DETAILED ACTION
This is in response to the application filed on 04/02/2025 in which claims 1-10 are preserved for examination; of which claims 1, 9, and 10 are in independent forms.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 04/02/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
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 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter of abstract ideas.
Step 1:
Claims 1-10 are directed to a method/device/storage which is one of the statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A:
Prong 1:
Claims 1, 9, and 10 are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
The claims recite the steps to:
receive a prompt from a user to generate a similar text similar to a search text for document search; [recited at a high level of generality and based on broadest and reasonable interpretation of the claim, it involves the concepts of observation, evaluation and/or judgement which could be practically performed in the human mind. A person can receive an instruction to generate a text similar to another text]
generate, based on the prompt, the similar text using a language model; [recited at a high level of generality and based on broadest and reasonable interpretation of the claim, it involves the concepts of observation, evaluation and/or judgement which could be practically performed in the human mind. A person can mentally and manually generate the similar text based using an algorithm or instructions]
generate a search hash tag for the document search based on the search text and the similar text; [recited at a high level of generality and based on broadest and reasonable interpretation of the claim, it involves the concepts of observation, evaluation and/or judgement which could be practically performed in the human mind. A person can mentally and manually generate a hash tag]
The above-mentioned steps are processes that, under its broadest reasonable
interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind. That is, nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed in a human mind or with pen and paper. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas (concepts performed in the human mind including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion).
Prong 2:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Claims 1, 9, and 10 recite the additional steps, at a high level of generality to “search for a document based on the search hash tag; and output the searched document” which could be considered as insignificant extra solution activities of searching and outputting data. See MPEP 2106.04(d) and 2106.05(g).
The memory and processor are recited so generically that they represent no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception on a computer. These limitations can also be viewed as nothing more than an attempt to generally link the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment of a computer. It should be noted that because the courts have made it clear that mere physicality or tangibility of an additional element or elements is not a relevant consideration in the eligibility analysis, the physical nature of these computer components does not affect this analysis. See MPEP 2106.05(I) for more information on this point, including explanations from judicial decisions including Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208, 224-26 (2014).
Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a
practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.04(d) and 2106.05(g).
Step 2B:
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Claims 1, 9, and 10 recite the additional steps, at a high level of generality to “search for a document based on the search hash tag; and output the searched document” which could be considered as well-understood, conventional, and routine activities of searching and outputting data. See MPEP 2106.04(d) and 2106.05(g).
The memory and processor are recited so generically that they represent no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception on a computer. These limitations can also be viewed as nothing more than an attempt to generally link the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment of a computer. It should be noted that because the courts have made it clear that mere physicality or tangibility of an additional element or elements is not a relevant consideration in the eligibility analysis, the physical nature of these computer components does not affect this analysis. See MPEP 2106.05(I) for more information on this point, including explanations from judicial decisions including Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208, 224-26 (2014).
Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
These additional elements do not: (1) improve the functioning of a computer or other technology; (2) are not applied with any particular machine (except for a generic computer); (3) do not effect a transformation of a particular article to a different state; and (4) are not applied in any meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. See MPEP §§ 2106.05(a)-(c), (e)-(h). In other words, the aforementioned additional element (or combination of elements) recited in the claims do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Regarding dependent claim 2,
the dependent claim also lacks additional elements that sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more than abstract idea found in the independent claim. The dependent claim additional steps for generic computer functions to “receive a search hash tag” and “search…” are considered to be insignificant extra solution and/or well-understood routine computer routines of receiving and searching data failing to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or to amount significantly to more than abstract idea.
Regarding dependent claim 3,
the dependent claim also lacks additional elements that sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more than abstract idea found in the independent claim. The dependent claims further recite the step to assign hash tag that could be performed mentally failing to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or to amount significantly to more than abstract idea. Furthermore, the dependent claim additional step for generic computer function to “search…” is considered to be an insignificant extra solution and/or well-understood routine computer routine of searching data failing to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or to amount significantly to more than abstract idea.
Regarding dependent claim 4,
the dependent claim also lacks additional elements that sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more than abstract idea found in the independent claim. The dependent claims further recite the step to calculate similarity involves a mathematical concept that could be performed mentally failing to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or to amount significantly to more than abstract idea. Furthermore, the dependent claim additional step for generic computer function to “output…” is considered to be an insignificant extra solution and/or well-understood routine computer routine of outputting data failing to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or to amount significantly to more than abstract idea.
Regarding dependent claim 5,
the dependent claim also lacks additional elements that sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more than abstract idea found in the independent claim. The dependent claims further recite the step to calculate similarity involves a mathematical concept that could be performed mentally failing to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or to amount significantly to more than abstract idea.
Regarding dependent claim 6-8,
the dependent claims also lack additional elements that sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more than abstract idea found in the independent claims. The dependent claims further recite a plurality of personalities for reviewing texts and validating texts and generating similar texts that could be performed mentally failing to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or to amount significantly to more than abstract idea.
