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 .
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 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.
Examiner Notes
(1) In the case of amending the Claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention. This will assist in expediting compact prosecution. MPEP 714.02 recites: “Applicant should also specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure. See MPEP § 2163.06. An amendment which does not comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.121 (b), (c), (d), and (h) may be held not fully responsive. See MPEP § 714.” Amendments not pointing to specific support in the disclosure may be deemed as not complying with provisions of 37 C.F.R. 1.131 (b), (c), (d), and (h) and therefore held not fully responsive. Generic statements such as "Applicants believe no new matter has been introduced" may be deemed insufficient.
(2) Examiner cites particular columns, paragraphs, figures and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Remarks
Receipt of Applicant’s Amendment file on 01/02/2026 is acknowledged.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendments to the claims have overcome each and every objection and 101 rejections previously set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed 10/02/2025.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 8 and 15 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection (See new reference of Gerweck).
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 of this title, 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 1-2, 8-9, and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gerweck et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2015/0278334 A1) in view of Peukert (U.S. Pub. No. 2011/0219044 A1), further in view of Mac an tSaoir (U.S. Pub. No. US 10,157,221 B2, referred as “tSaoir”).
Regarding claim 1, SHYAM teaches a system comprising: one or more computer processors; one or more computer memories; a set of instruction stored in the one or more computer memories, the set of instructions configuring the one or more computer processors to perform operations, the operations comprising:
receiving a data graph specification written in a configuration language, wherein the data graph specification defines a plurality of data warehouse entities and semantic relationships between the data warehouse entities for providing semantic meaning to data items stored in a data warehouse (paragraph [0044]-[0045], a parser and graph processor receives a metadata file (e.g., XmL file, text file, etc.) comprising dimensions, measures, and relationships; parsing to extract the metadata file to extract the dimensions, the measures, and relationships can describe hierarchies for respective dimensions; also see paragraph [0050], hierarchies can be defined in tables associated with subject database in data warehouse; when all the desired dimensions, measures, and relationship have been selected and defined, the flow continues with storing the multidimensional data description (e.g., dimensions, measures, hierarchies, relationships, dependencies, etc.) in the multidimensional data metastore; noted, metadata file of multidimension data metastore comprising dimensions, measures, and relationships, wherein data description describe hierarchies dimensions, dependencies, etc., which interpreted as “a data graph”);
parsing the received data graph specification to generate an object representation of the data graph that captures semantic relationships between the data warehouse entities (paragraph [0044]-[0045], a parser and graph processor receives a metadata file (e.g., XmL file, text file, etc.) comprising dimensions, measures, and relationships; parsing to extract the metadata file to extract the dimensions, the measures, and relationships can describe hierarchies for respective dimensions; the graph processor receives the parsed information and generate virtual multidimensional data model).
Gerweck does not explicitly disclose: validating a schema of a data warehouse against the object representation of the data graph to ensure consistency between the semantic relationships and actual data warehouse structure.
Peukert teaches: validating a schema of a data warehouse against the object representation of the data graph to ensure consistency between the semantic relationships and actual data warehouse structure (paragraph [0056], a schema S consists of a set of Schema elements; each schema elements s has a name, a data type, one or no parent schema element, and a set of children schema elements; the kind of schema is not restricted and can refer to any meta data structure that can be matched such as trees, ontologies, meta models, as well as database schema; also see paragraph [0057], a mapping M between the source schema S and target schema T; the similarity matric to represent a match result; the similarity matric as results of matching database schema in comparison to the structure such as tree and/or ontologies [object graph], is interpreted as “validating a schema of a data warehouse against the object representation of the data graph”; noted, ‘to ensure consistency between the semantic relationships and actual data warehouse structure’ indicates intended use; Minton v. Nat ’l Ass ’n of Securities Dealers, Inc., 336 F.3d 1373, 1381, 67 USPQ2d 1614, 1620 (Fed. Cir. 2003) “whereby clause in a method claim is not given weight when it simply expresses the intended result of a process step positively recited.” Examples of claim language, although not exhaustive, that may raise a question as to the limiting effect of the language in a claim are: (A) “adapted to” or “adapted for” clauses; (B) “wherein” clauses; and (C) “whereby” clauses. Therefore intended use limitations are not required to be taught, see MPEP 2111.04 [R-3]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include validating a schema of a data warehouse against the object representation of the data graph to ensure consistency between the semantic relationships and actual data warehouse structure into data warehouse analysis of Gerweck.
Motivation to do so would be to include validating a schema of a data warehouse against the object representation of the data graph to ensure consistency between the semantic relationships and actual data warehouse structure to address issue with current state of the art matching systems severely lack performance when matching large schemas (Peukert, paragraph [0011], line 11-13).
