CTNF 18/821,111 CTNF 69520 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. 12-151 AIA 26-51 12-51 Status of Claims This action is in response to the application as filed on August 30, 2024. Claims 1-20 are pending. Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on April 2, 2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS has been considered by the examiner. Drawings The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they include the following reference characters not mentioned in the description: characters 800-836 shown in Fig. 10 do not appear in the specification. Correction is required. The drawings also are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they do not include the following reference characters mentioned in the description: reference characters 1200-1240 are described at ¶¶ 197-208, but are not found in the drawings. Correction is required. 06-22 AIA The drawings are objected to because Figures 1-9 include grayscale. According to M PEP 608.01: Legibility includes ability to be photocopied and scanned so that suitable reprints can be made and paper can be electronically reproduced by use of digital imaging and optical character recognition. This requires a high contrast, with black lines and a white background. Gray lines and/or a gray background sharply reduce photo reproduction quality . Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR § 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 § CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance. Specification 07-29 AIA The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: The specification ¶128 includes the language “a developed models was used.” It is believed this should read -- a developed model was used --. Appropriate correction is required. The specification ¶144 includes the language “pregnant women or women who believe that there might be a chance that they are pregnant will be exluded.” This should read -- pregnant women or women who believe that there might be a chance that they are pregnant will be excluded --. Appropriate correction is required. The specification ¶172 includes the language “The speaking rate is measured using an developed algorithm.” This should read -- The speaking rate is measured using a developed algorithm --. Appropriate correction is required. The specification ¶182 includes the language “Tthe cross validation will be repeated.” This should read -- The cross validation will be repeated.-- Appropriate correction is required. The specification ¶184 includes the language “This dataset will be refer to as ‘B’.” This should read -- This dataset will be referred to as ‘B’--. Appropriate correction is required. Claim Objections 07-29-01 AIA Claim 10 is objected to because of the following informalities: In re claim 10, the claim recites the term “LIWC”; however, the basis for this acronym is never provided in the claim. It is believed the term corresponds to “Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count.” An acronym should be spelled out in the first instance to remove any ambiguity in the claim; therefore, the claim should be amended to read -- wherein said one or more linguistic features comprises one or more of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LWIC) feature --. Appropriate correction is required. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 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 X 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. In re claim 12, the language “a percentile of total words for a part of speech.” It is not clear what is meant by this clause. It is unclear what total words refers to. Total words for a corpus, a data set, words spoken during an evaluation or a sentence? In addition, is it total words the for each part of speech or total words from all data? The term “total words” in this context is not defined by the claim and the specification does not provide any corresponding description for ascertaining the meaning of the term such that one of ordinary skill in the art would be reasonably apprised of the scope of the claim. In re claim 13, the language “ appearance time ” is indefinite. For example, is this the number of times a noun phrase appears, a length of time for a noun phrase, the total length of time for all noun phrases that appear in a data set for evaluation? It is not clear what is meant by this term. The term “ appearance time ” is not defined by the claim and the specification does not provide any corresponding description for ascertaining the meaning of the term such that one of ordinary skill in the art would be reasonably apprised of the scope of the claim. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101 07-04-01 AIA 07-04 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 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. A patent may be obtained for “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. The Supreme Court has held that this provision contains an important implicit exception: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l , 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2354 (2014); Gottschalk v. Benson , 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972) (“Phenomena of nature, though just discovered, mental processes, and abstract intellectual concepts are not patentable, as they are the basic tools of scientific and technological work.”). Notwithstanding that a law of nature or an abstract idea, by itself, is not patentable, the application of these concepts may be deserving of patent protection. Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc. , 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1293-94 (2012). In Mayo , the Court stated that “to transform an unpatentable law of nature into a patent eligible application of such a law, one must do more than simply state the law of nature while adding the words ‘apply it.” Mayo , 132 S. Ct. at 1294 (citation omitted). In Alice , the Supreme Court reaffirmed the framework set forth previously in Mayo “for distinguishing patents that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that claim patent-eligible applications of these concepts.” Alice , 134 S. Ct. at 2355. The first step in the analysis is to “determine whether the claims at issue are directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts.” Id . If the claims are directed to a patent-ineligible concept, then the second step in the analysis is to consider the elements of the claims “individually and ‘as an ordered combination” to determine whether there are additional elements that “transform the nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.” Id . (quoting Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1298, 1297). In other words, the second step is to “search for an ‘inventive concept’- i.e. , an element or combination of elements that is ‘sufficient to ensure that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the [ineligible concept] itself.” Id . (brackets in original) (quoting Mayo , 132 S. Ct. at 1294). The prohibition against patenting an abstract idea “cannot be circumvented by attempting to limit the use of the formula to a particular technological environment or adding insignificant post-solution activity.” Bilski v. Kappos , 561 U.S. 593, 610-11 (2010) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The Court in Alice noted that “[s]imply appending conventional steps, specified at a high level of generality,’ was not ‘enough’ [in Mayo ] to supply an ‘inventive concept.” Alice , 134 S. Ct. at 2357 (quoting Mayo , 132 S. Ct. at 1300, 1297, 1294). Examiners must perform a Two-Part Analysis for Judicial Exceptions. In Step 1, it must be determined whether the claimed invention is directed to a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter. Claims 1-20 are directed to a method. As such, the claimed invention falls into the broad categories of invention. However, even claims that fall within one of the four subject matter categories may nevertheless be ineligible if they encompass laws of nature, physical phenomena, or abstract ideas. See Diamond v. Chakrabarty , 447 U.S. at 309. In Step 2A, it must be determined whether the claimed invention is ‘directed to’ a judicially recognized exception. According to the specification, “methods for evaluating a subject for brain or cognitive health associated with trauma using a biomarker panel comprising one or more categories of features.” (par. 20). Independent claim 1 recites the following (with emphasis): A method for evaluating a subject for brain injury, comprising: (a) receiving input data comprising one or more acoustic features and/or one or more linguistic features extracted from audio data obtained for said subject; (b) processing the input data using a machine learning module configured to evaluate acoustic and/or linguistic features; (c) generate an evaluation of said subject based on said processing of said input data using said machine learning module, said evaluation comprising an indication of brain injury. The underlined portions of claim 1 generally encompass the abstract idea. Claims 2-20 further define the abstract idea such as by defining the features, training, and data provided. Under prong 2, the claimed invention encompasses an abstract idea in the form of mental processes and/or certain methods of organizing human activity. The invention encompasses making observations, judgments, and evaluations of a subject for brain injury. As such, the method can be performed in the mind of a human and/or with the aid of pencil and paper. The use of acoustic and linguistic observation of an individual as a means to evaluate brain trauma and/or mental illness is basic to the diagnostic process. The methods in the instant application simply seek to automate this well-known activity using generic computers recited at a high level of generality, and, therefore, the claims are directed to a mental process (e.g., observations, evaluations, judgments, and opinions). But for the recitation of processing the input data using a machine learning module, nothing in the claimed method precludes the recitations from practically being performed in the mind. For example, receiving input data comprising one or more acoustic features and/or one or more linguistic features extracted from audio data obtained for said subject can be performed or formulated in the mind a doctor, a researcher, a clinician, or a therapist by observing and listening to or reading data from the subject. P rocessing the input data to evaluate acoustic and/or linguistic features can be performed or formulated in the mind of the doctor, the researcher, the clinician, or the therapist judging and thinking about the observations based on their experience and knowledge and then generating an indication of brain injury of the subject based on their observations/evaluation. If a claim, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of recitations in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Therefore, under