DETAILED ACTION
This Action is in response to the Amendment for Application Number 18698923 received on 7/02/2026.
Claims 1-3, 5-16 are presented for examination.
Claim 16 is newly added.
Claim 4 has been cancelled.
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 Interpretation
It is noted that claims 1, 14 and 15 recite limitations that are recited in the alternative. For example, claim 1 recites the limitation, “a first process… with at least one of the machine and the one or more terminals, or a second process…relating to said content”. Claims 14 and 15 recite substantially similar alternative language. While both alternatives have been mapped in the claim rejections below, it is noted that under the BRI of claims 1, 14, and 15, only one of these alternatives is required by the prior art to meet the requirements of these claims.
It is also noted that dependent claims 2, 5, and 16 further define the method to require one of the two alternatives (either the “first process” or the ”second process”). For example, while claim 1 recites, “the method includes…a first process…or a second process”, the limitation of claim 2, positively recites, “The method of claim 1, wherein the method includes the second process”, which limits the method of claim 1 to including the second process and not the first process.
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 1-3, 5-14, and 16 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.
Claim 1 recites the newly added limitation, “the method includes, prior to analyzing the at least one item of content:
a first process comprising…” The claim then recites a series of steps that are part of the “first process”, per the indentations.
First, the scope of the claim is indefinite because, the “first process” includes steps that involve analyzing the content of the message. For example, the first process includes the steps of “identifying said current request in the message of the first type, consulting a knowledge database in order to determine if the current request can be sent to the machine, and, if necessary, formulating the current request in an appropriate form, in the message of the second type, and updating said knowledge database during interactions with at least one of the machine and the one or more terminals”, which require analysis of the content of the request in order to consult the knowledge database, to formulate the current request in an appropriate form, and updating the knowledge database, as claimed.
Second, the scope of the claim is indefinite because the “first process” also further limits the “generating” step, which occurs after the analyzing step.
Third, the same issues above also apply with respect to the substantially similar language recited for the “second process”.
The newly added limitation, “prior to analyzing the at least one item of content” therefore appears contradictory to the functionality recited by the “first process”, and the “second process” since these two processes require steps that involve analyzing the content of the request as well as steps that occur after the analyzing, and as such the claim is indefinite.
Claim 14 is rejected for the same reasons above, as reciting substantially similar limitations. Claims 2-3, 5-13, and 16 are rejected for the same reasons above by virtue of their dependencies to claim 1.
For examining purposes, the limitation will be interpreted in accordance with Applicant’s Specification and consistent with claim 15 to recite, “the method includes,
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, 5-6, and 11-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Noguera (EP 3 334 099 A1) in view of Hoelgaard et al. (US 20220373995) and further in view of Mejias et al. (US 20200244604).
Regarding claim 1, Noguera disclosed a method of communication between several devices which include a machine (Noguera, machines 70) and a plurality of user terminals (Noguera, [0016], “One aspect of the invention relates to an inter-entity instant messaging system, comprising an instant messaging application for communication between multiple users, between multiple machines, and between users and machines”; [0022], “users 100”; See Fig. 1, the user uses their respective mobile terminal 10),
the method being implemented by a chatbot on a computing device as an interface between said several devices, the chatbot being able to communicate independently with the plurality of terminals and the machine (Noguera, Fig. 1, electronic device 60, [0027], “In the hardware with the microprocessor (63), an embedded computer application based on artificial intelligence and on ontologies is implemented in firmware. This firmware has the capability to process digital instructions into natural language and offer them to the user (100) in a comprehensive form of text in the user's native language, as well as in the form of voice”; [0030], “The electronic device (60) with the hardware that is connected to the machine (70) and communicates with the server (30) and with said machine (70)”, in which device 60 includes Interpreter 62; See also [0031] and Fig. 3 disclosing the user instant message application including a modules for communication with the bot 230, 250, 260, 270),
the plurality of user terminals running an instant messaging application in which users participate in a discussion with the chatbot by exchanging messages via their terminal (Noguera, [0030], “instant messaging application (20) in the mobile terminal (10) of the user (100)”), the method comprising at least:
analyzing at least one item of content in a message of a first type sent by at least one first device of the several devices (Noguera, [0024], “Natural language communication between both parties, i.e., the user (100) and the machine (70), is achieved as a result of the interpreter module (63) which constitutes artificial intelligence, implemented by means of AIML language… Therefore a user (100) can, for example, send to the intelligence of the interpreter (63) the message "Turn on"”; See col. 6, line 53-60, “The electronic device (60) with the hardware that is connected to the machine (70) and communicates with the server (30) and with said machine (70).”), and
