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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 1 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1 and 8 recite the limitation "the training text" in lines 5-6. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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 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 nonstatutory 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 § 2146 et seq. 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 filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual 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/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 1-14 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-14 of U.S. Patent No.12,197,870. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims in the present application define an invention that is merely an obvious variation of the invention claimed in the patent for the following reasons. Comparing the subject matters of the two documents, it is clear that all the elements of the application claims for example claim 1 of the application are found claim 1 of the patent. The difference is claim 1 of the patent comprises elements and steps that are direct to the sentence embedding, therefore it represents a species of the generic invention of the application claim, thus claim 1 of the present application is anticipated by the parent claim 1.
Claims 2-14 are respectively anticipated by claims 2-14 of the patent.
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1. A method, for identifying a first topic represented by a first sentence, performed by at least one computer processor executing computer program instructions stored on at least one non-transitory computer readable medium, the method comprising: (A) generating, based on first text, a plurality of sentence embeddings representing a plurality of semantic representations of a plurality of sentences in the training text; (B) generating, based on second text and the plurality of sentence embeddings, the second text comprising a plurality of sections associated with a plurality of topics, a classifier; (C) generating, based on the first sentence and the classifier, a first identifier of the first topic to associate with the first sentence; and (D) inserting the first sentence into a first section of a first document, the first section being associated with the first topic.
1. A method, for identifying a first topic represented by a first sentence, performed by at least one computer processor executing computer program instructions stored on at least one non-transitory computer readable medium, the method comprising: (A) generating, based on first text, a plurality of data in a first representation the correspond to a plurality of semantic representations of a plurality of sentences in the training text, wherein the first representation is structured as a vector representation of the data; (B) generating, based on second text and the plurality of data, the second text comprising a plurality of sections associated with a plurality of topics, a classifier; (C) generating, based on the first sentence and the classifier, a first identifier of the first topic to associate with the first sentence; and (D) inserting the first sentence into a first section of a first document, the first section being associated with the first topic.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6-11 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Perronnin et al. (US 2011/0040711) and in view Kim et al. (US 2018/0189387)
As to claim 1, Perronnin teaches a method, for identifying a first topic represented by a first sentence (unlabeled object/text S116), performed by at least one computer processor executing computer program instructions stored on at least one non-transitory computer readable medium, the method comprising: (A) generating, based on first text S102, a plurality of data in a first representation the correspond to a plurality of semantic representations of a plurality of sentences in the training text, wherein the first representation is structured as a vector representation S106 of the data (S102-S106); (B) generating, based on second text (training subset 108) and the plurality of data 106, the second text comprising a plurality of sections associated with a plurality of topics, a classifier (S108-114); (C) generating, based on the first sentence (unlabeled text S116) and the classifier S114, a first identifier/label of the first topic to associate with the first sentence;
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It is noted that Perronnin doesn’t explicitly teach segmenting the sentences based on topic. However, Kim teaches a method for learning a narrative of a document, the method including: receiving a plurality of documents; generating a topic database which includes one or more topics and words related to each of the one or more topics from the plurality of documents; splitting each of the plurality of documents into one or more segments including one or more sentences by using the topic database; grouping the segments split from each of the plurality of documents into one or more clusters; and generating a cluster label for each of the one or more clusters (Figs.5-9; Pars.80-87, 109-113).
The combination of the analogous teachings would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of applicant’s invention for the purpose of arranging sentences that are directed to similar concepts under the same topic.
As to claims 2-3, Kim teaches generating, based on a second sentence and the classifier, a second identifier of a second topic to associate with the second sentence and inserting the second sentence into a second section of the first document, the second section being associated with the second topic (Figs.3, 5, 7).
As to claim 6, Kim teaches generating, based on the classifier and data representing an utterance, an identifier of a topic to associate with the utterance (Figs.3-7).
As to claim 7, Peronnin teaches wherein the first text includes the second text (Fig.1).
Regarding claims 8-11 and 14, the corresponding instructions comprising the steps similar to the claims addressed above, are analogous therefore rejected as being obvious over Peronnin and in view of Kim for the foregoing reasons.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-5 and 12-13 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 4-5 and 12-13 are allowable because the prior arts of Peronnin and Kim do not teach wherein the second text comprises a plurality of documents; wherein the plurality of documents comprises a first document comprising a first section in the plurality of sections, wherein the first section is associated with a first one of the plurality of topics; and wherein the plurality of documents comprises a second document comprising a second section in the plurality of sections, wherein the second section is associated with the first one of the plurality of topics.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL DEMELASH ABEBE whose telephone number is (571)272-7615. The examiner can normally be reached monday-friday 7-4.
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/DANIEL ABEBE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2657