DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to Applicant’s Amended submission filed on 4/3/2026. Applicant has amended claims 1-2, 6, and 7, and cancelled claims 3-5. Claims 1-2, 6 and 7 are pending and have been examined.
Response to Amendment and Arguments
35 U.S.C. 101 Rejections
Applicant’s amendment and argument toward the rejection has been fully reconsidered, and is persuasive, therefore the rejection has been withdrawn.
35 U.S.C. 102/103 Rejections
Applicant’s arguments are moot in view of the new or modified grounds of rejection that
were necessitated by the amendments to the Claims. Applicant’s arguments are directed to material that is added by the most recent amendments to the independent Claims. Response, p. 9-10.
Claim Objections
Claim 2 is objected to because of the following informalities: In line 2, the word “the” should be placed before “truth or falsity of the hypothetical sentence…” because that was already introduced previously in claim 1. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1, 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tang, in view of Ghaeini (US 20200320387), and further in view of Morales (US 20200125628).
Regarding Claim 1, Tang discloses: a verification apparatus, comprising at least one processor, the at least one processor carrying out: ([0062] Program code for carrying out methods of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. These program codes may be provided to a processor or controller of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program codes, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions/operations specified in the flowcharts and/or block diagrams to be implemented.)
a hypothetical sentence acquisition process of acquiring a hypothetical sentence which is to be verified; ([0032] FIG. 4 illustrates architecture 400 for fact checking an input text according to embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 4, the architecture 400 comprises a document retrieval model 410, a sentence selection model 420, a text verification model and an evidence database 408. For a given text, the document retrieval model 410 retrieves the most related documents from the evidence database 408, and the sentence selection model 420 then select top-k related sentences from the retrieved documents as the evidence sentences. The text verification model 430 takes the given text and the selected evidence sentences as input and outputs the veracity of the statement in the given text.)[given text reads on claim/statement/hypothesis that needs to be verified]
and a verification means for process of determining truth or falsity of the hypothetical sentence based on a degree to which the hypothetical sentence is entailed in a premise sentence that has been generated from a finding derived from verification data for use in verification of a hypothesis; ([0032] FIG. 4 illustrates architecture 400 for fact checking an input text according to embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 4, the architecture 400 comprises a document retrieval model 410, a sentence selection model 420, a text verification model and an evidence database 408. For a given text, the document retrieval model 410 retrieves the most related documents from the evidence database 408, and the sentence selection model 420 then select top-k related sentences from the retrieved documents as the evidence sentences. The text verification model 430 takes the given text and the selected evidence sentences as input and outputs the veracity of the statement in the given text.) [The specific, relevant sentences extracted from the retrieved documents that serve as the premises for the final decision. The output veracity is the result of the model's assessment of how well the evidence sentences support or refute the given text statement.]
a verification data acquisition process of acquiring the verification data; ([0032] As shown in FIG. 4, the architecture 400 comprises a document retrieval model 410, a sentence selection model 420, a text verification model and an evidence database 408. For a given text, the document retrieval model 410 retrieves the most related documents from the evidence database 408, and the sentence selection model 420 then select top-k related sentences from the retrieved documents as the evidence sentences. The text verification model 430 takes the given text and the selected evidence sentences as input and outputs the veracity of the statement in the given text.)
a finding derivation process of deriving the finding from the verification data which has been acquired in the verification data acquisition process; ([0032] As shown in FIG. 4, the architecture 400 comprises a document retrieval model 410, a sentence selection model 420, a text verification model and an evidence database 408. For a given text, the document retrieval model 410 retrieves the most related documents from the evidence database 408, and the sentence selection model 420 then select top-k related sentences from the retrieved documents as the evidence sentences. The text verification model 430 takes the given text and the selected evidence sentences as input and outputs the veracity of the statement in the given text.)
Tang does not disclose generating a premise sentence.
Ghaeini discloses: and a premise sentence generation process of generating, from the finding derived in the finding derivation process, the premise sentence related to the finding, wherein; ([0035] An inference encoding of the premise sentence and the hypothesis sentence can independently and dependently be generated at block 208 using the neural network model.)
Tang/Ghaeini are considered analogous art. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Tang to combine the teaching of Ghaeini, because the system described improve the accuracy and robustness of the natural language inference classification (Ghaeini, [0035]).
Tang/Ghaeini does not disclose handling of various data formats and application of derivation rules for the multiple data formats.
Morales discloses: in the finding derivation process, the at least one processor derives findings in a plurality of data formats; ([0081] Once the rules 315-330 have been defined, a composition engine 340 can evaluate and apply the rules 315-330 to a set of available data objects 335 and one or more templates 345. As known in the art, in VPD composition, the templates 345 can comprise a base document which will be personalized. The set of templates 345 can comprise a single template representing a single base document or can comprise a plurality of templates representing different base documents for different types of communications or communication channels. For example, templates can be separately defined for micro websites, email, content pushed to mobile apps, printed materials, and others.)
and in the premise sentence generation process by applying variables selected from elements included in the verification data to a template in which a generation rule prepared for the respective plurality of data formats of the findings, premise sentences from the findings in the respective plurality of data formats. ([0081] Once the rules 315-330 have been defined, a composition engine 340 can evaluate and apply the rules 315-330 to a set of available data objects 335 and one or more templates 345. As known in the art, in VPD composition, the templates 345 can comprise a base document which will be personalized. The set of templates 345 can comprise a single template representing a single base document or can comprise a plurality of templates representing different base documents for different types of communications or communication channels. For example, templates can be separately defined for micro websites, email, content pushed to mobile apps, printed materials, and others.) [Personalize document generation is analogous to premise sentence generation, data objects reads on variables which are applied to template to generate output. The templates are specific to the output format/channel (the rule/template is prepared for the format)] Also see para 0082.
