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 .
Claims 1-20 are active in this application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 06/09/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Examiner's Note
The Examiner respectfully requests of the Applicants in preparing responses, to fully consider the entirety of the references as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention.
It is noted, REFERENCES ARE RELEVANT AS PRIOR ART FOR ALL THEY CONTAIN. "The use of patents as references is not Limited to what the patentees describe as their own inventions or to the problems with which they are concerned. They are part of the Literature of the art, relevant for all they contain." In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332-33, 216 USPQ 1038, 1039 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009, 158 USPQ 275, 277 (CCPA 1968)). A reference may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill the art, including non-preferred embodiments (see MPEP 2123).
The Examiner has cited particular locations in the reference(s) as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the Applicants. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claims, typically other passages and figures will apply as well.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4 and 11-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Mallal (US 2025/0111193).
Regarding claims 1 and 11, Mallal discloses a method and an electronic device (Figure 1C) comprising:
a memory storing computer-executable instructions (Figure 1C); and
at least one processor (Figure 1C) configured to access the memory and execute the instructions to perform operations comprising:
storing, based on an identifier of a document being a primary key, the document including at least one word, metadata of the document, and classification information of the document ([0101], “the Embedding Generator builds an Embedding vector. Word embeddings fundamentally revolve around the idea that each word in a language can be denoted by a unique set of real-number values, essentially a vector. These vectors serve as learned representations, positioning words within an n-dimensional space. In this space, words sharing similar meanings exhibit closely situated vector representations, resulting in their proximity. The vectors are not just restricted to words and can be extended to sentences, phrases, paragraphs or entire documents. The primary objective when creating a word embedding space is to encapsulate specific associations within that space, whether they pertain to meaning, structure, context, or some other form of relationship” , [0213] and [0282]);
applying, to the document, a regular expression for identifying a section in the document to thereby obtain a target paragraph in the document ([0285]); and
outputting, based on an input being received, the document based on the received input and a feature vector of the target paragraph and the received input ([0101], [0144]).
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Mallal discloses wherein storing the document, the metadata, and the classification information comprises: determining the classification information based on (i) an object identified from contents included in the document and (ii) an action corresponding to the object ([0101], [0213] and [0282]); identifying, from a server configured to store the document, the metadata including description information of the document ([0204], [0281], and [0285]); and storing the document, the metadata, and the classification information in a database, the database being configured to store the identifier as the primary key ([0213], [0281] and [0285]).
Regarding claims 3 and 13, Mallal discloses wherein obtaining the target paragraph comprises: applying the regular expression to the document to thereby identify a target section that is included in the document and that is associated with an abstract of the document or contents included in the document ([0213], [0281] and [0285]); and obtaining the feature vector of the target paragraph based on a paragraph corresponding to the target section being the target paragraph ([0101], [0144]).
Regarding claims 4 and 14, Mallal discloses wherein the operations further comprise: receiving, from a user device, the input including at least one of object classification information ([0204], [0285]), a question ([0113]-[0115] and [0122]), or a search weight ([0141] and [0194]).
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 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 of this title, 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 5-7, and 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mallal (US 2025/0111193) and in view of Khanwalkar (US 12,057,032).
Regarding claims 5 and 15, Mallal discloses all the claim subject matter as set forth above. However, Mallal is silent as to wherein receiving the input comprises: identifying a type of the question from the received input; and determining whether the question is an academic question. On the other hand, Khanwalkar teaches receiving the input comprises: identifying a type of the question from the received input and determining whether the question is an academic question (Khanwalkar: Col. 3, lines 37-39, Col. 4, lines 5-7, determining type of questions and Col. 19, lines 54-66 and Col. 30, lines 4-14). It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to receiving the input comprises: identifying a type of the question from the received input and determining whether the question is an academic question as suggested by Khanwalkar. The motivation would have been to enhance the Mallal system to utilize different type of questions for better searching performance.
Regarding claims 6 and 16, Mallal in view of Khanwalkar discloses wherein outputting the document comprises: determining at least one large language model (LLM) output generated from an LLM as an output corresponding to the received input (Mallal: [0144], [0024] and [0196]).
Regarding claims 7 and 17, Mallal in view of Khanwalkar discloses wherein outputting the document comprises: obtaining, based on the question being the academic question and the object classification information and the classification information of the document being identical, a comparison vector regarding a feature of the question (Khanwalkar: Col. 3, lines 37-39, Col. 4, lines 5-7, determining type of questions and Col. 19, lines 54-66 and Col. 30, lines 4-14 and (Mallal: [0101], [0144]).
Claims 10 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mallal (US 2025/0111193) and in view of Zadeh (US 2025/0335706).
Regarding claims 10 and 20, Mallal discloses all the claim subject matter as set forth above. However, Mallal is silent as to obtaining a rouge score regarding at least one LLM output obtained by applying a question included in the received input to an LLM based on a determination that the document is an output corresponding to the received input; and performing a comparison between the rouge score and a predetermined value to thereby verify validation of the output. On the other hand, Zadeh discloses obtaining a rouge score regarding at least one LLM output obtained by applying a question included in the received input to an LLM based on a determination that the document is an output corresponding to the received input (Zadeh: [0118] and [0129] and [0150]); and performing a comparison between the rouge score and a predetermined value to thereby verify validation of the output (Zadeh: [0081], [0118] and [0129] and [0148]-[0150]). It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art obtaining a rouge score regarding at least one LLM output obtained by applying a question included in the received input to an LLM based on a determination that the document is an output corresponding to the received input; and performing a comparison between the rouge score and a predetermined value to thereby verify validation of the output as suggested by Zadeh. The motivation would have been to enhance the Mallal system to utilize a rouge score for better outcome performance.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-9 and 18-19 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Zeldes (US 2026/0093991) discloses using compressed representations to adapt generative models to new context data.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MERILYN P NGUYEN whose telephone number is 571-272-4026. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kavita Stanley can be reached on (571) 272-8352. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MERILYN P NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2153
June 27, 2026
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