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 .
Double Patenting
The non-statutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A non-statutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on non-statutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP §§ 706.02(l)(1) - 706.02(l)(3) for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
Claims 1, 8 and 14 are rejected on the ground of non-statutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 9 and 16 of U.S. Patent No. 12,154,160. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because all the elements of the application claims 1, 8 and 14 are to be found in patent claims 1, 9 and 16. The difference between the application claims and the patent claims lies in the fact that the patent claim includes more elements and is thus more specific. Thus the invention of claims 1, 9 and 16 of the patent is in effect a “species” of the “generic” invention of the application claims 1, 8 and 14. It has been held that the generic invention is “anticipated” by the “species”. See In re Goodman, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Since application claims 1, 8 and 14 are anticipated by claims 1, 9 and 16 of the patent, it is not patentably distinct from the claims of the patent.
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 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter (a judicial exception without significantly more). Claims are eligible for patent protection under § 101 if they are in one of the four statutory categories and not directed to a judicial exception to patentability. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014). Claims 1-20, each considered as a whole and as an ordered combination, are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Claim 1 recites a method. Claim 8 recites a system. Claim 14 recites a non-transitory computer-readable media.
Step 2A, prong 1: Claim 1, taken as representative, recites the abstract idea of managing add-ons for delivery service orders. This idea is described by the following steps:
receiving a search query and a concept input comprising a feature;
identifying a positive item set and a negative item set, wherein the positive item set comprises a first item that includes the feature and the negative item set comprises a second item that does not include the feature;
modifying a search query;
executing a search using the modified search query to identify a set of items; and
providing the set of items as search results.
Claims 8 and 14 recite equivalent limitations.
The above limitations, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, fall within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas, enumerated in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II), in that they recite providing search results, i.e., commercial interactions.
Additionally, the above recited limitations, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ides, enumerated in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III), in that they recite concepts performed in the human mind. The BRI of these limitations includes a human mentally, or by use of pen and paper, receiving a search query and performing a search to generate results.
Step 2A, prong 2: Claims 1, 8 and 14 recite additional elements that fail to integrate the abstract idea into practical application.
Claims 8 and 14 recite at least one processor; and one or more non-transitory, computer-readable media storing instructions that are executable by the one or more processors to cause the computing system to perform the operations. These additional elements are described at a high level in Applicant’s specification without any meaningful detail about their structure or configuration. These additional computer-related elements merely invoke such additional elements as tools to perform the abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
Claims 1, 8 and 14 also recites the limitations “generating a concept activation vector”. However, these limitations are considered insignificant extra solution activity as they amount to necessary data gathering and outputting, wherein all uses of the recited abstract idea require such data gathering (i.e. receiving a search query) and data output (i.e. providing the items as search results) (see2106.05(g)).
Step 2B: Claims 1, 8 and 14 fail to recite additional elements that amount to an inventive concept.
For the reasons identified with respect to Step 2A, prong 2, claims 1, 8 and 14 fail to recite additional elements that amount to an inventive concept. For example, use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general-purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide significantly more (see MPEP 2106.05(g)).
Even when considered as an ordered combination, the additional elements of claims 1, 8 and 14 do not add anything that is not already present when they are considered individually. Therefore, under Step 2B, there are no meaningful limitations in claims 1, 8 and 14 that transform the judicial exception into a patent eligible application such that the claim amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception itself. See MPEP 2106.05.
With respect to the limitations determined to be insignificant extra solution activity, these elements are similar to at least the following concepts determined by the courts to be insignificant extra solution activity that does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea:
Dependent Claims Step 2A:
The limitations of the dependent claims merely set forth further refinements of the abstract idea identified at step 2A—Prong One, without changing the analysis already presented. Additionally, for the same reasons as above, the limitations fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they use the same general technological environment and instructions to implement the abstract idea as the independent claims identified at step 2A—Prong Two.
Dependent Claims Step 2B:
The dependent claims merely use the same general technological environment and instructions to implement the abstract idea. These do not amount to significantly more for the same reasons they fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Moreover, the Specification also indicates this is the routine use of known components for the same reasons presented with respect to the elements in the independent claims above.
Thus, when considering the combination of elements and the claimed invention as a whole, the claims are not patent eligible.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action and upon approval of a Terminal Disclaimer to overcome the double patenting rejection above.
