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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Application
Claims 1-31 have been examined in this application. This communication is the first action on the merits.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 7, 8, 10, 21, 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 7 recites the limitation “the contextually consistent supplemental content”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 8 recites the limitation “the plurality of conversion goals”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 10 recites the limitation “the advertisements”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 21 recites the limitation “the contextually consistent advertisements”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 22 recites the limitation “the advertisement”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Claim 1 is directed towards a method, thus meeting the Step 1 eligibility criterion. Claim 1 does recite the abstract concept of a commercial interaction/fundamental economic practice, which has been identified as an abstract idea by the MPEP. The relevant claimed limitations include: providing identification information for a provider of supplemental content / retrieving information on the provider of supplemental information from the Internet using the identification information to generate a content source profile / retrieving a user profile about the user/ generating supplemental content. Claim 1 also recites the abstract concept of a mental concept – i.e. mental process that can be performed in the human mind or using pen/paper, including an observation/evaluation/judgment, which has been identified as an abstract idea by the MPEP: providing identification information for a provider of supplemental content / retrieving a user profile about the user / retrieving information on the provider of supplemental content from the internet using the identification information to generate a content source profile. These claimed limitations, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, cover performance in the human mind but for the recitation of generic computing elements – see below, thus still being in the mental process category.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Claim 1 includes the additional elements of analyzing/computing/selecting and generating data using language models (‘computing, with a user mindset prediction language model configured to determine a user’s mindset while reviewing content, the user’s mindset based on the primary content presented to the user’, ‘selecting, by a supplemental source selection language model configured to select supplemental sources, the provider of supplemental content from a plurality of supplemental sources, based on the primary content’, ‘generating with a supplemental content generation language model configured to generate supplemental content, one or more pieces of supplemental content for the provider of supplemental content at one or more locations that are contextually consistent with the primary content’), and generating data in real time. Generating data in real time does no more than apply or link the use of the recited judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Analyzing/computing/selecting and generating data using language models does no more than apply or link the use of the recited judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
The additional elements do not, alone or in combination, improve the functioning of the computing device or another technology/technical field, nor do they apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking its use to a particular technological environment. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Claim 1 does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, because as noted above: generating data in real time does no more than apply or link the use of the recited judicial exception to a particular technological environment/field of use. Analyzing/computing/selecting and generating data using language models does no more than apply or link the use of the recited judicial exception to a particular technological environment/field of use. The additional elements do not, alone or in combination, improve the functioning of the computing device or another technology/technical field, nor do they apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking its use to a particular technological environment. Therefore, Claim 1 does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The claim is not patent eligible.
Independent claim 22 is directed to a method for performing similar claimed limitations to those of claim 1, thus meeting the Step 1 eligibility criterion. Claim 22 recites the same abstract idea as Claim
1. The additional element of providing a chat input box to enable the user to communicate with a chat box language model (‘providing the chat input box to enable the user to interactively communicate with a chatbot language model to obtain information about the advertisement, the chat input box located at a location within the primary content’) does no more than apply or link the use of the recited judicial exception to a particular technological environment/field of use. Claim 22 performs the claimed limitations using only generic components of a networked computer system. Therefore, claim 22 is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more for the reasons given in the discussion of claim 1.
Remaining dependent claims 2-21, 23-31 further recite and narrow the abstract ideas of independent claims 1/22. The claims further recite the abstract concept of a mathematical concept, which has been identified as an abstract idea by the MPEP: determining a score of the purchase intent or a category of the purchase intent / generating a price for the advertisement at least partially based on the user’s profile or the user’s mindset / generating the price at least partially based on the contextual match. The claims further recite the additional elements of: providing a chat box to communicate with a chat language model configured to obtain data, and generating prompts within the chat box/ generating and determining data in real time / using language models to analyze , determine and generate data / training the language model using recorded data. Providing a chat box to communicate with a chat language model configured to obtain data, and generating prompts within the chat box / generating data in real time/ using language models to analyze, determine and generate data , and training the language model using recorded data do no more than apply or link the use of the recited judicial exception to a particular technological environment/field of use. The additional elements do not, alone or in combination with the other additional elements , improve the functioning of the computing device or another technology/technical field, nor do they apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking its use to a particular technological environment. Therefore, the claims above do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The claims are not patent eligible.
