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 Amendment
This Action is in response to the Amendment filed August 21, 2025. Claims 1-19 are amended. Claims 1-19 are pending. Claims 1-9 are withdrawn. Claims 10-19 have been examined in this application.
Election/Restrictions
Restriction to one of the following inventions is required under 35 U.S.C. 121:
I. Claims 1-9, drawn to explanation of inference using explainable artificial intelligence, classified in G06N 5/045.
II. Claim 10-19, drawn to advertisement optimization, classified in G06Q 30/0244.
Amended claim 1 is directed to an invention that is independent or distinct from the invention originally claimed for the following reasons:
Inventions I-II are related as subcombinations disclosed as usable together in a single combination. The subcombinations are distinct if they do not overlap in scope and are not obvious variants, and if it is shown that at least one subcombination is separately usable. In the instant case, subcombination I has separate utility such as to generate the advertising recommendation using a machine learning system comprising: a predictive multi-view deep learning model configured to receive structured multimodal features as input, the predictive model comprising a transformer-based vision model having a plurality of attention layers; and generate a prediction of advertising performance for a next advertising campaign; and an explanatory large language model (LLM) configured to receive, as a structured input, a set of attention weights from the plurality of attention layers of the transformer-based vision model; and. based on the received set of attention weights, generate a human- readable explanation of the prediction of advertising performance; which is not required for Subcombination II. Subcombination II has separate utility such as generating advertising recommendation using a Machine Learning model comprising multi-modal model, configured to predict CTR and classify advertising content into below average, average, or above average quality categories; not required for Subcombination I. See MPEP § 806.05(d).
Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all these inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because at least the following reason(s) apply:
(a) the inventions have acquired a separate status in the art in view of their different classification;
(b) the inventions require a different field of search (e.g., searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search strategies or search queries);
(c) the prior art applicable to one invention would not likely be applicable to another invention;
d) the inventions have acquired a separate status in the art in view of their divergent subject matter.
Since applicant has received an action on the merits for the originally presented invention, this invention has been constructively elected by original presentation for prosecution on the merits. Accordingly, claims 1-9 are withdrawn from consideration as being directed to a non-elected invention. See 37 CFR 1.142(b) and MPEP § 821.03.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c) is acknowledged. Applicant has not complied with one or more conditions for receiving the benefit of an earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. 120 as follows:
The later-filed application must be an application for a patent for an invention which is also disclosed in the prior application (the parent or original nonprovisional application or provisional application). The disclosure of the invention in the parent application and in the later-filed application must be sufficient to comply with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, except for the best mode requirement. See Transco Products, Inc. v. Performance Contracting, Inc., 38 F.3d 551, 32 USPQ2d 1077 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
The disclosure of the prior-filed application, Application No. 63/529,814, fails to provide adequate support or enablement in the manner provided by 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph for one or more claims of this application. Application No. 63/529,814 at least does not disclose based on the name of the target brand, generating a list of competitors associated with the target brand; structuring and fusing the extracted multimodal features using data-level fusion or cross-source attention mechanisms to produce a unified feature representation; one or more keywords extracted from brand and competitor campaign content using a LLM configured with prompt-engineered queries designed to eliminate hallucinations and generate structured marketing insights; wherein the stored code comprises modules for multimodal data acquisition, structured feature extraction, feature fusion, ML inference via a multi-view learning model, and explanation generation via an LLM using prompt-engineered templates to produce marketing-relevant outputs.
Therefore, as the present application is a nonprovisional of the prior-filed application, Application No. 63/529,814; and the claims are not supported by the disclosure of the application, the current claims, 10-19 of present application do not receive priority to the filing date of Application No. 63/529,814.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
Claims 10-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claims contain subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention
Claim 10 recite the limitation “extracting the multimodal features using modality-specific algorithms including: a fine-tuned multilingual BERT model for textual data, a Vision Transformer for visual data, and a dedicated transformer-based encoder for tabular inputs,” for which there is no support in the original disclosure. A review of the specification does not describe using modality-specific algorithms including: a fine-tuned multilingual BERT model for textual data, a Vision Transformer for visual data, and a dedicated transformer-based encoder for tabular inputs. This is directed to impermissible new matter. Claims 11-18 by being dependents of claim 10 are also rejected.
