DETAILED ACTION
This office action is a second non-final in response to the above identified application filed on January 30, 2026. The application contains claims 1-37.
Claims 12 and 27 are cancelled
Claims 1, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 25, 28, and 37 are amended
Claims 1-11, 13-26, and 28-37 are pending
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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments and amendments filed on January 30, 2026 have been fully considered and the objections and rejections are updated accordingly.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
In view of the amendments to the claims, the 35 USC § 101 rejections to claims 16-36 for being directed to non-statutory subject matter are withdrawn.
After careful consideration, claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 for being directed to an abstract. Please refer below for details.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In view of the amendments to the claims, the 35 USC § 103 rejections are withdrawn. However, the claims are not in condition for allowance due to the 35 USC § 101 rejections set forth below.
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 1-11, 13-26, and 28-37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
The 2019 PEG guidance for subject matter eligibility is applied in the following analyses:
At Step 1
The inventions of claims 1-11, 13-26, and 28-37 are directed to the statutory categories of a process (claims 1-11, 13-15), a machine (claims 16-26, 28-36), and a manufacture (claim 37). Thus, the claimed invention is directed to statutory subject matter.
The following analysis refers to representative claim 1, but the same analysis applies to independent claims 16 and 37, which recite similar limitations.
At Step 2A, Prong One
Claims 1, 16, and 37 each recite abstract ideas in the following limitations:
“processing the document to detect, extract, and auto-tag text and data from the document”, “creating … a narrative version of the extracted and auto-tagged text and data from the document …”, and “… posing a user question … against the whole document or specific blocks of the document to obtain a response and to add or refine context of the extracted and auto-tagged text and data in the form of a question-answer pair until a contextualized response to the user question is obtained”. Extracting a narrative or summary from a document, and posing questions for which narrative answers are provided including details extracted from the document is essentially what humans do when reading a document and answering questions already. Therefore, these limitations may be characterized as a mental process.
At Step 2A, Prong Two
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims recite the additional elements of:
“a document memory”, “a context memory”, “a user interface”, “a processor”, “a database”, “a document processing processor”, and “a data structure” (claim 16) and “one or more processors” (claim 37) may be characterized as mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer or use a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, see MPEP 2106.05(f).
“… presenting … in a user interface” and “enabling the user to interact with the narrative version of the extracted and auto-tagged text and data from the document in the user interface … through the user interface” may be characterized as mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer or use a computer for simple displaying, see MPEP 2106.05(f).
“receiving an uploaded document from a user” may be characterized as insignificant extra-solution activity, particularly preliminary data gathering for the abstract idea of the narrative version and question posing, see MPEP 2106.05(g).
“storing configuration information for at least one artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, the configuration information including a unique identifier for each AI assistant; a field for storing organization-specific knowledge in a structured format; an array or list to hold rules defining AI assistant limitations; a collection of feedback entries, each containing a timestamp, feedback type, and content; and a field for behavior instructions as situation-response pairs” is not used or applied at all for any of the narrative extraction of question posing – it is just storing a certain set of specific data. This limitation may be characterized as insignificant extra-solution activity, particularly post-solution activity, see MPEP 2106.05(g).
Even when viewed in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application and the claim is directed to the judicial exception.
At Step 2B
Claims 1, 16, and 37 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because as discussed above the additional elements constitute a high-level recitation of a generic computer components which represent mere instructions to apply on a computer and insignificant extra-solution activities including preliminary data gathering and post-solution activity.
As per MPEP 2106.05(II), at Step 2B the conclusions for these additional elements under MPEP §§ 2106.05(a) - (c), (e) (f) and (h) from Step 2A Prong Two are carried over and they do not provide significantly more. The additional elements from Step 2A Prong Two considered to be insignificant extra-solution activity per MPEP § 2106.05(g) are re-evaluated as follows:
“receiving an uploaded document from a user”. Receiving a document is claimed at a high level of generality and as insignificant extra-solution activities. The courts have found these functions as well understood and routine activities, see MPEP 2106.05(d) [Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information)].
“storing configuration information for at least one artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, the configuration information including a unique identifier for each AI assistant; a field for storing organization-specific knowledge in a structured format; an array or list to hold rules defining AI assistant limitations; a collection of feedback entries, each containing a timestamp, feedback type, and content; and a field for behavior instructions as situation-response pairs” are claimed at a high level of generality and as insignificant extra-solution activities. The courts have found these functions as well understood and routine activities, see MPEP 2106.05(d) [Storing and retrieving information in memory, Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015); OIP Techs., 788 F.3d at 1363, 115 USPQ2d at 1092-93].
Even when considered in combination, these additional elements do not provide an inventive concept or significantly more.
Therefore, claims 1, 16, and 37 are rejected under 35 USC 101 as being directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Dependent claim 2 recites additional elements of processing documents using “OCR” and claim 18 recites additional elements of “the text and data extraction software”. These functions have been found by the courts as well understood and routine activities, see MPEP 2106.05(d).
Dependent claims 3, 4, 6-10, 13, 17, 21-25, and 28 each recite additional elements elaborating on the further details of the abstract idea in independent claims 1 and 16 that are still mentally performable.
Dependent claims 4, 5, 7, 11, 17, 20, 22, 26, and 31-34 each recite additional elements “a/the large language model” and/or “a machine learning model” and/or “training/trained … a … model” and/or “AI assistant” and/or “a reinforcement learning model” and/or “a pre-trained language model” that generally link the abstract idea to a technological area – artificial intelligence, see MPEP 2106.05(h).
Dependent claims 4, 5, 8, 19, and 23 each recite additional elements “storing/storage/stores” that insignificant extra-solution activity, particularly post-solution activity, see MPEP 2106.05(h).
Dependent claims 14 and 35 each recite an additional element “deploying a widget. At Step 2A Prong Two, this additional element isn’t anything more than mere data outputting insignificant extra-solution activity (i.e. present the contextualized response) and mere implementation by generic computer components (i.e. as a widget) or limiting to the field of use of widget displays. At Step 2B, such widget displays are admitted in the spec as being well-understood, routine, and conventional (WURC) in [0052]-[0055] where it is clear that such widgets are components of commercially available products such as “React or Vue.js components and CSS frameworks (e.g., Tailwinds CSS). Additionally, GUI widgets have been WURC since the late 1980s (which can be evidenced by this publication An overview of the X toolkit). At the level of generality in the claim, “deploying a widget” is nothing more than presenting the result which is insignificant outputting, and conventional.
Dependent claims 15 and 36 each recite additional elements about how and what the widget displays. At Step 2A Prong Two, this additional element is still insignificant extra-solution mere data outputting, and this sort of configurable widget is also WURC at step 2B. How the widget is configured to display the contextualized response does not provide an inventive concept or eligibility.
Dependent claims 29-33 each recite additional elements of “the user interface” and/or “a backend server that supports functionality of the user interface”. These functions constitute insignificant extra-solution activity, particularly preliminary data gathering or post-solution activity, in Step 2A Prong Two analysis, see MPEP 2106.05(g). In Step 2B analysis, the additional elements are well understood, routine, and conventional under 2106.05(d)(ii).
Therefore, dependent claims 2-11, 13-15, 17-26, and 28-36 are also rejected under 35 USC 101 as being directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to XIAOQIN HU whose telephone number is (571)272-1792. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 7:00am-3:30pm.
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/XIAOQIN HU/Examiner, Art Unit 2168
/CHARLES RONES/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2168