DETAILED ACTION
This office action is responsive to the Amendments/Request for reconsideration filed on 04/27/2026 after Non-Final filed 01/27/2026. The application contains claims 1, 3-5, 7-11, 13-15, 17-20, all examined and rejected.
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
It is acknowledged that claims 1, 3-5, 7, 11, 13-15, 17, 20 were amended. Claims 2, 6, 12 and 16 were canceled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/31/2025 have been fully considered but are but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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 1, 11, and 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential elements, such omission amounting to a gap between the elements. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted elements are: defining what the secondary search system is after the primary search system is assigned either natural language model-based search system or search engine-based search system. As such, currently the claims are indefinite as to which search system is used for the secondary results determined from the secondary search system.
Claims 3-5, 7, 13-15, 17 are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being dependent on claims 1 and 11.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-5, 7, 11, 13-15, 17, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sue (US 20080201304 A1) in view of Rayit et al. (US 20240256623 A1) and Liu et al. (US 20170011116 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Rayit et al. (US 20240256623 A1) discloses:
a method for searching, comprising: in response to receiving a search request from a user, obtaining a search intent of the user based on the search request, at least by (paragraph [0032] “receives a user query…”, paragraph [0033-0035] further describes obtaining the search intent of the user query as determining topics, keywords using “search meta-data query…generated based upon a user's query”)
determining, based on the search intent and from a plurality of search system, a primary search system and a secondary search system, respectively, the plurality of search systems at least by (paragraph [0034, 0036] “metadata may include descriptors of topics relevant to a search engine and key words associated with the relevant topics. The results returned identify one or more search engines… such as a search engine hosted by a search engine server (e.g. web site), or may be a search engine index.… selects from among multiple search engines 211 and 212-299 the search engines”)
wherein determining the primary search system at least by (Fig. 2, where Search Engine 1 is the primary search system)
determining a primary result matched to the search request by search the primary search system, and determining a secondary result matched to the search request by searching the secondary search system, respectively, at least by Fig. 3A, paragraph [0042-0043] which describes a consolidated search result from two search engines, ranked results from search engine 1 (e.g. primary results) presented above and numerated higher that ranked results from search engine 2 (shown in Ref 312) (e.g. a secondary result matched to the search request by searching the secondary search system))
and in a search result for the search request, presenting the primary result and the secondary result with different display attributes, respectively, at least by (Fig. 3A, paragraph [0042-0043] which describes a consolidated search result from two search engines, ranked results from search engine 1 (e.g. primary results) presented above (e.g. higher) and numerated higher that ranked results from search engine 2 (shown in Ref 312), and (shown in Reg. 311) showing first search result from search engine 1 ranked above first search result from search engine 2, both of which shows a significance of the display attribute, with numerations and positioning of the primary result being higher than the secondary result)As shown above the result results from the search engine and GLM are separated within each interface provided and does not show the search result from the two together.
As shown above Sue fails to specially describe: wherein the search intent comprises at least one of a question-type intent or a resource type intent
But Liu discloses the above limitation by at least (paragraph [0096][ “classifies the query as an answer-seeking query of a particular type” which corresponds to obtaining a question type search intent from the search request meeting the minimum requirement of the limitation: at least one of a question-type intent or a resource type intent
Sue also fails to describes the search engines as also including natural language model-based search system,
But Rayit discloses the above limitation at least by (paragraph [0028] “dual mode search functionality using a search engine and a generative language model (GLM), also referred to as a large language model (LLM).” Where the search engine (search engine-based search system) and GLM (natural language model-based search system) describes a plurality of search systems
Further more Sue fails to describe: wherein determining the primary search system
But Rayit discloses the above limitation at least by (paragraph [0068] “when input is received, a classifier can identify whether input set forth by a user is conversational in nature and is thus to be provided to the GLM 112 or whether the input is better-suited for provision to a search engine.))
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Sue’s ability to identify at least a primary and secondary search engine based on determined topic and keywords from the user input query and presentation of results with Rayit and Liu ability to classy the users query into at least one question type. Which extends Sue’s topic and keywords into classified question type. Also to modify Sue’s plurality of search engines with Rayit’s search engines including an internet search engine and GLM/LLM, which modifies Sue’s, search engines to include at least one GLM/LLM. For the purpose of providing, “accurate answers to answer-seeking queries with high reliability” (Liu, para. 0012) and improved operations of both search engine and GLM (Rayit, para. 0036).
As per claim 2, canceled.
