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 . Claims 21-40 have been examined and are pending.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d).
Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
20200334249
Pars. 52-56
Sliding window algorithm for determining rows, columns and cell values.
20210406533
Pars. 14, 54-68
AI based conversion of tabular data from scanned images to database tables
20230260309
Pars. 55-71
Extraction of tabular data from images using trained models that consider row and column coordinates
20230055391
Pars. 55-67
Recognizing table structures including rows and columns via spatial word association trained model
20070011134
Pars. 70-74
ETL of unstructured data including creating rows and columns of data of particular schemas
20140369602
Fig.’s 7-8
Extract tabular data from OCR data to automatically process scanned documents that have data in table format
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 21-40 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-18 of U.S. Patent No. US 12524426 B2. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the instant claims are encompassed by the patented claims.
Instant claims
Patented claims
21
1, 5
22
2
23
3
24
4
25
5
26
6
27
1
28
7
29
8
30
9
31
10, 14
32
11
33
12
34
13
35
14
36
15
37
10
38
16
39
17
40
18
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 21-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Claims 21-40 are directed to one of the eligible categories of subject matter.
With respect to independent claims 21, 31, the identifying, extract, reproduce, adjust cover performance of the limitations manually and/or in the mind (mental processes abstract idea). The obtain, present, store limitations are recited at a high level of generality and do not add meaningful limitations to the abstract idea; these limitations are directed to insignificant extra solution activities. The claims as a whole merely describe how to generally “apply” the exception in a computer environment using generic computer functions or components. Even when viewed in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims are not patent eligible.
With respect to dependent claims 23, 25, 28, 33, 35, 38 the calculate, compare, merge, configure, convert, identify, associate cover performance of the limitations manually and/or in the mind (mental processes abstract idea). No additional elements are recited and so the claims do not provide a practical application and are not considered to be significantly more. The claims are not eligible.
With respect to dependent claims 22, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40 provide, display are recited at a high level of generality and do not add meaningful limitations to the abstract idea. The claims as a whole merely describe how to generally “apply” the exception in a computer environment using generic computer functions or components (such as a CNN, offline execution, NLP, scanning). Even when viewed in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims are not patent eligible.
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 22-30 and 32-40 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.
Claims 22-30 and 32-40 do not further limit any claims; they are recited as being dependent claims of canceled claims 1, 4, 7, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 18. Claims 22-30 appear to depend from claim 21 and claims 32-40 appear to depend from claim 31.
Claims 28, 38 include “the detected text.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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.
Claims 21, 22, 24-32, and 34-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smock et al., Pub. No. US 20220335240 A1, hereinafter Smock, in view of Duta et al., Pub. No.: US 20190340240 A1, hereinafter Duta.
As per claim 21, Smock discloses A computer-implemented system comprising: a non-transitory computer readable medium configured to store instructions (pars. 25-28, 87-90); and at least one processor (pars. 25-28, 87-90) configured to execute the instructions to perform operations comprising:
obtaining, from at least one data store, at least one document associated with at least one entity (pars. 28-30, 87-89 disclose obtaining documents associated with multiple entities);
identifying, using an object detection algorithm, at least one table located on the at least one document, wherein the object detection algorithm is trained using a dataset including tables from a plurality of other documents (pars. 30-32, 35, 58-59, 79-82 disclose identifying tables in documents as claimed);
extracting, using optical character recognition, text within the identified at least one table based on predicted coordinates of the at least one table (pars. 32-34, 41-48 discloses extracting OCR based text from the tables based on multiple types of predicted elements of the table including coordinates and locations of tables, classes (column, row, cell/supercell, header/sub-headers), bounding boxes, etc.);
reproducing the at least one table using the extracted text by: identifying at least one header of the at least one table (pars. 33-35, 44-48, 65-72, 77-78 disclose identifying headers);
identifying a final row of the at least one table (pars. 44, 65-66, 75, 78, 81 disclose identifying all rows including the lowermost/final one), Smock does not disclose however Duta discloses wherein the identified at least one header or the identified final row is located outside the predicted coordinates (Duta, pars. 67-69, 92-96, 105, 107 disclose column grids extend beyond the initial table candidate extent to capture headers, and first, last table tokens provide actual upper, lower extents);
identifying, using a sliding window technique, columns of the at least one table (Duta, pars. 77-80, 93-94 disclose that a fixed width vertical accumulator sampling window traverses along the x-axis to determine vertical column grids);
adjusting the predicted coordinates based on the identified at least one header, identified final row, and identified columns (Smock, par. 45 discloses the structure model determines a more precise table boundary and corrects errors and Duta, pars. 92-96 disclose that the initial extent is refined using column grids and first/last table content, including headers extending beyond the initial extent); and
presenting the extracted text in rows and columns (Smock, pars. 47-49, 65-67, 83, 84, 92, 98); and
storing the reproduced at least one table in a database (Smock, par. 68).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of the cited references because Duta would have allowed Smock to more accurately refine and adjust predicted table boundaries and associated coordinates when table content extends beyond an initially identified region. This would have reduced omitted table content and produced a more accurate extraction of the table structure and its data.