Gerweck as modified by Peukert do not explicitly disclose: generating one or more queries based on the object representation of the data wherein the one or more queries are configured to retrieve semantically related data from the data warehouse.
tSaoir teaches: generating one or more queries based on the object representation of the data wherein the one or more queries are configured to retrieve semantically related data from the data warehouse (col. 10, line 31-45, a graph comprising nodes is built and links from semantic data; also see col. 9, line 41-44, determining two or more nodes representing two or more search terms; determining text associated with the nodes and ambient or other contextually relevant nodes in the graph; also see col. 11, line 52-58; also see col. 12, line 50-56, one or more expansion candidates are selected based on the contextual relevance for the nodes and expansion candidates; filtering selected nodes for contextual relevance over a threshold context relevance value; also see col. 13, line 1-21, the search expression/terms are expanded using associated text for the filtered nodes; results returned from the search engine system are now much more likely to contain a relevant response for the user’s query; noted, expanding the searches using text associated with object nodes in the semantic graph, which reads on as claimed);
and executing the one or more semantic queries against the data warehouse to retrieve data items (col. 12, line 50-56, one or more expansion candidates are selected based on the contextual relevance for the nodes and expansion candidates; filtering selected nodes for contextual relevance over a threshold context relevance value; also see col. 13, line 1-21, the search expression/terms are expanded using associated text for the filtered nodes; results returned from the search engine system are now much more likely to contain a relevant response for the user’s query).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include generating one or more queries based on the object representation of the data graph; and executing the one or more semantic queries against the data warehouse to retrieve data items into data warehouse analysis of Gerweck.
Motivation to do so would be to include generating one or more queries based on the object representation of the data graph; and executing the one or more semantic queries against the data warehouse to retrieve data items to provide an improvement to at least the field of query processing by providing one or more of: i) increase use of words that have a direct correlation of synonymy or other lexical relationship, and semantically related words, ii) a graph to constrain possible inferences, and iii) a modified graph that us customized for query expansion tasks (TSaoir, col. 2, line 59-65).
Regarding claim 2, Gerweck as modified by Peukert and TSaoir teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 1, further teach wherein the one or more queries are used for building targeted audiences (TSaoir, col. 10, line 31-45, a graph comprising nodes is built and links from semantic data; also see col. 9, line 41-44, determining two or more nodes representing two or more search terms; determining text associated with the nodes and ambient or other contextually relevant nodes in the graph; also see col. 11, line 52-58; also see col. 12, line 50-56, one or more expansion candidates are selected based on the contextual relevance for the nodes and expansion candidates; filtering selected nodes for contextual relevance over a threshold context relevance value; also see col. 13, line 1-21, the search expression/terms are expanded using associated text for the filtered nodes; results returned from the search engine system are now much more likely to contain a relevant response for the user’s query).
As per claims 8 and 15, these claims are rejected on grounds corresponding to the same rationales given above for rejected claim 1 and are similarly rejected.
As per claims 9 and 16, these claims are rejected on grounds corresponding to the same rationales given above for rejected claim 2 and are similarly rejected.
Claims 3-7, 10-14, 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gerweck et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2015/0278334 A1) in view of Peukert (U.S. Pub. No. 2011/0219044 A1), and Mac an tSaoir (U.S. Pub. No. US 10,157,221 B2, referred as “tSaoir”), further in view of Alumbaugh et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2003/0172368 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Gerweck as modified by Peukert and TSaoir teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 1, but do not explicitly disclose: providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification.
Alumbaugh teaches: providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification ( paragraph [0080], “ontology editor” means the mechanism that allows editing of existing ontology settings including information on specific concepts and relationships of a common application specific ontology; also see paragraph [0148], ontology editor, which acts both as manager and factory, manages direct human interaction with the Common Ontology for validation, expansion and modification of the Common ontology; it also provides a visual representation of the Common ontology; also see paragraph [0265], determining data structure has changed; the first thing that happens is that the system creates a Change Specification file that describes the changes occurred at the application’s data structure level, which determine which components of the adapter have been affected; the system maps the affected schema elements into the exiting application ontology; then it performs lexical and semantic mapping on the affected elements to find new associations with the target application ontology; if it finds any, it then tries to validate them using data value validation)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification into data warehouse analysis of Gerweck.
Motivation to do so would be to include providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification allowing users to optimize the value of IT investments and establish governance, visibility and control (Alumbaugh, paragraph [0009], line 26-29).
Regarding claim 4, Gerweck as modified by Peukert and TSaoir teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 1, but do not explicitly disclose: storing the object representation of the data graph in a control plane module configured to manage retrieval and updating of the data graph.