Claim 10 recite the limitation “generating the advertising recommendation using a Machine Learning model comprising the multi-modal model described above, configured to predict CTR and classify advertising content into "below average", "average", or "above average" quality categories,” for which there is no support in the original disclosure. A review of the specification does not describe generating the advertising recommendation using a Machine Learning model comprising a multi-modal model, configured to predict CTR and classify advertising content into "below average", "average", or "above average" quality categories. This is directed to impermissible new matter. Claims 11-18 by being dependents of claim 10 are also rejected.
Claim 10 recite the limitation “an attention heatmap generated from the attention layers of the SoWide-v2 model, providing a visual explanation of the elements within advertising content that contribute most significantly to the model's prediction,” for which there is no support in the original disclosure. A review of the specification does not describe an attention heatmap generated from the attention layers of the SoWide-v2 model, that provides a visual explanation of the elements within advertising content that contribute most significantly to the model's prediction. This is directed to impermissible new matter. Claims 11-18 by being dependents of claim 10 are also rejected.
Claim 19 recites the limitation “A non-transitory computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium, wherein the computer-readable storage medium stores a computer code which, when executed by at least one processor, causes at least one processor to perform the method according to A non-transitory computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium, wherein the computer-readable storage medium stores a computer code which, when executed by at least one processor, causes at least one processor to perform the method according to wherein the stored code comprises modules for multimodal data acquisition, structured feature extraction, feature fusion, ML inference via a multi-view learning model, and explanation generation via an LLM using prompt-engineered templates to produce marketing-relevant outputs” for which there is no support in the original disclosure. Upon reviewing the specification and drawings, a description of a non-transitory computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium, is not disclosed. This is directed to impermissible new matter.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 1-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claims 10 and 18 recite the limitation “the multi-modal model” in lines 19 and 4 respectively. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the limitation in the claims. Claims 11-18 by being dependents of claims 10 are also rejected
Claim 10 recites the limitation “the attention layers” in line 25. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the limitation in the claim. Claims 11-18 by being dependents of claims 10 are also rejected
Claim 10 recites the limitation “the SoWide-v2 model” in line 25. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the limitation in the claim. Claims 11-18 by being dependents of claims 10 are also rejected
In Claim 10 the limitation “providing a visual explanation of the elements within advertising content that contribute most significantly to the model's prediction.” The term “contribute most significantly” is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. Claims 11-18 by being dependents of claims 10 are also rejected
In Claims 11-12, 16 and 18 the phrase “such as” renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitations following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d).
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 10-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Claims 10-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Specifically, claims 10-19 are directed toward at least abstract idea without significantly more. In accordance with MPEP § 2106, the rationale for this determination is explained below.
Representative claim 10 is directed towards a method, which is a statutory category of invention.
Although, claim 10 is directed toward a statutory category of invention, the claim however, is directed toward a judicial exception namely an abstract idea. The limitations that set forth the abstract idea recites: receiving a user input comprising a name of a target brand; based on the name of the target brand, generating a list of competitors associated with the target brand; based on the name of the target brand and the list of competitors, collecting a multimodal dataset from at least one past advertising campaign associated with the target brand and at least one past advertising campaign associated with each competitor of the list of competitors, the multimodal dataset comprising unstructured multimodal features including at least tabular, textual, visual, and temporal data; extracting the multimodal features; structuring and fusing the extracted multimodal features using data-level fusion or cross-source attention mechanisms to produce a unified feature representation; generating the advertising recommendation to predict CTR and classify advertising content into "below average", "average", or "above average" quality categories; wherein, if the advertising recommendation indicates that the next advertising campaign is required for the target brand, the advertising recommendation further indicates at least one of: (i) an attention heatmap generated from the attention layers of the SoWide-v2 model, providing a visual explanation of the elements within advertising content that contribute most significantly to the model's prediction; and (ii) one or more keywords extracted from brand and competitor campaign content designed to eliminate hallucinations and generate structured marketing insights. These limitations, entail commercial interactions including, advertising, marketing or sales activities and business relations, as well as managing personal behavior including following rules or instructions. As such, the limitations are directed towards the abstract grouping of Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) II).