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 .
The amendments were received 5/11/2026. Claims 1, 3, 5, 7-13, 15, 17, and 19-25 are pending where claims 1, 3, 5, 7-13, 15, 17, and 19-20 were previously presented; claims 2, 4, 6, 14, 16, and 18 were cancelled; and claims 21-25 are newly added.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims (claims 1, 3, 5, and 7-12) in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: an agent platform configured to instantiate; orchestration engine, and application servers in claim 1 (claims 2-12 inherit the same interpretation due to dependency upon claim 1).
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
35 USC § 101
The applicant amended the independent claim to add additional details as well as provided arguments starting at the end of page 15 through top of page 17 regarding the ordered combination of components. Upon further consideration, applicant’s arguments are persuasive and the respective 35 USC 101 rejection has been withdrawn.
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.
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.
Claims 1, 3, 5, 7-13, 15, 17, and 19-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thompson, III et al [US 2025/0371317 A1] in view of Carter [US 7,756,890], Patel et al [US 2020/0104359 A1], and Lee [US 2016/0379009 A1].
With regard to claim 1, Thompson teaches a computing services environment, comprising: a database system storing a plurality of metadata entries in accordance with a metadata framework, the plurality of metadata entries including a plurality of action definitions defining actions capable of being taken within the computing services environment, the plurality of metadata entries including an autonomous agent definition identifying one or more of the plurality of action definitions (see paragraphs [0078], [0103], [0147], [0172], [0237]-[0238], [0319], and [0321]; the system can store various pieces of information in a database system that includes metadata about an agent definition (“For example, a skill-based agent 1102 is assigned to a skill type or category in the agent definition or the skill-based agent's associated skills are identified or determined by reference to the agent's particular skill registry”, para 319) where the system has a registry or metadata defining what the actions/skills entail (“The agent can use skills to perform tasks that require external interaction, such as querying a database, invoking an API, or communicating with another agent(s) or humans”, para 172); the agents can be created to be tailored towards the user interacting with the system (“Registries and the entries in each registry can be specifically configured for individual automated agents 102. For example, two different users of an application 104 can have different registries included in their respective automated agents”, para 238); thus the system shows a database storing information about definitions of actions/functions and definitions of agents so that they can perform some set of actions/functions),
an agent platform configured to instantiate an autonomous agent instance within the computing services environment based on the autonomous agent definition, the autonomous agent instance being configured as a conversational chat assistant receiving natural language user input from a client machine via a communication channel, wherein instantiating the autonomous agent instance includes determining a runtime context including one or more data values specific to the autonomous agent instance (see paragraphs [0446]-[0448]; [0366], [0368], and [0202]; the system can create/instantiate an agent instance based on an agent definition that defines the particular skills/functions that the agent is capable of performing and be able to chat with the respective user; see paragraphs [0165] and [0449] for context data that is associated with the user of the system and provided to the agent;
“An automated agent may refer to an agent that is dynamically configured to perform one or more tasks in response to an input such as a user request, potentially invoking one or more other agents or sub-agents to do so. An agent system as used here can refer to a system that is capable of being used to create an agent, configure an agent, and/or cause one or more agents to execute one or more actions, tasks, sub-actions, or sub-tasks.”, para 202;
“The dialog elements 1302 and 1312 each represent a round of dialog involving the automated agent and a user during a workflow or plan creation process.”, para 366;
“The automated agent can be created and/configured collaboratively with a user, e.g., via one or more flows such as described with reference to FIG. 12A and FIG. 12B.”, paragraph [0447]);
an orchestration engine configured to autonomously determine an execution plan for the autonomous agent instance by selecting a subset of the plurality of actions definitions based on the runtime context
