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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. JP2024-017203, filed on 02/07/2024.
Status of Claim
This action is in reply to the application filed on 23 of August 2024.
Claims 1-9 are currently pending and are rejected as described below.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f). The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f). The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) except as otherwise indicated in an Office Action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) except as otherwise indicated in an Office Action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier.
Regarding Claims 1 and 8 the limitations:
Claims 1 and 8 limitations have the combination of non-structural terms (in bold) and functional language (un-bolded):
a communication interface configured to communicate with a computer
Because these claim limitations are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) they are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have these limitations interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f).
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.
Claims 1 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 1 and 8 recite “a communication interface configured to…”.
Claim limitations 1 and 8 invokes 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. However, the written description fails to disclose the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the entire claimed function and to clearly link the structure, material, or acts to the function. For claims 1 and 8, “the specification fails to clearly link the structure or material to the claimed function,” due to the means for not being disclosed in the applicant’s specification. The claim is viewed as indefinite due a lack of corresponding structure in relationship with the recited term “configured to”. For purposes of applying prior art only, the “structure” in the limitations appear to be, based on ¶18, 26. As such, the claim is indefinite for failing to distinctly claim the invention. Therefore, the claim is indefinite and is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph.
Applicant may:
(a) Amend the claim so that the claim limitation will no longer be interpreted as a limitation under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph;
(b) Amend the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites what structure, material, or acts perform the entire claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(c) Amend the written description of the specification such that it clearly links the structure, material, or acts disclosed therein to the function recited in the claim, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)).
If applicant is of the opinion that the written description of the specification already implicitly or inherently discloses the corresponding structure, material, or acts and clearly links them to the function so that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize what structure, material, or acts perform the claimed function, applicant should clarify the record by either:
(a) Amending the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function and clearly links or associates the structure, material, or acts to the claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(b) Stating on the record what the corresponding structure, material, or acts, which are implicitly or inherently set forth in the written description of the specification, perform the claimed function. For more information, see 37 CFR 1.75(d) and MPEP §§ 608.01(o) and 2181.
Claims 2-7 depend on claim 1 and do not cure the aforementioned deficiencies of claim 1, and thus, claims 2-7 are rejected for the reasons set forth above regarding claim 1 as a result.
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 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)(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.
Claims 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 as being anticipated by US 20250005020 to Thatisetti et. al. (hereinafter referred to as “Thatisetti”).
(A) As per Claims 1 and 8-9:
Thatisetti expressly discloses:
a processor configured to execute a program; a storage device configured to store the program; a communication interface configured to communicate with a computer trained to generate an answer to an inquiry; (Thatisetti ¶90-91 the physical memory can include datastores, working memory portions, storage portions, and the like. Storage portions of the memory can include executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to (with assistance of working memory) instantiate an instance of a generative output application, also referred to herein as a generative output service. The generative output application can be configured to expose one or more API endpoint, such as for configuration or for receiving input prompts. The generative output application can be further configured to provide generated text output to one or more subscribers or API clients. Many suitable interfaces can be configured to provide input to and to received output from a generative output application, as described herein).
wherein the processor executes creation request processing of transmitting, to the computer, a creation request of an automation program for automating a work procedure of an operation target, and receiving an answer to the creation request from the computer; (Thatisetti ¶357-358 as described in more detail, below, the content provider system 2820 may operate one or more automated chat services that are configured to provide content for the messaging session between the client messaging interface 2812 and the provider messaging interface 2814. As also shown in FIG. 28 , the system 2800 may also include one or more external resources including the knowledge base platform 2832 and may also be operably coupled to other services through the Internet or another computer network. The different recipients may be associated with different automated chat services or may be associated with a human recipient. For the purposes of the following disclosure, the term “recipient” may be used to refer to an entity or element of the system that receives at least a portion of the content of a message or messages extracted from a messaging session and is not necessarily a direct recipient of a message in the context of a conversation or series of messages exchanged using the messaging platform 2810).
