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 .
Claims Status
Claims 1, 8 and 15 have been amended.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending and rejected.
Response to Arguments
Double Patenting Rejection
Applicant’s acknowledgement of the pending double patenting rejection is noted. The rejection is held in abeyance until allowable subject matter has been determined.
The rejection has been restated below, for completeness of record.
35 USC 101 Rejection
Applicant's arguments, filed 2/2/2026, with respect to the previous rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 USC 101 have been fully considered and are persuasive, in view of the accompanying amendments.
Additionally, in view of MPEP 2106.07(b) which states that “a claim is eligible because the claim as a whole integrates the judicial exception into a practical application or amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception when the additional elements are considered both individually and in combination… [and] the additional element may be enough to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or to qualify as "significantly more" if it meaningfully limits the judicial exception, e.g., it improves another technology or technical field, improves the functioning of a computer itself.” As is the situation in this case, additional elements have been reevaluated and are considered “significantly more” as they meaningfully limit the judicial exception and are therefore eligible.
Accordingly, the previous rejection under 35 USC 101 has been withdrawn.
35 USC 102 Rejection
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the previous rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 USC 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The claim rejections have been withdrawn and are otherwise allowable.
Double Patenting
Non-Statutory Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the claims at issue are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP §§ 706.02(l)(1) - 706.02(l)(3) for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/forms/. The filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-10 of US Patent No. 12,210,591 (Application No. 17/407,158).
Although the claims are not completely identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because each limitation of the instant claims is fully defined by the claims in US Patent No. 12,210,591 (Application No. 17/407,158). Specifically, independent claims 1, 8 and 15 of the instant application would be anticipated by at least claims 1 and 13 of US Patent No. 12,210,591 (Application No. 17/407,158).
Claim 1 of the ‘591 patent teaches a method comprising: obtaining unstructured data describing items for display by an online concierge system, the unstructured data including a name of each item; identifying a set of items each having a common characteristic; extracting candidate values for attributes as segments from names of each item of the set, each candidate value associated with a frequency with which the segment occurs in the set of items; identifying a subset of candidate values based on frequency of occurrence in the set of items; generating a seed set of candidate values for one or more attributes from inputs received from one or more users associating candidate values of the subset with one or more attributes; generating clusters of candidate values from distances between candidate values not included in the subset and candidate values of the subset associated with one or more attributes, each cluster of candidate value corresponding to an attribute and including candidate values that are potential values for the attribute; receiving input from one or more users manually reviewing the generated clusters for accuracy; applying one or more labels to each item of the set, a label applied to an item of the set indicating a candidate value corresponding to an attribute matching a segment extracted from a name of the item of the set; generating training data including a plurality of examples, each example including an identifier of the item of the set and the one or more labels applied to the item of the set; and training an attribute extraction model to predict values for one or more attributes of an item from unstructured data describing the item by applying the attribute extraction model to the plurality of examples of the training data.
These claims fully anticipate the independent claims of the instant application. See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Moreover, the scope of the above noted claims in the instant application, if patented, would extend the grant/monopoly and are thereby properly rejected.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANAND LOHARIKAR whose telephone number is 571-272-8756. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Marissa Thein can be reached at 571-272-6764. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANAND LOHARIKAR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3689
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