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 .
Priority
The current application claims priority to US Provisional Application No. 62/293,432, filed 2/10/2016 – filed over one year prior to the filing date of the current application (current EFD is 6/17/2024). This corresponds to the claim for domestic priority on the ADS filed 6/17/2024.
The Examiner believes this claim to be erroneous as the ‘432 provisional shares no inventors with the current application, nor does the ‘432 provisional appear to disclose subject matter that corresponds to the current application. The Examiner has obtained the following provisional applications that appear to be filed by at least one of the named inventors:
Provisional No.
Filing Date
Inventor(s)
62/275,252
01/06/2016
Aswani, Niraj
63/496,846
04/18/2023
Aswani, Niraj; Oza, Nilay
63/496,857
04/18/2023
Aswani, Niraj; Oza, Nilay
63/508,937
06/19/2023
Aswani, Niraj; Oza, Nilay
Of the above noted applications, Provisional No. 63/508,937 describes subject matter that appears to correspond to the claimed invention and instant specification. The earliest potential priority date is thereby 06/19/2023; however, this priority is not perfected at this time. Should Applicant intend to claim priority to 63/508,937 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 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (abstract idea) without significantly more.
Regarding claims 1-15, under Step 2A claims 1-15 recite a judicial exception (abstract idea) that is not integrated into a practical application and does not provide significantly more.
Under Step 2A (prong 1), and taking claim 1 as representative, claim 1 recites a system for interactive product inquiries,
start an interactive conversation session based on the received request from the user,
receive one or more inputs from the user;
analyse the one or more inputs from the user wherein the analysis of the one or more inputs comprises at least identifying an intent behind the one or more inputs from the user;
retrieve one or more relevant information based on the analysis of the one or more inputs from the user, wherein the one or more relevant information is from the page the user is browsing on the online platform;
generate one or more responses based on the retrieved one or more relevant information and a set of predefined algorithms; and
present the one or more responses to the user.
These limitations recite ‘certain methods of organizing human activity’, such as by performing commercial interactions (see: MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II)). This is because claim 1 recites the performance of an interactive product query, which represents the performance of marketing or sales activities or behaviors. Accordingly, under step 2A (prong 1) claim 1 recites an abstract idea because claim 1 recites limitations that fall within the “Certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas.
Under Step 2A (prong 2), the abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application. The Examiner acknowledges that representative claim 1 does recite additional elements (emphasized in bold), including:
an online platform,
a processor configured to execute non-transitory machine-readable instructions,
receive a request from a user to start a conversational agent on an online platform;
start an interactive conversation session with the conversational agent based on the received request from the user, as an overlay on a page the user is browsing on the online platform,
receive one or more inputs from the user through the conversational agent;
analyse the one or more inputs from the user using one or more natural language processing algorithms,
retrieve one or more relevant information from a memory device, and,
present the one or more responses to the user through the conversational agent.
Although reciting these additional elements, taken alone or in combination these elements are not sufficient to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. This is because the additional elements of claim 1 are recited at a high level of generality (i.e. as generic computing hardware) such that they amount to nothing more than the mere instructions to implement or apply the abstract idea on generic computing hardware (or, merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea). Further, the additional elements (e.g., online environment) do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (such as the Internet or computing networks).
Secondly, the additional elements are insufficient to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the claim fails to (i) reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, (ii) implement the judicial exception with, or use the judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, (iii) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or (iv) applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
In view of the above, under Step 2A (prong 2), claim 1 does not integrate the recited exception into a practical application.
Under Step 2B, examiners should evaluate additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether they provide an inventive concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself). In this case, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Returning to representative claim 1, taken individually or as a whole the additional elements of claim 1 do not provide an inventive concept (i.e. they do not amount to “significantly more” than the exception itself). As discussed above with respect to the integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements used to perform the claimed process amount to no more than the mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer and/or no more than a general link to a technological environment.
Furthermore, the additional elements fail to provide significantly more also because the claim simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception. For example, the additional elements of claim 1 utilize operations the courts have held to be well-understood, routine, and conventional (see: MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)), including at least:
receiving or transmitting data over a network,
storing or retrieving information from memory,
Even considered as an ordered combination (as a whole), the additional elements of claim 1 do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
In view of the above, representative claim 1 does not provide an inventive concept (“significantly more”) under Step 2B, and is therefore ineligible for patenting.
Regarding dependent claims 2-7, dependent claims 2-7 recite more complexities descriptive of the abstract idea itself, and at least inherit the abstract idea of claim 1. As such, claims 2-7 are understood to recite an abstract idea under step 2A (prong 1) for at least similar reasons as discussed above.
Under prong 2 of step 2A, the additional elements of dependent claims 2-7 also do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, considered both individually or as a whole. More specifically, claims 2-7 rely on at least similar additional elements as recited in claim 1. Where claims 2-7 set forth further additional elements (e.g., elements such as a enabling crawling and store crawled data (e.g., claim 2), MLP, LLM or machine learning algorithms (e.g., claim 3), etc.), they are also recited only at a high level of generality (i.e. as generic computing hardware) such that they amount to nothing more than the mere instructions to implement or apply the abstract idea on generic computing hardware (or, merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea). Further, crawling and storing data is at best extra-solution activity.