“Embodiments of the architecture 400 support pluggable planning mechanisms (e.g., goal-oriented action planning (GOAP), task management (TODO), and planning domain definition language (PDDL)) that can be configured to drive the agent's coarse-grained behavior. Each step of the plan can be an action (i.e., a tool or a skill) or a sub-plan (of the same type or a different type as the plan). This hierarchical planning system allows agents to manage complex tasks effectively, breaking them down into smaller, more manageable components and executing them in a structured manner using the most appropriate strategy.”, see paragraph 156);
and one or more application servers configured to autonomously execute the subset of the plurality of action definitions to: autonomously retrieve data via the computing services environment
determine an updated runtime context based on the searching (see paragraph [0398], [0370], and [0158]; the system can update the context including what tasks have been completed and what the next task/action is that needs to be performed including determining what the sub-steps of a task/action are;
“The agent can periodically review tasks and update tasks based on the task status and any new information.”, paragraph 158),
autonomously determine novel text via the generative language model based on the updated runtime context, and transmit the novel text to the client machine via the communication channel (see paragraphs [0399]-[0400], [0064], [0106], [0370], and [0037]; the system can generate text associated with the current task/action and be able to display that information to the user including providing means for the user to review the system-generated text, i.e. novel text, “For example, a first version of the job description is generated by a sub-agent of the automated agent instructing an LLM to generate a job description using data obtained via execution of the previous sub-tasks.”, para 399).
Thompson does not appear to explicitly teach:
the plurality of metadata entries including one or more data retriever metadata entries defining data access to support retrieval-augmented generation;
an orchestration engine configured to autonomously determine an execution plan for the autonomous agent instance by selecting a subset of the plurality of actions definitions based on the runtime context and the plurality of metadata entries via a generative language model;
autonomously retrieve data via the computing services environment in accordance a data retriever specified in accordance with the one or more data retriever metadata entries, the data retriever identifying storage and provisioning information supporting runtime file uploading and search,
indexing and searching one or more files identified via the communication channel and uploaded via the data retriever.
Carter teaches the plurality of metadata entries including one or more data retriever metadata entries defining data access the data access on behalf of the user, “The electronic identifier 401 provides a mechanism for a semantic identity to identify itself over a network. Other identifiers may be used to assure this identification to services of the network, such as passwords, signatures, certificates, etc.”).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the automated agent of Thompson by including data access metadata/information as part of the specification/definition of the agent as taught by Carter in order to allow the agent to have credentials to access various data sources that require access rights thus allowing the agent to access information related or desired by the end user including information that the user has credentials to access thus increasing the versatility and utility of the agent by not being unduly constrained to only public data sources.
Thompson in view of Carter teach:
the plurality of metadata entries including one or more data retriever metadata entries defining data access to support retrieval-augmented generation (see Thompson, see paragraphs [0078], [0103], [0147], [0172], [0237]-[0238], [0319], and [0321]; the system can store various pieces of information in a database system that includes metadata about an agent definition; see Carter, Figure 4 and col 5, lines 13-18; and col 10, line 54 through col 11, line 34; the system includes information for an agent that includes metadata that can define the data access on behalf of the user);
an orchestration engine configured to autonomously determine an execution plan for the autonomous agent instance by selecting a subset of the plurality of actions definitions based on the runtime context and the plurality of metadata entries via a generative language model; autonomously retrieve data via the computing services environment in accordance a data retriever specified in accordance with the one or more data retriever metadata entries (see Thompson, paragraphs [0395]-[0397], [0156]-[0162], and [0376]; see Carter, Figure 4 and col 5, lines 13-18; and col 10, line 54 through col 11, line 34; the system includes means for determining a workflow or execution plan that includes various tasks and their associated actions including where to search or retrieve information and also include the appropriate credentials to the data source).
Thompson in view of Carter do not appear to explicitly teach:
the data retriever identifying storage and provisioning information supporting runtime file uploading and search,
indexing and searching one or more files identified via the communication channel and uploaded via the data retriever.
