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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This non-final office action is in response to the Application filed on 8/2/2024, with priority PRO 63/530,390 Filing Date 08/02/2023.
In the response received on 8/28/2026 the applicant elected Group I, including claims 1-10 without travers. Claims 18 and 20 were also amended to depend from non-elected claims 11.
Claim(s) 1-20 are pending for examination. Claim(s) 1 and 11 is/are independent claim(s). Claims 1-10 are rejected. Claims 11-20 are withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Shevchenko; Oleksiy et al. US Pub. No. 20230325590 (Shevchenko).
Claim 1:
Shevchenko teaches:
A method of providing an improved electronic communication, comprising:
receiving a plurality of sample electronic communications for a recipient [¶ 0178] (communication history (such as previous communications in a thread) or related documents) [¶ 0209] (maintaining a digital representation of the conversation thread (e.g., updating it in real time)) [¶ 0223] (corpus of original messages, corpus of conversations) [¶ 0156] (rewritten using a model trained on a corpus of similar sales emails, corpus of similar support emails, a corpus of emails is generally understood to be more than four, a corpus is usually in the hundreds, thousands, or even millions);
determining via a style identification engine a communication profile for the recipient based on the plurality of sample electronic communications [¶ 0125, 128] (receiver communication profile (e.g. knowledge of the receiver(s), group profiles, and/or target audience profiles) [see also ¶ 0129-146] (these paragraphs give an extensive discussion on the communication profiles or the user and receiver or recipient);
receiving an initial electronic communication from a user to the recipient [¶ 0213-216] (FIGS. 14-20 illustrate a non-limiting example of an interaction with a user who is generating a textual message targeted to a receiver ‘John Doe’, where the AIA is assisting the user based on the receiver's communication profile);
revising the initial electronic communication via an improved response generation engine to produce a suggested improved electronic communication that better reflects the recipient's determined communication profile [¶ 0175] (analyzes and modifies an existing fragment or the entire communication) [¶ 0207] (AR/VR communication facility may be able to rewrite longer phrases or the entire communication);
providing the suggested improved electronic communication to the user [¶ 00176] (AIA may warn the user and suggest modifications to the draft, for example to highlight suboptimal fragments (e.g., identified by the reaction prediction model), offer vocabulary suggestions (e.g., word replacements) that maximize the likelihood of a desired reaction, offer structural changes (e.g., size, outline, transitions, paragraph splitting, and the like) that maximize the probability of desired reaction, offer a complete rewrite of the draft) [see also ¶ 0205-208, 210, 212, 214-215] (feedback and suggestions).
Claim 2:
Shevchenko teaches:
The method of claim 1, where the step of determining the communication profile of the recipient comprises sending the style identification engine explicit definitions for a plurality of communication styles that make up the communication profile [¶ 0133, 143, 161, 163, 176] (communication style from … explicitly stated user preference) [¶ 0164] (preferences and other information explicitly provided by the receiver) [¶ 0221] (explicit goals).
Claim 3:
Shevchenko teaches:
The method of claim 2, further including producing at least one action item for the user based on the initial or the improved electronic communication, and providing the at least one action item to the user [¶ 0131, 187, 205] (bullets, converting lists into bullet points).
Claim 4:
Shevchenko teaches:
The method of claim 2, further including producing at least one action item for the recipient based on the initial or the improved electronic communication and providing the at least one action item to the user [¶ 0131, 187, 205] (bullets, converting lists into bullet points).
Claim 5:
Shevchenko teaches:
The method of claim 2, wherein the initial electronic communication includes a plurality of individual electronic communications [¶ 0178] (communication history (such as previous communications in a thread) or related documents) [¶ 0209] (maintaining a digital representation of the conversation thread (e.g., updating it in real time)) [¶ 0223] (corpus of original messages, corpus of conversations) [¶ 0156] (rewritten using a model trained on a corpus of similar sales emails, corpus of similar support emails, a corpus of emails is generally understood to be more than four, a corpus is usually in the hundreds, thousands, or even millions).
Claim 6:
Shevchenko teaches:
The method of claim 5, further including providing to the user a summary of the initial electronic communication, wherein the summary is provided according to the determined communication profile of the recipient [¶ 0183, 194] (Based on the receiver's environment, preferences, available time, and the like, the AIA may condense/summarize content) [¶ 0185, 189] (Transformations may provide summarizing longer messages or documents for quick preview. Possible applications include, and are not limited to, providing a summary or set of key points for long emails, messages, or documents, or automatically generating more concise versions of long passages to make it easier for the reader to understand) [¶ 0205] (summarize longer texts and messages so that processing them takes less time, rewrite texts and messages using vocabulary and readability level that the receiver would understand (e.g., depending on his or her language proficiency level and background), rewrite texts and messages with respect to communication structure (e.g., prose vs. bullet listings)).
