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 .
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 3-8, 10-15, 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Scheepens et al. (US 11500756).
With respect to claim 1, Scheepens discloses: receiving a process tree representing execution of a process (col. 4, lines 44-48; col. 3, lines 37-41, nodes are added to the process tree iteratively, therefore at least the second iteration can be interpreted to be receiving the generated process tree from the first/original iteration);
traversing the process tree to identify a path of nodes (Fig. 2, 208; col. 4, lines 44-48, nodes are added on a node by node manner, therefore the process tree has to be traversed to identify the path of the nodes to know where to add the new node);
determining one or more candidate locations under each node of the path of nodes for positioning a new node (col. 9, lines 22-38, “evaluate all potential cut locations…for each relationship operator”);
determining a position score for each of the one or more candidate locations for positioning the new node (Fig. 5, 506; col. 9, lines 40-41, where “cut score” corresponds to “position score”);
inserting the new node in the process tree at one or more of the one or more candidate locations based on the position scores (Fig. 5, 508; col. 9, lines 38-39); and
outputting the process tree with the inserted new node (col. 5, line 5).
With respect to claim 3, Scheepens discloses: wherein determining one or more candidate locations under each node of the path of nodes for positioning a new node comprises: where a specific node of the path of nodes is a relationship operator node for a sequence relationship, determining the one or more candidate locations as being before all child nodes of the specific node, after all child nodes of the specific node, and between each pair of child nodes of the specific node (col. 3, lines 15-36).
With respect to claim 4, Scheepens discloses: wherein determining one or more candidate locations under each node of the path of nodes for positioning a new node comprises: where a specific node of the path of nodes is a relationship operator node for an exclusive choice relationship or a parallel relationship, determining the one or more candidate locations as being an arbitrary position under the specific node (id.).
With respect to claim 5, Scheepens discloses: wherein the position score for positioning the new node at a respective candidate location of the one or more candidate locations comprises a cut score representing a measurement of a quality of relationships between activities in the process tree introduced by adding the new node at the respective candidate location (col. 9, lines 22-50).
With respect to claim 6, Scheepens discloses: wherein outputting the process tree with the inserted new node comprises: displaying the process tree with the inserted new node on a display device (col. 5, lines 7-9).
With respect to claim 7, Scheepens discloses: wherein the process is an RPA (robotic process automation) process executed by one or more computing systems (col. 3, lines 2-4).
With respect to claims 8, 10-14, they recite similar limitations as claims 1, 3-7, respectively, and are therefore rejected under the same citations and rationale.
With respect to claims 15, 17-20, they recite similar limitations as claims 1, 3-6, respectively, and are therefore rejected under the same citations and rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 9, and 16 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 following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art, in any reasonable combination with the limitations of the independent claims do not disclose selecting a child sub tree of a root node of a process tree based on cut scores for cutting the process at the particular node and repeating the selecting of child sub tree until the sub tree is an activity node and thereafter identifying the path of nodes as being the particular nodes.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Gupta et al. (US 12518229): A computer-implemented method includes obtaining workflow data comprising descriptions associated with one or more dynamic processes; creating event logs based at least in part on the descriptions; applying a graph extraction process to derive process flow graphs from the created event logs; generating embeddings of the process flow graphs, wherein the embeddings encode at least one of: one or more structural features and one or more attribute features of the process flow graphs; and identifying at least one of the process flow graphs to be automated based on the generated embeddings; and outputting the identified at least one process flow graph to at least one of: a user and a robotic process automation tool.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WISSAM RASHID whose telephone number is (571)270-3758. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00 am-5:00 pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aimee Li can be reached at (571)272-4169. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/WISSAM RASHID/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2195
Prosecution Insights