DETAILED ACTION
1. This office action is in response to U.S. Patent Application No.: 18/912,034 filed on 7/8/2026 with effective filing date 11/7/2023. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Claim(s) 1-2, 8-9 & 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yun et al. 2019/0158433 A1 (IDS) in view of Spector et al. US 2019/0369957 A1 (IDS).
Per claims 1 & 18-19, Yun et al. discloses an information processing apparatus comprising: a memory configured to store an artificial intelligence (AI) model generated using text data as training data, the text data being data based on at least one of voice information and character information (para: 12 & 186, e.g. another aspect of the disclosure is to provide a controlling method of an electronic device for determining a chatbot using an artificial intelligence learning model includes receiving a voice uttered by a user, processing the voice and acquiring text information corresponding to the voice, and displaying the text information on a chat screen); and circuitry configured to generate, based on a question and the model, text information indicating an answer to the question (para: 60, e.g. the electronic device 100 may determine whether the obtained text information is text information that the personal assistant chatbot can respond to. If the information is that the personal assistant chatbot cannot respond to, the electronic device 100 may determine a chatbot capable of providing a response message regarding the text information).
Yun et al. fails to explicitly disclose the remaining claim limitation.
Spector et al. however in the same field of endeavor teaches included in a screen based on attribute information of one or more data providers who have provided the at least one of the voice information and the character information, and attribute information of a user of a terminal device (para: 68, 80 & 105, e.g. a voice-controlled question answering system may make use of all the various components discussed above to receive a question from a user, convert that question to audio data… formulate a query to the knowledge base using the text, retrieve an answer from the knowledge base, formulate answer data using the answer, perform TTS on the answer data to create output audio data including the answer, send the output audio data to the local device and play the output audio data back to a user; devices may be connected to the network 199 through either wired or wireless connections. For example, a speech controlled device 110a, a tablet computer 110b, a smart phone); generate the screen including the attribute information of the one or more data providers (para: 81, e.g. the links may point to one or more data source(s) 180. The search answer controller 420 may then use the links to access the data source(s) 180 (for example, Wikipedia pages, other web pages, data storage corresponding to a user device, etc.) and obtain the data linked thereto or, alternatively, to obtain the first few paragraphs or sentences of data that is indicated by the link(s)).
Therefore, in view of disclosures by Spector et al., it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to combine Yun et al. and Spector et al. in order to enable providing a formatter to remove extraneous text from a text segment and to make the answer to be efficient for a user of a voice-controlled question answering system.
Per claim 2, Yun et al further teaches the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the circuitry is further configured to transmit screen information of the screen the terminal device via at least one network (para: 60, e.g. the electronic device 100 may determine whether the obtained text information is text information that the personal assistant chatbot can respond to. If the information is that the personal assistant chatbot cannot respond to, the electronic device 100 may determine a chatbot capable of providing a response message regarding the text information).
Per claim 17, Yun et al. further teaches an information processing system comprising:
the information processing apparatus according to claim 2; and the terminal device configured to with the information processing apparatus via the at least one network, the terminal device including another circuitry configured to, receive an input of the question (para: 52, e.g. the electronic device 100 can determine the chatbot that can provide a response message to the text information by inputting the text information into a learned model to determine the chatbot based on the text information and the chat history information), transmit the question to the information processing apparatus; and display a screen including attribute information of the one or more data providers, based on the screen information received from the information processing apparatus (para: 94, e.g. the processor 150 may control the display 110 to display a chat screen for chatting with the chatbot. When a voice uttered by the user is input through the user inputter 130 while the chat screen is displayed, the electronic device 100 processes the user's voice to acquire text information corresponding to the voice, and control the display 110 to display text information on the chat screen).
Response to Arguments
5. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claims 3-9, 10-16 & 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
7. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Sanghavi et al. US 10,681,212 B2, e.g. a user can use a communication application to enter a message directed to the virtual assistant and request assistance to communicate with a 3.sup.rd party service. In response, the virtual assistant can access a set of communication instructions associated with the 3.sup.rd party service.
Anderson et al, US 2019/0140986 A1, e.g. a computing device executing the master chatbot receives one or more chat messages. The computing device parses the received one or more chat messages to discover an intent and entities contained within the chat messages. A ranking algorithm is employed to rank the master chatbot and a plurality of modular chatbots, the ranking algorithm scoring the master chatbot and the plurality of modular chatbots based upon the intent and entities contained within the one or more chat messages.
8. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
9. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to IRFAN HABIB whose telephone number is (571)270-7325. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Th 9AM-7PM.
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/Irfan Habib/Examiner, Art Unit 2485