Lastly, under step 2B, claims 2-7 also fail to result in “significantly more” than the abstract idea under step 2B. This is again because the claims merely apply the exception on generic computing hardware, generally link the exception to a technological environment, and append well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry (discussed above), specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception.
Even when viewed as an ordered combination (as a whole), the additional elements of the dependent claims do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
In view of the above, claims 2-7 do not provide an inventive concept (“significantly more”) under Step 2B, and are therefore ineligible for patenting.
Regarding claims 8-14 (method) and claim 15 (non-transitory storage media), claims 8-14 and claim 15 recite at least substantially similar concepts and elements as recited in claims 1-7 such that similar analysis of the claims would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. As such, claims 8-14 and claim 15 are rejected under at least similar 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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-6, 8, 10-13 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Elieson (US 10,558,693) in view of McKay (US 2018/0181286).
Regarding claim 1, Elieson teaches a system for interactive product inquiries on an online platform, the system comprising:
a processor configured to execute non-transitory machine-readable instructions (see: Fig. 2 (210, 222), Fig. 8), wherein the processor is configured to:
receive a request from a user to start a conversational agent on an online platform (see: see: Fig. 4 (408), col. 11 lines 50-56 & 61-65);
start an interactive conversation session with the conversational agent based on the received request from the user, (see: Fig. 3 (308), Fig. 4 (408), Fig. 5 (504, 506), col. 11 lines 50-56 & 61-65);
receive one or more inputs from the user through the conversational agent (see: col. 10 lines 25-35, col. 12 lines 18-22, Fig. 3 (310), Fig. 5 (506));
analyse the one or more inputs from the user using one or more natural language processing algorithms, wherein the analysis of the one or more inputs comprises at least identifying an intent behind the one or more inputs from the user (see: col. 4 lines 33-36, col. 5 lines 3-7, col. 8 lines 3-26);
retrieve one or more relevant information from a memory device, based on the analysis of the one or more inputs from the user, wherein the one or more relevant information is from the page the user is browsing on the online platform (see: col. 2 lines 58-62, col. 4 lines 53-57, col. 4 line 53-col. 5 line 2, col. 5 lines 3-14, col. 8 lines 22-25, col. 9 lines 52-54, col. 9 lines 63-col. 10 line 3, col. 10 lines 27-32 & 52-56, Fig. 3 (306));
Note attributes and respective filters are identified based on analysis of the user input and response and represent relevant information. At least those attributes and filters that “remain the same” (unchanged) are from the page being viewed (see, e.g., Fig. 4 (406)).
generate one or more responses based on the retrieved one or more relevant information and a set of predefined algorithms (see: Fig. 3 (314, 316), Fig. 5 (508), Fig. 6 (608, 610), col. 10 lines 56-65, col. 13 lines 4-14, col. 14 lines 49-56); and
present the one or more responses to the user through the conversational agent (see: col. 10 lines 64-col. 11 line 15, Fig. 3 (318), Fig. 5 (508), Fig. 6 (608, 610)).
Despite teaching the above, Elieson does not teach wherein the interactive conversation is as an overlay on a page the user is browsing on the online platform (though Elieson teaches the use of a chat “window”).
To this accord, McKay teaches a chat widget offering chat-based assistance displayed on a host webpage while a user (i.e., existing or potential customer) (see: 0021, 0024-0025, Fig. 2), the chat widget implemented as an overlay on a page the user is browsing on the online platform (see: 0043, 0054, Fig. 3 (302), Fig. 7A (702), Fig. 7B (750)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have modified the invention of Elieson to have utilized the known technique for implementing a chat window as an overlay as taught by McKay in order to have enabled the user to scroll the website while the chat window is open, thereby offering a hassle-free manner of facilitating chat interactions while browsing (see: McKay: 0006-0007, 0023).
3. The system of claim 1 wherein the predefined algorithm used to generate the one or more responses is one or more natural language processing algorithms, one or more large language models and artificial intelligence (see: Elieson: col. 4 lines 33-36, col. 5 lines 3-7, col. 8 lines 3-26).
4. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more inputs from the user is in one or more of text, voice, image and video format (see: Elieson: col. 2 lines 14-17, col. 12 lines 20-22, col. 13 lines 26-39, Fig. 5 (506)).
5. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more inputs from the user is a touch based inputs, corresponding to one or more prompts presented by the conversational agent (see: Elieson: col. 7 lines 59-63, col. 19 lines 58-59, Fig. 6 (604, 606), Fig. 5 (504); McKay: 0029 (touch screen), 0038, Fig. 2 (210), Fig. 7B).
6. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more responses generated by the conversational agent is in one or more of text, voice, image and video format (see: Elieson: col. 14 lines 46-56, Fig. 5 (“These Coffee Machines..”, 508), Fig. 6 (608, 610); McKay: Fig. 7A (702), Fig. 7B (750)).
Regarding claims 8 and 10-13, claims 8 and 10-13 recite at least substantially similar concepts and elements as recited in claims 1 and 3-6 such that similar analysis of the claims would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. As such, claims 8 and 10-13 are rejected under at least similar rationale.
Regarding claim 15, claim 15 recites at least substantially similar concepts and elements as recited in claim 1 such that similar analysis of the claims would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. As such, claim 15 is rejected under at least similar rationale.
Claim(s) 2 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Elieson in view of McKay as applied to claim 1 and 8, and further in view of Sampathkumaran (US 2014/0122286 – herein Sampa).
Regarding claim 2 and parallel claim 9, Elieson in view of McKay teaches all of the above as not including retrieving information associated with a webpage being browsed when the request from the user to start a conversational agent is received, but does not teach:
enable crawling of the page the user is browsing on the online platform, and,
store the crawled information from the page the user is browsing on the online platform, in the memory device.
To this accord, Sampa teaches an online shopping system that enables crawling of the page the user is browsing on the online platform when a is received (see: 0063, Fig. 9A (904), 0040 (plug-in module may scan the contents of a web page), 0065, Fig. 11 (1104-1106)), and,
store the crawled information from the page the user is browsing on the online platform, in the memory device (see: 0040 (add entry to the user’s item list), 0046, 0059 (list manager 812 maintains an item list store 816), Fig. 8 (816), Fig. 10 (1002)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have modified the invention of Elieson in view of McKay to have utilized the known technique for crawling a currently browsed page in order to have extracted information from the browsed page and further enable the use of the extracted information to generate an item information view while enabling additional vendors to make offers for a desired item (see: Sampa: 0061, 0065). Such a combination would have enabled users to obtain better pricing for desire items.
Claim(s) 7 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Elieson in view of McKay as applied to claim 1 and 8, and further in view of Shanmugam (US 2019/0311036).
Regarding claim 7 and parallel claim 14, Elieson in view of McKay teaches all of the above in relation to a conversational/chat interface, but does not teach: a feedback mechanism wherein the user can rate the relevance of the one or more responses presented, which the conversational agent uses to refine future interactions for all users.
To this accord, Shanmugam teaches a chatbot conversation system that employs a feedback mechanism wherein the user can rate the relevance of the one or more responses presented, which the conversational agent uses to refine future interactions for all users (see: 0050, 0053-0054, Fig. 7 (706, 707, 709)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have modified the invention of Elieson in view of McKay to have utilized the known technique for chatbot training and feedback as taught by Shanmugam in order to have enabled utilization of end user feedback to continually improve chatbot performance including speed and efficiency of the chatbot in task accomplishment, and end user experience (see: Shanmugam: 0021).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Bennett (US 20250005655) discloses a plurality of features related to the claimed invention, including initiating a conversational chatbot from within a browsed product page, using LLMs for automated responses, and the like (see: 0070, Fig. 5 (514-516), Fig. 6 (610, 612), Fig. 9 (902), 0039, 0041, 0088, Fig. 5 (504-506), Fig. 10 (1004), Fig. 11). Notably, the earliest priority date for Bennet is 06/30/2023 – which falls after the priority date of 63/508,937 (filed 6/19/2023).
Lehman (US 20230401620) discloses a chatbot overlay that automatically scrapes data from a browsed webpage and uses that data to retrieve product information from retailer sites (see: 0042-0043, Fig. 17-18, Fig. 5 (310D), 0095, 0168).
Valimaki (US 9191615) discloses intitating a chat session with an agent via a browsed webpage of a product to enable a customer to ask questions concerning the product (see: abstract, Fig. 2-3).
Cao (US 20100235311) discloses browsable questions and generation of a product or service index from crawling internet-accessible websites (see: 0007, 0028-0030, Fig. 1, Fig. 4 (410-418)).
Viswanath (US 10235449), which is incorporated by reference by Elieson (supra), teaches web browser 502 is accessing a network document associated with a particular catalog entry 504. The catalog entry may be associated with unstructured data, such as customer provided reviews 506 and/or customer questions and answers 508, and/or structured data, such as a vendor-provided product description 510. In some embodiments, the service provider may parse unstructured data located on a product webpage maintained by the vendor of the catalog entry (see: Fig. 5, col. 10 lines 5-36).
Zisk discloses a conversational interface for shopping (see: abstract, Fig. 3, Fig. 6A-B)
PTO form 892-U discusses the use of smart agents for price negotiation in e-commerce (see abstract)
Pto form 892-V discusess various aspects of implementing chatbots through learning and neural networks (see: Introduction, Section III, Section VI)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM J ALLEN whose telephone number is (571)272-1443. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:00-4:00.
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, Anita Coupe can be reached at 571-270-3614. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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WILLIAM J. ALLEN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3625
/WILLIAM J ALLEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3619