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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Introduction
This office action is in response to Applicant’s submission filed on 6/27/2024. As such, claims 1-8 have been examined.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-6 are objected to because of the following informalities: In claim 1, line 2, after “circuitry configured to”, there should be a “:” Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 4-6 are objected to because of the following informalities: in claim 4, in line 3, “calculating a minimum value of the maximum value” should read “calculating a minimum value of the maximum value from the corrected alignment score of the content words”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claim 1 recites an apparatus that, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, claims limitations that cover performance of the limitations in the human mind with the assistance of physical aids (e.g., pen and paper), but for the recitation of generic or well-known or conventional computer components. That is, other than reciting “circuitry and a part of speech parser” nothing in these claim limitations precludes the steps from practically being performed in the mind. As a whole, claim 1 pertains to processing natural language sentence and validating a sentence, which is a mental process that a human can do. Individually, each of the limitations also pertains to a mental process and/or insignificant extra solution activity, for example:
acquire a natural sentence; (e.g., data gathering step, a human can obtain or receive a sentence.)
output a semantic representation by executing semantic parsing with the natural sentence as an input; (e.g., analysis of a sentence, the human can analyze the meaning of a sentence and translate it into a logical form.)
calculate a first alignment score representing a relationship between input/output tokens of the natural sentence and the semantic representation; (e.g., processing information, the human perform calculation of an alignment score on the input/output words of the sentence by matching words in the sentence with the logical word matches that describes the sentence.)
calculate a second alignment score of a word unit from a relationship between a token included in the input/output tokens and a word; (e.g., processing information, the human perform calculation of another alignment score on the input/output words of the sentence to determine how close they match.)
a part-of-speech parser configured to extract natural sentence content words by executing part-of-speech parsing on the natural sentence; (e.g., processing information, the human writes down which word of the sentence is a noun or verb and etc.)
extract semantic representation content words by executing grammar parsing on the semantic representation; (e.g., processing information, the human checking grammar rule of the sentence to determine part of speech of the words from the sentence.)
and determine whether the semantic representation is valid on the basis of the second alignment score, the natural sentence content words, and the semantic representation content words. (e.g., evaluation of the result, the human evaluating the sentence to see if the sentence make sense based on the content of the sentence, the alignment score and meaning of the words.)
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims only recites generic computing components. Such generic computing components are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function of receiving, determining, or outputting information) such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Claim 1 does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional limitations of using generic computer components amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Claim 1 is not patent eligible.
The examiner further notes that the use of claimed generic computer components (“circuitry and a part of speech parser”) invokes such generic computer components “merely as a tool to perform an existing process”. MPEP 2106.05(f). MPEP 2106.05(f) further explains:
Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide significantly more. See Affinity Labs v. DirecTV, 838 F.3d 1253, 1262, 120 USPQ2d 1201, 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (cellular telephone); TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto, LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 613, 118 USPQ2d 1744, 1748 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (computer server and telephone unit). Similarly, "claiming the improved speed or efficiency inherent with applying the abstract idea on a computer" does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide an inventive concept. Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1367, 115 USPQ2d 1636, 1639 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
Claim 1 recites generic computer components (“circuitry and a part of speech parser”), with respect to performing tasks. MPEP 2106.05(d) and (f) further provides examples of court decisions where the courts found generic computing components to be mere instructions to apply a judicial exception, and further explains “increased speed” (e.g., using a computer to increase the speed of an otherwise mental process) does not provide an inventive concept. For example:
A commonplace business method or mathematical algorithm being applied on a general purpose computer, Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. V. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983 (2014); Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 64, 175 USPQ 673, 674 (1972); Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
A process for monitoring audit log data that is executed on a general-purpose computer where the increased speed in the process comes solely from the capabilities of the general-purpose computer, FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., 839 F.3d 1089, 1095, 120 USPQ2d 1293, 1296 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (emphasis added).
Performing repetitive calculations. Bancorp Services v. Sun Life, 687 F.3d 1266, 1278, 103 USPQ2d 1425, 1433 (Fed. Cir. 2012) ("The computer required by some of Bancorp’s claims is employed only for its most basic function, the performance of repetitive calculations, and as such does not impose meaningful limits on the scope of those claims.")
Claim 7 recites a method claim that corresponds to the apparatus of claim 1 and is therefore rejected under the same grounds as claim 1 above. Claim 7 is not patent eligible.