prong 2, the claimed invention encompasses an abstract idea in the form of mental processes. Under prong 2, the instant claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. In other words, the claims do not (1) improve the functioning of a computer or other technology, (2) effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition (3) are not applied with any particular machine, (4) do not effect a transformation of a particular article to a different state, and (5) are not applied in any meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim, as a whole, is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception, the claims are directed to the judicially recognized exception of an abstract idea. See MPEP §§ 2106.05(a)-(c), (e)-(h). While certain non-mental elements (i.e., elements that are not an abstract idea) are present in the claims, such features do not affect an improvement in any technology or technical field and are recited in generic (i.e., not particular) ways. Similarly, the abstract idea does not improve the functioning of these elements. In recent cases, the CAFC has made it clear that the term “practical application” means providing a technical solution to a technical problem in computers or networks per se. To be patent-eligible, the claimed invention must improve the computer as a computer or network as a network. Applicant’s invention does not meet these requirements. Applicant’s invention uses computers (machine learning) to make observations based on trained data sets. This does not improve the computer qua computer or provide an improvement to the process of machine learning. Instead, Applicant’s invention uses generic computers (and machine learning) as a tool to implement the abstract idea. As such, the claims are not eligible under Section 101. Step 2B requires that if the claim encompasses a judicially recognized exception, it must be determined whether the claimed invention recites additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements or combination of elements other than the abstract idea per se amounts to no more than: a method using machine learning to perform the abstract idea. These elements amount to generic, well-understood and conventional computer components. The use of machine learning to make evaluations of input data represents well-understood, routine, conventional activity previously known to the industry. 1 Applicant’s specification discloses generic computer components, see, e.g., specification ¶¶196-211 which describe general purpose off the shelf computer component as implementing the invention. ¶45 describes the machine learning model can be a memory-enabled machine learning model, for example, a long short-term memory (LSTM) model, which has been used in language analysis since 1999. 2 The application does not purport to develop, improve or solve any technical problems associated with LSTM models and only describes them generically. In addition, the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit recently held that “patents that do no more than claim the application of generic machine learning to new data environments, without disclosing improvements to the machine learning models to be applied, are patent ineligible under § 101” Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., 134 F.4th 1205 (Fed. Cir. 2025). In short, each step of the claim method does no more than require a generic computer to perform generic computer functions or machine learning models. Considered as an ordered combination, only generic computer components are present. Viewed as a whole, the claims simply recite the concept of making observation, judgments, evaluations by a generic computer. The claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of the computer itself. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Instead, the claims at issue amount to nothing significantly more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using some unspecified, generic computer. Under relevant court precedents, that is not enough to transform an abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention. As a result, claims 1-20 are not patent eligible Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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. 07-07-aia AIA 07-07 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 – 07-08-aia AIA (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. 07-12-aia AIA (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. 07-15 AIA Claim s 1-5, 8, 14, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102( a)(1 ) as being anticipated by U.S. Publication No. 2018/0214061 by Knoth et al. (“Knoth”) . In re claim 1, Knoth discloses a method for evaluating a subject for brain injury [Abstract] , comprising:(a) receiving input data comprising one or more acoustic features and/or one or more linguistic features extracted from audio data obtained for said subject [Fig. 1, 106, 108, 110, ¶¶46-48, among others, describe The system 100 may be used to identify voice biomarkers that can serve as indicators for a particular mental health condition such as mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI). The system 100 involves a patient 102 providing a patient's speech pattern 104, e.g., by way of the patient talking, to a speech recognition module 106 and an acoustic analysis module 108 of an assessment application 101 that may be installed on a mobile electronic device such as a smartphone. Each of the speech recognition module 106 and