Patel teaches the data retriever identifying storage and provisioning information supporting runtime file uploading
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the automated agent of Thompson in view of Carter by allowing the user to provide information on the location of various files to the system as taught by Patel in order to the user the ability to upload/store their files and also have means for the respective automated agent to be able to retrieve/access the files based on location information identifying where the files are stored, thus allowing the system to easily find and retrieve respective user files thus saving time from having to crawl/scan the networked storage system on-demand when a user requests their files.
Thompson in view of Carter and Patel teach the data retriever identifying storage and provisioning information supporting runtime file uploading and search (see Patel, paragraphs [0072]-[0074]; see Thompson, paragraphs [0106], [0485], and [0370]; see Carter, col 10, line 54 through col 11, line 34; the system has means for the agent to be able to receive user input including storage and provisioning information and be able to upload/retrieve the file(s) and have means to search/analyze the respective file(s) in accordance with the user’s input).
Thompson in view of Carter and Patel do not appear to explicitly teach:
indexing and searching one or more files identified via the communication channel and uploaded via the data retriever.
Lee teaches indexing and searching one or more files
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the automated agent of Thompson in view of Carter and Patel by having means to index documents as taught by Lee in order to a provide actions/functions for indexing documents of the user so that the system can later allow the user (or agent acting on behalf of user) search for and find their respective documents associated with search criteria without the user having to find and read/scan the documents to determine if the documents are relevant to their particular needs.
Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach indexing and searching one or more files identified via the communication channel and uploaded via the data retriever (see Lee, paragraphs [0004], [0022], and [0023]; see Patel, paragraphs [0072]-[0074]; see Thompson, paragraphs [0106], [0485], and [0370]; see Carter, col 10, line 54 through col 11, line 34; the system provides means for user input via a communication channel to an agent or chat assistant which can perform various actions including retrieving particular/specified data as well as being able to index and search that retrieved data based on the user’s input).
With regard to claim 3, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach wherein executing the subset of the plurality of action definitions comprises uploading one or more files identified via the communication channel to a storage repository location (see Patel, paragraph [0072]; the system provides the ability for the agent to be able to upload documents/files).
With regard to claim 5, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach wherein the orchestration engine is further configured to autonomously determine an updated execution plan for the autonomous agent instance based on the searching (see Lee, paragraph [0023]; see Thompson, paragraphs [0398], [0283], [0314]; the system can determine updates to the plan/workflow based on actions/tasks associated with search results).
With regard to claim 7, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach wherein the data is retrieved from outside of the computing services environment (see Thompson, paragraph [0172]; the database can be external or outside the environment).
With regard to claim 8, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach wherein the data is retrieved from the database system (see Thompson, paragraph [0502]; the storage can be part of the same local network as a data storage system, i.e. database system).
With regard to claim 9, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach wherein the data includes structured data (see Thompson, paragraphs [0516] and [0501]; the system can utilize structured data).
With regard to claim 10, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach wherein the data includes unstructured data (see Thompson, paragraph [0037] and [0096]; text content can be used).
With regard to claim 11, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach wherein a data retriever specified in accordance with the one or more data retriever metadata entries is defined based on user input received from a user account associated with an entity accessing computing services via the computing services environment (see Thompson, see paragraphs [0078], [0103], [0147], [0172], [0237]-[0238], [0319], and [0321]-[0322] and [0377]; see Carter, Figure 4 and col 5, lines 13-18; and col 10, line 54 through col 11, line 34; the system can store various pieces of information in a database system that includes metadata about an agent definition and other user account information with the ability of the user to provide input to customize/modify the tasks/workflow as needed or desired by the user).
With regard to claim 12, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach wherein determining the runtime context includes retrieving data in accordance with the one or more data retriever entries (see Thompson, paragraphs [0395]-[0398], [0156]-[0162], [0172], and [0376]; the system has means to query/retrieve information in accordance with user access rights/credentials as well as be able to update the context of the workflow based on retrieved information so that the next tasks, including any other retrieving tasks can be performed).
