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 .
The instant office action having application number 18/737085, filed on June 7, 2024, has claims 1-20 pending in this application.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 USC 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
Step 2A, Prong One – Recitation of an Abstract Idea
Claim 1. The claim recites: identifying network sources containing electronic documents; searching the sources based on user information corresponding to a context; determining documents having content related to that context; collecting the selected documents in a user-associated data structure; and presenting the collection at a network location for user interaction. At a high level, these steps amount to gathering information, evaluating information against user/context criteria, selecting relevant information, organizing the selected information into a collection, and presenting the collection. The evaluative portions—deciding which sources/documents are relevant to a context and organizing the results—are mental processes involving observation, evaluation, judgment, and organization that can be performed conceptually by a person reviewing sources and curating a collection. The network terminology merely specifies the environment in which the information is obtained and presented.
Step 2A, Prong Two – No Integration into a Practical Application
The additional elements include the recited network, target network locations, electronic documents, the “circuit” electronic data structure, and the electronic resource/interactive network location. These elements use generic computer and network technology as tools to obtain, store, organize, and present information. The claims do not recite an improvement to network operation, database architecture, search-engine operation, data-storage technology, computer processing, or rendering technology. Nor do they require a particular machine that is integral to performance of the abstract idea or effect a transformation of an article into a different state or thing.
The term “circuit,” as claimed, is expressly an electronic data structure. Its use to hold a curated set of documents does not by itself improve the underlying computer or data structure technology; it is the repository in which the abstractly selected information is organized. Similarly, limiting the information to electronic documents hosted at network locations and limiting the relevance determination to a user context merely confines the information analysis to a technological environment or field of use. Outputting the collection and recommendations to an interactive network location is post-solution activity that communicates the result of the abstract analysis.
Claims 15 and 20 are rejected under the same reasoning as claim 1 above.
Dependent claims 2-14 and 16-19 are also rejected under 35 USC 101. These claims do not recite an improvement to computer functionality, network operation, database/search technology, data normalization technology, or rendering technology, and therefore do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 USC 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Byron et al. (US 20170220566 A1) (hereinafter Byran).
As per claim 1, Byron discloses identifying, over a network, information related to a set of target sources over the network, each target source being a network location that hosts electronic documents [the dynamic document collection creates a profile for a user from the user's account data and user activity log, paragraph 23]; searching, over the network, based at least on user information related to a user, each of the target sources, the user information comprising information that corresponds to a context [the dynamic document collection searches the indexed repository for keywords that match elements from the user account data and the user activity log, paragraph 24]; determining, based on the search of each target source, a set of electronic documents, the set of electronic documents comprising content that is related to the context [The custom portal 300 provides features that enable the user to search for documents that have been selected by the dynamic document collection as being of potential interest or relevance to the user based on the user's account data and activity logs, paragraph 32]; ingesting, over the network, the set of electronic documents into a circuit, the circuit being an electronic data structure for which the user is an owner [the dynamic document collection creates the custom portal for the user that includes the documents resulting from the search. In an embodiment, the custom portal also includes features that enable the user to search the documents in the portal, view a listing of the documents, perform messaging functions with respect to other users, and engage in interactions with a social community, paragraph 26]; and outputting, over the network, the circuit to an electronic resource, the electronic resource being an interactive network location for which the user and other users are capable of interacting with the set of electronic documents [create user profiles from user account data and user activity logs, determine from the user profiles which of a number of documents in a repository are relevant, or may be of interest, to the users, generate custom portals for each of the users that contain the corresponding documents, and facilitate social interactions and information sharing among users who have common profiles and document libraries, paragraph 34].
