DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
01. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
02. A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicants’ submission filed on 05/21/2026 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
03. The information disclosure statement (IDS) filed on 05/21/2026 has been considered by the examiner and made of record in the application file.
Response to Arguments
04. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1 – 20 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Applicant argues that the claims, specifically claim 1, has been amended to recite an improvement to the technology and should not be rejected under 35 USC 101 as being directed towards an abstract idea without significantly more. Examiner respectfully disagrees. The main argument presented by Applicant is that the claimed invention of claim 1 allows for “improving query results while reducing computational resources” and “improving performance of database system to perform various operations”. However, such improvements or limitations are not found within the claims. For instance, claim 1 recites “predict a refinement of the embedding of the query to modify a result of the query based, at least in part, on one or more prior query results obtained from the database”. However, the claims do not actually recite that the modification of the query results is performed, but rather that just a refinement is predicted that would lead to the modification. In other words, the claims do not actively recite the modification of the query results, but rather passively suggest that it will happen. Additionally, the query is never recited in the claims as being executed or that it obtains a first/initial set of results, so it does not appear that modifications to the results would (or could) occur.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
05. 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.
06. Claims 1 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claims are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims are directed to predicting a query refinement, which amounts to an abstract idea, as explained in detail below. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional computer elements, which are recited at a high level of generality, provide conventional computer functions that do not add meaningful limits to practicing the abstract idea.
Step 1: The claims recite a processor (claim 1) or a method (claim 8) or a system (claim 15) which recites a series of acts or a combination of devices for predicting a query. Thus, the claims are directed to a process or article of manufacture, which is one of the statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A, prong one: The claim recites the additional elements of “receive a query to a database” and “generate an embedding of the query”. These claimed limitations represent mere data gathering that is necessary for use of the recited judicial exception and is recited at a high level of generality. These limitations are thus insignificant extra-solution activity.
The claims recite the limitation of “predict a refinement of the embedding of the query”. Although the claim recites circuits, nothing in the claim elements precludes the step from practically being performed in the human mind. For example, the “predict” step in the claim encompasses an observation, evaluation, judgment, or opinion, in that a person can make a determination to alter a query. For instance, a person may perform a search at a search engine, and upon not being satisfied with results, can modify that query by performing a mental process of thinking about what could be changed in the query text in order to change/modify the results.
If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea. There are no additional claim limitations in the independent claims that would perform the functionality beyond what a person does.
Step 2A, prong two: The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim does not include any additional elements that are considered. Even when viewed in combination, the additional elements in this claim do no more than perform the process on generic computing components. This does not provide an improvement to the computers and other technology that are recited in the claim. Thus, this claim cannot improve computer functionality or other technology.
Step 2B: As discussed previously with respect to Step 2A prong two, the controller in the claim amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The same analysis applies here in 2B, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea, but are instead limited to appending well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception (abstract idea).
The same analysis is applied to dependent claims 2 – 7, 9 – 14, and 16 – 20, because the limitations recite additional mental processes and/or mathematical calculations and do not integrate into a practical application. Further, they do not include additional elements that amount to significantly more.
Claim 2 includes a respective binary classification of data objects returned as being acceptable or unacceptable. This is all part of the above identified abstract idea in that a person can determine if returned results are acceptable or not. This appears to be a mere judgment or opinion on the part of a user.
Claim 3 includes a limitation that the prediction is based on a query. This does not further limit the claims to a meaningful embodiment beyond the above identified abstract idea.
Claim 4 includes a logistic regression model. However, this is merely indicating the technological environment in which the judicial exception is applied to and does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claim 5 includes embeddings for data objects of the prior query results. This is all part of the above identified abstract idea in that the predicted queries are based on particularities of previously performed queries.
Claims 6 and 7 include that the query is a predicted embedding query or a predicted natural language query. This does not further expand upon the above identified abstract idea but instead recites a specific type of query that is utilized. This does not add to the above identified abstract idea but merely limits it to a particular technology.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
07. 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 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.
08. 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 of this title, 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.
09. Claims 1 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Osuala et al. (US PGPub 2024/0111794), in view of Fey et al. (US PGPub 2015/0370833), hereinafter “Fey”.
Consider claim 1, Osuala discloses a processor, comprising:
receive a query to a database (paragraphs [0028], [0134], a query is submitted to a database);
cause one or more neural networks to (paragraphs [0028], [0035], a deep neural network is used);
generate an embedding of a query (paragraphs [0027] – [0030], the query is processed so that an embedding is generated for the query);
predict a refinement of the embedding of the query to modify a result of the query (paragraphs [0030], [0033], [0092], [0096], an embedding generation model is used in order to predict a refinement to an embedding of a query (supplement)).
However, Osuala does not specifically base the prediction or refinement on prior query results.
In the same field of endeavor, Fey discloses a processor comprising:
based, at least in part, on one or more prior query results obtained from the database (paragraphs [0045], [0066], [0068], prior query results are used in order to refine a query so that it would obtain different results).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the usage of prior query results taught by Fey into the predicting of a modification of an embedding of a query taught by Osuala for the purpose of allowing the refinements to be performed based on previous searching, so that they could be updated and be more accurate for the user. By allowing refinements to be made based on prior searching, an updated query can be formed and executed to obtain those better results for the user.
Consider claim 2, and as applied to claim 1 above, Osuala discloses a processor comprising:
the one or more prior query results comprise respective binary classifications of data objects returned in the one or more prior query results, wherein the respective classifications of the data objects returned in the one or more prior query results includes: an acceptable classification of at least one of the data objects; and an unacceptable classification of at least another one of the data objects (paragraphs [0004], [0040], [0087], [0116], classifications are determined for the objects from the query results).
Consider claim 3, and as applied to claim 1 above, Fey discloses a processor comprising:
predict the refinement of the embedding of the query is further based on an association of the query with the one or more prior query results (paragraphs [0021], [0023], [0043], the query results that are obtained for a query are used for the purposes of refining the query).
Consider claim 4, and as applied to claim 1 above, Osuala discloses a processor comprising:
the one or more neural networks comprise a logistic regression model (paragraphs [0040], [0062], a regression model is used).
Consider claim 5, and as applied to claim 1 above, Fey discloses a processor comprising:
the database stores respective embeddings of data objects and wherein the one or more prior query results correspond to the respective embeddings of one or more data objects identified according to a similarity measurement determined with respect to one or more query embeddings (paragraphs [0045], [0066], [0079], the previous query results are determined and then stored based on the associations with the executed query).
Consider claim 6, and as applied to claim 1 above, Fey discloses a processor comprising:
the one or more prior query results include a result using the embedding of the query (paragraphs [0023], [0045], the previous queries results are used to refine the query).
Consider claim 7, and as applied to claim 1 above, Osuala discloses a processor comprising:
the query is a predicted natural language query (paragraph [0028], the query is comprised of text).
Claims 8 – 20, recite the same embodiments as those found in claims 1 – 7 except that either a processor, method, or system is claimed. Since the same claim limitations are otherwise present, the same rejections are therefore applied therein.
Conclusion
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Christopher Raab whose telephone number is (571) 270-1090. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Ajay Bhatia can be reached on (571) 272-3906. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/CHRISTOPHER J RAAB/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2156
August 06, 2026
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