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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 has been reviewed and are addressed below.
Response to Amendment/Arguments
Applicant’s amendments filed on 6-15-26 has been entered and are addressed below.
Applicant argues that the claims are integrated into a practical application and provide significantly more than the judicial exception since large language model alone struggle to understand the complex relationships between drugs and their adverse effects. The claims physically construct and improved prompt data structure by injecting verbalized, ranked ontology paths generated using templates applied to ontology triplets. Examiner respectfully disagrees. The instant claim uses three factors in the process of converting structured into another form (text, audio, etc). Unlike Ex parte Carmody or Ex parte Des Jardins wherein it improved the performance and accuracy of machine learning models. The instant claim uses artificial intelligence model to generated a prediction of drug reaction.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1:
Claims 1-20 are drawn to method and system, which is/are statutory categories of invention (Step 1: YES).
Step 2A Prong One:
Independent claims 1, 8, 15 recite “accessing medical text associated with a patient”, “annotating spans in the medical text for drug and event entities to create labelled medical text”, “linking the spans in the labelled medical text to concepts in an ontology”, “wherein the linking comprise for a subject span in the labelled medical text with a mapped entity type of drug or event, link the subject span to a most similar subject concept in the ontology”, “for an object span in the labeled medical text with a mapped entity type of drug or event, link the object span to a most similar object concept in the ontology”, “for each pair of linked subject and object spans, identifying possible paths in the ontology between the subject concept and the object concept ranking each of the possible paths in the ontology, identifying a top number of paths from all the possible paths based on the ranking and concatenating a verbalization form of each path of the top number paths with the subject span and the object span from the labeled medical text to create an ontology augmented text instance corresponding to the pair of linked subject and object spans wherein the verbalized form comprises a textual description generated using or more templates applied to one or more triplets of the ontology and wherein the one or more triplets comprise a subject concept a relation and an object concept”, “generating a prompt comprising the medical text and each ontology augmented text instance formatted as textual input for a generative artificial intelligence model”, “generating one or more adverse drug reaction relation predictions for the patient based on the prompt”, “providing the one or more adverse drug reaction relation predictions to a user”.
The recited limitations, as drafted, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, cover mental process. Additionally it can also be interpreted as certain methods of organizing human activity particularly managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people, (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions). Additionally the generation of model can be interpreted as mathematical concepts. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea (Step 2A Prong One: YES).
Step 2A Prong Two:
The additional elements are merely incidental or token additions to the claim that do not alter or affect how the process steps or functions in the abstract idea are performed (e.g., the “computing device” language is incidental to what it is “configured” to perform). Therefore, the claimed additional elements do not add meaningful limitations to the indicated claims beyond a general linking to a technological environment. See: MPEP 2106.05(h).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. That the abstract idea may be performed by specifically “computer”, ‘artificial intelligence”, “system”, “one or more processor”, “memory”, “computer program product” are additional elements that are recited at a high level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instruction to apply the exception using generic computer components. See: MPEP 2106.05(f).
The claims recite the additional element of ”accessing medical text associated with a patient”, which amounts to extra-solution activity concerning mere data gathering. The specification (e.g., as excerpted above) does not provide any indication that the additional elements are anything other than well‐understood, routine, and conventional functions when claimed in a merely generic manner (as they are here). See: MPEP 2106.05(g).
The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Accordingly, even in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Hence, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Accordingly, the claims are directed to an abstract idea (Step 2A Prong Two: NO).
Step 2B:
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, using the additional elements to perform the abstract idea amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic components cannot provide an inventive concept. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
Further, the claimed additional elements, identified above, are not sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they are generic components that are not integrated into the claim because they are merely incidental or token additions to the claim that do not alter or affect how the process steps or functions in the abstract idea are performed. Therefore, the claimed additional elements do not add meaningful limitations to the indicated claims beyond a general linking to a technological environment. See: MPEP 2106.05(h).
Further, the claimed additional elements, identified above, are not sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they are generic components that are configured to perform well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the industry. See: MPEP 2106.05(d). Said additional elements are recited at a high level of generality and provide conventional functions that do not add meaningful limits to practicing the abstract idea. The originally filed specification supports this conclusion
-paragraph 133 recites that “the service operators 1102 may be using one or more client computing devices, which may be portable handheld devices (e.g., an iPhone®, cellular telephone, an iPad®, computing tablet, a personal digital assistant (PDA)) or wearable devices (e.g., a Google Glass® head mounted display), running software such as Microsoft Windows Mobile®, and/or a variety of mobile operating systems such as iOS, Windows Phone, Android, BlackBerry 8, Palm OS, and the like, and being Internet, e-mail, short message service (SMS), Blackberry®, or other communication protocol enabled. Alternatively, the client computing devices can be general purpose personal computers including, by way of example, personal computers and/or laptop computers running various versions of Microsoft Windows®, Apple Macintosh®, and/or Linux operating systems. The client computing devices can be workstation computers running any of a variety of commercially-available UNIX® or UNIX-like operating systems, including without limitation the variety of GNU/Linux operating systems, such as for example, Google Chrome OS. Alternatively, or in addition, client computing devices may be any other electronic device, such as a thin-client computer, an Internet-enabled gaming system (e.g., a Microsoft Xbox gaming console with or without a Kinect® gesture input device), and/or a personal messaging device, capable of communicating over a network that can access the VCN 1106 and/or the Internet”.
The claims recite the additional element of ” accessing medical text associated with a patient”, which amounts to extra-solution activity concerning mere data gathering. The specification (e.g., as excerpted above) does not provide any indication that the additional elements are anything other than well‐understood, routine, and conventional functions when claimed in a merely generic manner (as they are here). See: MPEP 2106.05(g).
Viewing the limitations as an ordered combination, the claims simply instruct the additional elements to implement the concept described above in the identification of abstract idea with routine, conventional activity specified at a high level of generality in a particular technological environment.
Hence, the claims as a whole, considering the additional elements individually and as an ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea (Step 2B: NO).
Dependent claim(s) 2-7, 9-14, 16-20 when analyzed as a whole, considering the additional elements individually and/or as an ordered combination, are held to be patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the additional recited limitation(s) fail(s) to establish that the claim(s) is/are not directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. These claims fail to remedy the deficiencies of their parent claims above, and are therefore rejected for at least the same rationale as applied to their parent claims above, and incorporated herein.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to REGINALD R REYES whose telephone number is (571)270-5212. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00-4:30 M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Shahid R. Merchant can be reached at (571) 270-1360. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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REGINALD R. REYES
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3684
/REGINALD R REYES/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3684
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