As per claim 3, claim 1 is incorporated and Sue further discloses:
wherein determining the secondary search system comprises: at least by (paragraph [0034, 0036] “metadata may include descriptors of topics relevant to a search engine and key words associated with the relevant topics. The results returned identify one or more search engines… such as a search engine hosted by a search engine server (e.g. web site), or may be a search engine index.… selects from among multiple search engines 211 and 212-299 the search engines”, Fig. 2 shows primary search engine as “Search Engine 1” and secondary search engine as “Search Engine 2)
But Sue fails to specifically recite: selecting, in the natural language model-based search system and the search engine-based search system, other search system than the primary search system as the secondary search system,
But Rayit describes the above limitation, at least by (paragraph [0068] “when input is received, a classifier can identify whether input set forth by a user is conversational in nature and is thus to be provided to the GLM 112 or whether the input is better-suited for provision to a search engine.” Which identifies whether GLM or search engine is better suited as the primary search system, and paragraph [0039] describes the switching modes from GLM to SERP and vise versa as such the secondary search system is the “other” search system being switched to)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Sue’s ability to identify at least a primary and secondary search engine based on determined topic and keywords from the user input query and presentation of results with Rayit and Liu ability to classy the users query into at least one question type. Which extends Sue’s topic and keywords into classified question type. Also to modify Sue’s plurality of search engines with Rayit’s search engines including an internet search engine and GLM/LLM, which modifies Sue’s, search engines to include at least one GLM/LLM. For the purpose of providing, “accurate answers to answer-seeking queries with high reliability” (Liu, para. 0012) and improved operations of both search engine and GLM (Rayit, para. 0036).
As per claim 4, claim 1 is incorporated and Sue further discloses:
wherein any of the primary result and the secondary result comprises at least one of: a reply to the search request from the natural language model-based search system; or at least one web page data matched to the search request from the search engine-based search system, at least by (Fig. 3A, paragraph [0042-0043] which describes a consolidated search result from two search engines, ranked results from search engine 1 (e.g. primary results) presented above (e.g. higher) and numerated higher that ranked results from search engine 2 (shown in Ref 312), and (shown in Reg. 311) showing first search result from search engine 1 ranked above first search result from search engine 2, both of which shows a significance of the display attribute, with numerations and positioning of the primary result being higher than the secondary result)As shown above the result results from the search engine and GLM are separated within each interface provided and does not show the search result from the two together.
But Sue fails to describes results from natural language model-based search system;
But Rayit describes the above limitation at least by (paragraph [0047] “user query is submitted to the GLM 112 (FIG. 1), which returns a natural language response as an answer to the conversational input.”)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Sue’s ability to identify at least a primary and secondary search engine based on determined topic and keywords from the user input query and presentation of results with Rayit and Liu ability to classy the users query into at least one question type. Which extends Sue’s topic and keywords into classified question type. Also to modify Sue’s plurality of search engines with Rayit’s search engines including an internet search engine and GLM/LLM, which modifies Sue’s, search engines to include at least one GLM/LLM. For the purpose of providing, “accurate answers to answer-seeking queries with high reliability” (Liu, para. 0012) and improved operations of both search engine and GLM (Rayit, para. 0036).
As per claim 5, claim 4 is incorporated and Sue’s fails to disclose:
wherein the at least one web page data comprises at least one of: refined information providing a detailed introduction to explain the reply or extended information providing one or more events associated with the reply
But Rayit describes the above limitation at least by (paragraph [0041] “The query is submitted to a search engine (not shown) that returns an instant answer 316 (if applicable), an entity description 318 (if applicable), links to webpages 320 identified by the search engine as being related to the query, and supplemental content 322.” See also Fig. 3 and 5, which discloses refined information providing a detailed introduction to explain the reply)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Sue’s ability to identify at least a primary and secondary search engine based on determined topic and keywords from the user input query and presentation of results with Rayit and Liu ability to classy the users query into at least one question type. Which extends Sue’s topic and keywords into classified question type. Also to modify Sue’s plurality of search engines with Rayit’s search engines including an internet search engine and GLM/LLM, which modifies Sue’s, search engines to include at least one GLM/LLM. For the purpose of providing, “accurate answers to answer-seeking queries with high reliability” (Liu, para. 0012) and improved operations of both search engine and GLM (Rayit, para. 0036).
As per claim 6, canceled.