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 1, 7, 14, 19, 20, 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057).
As per Claim 1, Woods teaches:
providing identification information for a provider of supplemental content; (at least fig4 and associated/related text; para 98 , 79)
retrieving information on the provider of supplemental content from the internet using the identification information to generate a content source profile; (at least fig4 and associated/related text, and para 98, 79)
retrieving a user profile about the user; (at least para 48, 39)
Rahman further teaches:
computing, with a user mindset prediction language model configured to determine a user's mindset while reviewing content, the user's mindset based on the primary content presented to the user; (at least: para 65, 42, 68)
selecting, by a supplemental source selection language model configured to select supplemental sources, the provider of supplemental content from a plurality of supplemental sources, based on the primary content; (at least para 65, 42, 4: “In some implementations, a computer system can enhance the content shown on an interface, such as by adding supplemental analysis results to a document interface. The computer system can generate additional content that is coordinated with or corresponding to the content shown on a user interface using AI/ML models and non-AI/ML models. The additional content or enhancement data can be presented on the same interface to supplement the presented content. The generated enhancement data can include, for example, narratives, descriptions, and other visualizations, which provide additional context to supplement the content or data shown on the interface. For instance, the enhancement data can emphasize important or necessary information extracted from the content on the interface for the benefit of a user interacting with the interface.”)
generating in real-time, with a supplemental content generation language model configured to generate supplemental content, one or more pieces of supplemental content for the provider of supplemental content at one or more locations that are contextually consistent with the primary content. (at least para 65, 42, 4; the data is updated dynamically [real time]: at least para 22, 40, 46)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, with Rahman’s features of computing, with a user mindset prediction language model configured to determine a user's mindset while reviewing content, the user's mindset based on the primary content presented to the user / selecting, by a supplemental source selection language model configured to select supplemental sources, the provider of supplemental content from a plurality of supplemental sources, based on the primary content/ generating in real-time, with a supplemental content generation language model configured to generate supplemental content, one or more pieces of supplemental content for the provider of supplemental content at one or more locations that are contextually consistent with the primary content, to generate supplemental content to be displayed – Rahman, para 13. Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
As per Claim 7, Woods in view of Rahman teach:
Using the language model to progressively product the contextually consistent supplemental content based on the context of the primary content, and the user’s profile ( Woods, at least : para 108; 18-19 and 44: “Advertisement 124 may also be for products or services related or unrelated to the content displayed in grid 102. Advertisement 124 may be selectable and provide further information about content, provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing of content, a product, or a service, provide content relating to the advertisement, etc. Advertisement 124 may be targeted based on a user's profile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of display provided, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases.”)
As per Claim 14, Woods in view of Rahman teach:
the supplemental content is multimodal comprising images, music, movies, or text, and wherein the method comprises generating, with the language model, the multimodal supplemental content contextually relevant to the primary content. (Woods, at least : para 108; 18-19 – supplemental content is contextually relevant to the primary content)
As per Claim 19, Woods in view of Rahman teach:
The primary content comprises at least one of: a website, a software application (Woods, at least: para 36, 78; Rahman, at least: para 53, 59)
As per Claim 20, Woods in view of Rahman teach:
the supplemental content comprises an advertisement and the provider of supplemental content is an advertiser, wherein the information about the provider of the supplemental source further comprises one or more of the advertiser's websites, reviews, products, services, customers or competition. (Woods, at least: para 38 , 51, 79, 44: “Advertisement 124 may provide an advertisement for content that, depending on a viewer's access rights (e.g., for subscription programming), is currently available for viewing, will be available for viewing in the future, or may never become available for viewing, and may correspond to or be unrelated to one or more of the content listings in grid 102. Advertisement 124 may also be for products or services related or unrelated to the content displayed in grid 102. Advertisement 124 may be selectable and provide further information about content, provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing of content, a product, or a service, provide content relating to the advertisement, etc. Advertisement 124 may be targeted based on a user's profile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of display provided, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases.”)
As per Claim 21, Woods in view of Rahman teach:
the supplemental content comprises an advertisement and the provider of supplemental content is an advertiser, wherein the step of generating the supplemental content further comprises progressively producing the contextually consistent advertisements based on the user profile. (Woods, at least para 158; 187)
Claims 2, 22, 23 , 24, 30 , 31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in even further view of Kim (20180068354).
