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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot in view of new ground(s) of rejection.
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.
Claim(s) 1-6, 9-12 and 15-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kelley (Pub. No. 2015/0149484) in view of Choudhari et al. (hereinafter ‘Choudhari’, Pub. No. 2021/002939).
Regarding claims 1, 9 and 17, Kelley teaches a computing system (100, Fig. 1) (with corresponding computer-implemented method and a computer program product residing on a non-transitory computer readable medium having a plurality of instructions stored thereon ([0001] -software providing a graph-based recommendations service; fig. 1 - server, client devices) comprising:
a memory; and a processor, operatively coupled to the memory, (these elements are inherent on computing devices) configured to:
generate a dynamic surrogate connectivity graph using a plurality of content portions, a plurality of opportunities (Fig.3; [0032] - a heterogeneous recommendations graph includes nodes representing recommendable items; intermediate nodes representing non-recommendable joining elements; and weighted edges joining the nodes. [0076] - node '/' may correspond to a particular ringtone by a particular artist, which can be purchased by the user for a particular price(= opportunity)), and a plurality of content providers associated with a recommender system ([0039]; [0040] - item provider 110 may provide recommendable items; while Recommendations server 1200 provides recommendations of those items. [0050], - request-context metadata associated with the recommendation request include data such as a user identifier identifying a user to whom a recommendation will be provided, an item identifier identifying a recommendable item that the user is currently viewing and/or currently indicating an interest in, a current date and/or time, current physical location, current state of the application or the like (=personal communication for a product, i.e. "opportunity" according to the description));
obtain telemetry data associated with the recommender system ([0050]),
determine a plurality of weighted path scores using the dynamic surrogate connectivity graph and the prior combinations of the telemetry data ([0050], where count of highly-weighted paths to recommendable nodes from only a portion of the recommendations directed-graph that is reachable from the entry node {as selected in block 405) via only highly-weighted paths of configurable lengths; [0072], [0073] - average the weight values of each weighted edge in the path); and
provide the plurality of weighted path scores to the recommender system, wherein the plurality of weighted path scores are applied to subsequent recommendations ([0074] - In ending loop block 435, recommendations-request subroutine 400 iterates back to opening loop block 420 to process the next potential recommendation node, if any).
On the other hand, Kelly does not explicitly teach
wherein the telemetry data comprises prior combinations of: at least one opportunity, at least one recommended content portion associated with the at least one opportunity, and at least one user response to the at least one recommended content portion.
However, in an analogous art, Choudhari teaches a media recommending system. The system monitors and receives information about receiving information that can detect an opportunity ([0039]-[0045]; [0049]; [0052], i.e. recognizing viewers with a given jersey or having a beard; viewers sitting close to each other or detecting watching content at a Vegas hotel, etc.), recommend media content based on those opportunities ([0045]-[0047]; i.e. recommending content that viewers with a beard tend to like, recommending romantic content or content geared towards gambling, respectively) and detect user’s reactions to a given media for future recommendations ([0034]; [0047]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have modified Kelly’s invention with Choudhari’s feature of inputting telemetry comprising opportunity, content related to that opportunity and user’s response to the recommended content for the benefit of closely and more accurately recommend content to a given need of the user.
Regarding claim 2, Kelly and Choudhari teach further comprising:
sampling a plurality of subsequent recommendations generated by the recommender system using the plurality of weighted path scores by determining a number of content portions to provide for each path type by multiplying a total number of subsequent recommendations with the plurality of weighted path scores (Kelly: fig.2; [0048] - Recommendations-service routine 200 iterates from opening loop block 215 to ending loop block 235 while handling recommendation requests. [0067] - recommendations-request subroutine 400 may select multiple entry nodes and process them in series or parallel(= sampling). Fig.4 - 420 - for each potential recommendation; [0070] - processes each potential recommendation node accordingly. [0068], [0072], [0073] – using highly-weighted paths, compute a path weight for each path using mathematical methods, then combine the individual path weights by simple addition or otherwise).
Regarding claim 3, Kelly and Choudhari teach further comprising:
providing subsequent recommendations with content portions of each path type from the plurality of subsequent recommendations to a requesting user based upon, at least in part, the number of content portions for each path type; processing a selection of one of the subsequent recommendations from the requesting user; and transmitting an electronic product associated with the selection to the requesting user (Kelly: iterative recommendation service, using graph traversal subroutine traversing graph based on e.g. path length, path-weight batches, collecting paths to recommendable nodes until desired count is reached, highly-weighted paths; whereby end of the highest weighted path is returned first, par. 77 - the particular item).
Regarding claims 4, 10 and 18, Kelly and Choudhari teach wherein generating the dynamic surrogate connectivity graph includes using an opportunity-to-content portion semantic matching model to define a plurality of paths of a first path type (Kelly: [0045]-[0048]).
Regarding claims 5, 11 and 19, Kelly and Choudhari teach wherein generating the dynamic surrogate connectivity graph includes using an opportunity-to-opportunity similarity model to define a plurality of paths of a second path type (Kelly: [0065]).
Regarding claims 6, 12 and 20, Kelly and Choudhari teach wherein generating the dynamic surrogate connectivity graph includes a third path type using a content provider-to-content provider similarity model to define a plurality of paths of a third path type (Kelly: [0045]; [0054]; [0065]; [0135]-[0137]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 8 and 13-16 are 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.
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 OMAR S PARRA whose telephone number is (571)270-1449. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: Mostly 10-6PM.
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/OMAR S PARRA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2421
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