Claim 7:
Shevchenko teaches:
The method of claim 1, further including providing on a user-interface of a computing device of the user the ability to accept, reject, or revise the improved electronic communication [¶ 0175] (generate modifications and present them to the user to review and confirm or reject individually) [¶ 0215] (ser may accept one of the suggestions by having the AIA insert a selected phrase into an appropriate place in the message, choose from a number of options as to where the selected phrase could be inserted, manually insert the message).
Claim 8:
Shevchenko teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sample electronic communications from the recipient numbers at least four [¶ 0178] (communication history (such as previous communications in a thread) or related documents) [¶ 0209] (maintaining a digital representation of the conversation thread (e.g., updating it in real time)) [¶ 0223] (corpus of original messages, corpus of conversations) [¶ 0156] (rewritten using a model trained on a corpus of similar sales emails, corpus of similar support emails, a corpus of emails is generally understood to be more than four, a corpus is usually in the hundreds, thousands, or even millions).
Claim 9:
Shevchenko teaches:
The method of clam of claim 1, wherein the suggested improved electronic communication is for an entirety of the initial electronic communication [¶ 0175] (analyzes and modifies an existing fragment or the entire communication) [¶ 0207] (AR/VR communication facility may be able to rewrite longer phrases or the entire communication).
Claim 10:
Shevchenko teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the suggested improved electronic communication is for a portion of the initial electronic communication [¶ 0175] (analyzes and modifies an existing fragment or the entire communication) [¶ 0207] (AR/VR communication facility may be able to rewrite longer phrases or the entire communication).
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Please See PTO-892: Notice of References Cited.
Evidence of the level skill of an ordinary person in the art for Claim 1:
Mackey; Ben et al. US 20230297766 teaches: profile; determine a style value specifying a particular communication style from among different communication styles based on a communication profile of the target audience.
Bostick; James E. et al. US 20180285339 teaches: lexical preference of the recipient is identified and the document is analyzed and compared against the lexical preference of the recipient. Discrepancies from the lexical preference on the document is adapted by replacing a term in the document with a comparable term preferred by the recipient.
DeLuca; Lisa Seacat et al. US 20180032500 teaches: restyling written messages based on style preferences of the recipient, writing sample, profile.
Deutsch; Christopher E. US 20190114312 teaches: determining a communication style of the user to the specific recipient by analyzing text in one or more communications previously sent from the user to the specific recipient.
Citations to Prior Art
A reference to specific paragraphs, columns, pages, or figures in a cited prior art reference is not limited to preferred embodiments or any specific examples. It is well settled that a prior art reference, in its entirety, must be considered for all that it expressly teaches and fairly suggests to one having ordinary skill in the art. Stated differently, a prior art disclosure reading on a limitation of Applicant's claim cannot be ignored on the ground that other embodiments disclosed were instead cited. Therefore, the Examiner's citation to a specific portion of a single prior art reference is not intended to exclusively dictate, but rather, to demonstrate an exemplary disclosure commensurate with the specific limitations being addressed. In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332-33,216 USPQ 1038, 1039 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009, 158 USPQ 275, 277 (CCPA 1968". In re: Upsher-Smith Labs. v. Pamlab, LLC, 412 F.3d 1319, 1323,75 USPQ2d 1213,1215 (Fed. Cir. 2005); In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1264,23 USPQ2d 1780, 1782 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Merck & Co. v. Biocraft Labs., Inc., 874 F.2d 804, 807,10 USPQ2d 1843, 1846 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Fracalossi, 681 F.2d 792,794 n.1, 215 USPQ 569, 570 n.1 (CCPA 1982); In re Lamberti, 545 F.2d 747, 750, 192 USPQ 278, 280 (CCPA 1976); In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385,1390,163 USPQ 545, 549 (CCPA 1969).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN J SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-3825. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 11:00 - 7:30 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, ADAM QUELER can be reached at (571) 272-4140. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Benjamin Smith/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2172 Direct Phone: 571-270-3825
Direct Fax: 571-270-4825
Email: benjamin.smith@uspto.gov
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