DETAILED ACTION
This Action is responsive to Applicant’s Amendments filed January 13, 2026.
Please note, claims 1-20 remain pending.
Response to Arguments
On page 10, regarding claim 1, Applicant argues that Thomson does not disclose the concept of “prompting” a language model using a plurality of different prompts. In particular, Applicant argues that Thomson does not teach generating candidate splits of compound words in response to different prompts. On page 11, Applicant further argues that Thomson fails to teach voting among a plurality of candidate word splits where “the compound word is split by dividing the compound word into tow or more constituent words that together form a candidate word split”
As to the above, Examiner respectfully submits the ASR of Thomson includes language models, as discussed in paragraph 259. Examiner further respectfully submits paragraph 394 of Thomson further teaches multiple inputs into the language models of the ASR system. Examiner further respectfully submits paragraph 0392 of Thomson teaches the voting process and continuing the process until a consensus is reached. Examiner introduces new prior art to further anticipate the newly amended subject matter.
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.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-5, 8-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thomson et al. (US Pub. No. 2022/0028397) further in view of Driessen et al. (US Pat. No. 7,720,847)
Regarding claim 1, Thomson teaches a computer-implemented method comprising:
‘prompting, using a plurality of different prompts, a large language model (LLM) to provide a plurality of candidate word splits for a compound word’ as using a large language model and giving commands and rules such as to split compound words (¶0262, 1022)
‘performing a voting technique on the plurality of candidate word splits’ as the word splits subjected to voting (¶0404)
‘providing a word split for the compound word, the word split selected from the plurality of candidate word splits according to results from the performed voting technique’ as a voting procedure used to select the token for use in the output (¶0340)
Thomson fails to explicitly teach: ‘wherein the compound word is split by dividing the compound word into two or more constituent words that together form a candidate word split for the compound word’
Driessen teaches: ‘wherein the compound word is split by dividing the compound word into two or more constituent words that together form a candidate word split for the compound word’ as split compound decision module splitting constituent words of a compound word into separated form (Col. 4, Lines 17-23)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time that the present invention was effectively filed to modify the teachings of the cited references because Driessen’s would have allowed Thomson’s to more accurately and efficiently split compound words (Col. 2, Lines 1-6)
Regarding claim 2, Thomson teaches ‘wherein the plurality of prompts is provided to the LLM at respectively different LLM temperatures’ as various word probabilities and runtime parameters fed to language models to adjust relative weights (¶0263, 267)
Regarding claim 3, Thomson teaches ‘wherein the plurality of prompts includes one or more compound word—word split pairs mined from a domain-specific data source’ as domain specific data sources (¶0273)
Regarding claim 4, Thomson teaches ‘further comprising identifying and selecting the compound word based on at least one of a combination of word frequency or word length’ as selecting based on the most frequent token or sequence length in words (¶0366, 418)
Regarding claim 5, Thomson teaches ‘wherein the voting technique identifies the word split from a majority candidate word split within the plurality of candidate word splits’ as a majority vote rendering the correct set of tokens for output (¶0402)
Regarding claim 8, Thomson teaches one or more computer storage media having computer-readable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
‘receiving a search query’ as receiving a search value (¶0418, Table 6)
‘generating a plurality of candidate word splits for a compound word within the search query by prompting, using a plurality of different prompts, a large language model (LLM) to split the compound word’ as using a large language model and giving commands and rules such as to split compound words (¶0262, 1022, 418, Table 6)
‘selecting a word split for the compound word from the plurality of candidate word splits according to a voting technique’ as a voting procedure used to select the token for use in the output (¶0340)
‘executing a search for the search query using the selected word split’ as using the split word to search (¶0418, Table 6)
Thomson fails to explicitly teach: ‘wherein the compound word is split by dividing the compound word into two or more constituent words that together form a candidate word split for the compound word’