As per claim 22, Smock as modified discloses The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the object detection algorithm includes a feed-forward convolutional neural network (pars. 31, 35, 40-43, 78, 82).
As per claim 24, Smock as modified disclose The computer-implemented system of claim 1, the operations further comprising: providing a graphical user interface to a user; displaying, using the graphical user interface, the identified at least one table; displaying, using the graphical user interface, a table overlay including boxes displaying the pre-adjusted predicted coordinates; and providing, using the graphical user interface, a user activated control (see pars. 60-65 and fig.’s that illustrate the tables).
As per claim 25, Smock as modified discloses The computer-implemented system of claim 4, wherein the user activated control is configured to adjust the predicted coordinates based on a user input (see pars. 60-65 where a user can intervene to make corrections).
As per claim 26, Smock as modified discloses The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to execute the instructions offline (see par. 87 wherein “online” cloud/Internet based instruction execution is possible but is not required; also, Duta pars. 174-186 disclose that communication interfaces are optional).
As per claim 27, Smock as modified discloses The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the identification of the at least one header includes using natural language processing (pars. 47-48, 72, 77-78 disclose identifying headers based on analysis of table content including text).
As per claim 28, Smock as modified discloses The computer-implemented system of claim 7, wherein the natural language processing includes: converting at least one detected word of the detected text into at least one numerical vector (Duta, pars. 78, 83);
comparing the at least one numerical vector to existing numerical vectors, the existing numerical vectors corresponding to common header words (Duta, pars. 113-116, 134-137);
identifying an existing numerical vector of the existing numerical vectors based on a minimum difference between the at least one numerical vector and the existing numerical vectors (Duta, pars. 113-116, 134-137); and
associating the at least one detected word with a common header word corresponding to the identified existing numerical vector (see Duta as cited above).
As per claim 29, Smock as modified discloses The computer-implemented system of claim 8, wherein a column associated with the at least one detected word is determined to include data of a type associated with the common header word (see Smock as cited in the rejection of claim 1 and Duta, pars. 78, 83).
As per claim 30, Smock as modified discloses the computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the at least one document includes a scanned document (Smock, par. 41).
As per claims 31, 32, and 34-40, they are analogous to claims above and therefore likewise rejected.
Claims 23 and 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smock as modified and further in view of Thompson et al., Pub. No.: US 20220405265 A1, hereinafter Thompson.
As per claim 23, Smock as modified discloses the computer-implemented system of claim 1. The combination doesn’t disclose however Thompson discloses wherein the sliding window technique comprises:
calculating a mean character width of each line of the extracted text (Thompson, par. 265, 245, 298-301);
comparing a character width between each word in a line of the extracted text to the mean character width of the line (Thompson, see above as well as pars. 267; see also, par. 96); and
merging words with the character width less than or equal to the mean character width of the line, wherein the merged words correspond to a column (Thompson, see above as well as pars. 266, 269; see also, par. 96).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of the cited references because Thompson would have allowed the combination to group adjacent OCR words based on their spacing relative to the mean character width of each line because this provides a scale based criterion for grouping text inside columns and helps to identify columns in different documents having different character spacing and sizes.
Analogous claim 33 is likewise rejected.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SYED HASAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5008. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am - 5 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Boris Gorney can be reached at (571)270-5626. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SYED H HASAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2154
