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 .
Applicant filed a communication dated 5/3/2024 in which claims 1-20 are pending in the application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 5/3/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner (see attached PTO-1449).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea of building a universal vocabulary of tokens from time series for model training without significantly more.
Examiner has identified claim 1 as the representative claim that describes the claimed invention presented in independent claims 1, 9, and 17.
Claim 1 is directed to an apparatus, which is one of the statutory categories of invention (Step 1: YES).
The claim 1 recites one or more processors; one or more computer readable storage media; and program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions executable by the processor resulting in the computer system to perform one or more functions, the functions comprising: segment one or more time series based on local minima of the one or more time series; and generate a universal vocabulary of tokens. These limitations (with the exception of italicized limitations) recite an abstract idea of building a universal vocabulary of tokens from time series for model training which may correspond to a certain method of organizing human activity. The additional elements of a computer system, one or more processors; one or more computer readable storage media; and program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions executable by the processor do not necessarily restrict the claim from reciting an abstract idea. Thus, the claim 1 recites an abstract idea (Step 2A, Prong One: YES).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements of a computer system, one or more processors; one or more computer readable storage media; and program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions executable by the processor result in no more than simply applying the abstract idea. The additional elements of a computer system, one or more processors; one or more computer readable storage media; and program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions executable by the processor are recited at a high level of generality and under their broadest reasonable interpretation comprises a generic computer arrangement. The presence of a generic computer arrangement is nothing more than to implement the claimed invention by applying the exception using a generic element (MPEP 2106.05(f)). Therefore, the recitation of additional elements does not meaningfully apply the abstract idea and hence does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Thus, the claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea (Step 2A-Prong 2: NO).
The claim 1 does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claim recites the additional elements of a computer system, one or more processors; one or more computer readable storage media; and program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions executable by the processor are recited at a high level of generality in that it result in no more than simply applying the abstract idea using generic computer element. The additional elements when considered separately and as an ordered combination do not amount to add significantly more as these elements provide nothing more than to simply apply the exception in a generic computer environment. Thus, the additional elements do not transform an abstract idea into a practical application or amount to add significantly more (Step 2B: NO). Thus, the claim 1 is not patent eligible.
Similar arguments can be applied to other independent claims 9 and 17 and hence the claims 9 and 17 are rejected on similar grounds as claim 1.
Dependent claims 2-8, 10-16, and 18-20 further define the abstract idea that is present in their respective independent claims 1, 9 and 17, thus correspond to a Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity, and hence are abstract in nature for the reason presented above. Dependent claims do not include any additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception when considered both individually and as an ordered combination. Therefore, the claims 1-20 are not patent-eligible.
Computer-Readable Media
Examiner further notes that the claims 1 and 17 are directed to a computer readable medium which typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media. See MPEP 2111.01. The claims 1 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se. See In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1356-57 (Fed. Cir. 2007). Examiner recommends the Applicant to amend the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid rejection under 35 USC 101 by adding the limitation “non-transitory” to the claim. Appropriate correction is requested.
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.
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.
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.
Claims 1-5, 9-13, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al., US Patent Application No. 2025/0124279 in view of Gill et al., US Patent No. 12,086,000 in view of Kalluri, US Patent No. 11,481,554.
Regarding claim 1, Chen discloses a computer system for facilitating a process to build a universal vocabulary of tokens from time series for large language model training, the computer system comprising:
one or more processors; one or more computer readable storage media; and program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions executable by the processor resulting in the computer system to perform one or more functions ([0006]), the functions comprising:
segment one or more time series based on local minima of the one or more time series (claim 4); and
generate a universal vocabulary of tokens.
Chen does not specifically disclose
local minima and
generate a universal vocabulary of tokens.
However, Gill discloses
local minima (col. 4, lines 32-45).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above-noted disclosure of Chen to include the above-noted disclosure of Gill. The motivation for combining these references would have been to obtain the discrete-to-language embedding space.
Chen and Gill do not specifically disclose
generate a universal vocabulary of tokens.