Driessen teaches: ‘wherein the compound word is split by dividing the compound word into two or more constituent words that together form a candidate word split for the compound word’ as split compound decision module splitting constituent words of a compound word into separated form (Col. 4, Lines 17-23)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time that the present invention was effectively filed to modify the teachings of the cited references because Driessen’s would have allowed Thomson’s to more accurately and efficiently split compound words (Col. 2, Lines 1-6)
Regarding claim 9, Thomson teaches ‘wherein the plurality of prompts is provided to the LLM at respectively different LLM temperatures’ as various word probabilities and runtime parameters fed to language models to adjust relative weights (¶0263, 267)
Regarding claim 10, Thomson teaches ‘wherein the plurality of prompts includes one or more compound word—word split pairs mined from a domain-specific data source’ as domain specific data sources (¶0273)
Regarding claim 11, Thomson teaches ‘further comprising identifying and selecting the compound word based on word frequency or word length’ as selecting based on the most frequent token or sequence length in words (¶0366, 418)
Regarding claim 12, Thomson teaches ‘wherein the voting technique identifies the word split from a majority candidate word split within the plurality of candidate word splits’ as a majority vote rendering the correct set of tokens for output (¶0402)
Claim(s) 15-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thomson et al. (US Pub. No. 2022/0028397) Driessen et al. (US Pat. No. 7,720,847) further in view of Yu et al. (US Pub. No. 2008/0147381)
Regarding claim 15, Thomson teaches a system comprising:
‘at least one processor’ (¶0104)
‘one or more computer storage media storing computer-readable instructions thereon that, when executed by the at least one processor (¶0104), cause the at least one processor to perform a method comprising:
generating a plurality of candidate word splits for a compound word by prompting, using a plurality of different prompts, a large language model (LLM) to split the compound word’ as using a large language model and giving commands and rules such as to split compound words (¶0262, 1022, 418, Table 6)
‘selecting a word split for the compound word from the plurality of candidate word splits according to a voting technique’ as a voting procedure used to select the token for use in the output (¶0340)
Driessen teaches: ‘wherein the compound word is split by dividing the compound word into two or more constituent words that together form a candidate word split for the compound word’ as split compound decision module splitting constituent words of a compound word into separated form (Col. 4, Lines 17-23)
Thomson and Driessen fails to explicitly teach:
‘mapping the word split to the compound word in a compound word index’
‘based on receiving the compound word from a computing device, providing the word split by referencing the compound word index’
Yu teaches:
‘mapping the word split to the compound word in a compound word index’ as compound words and split words used to build an index (¶0035)
‘based on receiving the compound word from a computing device, providing the word split by referencing the compound word index’ as receiving compound word and referencing the index to receive the split (¶0035-36)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time that the present invention was effectively filed to modify the teachings of the cited references because Yu’s would have allowed Thomson and Driessen’s to improve splitting words for large quantities of data (¶0002)
Regarding claim 16, Thomson teaches ‘wherein the plurality of prompts comprises different temperature instructions for the LLM’ as various word probabilities and runtime parameters fed to language models to adjust relative weights (¶0263, 267)
Regarding claim 17, Thomson teaches ‘wherein the compound word is received based on a combination of word frequency and word length for the compound word’ as selecting based on the most frequent token or sequence length in words (¶0366, 418)
Regarding claim 18, Thomson teaches ‘wherein the compound word is received based on a combination of word frequency and word length for the compound word’ as a majority vote rendering the correct set of tokens for output (¶0402)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-7, 13-14, 19-20 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.
Examiner’s Note
Examiner has cited particular columns/paragraphs and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention. This will assist in expediting compact prosecution. MPEP 714.02 recites: “Applicant should also specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure. See MPEP § 2163.06. An amendment which does not comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.121(b), (c), (d), and (h) may be held not fully responsive. See MPEP § 714.” Amendments not pointing to specific support in the disclosure may be deemed as not complying with provisions of 37 C.F.R. 1.131(b), (c), (d), and (h) and therefore held not fully responsive. Generic statements such as “Applicants believe no new matter has been introduced” may be deemed insufficient.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/VAN H OBERLY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166
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