DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/31/2025 has been entered.
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, 11 and 20 were amended.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Examiner respectfully submits that, the amended portions of claims 1, 11 and 20 are not described in the instant specification. Instant paragraph [0061-0062] were referenced as support (see Applicant’s remarks, pg. 10, filed on 12/21/2025). Instant paragraph [0061] describes refined information in an example as, “the refined information may explain the reply in a more detailed manner. For example, in the example of the basketball league champions, the refined information may include detailed introductions about team A, such as team history, player introductions, etc.” Which does not describe the recited claim limitation, “the refined information specifying that a first result in the primary result and the secondary result explains a second result in the primary result and the secondary result in a more detailed manner, or a second option corresponding to extended information.” Also, Instant paragraph [0061] describes expanded information in an example as, “expanded information may include more historical events associated with the team A obtaining the champion, e.g., the time and score of each game in the national basketball league, etc." Which does not describe the recited claim limitation, “the extended information specifying that the first result in the primary result and the secondary result includes more events than the second result in the primary result and the secondary result.” Further instant specification paragraph [0062] describes, “An interface may be provided to the user for specifying a relationship between the primary and secondary results. The interface may include, for example, refined information, extended information and other options. In this manner, search results more tailored to the user's expectations may be provided based on the user's interactions with the interface,” Which merely describes the user interface that enables the user to “specify[ing] a relationship between the primary and secondary results” the user interface also includes “refined information, extended information and other options” but does not describe how either refined or extending information is related to specifying a relationship between the primary and secondary results as recited in the amended portions of claims 1, 11 and 20.
Claims 2-10, 12-19, are rejected for being dependent on rejected independent claims 1, 11 and 20, above.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The term “refined information”, and “extended information” in claims 1, 11 and 20 are relative terms which renders the claim indefinite. The term “refined information”, and “extended information” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The instant specification Para. 0061-0062, fails to distinctly describe the difference between, “refined information” and “extended information” as both can include “historical data”, see para. 0061, “refined information may include detailed introductions about team A, such as team history,” … “expanded information may include more historical events associated with the team A…”. As such, both refined information and expanded information can include similar “more information”.
Claims 2-10, 12-19, are rejected for being dependent on rejected independent claims 1, 11 and 20, above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/31/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Based on the corresponding 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph and 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, presented above.
For purpose of advancing prosecution, refined/extended information is being interpreted as “more information” related to either primary/secondary results.
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) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rayit et al. (US 20240256623 A1) in view of Sue (US 20080201304 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 [0041] describes a search request in the form of a query submitted to the search engine where the search intent of the user based on the search request is the search mode with SERP; or paragraph [0047] describes a search request in the form of a user query submitted to the GLM, where the search intent of the user based on the search request is the search mode with GLM; 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.))
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 comprising natural language model-based search system and a search engine-based search system, respectively, at least by (paragraph [0041, 0047] as shown above based on the search intent SERP or GLM, a search engine is used or a GLM is used, 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. 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 describes the search intent)
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 paragraph [0068], describes an example where the user’s query is “explain the difference between the business of company A and company B”, and because the query is identified as conversational input the query is provided to GLM as the primary search system (e.g. comprising a natural language model-based search system). However, further in the example, “the conversational output is provided in a GUI that integrates conversational mode (e.g. primary search system/ natural language model-based search system) with search mode (e.g. secondary search system/search engine-based search system), such that the conversational output can be presented proximate to knowledge cards about the companies A and B.” As such, by describing that both conversational mode and search modes are integrated and that results from both can be presented proximate to each other, shows that both systems, GLM and SERP, are being queried, for respective outputs)
providing to the user an interface, the interface comprising any of:a first option corresponding to refined information, the refined information specifying that a first result in the primary result and the secondary result explains a second result in the primary result and the secondary result in a more detailed manner, or a second option corresponding to extended information, the extended information specifying that the first result in the primary result and the secondary result includes more events than the second result in the primary result and the secondary result, (Based on the corresponding 112 rejection(s) and interpretation/augments section presented above) at least by (paragraph [0043, 0047, 0049, 0052, 0064] “supplemental content includes… ad (image or video) presented on the source page…one or more selectable links to articles or webpages related to the natural language response … are populated with information related to the last user query entered during the conversation in the GLM… e.g., additional articles, hyperlinks, images, ads, etc.) related to the selected result, and displays the supplemental content on the SERP… additional links, images, selectable graphical icons, etc., on which the user can click for additional information)
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 (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”; 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.”, furthermore paragraph [0068] describes the ability to display both GLM and SERP interfaces side by side (e.g. different display attributes) “such that the conversational output can be presented proximate to knowledge cards about the companies A and B” where the knowledge cards about the companies A and B are SERP outputs (see para. 0032, “presenting entity cards on a search engine results page (SERP)”)
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.
However, Sue discloses the ability to consolidate search result from different search engines 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)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the presentation of results of Rayit with ability to consolidate and rank the results from multiple search engines in a format where a a user may be better able to visually observe and identify which search engine provides the most relevant results to the query or the user's desire, (Sue, para. 0043)
As per claim 2, claim 1 is incorporated and Rayit further discloses:
wherein the search intent comprises at least one of a question-type search intent and a resource-type search intent, and determining the primary search system comprises at least one of: in response to determining that the search intent is a question-type search intent, selecting the natural language model-based search system as the primary search system; and in response to determining that the search intent is a resource-type search intent, selecting the search engine-based search system as the primary search system, at least by at least by (paragraph [0041] describes a search request in the form of a query submitted to the search engine where the search intent of the user based on the search request is the search mode with SERP; or paragraph [0047] describes a search request in the form of a user query submitted to the GLM, where the search intent of the user based on the search request is the search mode with GLM; 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.”)
As per claim 3, claim 2 is incorporated and Rayit further discloses:
wherein determining the secondary search system comprises: 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, 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)
As per claim 4, claim 1 is incorporated and Rayit 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; and at least one web page data matched to the search request from the search engine-based search system, 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”; 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.”,
As per claim 5, claim 4 is incorporated and Rayit further discloses:
wherein the at least one web page data comprises at least one of: refined information associated with the reply, and extended information associated with the reply, 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)
As per claim 6, claim 1 is incorporated and Rayit fails to disclose:
wherein a significance of the display attribute of the primary result is higher than a significance of the display attribute of the secondary result.
However, Sue discloses the above limitation 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)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the presentation of results of Rayit with ability to consolidate and rank the results from multiple search engines in a format where a a user may be better able to visually observe and identify which search engine provides the most relevant results to the query or the user's desire, (Sue, para. 0043)
As per claim 7, claim 6 is incorporated and Rayit fails to disclose:
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.
However, Sue discloses the above limitation 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)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the presentation of results of Rayit with ability to consolidate and rank the results from multiple search engines in a format where a a user may be better able to visually observe and identify which search engine provides the most relevant results to the query or the user's desire, (Sue, para. 0043).
As per claim 8, claim 1 is incorporated and Rayit 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 [0066 and 0067] which describes the given a query (e.g. search request), suggests query suggestions and conversational input suggestion (extracting a primary query and a secondary query matched to the search request,) where query suggestions are used by the search engine to identify search results and conversational input suggestion being selected, such suggestion is used as input by the GLM to generate conversational output)
As per claim 9, claim 1 is incorporated and Rayit further discloses:
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, 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)
As per claim 10, claim 1 is incorporated and Rayit further discloses:
wherein the method is performed in a conversational search page, 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.)
Claims 11-19 recite equivalent claim limitations as claims 1-9 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.
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/DENNIS TRUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2152 01/23/2026