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 .
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vangpat et al. (US 2013/0086670 A1), hereinafter “Vangpat”, and in view of Feng et al. (US 2016/0062959 A1), hereinafter “Feng”, and further in view of Ron et al. (US 2018/0322403 A1), hereinafter “Ron”.
As per claim 1, Vangpat teaches a method for credentialization and provisioning, the method comprising:
“logging into an administration and authorization site with a location and credentials by an owner of a target application” at [0027], [0038], [0053] and Figs. 1-3;
(Vangpat teaches the host system 104 includes an authentication provider 114 (i.e., “administration adj authorization site”) for each third party system 106 (i.e., “target applications”.) the host system 104 is implemented as the server 202. The user authenticates his or her identity to the server 202 to obtain a session identifier that identifies the user in subsequent communications with the server 202)
“receiving target application credentials at an access control tokenizer” at [0030];
(Vangpat teaches the third party system 106 comprises authorization service 116 that generates and provide a login page to prompt a user to enter credentials for purposes of logging that user into the third party system 106, and the token servlet module 118 (i.e., “access control tokenizer”) that generates security tokens to be used by the host system 104 for purposes of accessing third party user data maintained by the third party system 106)
“assembling a token request and using a communications template to package information for delivering to the target application, using an authentication process comprising sending the token request to the target application” at [0054], [0059] and Fig. 4;
(Vangpat teaches assembling a suitably formatted token request to the third party system. Token request 336 is realized as a POST request that is directed to and identifies the third party system. The content of the POST request is similar to that described for the login request 306)
“receiving and storing one or more credentialization choices” at [0071];
(Vangpat teaches the framework allows customization at a finer level of detail, such as choosing which third party data field is used to update the user’s name in the host system. Customizability includes the ability to fetch more information from the third party system. For example, if using FACEBOOK as the third party, the system could be customized and configured to fetch a list of the user’s friends, find equivalent users in the host system)
“receiving a selection of one or more templates from a list of templates” at [0072];
(Vangpat teaches a number of popular, common, or highly relevant third party system or providers are defined (e.g., FACEBOOK, TWITTER, etc.) These predefined third party systems may be listed in a suitable GUI element such as a dropdown list. Thus, when a predefined third party provider is selected, the provider’s required fields are shown to the host system administrator)
“receiving a selection of one or more communication channels and one or more parameters for the target application” at [0028]-[0032];
(Vangpat teaches selecting one or more communication channels such as TCP/IP, or Bluetooth and one or more parameters such as credentials for the target application)
“receiving a selection of one or more types of reports and analytics that will be used for gaining insights about performance of the target application” at [0062]-[0064];
(Vangpat teaches the data request 346 represents a request to obtain some user data that is maintained by the third party system. The third party process the data request and access, retrieve the requested third party user data. The obtained third party user data can then be sent to the requesting host system)
Vangpat does not teach: “receiving a selection of one or more attributes for escalation and notification triggers for the target application; receiving a selection of a re-crawl frequency comprising one or more attributes for timing and scheduling of tasks”, “receiving a selection to deploy a crawler to work on the target application”, nor “receiving a selection defining a URL, JSON object or HTML file to publish a frequently ask questions that will be automatically generated after the target application has been crawled” as claimed. However, Feng teaches a method for crawling a webpage to extract Question and Answer pairs from the webpage, comprising the steps of:
“receiving a selection of one or more attributes for escalation and notification triggers for the target application” at [0023]-[0024];
(Feng teaches receiving rating from the user, the rating can be a word (e.g., excellent, good, moderate, bad, terrible). An online learning model may then model the user feedback to improve the system’s performance on answering questions)
“receiving a selection of a re-crawl frequency comprising one or more attributes for timing and scheduling of tasks” at [0026]-[0027];
(Feng teaches the web miner receives a re-visit policy that states when to check for changes to the web page)
“receiving a selection to deploy a crawler to work on the target application” at [0026]-[0027];
(Feng teaches the web miner receives a selection policy that states which pages to download)
“receiving a selection defining a URL, JSON object or HTML file to publish a frequently ask questions that will be automatically generated after the target application has been crawled” at [0028-0031];
(Feng teaches the web miner receives a selection defining HTML file to publish QA pairs extracted from FAQ pages)
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Feng with Vangpat’s teaching in order to provide “an improved method and apparatus for responding to an inquiry from a client via a network. Based on the inquiry, question-answer pairs (e.g., FAQs or QA pairs) retrieved from the network are analyzed to determine a response to the inquiry”, as suggested by Feng at [0008].
