DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments and amendments, filed 7/20/2026, concerning the rejection of the claims under 35 USC §101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding the rejections of the claims under 35 USC §101, Applicants argue on pages 8-9 that the newly amended claims are not directed to a judicial exception, because the claim language is directed to improved processing and manipulation of data resulting in new data.
The Office respectfully disagrees. The manipulation/rearrangement of data is an activity that can be performed in the mind or via the use of pencil and paper.
And, it is further noted that generic computers performing generic computer functions to apply an abstract idea do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea of organizing information through mathematical correlations. It is noted that the Internet/computer limitations are simply a field of use that attempt to limit the abstract idea to a particular technological environment and do not add significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Viewing the limitations as a combination does not add anything further than looking at the limitations individually. Therefore, the previous rejection of the claims under 35 USC §101 is maintained as reasonable.
Regarding the rejections of the claims under 35 USC §101, Applicants state on pages 9-12 that the newly amended claims are not directed to a judicial exception, because the claims contain additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, and further presents USPTO example claims that are described as non-conventional/non-generic.
The Office respectfully disagrees. First, it is noted that attorney opinion cannot be substituted for evidence. Additionally, no particular implementation details were recited, only the generic/convention use of computing elements (including generic hardware and software elements). Further, the claim is directed to the manipulation/presentation of newly arranged data, not a particular use of that data in a practical application. Therefore, the previous rejection of the claims under 35 USC §101 is maintained as reasonable.
Regarding the rejections of the claims under 35 USC §101, Applicants argue on page 14 that the newly amended claims are supported by the rationale det forth in the decision Ex parte Desjardins.
The Office respectfully disagrees. The two main concepts of Desjardins are that the claim language: 1) sets forth implementation details; and, 2) reflects a tie in to a practical application. The claims are set forth at a high level of / generic details (i.e., encompass abstract subject matter with exceptions for concepts such as generic computing elements and well-known, routine and conventional, by way of example). Additionally, the claims result in the display of modified/processed data not a particular application. For instance, compare the resultant claim language to the Title of the specification/application. Therefore, the previous rejection of the claims under 35 USC §101 is maintained as reasonable.
Applicants further argue on pages 13-14 that the independent claims reciting substantially similar limitations, and all dependent claims are allowable for the reasons argued above.
The Office respectfully disagrees, and counter-asserts the rationale set forth above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-11 and 13-21 are allowable over the prior art. However, the claims remain rejected under non-statutory double patenting.
Reasons For Allowance
The cited references do not disclose processing each particular social media post of the plurality of social media posts utilizing a machine learning model to generate a vector corresponding to an embedding of the particular social media post in an embedding space, wherein the vector is representative of semantic content of the particular social media post, generating, based on the embedding space, a plurality of clusters utilizing a clustering algorithm, each cluster including social media posts that have related semantic content, and generating, for at least one cluster of the plurality of clusters, a visualization representative of the related semantic content of the social media posts in the at least one cluster, the visualization comprising a summary corresponding to the at least one cluster.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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 1-11 and 13-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
These claims are rejected under 35 USC §101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim recites at a very level, the manipulation, clustering, summarization and display of grouped social media post data. Thus, the claims encompass the performance of the limitations in the mind, or alternatively the solving of a math problem (i.e., a series of mathematical steps) that are not tied to a practical application.
Regarding the independent claims (claims 1 and 20):
Step 1: Yes, claim 1 is directed to a method (therefore a process), and claim 20 is directed to a system (therefore a product/machine). Thus, each of these claims is directed to a statutory category.
Step 2A, Prong 1 (Judicial Exception Recited?): Yes. Claims 1 and 20 recite limitations directed to an abstract idea: “processing … to generate …”, “generating …”, “generating …”, “generating … a visualization …”. As drafted, each of these limitations recites a mentally performable process as one can generate a representation of a social media post (e.g., a word count), cluster/group a collection of texts, summarize data/text, and determine how one intends to visualize a representation (i.e., before actually displaying the representation) via a mental process or using paper and pencil, or alternatively employing mathematical steps, such as a basis for a vector (counting words) and clustering.
Step 2A, Prong 2 (Integrated into a Practical Application?): No. Claim 1 recites the following additional elements, "one or more processors” (hardware), “computing device” (hardware) and “machine learning model” (software), and claim 20 recites "one or more processors and one or more memories” (hardware), “machine learning model” (software), and “computing device” (hardware). Each of these are merely high-level recitations of generic computer components and represent mere instructions to apply on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application.
Additionally, claims 1 and 20 each recites “obtaining [i.e., receiving] …” and “outputting [displaying or transmitting] …”. These limitations reflect insignificant extra-solution activity as retrieval/receiving [obtaining] of data (i.e. mere data gathering) such as 'obtaining information' as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
Further, claims 1 and 20 each recites “outputting …” visualization data. It is noted that: Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit [i.e., output] data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide significantly more. See Affinity Labs v. DirecTV, 838 F.3d 1253, 1262, 120 USPQ2d 1201, 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (cellular telephone); TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto, LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 613, 118 USPQ2d 1744, 1748 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (computer server and telephone unit).
Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Viewing the additional limitations together and the claims as a whole, nothing provides integration into a practical application. Therefore, each claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B (Inventive Concept Provided?): No. As discussed with respect to Step 2A, the elements (i.e., steps of obtaining/receiving and outputting/transmitting) in the claim amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components (e.g., processors, storage, models) cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B.
With respect to the obtaining/receiving and outputting/transmitting limitations discussed above, and when re-evaluated, these elements are well-understood, routine, and conventional as evidenced by the court cases in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II), "i. Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information); … OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363, 115 USPQ2d 1090, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (sending messages over a network); buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (computer receives and sends information over a network);" and thus remains insignificant extra-solution activity that does not provide significantly more.
Therefore, each of the claims, taken as a whole, does not change this conclusion and the claim is ineligible.
Claims 2-11 and 13-19 depend upon claim 1, and do not correct the issues set forth above. These claims essentially receiving data (well-understood, routine, and conventional), reducing data (mental concept [eliminate erroneous data]), dimension reduction (math steps), clustering (mental concepts / math steps), scoring clusters and updating (mental concepts / math steps), stance/agreement detection (mental concepts / math steps), similarity determination (mental concepts / math steps), summarizing (mental concepts) or characterizing posts (mental concepts), language processing (mental concepts), scoring posts/clusters (mental concepts / math steps).
Claim 21 depends upon claim 20 and does not correct the issues set forth above. The claim essentially is directed to recognizing a characteristic (e.g., source) of data/text and summarizing data/text (mental concepts / math steps).
Therefore, the claims (1-11 and 13-21) are reasonably rejected under 35 USC §101.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Relevance is provided in at least the Abstract of each cited document.
US Patent Application Publications
Estes 2014/0129558
A mechanism is provided in a data processing system for timeline-based social media data visualization. The mechanism receives social media data from at least one social media server. The mechanism filters the social media data to identify a plurality of social media posts related to a time-based event. The mechanism assigns the plurality of social media posts into a plurality of time periods within a timeline of the time-based event. The mechanism generates a timeline-based data visualization presenting the plurality of social media posts in relation to the timeline of the time-based event and presents the timeline-based data visualization. (Abstract). Data visualization 400 may present representative social media posts, such as primary source post 404. In the depicted example, primary source post 404 is associated with a key event or cluster of social media posts on timeline 401. Primary source post 404 presents the author and content of the post. Primary post 404 also presents a "score" (157 in the depicted example) for the post. Data visualization 400 may also present other clusters 407 of social media activity that do not have a high enough score to display in the upper field. Primary post 404 is considered an important posting representing a post with a high score and aligning with a significant cluster of social media activity. (para 0048).
US Patents
Hui 9,430,738
Disclosed are methods for implementing a methodological framework for automatically categorizing and summarizing emotions expressed in social chatter by using a “knowledge base” of emotional words/phrases as an input to define a distance metric between conversations and conducting hierarchical clustering based on the distance metric. (Abstract).
Acharya 7,844,557
As shown in FIG. 4, a received record can be a document describing a particular television program. Data mapped into a first attribute 402a (i.e., an "identification attribute") corresponds to record identifier (e.g., a particular television program) and is characterized by the term "8498618"; data mapped into another attribute 402d (i.e., a "descriptor attribute") corresponds to keywords for the television program identified in attribute 402a and is characterized by the terms listed from "Best" to "Child"; data mapped into attribute 402n (i.e., a "genre attribute") corresponds to the genre for the television program identified in attribute 402a and is characterized by the terms "Kids" and "Cartoon"; data mapped into other attributes correspond to the date, start time, end time, duration, of the television program identified in attribute 402a and are characterized by the terms "20040410", "0930", "1000", and "30", respectively. In one embodiment, the term "***" represents missing data. In another embodiment, the same term can appear multiple times within the same attribute (e.g., the keyword attribute 402d contains multiple instances of the term "Family". In the illustrated embodiment, terms such as "0SubCulture" are abstract terms supplemented by the ontology. Records are represented within the system as vectors. The dimension of each vector corresponds to the total number of terms characterizing all attributes found in all records processed by the system (i.e., the global vocabulary of the system). Values assigned to components of a vector represent the presence of a term within a corresponding record. For example, a vector component can be binarily represented as either a 0 (indicating the absence of a term from a record) or a 1 (indicating the presence of a term in a record). (col. 6 line 42 – col. 7 line 13).
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to examiner ROBERT STEVENS whose telephone number is (571) 272-4102. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 6:00 - 2:30.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amy Ng can be reached on (571) 270-1698. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ROBERT STEVENS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2164
September 19, 2026
Prosecution Insights