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 .
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s remarks/amendments filed on February 9, 2026. Claims 1, 8 and 15 have been amended. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20, filed on February 9, 2026 were amended. These claims 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.
Applicant’s arguments, filed on February 9, 2026, with respect to the rejections §102 and §103 of claims 1-20, have been fully considered and are persuasive based on the claim amendments. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Berglund et al. (US 2024/0403341 A1) in view of Grenader et al (US 2024/0362213) and further in view of Zhong et al. (US 2025/0094464 A1)
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
Claims 1, 7, 8, 14 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Berglund et al. (US 2024/0403341 A1) in view of Grenader et al (US 2024/0362213)
As per claim 1, Berglund discloses a method of retrieval augmented generation, comprising:
receiving, via a data interface, a query (para. 0032);
retrieving a plurality of text chunks from a database based on a comparison of contents of the database with an embedding of the query (para. 0013);
inputting a prompt to a neural network based language model, the prompt including the plurality of text chunks and the query (para. 0014; 0072); and
outputting, via the neural network based language model, a text output based on the prompt (para. 0014; para. 0021).
Burglund does not explicitly teach, but Grenader teaches wherein the embedding is generated by a quantized sentence embedding model; wherein the language model is executed locally on a client or on-premise computing device to preserve data privacy (para. 0070, 0185-0191, 194-196). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Berglund to implement the above steps as taught by Grenader because it would enable the system to keep a response data within the security boundary to user’s desired based on their privacy, as suggested by Grenader (para. 0181).
As per claim 7, Berglund further teaches wherein the retrieving the plurality of text chunks includes retrieving a predetermined number of text chunks (para. 0014).
As per claim 14 has similar limitations as recited in claim 7; therefore, it is rejected under the same subject matter.
As per claims 8 and 15, these independent claims recite several elements that are similar to the elements recited in claim 1, except in the context of a computer-readable medium, and a system, respectively. Therefore, they are rejected at least for the same reasons as claim 1.
Claims 2-6, 9-13, 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Berglund et al. (US 2024/0403341 A1) in view of Grenader et al (US 2024/0362213) and further in view of Zhong et al. (US 2025/0094464 A1).
As per claim 2, Berglund teaches generating the plurality of text chunks from an input text based on a similarity of the input text (para. 0029). In additional, Berglund also teaches “sequential sentences” (para. 0029, as would be equivalent to “consecutive sentences”). However, Zhong discloses consecutive sentences of the input text (para. 0094-0095). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Berglund and Grenader to implement the above steps as taught by Zhong because it would improve the identified passages of text that are relevant in order for retrieval of text passages having highest similarity.
As per claim 3, Berglund further teaches wherein the generating the plurality of text chunks further comprises: generating, via a neural network based model, respective embeddings of the consecutive sentences of the input text, wherein the similarity is based on a comparison of the respective embeddings (para. 0029).
As per claim 4, Zhong further teaches wherein the similarity is further based on a weighting of the consecutive sentences according to a distance of the sentences from each other in the input text (para. 0092).
As per claim 5, Zhong further teaches wherein the generating the plurality of text chunks further comprises grouping consecutive sentences together when the similarity is above a predetermined threshold (para. 0095).
As per claim 6, Berglund and Zhong further teach wherein the generating the plurality of text chunks further comprises further grouping the consecutive sentences into smaller groups based on the grouping being over a threshold size (Berglund: para. 0029; Zhong: 0096).
As per claims 9-13, 16-20 have similar limitations as recited in claims 2-6; therefore, they are rejected under the same subject matter.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record, listed on form PTO-892, and not relied upon, if any, is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DEBBIE M LE whose telephone number is (571)272-4111. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00-5:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles Rones can be reached at 571-272-4085. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DEBBIE M LE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2168 May 23, 2026
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