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 § 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.
Claim(s) 1-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Independent claims 1, 12, and 20 recite “receiving, via a chat interface of an online system, input data with information about a conversation”, “generating a first prompt for input”, “requesting the ingredient generation LLM to generate, based on the first prompt input into the ingredient generation LLM, the list of ingredients”, “generating a second prompt for input”, “requesting the item generation LLM to generate, based on the second prompt input into the item generation LLM, the list of items at the retailer”, “causing the chat interface to display content”, and “placing the group order comprising the list of items”. These limitations, as drafted, are a process that, under a broadest reasonable interpretation, covers the abstract idea of “mental processes” because they cover concepts performed in the human mind, including observation, evaluation, judgement, and opinion. See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2). That is, other than reciting “a chat interface of an online system”, “an ingredient generation large language model (LLM)”, and “an item generation LLM”, nothing in the claimed elements preclude the steps from practically being performed by a person listening to or reading a conversation between multiple people, writing down ingredients noted by the individuals in the conversation, finding these ingredients at a store or online retailer, and providing a list to the individuals in the group conversation to look over before purchasing the items.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements “a chat interface of an online system”, “an ingredient generation large language model (LLM)”, and “an item generation LLM” are all recited at a high- level of generality. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Thus, the claims as a whole are directed to an abstract idea (Step 2A, prong two).
Claims 1, 12, and 20 do not include any additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, as discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical applications, the additional elements of “a chat interface of an online system”, “an ingredient generation large language model (LLM)”, and “an item generation LLM” amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept (Step 2B).
Dependent claims 2-11 and 13-19 are directed to the conversational context and metadata of the conversation, as well as the generation of the individual prompts. That is, nothing in the claimed elements, preclude the steps from practically being performed by a person listening to or reading a conversation between multiple people, writing down ingredients noted by the individuals in the conversation, finding these ingredients at a store or online retailer, and providing a list to the individuals in the group conversation to look over before purchasing the items. Even when considered individually and in combination, the additional elements in claims 1-20 represent mere instructions to implement an abstract idea or other exception on a computer and insignificant extra-solution activity, which do not provide an inventive concept (Step 2B).
Prior Art Discussion:
Best prior art of record relevant to the claimed invention but not considered:
Olivier et al. (US Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0322438, having the same applicant and inventors; see Abstract and para [0004]) describes an online concierge system and method that generates a set of items and a list of ingredients using an ingredient identification model and a candidate order form model, and then generates a final order form.
Davish et al. (US Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0005297; see paras [0003]-[0004] and Figs. 1A and 3) describes a system for a chatbot conversing with a user, wherein the user’s queries, as well as chat history and metadata, are input as prompts into an LLM to accomplish a particular goal.
Boyd et al. (US Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0315875, having the same applicant and inventors; see Abstract, paras [0002]-[0003], and Fig. 3), describes a system for monitoring an online database and using LLMs to generate a list of recipes that are recommended to the user, wherein then the user is able to choose whether or not to add these recommended items into a cart.
Lowet et al. (EP3735880A1; see Abstract, para [0048], and Fig. 4) describes a food processing device adapted to identify an ingredient and an associated recipe and a processor is adapted to identify the ingredients and the associated recipe by way of a machine learning algorithm trained to recognize ingredients based on the sensed ingredient characteristics.
The prior art of record, including the above cited references, alone or combined, neither teaches nor renders obvious at least the limitations comprising, as a whole, “a method, performed at a computer system comprising a processor and a computer-readable medium, comprising: receiving, via a chat interface of an online system, input data with information about a conversation between a plurality of users of the online system about a group order for the plurality of users; generating a first prompt for input into an ingredient generation large language model (LLM), the first prompt including the received input data and a request for generating a list of ingredients for the group order; requesting the ingredient generation LLM to generate, based on the first prompt input into the ingredient generation LLM, the list of ingredients and metadata associated with the plurality of users; generating a second prompt for input into an item generation LLM, the second prompt including the list of ingredients, the metadata and a request for generating a list of items at a retailer associated with the online system for the group order; requesting the item generation LLM to generate, based on the second prompt input into the item generation LLM, the list of items at the retailer; causing the chat interface to display content prompting approval by the plurality of users for conversion of the list of items; and responsive to the approval, placing the group order comprising the list of items at the online system for delivery to a user of the plurality of users”, in combination with the rest of the limitations recited in the independent claims 1, 12, and 20. Claims 2-11 depend from claim 1, and claims 13-19 depend from claim 12.
Note: If the independent claims 1, 12, and 20 are amended to overcome the rejection, the Application can be placed in condition for allowance.
Conclusion
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/ADAM MICHAEL WEAVER/Examiner, Art Unit 2658
/RICHEMOND DORVIL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2658