As per Claim 2, Woods in view of Rahman teach supplemental content and a provider of supplemental content, as noted above; Kim further teaches:
Providing a chat input box for the user to interactively communicate with a chat language model configured based on the information on the …content…to obtain information about the …content or the provider of the …content. (at least: para 65, 95)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, with Kim’s feature of providing a chat input box for the user to interactively communicate with a chat language model configured based on the information on the …content…to obtain information about the …content or the provider of the …content, to display ad content on a chat window – Kim, para 54.
Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
As per Claim 22, Woods teaches:
providing identification information for a provider of supplemental content; (at least fig4 and associated/related text; para 98 , 79)
retrieving information on the provider of supplemental content from the internet using the identification information to generate a content source profile; (at least fig4 and associated/related text, and para 98, 79)
obtaining user profile information about the user; (at least para 48, 39)
Rahman further teaches:
selecting, by a supplemental source selection language model configured to select supplemental sources, the provider of supplemental content from a plurality of supplemental sources, based on the primary content and the user profile information (at least para 65, 42, 4: “In some implementations, a computer system can enhance the content shown on an interface, such as by adding supplemental analysis results to a document interface. The computer system can generate additional content that is coordinated with or corresponding to the content shown on a user interface using AI/ML models and non-AI/ML models. The additional content or enhancement data can be presented on the same interface to supplement the presented content. The generated enhancement data can include, for example, narratives, descriptions, and other visualizations, which provide additional context to supplement the content or data shown on the interface. For instance, the enhancement data can emphasize important or necessary information extracted from the content on the interface for the benefit of a user interacting with the interface.”)
generating in real-time, with a supplemental content generation language model, contextually consistent supplemental content to the primary content at a plurality of contextual locations within the primary content (at least para 65, 42, 4; the data is updated dynamically [real time]: at least para 22, 40, 46)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, with Rahman’s features above, to generate supplemental content to be displayed – Rahman, para 13. Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Kim teach the primary content, as noted above, and Kim further teaches:
Providing a chat input box o enable the user to interactively communicate with a chat box language model to obtain information about the advertisement, the chat input box located at a location within the … content. (at least: para 65, 95)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, with Kim’s feature above, to display ad content on a chat window – Kim, para 54. Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
As per Claim 23, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Kim teach:
the step of generating the supplemental content further comprises progressively producing the contextually consistent supplemental content based on the user profile. (Woods, at least para 158; 187)
As per Claim 24, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Kim teach:
the supplemental content is multimodal and comprises images, music, movies, or text, and the step of generating the supplemental content in real-time to be contextually relevant to the primary content and the user's profile and matching the tone, flow and style of the primary content. (Woods, a least: para 108, 18-19; 103, 173)
As per Claim 30, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Kim teach:
The primary content comprises an website (Woods, at least: para 36, 38, 78)
As per Claim 31, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Kim teach:
the information about the advertiser further comprises one or more of the advertiser's websites, reviews, products, or competition. (Woods, at least: para 38 , 51, 79, 44: “Advertisement 124 may provide an advertisement for content that, depending on a viewer's access rights (e.g., for subscription programming), is currently available for viewing, will be available for viewing in the future, or may never become available for viewing, and may correspond to or be unrelated to one or more of the content listings in grid 102. Advertisement 124 may also be for products or services related or unrelated to the content displayed in grid 102. Advertisement 124 may be selectable and provide further information about content, provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing of content, a product, or a service, provide content relating to the advertisement, etc. Advertisement 124 may be targeted based on a user's profile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of display provided, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases.” And product/service data – at least para 44; it teaches “The above described embodiments of the present disclosure are presented for purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the present disclosure is limited only by the claims which follow.” – para 213, thus teaching advertiser data comprising product data)
Claims 3, 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in further view of Kim (20180068354), in even further view of Taheri (CA 3215460 A1).
As per Claim 3, Woods in view of Rahman teach supplemental content and a provider of supplemental content, as noted above; Taheri further teaches:
Generating, in real time, one or more contextually consistent prompts within the chat input box for the user to choose about the …content or the provider of the …content. (at least: abstract, para 40; para 56 , 110 – processing in real time)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, combined with Kim’s existing feature , with Taheri’s feature of generating, in real time, one or more contextually consistent prompts within the chat input box for the user to choose about the …content or the provider of the …content, to allow for dynamic prompting based on contextual data – Taheri, at least para 1-3.
Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
As per Claim 4, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Kim in even further view of Taheri teach:
The profile of the user is provided as an input for generating the one or more contextually consistent prompts. (Taheri, at least: abstract, para 40; para 137: “In one embodiment, the instant solution’s chatbot uses the large language model of charge card data to recognize not only the spending habits of the user but also the subtle patterns that reflect the user’s lifestyle. Using these patterns along with the user’s profile and preferences, the chatbot becomes a lifestyle strategist and makes suggestions that will further enrich the user’s lifestyle. For example, the chatbot observes a pattern in which the user opts to round up their charge card transactions to benefit a selected charity, indicating that making charitable donations is important to the user. The chatbot identifies charities with donation¬ matching opportunities if the user donates using their charge card. In another example, the chatbot observes a pattern of late-night purchases (ordering food or performing online transactions), leading the chatbot to determine that the user is more active in the evenings. With this insight, the chatbot identifies exclusive cardholder events such as late-night-at-the-museum during special exhibits and offers discounted tickets when purchasing with the charge card.”)
Claims 5, 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in even further view of Kondo (JP2015011703A).
As per Claim 5, Woods in view of Rahman teach supplemental content and primary content,as noted above, and Kondo further teaches:
Using a large language model to determine the context of the primary content and a user’s purchase intent from the user’s mindset while viewing the primary content. (at least: page 10/14: “
FIG. 22 is a conceptual diagram for explaining a method for calculating an appropriate score. The sales promotion effect estimation part 110 calculates an appropriate score using the conceptual diagram of FIG. In FIG. 22, the event content information type is information that categorizes how products are introduced. The event content information type is, for example, information A if the information obtained by natural language analysis of the event content information is delicious if the food is eaten as it is, if the promotional product is food. If it is information that it is good for health, it becomes information B, and if it is information that the food is not delicious, it becomes information C. The broadcast end time represents the broadcast end time of each introduction content. The viewing time by the first to fourth viewers represents the time of viewing each introduction content of each of the first to fourth viewers. The content-specific weighting coefficient is an index representing the degree of influence on the sales promotion effect assigned to the event content information type of each introduction content. The sales promotion effect estimation unit110 performs natural language analysis on the event content information of the introduction content, and assigns a predetermined weighting coefficient to the introduction content as a weighting coefficient for each content based on the strength of relevance with the viewer's willingness to purchase. . Specifically, for example, if the sales promotion effect estimation unit 110 determines that it is a late night laughing content as a result of natural language analysis of the introduction content vvv,the weighting coefficient is 0.5.”)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, with Kondo’s feature above, to allow for sales promotion effect estimation – Kondo, abstract . Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
As per Claim 6, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Kondo teach:
Determining a score of the purchase intent (Kondo, at least page 10/14: “On the other hand, based on the viewing time of consumers who watched the introductory content andthe elapsed time since the introductory content was broadcast, an appropriate score indicating the level of consumer interest in the promotional product was calculated. To do. The sales promotion effect estimation unit 110 and the sales promotion effect information image generation unit 112 select the sales promotion content from the introduction content according to the calculated appropriate score.
FIG. 22 is a conceptual diagram for explaining a method for calculating an appropriate score. The sales promotion effect estimation part 110 calculates an appropriate score using the conceptual diagram of FIG. In FIG. 22, the event content information type is information that categorizes how products are introduced. The event content information type is, for example, information A if the information obtained by natural language analysis of the event content information is delicious if the food is eaten as it is, if the promotional product is food. If it is information that it is good for health, it becomes information B, and if it is information that the food is not delicious, it becomes information C. The broadcast end time represents the broadcast end time of each introduction content. The viewing time by the first to fourth viewers represents the time of viewing each introduction content of each of the first to fourth viewers.”)
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in further view of Knijnik (10970742 ).
