0860665Notice 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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This office action is responsive to Request for Continued Examination filed on 12/11/2025. Claims 1, 14, and 20 are amended. Claims 6 and 7 are cancelled. Claims 1-5, 8-20 are pending examination.
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 1-5, and 8-20 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.
Claim(s) 1 is drawn to method (i.e., a process), claim(s) 14 is drawn to a system (i.e., a machine/manufacture), and claim 20 is drawn to non-transitory computer readable medium (i.e., a machine/manufacture). As such, claims 1, 14, and 20 are drawn to one of the statutory categories of invention.
Step 1: The claims are directed to abstract idea of collecting, analyzing and displaying data in the context of recommending multimedia content to a user based on historical interactions with agents. The claims recite displaying, in the conversation interface between the user and the first agent, a first message sent from the agent to the user and a first preview control of a first multimedia content corresponding to the first message, wherein the first preview control is a first entry of the recommendation stream of multimedia content, the first message is a reply to a message sent from the user; displaying a playing interface of the recommendation stream in response to a trigger operation on the first entry; determining , a multimedia content recommended for the user based on historical interaction data authorized by a user between the user and at least one of the first agent or an agent different from the first agent, wherein the historical interaction data authorized by the user comprises at least one of an attribute or a type; and displaying the multimedia content recommended for the user in a playing interface of the recommendation stream, wherein the first multimedia content is comprised in the multimedia content recommended for the user. (e.g., organizing human activity and information filtering), as it could be performed mentally or with pen and paper (see Electric Power Group v. Alstom S.A, 830 F. 3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
Step 2, the claims do not include additional elements to amount significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The additional elements such as” displaying a playing interface”, “determining multimedia content”, “extracting key information”, and trigger operations” amount to nothing more than generic computer functionality used to perform routine data processing and content display. There is no indication that the claimed invention improves the computer functionality or effects a transformation of data in any meaningful or unconventional way. The steps are performed in a conventional sequence using standard components and fail to impose meaningful limits on the abstract idea. No inventive concept is recited that transforms the claims into patent eligible application. Accordingly, the claims are not directed to patent eligible subject matter.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments regarding filed regarding 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The applicant argues that claim 1 is not merely general-purpose computing, but integrates a conversational function with a recommendation stream display to form a concrete technical solution.
Response: Even though the applicant argues that the integration of a conversational interface with a recommendation stream constitutes a specific technical solution, the claim as written does not recite any technological improvement to the functioning of a computer, user interface architecture, or multimedia system. The claim recites displaying content in a conversation interface; triggering a playing interface; determining recommended content based on historical interaction data and displaying the recommended content. These are conventional computer operations involving the presentation of information and analysis of user data. Although the claim specifies that the “display” occurs within a conversation interface and that a “trigger operation” is performed on a dialogue element, these limitations merely confine the abstract idea to a particular environment (conversational UI). Limiting an abstract idea to a specific technological environment does not render the claim patent eligible. The alleged “technical issue” described (incomplete recommendation information) is a business or data quality problem, not a technical problem rooted in computer technology. The additional elements amount to use of generic computer components performing their conversational functions to implement the abstract idea.
The applicant argues claim 1 integrates the exception into a practical application and provides a human-computer interaction scheme.
Response: Improving a user’s experience or providing a particular interface presentation does not, by itself, constitute an improvement to computer functionality. The claim recites displaying information, extracting key information from historical messages, determining importance based on frequency and displaying recommended multimedia content. These steps constitute collecting, analyzing and presenting information. there is no specific improvement to user interface technology, no novel control structure, no new protocol between interface modules and no hardware level interaction improvement. The human-computer interaction scheme described appears to define how information is presented and used for content selection, not how computer itself operates differently. Accordingly, the claim does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
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/SARGON N NANO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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