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 1-3, 9, and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Raimondo, US 2022/0414128 in view of State et al, US 2017/0052954 (State, hereafter).
Regarding claim 1,
Raimondo discloses a document search device comprising:
a memory storing instructions; and one or more processors configured to execute the instructions to (See Raimondo: at least Fig. 1 and para 60-64):
receive a prompt from a user to generate a similar text similar to a search text for document search (See Raimondo: at least Fig. 2, Fig. 10, and para 8, 10, 210-213, receiving a search request/prompt from a user to generate semantically similar document to input search text object);
generate, based on the prompt, the similar text using a language model (See Raimondo: at least Fig. 10 and para 10, 22, 84, 104, and 264-265, using a machine learning model which could be a language model (according to para 104), generating similar text objects such as paragraphs or sentences); and
output the searched document (See Raimondo: at least Fig. 5, Fig. 10, and para 10, 22, and 227).
Although, Raimondo discloses searching for similar text or documents, Raimondo does not explicitly teach generate a search hash tag for the document search based on the text data; and search for a document based on the search hash tag.
On the other hand, State discloses generating hashtags for documents based on text associated with content of a document (e.g., a post), and searching for a document using the hashtags (See State: at least Fig. 2-4, para 26, 27, 40, 42, 50, and 56). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time the invention was effectively filed to modify the teachings of Raimondo with State’s teaching in order to generate a search hash tag for the document search based on the search text and the similar text; and search for a document based on the search hash tag with reasonable expectation of success. The motivation for doing so would have been to perform a more efficient and focus search based on particular hash tags and filtering out documents that are not related to hash tags.
Regarding claim 2,
the combination of Raimondo and State discloses further receive a search hash tag candidate for document search; and search for the document based on the search hash tag and the search hash tag candidate (See State: at least Fig. 2-4, para 26, 27, 40, 45, 50, and 56, receiving hashtag suggestions or candidates and searching based on a suggested hashtag).
Regarding claim 3,
the combination of Raimondo and State discloses wherein a document hash tag is assigned to each of the documents to be searched for, and the one or more processors are further configured to execute the instructions to search for the document by collating the search hash tag with the document hash tag (See State: at least Fig. 2-4, para 26, 27, 40, 45, 52, and 56).
Regarding claims 9 and 10,
the scopes of the claims are substantially the same as claim 1, and are rejected on the same basis as set forth for the rejection of claim 1.
Claims 6-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Raimondo, US 2022/0414128 in view of State et al, US 2017/0052954 and further in view of Fitzpatrick et al., US 2025/0342311 (Fitzpatrick, hereafter).
Regrading claim 6,
The combination of Raimondo and State discloses the limitations as stated above including receiving instruction to generate similar text and using a language model to generate the similar text. However, it does not explicitly teach to set, for the model, a plurality of personalities and generate data through an interaction using a prompt among a plurality of personalities set for the model.
On the other hand, Fitzpatrick discloses a prompt including an author/writer persona among other personas to generate data (See Fitzpatrick: at least Fig. 3B and para 52-55). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time the invention was effectively filed to modify the teachings of the combination of Raimondo and State with Fitzpatrick’s teaching in order to set, for the language model, a plurality of personalities for generation of the similar text, and generate the similar text through an interaction using a prompt among a plurality of personalities set for the language model with reasonable expectation of success. The motivation for doing so would have been to tailor the response to match the desired audience and purpose and enhance the relevance and clarity of the output.
Regarding claim 7,
the combination of Raimondo, State, and Fitzpatrick discloses wherein the plurality of personalities includes at least an author who generates a similar text, a reviewer who reviews the generated similar text, and a manager who gives an instruction to the author and the reviewer (See Fitzpatrick: at least Fig. 3B and para 52-55).
Regarding claim 8,
the combination of Raimondo, State, and Fitzpatrick discloses wherein the plurality of personalities further includes a judge who determines validity of the generated similar text (See Fitzpatrick: at least Fig. 3B and para 52-55, an editor or a reviewer could be judging and validating the text and content).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 5 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101 for being directed to abstract idea, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Pushparajah et al., US 12,248,526 disclosing searching data management systems in which administrative users may define rules for hashtags, and then the rules are dynamically applied on the fly when an end user searches customer data. Hashtags are used to filter records for specific data, so as to improve data search accuracy and efficiency.
Andrianakou et al., US 2016/0328752 disclosing a method includes: identifying a repository of content, the repository including a plurality of content items, each indexed by a hashtag that is associated with a respective content item; receiving a search query from an entity associated with a brand, the query including one or more of a hashtag, category, or brand; retrieving content from the repository based on the search query; presenting the content to the entity and receiving a selection of one or more content items from the presented content for inclusion in a campaign; arid creating a campaign including generating one or more creatives based on the selection for distribution based on selection criteria associated with the campaign.
Points of Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HARES JAMI whose telephone number is (571)270-1291. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00a-5:00p.
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/Hares Jami/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2164
01/23/2026