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed as a whole under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (see MPEP 2106.04(d)), the additional elements provided by the claim amount to merely using a computer as a tool to apply an abstract idea, or instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer. In particular the claim recites the additional elements: using modality-specific algorithms including: a fine-tuned multilingual BERT model for textual data, a Vision Transformer for visual data, and a dedicated transformer-based encoder for tabular inputs; using a Machine Learning model comprising the multi-modal model described above, configured; using a LLM configured with prompt-engineered queries, which are recited at a high level of generality and are the mere use of a computer as a tool to perform the abstract ideas and/or instructions to implement the abstract idea on the computer. See MPEP 2106.05(f). Simply applying the abstract idea by computer components is not a practical application of the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), the claim does not apply the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)), the claim does not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (MPEP 2106.05(c)), and the claim does not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e)). Therefore, the claim does not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor does it effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claim is directed to abstract ideas.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the claim recites the additional limitations of a BERT model, a Vision Transformer, a dedicated transformer-based encoder, a Machine Learning model, a LLM, a processor (claim 19), which do not constitute significantly more because they are simply an attempt to limit the abstract idea to a particular technological environment1. Viewing these limitations as a combination, the additional elements amount to no more than merely applying the exception using generic computer components, executing mathematical algorithms. Merely applying an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Therefore, the limitations of the claim as a whole, when viewed individually and as an ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
A review of dependent claims 11-18, likewise, do not recite any limitations that would remedy the deficiencies outlined above. The claims only further add to the abstract idea, with no elements which integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or constitute significantly more. For instance, claims 11-18 only adds to the abstract idea with the use of machine learning algorithms. Thus, while they may slightly narrow the abstract idea by further describing it, they do not make it less abstract and are rejected accordingly. Further still, claim 19 suffer from substantially the same deficiencies as outlined with respect to claims 10 and is also rejected accordingly.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's other filed arguments have been fully considered but have not been found persuasive.
A. Regarding the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection Applicant argues that the claims now include concrete computational techniques that are rooted in specialized machine learning methods and represent an improvement in the field of digital advertising analytics. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims are directed to the abstract concept grouped under Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity with no additional elements that integrate the abstract concept into a practical application or significantly more. The claims provide for an improvement of advertising analytics, which is an abstract idea in and of itself. Thus, the claims improve upon an abstract idea and not a technology. See at least, TLI Communications LLC v. AV Automotive LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 613, 118 USPQ2d 1744, 1748 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“It is well-settled that mere recitation of concrete, tangible components is insufficient to confer patent eligibility to an otherwise abstract idea”).
Applicant submits that that the claimed combination of technical features amounts to an inventive concept that transforms any alleged abstract idea into a patent-eligible application, and the use of transformer-based models for modality-specific feature extraction (e.g., ViT, multilingual BERT), explainability through attention heatmaps derived from visual content, prompt-engineered large language model outputs for structured campaign insights, and feedback-driven refinement based on live campaign metrics collectively represent non- conventional and non-routine techniques in the field of advertising analytics and machine learning. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Merely implementing the abstract idea via computer components, e.g., machine learning models does not provide an inventive concept. See Id. Merely using machine learning algorithms to apply the abstract idea does not amount to a computer centric solution to a computer problem. Moreover, Applicant’s claim nor specification describe or provide any technical evidence of a technical problem that it aims to solve. Notwithstanding, even newly discovered judicial exceptions are still exceptions, despite their novelty. For example, the mathematical formula in Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 591-92, 198 USPQ 193, 198 (1978), the laws of nature in Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs. Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 73-74, 101 USPQ2d 1961, 1968 (2012), and the isolated DNA in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2107, 2116, 106 USPQ2d 1972, 1978 (2013) were all novel, but were considered by the Supreme Court to be judicial exceptions.
As such, the claims as a whole, in view of Alice, do not connote an improvement to another technology or technical field; the claims do not amount to an improvement to the functioning of a computer itself; and the claims do not move beyond a general link of the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, the current 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection is maintained.
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Errol CARVALHO whose telephone number is (571)272-9987. The Examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:30-7:00 Alt Fri
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ilana Spar can be reached on 571- 270-7537. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/E CARVALHO/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622
1 See, Alice Corp. Pty Ltd. v. CLS Bank lnt'l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2360 (2014) (noting that none of the hardware recited “offers a meaningful limitation beyond generally linking ‘the use of the [method] to a particular technological environment,’ that is, implementation via computers” (citing Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 610-11 (2010))).