DETAILED ACTION
Claims 2-21 are pending in the Instant Application.
Claims 2-21 are rejected (Non-Final Rejection).
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 30 January 2026 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 30 January 2026 was considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 2-5, 8-12 and 15-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being unpatentable by Hagger et al. (“Haggar”), United States Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0365502.
As per claim 2, Hagger discloses a computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving an input ([0064] wherein an initial input question is received such as “Who are Putin’s closest advisors?”);
inferring that a first category of data is needed ([0064] wherein a first category can be “persons” since “who” is associated with the category/topic of people);
retrieving information from one or more enterprise data sources based on the input and the first category of data ([0064]-[0065] wherein a series of queries are determined to retrieve information from one or more enterprise data sources ([0016] wherein Watson is described, which handles enterprise data sources) based on the input question and the first category (persons));
generating a prompt comprising one or more passages based on the retrieved information ([0065] wherein prompts are generated (candidate answers or hypotheses in the prior art));
determining whether the one or more passages contain sufficient information to satisfy criteria based on the input ([0066] wherein a confidence score is determined for each passage (candidate answer in the prior art), which determines if sufficient information is included);
inferring that a different category of data is needed if it is determined that there is not enough information to satisfy the criteria ([0069]-[0070] wherein if there is not enough information to satisfy the criteria, i.e. there is no candidate with a confidence score high enough, a new category of data is needed and can be selected from domain specific domains) ;
retrieving, based on the different category of data, additional information ([0076] wherein queries are generated for the new category/domain) via an iterative process if it is determined that there is not enough information to satisfy the criteria ([0077] wherein hypothesis or candidate answers can be retrieved in an iterative process as shown in Fig. 5, wherein if in 595, there is no answer again, another domain specific annotator may be used);
generating an output result based on the one or more passages ([0076] determining a single candidate answer); and
displaying the output result ([0076] wherein providing that candidate score is displaying the answer).
As per claim 3, Hagger discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the step of retrieving additional information via the iterative process further comprises:
generating a new query; retrieving additional information from one or more enterprise data sources based on the new query ([0076] wherein new queries are generated to retrieve additional information); and generating a new prompt comprising one or more additional passages based on the additional retrieved information ([0076] wherein another candidate answer (hypothesis) is generated).
As per claim 4, Hagger discloses the method of claim 2, further comprising: generating a rationale based on the one or more passages ([0040] wherein reasoning algorithms are used to provide rationale that are the basis for the passages); and wherein the step of retrieving additional information via the iterative process further comprises: generating a new query ([0076] wherein new queries are generated to retrieve additional information); retrieving additional information from one or more enterprise data sources based on the new query ([0076] wherein another candidate answer (hypothesis) is generated); and generating a new prompt comprising one or more additional passages based on the additional retrieved information and the rationale ([0077] wherein new prompt (candidate answer in the prior art) is generated comprising passages from the retrieved information and the rationale, like context dependent scoring and document score).
As per claim 5, Hagger discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the step of determining whether the one or more passages contain sufficient information to satisfy the criteria comprises: determining whether a number of passages containing relevant information exceeds a threshold ([0080] wherein the number of passages supporting the relevant information adds to the confidence score and [0081] wherein the confidence score must exceed a threshold to contain sufficient information to satisfy the criteria).
As per claim 8, Hagger discloses the method of claim 2, further comprising:
receiving feedback from a user ([0056] wherein feedback from “a user” is described); and
improving an accuracy of the output result based on the user feedback ([0056] wherein the accuracy of the output result is improved by generating better revised questions).
As per claim 9, claim 9 is the product that performs the method of claim 2 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 10, claim 10 is the product that performs the method of claim 3 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 11, claim 11 is the product that performs the method of claim 4 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 12, claim 12 is the product that performs the method of claim 5 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 15, claim 15 is the product that performs the method of claim 8 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 16, Haggar discloses a system comprising: one or more memory devices storing instructions and one or more processing devices communicatively coupled to the one or more memory devices ([0007]), wherein the one or more processing devices execute the instructions to perform the method of claim 2. Therefore, the claim is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning as claim 2.
As per claim 17, claim 17 is the system that performs the method of claim 3 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 18, claim 18 is the system that performs the method of claim 4 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 19, claim 19 is the system that performs the method of claim 5 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
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.
Claims 6, 7, 13, 14, 20 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hagger in view of RODRIQUEZ et al. (“Rodriguez”), United States Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0246144.
As per claim 6, Hagger discloses the method of claim 2, but does not disclose stopping the iterative process after a number of iterations has reached a limit. However, Rodriquez teaches stopping the iterative process after a number of iterations has reached a limit ([0032] wherein the number of iterations is limited).
Both Hagger and Rodriguez disambiguate an inquiry of a user. One could use the limited number of iterations from Rodriguez with the iterations performed in Hagger to teach the claimed invention. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the method of iteratively determining if a satisfactory output is determined for a user input in Hagger with the limiting of the number of iterations in Rodriquez in order to be ablet to stop providing ineffective options and changing focus of the inquiry.
As per claim 7, note the rejection of claim 6 where Hagger and Rodriquez are combined. The combination teaches the method of claim 6. Hagger further discloses wherein the output result comprises: an indication that an answer to the input could not be determined ([0082] wherein no answer can be found is output.)
As per claim 13, claim 13 is the product that performs the method of claim 6 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 14, claim 14 is the product that performs the method of claim 7 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 20, claim 20 is the system that performs the method of claim 6 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
As per claim 21, claim 21 is the system that performs the method of claim 7 and is rejected for the same rationale and reasoning.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KANNAN SHANMUGASUNDARAM whose telephone number is (571)270-7763. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00 AM -6:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles Rones can be reached at (571) 272-4085. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KANNAN SHANMUGASUNDARAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2168
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