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 .
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s Response, filed 06/09/2026, amended claims 1, 22 & 23. New claims 24-26 were added. Therefore, claims 1-26 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Regarding the § 101 rejection, Applicant’s claim amendments and supporting arguments have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.
Regarding the § 103 rejection, Applicant’s claim amendments and supporting arguments have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.
However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of the claim amendments and the Brooks reference, cited in the IDS filed 01/26/2026 (citation # 255 in the 30-page document).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
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.
Claim 26 is 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.
New claim 26 recites “wherein the interactive element is adapted to enable a user to change at least one value associated with the context information.” The emphasized language renders the limitation optional and without patentable weight. The examiner recommends overcoming this rejection by positively reciting an action. For example, “wherein the interactive element receives, from a user, a [[to]] change to at least one value associated with the context information.”
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(d)
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claims 2, 3 & 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends.
Claim 2 recites limitations that have been substantively amended into claim 1 without canceling claim 2. Claims 3 & 6 depend on claim 2 and are rejected for their dependency.
Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 1-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over:
(i) Altaf et al. (US 2018/0225365 A1, hereinafter “Altaf”) in view of
(ii) “Chatbot-Based Natural Language Interfaces for Data Visualisation: A Scoping Review” by Ecem Kavaz, et al. (published 11 June 2023, hereinafter “Kavaz”), and further in view of
(iii) Brooks (US 2023/0214461 A1, cited in the IDS filed 01/26/2026, hereinafter “Brooks”).
Altaf teaches:
1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions that when executed by at least one processor cause the at least one processor to perform operations for dynamically displaying, in an interactive messaging interface and based on user input, a graphical depiction of at least a portion of a linked database [Altaf, ¶¶ 0054 & 0056], the operations comprising:
displaying a graphical user interface to the user of the host platform, the graphical user interface including the interactive messaging interface [Altaf, ¶ 0054];
receiving, via the graphical user interface, a first user input from the user [Altaf, ¶ 0054];
accessing at least one database associated with a particular context of the first user input [Altaf, ¶ 0054];
analyzing data within the at least one database to identify context information from the at least one database [Altaf, ¶ 0056].
Altaf does not explicitly teach, but Kavaz teaches:
presenting to the user a graphical depiction of the context information within the interactive messaging interface, wherein the graphical depiction shares at least one graphical characteristic with the format of the context information [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
Altaf and Kavaz are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, chatbot query interfaces. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Altaf with the chatbot input and output interaction techniques taught by Kavaz to arrive at a user-friendly interface for information retrieval that is customizable across a variety of applications. See also Kavaz’s section 1 Introduction at pages 1-3 for additional rationale of combining chatbots for iterative refinements in search and retrieval use cases.
The combination of Altaf and Kavaz does not explicitly teach, but Brooks teaches:
wherein the at least one graphical characteristic is extracted from one or more graphical elements corresponding to the context information and is applied to generate, within the interactive messaging interface, at least a portion of the graphical depiction as an interactive element having the at least one graphical characteristic [Brooks, ¶¶ 0061 & 0062].
Altaf, Kavaz, and Brooks are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, chatbot query interfaces. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Altaf and Kavaz with the information retrieval output presentation and interaction techniques taught by Brooks to arrive at a user-friendly interface for information retrieval that is customizable across a variety of applications.
The combination of Altaf, Kavaz, and Brooks teaches:
2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the graphical depiction is an interactive element [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving, via the interactive element, a second user input from the user [Altaf, ¶ 0069];
updating context information displayed in the graphical depiction based on content of the second user input [Altaf, ¶ 0069]; and
sending the updated context information to the at least one database and updating the at least one database based on the updated context information [Altaf, ¶ 0066].
4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the at least database is located on the host platform [Altaf, ¶ 0021].
5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the at least one database is located on an application external to the host platform or a service external to the host platform [Altaf, ¶ 0036].
6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the graphical depiction is linked to the at least one database [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
7. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the graphical depiction updates in real time as changes to the at least one database are detected [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the graphical depiction is constructed to replicate a design of the at least one database [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the graphical depiction includes graphical elements imported from the at least one database [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the graphical elements are imported from the at least one database via an integration schema [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the at least one database is imported into the graphical depiction via an integration schema [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the graphical depiction is constructed using predefined graphical elements that exist within the host platform [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the at least one database includes a plurality of databases and a portion of the plurality of databases are associated with applications external to the host platform or services external to the host platform [Altaf, ¶¶ 0021 & 0036].
14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the interactive messaging interface is part of a third-party application separate from the host platform [Kavaz, page 22, § 4.6].
15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the graphical depiction is constructed using predefined graphical elements that exist within the third-party application [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the accessing of the at least one database is controlled by permissions [Altaf, ¶ 0042].
17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the analyzing of the data within the at least one database involves extracting metadata from the at least one database [Altaf, ¶ 0066].
18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the accessing the at least one database, the analyzing the data within the at least one database, and the presenting the graphical depiction within the interactive messaging interface to the user are performed by an artificial intelligence agent [Altaf, ¶¶ 0001 & 0002].
19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the first user input includes a keyword that activates the artificial intelligence agent [Altaf, ¶ 0053].
20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the artificial intelligence agent monitors the interactive messaging interface to detect the first user input, the first user input being indicative of a user intent or task requirement [Altaf, ¶ 0057].
21. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the graphical depiction mirrors the format of the context information [Kavaz, page 17, § 4.3 and Figure 9, Interaction Space].
Claims 22 & 23 recite limitations that correspond to those recited in claim 1, and both are rejected for the same reasons discussed above.
24. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the at least one graphical characteristic comprises at least one of color, font, size, or style [Brooks, ¶ 0061].
25. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the one or more graphical elements corresponding to the context information comprise one or more interactive cells of a table structure displayed by the host platform [Brooks, ¶ 0056].
26. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the interactive element is adapted to enable a user to change at least one value associated with the context information [Brooks, ¶ 0056].
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 Scott A. Waldron whose telephone number is (571)272-5898. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:00 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.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ajay Bhatia can be reached at (571) 272-3906. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Scott A. Waldron/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2156
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