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
This action is in response to amendments and remarks filed on 01/27/2026. Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, and 18 have been amended. The specification has been amended. The objections to claims 4, 11, and 18, the objection to the specification, and the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections have been withdrawn in light of the instant amendments. This action is made final, as necessitated by amendment.
Response to Arguments
Applicant presents the following arguments regarding the previous office action:
The 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection should be withdrawn because the claims as a whole integrates a mental process into a practical application.
The 35 U.S.C. 102 rejection of claim 15 should be withdrawn because Dubyak does not teach at least one of the nodes is related to damage.
The 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection of claim 1 should be withdrawn because neither Lewis or Dubyak teach at least one of the nodes is related to damage.
Regarding argument A, Applicant’s arguments have been fully considered and are persuasive. Applicant has clearly explained how the invention improves the process of using a structural repair manual to solve aircraft maintenance problems along with evidence in the specification. The 5 U.S.C. 101 rejection has been withdrawn.
Regarding argument B, Applicant’s arguments have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of the combination of Lewis and Dubyak, as further detailed below under Claim Rejections.
Regarding argument C, Applicant's arguments have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Lewis teaches "a database of allowable damage limits 80” (par. 38), further illustrated in Fig. 8. Lewis also teaches “a structure database 24 such as, but not limited to, toolbox and/or knowledge tree databases having information relating to specific locations of damage of structure 14” (par. 25). It is not entirely clear if the structure database 24 is the same as the database of allowable damage limits 80 (though perhaps it could be assumed). However, using knowledge graphs to represent maintenance documents to make it easier for the user to access desired information is already well known., as taught by Dubyak. Regardless of whether or not Lewis’s database of allowable damage limits 80 is the same as the knowledge tree structure database 24, it would still be obvious that the database of allowable damage limits 80 could be in the form of a knowledge graph. Given the allowable damage limit table illustrated in Lewis’s Fig. 8 as well as the basic structure of a knowledge graph as described in Dubyak, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that in converting Fig. 8 into a knowledge graph, the nodes of the knowledge graph would contain damage information.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lewis (US 20130311111 A1) in view of Dubyak (US 20180373783 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Lewis teaches a method, comprising: plotting a location of damage on a 3D model of a vehicle that corresponds to damage on a physical version of the vehicle (par. 25, "Management system 18 is configured to facilitate mapping, in 3D coordinates, areas, zones and specific locations of damage 12 on and/or within structure 14");
identifying an allowable damage limit (ADL) corresponding to the damage (par. 29, " At decision block 330, a determination is made to select a desired maintenance action 60. Maintenance action 60 includes categories such as, but not limited to, allowable damage limit assessment (ADL), document damage data, and design report program.") (see Fig. 2), (Fig. 8, allowable damage limit data from SRM);
and transmitting for display a prompt indicating whether the damage is within the ADL (par. 39, "At block 750, a determination is made that damage 12 is not within allowable damage limit 80. A maintenance response 82 is displayed by user interface device 16 at block 760 based on the determination").
Lewis fails to teach traversing a knowledge graph, wherein the knowledge graph contains a plurality of nodes that are interconnected by relationships to represent information of a structural repair manual (SRM) of the vehicle. Instead, Lewis only mentions "a database of allowable damage limits 80 is acquired by user interface device 16 from compliance management system 18" (par. 38) and "Compliance management system 18 includes a structure database 24 such as, but not limited to, toolbox and/or knowledge tree databases having information relating to specific locations of damage of structure 14" (par. 25). It is not entirely clear if the structure database 24 is the same as the database of allowable damage limits 80 (though perhaps it could be assumed). However, using knowledge graphs to represent maintenance documents to make it easier for the user to access desired information is already well known.
Dubyak teaches traversing a knowledge graph, wherein the knowledge graph contains a plurality of nodes that are interconnected by relationships (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations") to represent information of a structural repair manual (SRM) of the vehicle (par. 45, "At 202, a corpus of documents is received. Documents, such as natural language technical documents (e.g., manuals, publications and brochures), instructional documents (e.g., manuals, publications and brochures), and technical drawings and diagrams describing and related to a single complex system within a domain, may be utilized to build the graph-based knowledge resource").
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Lewis to incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Lewis’s allowable damage limit information of Fig. 8 could obviously be stored in a knowledge graph.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the method of claim 1. Lewis fails to teach a first node in the knowledge graph indicates a part of the vehicle that contains the damage, wherein a second node in the knowledge graph indicates a first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the second node indicates a first ADL corresponding to the first type of damage.