As per claim 2, Byron discloses analyzing the set of electronic documents based at least in part on the user information; determining a set of recommended actions to be performed in relation to the circuit; and outputting, in connection with the electronic resource, the set of recommended actions, such that control of or interaction with the circuit over the network is enabled via output of the set of recommended actions, the set of recommended actions being at least one of temporally, spatially, socially, emotionally and logically relevant to the user [the user profile may include information that is curated in the very beginning before the user starts to use the dynamic document collection. The initial user profile created before the user begins to use the dynamic document collection may be used as a baseline of information by the dynamic document collection, which is updated over time in response to user sessions conducted from user searches and user communications. Thus, the user profile may also be extended over time by an analysis of the activity logs of the user, factoring in the kinds of searches he/she makes, paragraph 18].
As per claim 3, Byron discloses analyzing data of each of the set of electronic documents, the analysis comprising normalizing the data of each electronic document in the set of electronic documents; and determining a configuration of the set of electronic documents within a rendering of the circuit, wherein the set of electronic documents are displayed according to the configuration upon the outputting of the circuit to the electronic resource [In block 208, the dynamic document collection creates the custom portal for the user that includes the documents resulting from the search. In an embodiment, the custom portal also includes features that enable the user to search the documents in the portal, view a listing of the documents, perform messaging functions with respect to other users, and engage in interactions with a social community., paragraph 26].
As per claim 7, Byron discloses detecting, based on detection of an occurrence of a criteria, an event that corresponds to an update of content included in the circuit; ingesting, over the network, the updated content from a target source that is hosting the updated content; and updating the circuit based on the ingesting of the updated content [The dynamic document collection updates the custom portal for the user based on changes to the user account data and the ongoing activities. For example, one of the changes in the user account data includes a change in role of the user with respect to the organization, paragraph 27].
As per claim 8, Byron discloses promulgating, over the network, the updated circuit via the electronic resource [electronic circuitry including, for example, programmable logic circuitry, paragraph 38].
As per claim 10, Byron discloses wherein ingestion of an electronic document from the other circuit comprises including a reference to a network location associated with the other circuit for the electronic document within the data structure [paragraph 20].
As per claim 11, Byron discloses analyzing the user information and the information for the set of target sources; and determining, based on the analysis, the context [create profiles for the users from user account data and user activity logs. The user account data may include user role in the organization, user title, user work history including positions previously held, team membership or subcommittee membership, social network profile information, paragraph 17].
As per claim 12, Byron discloses receiving, from the user, a request for generation of the circuit, the request comprising the user information and an indication of a circuit context; and identifying the set of target sources based on the circuit context [the host system computer 104 processes the documents and marks the documents with tags that coincide with one or more topics or key words associated with the document contents, paragraph 16].
As per claim 13, Byron discloses wherein the user information comprises an indication of at least one of an identifier (ID) of the user, interests of the user, behaviors of the user, demographics of the user and geography of the user [The dynamic document collection creates the user's custom portal by identifying elements (e.g., subject line in an email, descriptions, notes, calendar invitations, to do lists, etc.) from the user profile and activity logs, and searching the document repository for key words that match these elements, paragraph 17].
As per claim 14, Byron discloses wherein the user is at least one of a person, a group of people, entity, company, organization, government, agency and municipality [The analytics may include identifying the subject in the title of the document, and/or identifying named entities in a document and evaluating whether the named entities are people who work on the same project or whether the person is mentioned in the document, paragraph 17].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6 and 9 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims and overcoming the 101 rejection.
The primary reason for objecting to claims 4-6 and 9 is because the prior arts of record do not teach or suggest determining, based on the information related to the set of target sources, a type of connector for each target source, a connector being an executable workflow for identifying and extracting content from a target source; and performing the ingestion of the set of electronic documents from the set of target resources via each type of respective connector; analyzing the set of electronic documents based on the context; determining a processing graph, the processing graph defining a set of executable operations for extracting information from the set of electronic documents; analyzing the set of electronic documents based on the processing graph; extracting, based on the processing graph analysis, the information from the set of electronic documents; and storing the extracted information in relation to the circuit, the storage enabling promulgation of the extracted information to at least one user over the network.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NOOSHA ARJOMANDI whose telephone number is (571)272-9784. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00am to 4:30pm EST.
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August 21, 2026
/NOOSHA ARJOMANDI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166
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