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/Amendments
Applicant's arguments with respect to 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection of claims 1, 19 and 20 have been considered and found persuasive, and the rejection has been withdrawn. However, claims are still rejected under 101 Abstract Idea. See detailed reason for allowance below.
Applicant's arguments with respect to 35 U.S.C. 101 in regards to claims 1, 19 and 20 have been considered, however are not found to be persuasive. See detailed rejection below based on the amended claims.
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 1-9 and 19-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 1, 19 and 20 are directed to an abstract idea because the main idea is: receive natural-language content, understand what it means, decide whether it matches a plugin, compare that plugin with the current session task, decide what task/plugin should be used, get parameters from an LLM, and call the plugin. In simple terms, the claim is about analyzing information, making a decision, and routing a request to a tool. Those steps are evaluating, comparing, and deciding based on language content. Under USPTO guidance, “mental processes” such as observations, evaluations, judgments, and opinions are abstract ideas, and a claim can still recite a mental process even when the steps are performed on a computer.
The added computer pieces do not overcome the abstract idea into a practical technological improvement. The claims mention an “electronic device,” an “API,” a “deep learning model,” a “large language model,” and “plugins,” but it does not explain any new architecture, training technique, model improvement, API improvement, plugin-execution improvement, memory improvement, or network improvement. It only uses those components as tools to carry out the information analysis and selection process. Here, the claim does not improve the functioning of the computer or another technology; it merely applies the decision process in an LLM/plugin environment.
The claim also lacks an “inventive concept” under Step 2B. The API steps of acquiring content, sending content, obtaining parameters, and calling a plugin are described at a high level and like an ordinary data receiving, data transmitting, and tool-invocation steps. The Office treats generic computer functions, such as receiving/transmitting data and storing/retrieving information, as routine when claimed broadly. Merely implementing an abstract idea on generic computer technology is not enough for patent eligibility, and the claims here are similarly do not add “significantly more” than the abstract idea of understanding a user request and selecting/calling the appropriate plugin.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claims are (i) mere instructions to implement the idea on a computer, and/or (ii) recitation of generic computer structure that serves to perform generic computer functions that are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the pertinent industry. Viewed as a whole, these additional claim element(s) do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, the claim(s) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter. There is further no improvement to the computing device.
Dependent claims 3-9 and 22-28 are further recite an abstract idea performable by a human and do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea as they do not provide steps other than what is known to be an abstract idea.
Claims 3 and 22: machine style task routing and prioritization (an abstract idea) without concrete technical implementation details that provide significantly more.
Claims 4 and 23: remains abstract session management/branching logic for selecting tasks, with no particular technical mechanism beyond generic comparisons and task creation.
Claims 5 and 24: organizing work items is an abstract administrative function performed on a computer.
Claims 6 and 25: sorting and sequential execution are generic workflow scheduling, and the claim remains functional and high-level without a specific improvement in computer performance or architecture.
Claims 7 and 26: does not add a specific technical solution that amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claims 8 and 27: an abstract information-processing concept implemented using generic components.
Claims 9 and 28: administrative control of a task workflow (human-like override/control logic) and does not recite a concrete technical improvement that would supply an inventive concept.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 3-9, 19-20, 22-28 would be allowable if the Applicant can overcome the 101 Abstract Idea reject set forth.
Claims 1, 19 and 20 would be allowable if Applicant can overcome the 101 Abstract Idea rejection set forth.
For claims 1, 19 and 20: Shen et al. (“HugginGPT:…”; 37th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems 2023) in view of Pemberton et al. (US 11,640,823).
Claims 1 and 19-20,
Shen teaches a method for invoking a plugin of a large language model ([Abstract] LLM controller system), comprising:
acquiring natural language content ([Abstract] we use ChatGPT to conduct task planning when receiving a user request);
performing semantic understanding on the natural language content and detecting whether the natural language content hits a plugin to obtain a first plugin pointed to by a plugin hit result ([Abstract] [3 HuggingGPT] [Introduction] Task Planning: Using ChatGPT to analyze the requests of users to understand their intentions and selecting models according to descriptions);
acquiring language understanding content of the to-be-executed session understanding task and sending the language understanding content to the large language model to obtain an input parameter of the third plugin ([Introduction] [3.1 Task Planning] the LLM produces structured task representations with arguments (args [Wingdings font/0xE0] (parameters): Task Planning Stage: the LLM outputs tasks in a structured format with an “args” field and this is used downstream for execution; ); and
calling the third plugin according to the input parameter of the third plugin to obtain a calling result of the to-be-executed session understanding task ([3.3 Task Execution] Task Execution: invoke and execute each selected model and return the results to ChatGPT).
The difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is that Shen does not explicitly teach comparing the first plugin with a second plugin corresponding to a current session understanding task to determine a to-be-executed session understanding task and a third plugin corresponding to the to-be-executed session understanding task.
Pemberton teaches comparing the first plugin with a second plugin corresponding to a current session understanding task to determine a to-be-executed session understanding task and a third plugin corresponding to the to-be-executed session understanding task ([col. 2 line 54 to col. 3 line 50] a comparison/evaluation stage before routing to a particular skill; “prior to routing a request to a particular application (e.g. a skill) for processing, a ‘Can fulfill intent request’ (CFIR) may be sent to a number of candidate applications (e.g. … a skill) that could be selected for processing the current request; skill query service sends CFIR to candidate skills and CFIR includes “intent data and/or slot data” enabling candidate comparison and selection of which application/skill will process the current request).
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 Shen with teachings of Pemberton by modifying the HugginGPT: solving AI tasks with ChatGPT and its Friends in Hugging Face as taught by Shen to include comparing the first plugin with a second plugin corresponding to a current session understanding task to determine a to-be-executed session understanding task and a third plugin corresponding to the to-be-executed session understanding task as taught by Pemberton for the benefit of improving human-computer interactions and to control various systems (Pemberton [col. 1 lines 21-22]).
The difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is that Shen nor Pemberton explicitly teach wherein comparing the first plugin with the second plugin corresponding to the current session understanding task to determine the to-be-executed session understanding task comprises: in response to the plugin hit result being that the natural language content hits the plugin, comparing the first plugin with the second plugin, and detecting whether a session is interrupted to obtain a session interruption detection result; and acquiring and determining a session understanding task corresponding to the session interruption detection result as the to-be-executed session understanding task; or in response to the plugin hit result being that the natural language content does not hit the plugin, sending the natural language content to the large language model to obtain feedback content of the large language model.
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.
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SHREYANS A. PATEL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2653
/SHREYANS A PATEL/ Examiner, Art Unit 2659
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