However, Dubyak teaches a first node in the knowledge graph indicates a part of the vehicle that contains the damage, wherein a second node in the knowledge graph indicates a first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the second node indicates a first ADL corresponding to the first type of damage (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations"—entities are the location and damage type, and the edges are the relationship between the location and damage type, namely, how much that location can take of the specific damage type.).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak to further incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach the first node is the damaged vehicle part, the second node is the type of damage, and the edge is the damage limit, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making the nodes the zone and the damage type, with the edge the maximum permitted damage dimensions, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order find the ADL. This would have led to the same result as Lewis’ original ADL database.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the method of claim 2. Lewis fails to teach a third node in the knowledge graph is disposed between the first node and the second node, wherein the third node represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle
However, Dubyak teaches a third node in the knowledge graph is disposed between the first node and the second node, wherein the third node represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak to further incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a third node between the first and second nodes which represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making a node correspond to the location, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order to find the ADL. This would have led to the same result as Lewis’ original ADL database.
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the method of claim 2. Lewis fails to teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, which is different than the first ADL.
However, Dubyak teaches a third node in the knowledge graph indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, which is different than the first ADL (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak to further incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a third node indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making a node correspond to the type of damage, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order to find the ADL. This would have led to the same result as Lewis’ original ADL database.
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Lewis and Dubyak teach the method of claim 2. Lewis fails to teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part.
However, Dubyak teaches a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak to further incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making a node correspond to the proximity information, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order find the ADL. Fig. 8 also has a section for notes—however, the “area” column could also suffice in order to provide proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part. This would have led to the same result as Lewis’ original ADL database.
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the method of claim 1. Lewis further teaches the 3D model (par. 7, "The computer-implemented method includes displaying maintenance instructions based on the structural analysis from the user interface device and includes performing a maintenance response on the damage") and the prompt ("A maintenance response 82 is displayed by user interface device 16 at block 760 based on the determination") are generated using the maintenance user interface implemented in a graphical user interface (GUI) (Fig. 1, user interface device 16).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the method of claim 6, wherein the maintenance user interface outputs a suggested maintenance task to be performed based on the damage exceeding the ADL (par. 48, "a maintenance response 82 is displayed 1248 based on the structural analysis and allowable damage limit 80").
Regarding claim 8, Lewis teaches a non-transitory computer readable storage medium (Fig. 1, management system 18 ) having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor (Fig. 1, CPU 22) to perform an operation comprising:
plotting a location of damage on a 3D model of a vehicle that corresponds to damage on a physical version of the vehicle (par. 25, "Management system 18 is configured to facilitate mapping, in 3D coordinates, areas, zones and specific locations of damage 12 on and/or within structure 14");
identifying an allowable damage limit (ADL) corresponding to the damage (par. 29, " At decision block 330, a determination is made to select a desired maintenance action 60. Maintenance action 60 includes categories such as, but not limited to, allowable damage limit assessment (ADL), document damage data, and design report program.") (see Fig. 2), (Fig. 8, allowable damage limit data from SRM);
and transmitting (606) for display a prompt indicating whether the damage is within the ADL (par. 39, "At block 750, a determination is made that damage 12 is not within allowable damage limit 80. A maintenance response 82 is displayed by user interface device 16 at block 760 based on the determination").
Lewis fails to teach traversing a knowledge graph, wherein the knowledge graph contains a plurality of nodes that are interconnected by relationships to represent information of a structural repair manual (SRM) of the vehicle. Instead, Lewis only mentions "a database of allowable damage limits 80 is acquired by user interface device 16 from compliance management system 18" (par. 38) and "Compliance management system 18 includes a structure database 24 such as, but not limited to, toolbox and/or knowledge tree databases having information relating to specific locations of damage of structure 14" (par. 25). It is not entirely clear if the structure database 24 is the same as the database of allowable damage limits 80 (though perhaps it could be assumed). However, using knowledge graphs to represent maintenance documents to make it easier for the user to access desired information is already well known.
However, Dubyak teaches traversing a knowledge graph, wherein the knowledge graph contains a plurality of nodes that are interconnected by relationships (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations") to represent information of a structural repair manual (SRM) of the vehicle (par. 45, "At 202, a corpus of documents is received. Documents, such as natural language technical documents (e.g., manuals, publications and brochures), instructional documents (e.g., manuals, publications and brochures), and technical drawings and diagrams describing and related to a single complex system within a domain, may be utilized to build the graph-based knowledge resource").
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Lewis to incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Lewis’s allowable damage limit information of Fig. 8 could obviously be stored in a knowledge graph.
Regarding claim 9, the combination of the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 8. Lewis fails to teach a first node in the knowledge graph indicates a part of the vehicle that contains the damage, wherein a second node in the knowledge graph indicates a first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the second node indicates a first ADL corresponding to the first type of damage.
