DETAILED ACTION
Introduction
This office action is in response to applicant’s preliminary amendment claims filed 12/26/2024. Claims 1-18 are currently pending and have been examined. Applicant’s IDS have been considered. There is no claim to foreign priority.
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 .
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
In paragraph [0008] the last sentence, “intension” should probably be - -intention- -.
In paragraphs [0027-0032]-the Examiner notes there is no definition of an “IRR” or “IRRs”, therefore rendering the specification to require revision, correction and/or clarification.
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.
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 8 is 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
More specifically, claim 8 cites, “wherein the of the text regex” and omits the object with respect to the first “the” in the phrase, and is thus indefinite, and furthermore has antecedent issues with “the identified text regexes”. Appropriate correction and clarification are required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 5-7, 10-12 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (Liu, US 11,886,473) in view of Prasad et al. (Prasad, US 2022/0060438).
As per claim 1, Liu teaches a method for determining an intention encoded in a given text communication, the method comprising:
receiving a written text (C.1 lines 22-30, C.2 lines 6-15, C.31 lines 35-40--his user input and written text);
identifying test [regexes] comprised in the text that are usable to indicate an intention included in the text (C.19 lines 10-C.20 line 4-his intention as classified, based on text in the communication text, C.11 line 52-C.13 line 9- his corresponding predefined intents, and intent categories, domains, intents, slot with corresponding substrings as searched for and identified within the text and intent taxonomy or database);
determining degrees of entailment of the test regexes with intention indicator [regexes] (IIRs) comprised in a set of [IIRs] (ibid-his vectors for the input and corresponding predefined intent slot, as compared via similarity measures, as the degree of entailment, with the set of intention indicator expressions); and
inferring the intention based on the determined degrees of entailment (ibid-his determined/predicted intent as inferred, based on the determined similarity values as entailed via the calculations).
Liu lacks explicitly teaching that which Prasad teaches, identifying test regexes comprised in the text that are usable to indicate an intention included in the text (paragraph [0044]-his user entered messages and corresponding identified regular expressions, hereinafter referred to as regexes, usable to indicate an intention in the text);
determining degrees of entailment of the test regexes with intention indicator regexes (IIRs) comprised in a set of IIRs] (ibid-his file containing a set of regular expressions for intent detection).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad, hereinafter the intent expressions, as IIRs as combined, as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text (ibid-Prasad).
As per claim 2, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 1 and comprising determining IIRs belonging to the set of IIRs (ibid-Prasad, paragraph [0044]-his set of regexes, and all corresponding regexes, within that set as determined to belong to that set, by definition of the set of regexes).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using a set of regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text (ibid-Prasad).
As per claim 5, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 1 wherein identifying test regexes in the text comprises identifying regexes in the text that are similar to IIRs in the set of IIRs (ibid-see claim 1, Lui, his vector and similarity discussion, his vectors for the input and corresponding predefined intent slot, as compared via similarity measures, as the degree of entailment, with the set of intention indicator expressions).
As per claim 6, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 1 wherein identifying test regexes in the text comprises using a neural network to identify test regexes comprised in the text (ibid, Liu-his neural network identifying test expressions in the text, C. 11 line 51-C.13 line 9, his neural network using NLU module and deep learning architecture to identify intent expression in the user input, as combined with the regex discussion above).
As per claim 7, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 1 wherein determining degrees of entailment comprises determining a degree of entailment for each of at least one regex of the identified test regexes with each of a plurality of IIRs selected from the set of IIRs (ibid-Liu, see previously cited C.19, C.19 and C.20-his intent classifier, and corresponding similarity calculation, probability of intent found in the set pre-defined intents, taxonomy or database, and in vector representation, the similarity value as the entailment).
As per claim 10, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 1 wherein determining a degree of entailment between a test regex and a IIR comprises embedding both the test regex and the IIR in a same embedding space and determining a similarity between the embedments (ibid-see claim 1, vectors discussion, his vectors for the input and corresponding predefined intent slot, as compared via similarity measures, as the degree of entailment, with the set of intention indicator expressions, Fig. 7 C.34 lines 8-C.35 line 11-see his vector space, and corresponding each of the described test and IIRs, based on the combination of references, and same embedding space and similarity measurement between regexes).
