DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 Abstract Idea.
Claims 1, 8 and 15, under Step 2A, prong one, recite a mental process: checking a translation by translating selected text back into its original language, comparing the two versions, and choosing which wording to present. A bilingual person could perform these language-processing and comparison steps mentally or with pen and paper. The delimiter identifies the text to evaluate, while the matching rule determines whether to use its translation or preserve its original wording. Implementing that evaluation on computing devices does not, by itself, remove its abstract character.
Under Step 2A, prong two, the claims as a whole do not sufficiently integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The specification (see [0011] [0018]) explains that back-translation can reveal potential mistranslation and trigger preservation of the original text. The claims mechanism remains a linguistic checking rule: use the translation when the back-translation engine or computing devices. Receiving the marked message and displaying the selected wording use those devices as tools to perform and present the linguistic evaluation.
Under Step 2B, the additional computer-input and display elements, considered individually and in combination, do not supply an inventive concept. The ordered sequence of translation, back-translation, comparison, and conditional selection implements the identified mental process; its specificity alone does not establish more. The claims otherwise rely on computing devices performing ordinary input and presentation functions.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claims are (i) mere instructions to implement the idea on a computer, and/or (ii) recitation of generic computer structure that serves to perform generic computer functions that are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the pertinent industry. Viewed as a whole, these additional claim element(s) do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, the claim(s) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter. There is further no improvement to the computing device.
Dependent claims 2-7, 9-14 and 16-20 further recite an abstract idea performable by a human and do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea as they do not provide steps other than what is conventionally known.
Claim 2, does not add technical improvement.
Claims 3, 9 and 16, does not improve how the computer performs translation.
Claims 4, 10 and 18, merely identify which text receives special treatment in the abstract translation process.
Claims 5, 11 and 17, merely adds a text entry rule to the abstract translation checking process.
Claims 6, 13 and 20, merely supply input to the abstract process, without specifying an improved input technology.
Claims 7 and 14, do not specify an improvement to touchscreen operation.
Claim 12, merely adds a text-entry rule to the abstract process of preserving selected text while translating the remainder.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 8-10, 12-13, 15-16 and 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chin et al. (US 2001/0029455).
Claim 8,
Chin teaches a method for maintaining the integrity of content within a user message to be delivered by a user to a recipient (Chin teaches “two people communicate exclusively with each other, sending messages back and forth. Each message is sent to the chat server, translated (if the message is textual), and relayed to the other user” [0110]; Chin “ignores that section of the input and sends it through verbatim” [0249]; Chin delivers translated messages between users while preserving selected content verbatim, thereby maintaining that content’s integrity), wherein:
A. the recipient's language differs from the user's language (Chin states “users can define their input and view languages” and “translates input sentences from one user to the appropriate output languages defined by each of the other user” [0109]; see [0264] “English-French chatroom”; Chin teaches communication between users with different input and viewing languages, including English and French), and
B. the user message is in the user's language and is to be delivered to the recipient in the recipient's language (Chin states “translates input sentences from one user to the appropriate output languages defined by each of the other users” [0109]; Chin further states “each messages is sent to the chat server, translated (if the message is textual), and relayed to the other user” [0110]; the sender enters a message in the sender’s input language. Chin translates it into the recipient’s selected output language and delivers it to the that recipient),
the method including the steps of:
a. accepting user input of: (1) a user message (Chin states that the “user uses their browser to access the web server of the present invention” [0112]; Chin also states that “the user inputs a message in the applet which is sent to the chat server”; Chin accepts message input through a browser-based applet on the user’s computing device), and
(2) a delimiter defining a delimited portion of the user message, on a computing device of a user (Chin states that “the user simply surrounds the text not to be translated with these special characters” [0249]; Chin states “there are two ways to do this: they can use the Do Not Translate Button or type in the characters themselves” [0264]; the special characters delimit the selected text; Chin expressly accepts these delimiters though user typing or a button in the chat interface),
