0021-determine need to request add capacity) indicating a first modality of the plurality of modalities; and
modify, by the first resource manager, in accordance with the scaling request, a set of resources (0016; 0020-throttle, add capacity to infrastructure; 0021-add capacity; 0048-response) being used at the first auxiliary service at least in part for processing of end user interactions which utilize the first modality.
Ivanov et al. ‘086 do not disclose:
a plurality of modalities including a text modality and an audio modality.
Nagaraja et al. ‘605 teach:
a plurality of modalities including a text modality (Fig. 2A, 222-a-text) and an audio modality (Fig. 2A, 222-b-voice).
Nagaraja et al. ‘605 further teach:
As concerns claim 24, 31 and 38, the inventions as recited in claim 21, 28 and 35, wherein the distributed service comprises a chatbot service (0130-provision chatbots to service).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to provide the system of Ivanov et al. ‘086 with a text and audio service, as taught by Nagaraja et al. ‘605, in order to provide various user support services.
Ivanov et al. ‘086 further disclose:
As concerns claim 23, 30 and 37, the inventions as recited in claims 21, 28 and 35, further comprising: in response to determining, by the scaling orchestrator, that the set of resources being used (0017-agent/application call ascertain resources available; 0020-0021) at the first auxiliary service has been modified, changing, by the scaling orchestrator, a throttling limit (0020-throttle; 0045-threshold; 0047-throttling) associated with requests directed to the distributed service from one or more end users.
As concerns claims 25, 32 and 39, the computer-implemented method as recited in claim 21, 28 and 35, wherein the first auxiliary service comprises one or more of: (a) an automated speech recognition (ASR) service, (b) a natural language understanding (NLU) service, (c) a request state information storage service (0016; 0020-0021-request resource state, includes storage state), or (d) a machine learning artifact management service.
As concerns claim 26, 33 and 40, the inventions as recited in claims 21, 28 and 35, further comprising: analyzing, by the scaling orchestrator, a workload (0033-workloads) associated with end user requests of a particular complexity (0020-0021-“complex” as in needs additional resources to service, i.e. memory or graphics) that are directed at the distributed service, wherein said providing the scaling request to the resource manager is responsive to said analyzing.
As concerns claims 27 and 34, the inventions as recited in claims 21 and 28, further comprising: analyzing, by the scaling orchestrator, a workload (0033-workloads) associated with end user requests expressed in a particular language (inherent the text would be in a “particular” language) that are directed at the distributed service, wherein said providing the scaling request to the resource manager is responsive to said analyzing.
Claims 22, 29 and 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2023/0300086 to Ivanov et al. and U.S. Patent Application Publication 2020/0244605 to Nagaraja et al. in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication 2021/0105317 to Kona.
Ivanov et al. ‘086 as modified do not disclose:
As concerns claims 22, 29 and 36, the inventions as recited in claim 21, 28 and 35, further comprising: determining, by the scaling orchestrator, that a request directed to the distributed service from an end user has been rejected, wherein the request utilizes the first modality, and wherein said providing the scaling request to the resource manager is responsive to said determining.
Kona ‘317 teach:
As concerns claims 22, 29 and 36, the inventions as recited in claim 21, 28 and 35, further comprising: determining, by the scaling orchestrator, that a request directed to the distributed service from an end user has been rejected (0011-reject; 0080-tenant request rejected), wherein the request utilizes the first modality, and wherein said providing the scaling request to the resource manager is responsive to said determining (0011-reject; 0080-tenant request rejected).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to provide the system of Ivanov et al. ‘086 with rejecting, as taught by Kona ‘317, in order to preserve resources.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2024/0015117 to Jeong et al. disclose a chatbot service (0109).
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2022/0248128 disclose speech chatbot service (0097).
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/JOHN B WALSH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2451