However, Dubyak teaches a first node in the knowledge graph indicates a part of the vehicle that contains the damage, wherein a second node in the knowledge graph indicates a first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the second node indicates a first ADL corresponding to the first type of damage (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations"—entities are the location and damage type, and the edges are the relationship between the location and damage type, namely, how much that location can take of the specific damage type.).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak to further incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach the first node is the damaged vehicle part, the second node is the type of damage, and the edge is the damage limit, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making the nodes the zone and the damage type, with the edge the maximum permitted damage dimensions, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order find the ADL. This would have led to the same result as Lewis’ original ADL database.
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 9. Lewis fails to teach a third node in the knowledge graph is disposed between the first node and the second node, wherein the third node represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle.
However, Dubyak teaches a third node in the knowledge graph is disposed between the first node and the second node, wherein the third node represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak to further incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a third node between the first and second nodes which represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making a node correspond to the location, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order to find the ADL. This would have led to the same result as Lewis’ original ADL database.
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 9. Lewis fails to teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, which is different than the first ADL.
However, Dubyak teaches a third node in the knowledge graph indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, which is different than the first ADL (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak to further incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a third node indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making a node correspond to the damage type, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order to find the ADL. This would have led to the same result as Lewis’ original ADL database.
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Lewis and Dubyak teach the computer readable storage medium of claim 9. Lewis fails to teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part.
However, Dubyak teaches a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak to further incorporate the teachings of Dubyak in order to better assist humans in making decisions (par. 2). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making a node correspond to proximity information, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order find the ADL. Fig. 8 also has a section for notes—however, the “area” column could also suffice in order to provide proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part. This would have led to the same result as Lewis’ original ADL database.
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 8. Lewis further teaches the 3D model (par. 7, "The computer-implemented method includes displaying maintenance instructions based on the structural analysis from the user interface device and includes performing a maintenance response on the damage") and the prompt ("A maintenance response 82 is displayed by user interface device 16 at block 760 based on the determination") are generated using the maintenance user interface implemented in a graphical user interface (GUI) (Fig. 1, user interface device 16).
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Lewis in view of Dubyak teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 13. Lewis further teaches the maintenance user interface outputs a suggested maintenance task to be performed based on the damage exceeding the ADL (par. 48, "a maintenance response 82 is displayed 1248 based on the structural analysis and allowable damage limit 80").
Claim(s) 15-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dubyak in view of Lewis.
Regarding claim 15, Dubyak teaches a non-transitory computer readable storage medium (Fig. 7, RAM 908) having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor (Fig. 7, processor 906) to perform an operation comprising:
receiving a repair manual for a vehicle (par. 45, “At 202, a corpus of documents is received. Documents, such as natural language technical documents (e.g., manuals, publications and brochures), instructional documents (e.g., manuals, publications and brochures), and technical drawings and diagrams describing and related to a single complex system within a domain”);
extracting data from the repair manual using natural language processing (par. 45, “The manual compilation may allow for the operator to review each document and, if applicable, convert raw files into a particular format prior to the ingestion of the document into the graph-based knowledge recommendation program 110a, 110b.);
determining nodes for a knowledge graph based on the extracted data,
determining connections between the nodes based on the extracted data;
and connecting the nodes to create the knowledge graph (par. 45, “the documents may be entered into the graph-based knowledge recommendation program 110a, 110b to extract entities and relations expressed in natural language”; par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations");
and displaying on a maintenance user interface the prompt (claim 8, “presenting the retrieved plurality of recommended responses to the user”).
Dubyak fails to explicitly teach at least one of the nodes is related to damage. Dubyak only teaches that the edges and nodes are based on a corpus of documents received, but does not specify a specific type of document.
However, Lewis teaches at least one of the nodes is related to damage (Fig. 8, this data stored in Dubyak’s knowledge graph would result in nodes relating to damage).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Dubyak to incorporate the teachings of Lewis for better utilization of maintenance programs (par. 4). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach at least one of the nodes is related to damage, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making the nodes the zone and the damage type, with the edge the maximum permitted damage dimensions, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order find the ADL. This would have led to being able to traverse Dubyak’s knowledge tree and determine a recommended response of the user based on whether or not the ADL has been exceeded, which achieves Dubyak’s original goal.
Regarding claim 16, Dubyak teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 15. Dubyak further teaches a first node in the knowledge graph indicates a part of the vehicle that contains damage, wherein a second node in the knowledge graph indicates a first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the second node indicates a first ADL corresponding to the first type of damage (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
Dubyak fails to explicitly teach a first node in the knowledge graph indicates a part of the vehicle that contains damage, wherein a second node in the knowledge graph indicates a first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the second node indicates a first ADL corresponding to the first type of damage.