With regard to claim 13, this claim is substantially similar to claim 1 and is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
With regard to claim 15, this claim is substantially similar to claim 3 and is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
With regard to claim 17, this claim is substantially similar to claim 5 and is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
With regard to claim 19, this claim is substantially similar to claim 1 and is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
With regard to claim 20, this claim is substantially similar to claim 3 and is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
With regard to claim 21, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach a just- in-time indexer configured to generate embeddings for uploaded files and to create indexed representations of the uploaded files for semantic retrieval during execution of the autonomous agent instance (see Thompson, paragraph [0056], [0103], [0114]-[0115], and [0144], and [0556]; see Lee, [0022], and [0023]; see Patel, paragraphs [0072]-[0074]; the system can allow agents to be able to receive files that can be stored in an index where various storage techniques can be used including vector representations with the system having means to create vector/embedding representations of the content).
With regard to claim 22, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach a search index configured to store indexed representations of uploaded files and to support semantic searching of the indexed representations based on an identifier associated with the autonomous agent instance (see Thompson, paragraph [0056], [0103], [0114]-[0115], and [0144], and [0556]; see Lee, [0022], and [0023]; see Patel, paragraphs [0072]-[0074]; the system has means to receive and index uploaded/retrieved files; see Thompson, paragraphs [0118]-[0119]; and Carter, col 10, line 54 through col 11, line 34; the system can use the agent ID and user ID to determine what information is associated or accessible to the agent and respective user).
With regard to claim 23, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach a storage drive configured to receive uploaded files associated with the autonomous agent instance during a conversational interaction (see Thompson, paragraphs [0106], [0485], and [0370]; see Lee, paragraph [0022]; see Patel, paragraphs [0072]-[0074]; the system can store the uploaded/received file in an appropriate location such as a data store or storage drive).
With regard to claim 24, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach a data connector configured to coordinate indexing and semantic retrieval operations for uploaded files associated with the autonomous agent instance (see Thompson, paragraph [0498], [0506], [0105], and [0114]-[0115]; the system has services/tools that the agent can utilize for various tasks/sub-tasks including connectors and other services/functions that allow for indexing as well as searching/retrieval of information).
Claim 25 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thompson, III et al [US 2025/0371317 A1] in view of Carter [US 7,756,890], Patel et al [US 2020/0104359 A1], and Lee [US 2016/0379009 A1] in further view of Shrestha et al [US 2024/0330193 A1].
With regard to claim 25, Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach all the claim limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee teach embeddings/vectors and retrieval but do not appear to explicitly teach a cluster map configured to organize embedding representations associated with uploaded files to support semantic retrieval operations performed during execution of the autonomous agent instance.
Shrestha teaches a cluster map configured to organize embedding representations (see paragraphs [0069] and [0070]; the system can cluster various documents/files together with means to compare a query to clusters and then retrieve only the documents that are associated with the selected cluster).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the document retrieval and storage process of Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee by having means to cluster various similar documents together as taught by Shrestha in order to utilize a compressed indexing scheme that can save processing time by reducing the number of comparisons when doing a search retrieval operation/task by grouping/clustering similar documents together when acquired/retrieved so that, at a later time, when the user is trying to retrieve desired information, the system can focus the search on the cluster of documents/data that is most similar to the user’s request versus the entire document collection.