wherein the delimited portion and an undelimited portion together define the user message (Chin further states that the “special characters are designated which signal the translation engine of the system of the present invention not to translate part of the input” [0249]; “this is utilized when the user is entering a phrase and wants to have a part of it not translated” [0264]; the selected part of the input is the delimited portion; the remaining input is the un-delimited portion; together, they constitute the message),
c. translating the undelimited portion into the recipient's language, thereby generating a translated undelimited portion (Chin states “translates input sentences from one user to the appropriate output languages defined by each of the other user” [0109]; Chin further states “Special characters are designated which signal the translation engine of the system of the present invention not to translate part of the input” [0249]; also “ignores that section of the input and sends it through verbatim”; Chin translates the message into the recipient’s language while exempting the delimited portion; the remaining text therefore becomes the translated un-delimited portion),
d. displaying a translated user message on a computing device of the recipient (Chin states that “the server then retransmits the message out to all users in the chat room” [0112]; Chin also states that “the output interface displays languages even to users who do not have an operating system that is native to the language of the output” [0134]; Chin further states “User B views the translation but doesn’t understand it”; Chin sends the translated message to the receiving user and displays it through that user’s computing system; see [0266] expressly confirms recipient viewing),
the translated user message including: (1) the translated undelimited portion (Chin states “at this point, the message contains versions of the user-entered text in all the supported languages of the chat room” [0112]; “special characters are designated which signal the translation engine of the system of the present invention not to translate part of the input” [0249]; the delivered message contains translated text in the recipient’s language; with the delimited text excluded from translation, the translated content corresponds to the un-delimited portion), and
(2) the delimited portion (Chin states that “the user simply surrounds the text not to the be translated with these special characters” and “ignores that section of the input and sends it through verbatim” [0249]; “those characters keep the phrase from being translated” [0264]; also Chin states “User B views the translation but doesn’t understand it” [0266]; the protected text passes through verbatim within the message presented to the recipient; the displayed message thus includes both the translated remainder and the preserved delimited portion).
Claim 9,
Chin further teaches the method of claim 8 wherein the translated user message is displayed on the computing device of the recipient (Chin further delivers and displays translated messages to the receiving user through the chat interface [0112] [0134] [0266]) with the delimited portion (Chin teaches that the delimited portion is the user-selected text that Chin preserves without translation [0249] [0264]) formatted differently than the translated undelimited portion (Chin also teaches different formatting of untranslated output text is explicitly taught [claims 135-137]).
Claim 10,
Chin further teaches the method of claim 8 wherein the delimited portion and the undelimited portion (Chin’s protected part is the delimited portion; the remaining text is the undelimited portion; both are portions of the same input message [0249] [0264]) are displayed on the user's computing device (Chin describes the sender composing the message in a browser based chat interface, with protected text entered between special characters at the cursor; this is the sender’s message entry display, containing the selected text and the remaining message text [0112] [0264]) with the delimited portion formatted differently than the undelimited portion (the selected portion is visibly enclosed by special characters, while the remaining text is outside that enclosure [0249] [0264]).
Claim 12,
Chin further teaches the method of claim 8 wherein the delimited portion of the user message is defined by an alphabetic string (Chin explains “Nick” and “Young” are alphabetic strings expressly identified as suitable protected content; the enclosed string constitutes the delimited portion [0249]) input by the user (Chin’s user enters the protected text through the chat interface; the delimiter input can be supplied through the button or direct character entry [0264]) immediately following user input of the delimiter (Chin explicitly describes delimiter insertion first, followed by entry of the protected text at the cursor between the delimiters; applying its disclosed alphabetic-name example, the string begins immediately after the opening delimiter; this relies on the disclosed input sequence, not merely on adding delimiters around previously entered text).
Claim 13,
Chin further teaches the method of claim 8 wherein the delimiter is defined by user input of one or more of: a. a nonalphanumeric character (Chin explicitly teaches that the angle-bracket characters are nonalphanumeric, and Chin permits the user to type them [0249] [0264]), b. tapping the computing device of the user, and c. moving the computing device of the user, prior to and following user input of the delimited portion of the user message.