Alumbaugh: storing the object representation of the data graph in a control plane module configured to manage retrieval and updating of the data graph (paragraph [0080], “ontology editor” means the mechanism that allows editing of existing ontology settings including information on specific concepts and relationships of a common application specific ontology; also see paragraph [0148], ontology editor, which acts both as manager and factory, manages direct human interaction with the Common Ontology for validation, expansion and modification of the Common ontology; it also provides a visual representation of the Common ontology; also see paragraph [0264], whenever an end user edits a data mapping plan, the invention uses the information as input allowing the system to learn and prepare for future modification; also see paragraph [0265], determining data structure has changed; the first thing that happens is that the system creates a Change Specification file that describes the changes occurred at the application’s data structure level, which determine which components of the adapter have been affected; the system maps the affected schema elements into the exiting application ontology; then it performs lexical and semantic mapping on the affected elements to find new associations with the target application ontology; if it finds any, it then tries to validate them using data value validation).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification into data warehouse analysis of Gerweck.
Motivation to do so would be to include providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification allowing users to optimize the value of IT investments and establish governance, visibility and control (Alumbaugh, paragraph [0009], line 26-29).
Regarding claim 5, Gerweck as modified by Peukert and TSaoir teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 1, but do not explicitly disclose: exposing a public API configured to allow programmatic access to the data graph.
Alumbaugh teaches: exposing a public API configured to allow programmatic access to the data graph (paragraph [0080], “ontology editor” means the mechanism that allows editing of existing ontology settings including information on specific concepts and relationships of a common application specific ontology; also see paragraph [0148], ontology editor, which acts both as manager and factory, manages direct human interaction with the Common Ontology for validation, expansion and modification of the Common ontology; it also provides a visual representation of the Common ontology; also see paragraph [0014], interface services to provide reconciliation and translation of interfaces including SQL, RPC, IDL, CGI, APIs, etc.; also see paragraph [0048]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification into data warehouse analysis of Gerweck.
Motivation to do so would be to include providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification allowing users to optimize the value of IT investments and establish governance, visibility and control (Alumbaugh, paragraph [0009], line 26-29).
Regarding claim 6, Gerweck as modified by Peukert, TSaoir and Alumbaugh teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 5, further teach: wherein the public API mirrors the capabilities of an interactive user interface configured to modify the data graph specification (Alumbaugh, paragraph [0148], ontology editor, which acts both as manager and factory, manages direct human interaction with the Common Ontology for validation, expansion and modification of the Common ontology; it also provides a visual representation of the Common ontology; also see paragraph [0264], whenever an end user edits a data mapping plan, the invention uses the information as input allowing the system to learn and prepare for future modification; also see paragraph [0265], determining data structure has changed; the first thing that happens is that the system creates a Change Specification file that describes the changes occurred at the application’s data structure level; noted, modification of ontology is interpreted as “modify the data graph specification”).
Regarding claim 7, Gerweck as modified by Peukert and TSaoir teach all claimed limitations as set forth in rejection of claim 1, but do not explicitly disclose:, but do not explicitly disclose: automatically tracking or validating changes in the data warehouse schema.
Alumbaugh teaches: automatically tracking or validating changes in the data warehouse schema (paragraph [0148], ontology editor, which acts both as manager and factory, manages direct human interaction with the Common Ontology for validation, expansion and modification of the Common ontology; it also provides a visual representation of the Common ontology; also see paragraph [0265], determining data structure has changed; the first thing that happens is that the system creates a Change Specification file that describes the changes occurred at the application’s data structure level, which determine which components of the adapter have been affected; the system maps the affected schema elements into the exiting application ontology; then it performs lexical and semantic mapping on the affected elements to find new associations with the target application ontology; if it finds any, it then tries to validate them using data value validation )
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification into data warehouse analysis of Gerweck.
Motivation to do so would be to include providing an interactive user interface display of the data graph, the interactive user interface display enabling user interaction for modifying the data graph specification allowing users to optimize the value of IT investments and establish governance, visibility and control (Alumbaugh, paragraph [0009], line 26-29).
As per claims 10-14, these claims are rejected on grounds corresponding to the same rationales given above for rejected claims 3-7 and are similarly rejected.
As per claims 16-20, these claims are rejected on grounds corresponding to the same rationales given above for rejected claims 3-6 and are similarly rejected.
Conclusion
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 KEN HOANG whose telephone number is (571)272-8401. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30am-5:00pm.
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, Charles Rones can be reached at (571)272-4085. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KEN HOANG/Examiner, Art Unit 2168
/CHARLES RONES/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2168
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