Thompson in view of Carter, Patel, and Lee in further view of Shrestha teach a cluster map configured to organize embedding representations associated with uploaded files to support semantic retrieval operations performed during execution of the autonomous agent instance (see Shrestha, paragraphs [0069] and [0070]; see Thompson, see Lee, paragraph [0023]; see Thompson, paragraphs [0398], [0283], [0314]; see Patel, paragraphs [0072]-[0074]; the system can utilize their own indexing scheme for uploaded files to be associated with a user such that the system can also organize the uploaded content into clusters rather than a single list to help support retrieval operations by reducing comparisons and allowing the system to focus on semantically similar documents/content to the user’s input).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments (see the third and fourth paragraphs on page ) with respect to objections to the specification have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objections of the specification have been withdrawn. The applicant amended the specification in a manner that appears to address the objections. Therefore, in view of the amendments, the respective objections have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments (see last paragraph on page 9) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that the application server is not a generic placeholder but a term of art in computer science. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Although the term server may have some prescribed meaning, the particular issue at hand focuses on the functionality that is attributed to the server such as the server configured to “determine an updated runtime context based on the retrieved data”. The Examiner is notes that the claims are being construed as a physical object(s); where, upon evaluation of the three-prong test indicate that het limitations should be interpreted under 35 USC 112(f). There is no rejection, the notification of 35 USC 112(f) is an indicator of claim interpretation only. As illustrated in the Office Action, the claim limitations as recited are supported by the specification.
Applicant's arguments (see the first whole paragraph on page 10 through the last paragraph on page 12) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues the cited prior art do not teach various claim limitations including Patel and Lee not disclosing the claimed “runtime orchestration workflow” since the limitation requires a coordinated execution sequence where Patel’s citations do not disclose the claimed functionality; where Lee does not cure the deficiencies since Lee’s indexing is fundamentally different form the claimed runtime orchestration workflow since Lee has no disclosure of runtime file upload through a channel nor disclose action definitions The Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986). As shown in the 35 USC 103 rejections, the Thompson reference illustrates the ability to search and retrieve documents during runtime with some orchestration component to manage various task and associated subtasks. The Patel reference teaches a complementary concept in that the automated agents can be given storage/location information (metadata) for where documents data is to be retrieved from (storage and provisioning) thus allowing for Thompson’s agent(s) to be given instructions for where the content is meant to be retrieved from. Lee also complements Thompson’s teachings by being able to store received documents/content in a manner (e.g. similar to caching) so that they can be indexed for potential future access/retrieval instead of performing some task on it and discarding the document thus, when required, to force the agent to have to reacquire the document/content again which wastes processing power and network bandwidth. Thus, as can be seen, the combination teaches or fairly suggests the claim limitations as recited.
Applicant's arguments (see the first whole paragraph on page 13 through the third paragraph on page 13) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that the cited prior art references provide no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to integrate their teachings thus the combination is impermissible hindsight reconstruction. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant's argument that the examiner's conclusion of obviousness is based upon improper hindsight reasoning, it must be recognized that any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning. But so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from the applicant's disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971). As shown in the 35 USC 103 rejections above, the Examiner provided their obviousness analysis and provided articulated reasoning for the combination of the prior art including, with respect to Patel, being able to have users specify locations of content/documents to acquire versus the user hoping that the automated agent will somehow acquire the particular information the user wants when provided with little direction. As for the Lee reference, the Examiner indicated that the system can have means to keep track of received/uploaded documents/content (i.e. caching/indexing) for later processing thus allowing the system to not only complete its current sub-task but still can maintain the data so that other tasks/sub-tasks can make use of it without having the added overhead of acquiring/retrieval and parsing/analyzing the content for each and every sub-task. Therefore, applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments (see the second to last paragraph on page 13 through the last paragraph on page 17 ) with respect to the 35 USC 101 rejections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 USC 101 rejections of the claims have been withdrawn. The applicant amended the independent claim to add additional details as well as provided arguments starting at the end of page 15 through top of page 17 regarding the ordered combination of components. Upon further consideration, applicant’s arguments are persuasive and the respective 35 USC 101 rejection has been withdrawn.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Kataria et al [US 2019/0034793 A1] teaches at paragraph 43 the ability to have documents associated with a cluster (via document clustering using embeddings as feature vectors) via a document-cluster mapping and using a query to identify the cluster so that the system can retrieve documents from that cluster.
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 MARC S SOMERS whose telephone number is (571)270-3567. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 11-8 EST.
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/MARC S SOMERS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2159 7/8/2026
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