However, Lewis teaches a first node in the knowledge graph indicates a part of the vehicle that contains damage, wherein a second node in the knowledge graph indicates a first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the second node indicates a first ADL corresponding to the first type of damage (Fig. 8).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Dubyak in view of Lewis to incorporate the teachings of Lewis for better utilization of maintenance programs (par. 4). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a first node in the knowledge graph indicates a part of the vehicle that contains damage, wherein a second node in the knowledge graph indicates a first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the second node indicates a first ADL corresponding to the first type of damage, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making the nodes the zone and the damage type, with the edge the maximum permitted damage dimensions, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order find the ADL. This would have led to being able to traverse Dubyak’s knowledge tree and determine a recommended response of the user based on whether or not the ADL has been exceeded, which achieves Dubyak’s original goal.
Regarding claim 17, the combination of Dubyak in view of Lewis teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 16. Dubyak further teaches a third node in the knowledge graph is disposed between the first node and the second node, wherein the third node represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
Dubyak fails to explicitly teach a third node in the knowledge graph is disposed between the first node and the second node, wherein the third node represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle.
However, Lewis teaches a third node in the knowledge graph is disposed between the first node and the second node, wherein the third node represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle (Fig. 8).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Dubyak in view of Lewis to incorporate the teachings of Lewis for better utilization of maintenance programs (par. 4). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a third node in the knowledge graph is disposed between the first node and the second node, wherein the third node represents a location of the damage on the part of the vehicle, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making a node correspond to the location, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order find the ADL. This would have led to being able to traverse Dubyak’s knowledge tree and determine a recommended response of the user based on whether or not the ADL has been exceeded, which achieves Dubyak’s original goal.
Regarding claim 18, the combination of Dubyak in view of Lewis teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 16. Dubyak further teaches a third node in the knowledge graph indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, which is different than the first ADL (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
Dubyak fails to explicitly teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, which is different than the first ADL.
However, Lewis teaches a third node in the knowledge graph indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, which is different than the first ADL (Fig. 8).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Dubyak in view of Lewis to incorporate the teachings of Lewis for better utilization of maintenance programs (par. 4). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates a second type of damage different from the first type of damage, wherein a connection between the first node and the third node indicates a second ADL corresponding to the second type of damage, which is different than the first ADL, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making a node correspond to the damage type, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order find the ADL. This would have led to being able to traverse Dubyak’s knowledge tree and determine a recommended response of the user based on whether or not the ADL has been exceeded, which achieves Dubyak’s original goal.
Regarding claim 19, Dubyak in view of Lewis teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 16. Dubyak further teaches a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part (par. 33, "The extracted entities and relations may be mapped into a knowledge graph, where the nodes are the entities and the edges or links are the relations").
Dubyak fails to explicitly teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part.
However, Lewis teaches a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part (Fig. 8).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Dubyak in view of Lewis to incorporate the teachings of Lewis for better utilization of maintenance programs (par. 4). Dubyak teaches converting an SRM into a knowledge graph, and Lewis teaches storing the allowable damage limits (taken from the SRM) into a database to be easily accessed. While Dubyak does not explicitly teach a third node in the knowledge graph indicates notes for the part of the vehicle, wherein the notes contain at least one of proximity information between two damage instances on the part or proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part, using a knowledge graph to represent entities and their relationships in the field of aircraft maintenance is already well-known in the art. We can see in Fig. 8 of Lewis an example of the ADL data that would have been stored in the database used by the system. In converting this data to a knowledge graph such as taught in Dubyak, one of ordinary skill would have been able to recognize that by making a node correspond to proximity information, the resulting knowledge graph could be traversed in order find the ADL. Fig. 8 also has a section for notes—however, the “area” column could also suffice in order to provide proximity information between the damage and a particular location of the part. This would have led to being able to traverse Dubyak’s knowledge tree and determine a recommended response of the user based on whether or not the ADL has been exceeded, which achieves Dubyak’s original goal.
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lewis in view of Dubyak., and further in view of Tang (Tang, Xilang et al. “Exploring Research on the Construction and Application of Knowledge Graphs for Aircraft Fault Diagnosis.” Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) vol. 23,11 5295. 2 Jun. 2023, doi:10.3390/s23115295).
Regarding claim 20, the combination of Dubyak in view of Lewis teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 16. Both Dubyak and Lewis fail to teach the natural language processing comprises converting data in the Portable Document Format (PDF) of the repair manual into computer readable data.
However, Tang teaches the natural language processing comprises converting data in the Portable Document Format (PDF) of the repair manual into computer readable data (3.2 paragraph 5-6, "unstructured data, mainly comprising Word and PDF documents, require deep learning and other techniques to extract knowledge. To simplify entity identification from unstructured documents, the schema assigns structured data information as attributes, reducing the number of entity types. Following the principles mentioned above, we adopted an “evaluation iteration method” to construct the fault knowledge graph schema, as shown in Figure 2.").
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Dubyak in view of Lewis to incorporate the teachings of Tang in order to construct a knowledge graph to improve the efficiency of fault diagnosis for maintenance engineers (abstract).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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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/M.L.H./Examiner, Art Unit 3665 /CHRISTIAN CHACE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3665