DETAILED ACTION
Introduction
This office action is in response to applicant’s claims filed 12/13/2024. Claims 1-18 are currently pending and have been examined. Applicant’s IDS have been considered. There is no claim to foreign priority.
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the other query entigen" in line 34, of page 72. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 7 and 13 have similar issues and are rejected accordingly.
Claims 1-18 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.
More specifically, as described above with the antecedent basis issue, “the other query entigen of the query entigen group” is deemed unclear with respect to which “other query entigen” wherein there are a “plurality of query entigens” there is “another query entigen of the query entigen group” and therefore, it is unclear which of these query entigens would be “the other query entigen” of the query entigen group. Appropriate clarification is required.
Claims 7 and 13 have similar issues and are rejected accordingly. The dependent claims inherit the above clarification issues and are rejected accordingly.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-18 would be allowed, pending resolution of the above rejections.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The instant application is deemed to be directed to a non-obvious improvement over the disclosure of Singh et al. (Singh, US 2020/0285706), Jauhari et al. (Jauhari, US 2021/0026858), Gupta et al. (Gupta, US 2018/0174160), Wang et al. (Wang, US 2017/0228459), Vanderwater et al. (Vanderwater, US 9,396,236), O’Donnell (US 2014/0244637), Makeyev et al. (Makeyev, US 2011/0320191), Kang et al. (Kang, US 2015/0227528), Drissi et al. (Drissi, US 8,417,710), Drissi et al. (Drissi, US 8,417,710) and Phillips et al. (Phillips, US 10,579,835).
Sing teaches question answering, including a neural network representation of a subjective query, with sentiment analysis.
Jauhari teaches natural language response recommendation clustering for rapid retrieval, neural network representation for a subjective query, and query response pair, assigning a sentiment to the pair, and generating a response recommendation.
Gupta teaches semantic characterization of content, semantic representation of the content over a plurality of time periods, and a semantic time period trend representation, utilizing a neural network.
O’Donnell teaches a method and system of query processing, generating an automated answer to a subjective query based on a corpus of responses to previous queries associated with a topic.
Wang teaches a query/question answering technology, including answering subjective questions.
Vanderwater teaches determining one or more topics of a question to be a subjective question, and a set of candidate answers.
Makeyev teaches identifying a first set of identigens of a plurality of sets of identigens for a query that includes a string of words, wherein the first set of identigens represents different meanings of a first word of the string of words and selecting an entigen group from a knowledge database based on the plurality of sets of identigens wherein a first entigen of the entigen group corresponds to the first set of identigens and generating a response entigen group based on the entigen group, wherein a response entigen of the response entigen group corresponds to a selected identigen from a set of identigens of the plurality of sets of identigens regarding a word of the string of words.
Kang teaches having a first set of sentiment words and the first set of sentiment words represents different meanings of a first sentiment word of the string of words in a natural language processing application.
Drissi teaches query data mining system wherein semantic analysis is performed on the query, including relating syntactic structures to language independent meanings.
Phillips teaches a semantic pre-processing of natural language input including different meanings and corresponding time references, in order to resolve queries.
None of the above references teach alone or in obvious combination:
Regarding claim 1, “A neuro-symbolic hybrid method for execution by a computing device, the method comprises:
generating a neural network representation of a subjective query of a topic by applying an identigen entigen processing approach that disambiguates a plurality of words of the subjective query, wherein the generating the neural network representation of the subjective query includes:
determining a set of identigens for each word of the plurality of words of the subjective query of the topic to produce a plurality of sets of identigens, wherein a set of identigens of the plurality of sets of identigens represents one or more different meanings of a word of the plurality of words, wherein each identigen of the set of identigens includes a unique identigen identifier, a meaning identifier, an instance identifier, and a time reference, wherein each meaning identifier associated with the set of identigens represents a different meaning of the one or more different meanings of the word of the plurality of words, wherein each time reference provides time information when a corresponding different meaning of the one or more different meanings applies, wherein a first set of identigens of the plurality of sets of identigens is produced for a first word of the plurality of words;
generating valid permutations of pairings of identigens between the plurality of sets of identigens based on identigen pairing rules of a knowledge database; and
selecting a particular permutation of each of the valid permutations of the pairings of identigens between each set of identigens that maximizes selection of a selected identigen of a set of identigens common to valid permutations of pairings of identigens with two other sets of identigens to produce a selected group of identigens as the neural network representation of the subjective query that includes one selected identigen of each set of identigens of the plurality of sets of identigens;
generating a symbolic architecture representation of the subjective query by further applying the identigen entigen processing approach to the neural network representation of the subjective query, wherein the symbolic architecture representation of the subjective query represents a most likely meaning interpretation of the subjective query, wherein the generating the symbolic architecture representation of the subjective query includes:
matching the selected group of identigens of the neural network representation of the subjective query with a group of entigens of the knowledge database to produce a query entigen group as the symbolic architecture representation of the subjective query comprising a plurality of query entigens, wherein the knowledge database further includes a multitude of entigen groups associated with a multitude of topics, wherein the multitude of topics includes the topic, wherein each entigen group of the multitude of entigen groups includes a corresponding plurality of entigens and one or more entigen relationships between at least some of the corresponding plurality of entigens, wherein the query entigen group represents the most likely meaning interpretation of the subjective query, wherein each query entigen of the query entigen group corresponds to a selected identigen of the selected group of identigens having a selected meaning of the one or more different meanings of each word of the plurality of words, wherein each query entigen of the query entigen group represents a single conceivable and perceivable thing in space and time that is independent of language and corresponds to a time reference of the selected identigen associated with the query entigen group, wherein the selected identigen favorably pairs with at least one corresponding sequentially adjacent identigen of another set of identigens of the plurality of sets of identigens based on the identigen pairing rules of the knowledge database;
identifying one or more characteristic entigen categories for a subjective category entigen of the query entigen group, wherein the subjective category entigen subjectively describes another query entigen of the query entigen group; and
generating a symbolic architecture representation of a query response for the subjective query by further applying the identigen entigen processing approach to the symbolic architecture representation of the subjective query, wherein the symbolic architecture representation of the query response represents an answer to the subjective query utilizing the subjective category entigen, wherein the generating the symbolic architecture representation of the query response includes:
matching the query entigen group to a set of response entigens of the knowledge database and based on the one or more characteristic entigen categories for the subjective category entigen, wherein the set of response entigens includes one or more response entigens and one or more response entigen relationships between at least some of the one or more response entigens, wherein the set of response entigens includes the other query entigen of the query entigen group, wherein the set of response entigens provides the answer to the subjective query.”
Independent claims 7 and 13 set forth similar limitations as independent claim 1, and would be allowed based on similar reasons and rationale.
Dependent claims 2-6, 8-12, and 14-18 would be allowed, as they depend from their respective would be allowed parent claims.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure (See PTO-892).
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/LAMONT M SPOONER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2657
lms
6/27/2026
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