Vangpat does not explicitly teach “wherein the one or more attributes define one or more triggering events based on one or more customer sentiment, customer tone, a number of dialog turns, and a timer” as claimed. However, Ron teaches a method for dynamic switching between bots and a terminal devices operated by live agent during a communication session including the steps of: “receiving a selection of one or more attributes for escalation and notification triggers for the target application, wherein the one or more attributes define one or more triggering events based on one or more customer sentiment, customer tone, a number of dialog turns, and a timer” at [0102]-[0103], [0108]-[0111]. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Ron with Vangpat’s teaching because “advantageously, the communication session can dynamically switch between the bot and the terminal devices to improve the balance of tasks associated with the terminal device”, as suggested by Ron at [0006].
As per claim 2, Vangpat-Feng and Ron teach the method of claim 1 discussed above. Vangpat also teaches: wherein “the one or more credentialization choices comprise one or more of: confirm connection to the target application to grant authorization to read and write into a timeline and to grant authorization to access contact records of followers and other third-party users of the target application” at [0071].
As per claim 3, Vangpat-Feng and Ron teach the method of claim 1 discussed above. Vangpat also teaches: wherein “the list of templates comprises a business specific list of templates” at [0072]
As per claim 4, Vangpat-Feng and Ron teach the method of claim 1 discussed above. Vangpat also teaches: wherein “the one or more parameters comprise one or more default communication parameters available in the target application” at [0028]-[0032].
As per claim 5, Vangpat-Feng and Ron teach the method of claim 1 discussed above. Feng also teaches: wherein “the one or more attributes for escalation and notification triggers comprise one or more of: a tone of an end user or speaker to ascertain a trigger for escalation or notification, a length of time a bot has been engaged with an end user or speaker, and a business classification according to a dialog with an end user or speaker” at [0023]-[0024].
As per claim 6, Vangpat-Feng and Ron teach the method of claim 1 discussed above. Feng also teaches: wherein “the one or more attributes for escalation and notification triggers may specify an address of a 3rd party platform” at [0029]-[0033].
As per claim 7, Vangpat-Feng and Ron teach the method of claim 1 discussed above. Feng also teaches: wherein “the frequently asked questions comprise an artificial intelligence-based set of answers to questions” at [0023]-[0024], [0029]-[0033].
As per claim 8, Vangpat-Feng and Ron teach the method of claim 1 discussed above. Feng also teaches: further comprising “receiving a selection to stop the crawler from working on the target application” at [0027].
As per claim 9, Vangpat-Feng and Ron teach the method of claim 1 discussed above. Feng also teaches: wherein “the one or more attributes for escalation and notification triggers for the target application comprise one or more of: an SMS-based alert, an address for a third party automatic call distributor, a chat system, an email system, an in-car telemetry system, a public switched telephone network, and a cell phone number” at [0029]-[0033].
As per claim 10, Vangpat-Feng and Ron teach the method of claim 1 discussed above. Vangpat also teaches: wherein “the selection of one or more communication channels and one or more parameters correspond to default communication parameters available in the target application” at [0028]-[0032].
Claims 11-20 recite similar limitations as in claims 1-10 and are therefore rejected by the same reasons.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 7/27/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The examiner respectfully traverses Applicant’s arguments.
Regarding claim 1, Applicant argued that “neither Vangpat nor Feng, alone or in combination, teaches or suggests “receiving a selection defining a URL, JSON object or HTML file to publish a frequently asked questions that will be automatically generated after the target application has been created,”, as recited in claim 1”. On the contrary, Feng teaches at [0028-0031] the web miner receives a selection defining HTML file to publish QA pairs extracted from FAQ pages. Feng also teaches at [0031] that “once the web miner obtains QA pairs and stores them in the database 307, the feature extractor 308 extracts the QA pairs from the database 307 and labels each QA pairs with corresponding meta0level feature. These meta-level features includes a description of the actual text of the QA pair, the location of the QA pair (e.g., the web page, the location of the web page and relationship with other QA pairs on the web site. Feng therefore teaches “receiving a selection defining a URL, JSON object or HTML file to publish a frequently asked questions that will be automatically generated after the target application has been created” as required by the claims.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the limitation “wherein the one or more attributes define one or more triggering events based on one or more customer sentiment, customer tone, a number of dialog turns, and a timer” have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KHANH B PHAM whose telephone number is (571)272-4116. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8am to 4pm.
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/KHANH B PHAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166
August 10, 2026
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