specification request processing of transmitting, to the computer, a specification request for specifying the operation target and a command for executing the work procedure from a program code included in the answer to the creation request, and receiving an answer to the specification request from the computer; (Thatisetti ¶374-378 a user may be accessing a payment application on a mobile device, and the payment application may be configured to communicate with a runtime manager. Based on communications from the mobile device, the runtime manager may determine that the collection of a bill payment is needed, and may access playbook 300 from a database of playbooks. The runtime manager may then provide playbook 300 to one or more LLMs, which execute the instructions within playbook 300. In connection with providing playbook 300 to an LLM, the runtime manager may provide the LLM with a prompt that states “Your goal is to collect payment from customers.” In addition, the runtime manager may provide the LLM with a prompt that defines API specifications. This prompt may state, “You have access to the following tools:”, and the prompt can be followed with a list of business logic tools and parameters relating to the tools. The runtime manager may also provide the LLM with a prompt that states “You can take the following actions:”, and follow this prompt with a description of actions that can be taken by the LLM during execution of the playbook 300. A prompt to follow the instructions of playbook 300 may also be provided to the LLM. FIG. 31E depicts an example graphical user interface 3100 e that may also be produced in response to the request message 3102 of FIG. 31A. Specifically, the automated chat service may generate a response 3150 that includes a proposed answer that is generated using the generative output engine, in accordance with the examples described herein. As shown in 3100 e, the response 3150 may include a list of proposed actions or tasks that may be generated in response to a specially constructed prompt that includes one or more excerpts from top-ranking content items and predetermined query prompt text that requests a list of proposed steps or actions to be performed based on the provided text excerpts).
search request processing of transmitting, to the computer, a search request of an output result of data acquired from the command included in the answer to the specification request, and receiving an answer to the search request from the computer; (Thatisetti ¶183 The prompt management service 114 can be configured to modify the user input, to supplement the user input, select a prompt from a database (e.g., the database 118) based on the user input, insert the user input into a template prompt, replace words within the user input, preform searches of databases (such as user graphs, team graphs, and so on) of either the first platform backend 108 or the second platform backend 110, change grammar or spelling of the user input, change a language of the user input, and so on. The prompt management service 114 may also be referred to herein as herein as an “editor assistant service” or a “prompt constructor.” In some cases, the prompt management service 114 is also referred to as a “content creation and modification service.”).
generation processing of generating a re-creation request for re-creating the automation program using the output result included in the answer to the search request, and re-creation request processing of transmitting the re-creation request generated by the generation processing to the computer, and receiving an answer to the re-creation request from the computer; (Thatisetti ¶197 suggestions can be configured to select or modify prompts that cause the generative engine service 116 to interact with multiple systems. For example, a suggestion in a documentation system may be to create a new document content section that summarizes a history of agent interactions in an ITSM system. In some cases, the generative engine service 116 can be called more than once (and/or it may be configured to generate its own follow-up prompts or prompt templates which can be populated with appropriate information and re-submitted to the generative engine service 116 to obtain further generative output. More simply, in some embodiments, generative output may be recursive, iterative, or otherwise multi-step in some embodiments).
Thatisetti teaches methods for automatically generating content in at least ¶46, and CRM in at least claim 10.
(B) As per Claim 2:
Thatisetti expressly discloses:
wherein in the generation processing, the processor adds, to the re-creation request, a conversion rule from an old module name of a module used in the operation target to a new module name; (Thatisetti ¶107-110 the user input of “generate a table of all my tasks for the next two weeks” may be converted, supplemented, modified, and/or otherwise preconditioned to… The operations of modifying a user input into a descriptive paragraph or set of paragraphs that further contextualize the input may be referred to as “prompt engineering.” In many embodiments, a preconditioning software instance may serve as a portion of a prompt engineering service configured to receive user input and to enrich, supplement, and/or otherwise hydrate a raw user input into a detailed prompt that may be provided as input to a generative output engine as described herein).