As per Claim 8, Woods in view of Rahman teach the supplemental content being an ad and the provider of the content being an advertiser, and Kniknik teaches:
generating a price for the advertisement at least partially based on the user's profile or the user's mindset; extracting, by a bidding strategy language model, a plurality of goals from a bidding strategy comprising text describing goals of the provider of supplemental content; and configuring a bidding agent language model for the provider of supplemental content based on the plurality of goals to implement an automated agent to generate a bid for the advertisement based on the plurality of conversion goals. (at least: claim 1)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, with Knijnik’s feature of generating a price for the advertisement at least partially based on the user's profile or the user's mindset; extracting, by a bidding strategy language model, a plurality of goals from a bidding strategy comprising text describing goals of the provider of supplemental content; and configuring a bidding agent language model for the provider of supplemental content based on the plurality of goals to implement an automated agent to generate a bid for the advertisement based on the plurality of conversion goals, to optimize capital allocation for ad campaigns – Knijnik, abstract. Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in further view of Knijnik (10970742 ), in even further view of Official Notice.
As per Claim 9, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Knijnik teach setting the ad price;
the Examiner takes Official Notice that it is old and well known in the art to set the price at least partially based on the geographic location obtained from the user’s profile – see, for example, ad pricing rules/criteria that take into account the geographic locations of the users that are being shown the ad content.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the features taught by Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Knijnik, to include the feature noted above returned of Examiner’s Official Notice, because all the claimed elements/steps were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements/steps as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in further view of Knijnik (10970742 ), in even further view of Chandratillake (20090089830).
As per Claim 10, Woods in view of Rahman teach the supplemental content being an ad and the provider of the content being an advertiser, and a primary content; Chandratillake teaches:
Determining a level o contextual match for the advertisement to the …content and generating the price at least partially based on the contextual match, wherein the higher the contextual match the higher the price of the advertisements. (at least: para 48)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, combined with Knijnik’s existing feature, with Chandratillake’s feature above, to pair ads with related content – Chandratillake, abstract. Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claims 11, 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in further view of Knijnik (10970742 ), in further view of Chandratillake (20090089830), in even further view of Official Notice.
As per Claim 11, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Knijnik in further view of Chandratillake teach ads comprising items and the items having a monetary value, as noted above; the Examiner takes Official Notice that it is old and well known in the art that the higher the item monetary vole the higher the ad price – see, for example, the various rules/criteria that are taken into account when setting ad prices by advertisers, including ad content criteria.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the features taught by Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Knijnik in further view of Chandratillake, to include the feature noted above returned of Examiner’s Official Notice, because all the claimed elements/steps were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements/steps as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
As per Claim 12, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Knijnik in further view of Chandratillake teach ads comprising items; the Examiner takes Official Notice that it is old and well known in the art to rank ads and determining a ranking for the advertisement based on the price of the advertisement- see, for example, the various rules/criteria that are taken into account when ranking ads by advertisers/ad buyers/content providers.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the features taught by Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Knijnik in further view of Chandratillake, to include the feature noted above returned of Examiner’s Official Notice, because all the claimed elements/steps were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements/steps as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in further view of Zhong (
CN120406908A) in even further view of Yahia (20080114759).
As per Claim 15, Woods in view of Rahman teach the supplemental content being an ad and the provider of the content being an advertiser, and Zhong teaches:
providing a chat input box for the user to interactively communicate with a chat language model configured based on the information on the advertiser to obtain information about the advertisement or advertiser; and determining a purchase intent of the user based on a query provided to the chat input box and the chat language model, (at least: abstract, page4/9 – bottom 3 paras, page 3/9: “Application potential of AI technology in sales communication:1. the intelligent customer service is assisted, and the rapid development of the artificial intelligent technology brings brand new opportunities for sales communication. The AI has strong natural language processing capability and data analysis capability, can quickly understand the customer problem, and generates accurate and professional replies. In the sales scenario, the AI can undertake partially repetitive and regular chat works, such as common problem solutions, product introduction, etc., so that sales personnel can put more time and effort into high-value customer relationship maintenance and sales strategy formulation.”)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, with Zhong’s feature above, to provide an efficient sales aggregation chat service – Zhong, abstract. Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Yahia further teaches:
the higher the purchase intent the higher a price of the advertisement. (at least: para 27)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, combined with Zhong’s existing feature , with Yahia’s feature above, since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claims 16 , 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in even further view of Pasrija (
DE202025102096U1).
