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 .
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 towards nonstatutory subject matter.
The claims are rejected 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. Exemplary claim 1 recites the following: “cause one or more weight values assigned to one or more properties of one or more answers to the one or more chatbot queries to be dynamically adjusted based, at least in part, on the characterization of the one or more chatbot queries”. The broadest reasonable interpretation of is that the selecting function fall within the mental process groupings of abstract ideas because they cover concepts performed in the human mind (or pen and paper), including observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion. See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III.
The claim recites additional elements “ a processor comprising: one or more circuits to use one or more neural network” in which describe the use of a computer as a tool which fail to impose any meaningful limits on the claims . See MPEP 2106.05(g). The additional elements mentioned above merely confine the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment and thus fail to add an inventive concept to the claims. When viewed in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application.
The extra-solution activity amounts to receiving or transmitting data over a network which are well-understood, routine, and conventional activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d), subsection II. Element b) amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using the generic computing components. Even when considered in combination, these additional elements represent mere instructions to implement an abstract idea or other exception on a computer and insignificant extra-solution activity, which do not provide an inventive concept. The remaining claims and/or claim language is addressed by similar rationale as provided above.
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.
Claim(s) 1-10, 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20180165723 to Wright.
Regarding claim 1, Wright teaches:
a processor comprising: one or more circuits to use one or more neural networks to characterize one or more chatbot queries and to cause one or more weight values assigned to one or more properties of one or more answers to the one or more chatbot queries to be dynamically adjusted based, at least in part, on the characterization of the one or more chatbot queries (¶ 57).
Regarding claim 2, 9, 16,
Wright teaches:
wherein to characterize the one or more chatbot queries, the one or more circuits further use the one or more neural networks to determine a topic of a chatbot query of the one or more chatbot queries (¶ 56-57).
Regarding claim 3, 17,
Wright teaches:
wherein the one or more properties include one or more of: (a) accuracy, (b) conciseness, (c) completeness, (d) relevance, or (e) conversational tone (¶ 57, 64).
Regarding claim 4, 18,
Wright teaches:
wherein the one or more circuits further use the one or more neural networks to assign a first score, with respect to a particular property of the one or more properties, to an answer of the one or more answers (¶ 57-58, 79, 96-103).
Regarding claim 5, 19,
Wright teaches:
wherein the one or more circuits further cause a second score to be assigned to a chatbot which generated the one or more answers to the one or more chatbot queries, wherein the second score is based at least in part on the dynamically adjusted weight values and the first score (¶ 57-58, 79, 96-103; 104-110, 115, 146-149).
Regarding claim 6,
Wright teaches:
wherein the one or more neural networks include a language model (¶ 50-53).
Regarding claim 7,
Wright teaches:
wherein the one or more circuits further use the one or more neural networks to generate the one or more chatbot queries (¶ 57).
Claims 8 and 15 are addressed by similar rationale as claim 1.
Regarding claim 10,
Wright teaches:
wherein the one or more neural networks comprise a first neural network and a second neural network, the method further comprising: causing the first neural network to generate the one or more chatbot queries (¶ 34, 56-64, neural network generation of queries) , and causing the second neural network to dynamically adjust the one or more weight values assigned to the one or more properties of one or more answers to the one or more chatbot queries (¶ 79, 96-103; 104-110, 115, 146-149, dynamic adjustment via statistical neural network; 56-64).
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 11-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wright in view of US 20250063120 to Renfrow-Symon.
Regarding claim 11,
Wright fails to teach but Renfrow-Synom teaches:
causing the one or more neural networks to assign a first score to an intent detector of a chatbot which generated the one or more answers to the one or more chatbot queries (abstract, ¶ 3-5, 30).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Renfrow-Synom. The motivation to do so is that the teachings of Renfrow-Synom would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating agent provision (Renfrow-Synom, ¶ 30, abstract).
Regarding claim 12,
Wright fails to teach but Renfrow-Synom teaches:
causing the one or more neural networks to assign a first score to a data retriever of a chatbot which generated the one or more answers to the one or more chatbot queries (¶ 3-5, 30, abstract, rank/score assignment). Motivation to include Renfrow-Synom is the same as presented above.
Regarding claim 13,
Wright fails to teach but Renfrow-Synom teaches:
causing a first score to be assigned to a chatbot which generated the one or more answers, wherein the first score is based at least in part on one or more of: (a) a second score assigned to an intent detector of the chatbot, (b) a third score assigned to a data retriever of the chatbot or (c) a fourth score assigned to the one or more answers using the dynamically adjusted weight values (¶ 39-41, 73-76). Motivation to include Renfrow-Synom is the same as presented above.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wright in view of US 20210158203 to Ganti.
Regarding claim 20,
Wright fails to teach but Ganti teaches:
wherein the one or more processors further cause the one or more answers to be obtained from a copy of a chatbot which has been deployed for production use (¶ 107).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Ganti. The motivation to do so is that the teachings of Ganti would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating reinforced learning models (Ganti, ¶ 107).
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wright in view of US 12619399 to Rambow.
Regarding claim 14,
Wright fails to teach but Rambow teaches:
obtaining the one or more answers from a chatbot during a stage of a development pipeline of the chatbot (abstract, col. 4:1-40).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of . The motivation to do so is that the teachings of would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating design, coding, and testing (Rambow, col. 1:1-50).
CONCLUSION
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RYAN J JAKOVAC whose telephone number is (571)270-5003. The examiner can normally be reached on 8-4 PM EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Oscar A. Louie can be reached on 572-270-1684. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RYAN J JAKOVAC/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445
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