Tang/Ghaeini/Morales are considered analogous art. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Tang and Ghaeini to combine the teaching of Morales, because there is a need for improved methods and systems to streamline the configuration of conditional formatting for variable data composition (Morales, [0003]).
Claim 6 recites a method claim that corresponds to the apparatus of claim 1 and is therefore rejected under the same grounds as claim 1 above.
Regarding Claim 7, Tang discloses: A non-transitory storage medium storing a verification program for causing a computer to carry out: ([0063] In the context of this disclosure, a machine readable medium may be any tangible medium that may contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The machine readable medium may be a machine readable signal medium or a machine readable storage medium. A machine readable medium may include but not limited to an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of the machine readable storage medium would include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.)
As for the rest of the claim, they recite similar claim elements from Claim 1, therefor the rationale applied in rejection of claim 1 is equally applicable.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tang, in view of Ghaeini (US 20200320387), further in view of Morales (US 20200125628), and furthermore in view of Boguraev (US 20170193088).
Regarding Claim 2, Tang/Ghaeini/Morales discloses: all of claim 1.
Tang discloses determines truth or falsity of the hypothetical sentence based on an entailment score which has been calculated with use of a language understanding model constructed by learning whether or not a premise sentence entails a hypothetical sentence, the entailment score indicating a degree to which the premise sentence that has been generated from the finding entails the hypothetical sentence that has been acquired in the hypothetical sentence acquisition process. “The text verification model 430... generates an output 435 indicating the veracity of the statement” “The text verification model 430 uses the intrinsic structure of evidence sentences 425 to access the truthfulness... makes understanding of the semantic structures of evidence sentences 425 and reasons bases on the semantic structures.” “The text verification model 430 may comprises a graph construction module for constructing graphs, a graph-based pre-trained model... graph convolutional network and a graph attention network” See para 0034-0036, however Tang/Ghaeini/Morales does not explicitly disclose calculating an entailment score.
Boguraev discloses: in the verification process, the at least one processor determines truth or falsity of the hypothetical sentence based on an entailment score which has been calculated with use of a language understanding model constructed by learning whether or not a premise sentence entails a hypothetical sentence, the entailment score indicating a degree to which the premise sentence that has been generated from the finding entails the hypothetical sentence that has been acquired in the hypothetical sentence acquisition process. ([0106] a natural language processing (NLP) system, such as QA system 102, may receive and analyze multiple text pairs (for example, question-and-answer pairs); retrieve multiple passages in response to queries generated based on the multiple text-pairs; and generate multiple entailment phrases. At one or more stages in this process, the NLP system may rank its results. For example, an entailment phrase may be scored, and ranked according to that score. The score for an entailment phrase may be based on a variety of factors, including, for example, one or more of the following: a score of a passage from which a portion of the entailment phrase is extracted; the number of times the same entailment phrase is extracted using different passages; the number of algorithms whose processing of the same QA pair and passage yield the same entailment phrase; and other factors.)[the passage reads on premise sentence, passage from which a portion of the entailment phrase is extracted from, it then determines if the information within the passage entails the answer/question (hypothetical sentence). The score is based, in part, on the score of this supporting passage.]
Tang/Ghaeini/Morales/Boguraev are considered analogous art. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Tang/Ghaeini/Morales to combine the teaching of Boguraev, because evidence scorers may generate a confidence score, a number that indicates the degree to which a piece of evidence supports or refutes the correctness of a candidate answer (Boguraev, [0015]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Guzman (US 20190236127) – teaches analyzing electronic document, determining if it meets evidence requirement, creating template, and generating a modified electronic document including the missing parameter identified. Abstract, and figs 3-4 for additional details.
Kupiec (US 5519608) – teaches method for extracting content from corpus to rank hypothesis. See Abstract, and figs. 1-6, for additional details.
Mander (US 20180181716)– teaches using validated clinical fact and rules to generate a clinical recommendation. See para 0133 and figs. 4-7, and 9 for additional details.
Duma, D., & Klein, E. (2013, March). Generating natural language from linked data: Unsupervised template extraction. In Proceedings of the 10th international conference on computational semantics (IWCS 2013)–long papers (pp. 83-94). – teaches natural language generation system for retrieving factual RDF data based on extraction of sentence templates. See Abstract and fig. 3 for additional details.
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 Philip H Lam whose telephone number is (571)272-1721. The examiner can normally be reached 9 AM-3 PM Pacific time.
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/PHILIP H LAM/ Examiner, Art Unit 2656
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