(C) As per Claim 3:
Thatisetti expressly discloses:
wherein in the search request processing, the processor transmits, to the computer, the specification request including access information to correspondence information between the command and the output result; (Thatisetti ¶105 generally, a preconditioning service, as described herein, can be configured to access and append significant contextual information describing a user and/or users associated with the user submitting a particular request, the user's role in a particular organization, the user's technical expertise, the user's computing hardware (e.g., different response formats may be suitable and/or selectable based on user equipment), and so on).
(D) As per Claim 4:
Thatisetti expressly discloses:
wherein in the re-creation request processing, the processor transmits, to the computer, the specification request including access information to a conversion rule from an old module name of a module used in the operation target to a new module name; (Thatisetti ¶264 the results region 704 displays recently selected, recently viewed content items, or another curated list of content items predicted to be relevant to the object link creation process. The object selection interface 710 also includes other regions 706 and controls that may be used to configure how the object is to be displayed or used. The link object may be renamed or the region 706 may be used to designate a particular portion or aspect of the object to be used for the linked content. In some implementations, multiple tabs or other selectable area may be used to toggle between different content providers. The list of content providers may be determined by a registry of validated content providers that have registered with the service and are able to provide access to remotely hosted content items based on a user credential, token, or other authenticating element, which may be authenticated in advance of the object search process using a single-sign-on or other authentication scheme).
(E) As per Claim 5:
Thatisetti expressly discloses:
wherein when the output result is not included in the answer to the search request, the processor executes output processing of outputting an absence answer indicating that the output result is not included in the answer to the search request; (Thatisetti ¶360 in accordance with the intent metric or other content metric satisfying a first criteria (e.g., meeting or exceeding a threshold), the request message may be forwarded or provided to a particular automated chat service (e.g., the second automated chat service 2826). In response to the intent metric or other content metric failing to satisfy the first criteria, the request message may be forwarded or provided to a different automated chat service (e.g., the first automated chat service 2824). In accordance with the intent metric or other content metric failing to satisfy a second criteria or in response to either of the automated chat services failing to provide a sufficient response, the request message or a portion of the exchange with the first client device may be forwarded or provided to a human operator to conduct a portion or the remainder of the session. Further, even for messages that are handled by one of the automated chat services, response messages may be provided to a human operator before they are transmitted to the client device via the interface provided by the messaging platform).
(F) As per Claim 6:
Thatisetti expressly discloses:
wherein the processor executes first setting processing which performs setting such that the computer is accessible to correspondence information between the command and the output result; (Thatisetti ¶247-248 user selection of the publish control 514 may cause the content of the page or electronic document to be saved on the collaboration platform backend and the page or electronic document may be accessible to other users of the system having been authenticated and having a permissions profile that is consistent with a permissions profile of the page or electronic document. The user-generated content may be saved in accordance with a platform-specific markup language schema. s described previously, the prompt constructor may interface with a generative output engine in order to provide suggested content or modifications that can be implemented directly in the editor or other aspects of the graphical user interface).
(G) As per Claim 7:
Thatisetti expressly discloses:
wherein the processor executes second setting processing which performs setting such that the computer is accessible to a conversion rule from an old module name of a module used in the operation target to a new module name; (Thatisetti ¶262 s shown in FIG. 6B, the preview window 650 may include an input region 654 that is configured to receive additional user commands or instructions for further refining the generative response 600. For example, the user may provide an instruction to summarize the response, expand on a subtopic, or otherwise use the generative response 600 as input to a further prompt to be sent to a generative output engine. As a result, at least a portion of the generative response 600 may be used as part of a subsequent prompt resulting in a modified or second generative response. This can be continued until the response provided in the preview window 650 accomplishes the desired task).
Conclusion
The prior arts made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
White, J. (2023). A prompt pattern catalog to enhance prompt engineering with ChatGPT. arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.11382.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATHEUS R STIVALETTI whose telephone number is 571-272-5758. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:30-5:30.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rutao Wu can be reached on 571-272-6045. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-1822.
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/MATHEUS RIBEIRO STIVALETTI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623 1/28/2026