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 .
This communication is responsive to the application filed on April 3, 2025. Claims 1-20 are pending at the time of examination.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in the instant application 19/169,470, filed on May 7, 2025.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on April 3, 2025 was considered by the examiner. See attached PTO-form 1449.
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 1-4, 9-11, 14-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
The claims 1 and 14 recite “collecting data from a plurality of collaborative systems; and building a database to perform vector searching by embedding and indexing the received data, wherein the collecting of the data comprises: replicating a custom message queue to generate a replicated message queue based on a determination that a first collaborative system among the plurality of collaborative systems has the custom message queue; and collecting data from the replicated message queue instead of the custom message queue”.
The claim 9 recites “collecting data from a plurality of collaborative systems; transmitting the collected data through a plurality of separate queues; and building a database to perform vector searching by embedding and indexing the transmitted data, wherein the indexing comprises processing multiple pieces of data having a same identifier among the transmitted data in a same instance among multiple instances provided in an indexer”.
The limitation of claims 1, 9 and 14 as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than reciting “by a processor,” nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed in the mind. For example, but for the “collecting” language, “building” in the context of this claim encompasses the user manually perform the process. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind and/or manually performed, but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim only recites one additional element – using a processor to perform “collecting”, “building”, “replicating”. The processor in performing the steps is recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function of the steps) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, this additional element does 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.
The claims 1-4, 9-11 and 14-17 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, the additional element of using a processor to perform the steps amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claims are not patent eligible.
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.
Claims 1-7, 9-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D’Agostino et al. (US 2025/0307562 A1) (hereinafter “D’Agostino) in view of Harden et al. (US 10,210,226) (hereinafter “Harden”).
As per claim 1, D’Agostino discloses a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) interacting with generative artificial intelligence (Al) method, the method comprising:
collecting data from a plurality of collaborative systems (Fig. 1, para. 0031, as harvest and analyze contextual information from interactions includes chat conversations from plurality of sources devices); and
building a database to perform vector searching by embedding and indexing the received data (para. 0041, as contextual information being converted into vectors and add metadata labels and added stored in the vector storage… and being retrieved from the vector storage which satisfy a search retrieval system(s)).
D’Agostino does not explicitly teach, but Harden teaches wherein the collecting of the data comprises: replicating a custom message queue to generate a replicated message queue based on a determination that a first collaborative system among the plurality of collaborative systems has the custom message queue; and collecting data from the replicated message queue instead of the custom message queue (col. 5, lines 29-31, as event gateway contains a message queue and provide events for social media application adapters in the social media interface gateway. That the interface gateway 110 and event gateway provides access to and existing from data system 140). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of D’Agostino to implement the above steps as taught by Harden because it would provide a quick generated response such as notifications may be used as a way to resolve problems, as suggested by Harden (col. 4, lines 62-67).
As per claim 2, Harden further teaches consuming an event generated in the first collaborative system from the replicated message queue; and enquiring metadata and content related to the event of the first collaborative system (col. 4, lines 20-30).
As per claim 3, Harden further teaches wherein the consuming of the event further comprises filtering the event (col. 5, lines 1-15).
As per claim 4, Harden further teaches wherein the collecting of the data comprises collecting data through a batch server connected to a second collaborative system among the plurality of collaborative systems based on a determination that the second collaborative system does not have a custom message queue (col. 10, lines 61-67).
As per claim 5, Harden further teaches wherein the collecting of the data comprises synchronizing, based on an event received from the first collaborative system among the plurality of collaborative systems, metadata related to the event in the database with the first collaborative system (col. 7, lines 1-20).
As per claim 6, Harden further teaches wherein the metadata comprises authority information about content related to the event of the first collaborative system, and wherein the event comprises information about changes in the authority information (col. 9, lines 19-40).
As per claim 7, Harden further teaches wherein the metadata comprises status information of content related to the event of the first collaborative system, wherein the event comprises information about changes in the status information, and wherein the status information comprises information about deletion or changes of the content (col. 5, lines 30-34).
As per claim 9, D’Agostino discloses a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) interacting with generative artificial intelligence (Al) method, the method comprising:
collecting data from a plurality of collaborative systems (Fig. 1, para. 0031, as harvest and analyze contextual information from interactions includes chat conversations from plurality of sources devices);
building a database to perform vector searching by embedding and indexing the
transmitted data, wherein the indexing comprises processing multiple pieces of data having a same identifier among the transmitted data in a same instance among multiple instances provided in an indexer (para. 0041, as contextual information being converted into vectors and add metadata labels and added stored in the vector storage… and being retrieved from the vector storage which satisfy a search retrieval system(s)); para. 0049, as each vector comprises a label with policies; policy content identifier.
D’Agostino does not explicitly teach, but Harden teaches, but Harden teaches transmitting the collected data through a plurality of separate queues (col. 5, lines 29-31, as event gateway contains a message queue and provide events for social media application adapters in the social media interface gateway. That the interface gateway 110 and event gateway provides access to and existing from data system 140). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of D’Agostino to implement the above steps as taught by Harden because it would provide a quick generated response such as notifications may be used as a way to resolve problems, as suggested by Harden (col. 4, lines 62-67).
As per claim 10, D’Agostino further teaches wherein the indexing comprises sorting multiple pieces of data having the same identifier among the transmitted data during bulk indexing based on an order of an event occurrence time, and then sequentially indexing the multiple pieces of data (para. 0092).
As per claim 11, D’Agostino further teaches wherein the order of the event occurrence time is ascending (para. 0093-0094).
As per claim 12, D’Agostino further teaches comparing an event occurrence time based on a determination that data having the same identifier as indexing target data exists in an internal cache of the indexer, and, excluding the data from the indexing target based on a determination that the indexing target data has an earlier event occurrence time than the data having the same identifier in the internal cache (para. 0049, 0095).
As per claim 13, D’Agostino further teaches comparing an event occurrence time based on a determination that data having the same identifier as indexing target data exists in the database and, excluding the data from the indexing target based on a determination that the indexing target data has an earlier event occurrence time than the data having the same identifier in the database (para. 0142, 0144).
As per claim 14, the independent claim recites several elements that are similar to the elements recited in claim 1, except in the context of an apparatus, respectively. Therefore, it is rejected at least for the same reasons as claim 1.
As per claims 15-20 have similar limitations as recited in dependent claims 2-7; therefore, they are rejected under the same subject matter.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The prior art of record fails to teach or fairly suggest that “wherein the collecting of the data further comprises: determining whether to synchronize the metadata, based on a frequency of occurrence of the event related to the metadata; and performing enquiry from the first collaborative system at a time at which a user accesses content information in the database for the retrieval-augmented generation based on a determination that the metadata is not synchronized” as recited in claim 8.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record, listed on form PTO-892, and not relied upon, if any, is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DEBBIE M LE whose telephone number is (571)272-4111. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00-5:00.
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/DEBBIE M LE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2168 March 12, 2026