The prior art of record neither anticipates nor renders obvious the combination of: receiving a search query and a concept input comprising a feature; identifying a positive item set and a negative item set, wherein the positive item set comprises a first item that includes the feature and the negative item set comprises a second item that does not include the feature; generating a concept activation vector from the positive item set and the negative item set; modifying a search query vector of the search query using the concept activation vector to generate a modified search query vector; executing a search using the modified search query vector to identify a set of items; and providing the set of items as search results.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20230137671 to Pavlovic et al. discloses a computer-implemented method for concept matching using a machine learning mode. FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing how at least one concept is used to provide a response to a search query. Here, the at least one criterion of the search query submitted by the user may include at least one concept. However, this diagram also illustrates how a user may modify importance values of predicted concepts (such as those of vectors 308, 308′ in FIGS. 3A and 3B) to suit their personal preferences. In the case where the user's search query includes at least one concept, the system may display vector or list 400 including the at least one concept alongside importance values. The importance values may be a default value for each concept or may be stored values based on the user's previous search queries and personalization. In the case where the user's search query includes at least one data item, the system may display vector or list 400 including at least one determined or predicted concept alongside importance values (and possibly alongside confidence values).
US 10353951 to Mulan Li discloses a search query refinement including displaying the refined query to the user, displaying multiple proposed queries to the user, ordered based on metrics such as similarity, number of search results, or a weighted combination of the above, allowing the user to modify the refined query into a second, modified query, displaying more than one refined query for the user, wherein each of the refined queries is associated with a separate “concept” clustering a different set of visual media files in the multi-dimensional vector space for the database, receiving the second query from the user, receiving, from the user, two or more selected refined queries, to perform two or more different searches, simultaneously.
US 20160299975 to Acar et al. discloses a concept analysis operations. In operation, the host system provides the accelerator device a set of concepts extracted from an information source, e.g., a document, an input natural language question, or any other source of concepts. In one illustrative embodiment, the information source is an input document having one or more embedded concepts and the concept analysis operation seeks to identify concepts related to those embedded in the input document to thereby associate a vector of related concepts with the input document. This resultant vector may be used to identify other documents having related concepts so as to provide a relative ranking of one document to another. In some illustrative embodiments, the information source may comprise a user profile, either alone or in combination with a document, search query, natural language question, or other request for content by the user, which is then used to provide the input set of concepts upon which the concept analysis operation is performed.
US 7856411 to Kraft et al. discloses search systems and methods using enhanced contextual queries. In one embodiment, the user might be able to request further enhancement of the context vector, e.g., by selecting one or more terms displayed in context box 1608 to be used as input terms for another concept network lookup operation, then activating a "get more terms" control 1618. Each of the selected terms is used for a concept network lookup operation, and an enhanced context vector including terms obtained in the lookup operation(s) would be displayed in context box 1608, with checkboxes that the user could select to use or ignore each term. By repeatedly modifying the query and/or context vector and executing contextual searches, the user can iteratively refine the search results until the desired content is found.
US 20180089191 to Obasanjo et al. discloses a computer-implemented technique for assisting a user in generating negative feature information. A front-end interface component receives an end user's input query over a computer network. As mentioned above, the end user may submit the query using any user computing device. In one case, the end user submits the query as part of a formal search request, e.g., by typing the query into an input command field of a search engine's user interface page, or by speaking the query to a voice recognition interface. In another case, the user implicitly submits a query based on the user's online actions, such as the user's interaction with a particular document that pertains to a particular subject. a projection component projects the global feature vector v into a continuous-valued concept vector y (1512) (also referred to as an embedding) using a machine-learned semantic projection matrix.
US 20170124447 to Chang et al. discloses a computer-implemented technique for identifying content items that are relevant to an input query. In one approach, the interpretation component can generate a query concept vector that is associated with the query, based, in part, on the probability information associated with the query. The query concept vector expresses the underlying meaning of the query Q as a whole within a semantic vector space. Similarly, the interpretation component can generate an item concept vector that is associated with the content item based, in part, on the probability information associated with the content item. The item concept vector reflects the underlying meaning of the content item in the semantic vector space.
US 8055669 to Singhal et al. discloses improving search queries based on query semantic information. Query processing component may intersect semantic concept vector with the alternate terms to obtain valid alternate terms. In other words, query processing component may compare semantic concept vector with the alternate terms to obtain valid alternate terms as the intersection of semantic concept vector with the alternate terms. The query context may be formed based on a matching of the current query to a log of saved queries. Documents that were returned for logged queries that are similar to the current query may be used to form the query context. Still further, the semantic concept vectors can be generated directly from terms culled from a log of saved queries that are similar to the current query. As yet another example, documents returned based on a search performed using the original search query may be first clustered based on similarity. The query context may then be formed based on some or all of the clusters. As another example, overlapping document sets can be used to infer semantic similarity. Thus, if similar document sets are returned for two different search queries, the terms in the search queries may be determined to contain semantically similar content.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MILA AIRAPETIAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3202. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:30 am-6:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey A. Smith can be reached at (571) 272-6763. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MILA AIRAPETIAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3688
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