Claim 8 recites non-transitory computer readable storage medium claim that corresponds to the apparatus of claim 1 and is therefore rejected under the same grounds as claim 1 above. While claim 8 further recites a “computer readable storage medium” and “computer programs”, these are merely generic computer components recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Therefore, none of these limitations (a) integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea or (b) amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, because in either case the additional limitations merely utilize generic computer components that amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer function. Claim 8 is not patent eligible.
Claims 2-6 depend from independent claim 1, do not remedy any of the deficiencies of claims 1, and therefore are rejected on the same grounds as claim 1 from above.
Claim 2 further recites: the determining further comprises extracting, for each of the natural sentence content words and the semantic representation content words, a third alignment score with respect to other series from the second alignment score, and calculates a corrected alignment score for each content word on the basis of the third alignment score. (e.g., processing information and evaluation of the result, the human evaluating words of the sentence and performing math calculations.)
Claim 3 further recites: the determining further comprises calculating a maximum value of the corrected alignment score for each of the natural sentence content words and the semantic representation content words. (e.g., processing information, the human evaluating words of the sentence and performing math calculations, if the match is exact then the maximum value would be 1.0 for instance.)
Claim 4 further recites: the determining further comprises calculating a minimum value of the maximum value and determines whether the minimum value is less than a threshold value. (e.g., processing information and evaluation of the result, the human evaluating words of the sentence and perform math calculations, to determining the min value of the max value, and determining if the min value is less than a threshold value.)
Claim 5 further recites: the determining further comprises outputting the third alignment score in a case in which it is determined that the minimum value is less than the threshold value. (e.g., providing the result, the human displaying the final score in a case where the min value is less than a threshold value.)
Claim 6 further recites: the determining further comprises determining that the semantic representation is valid in a case in which it is determined that the minimum value is equal to or greater than the threshold value. (e.g., evaluation and providing the result, the human making the determination that the min value/score is equal to greater than the threshold value, which means that the sentence is valid.)
In sum, claims 2-6 depend from claim 1, and further recite mental processes as explained above. None of the additional limitations recited in claims 2-6 amount to anything more than the same or a similar abstract idea as recited in claim 1. Nor do any limitations in claims 2-6: (a) integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea or (b) amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional limitations of using generic computer components amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Claims 2-6 are not patent eligible.
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 2-6 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 2 recites “other series from the second alignment score”, it is not clear what constitutes a “series” or how it relates to the previously mentioned “tokens” or “words”. It is unclear what the “other series” refers to, (i.e. word series, data sequence or time series). It is also unclear if “from the second alignment score” means the series are derived from the score or if the score is applied to the series. Due to the vagueness of the claim, Examiner is unable to provide best prior art. Once the clarity of the claim is more apparent, Examiner would be in better position to provide closest prior art at that time to determine the status of these claims.
Claims 3-6 depends from claim 2, and therefore they are also rejected under the same rationale.
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, 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim US 20190392066, in view of Elworthy (US 6937975), and further in view of Galitsky US 20220284174).
Regarding Claim 1, Kim discloses: A validity determination apparatus comprising: circuitry configured to ([0106] The depicted example of a computing system 1200 includes a processor 1202 communicatively coupled to one or more memory devices 1204. The processor 1202 executes computer-executable program code stored in a memory device 1204, accesses information stored in the memory device 1204, or both. Examples of the processor 1202 include a microprocessor, an application-specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”), a field-programmable gate array (“FPGA”), or any other suitable processing device. The processor 1202 can include any number of processing devices, including a single processing device.)
acquire a natural sentence; ([0005] a computer-implemented method for retrieving a query result for a natural language query (e.g., a procedural query) includes generating a query semantic representation for the natural language query received from a user device,)
output a semantic representation by executing semantic parsing with the natural sentence as an input; ([0005] a computer-implemented method for retrieving a query result for a natural language query (e.g., a procedural query) includes generating a query semantic representation for the natural language query received from a user device,)
calculate a first alignment score representing a relationship between input/output tokens of the natural sentence and the semantic representation; ([0006] each of the query semantic representation and the result semantic representation includes one or more triples in a form of (action, role, value), where the action in each triple includes an action term in the natural language query or the candidate query result, the value in each triple includes a term in the natural language query or the candidate query result, and the role in each triple indicates a role of the value with respect to the action. In some embodiments, the method further includes, for each triple in the result semantic representation, determining an alignment score between the triple in the result semantic representation and a triple in the query semantic representation based on a set of rules. In some embodiments, determining the match score between the natural language query and the candidate query result includes determining a first weighted average of alignment scores for the one or more triples in the query semantic representation, determining a second weighted average of alignment scores for the one or more triples in the result semantic representation, and determining an average of the first weighted average and the second weighted average, where the average corresponds to the match score between the natural language query and the candidate query result.)
