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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The reference listed in the IDS filed 12/05/2024 has been considered. A copy of the signed or initialed IDS is hereby attached.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory 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 nonstatutory obviousness-type 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); and 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 a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement.
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
Claims 1-20 are provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of US Pat. 12,197,381. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because they basically claim the same claimed invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 5-7, 15, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Snyder et al. (US Pat. 6,038,561, hereinafter “Snyder’) in view of Fleming et al. (US Pat. 2015/0032598, hereinafter “Fleming”).
Regarding claim 1, Snyder discloses a system comprising: a memory device; a data processing platform comprising an evaluation engine; a human interface device; and a processor (Figure 1A) coupled to the memory device and communicatively connected to a remote computing device and to the data processing platform, the processor configured to:
receive, from the remote computing device, an execution request and a set of input data (p. 32, FIG. 3, input text and removes non-legible data items);
convert the set of input data into a first data format to generate a first data file comprising a plurality of data items to be transmitted to the evaluation engine (p. 27, converting the input data to the system in one or more formats; Table 3);
cause the evaluation engine to process the first data file to generate a set of intermediate scores, a combined score, and at least one message for the combined score and for each intermediate score (p. 60, produces a scores file from a weights file by creating mapit.*.scoresfile 74... given documents D1 and D2, corresponding with weight vectors w1 and w2 held in a weights file, corresponding normalization constants 1l and n2 held in file mapit.* norm (created in step 330, and combination function f(w1,w2) defined hereinbelow, mapit-all calculates an intermediate score), wherein causing the evaluation engine to process the first data file comprises:
converting a plurality of subsets of data items into a corresponding plurality of sets of parameter values; cause the evaluation engine to convert the combined score, the set of intermediate scores, and a plurality of corresponding messages into a second data file (col. 16, lines 30-40);
receive, from the evaluation engine, the second data file (col. 16);
convert the second data file into a second format to generate a converted file comprising a representation of the combined score, a representation of each of the intermediate scores, and a representation of each of the corresponding messages (col. 16, lines 30-40); and
responsive to receiving the execution request, present the converted file on a user-interface device (Figure 3, the preprocess step initially prefilters input text and removes non-legible items).
Snyder does not explicitly disclose receive, from the evaluation engine, the second data file and convert the second data file into a second format to generate a converted file; however, Fleming further discloses receive, from the evaluation engine, the second data file and convert the second data file into a second format to generate a converted file (¶ [0077], Risk detection system may store the comparison and/or narrative in a data repository. The risk detection system may optionally generate a report providing the comparison and/or narrative in any desired format).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Fleming into Snyder to provide a user friendly predefined format(s) report as technology allows.
Regarding claim 5, Snyder and Fleming disclose the system of claim 1, wherein the corresponding message comprises a conclusion, an explanation, a recommendation, or a combination of two or more of a conclusion, an explanation, and a recommendation (Fleming, ¶ [0071], recommendation and indicator and/or risk results).
Regarding claim 6, Snyder and Fleming disclose the system of claim 1, wherein converting the second data file comprises generating a webpage that comprises a visual representation of the combined score, a visual representation of each intermediate score, and a visual representation of each of the corresponding messages (Snyder, col. 4).
Regarding claim 7, Snyder and Fleming disclose the system of claim 1, wherein the first data format comprises textual, numerical data, structural data, multimedia data or a combination thereof, wherein the second format is an audio, graphical, video, or an audio-visual format, and wherein the data processing platform is configured to generate scores based on input data (Snyder, col. 4).
Regarding claims 15, 19 and 20, see discussion of claims 1, 5, and 6 above for the same reason of rejection.
Conclusion
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/TUANKHANH D PHAN/ Examiner, Art Unit 2154