As per Claim 16, Woods in view of Rahman teach the supplemental content being an ad and the provider of the content being an advertiser, and Pasrija teaches:
determining in real time, by a contextual placement language model configured to place an advertisement within content, the one or more locations in the primary content that contextually fit: a) the profile of the of the advertiser; b) the user's mindset; or c) the profile of the user. (at least: abstract – “ A system (100) for AI-driven real-time optimization of ad placement in dynamic media streams, comprising: a) a media stream ingestion module configured to receive and pre-process live or continuously streamed content; b) a content analysis and context understanding module operatively coupled to the ingestion module and configured to analyze the media content in real time using natural language processing, computer vision, and audio signal analysis; c) an audience profiling and behavior tracking module configured to generate dynamic viewer profiles based on demographic, behavioral, and contextual data; d) an AI-based ad matching and scoring module configured to select and prioritize ads based on content relevance, audience profile match, and predicted engagement; e) a real-time decisioning and placement module configured to inserts selected ads at contextually appropriate points in the media stream without interrupting the viewer experience; and f) a feedback and analytics module configured to track ad performance and update AI models for the continuous optimization of future ad placements.”)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, with Pasrija’s feature above, to optimize ad placement in dynamic media streams – Pasrija, abstract . Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
As per Claim 17, Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Pasrija teach:
Recording user activity associated with versions of a plurality of advertisements at the one or more locations in the primary content, and using the recorder user activity as feedback to the language model to improve conversion goals of the advertiser for the advertisements (Pasrija, abstract , parge 1 – last para)
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in further view of Chandratillake (20090089830) in even further view of Karganroodi (20260059182).
As per Claim 18, Woods in view of Rahman teach supplemental content being an advertisement ,primary content, and the provider of supplemental content being an advertiser, as noted above, and Chandratillake further teaches:
Determining a contextual match of the advertisement with the primary content to determine a pricing of the advertisement, the higher the contextual match the higher a price of the advertisement for the advertiser (at least: para 48)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, with Chandratillake’s feature above, to pair ads with related content – Chandratillake, abstract.
Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Karganroodi further teaches:
Computing the contextual match comprises computing a cosine distance between vector embeddings of the advertisement and the primary content. (at least: para 46)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, combined with Chandratillake’s feature above, with Karganroodi’s feature above, to provide contextual advertising based on content comparison/matching– Karganroodi, abstract. Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claim 25 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable in view of Woods (20250168457) in further view of Rahman (20260087057), in further view of Kim (20180068354), in even further view of Chandratillake (20090089830).
As per Claim 10, Woods in view of Rahman teach the supplemental content being an ad and the provider of the content being an advertiser, and a primary content; Chandratillake teaches:
the generated advertisement exceeds a threshold of a contextual match between the generated advertisement and the primary content, the higher the contextual match the higher a price of the advertisements to the advertiser. (at least: para 48)
It would have been obvious for someone skilled in the art at the time of the filing of the
invention to modify Woods’s existing features, combined with Rahman’s existing features, combined with Kim’s existing feature, with Chandratillake’s feature above, to pair ads with related content – Chandratillake, abstract. Furthermore, the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
The prior art of record does not teach neither singly nor in combination the limitations of claims 13, 26-29.
With respect to claim 13: while the cited prior art of Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Knijnik in further view of Chandratillake in even further view of Official Notice do teach the claimed limitations of pending claim 12 (on which Claim 13 depends on), when taken as a whole, claim 13 is not rendered obvious as the available prior art does not suggest or otherwise render obvious the noted features nor does the available prior art suggest or otherwise render obvious further modification of the evidence at hand. Such modifications would require substantial reconstruction relying solely on improper hindsight bias, and thus would not be obvious.
With respect to claims 26-29: the cited prior art of Woods in view of Rahman in further view of Kim in even further view of Chandratillake does not teach neither singly nor in combination the limitations of claims 26-29. When taken as a whole, claims 26-29 are not rendered obvious as the available prior art does not suggest or otherwise render obvious the noted features nor does the available prior art suggest or otherwise render obvious further modification of the evidence at hand. Such modifications would require substantial reconstruction relying solely on improper hindsight bias, and thus would not be obvious.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Alexandru Cirnu whose telephone number is (571) 272-7775. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM. 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.
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/Alexandru Cirnu/
Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3622
8/11/2026
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