generating a message of a second type intended for a second device of the several devices, on the basis of results of the analysis of the message of the first type (Noguera, [0024], “the intelligence translates the natural language message into a specific command for the machine (70); in this case, to activate a signal which starts up the home appliance to which the intelligence is connected”; See col. 6, line 53-60, “Communication with the machine (70) is performed through the firmware used by the lexical database (61) or ontology””),
wherein:
one among the at least one first device and second device being a user terminal of the plurality of user terminals and the other among the at least one first device and second device being the machine (Noguera, [0030], “Figure 2 shows the basic blocks of the structure of the system which interact for natural language communication between the user (100) and the machine (70)”), and
the method includes, prior to analyzing the at least one item of content:
a first process comprising receiving the message of the first type from at least one of the plurality of user terminals, the message of the first type including a current request to be sent to the machine, wherein the generating of the message of the second type is intended for the machine (Noguera, col. 5, lines 35-40, user sends to the intelligence of the interpreter [receiving] the message “Turn on” which is intended for a machine, “the intelligence translates the natural language message into a specific command for the machine”; Translating to a specific command amounts to generating a message of a second type intended for the machine) and includes:
identifying said current request in the message of the first type (Noguera, col. 5, lines 35-40, user sends to the intelligence of the interpreter the message “Turn on” which is intended for a machine; The interpreter being able to translate the “Turn on” message into a specific command requires identifying the request),
consulting a knowledge database in order to determine if the current request can be sent to the machine, and, if necessary, formulating the current request in an appropriate form, in the message of the second type (Noguera. col. 5, lines 30-40, “the intelligence translates the natural language message into a specific command for the machine”; The translation of the natural language message into a specific command requires consulting a knowledge base to locate the corresponding command related to the natural language; col. 10, lines 1-15, “Knowledge database (61): artificial intelligence in charge of interacting with the users in natural language. It is based on: Message Pattern Recognition (611): detection of words, expressions and/or emojis in received messages. Response Generator (612) reply to said message with the suitable response, generated as a function of the intelligence programming”; Also see col. 12, lines 49-60, “Each bot manages an access control list, hereinafter referred to as ACL, where it stores the different entities, users (100) and machines (70) that have permission to communicate with the registered bot”; col. 13, lines 39-43, “Any user that is in the ACL of the bot may consult the status of the bot and send it commands”), and
updating said knowledge database during interactions with at least one of the machine and the one or more terminals (Noguera, col. 9, lines 5-10., “Action Interpreter (531), based on the external signals received it updates the status or knowledge (artificial intelligence) base to generate the corresponding command”; col. 14, lines 28-35, “D. Update the knowledge base of the bot. The responses or actions of the bot with respect to the different inputs sent by the users are stored in a knowledge base that can be updated”),
or
a second process comprising receiving the message of the first type from the machine (Noguera, As indicated above, Noguera at [0027], disclosed “In the hardware with the microprocessor (63), an embedded computer application based on artificial intelligence and on ontologies is implemented in firmware. This firmware has the capability to process digital instructions into natural language and offer them to the user (100) in a comprehensive form of text in the user's native language, as well as in the form of voice” [0024] provides an example to which the user sends “Turn on” and in response, receives the response “Ready. I’m on”; See also col. 9, lines 49-60 in which Noguera further disclosed the chat bot in communication with the electronic device to interact with the hardware comprising connectivity with input/output hardware (641): write and read on the input and output ports for control and monitoring of the external hardware and updating variables of the knowledge database (61) follow the status of the system as a whole in the internal logic of the bot, and col. 10, lines 1-13, to which the knowledge database includes artificial intelligence in charge of interacting with the users in natural language, including message pattern recognition and response generator responding with a suitable response).
While Noguera disclosed the structure for monitoring and communication between users and machine, and in response to the message of the first type coming from the machine, the generating of the message of the second type, Noguera did not explicitly disclose the second process comprising:
wherein generating the message of the second type comprises;
accessing the knowledge database and identifying in order to identify a subject in the database linked to content in the message of the first type coming from the machine, and
generating the message of the second type to be sent to at least one of the plurality of user terminals, the message of the second type comprising data from the knowledge database relating to said content.