As per claim 11, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 1 and comprising determining a topic that is a subject of the communication and related to the intention (ibid-Liu-see his domain classification, C.16 lines 35-46, C.21 lines 24-44-his intents of the user input categorized into topics, Fig. 2).
As per claim 12, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 11 wherein determining degrees of entailment comprises determining degrees of entailment with IIRs selected from the set of IIRs that are associated with the topic (ibid-Liu, see claims 1 and 11, his degree of entailment, based on the similarity calculations as described via the vector calculations, see C.19-C.20 as described above, and corresponding domain ontology and taxonomy, and vector similarity comparison, C.12 lines 5-65-see his domain discussion).
As per claim 18, Liu with Prasad make obvious a communications network for determining an intention comprised in a communication propagated by the network, the system comprising:
a hub for receiving copies of communications propagated by the network (Liu, Fig. 1, as his hub and system, for receiving communications across his network, ibid-see claim 1, C.1 lines 61-65, C.3 lines 33-60-his system, communication content discussion); and software comprising instructions executable to perform the method of claim 1 to determine intentions of the communications (ibid, C.43 lines 10-54-see his computer program instructions, system, including processor and memory for executing the instructions according to the disclosed method, abstract).
Claim(s) 3 and 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (Liu, US 11,886,473) in view of Prasad et al. (Prasad, US 2022/0060438), and further in view of Asumu et al. (Asumu, US 2020/0184957).
As per claim 3, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 2, but lack teaching that which Asumu teaches, wherein determining the IIRs comprises using humans to select IIRs belonging to the set of IIRs (paragraph [0009[-his administrator adding the regular expression pattern to a set of regex patterns).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad and Asumu to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad, with using humans to select IIRs belong to a set of IIRs, as taught by Asumu as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text, and augmenting intent pattern sets using a human or automatic machine learning process (ibid-Prasad, ibid-Asumu, abstract, and paragraphs [0009, 0031]).
As per claim 4, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 2 wherein determining the IIRs comprises using a neural network to determine IIRs belonging to the set of IIRs (paragraph [0031, 0002]-his machine learning module, neural network as described, adding the regular expression pattern to a set of regex patterns repository).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad and Asumu to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad, with using machine learning to select IIRs belong to a set of IIRs, as taught by Asumu as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text, and augmenting intent pattern sets using a human or automatic machine learning process (ibid-Prasad, ibid-Asumu, abstract, and paragraphs [0009, 0031]).
Claim(s) 9, and 13-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (Liu, US 11,886,473) in view of Prasad et al. (Prasad, US 2022/0060438), in view of Chen et al. (Chen, US 2009/0119275) and further in view of Sackett et al (Sackett, US 2023/0147359).
As per claim 9, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 1, but lack explicitly teaching that which Chen teaches, wherein the set of IIRs comprises IIRs that are positively entailed and IIRs that are negatively entailed with a same test regex of the identified test regexes (Chen, paragraphs [0041, 0039-0041]-his regular expressions for positive and negative rules).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad, with regular expressions for positive and negative rules, which indicate the agreement or rejection of what is to be required, respectively, as taught by Chen as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text, the positive/negative regular expressions determining a degree of interest for a user, and classifying input based on the positive/negative entailment (ibid-Prasad, Chen, Sackett, paragraph [0008], abstract).
As per claim 13, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 12, but lack teaching that which Chen teaches, wherein the selected IIRs comprise P-IIRs that are indicative of presence of the intention and N-IIRs that are indicative of absence of the intention (Chen paragraphs [0041, 0029]-his regular expressions for both positive, and negative rules, the rules as intentions, the positive as indicative of the presence of an intention, and negative rule indicative an absence of an intention).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad, with regular expressions for positive and negative rules, as intentions, which indicate the agreement and presence or rejection and absence of what is to be required, respectively, as taught by Chen as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text, the positive/negative regular expressions determining a degree of interest for a user, and classifying input based on the positive/negative entailment (ibid-Prasad, Chen, Sackett paragraph [0008], abstract).