As per claim 7, claim 1 is incorporated and Sue further discloses:
wherein the display attribute comprises at least one of: a display location, a display area, a display font, a display font size, a font color, and a background color, at least by (Fig. 3A, paragraph [0042-0043] which describes a consolidated search result from two search engines, ranked results from search engine 1 (e.g. primary results) presented above (e.g. higher) and numerated higher that ranked results from search engine 2 (shown in Ref 312), and (shown in Reg. 311) showing first search result from search engine 1 ranked above first search result from search engine 2, both of which shows a significance of the display attribute, with numerations and positioning of the primary result being higher than the secondary result)
As per claim 8, claim 1 is incorporated and Sue further discloses:
further comprising: extracting a primary query and a secondary query matched to the search request, respectively, wherein the primary result is obtained in the primary search system based on the primary query and the secondary result is obtained in the secondary search system based on the secondary query, at least by (paragraph [0035] “a transformation process essentially transforms the user query into another query that is appropriate for querying the other search engines” paragraph [0036] “ selects from among multiple search engines 211 and 212-299 the search engines to which to issue the search queries and then issues the queries to the selected search engines” Fig. 2 shows primary search engine as “Search Engine 1” and secondary search engine as “Search Engine 2” with transformed user queries being provided to corresponding search engines, paragraph [90037] “Search results are then returned from each of the selected search engines.”)
As per claim 9, claim 1 is incorporated and Sue fails to disclose:
further comprising: obtaining context information associated with the search request; providing, to the user, a prompt to refine the search request based on the context information; and obtaining the primary result and the secondary result based on the users interaction for the prompt,
But Rayit describes the above limitation at least by (paragraph [0066] describes query suggestions, paragraph [0067] “receiving the query “stock price of company A”, the search engine 110 generates an instant answer that identifies the stock price of company A. The GLM 112 can be provided with the query submitted by the user and/or the content of the instant answer and can generate further query suggestions and/or conversational input suggestions based upon the query submitted by the user and/or the content of the instant answer. The query suggestions and/or conversational input suggestions can be presented together with the instant answer to visually indicate that the query suggestions and/or conversational input suggestions correspond to the instant answer. An example query suggestion is “who is the CEO of company A”; an example conversational input suggestion is “describe differences in business between company A and company B”. Further, graphical indications can be presented to identify which suggestions are conversational suggestions and which are suggestions for queries to be used by the search engine 110 to identify search results. Upon the conversational input suggestion being selected, such suggestion is used as input by the GLM 112 to generate conversational output, and context can switch to conversational mode (e.g., GUI features pertaining to conversational mode are presented).” Where query suggestions and/or conversational input suggestions are prompts to refine the search request)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Sue’s ability to identify at least a primary and secondary search engine based on determined topic and keywords from the user input query and presentation of results with Rayit and Liu ability to classy the users query into at least one question type. Which extends Sue’s topic and keywords into classified question type. Also to modify Sue’s plurality of search engines with Rayit’s search engines including an internet search engine and GLM/LLM, which modifies Sue’s, search engines to include at least one GLM/LLM. For the purpose of providing, “accurate answers to answer-seeking queries with high reliability” (Liu, para. 0012) and improved operations of both search engine and GLM (Rayit, para. 0036).
As per claim 10, claim 1 is incorporated and Sue fails to disclose:
wherein the method is performed in a conversational search page,
But Rayit describes the above limitation at least by (paragraph [0047, 0066, Fig. 4, Fig. 6] which describes the conversational interface and the ability to have both search engine and conversational interfaces integrated together.)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Sue’s ability to identify at least a primary and secondary search engine based on determined topic and keywords from the user input query and presentation of results with Rayit and Liu ability to classy the users query into at least one question type. Which extends Sue’s topic and keywords into classified question type. Also to modify Sue’s plurality of search engines with Rayit’s search engines including an internet search engine and GLM/LLM, which modifies Sue’s, search engines to include at least one GLM/LLM. For the purpose of providing, “accurate answers to answer-seeking queries with high reliability” (Liu, para. 0012) and improved operations of both search engine and GLM (Rayit, para. 0036).
Claims 11, 13-15, 17 recite equivalent claim limitations as claims 1, 3-5, 7 above, except that they set forth the claimed invention as a device; Claim 20 recite equivalent claim limitations as claim 1 above, except that they set forth the claimed invention as a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, as such they are rejected for the same reasons as applied hereinabove.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kapoor et al. (US 20210081436 A1): Abstract.
Gray et al. (US 11769017 B1): Col. 27 lines 59-col. 28 lines 33
Myslinski (US 20130060757 A1): Abstract, paragraph 0066, 0090, 0121.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DENNIS TRUONG whose telephone number is (571)270-3157. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:30 am - 5:30 pm PT.
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, Amy Ng can be reached at (571) 270-1698. 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.
/DENNIS TRUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2164 06/17/2026
Prosecution Insights