acoustic analysis module 108 is configured to provide output information to a linguistic, prosodic, and spectral feature extraction module 110] ; (b) processing the input data using a machine learning module configured to evaluate acoustic and/or linguistic features [Figs. 1 4, 112, ¶¶43, 46-48, 50, among others, describe The machine learning module 212 generally consists of a set of algorithms configured to enable the system 200 to learn models that provide scores or assessments about the speaker's mental health state based on the input speech. Feature selection may be performed via univariate analysis and machine-learning algorithms may be applied to develop models that predict outcome measures on the basis of acoustic and lexical feature inputs] ; (c) generate an evaluation of said subject based on said processing of said input data using said machine learning module, said evaluation comprising an indication of brain injury [Fig. 1, 114, ¶¶43, 46-48, 53, 58, among others, describe the extraction module 110 is configured to provide a mental health assessment score 114 to a provider 116 such as a medical clinician or other suitable user. An assessment of the patient's state-of-mind is determined based at least in part on the speech features that were extracted. A determination is made as to whether the state-of-mind assessment indicates a positive or negative diagnosis with regard to the presence of a particular mental health condition (e.g., depression, suicidal tendencies, PTSD, a concussion, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, mTBI, or schizophrenia).] . In re claim 2, Knoth discloses pre-determining said subject has suffered an injury affecting brain health and selecting said subject for said evaluation [¶¶45-46, 49-50, among others, describe training model continuously based on predetermined assessments] . In re claim 3, Knoth discloses the injury comprises traumatic brain injury or mild traumatic brain injury [¶¶46,58, among others, describe condition assessed as mTBI] . In re claim 4, Knoth discloses prompting said subject for said audio data [Fig. 8, 804, ¶64, claim 9, among others, describes prompting the patient to produce the speech pattern] . In re claim 5, Knoth discloses the subject is shown one or more sentences and prompted to read said one or more sentences [Fig. 8; ¶¶64, among others, describes a speech elicitor 804 may prompt a speaker (e.g., a patient 802) to produce speech. For example, the speech elicitor 804 may present visually questions 803A (e.g., the sentence “Tell me about your appetite today”) to the patient 802. Visual questions are read by the patient] . In re claim 8, Knoth discloses one or more acoustic features comprises one or more of sentence speaking rate, average pitch value, pitch variance, vowel and/or consonant articulation precision, vowel space area, or spontaneous pause rate [¶27, among others, describes pitch and energy features may be extracted from the patient interviews. Features may include novel cepstral features and temporal variation parameters (such as speaking rate, distribution of prominence peaks in time, pause lengths and frequency, and syllable durations, for example), speech rhythmicity, pitch variation, and voiced/voiceless ratios, among others] . In re claim 14, Knoth discloses a model trained using a training data set comprising acoustic and/or linguistic features for a plurality of individuals, wherein each of said plurality of individuals is labeled according to said indication of brain injury [¶¶25, 49-50 , among others, describe model with self-assessed annotations or those provided by clinical experts] . In re claim 15, Knoth discloses said indication of brain injury is associated with traumatic brain injury [¶¶46,58, among others, describe providing an evaluation of patient including indication of mTBI] . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-23-aia AIA The factual inquiries 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. 07-20-02-aia AIA 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 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable Knoth in view of US Publication No. 2013/0090927 by Quatieri et al. (“Quatieri”). In re claim 6, Knoth discloses prompting a user with questions and recording the answers with a microphone. Knoth does not explicitly teach capturing audio data an audio recording of said subject reading one or more sentences. However, Quatieri teaches assessing traumatic brain injury using a trained model including having the subject read sentences and capturing the read sentences [¶¶48,49, among others, describe recognizing phones from speech of the subject; extracting one or more prosodic or speech-excitation-source features of the phones from the speech of the subject; and generating an assessment of a condition of the subject, based on a correlation between the one or more features of the phones and the condition including traumatic brain injury. the speech of the subject is a running speech, e.g. conversational speech or a read sentence] . Knoth and Quatieri are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Both Knoth and Quatieri provide audio input of subject for assessment by model based on feature analysis. Knoth describes prompting user speech with questions and recoding response. Quatieri teaches prompting user speech by having user a read sentence. Both types of speech are captured and analyzed by the systems. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to replace one type of speech input (questions/answer) with another type of speech input (reading sentence) as taught by Quatieri , to provide predictable result of generating audio input for assessment of user mental health by the system. In re claim 7, Knoth discloses processing audio data to extract said one or more acoustic features and/or one or more linguistic features [Fig. 1, 110; ¶¶20-47, describe various features extracted by the system including linguistic, prosodic, and spectral features. These features may include any of a number of various parameters such as phonetic and pause durations as well as measurements of pitch and energy over various extraction regions] . Claims 9-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable Knoth in view of the Publication “Speech Reveals Future Risk of Developing Dementia: Predictive Dementia Screening from Biographic Interviews” by Weiner et al. (“Weiner”). In re claim 9, Knoth discloses linguistic features. Knoth lacks, but Weiner teaches for cognitive screening one or more linguistic features comprises one or more of LIWC feature, part of speech feature, language complexity feature, grammatical constituent feature, or phrase formation type [P. 3, Section 4.1 describes linguistic features including Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) and Part of Speech. Section 5.2 at P. 4. Col. 2, ¶¶1,2 describes LIWC features: "sex","nonfluency" and "down"; LIWC type features: "anger", "sad" and "negative emotion", p. 3, col. 1 ¶7 describes Part-of-Speech (POS) Tags: use the TreeTagger to automatically extract POS tags and calculate the percentage of each tag.] . Knoth and Weiner are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include the linguistic features as taught by Weiner , to improve the analysis and monitoring of brain injury markers by including linguistic features extracted from patient speech that involve specific brain regions and functions (see, e.g., Weiner p. 3, col 2, ¶¶1-2, p. 3, col 1, ¶7). In re claim 10, Knoth discloses linguistic features. Knoth lacks, but Weiner teaches the LIWC feature comprises a calculation of words categorized according to one or more of attention and/or focus, emotion, social relationship, thinking style, or cognitive complexity [P. 3, Section 4.1 describes linguistic features including Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) and Part of Speech. Section 5.2 at P. 4. Col. 2, ¶¶1,2 describes LIWC features: "sex","nonfluency" and "down"; LIWC type features: "anger", "sad" and "negative emotion", p. 3, col. 1 ¶7 describes Part-of-Speech (POS) Tags: use the TreeTagger to automatically extract POS tags and calculate the percentage of each tag] . Knoth and Weiner are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include the linguistic features as taught by Weiner , to improve the analysis and monitoring of brain injury markers by including linguistic features extracted from patient speech that involve specific brain regions and functions (see, e.g., Weiner p. 3, col 2, ¶¶1-2, p. 3, col 1, ¶7). In re claim 11, Knoth discloses linguistic features. Knoth lacks, but Weiner teaches wherein said part of speech feature comprises a percentile of total words for a part of speech [p. 3, col. 1 ¶7 describes Part-of-Speech (POS) Tags: use the TreeTagger to automatically extract POS tags and calculate the percentage of each tag] . Knoth and Weiner are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include the linguistic features as taught by Weiner , to improve the analysis and monitoring of brain injury markers by including linguistic features extracted from patient speech that involve specific brain regions and functions (see, e.g., Weiner p. 3, col 2, ¶¶1-2, p. 3, col 1, ¶7). In re claim 12, Knoth discloses linguistic features. Knoth lacks, but Weiner teaches the language complexity feature comprises a Yngve Depth, Brunet Index, or Honore Statistic [p. 3, col. 1 ¶6 describes measuring lexical richness use of vocabulary including Brunet’s W index and Honore’s R statistics] . Knoth and Weiner are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include the linguistic features as taught by Weiner , to improve the analysis and monitoring of brain injury markers by including linguistic features extracted from patient speech that involve specific brain regions and functions (see, e.g., Weiner p. 3, col 2, ¶¶1-2, p. 3, col 1, ¶7). In re claim 13, Knoth discloses linguistic features. Knoth lacks, but Weiner teaches wherein said part of speech feature comprises an appearance time of a noun phrase, an appearance time of a verb phrase, or an appearance time of a noun phrase that contains only one noun [p. 3, col. 1 ¶7-col. 2 ¶2 describes Part-of-Speech (POS) Tags: use the TreeTagger to automatically extract POS tags and calculate the percentage of each tag and group POS tags together into POS categories (e.g. "verbs" or "adjectives") to produce two more feature types: POS categories and conv. POS categories"] . Knoth and Weiner are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include the linguistic features as taught by Weiner , to improve the analysis and monitoring of brain injury markers by including linguistic features extracted from patient speech that involve specific brain regions and functions (see, e.g., Weiner p. 3, col 2, ¶¶1-2, p. 3, col 1, ¶7). Claims 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable Knoth in view of US Publication No. 2023/0386456 by Weston et al. (“Weston”). In re claim 16, Knoth discloses indications for traumatic