In an analogous art, Hoelgaard disclosed wherein, in response to the message of the first type coming from the machine ([0120] chatbot receives an “alarm” from a control module of a pump,), the generating of the message of the second type comprises the chatbot:
accessing a knowledge database in order to identify a subject in the database linked to the content in the message of the first type coming from the machine (Hoelgaard, [0120], “Upon receipt by the chatbot agent 3 of the alarm signal, the chatbot agent 3 may or may not consult the knowledge base module 15 e.g. to find a setting alleviating the malfunction and communicate[d] with user”; [0121] content of the knowledge base covering subjects), and
generating the message of the second type to be sent to at least one of the plurality of user terminals, the message of the second type comprising data from the knowledge database relating to said content (Hoelgaard, [0120], “Upon receipt by the chatbot agent 3 of the alarm signal, the chatbot agent 3 may or may not consult the knowledge base module 15 e.g. to find a setting alleviating the malfunction and communicate[d] with user”; [0123], “The result of the operating performed by the chatbot agent 3 may include: a recommendation as to setting of the pump 20, a list of possible action, a warning, and notification to: order new part, schedule servicing, and to change the pump settings.”; [0102], Hoelgaard disclosed the chatbot in communication with the user through a third-party communication platform, including skype).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Noguera and Hoelgaard as they are both directed to chatbot functionality to interact with another device, utilizing a knowledge base, and as such they are within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the chatbot implementation of Hoelgaard within the teachings of Noguera in order to provide the users of Hoelgaard with information such as recommendations related to the status of the external device in order to provide an improved monitoring and control system that is user friendly, making the system more desirable to use by its customers.
While the teachings of disclosed Noguera and Hoelgaard generating the message of the second type to be sent to at least one of the plurality of user terminals, as shown above, the combination did not explicitly disclose the message to be sent to at least some of the plurality of user terminals, as claimed.
In an analogous art, Mejias disclosed a chatbot communicating outputs from an API of a separate application through a chatbot interface such as a web chat application interface visible to users (Mejias, [0009]).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Noguera and Hoelgaard with Mejias as they all relate to chatbot implementation, and as such they are all within similar environments. Furthermore, the combination of Noguera and Hoelgaard already disclosed the utilization of a third-party communication platform for communicating with users, and as such, the combination of Noguera and Hoelgaard with Mejias would not require extensive implementation. Additionally, Noguera explicitly suggests allowing multiple users to interact with the chatbot (Noguera, col.2, lines 50-60) and Mejias provides such an implementation to allow such to occur.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the chatbot functionality of Mejias within the combined teachings of Noguera and Hoelgaard in order to be able to notify multiple users of outputs from the external hardware device of Noguera, thereby providing an improved monitoring and control system that is user friendly, making the system more desirable to use by its customers.
Claim 14 recites a non-transitory computer storage medium storing instructions of a computer program which when the program is executed by a processor configure the processor to implement a chatbot with limitations that are substantially similar to the limitations of claim 1.
Claim 15 recites a computing device comprising: a communication interface for communicating with a machine and with a plurality of user terminals running an instant messaging application, and a processing circuit configured to implement a chatbot that executes a method with limitations that are substantially similar to the limitations of claim 1.
Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed a medium and device with communication interface implementing the above limitations (Noguera, Fig. 1, [0027]-[0030], col. 6, lines 16-40, electronic device 60, comprising hardware structure with wireless communication 64, with firmware programmed, and semantic database 61 or knowledge base based on ontologies; Hoelgaard [0050]-[0051], “computer system”, “medium”).
Therefore claims 14 and 15 are rejected under the same rationale applied above
Regarding claim 2, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 1, wherein the method includes the second process (See above mappings in the rejection of claim 1 with respect to the second process). See motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 3, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 2, wherein said discussion is planned within a professional, collaborative work setting, and the knowledge database includes information specific to a business sector of said collaborative work setting (Hoelgaard, [0025], knowledge base contains data specific to the pump system; [0044], “which may be configured for processing the output from the digital twin module based on empirically obtained knowledge of the pump system, such as laboratory test, prior application history of other pump systems, expect data based on the input from the chatbot”). See motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 5, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 1, wherein the method includes the first process (See above mappings in the rejection of claim 1 with respect to the first process) and wherein “each bot manages an access control list, hereinafter referred to as ACL, where it stores the different entities, users (100) and machines (70) that have permission to communicate with the registered bot.” (Noguera, col. 12, lines 50-60), and “any user that is in the ACL of the bot may consult the status of the bot and send it commands“ (col. 13, lines 39-45).
Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias did not explicitly disclose wherein the chatbot applies a filtering rule to prevent sending the message of the second type to the machine, at least based on data from the at least one first device, which comprises a transmitting user terminal of the plurality of user terminals, sending the message of the first type.
However it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed that Noguera’s enforcing of the ACL list for its intended purpose of only permitting authorized users to communicate via the chatbot would require applying an ACL list filtering rule to communications received, in order to only permit those communications that are identified as dara from a user that is on the ACL list, in order to obtain the predictable results of preventing unauthorized users from having access to the chatbot and machine. See also motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 6, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 5, but did not explicitly disclose wherein said data from the transmitting user terminal includes a terminal identifier which identifies the transmitting user terminal as belonging to a user authorized to send requests intended for the machine
However, as noted in the rejection of claim 5, Noguera disclosed wherein “each bot manages an access control list, hereinafter referred to as ACL, where it stores the different entities, users (100) and machines (70) that have permission to communicate with the registered bot.” (Noguera, col. 12, lines 50-60), and “any user that is in the ACL of the bot may consult the status of the bot and send it commands“ (col. 13, lines 39-45).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed that enforcing the ACL list of Noguera for its intended purpose of only permitting authorized users to communicate via the chatbot would require applying an ACL list filtering rule to communications received, and such communications would therefore require a user terminal identifier in order to only permit those communications that are identified as from an authorized user that is on the ACL list, in order to obtain the predictable results of preventing unauthorized users from having access to the chatbot and machine. See also motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 16, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 1, including the first process (See above mappings in the rejection of claim 1 with respect to the first process). See motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 11, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 16, wherein the chatbot applies a filtering rule to prevent sending a message of the second type to one of said plurality of user terminals if that user terminal is identified as belonging to a user not authorized to receive message content sent by the machine (Noguera, col. 12, lines 50-60, “Each bot manages an access control list, hereinafter referred to as ACL, where it stores the different entities, users (100) and machines (70) that have permission to communicate with the registered bot.”; The management of the ACL results in preventing messages being sent to unauthorized users).
Regarding claim 12, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 16, wherein the chatbot analyzes a message received from a user terminal of the plurality of user terminals and/or generates a message intended for a user terminal of the plurality of user terminals, in natural language (Noguera. col. 5, lines 30-40, “the intelligence translates the natural language message into a specific command for the machine”; The translation of the natural language message into a specific command requires consulting a knowledge base to locate the corresponding command related to the natural language).
Regarding claim 13, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 16, wherein the chatbot generates a message intended for the machine, in formal language (Noguera. col. 5, lines 30-40, “the intelligence translates the natural language message into a specific command for the machine”; The translation of the natural language message into a specific command requires consulting a knowledge base to locate the corresponding command related to the natural language to translate into the formal language of the machine).
Claim(s) 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Noguera (EP 3 334 099 A1) in view of Hoelgaard et al. (US 20220373995) and Mejias et al. (US 20200244604) and further in in view of Nelson (US 20170236514).
Regarding claim 7, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 5, but did not explicitly disclose wherein said data from the transmitting user terminal includes current geolocation data for the transmitting user terminal, and the filtering is applied if a distance between the transmitting user terminal and the machine is greater than a threshold.
Nelson disclosed wherein said data from the transmitting user terminal includes current geolocation data for the transmitting user terminal, and the filtering is applied if a distance between the transmitting user terminal and the machine is greater than a threshold (Nelson, [0032]-[0033], Nelson disclosed translating natural language into desired operations to be executed on a subset of devices, to which Nelson disclosed identifying the subset of devices according to proximity of the subset of devices to the user’s portable electronic device; [0065], “subset 328 of electronic devices 110 may be identified based on predetermined locations of electronic devices 110 relative to the location of acoustic transducer 124-1 (which may be included with information 310 from acoustic transducer 124-1)”; [0043], “location information may be included with acoustic signals detected by a given acoustic transducer so that the acoustic signals can be associated with a particular location or region in an environment (such as a room, a building or a region or geographic area)” at paragraph [0085], Nelson disclosed, “the automation server may identify the subset of the electronic devices based on their proximity to the location of the acoustic transducer and/or the user. For example, the subset of the electronic devices may include electronic devices located within 1-5 m of the user”; Nelson therefore disclosed filtering devices according to distance, i.e. with respect to Nelson’s example: filtering devices out that are further than 5m from the user’s device, for example).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Noguera and Nelson as they both relate to translating natural language into specific commands/operations for communication with a device, and as such they are within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate Nelson’s utilization of distance to filter out devices, within the teachings of Noguera in order to facilitate control of desired devices according to their locations relative to the user’s location, thereby allowing ease of control of devices located near the user, without forcing the user to learn or keep track of multiple different user interfaces or commands (Nelson, [0008]) thereby increasing desirability of use by its customers.