calculate a second alignment score of a word unit from a relationship between a token included in the input/output tokens and a word; ([0007] the method further includes extracting a set of paraphrasing rules from user interaction data associated with a website. The user interaction data includes, for each query in the user interaction data, a frequency that a website is visited by users after the query. Each paraphrasing rule includes two triples representing a pair of paraphrases and a similarity score between the two triples. The set of paraphrasing rules is part of the set of rules used for determining the alignment score between a triple in the result semantic representation and a triple in the query semantic representation.)
Kim does not explicitly disclose the following features.
Elworthy discloses: a part-of-speech parser configured to extract natural sentence content words by executing part-of-speech parsing on the natural sentence; ([col. 2., lines 46-55] The input data is analysed to generate meaning data structured in computer usable form as lexical meaning representations and links therebetween having regard to the grammar of the natural language. The links indicate which of the lexical meaning representations modify other lexical meaning representations. Thus, preferably the present invention is implemented using a dependency parser. However, the present invention is not limited to such a form of parser and any parser can be used whereby the modification relationships can be derived.)
extract semantic representation content words by executing grammar parsing on the semantic representation; ([col. 2., lines 46-55] The input data is analysed to generate meaning data structured in computer usable form as lexical meaning representations and links therebetween having regard to the grammar of the natural language. The links indicate which of the lexical meaning representations modify other lexical meaning representations. Thus, preferably the present invention is implemented using a dependency parser. However, the present invention is not limited to such a form of parser and any parser can be used whereby the modification relationships can be derived.)
Elworthy also disclose that input data can be sentence in natural language. See col. 3, lines 32-36.
Kim and Elworthy 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 Kim to combine the teaching of Elworthy, because the object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for linguistic processing wherein input data representing a phrase, sentence, or passage of a natural language can be input and matched to reference data representing a phrase, sentence, or passage in the natural language using a meaning analysis in a more efficient and accurate manner then heretofore disclosed (Elworthy, [background]).
Kim and Elworthy does not explicitly disclose the following features.
Galitsky discloses: and determine whether the semantic representation is valid on the basis of the second alignment score, the natural sentence content words, and the semantic representation content words. ([0008] In some embodiments, the computer-implemented method further comprises validating the corrected text sentence, wherein validating the corrected text sentence comprises: generating a first communicative discourse tree for the raw text sentence; generating a second communicative discourse tree for the corrected text sentence; and identifying an alignment between the first communicative discourse tree and the second communicative discourse tree.) [This reference describes the use of an alignment procedure between two structured representations (the first and second communicative discourse trees) as part of a validation process. This alignment process would necessarily involve comparing the content words and structure of the trees, leading to an alignment score, which aligns with the concepts of the claim.]
Kim/Elworthy/Galitsky 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 Kim and Elworthy to combine the teaching of Galitsky, because techniques are disclosed for correcting text input such as text originally generated using deep learning techniques (Galitsky, [0004]).
Claim 7 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 8, Kim discloses: A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing a computer program which is executed by a validity determination apparatus to provide the steps of: ([0107] A memory device 1204 includes any suitable non-transitory computer-readable medium for storing program code 1215, program data 1216, or both. A computer-readable medium can include any electronic, optical, magnetic, or other storage device capable of providing a processor with computer-readable instructions or other program code.)
As for the rest of the claim, they recite the elements of claim 1, therefore they are similarly rejected as claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Sapugay (US 20210004443) – discloses contextual artifact pinning in a natural language understanding system.
Arthur, P., Neubig, G., Sakti, S., Toda, T., & Nakamura, S. (2015). Semantic parsing of ambiguous input through paraphrasing and verification. Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 3, 571-584. – disclose verification of natural language input using paraphrasing.
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