brain injury. Knoth lacks, but Weston teaches said indication of brain injury comprises one or more symptoms of traumatic brain injury [¶¶46-51, describes providing indication of health condition comprises multiple health conditions or symptoms of different health conditions] . Knoth and Weston are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include indication of symptoms, as taught by Weiner , to improve monitoring and tracking of development of brain injury in the patient, see, e.g., ¶51. In re claim 17, Knoth discloses indications for traumatic brain injury. Knoth lacks, but Weston teaches an indication of brain injury is associated with a severity of traumatic brain injury [¶¶98,99, among others describe a target output may be sequential data (e.g. disease severity monitoring over time) including give a predicted head injury severity score] . Knoth and Weston are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include indication of symptoms, as taught by Weiner , to distinguish between mild and severe trauma in the patient, see, e.g., ¶87. In re claim 18, Knoth discloses indications for traumatic brain injury. Knoth lacks, but Weston teaches an indication of brain injury comprises a prediction of a future symptom of traumatic brain injury [¶¶51, 65, among others, describe the trained model may be highly predictive of a large range of health conditions where the health condition comprises multiple health conditions or symptoms of different health conditions] . Knoth and Weston are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include indication of symptoms, as taught by Weiner , to improve monitoring and tracking of development of brain injury in the patient, see, e.g., ¶51,65. In re claim 19, Knoth discloses indications for traumatic brain injury. Knoth lacks, but Weston teaches. The method of claim 1, wherein said indication of brain injury differentiates between whether said subject will recover from an acute traumatic brain injury or whether said subject will suffer one or more symptoms of said acute traumatic brain injury [¶¶51, 87, 120, among others, describe the target output may be sequential data (e.g. disease severity monitoring over time) and that the method can be applied to any health condition, and to other task objectives (e.g. monitoring disease severity over time). The health condition comprises multiple health conditions or symptoms of different health conditions] . Knoth and Weston are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include indication of symptoms, as taught by Weiner , to allow early detection of severe brain trauma symptoms and improve the monitoring of patient's condition, see, e.g., ¶¶51, 87, 120. In re claim 20, Knoth discloses indications for traumatic brain injury. Knoth lacks, but Weston teaches. The method of claim 19, wherein said one or more symptoms of acute traumatic brain injury comprises post-traumatic headache or persistent post-traumatic headache [¶¶48 describes head injury or stroke (example: stroke, aphasic stroke, concussion, traumatic brain injury); pain (example: pain, quality of life)] . Knoth and Weston are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of mental health assessment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Knoth to include indication of symptoms, as taught by Weiner , to improve monitoring and tracking of development of brain injury in the patient, see, e.g., ¶51, 65. Conclusion 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure and is listed on the attached Notice of References Cited . Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Andrew Bodendorf whose telephone number is (571) 272-6152. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM-5PM ET. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Xuan Thai can be reached on (571) 272-7147. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /ANDREW BODENDORF/Examiner, Art Unit 3715 /XUAN M THAI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 2 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 3 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 4 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 5 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 6 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 7 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 8 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 9 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 10 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 12 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 13 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 14 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 15 Art Unit: 3715 Application/Control Number: 18/821,111 Page 16 Art Unit: 3715 1 See, Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., 134 F.4th 1205 (Fed. Cir. 2025). See Section II summarizing District court finding “The court then found at step two of Alice that the patents’ claims were not directed to an ‘inventive concept’ that would ‘amount[] to significantly more than a patent upon the [ineligible concept] itself,’ id. at 456 (second alteration in original) (quoting Alice, 573 U.S. at 217–18), because the machine learning limitations were no more than ‘broad, functionally described, well-known techniques” and claimed “only generic and conventional computing devices,” id. at 457 (footnote omitted). 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_short-term_memory#cite_note-lstm1997-1
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