Claim(s) 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Noguera (EP 3 334 099 A1) in view of Hoelgaard et al. (US 20220373995) and Mejias et al. (US 20200244604) and further in in view of Tran et al. (US 20180188905) and Miller et al. (US 20210097189).
Regarding claim 8, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 5, but did not explicitly disclose wherein said data from the transmitting user terminal includes current timestamp data sent by the transmitting user terminal with the message of the first type.
In an analogous art, Tran disclosed wherein said data from the transmitting user terminal includes current timestamp data sent by the transmitting user terminal with the message of the first type (Tran, [0095] Tran disclosed messaging between chat bot and user; [0057] Tran disclosed messages to contain message metadata including timestamp data).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias and Tran as they both provide teachings involving chat bot messaging, and as such they are within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the messaging metadata of Tran within the teachings of Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias in order to allow for the teachings of Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias to more accurately monitor the messaging involved with chatbots, thereby increasing desirability of use by its customers.
While the teachings of Noguera, Hoelgaard, Mejias and Tran disclosed the managing access control (Noguera, col. 12, lines 50-60) the combination did not explicitly disclose the access control with respect to timestamps. Specifically, the combination did not explicitly disclose applying the filtering rule based on the current timestamp data and preventing the sending of the message of the second type based on the current timestamp data.
In an analogous art, Miller disclosed applying the filtering rule based on the current timestamp data and preventing the sending of the message of the second type based on the current timestamp data (Miller, [0138], Miller disclosed, “a code execution request may be generated and transmitted to the on-demand code execution system 120, where the code execution request includes (or identifies) the data access control code along with any information to be used by the data access control code to determine whether and how the requesting user should be given access to the requested data object. Such information may include the identity of the requesting user, identity of the requested data object, content of the requested data object, timestamp associated with the data request”; [0145], Miller disclosed, “determine whether the timestamp on the requested data object is within the time window by accessing the metadata associated with the requested data object as well as accessing a subscriptions database indicating the subscription time window for the requesting user (e.g., allowed to access documents less than 1 month old, allowed to access images more than 5 years old, allowed to write to or modify data less than 1 week old, and so on). Based on these determinations, the data access control code can determine whether the requesting user is allowed to access the requested data object.”; Miller therefore disclosed access control based on timestamp data of the request)
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Miller with Noguera, Hoelgaard, Mejias and Tran, since Noguera expressly suggests access control, and Miller explicitly provides a form of access control, and as such the motivation to combine is within the references.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate Miller’s access control techniques within the combined teachings of Noguera, Hoelgaard, Mejias and Tran in order to provide additional ways to manage user access to the machines of Noguera, Hoelgaard, Mejias and Tran, thereby providing additional forms of security as well as providing different levels of access based on subscription levels (Miller, [0149]).
Claim(s) 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Noguera (EP 3 334 099 A1) in view of Hoelgaard et al. (US 20220373995) and Mejias et al. (US 20200244604) and further in in view of Wan et al. (US 20140114899).
Regarding claim 9, Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias disclosed the method according to claim 5, but did not explicitly disclose wherein said data from the transmitting user terminal includes a score from the detection of a predetermined mood, identified in the message of the first type, and the filtering is applied if said score is above a threshold.
In an analogous art, Wan disclosed wherein said data from the transmitting user terminal includes a score from the detection of a predetermined mood, identified in the message of the first type, and the filtering is applied if said score is above a threshold ([0017], “mood based filter” detecting user’s mood and includes blocking the user action).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias and Wan as they both provide teachings involving chat messaging, and as such they are within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the mood blocking techniques of Wan within the teachings of Noguera, Hoelgaard, and Mejias in order to allow for the teachings of Noguera to filter the user's actions based on user's mood in order to provide a level of filtering to remove potential postings that were made “in the heat of the moment” that may not be able to be taken back even if they subsequently regret sending the message (Wan, [0002]).
