Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions. According to the preliminary amendment filed on 05/29/2025, claims 24-43 have been submitted for examination.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 27-33 and 37-42 are 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.
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 24-26, 34-36 and 43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Rangan Majumder (hereinafter Majumder) US Patent No 7664746 in view of Allen et al (hereinafter Allen) US Publication No 20070033224.
As per claim 24, Majumder teaches:
A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, via a processor, user-generated content; identifying, via the processor and based on application of one or more language processing models to the user-generated content, one or more statistically significant word phrases;
(Column 2, lines 24-45 and Column 4, lines 61-67 and Column 5, lines 1-14 and Column 11, lines 34-51, wherein the user posting/profile is the user-generated content as described in paragraph [0019] or the instant specification)
extracting the one or more identified statistically significant word phrases from the user- generated content;
(Column 2, lines 24-45 and Column 4, lines 61-67 and Column 5, lines 1-14 and Column 11, lines 34-51)
based at least in part on the extracted statistically significant word phrases, identifying one or more candidate categories with which to associate the user-generated content;
(Column 2, lines 24-45 and Column 4, lines 61-67 and Column 5, lines 1-46 and Column 11, lines 34-51)
generating a new linking data structure between the user-generated content and at least one identified candidate category;
(Column 2, lines 24-45 and Column 4, lines 61-67 and Column 5, lines 1-46 and Column 11, lines 34-51)
and in response to receiving a subsequent search request associated with at least one of the plurality of metadata elements, generating and providing hyperlinked user-generated content.
(Column 4, lines 61-67 and Column 5, lines 1-46 and Column 6, lines 1-39)
Majumder does not explicitly teach generating an updated hierarchical metadata schema of structured metadata elements based on the new linking data structure, the user-generated content, and the at least one identified candidate category, wherein the updated hierarchical metadata schema maps a plurality of metadata elements associated with the at least one identified candidate category to the user- generated content such that the user-generated content is accessible via the plurality of metadata elements, however in analogous art of content management, Allen teaches:
generating an updated hierarchical metadata schema of structured metadata elements based on the new linking data structure, the user-generated content, and the at least one identified candidate category, wherein the updated hierarchical metadata schema maps a plurality of metadata elements associated with the at least one identified candidate category to the user- generated content such that the user-generated content is accessible via the plurality of metadata elements;
(Fig. 8 and paragraphs [0032], [0036]-[0039], [0043] and [0062], wherein the sets of hierarchical interest points is the metadata schema)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person in the ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filling of the invention to combine Majumder and Allen by incorporating the teaching of Allen into the method of Majumder. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found it motivated to use the content management of Allen into the system of Majumder for the purpose of create hierarchical interest to automatically determine user’s interest and present it to the user.
As per claim 25, Majumder and Allen teach:
The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein the user-generated content comprises a user-created activity data entity or an expression related to a data entity.
(Column 2, lines 24-45 and column 4, lines 43-47)( Majumder)
As per claim 26, Majumder and Allen teach:
The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein the user-generated content comprises one or more of text, reviews, photos, video, audio or music, multimedia content, themes, articles, journal entries, web logs or blogs, or hyperlinks or hypertext.
(Column 12, lines 58-67 and column 13, lines 1-2)( Majumder)
Claims 34-36 are apparatus claims respectively corresponding to method claims 24-26 and they are rejected under the same rational as claims 24-26.
Claim 43 is non-transitory computer-readable storage claim corresponding to method claim 24 and it is rejected under the same rational as claim 24.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Tarek Chbouki whose telephone number is 571-2703154. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 9:00 am to 6:00 pm EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aleksandr Kerzhner can be reached at 571-2701760. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TAREK CHBOUKI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2165 4/24/2026
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