Claim 15,
Chin taches a method for maintaining the integrity of content within a user message to be delivered by a user to a recipient (Chin delivers translated messages between users while preserving selected content verbatim, thereby maintaining that content’s integrity [0110] [0249]), wherein:
A. the recipient's language differs from the user's language (Chin teaches communication between users with different input and viewing languages, including English and French [0109] [0264]), and
B. the user message is in the user's language and is to be delivered to the recipient in the recipient's language (the sender enters a message in the sender’s input language; Chin translates it into the recipient’s selected output language and delivers it to the that recipient [0109-0110]),
the method including the steps of: a. accepting user input of the user message on a computing device of the user (Chin accepts the sender’s message through a browser-based applet on the sender’s computing device [0112]),
b. accepting user input of a delimiter on the user's computing device, wherein the delimiter specifies a delimited portion of the user message (the user inputs special characters identifying the protected text; these characters server as the claimed delimiter [0249] [0264]),
whereby the user message then consists of the delimited portion and an undelimited portion (the protected part corresponds to the delimited portion; the remaining message text corresponds to the undelimited portion; together they constitute the message [0264] [0249]),
c. generating a translated user message including: (1) the delimited portion (Chin retains the protected portion in its original form within the processed message [0249]), and
(2) the undelimited portion translated into the recipient's language (Chin’s normal translation operation applies to the message subject to the express exception for protected text; thus, the unprotected remainder is translated into the recipient’s language [0109] [0249]),
d. transmitting the translated user message to a computing device of the recipient for display (Chin transmits the processed message to the receiving user’s chart clients, where the recipient views the translation [0112] [0266]).
Claim 16,
The method of claim 15 wherein the translated user message is displayed on the computing device of the recipient with the delimited portion formatted differently than the translated undelimited portion. (Claim 16 contains subject matter similar to claim 9, and thus is rejected under similar rationale)
Claim 18,
The method of claim 15 wherein the delimited portion and the undelimited portion are displayed on the user's computing device with the delimited portion formatted differently than the undelimited portion. (Claim 18 contains subject matter similar to claim 10, and thus is rejected under similar rationale)
Claim 19,
The method of claim 15 wherein the delimited portion of the user message is defined by an alphabetic string input by the user immediately following user input of the delimiter. (Claim 19 contains subject matter similar to claim 12, and thus is rejected under similar rationale)
Claim 20,
The method of claim 15 wherein the delimiter is defined by user input of one or more of: a. a nonalphanumeric character, b. tapping the computing device of the user, and c. moving the computing device of the user, prior to and following user input of the delimited portion of the user message. (Claim 20 contains subject matter similar to claim 13, and thus is rejected under similar rationale)
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 11 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chin et al. (US 2001/0029455) and further in view of Cheung et al. (US 2006/0167992).
Claim 11,
Chin teaches all the limitations in claim 8. The difference between the prior art and the claimed invention s that Chin does not explicitly teach a. further including the step of translating the delimited portion into the recipient's language, thereby generating a translated delimited portion, and b. wherein the displayed translated user message further includes the translated delimited portion.
Cheung teaches a. further including the step of translating the delimited portion into the recipient's language, thereby generating a translated delimited portion (Cheung’s claim 1 states that the “translating the portion of the text”; Cheung further states that “for the Spanish recipient only”; [0037] describes English/Spanish participants and recipient-specific translation; Cheung teaches portion translation and recipient language translation), and
b. wherein the displayed translated user message further includes the translated delimited portion (Chueng further states “translation may be added in line with the original text” [0036]; also see [0011] and Fig. 3B, addressing recipient presentation of original content with added translations or annotations; Chueng teaches additive display that retains original content; applying that presentation to the protected span supplies the additional translated portion within the recipient’s message).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of Chin with teachings of Cheung by modifying the method and apparatus for providing multilingual translation over a network as taught by Chin to include a. further including the step of translating the delimited portion into the recipient's language, thereby generating a translated delimited portion, and b. wherein the displayed translated user message further includes the translated delimited portion as taught by Cheung for the benefit of easily communicating via an instant messaging session (Cheung [0007]).