Claim(s) 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Noguera (EP 3 334 099 A1) in view of Hoelgaard et al. (US 20220373995), Mejias et al. (US 20200244604) and Wan et al. (US 20140114899) and further in view of Kozhaya et al. (US 20190347326).
Regarding claim 10, Noguera, Hoelgaard, Mejias, and Wan disclosed the method according to claim 9, wherein the message of the first type is a voice message (Noguera, [0012], Wan, [0019]), but did not explicitly disclose the detection of said predetermined mood is enhanced by a detection of voice components in said voice message.
In an analogous art, Kozhaya disclosed the detection of said predetermined mood is enhanced by a detection of voice components in said voice message (Kozhaya, [0019], Kozhaya disclosed message sentiment may be obtained by detecting sentiment from voice messages from the parsed words themselves, as well as user tone, loudness, urgency, etc).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Kozhaya with Noguera and Wan as they both relate to the determining chat intents/moods, and as such they are within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the sentiment detection of Kozhaya within the combined teachings of Noguera and Wan in order to provide for additional means for filtering user actions based on the user’s mood thereby providing an additional level of filtering to remove potential postings that were made “in the heat of the moment” that may not be able to be taken back even if they subsequently regret sending the message (Wan, [0002]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments against the Noguerra reference alone with respect to amended claim 1 [Response,10-11] have been considered but are moot because of the new grounds of rejection.
With respect to claim 2, in response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, such is found both within the references themselves and in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. All three references provide for implementation with respect to chatbot functionality, all three references involve chatbots interfacing with separate applications, and all three references involve the utilization of natural language to converse with users, and therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine their teachings. Additionally, as the rejection details, the teachings of Noguera as providing the structure for monitoring and communication between users and machines using a chatbot, and therefore such would have led one of ordinary skill based on knowledge generally available, to apply well-known chatbot functionality, such as the functionality disclosed by Hoelgaard and Mejias for communication between users and machines.
In response to applicant's argument that the examiner's conclusion of obviousness is based upon improper hindsight reasoning, it must be recognized that any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning. But so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from the applicant's disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971).
With respect to claim 7, Applicant asserts, “while Nelson may disclose the receipt of locations of electronic devices 110, the devices 110 are not “user terminals,” such as the user electronic device 108. Rather, the cited electronic devices 110 are the devices being controlled by the user”.
Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Applicant’s argument does not appear consistent with what was relied upon in the rejection.
Paragraph [0032] of Nelson recites, "the computer system may receive, from an acoustic transducer and/or a portable electronic device, information specifying... operations that are to be performed", to which the paragraph later recites "the subset of the electronic devices may be identified based on proximity of the subset of the electronic devices to the acoustic transducer". It is evident from these recitations that the computer system is made aware of both the location of the user's device (i.e. "acoustic transducer and/or a portable electronic device") and the locations of the electronic devices, and the computing system determines “proximity” between their locations.
Paragraph [0065] of Nelson recites, “subset 328 of electronic devices 110 may be identified based on predetermined locations of electronic devices 110 relative to the location of acoustic transducer 124-1 (which may be included with information 310 from acoustic transducer 124-1)”. The acoustic transducer 124-1 is part of the user's portable device, as shown in Figure 1 of Nelson. Nelson therefore explicitly recites that the user’s portable device (i.e. the acoustic transducer of the user’s portable device) provides its location information with the information.
Applicants arguments with respect to amended claim 8 have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection applied.
It is the Examiner’s position that Applicant has not yet submitted claims drawn to limitations, which define the operation and apparatus of Applicant’s disclosed invention in manner, which distinguishes over the prior art.
Failure for Applicant to significantly narrow definition/scope of the claims and supply arguments commensurate in scope with the claims implies the Applicant intends broad interpretation be given to the claims. The Examiner has interpreted the claims with scope parallel to the Applicant in the response and reiterates the need for the Applicant to more clearly and distinctly define the claimed invention.
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 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 JERRY B DENNISON whose telephone number is (571)272-3910. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:50.
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, Hadi Armouche can be reached at 571-270-3618. 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.
/JERRY B DENNISON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
Prosecution Insights