As per claim 14, Liu with Prasad with Chen with Sackett make obvious the method according to claim 13, Chen teaching that which Liu lacks, wherein determining degrees of entailment comprises determining a degree of entailment for each identified test regex with each of the selected P-IIRs and N-IIRs (ibid-Chen, paragraphs [0041, 0042, 0053, 0029]-his similarity based on test regexes found in a communication and each positive/negative regex as described in claim 13).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad, with regular expressions for positive and negative rules, as intentions, which indicate the agreement and presence or rejection and absence, of positive or negative intentions/rules, of what is to be required, respectively, as taught by Chen as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text, the positive/negative regular expressions determining a degree of interest for a user, and classifying input based on the positive/negative entailment (ibid-Prasad, Chen, Sachkett paragraph [0008], abstract).
As per claim 15, Liu with Prasad with Chen with Sackett make obvious the method according to claim 13, further lacking by Liu, but taught by Sackett, comprising determining a first measure of a number of times that the degree of entailment of the identified test regexes with selected positive P-IIRs exceeds a positive entailment threshold (ibid-Sackett, paragraphs [0008, 0038]-his positive entailment and corresponding threshold value as a count and confidence above that score).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad, with regular expressions for positive and negative rules, as intentions, which indicate the agreement and presence or rejection and absence, of positive or negative intentions/rules, of what is to be required, respectively, as taught by Chen with exceeding a positive entailment threshold as taught by Sackett as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text, the positive/negative regular expressions determining a degree of interest for a user, and classifying input based on the positive/negative entailment threshold (ibid-Prasad, Chen, Sackett paragraph [0008], abstract).
As per claim 16, Liu with Prasad make obvious the method according to claim 15 and, further lacking by Liu, but taught by Sackett, comprising determining a second measure of a number of times that the degree of entailment of the selected test regexes with N-IIRs exceed a negative entailment threshold (ibid-Sackett, paragraphs [0008, 0038]-his negative entailment and corresponding threshold value as a count and confidence above that score).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad, with regular expressions for positive and negative rules, as intentions, which indicate the agreement and presence or rejection and absence, of positive or negative intentions/rules, of what is to be required, respectively, as taught by Chen with exceeding a positive entailment threshold as taught by Sackett as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text, the positive/negative regular expressions determining a degree of interest for a user, and classifying input based on the positive/negative entailment threshold (ibid-Prasad, Chen, Sackett paragraph [0008], abstract).
As per claim 17, Liu with Prasad with Chen with Sackett, make obvious the method according to claim 16, Sackett teaching that which Liu lacks, wherein inferring the intention comprises inferring the intention based on the first and second measures (ibid-Sackett, paragraphs [0008, 0038]-his positive entailment and corresponding threshold value as a count and confidence above that score).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the linguistics art, before the effective filing date of the invention, as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods (computer implemented techniques and algorithms combining processes and steps in natural language processing), in view of the teachings of Liu and Prasad to combine the prior art element of inferring intention using pre-defined intention indicator expressions, as taught by Liu with having regexes and a set of regexes define the intentions, as taught by Prasad, with regular expressions for positive and negative rules, as intentions, which indicate the agreement and presence or rejection and absence, of positive or negative intentions/rules, of what is to be required, respectively, as taught by Chen with exceeding a negative entailment threshold as taught by Sackett as each element performs the same function as it does separately, as the combination would yield predictable results, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US. -- 82 USPQ2nd 1385 (2007), wherein the predictable result would be using regular expressions for intent detection, wherein regexes are a standard textual syntax for representing patterns for matching text, the positive/negative regular expressions determining a degree of interest for a user, and classifying input based on the positive/negative entailment threshold (ibid-Prasad, Chen, Sachkett paragraph [0008], abstract).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure (See PTO-892).
Xia, Incremental Few-shot Text Classification with Multi-round New Classes: Formulation, Dataset and System, teaches an intent reader based on positive and negative entailment, a final prediction or inference based on a threshold value, count of positive and negative entailment.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LAMONT M SPOONER whose telephone number is (571)272-7613. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 AM -5:00 PM.
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/LAMONT M SPOONER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2657
7/11/2026
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