Claim 17,
The method of claim 15 wherein: a. the translated user message further includes the delimited portion translated into the recipient's language, and b. the translated user message is displayed on the computing device of the recipient with the delimited portion formatted differently than the delimited portion translated into the recipient's language. (Claim 17 contains subject matter similar to claim 11, and thus is rejected under similar rationale)
Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chin et al. (US 2001/0029455) and further in view of Du et al. (US 2021/0271828).
Claim 14,
Chin further teaches the method of claim 8 wherein: a. the user message is displayed on the user's computing device (Chin displays the sender’s message in the message-entry text box, including when recalling it for editing [0112]).
The difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is that Chin does not explicitly teach b. the delimiter is input by the user by swiping across at least a portion of the displayed user message.
Du teaches b. the delimiter is input by the user by swiping across at least a portion of the displayed user message (Du states that “the swipe gesture may be used to select a word, a phrase, or a line of text” [0043] [Fig. 3]; [0044] describes selecting the gesture’s starting point and endpoint and completing the selection by lifting the finger or stylus).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of Chin with teachings of Du by modifying the method and apparatus for providing multilingual translation over a network as taught by Chin to include b. the delimiter is input by the user by swiping across at least a portion of the displayed user message as taught by Du for the benefit of improving efficiency of the pre-processing using down-sampling (Du [0067]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-7 would be allowable if the Applicant can overcome the 101 Abstract Idea set forth.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
For claim 1: Chin et al. (US 2001/0029455) teaches user-entered delimiter that preserve selected text while the surrounding message is translated. Paragraph [00249] explains that the user “surrounds the text not to be translated with these special characters,” and the system “sends it through verbatim.” This is relevant to claim 1’s delimiter and inclusion of original language text in a translated message.
Bisegna (US 2008/0208565) teaches translating text, translating it back into the original language, and comparing the back-translation with the original to select a translation for delivery ([0063-0066] [0102-0104]). The comparison considers whether “the two sentences are perfectly identical” ([0151]); otherwise, it selects the closest available result ([0152]). The is relevant to claim 1’s back-translation and same/different comparison. However, Bisegna does not teach the claimed user-delimited portion or the mismatch-triggered inclusion of that original portion alongside the translated remainder.
Brown et al. (US 2020/0012717) teaches checking user-corrected translation by reverse-translating it and comparing it with the original: “The string should ideally match” (Fig. 5, steps 506-510 and accompanying description). Separately, user can select translated text to view its original: “The display may replace the machine translated text with the original text entirely” (Fig. 6, step 602 and accompanying description). These teachings relate to claim 1’s back-translation check and original text display, but Brown does not connect that display to a failed comparison of a sender-delimited portion as claim 1 requires.
The difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is that Chin, Bisegna nor Brown explicitly teach d. translating the translated delimited portion into a back-translated delimited portion in the user's language, (1) where the delimited portion and back-translated delimited portion are the same, (2) where the delimited portion and back-translated delimited portion differ.
Therefore, it would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of Chin, Bisegna and Brown to include d. translating the translated delimited portion into a back-translated delimited portion in the user's language, (1) where the delimited portion and back-translated delimited portion are the same, (2) where the delimited portion and back-translated delimited portion differ.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Bisegna et al. (WO 2006024454) – The translation of initial sentence/text from source language to destination language, is generated using selected automatic translation technique. A back translation from destination to source language, is generated for each of translation. The back translations are compared with initial sentence, to calculate deviation index. The translation corresponding to back translation with lowest deviation index, is selected.
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SHREYANS A. PATEL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2653
/SHREYANS A PATEL/Examiner, Art Unit 2659
Prosecution Insights