However, Kalluri discloses
generate a universal vocabulary of tokens (abstract; generalized vocabulary tokens, fixed-length vocabulary that includes the set of tokens).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above-noted disclosure of Chen and Gill to include the above-noted disclosure of Kalluri. The motivation for combining these references would have been to train and evaluate machine learning (ML) model for document processing computing applications.
Regarding claim 2, Gill discloses
normalizing (col. 14, lines 55-64).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above-noted disclosure of Chen to include the above-noted disclosure of Gill. The motivation for combining these references would have been to obtain the discrete-to-language embedding space.
Kalluri discloses wherein generating the universal vocabulary of tokens comprises normalizing and parameterizing the tokens (col. 4, lines 4-11; adjusting one or more parameters associated with a vocabulary, token weights, estimation error…select the model with the lowest estimation error).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above-noted disclosure of Chen and Gill to include the above-noted disclosure of Kalluri. The motivation for combining these references would have been to train and evaluate machine learning (ML) model for document processing computing applications.
Regarding claim 3, Gill discloses wherein normalizing the tokens comprises extracting a plurality of vertical or a plurality of horizontal scales of the tokens (col. 14, lines 55-64, scale).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above-noted disclosure of Chen to include the above-noted disclosure of Gill. The motivation for combining these references would have been to obtain the discrete-to-language embedding space.
Regarding claim 4, Chen discloses wherein parameterizing the tokens comprises approximating the tokens based on a continuous basis function (claim 4, continuous embedding space into nearest discrete embeddings serve as approximately).
Regarding claim 5, Chen discloses generate n-dimensional embeddings of the tokens (claim 4, continuous embedding space).
Claims 9-13 and 17-20 are substantially similar to claims 1-5 and hence rejected on similar grounds.
Claims 6 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al., US Patent Application No. 2025/0124279 in view of Gill et al., US Patent No. 12,086,000 in view of Kalluri, US Patent No. 11,481,554 in view of Feigenbaum et al., US Patent Application No. 2025/0124233.
Regarding claim 6, Kalluri discloses label the tokens with a channel identification token before inputting the tokens into the large language model (Fig. 6; 606, label, col. 3, lines 40-57).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above-noted disclosure of Chen and Gill to include the above-noted disclosure of Kalluri. The motivation for combining these references would have been to train and evaluate machine learning (ML) model for document processing computing applications.
Feigenbaum discloses
the large language model ([0058]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above-noted disclosure of Chen, Gill, and Kalluri to include the above-noted disclosure of Feigenbaum. The motivation for combining these references would have been to train and evaluate machine learning (ML) model for document processing computing applications.
Claims 7 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al., US Patent Application No. 2025/0124279 in view of Gill et al., US Patent No. 12,086,000 in view of Kalluri, US Patent No. 11,481,554 in view of Wang et al., US Patent Application No. 2020/0142930.
Regarding claim 7, Wang discloses sort the tokens based on a respective timestamp of the tokens ([0048]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above-noted disclosure of Chen and Gill to include the above-noted disclosure of Kalluri. The motivation for combining these references would have been to train and evaluate machine learning (ML) model for document processing computing applications.
Claim 15 is substantially similar to claim 7 and hence rejected on similar grounds.
Claims 8 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al., US Patent Application No. 2025/0124279 in view of Gill et al., US Patent No. 12,086,000 in view of Kalluri, US Patent No. 11,481,554 in view of Matzke, WO 2005/088534.
Regarding claim 8, Matzke discloses functions to: generate the n-dimensional embeddings as orthogonal random features (page 3, lines 6-8, Fig. 1, 3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above-noted disclosure of Chen, Gill, and Kalluri to include the above-noted disclosure of Matzke. The motivation for combining these references would have been to train and evaluate machine learning (ML) model for document processing computing applications.
Claim 16 is substantially similar to claim 8 and hence rejected on similar grounds.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure are listed on the attached PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAJESH KHATTAR whose telephone number is (571)272-7981. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8AM-5PM.
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, Shahid Merchant can be reached at 571-270-1360. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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RAJESH KHATTAR
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3684
/RAJESH KHATTAR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3684
Prosecution Insights