Branimir K. Boguraev et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardJan 13, 2020

14472513 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jan. 13, 2020)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 14/472,513 08/29/2014 Branimir K. Boguraev AUS920140319US1 5101 50170 7590 01/13/2020 IBM CORP. (WIP) c/o WALDER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, P.C. 1701 N. COLLINS BLVD. SUITE 2100 RICHARDSON, TX 75080 EXAMINER LAMARDO, VIKER ALEJANDRO ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2126 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/13/2020 PAPER Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte BRANIMIR K. BOGURAEV, JOHN P. BUFE III, MATTHEW T. HATEM, and JARED M.D. SMYTHE _____________ Appeal 2019-000688 Application 14/472,513 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and GARTH D. BAER, Administrative Patent Judges. BAER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2019-000688 Application 14/472,513 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final rejection of claims 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 14, and 18–23, which are all pending claims. Appeal Br. 11. Claims 2, 3, 5–7, 10, 12, 13, and 15–17 have been cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. BACKGROUND A. The Invention Appellant’s invention is directed to a “question answering (QA) system comprising a QA system pipeline that analyzes an input question and generates an answer to the input question, for pre-processing the input question.” Abstract. Independent claim 1 is representative and reproduced below, with emphasis added to disputed elements: 1. A method, in a question answering (QA) system comprising a QA system pipeline that analyzes an input question and generates an answer to the input question, for pre-processing the input question, the method comprising: receiving, by the QA system, an input question for which an answer is sought by a submitter of the input question; inputting, by the QA system, the input question to a pre-processor flow path comprising at least one pre- processor; transforming, by the at least one pre-processor, the input question into a transformed question by correcting errors in a formulation of the input question that are determined to be detrimental to efficient and accurate 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies International Business Machines Corporation as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2019-000688 Application 14/472,513 3 processing of the input question by a QA system pipeline of the QA system, wherein the at least one pre-processor comprises a superfluous information preprocessor and a elided information pre-processor and wherein transforming the input question comprises at least one of: identifying, by the superfluous information pre- processor that identifies superfluous information content in the input question and transforms the superfluous information content, at least one of a term, phrase, or language pattern indicative of superfluous information content in the input question that is not relevant to the underlying question being asked by the input question; and removing, by the superfluous information pre- processor, the superfluous information content from the input question to generate a modified input question; or identifying, by the elided information pre-processor that identifies elided information content associated with the input question and transforms the input question based on the identified elided information, at least one of a term, phrase, or language pattern indicative of elided information content in the input question that is relevant to the underlying question being asked by the input question and is missing in the input question; and inserting, by the elided information pre-processor, the elided information content into the input question to generate the modified input question; in response to determining that the modified input question requires reformatting, reformatting, by the at least one pre-processor, the input question into a logically and syntactically correct input question; outputting, by the at least one pre-processor, the logically and syntactically correct input question as the transformed question; inputting, by the at least one pre-processor, the transformed question to the QA system pipeline of the QA system; and processing, by the QA system, the transformed question via the QA system pipeline to generate and output at least one answer to the input question. Appeal 2019-000688 Application 14/472,513 4 Appeal Br. 47–48 (Claims Appendix). B. The Rejection on Appeal2 The Examiner rejects claims 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 14, and 18–23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Calbucci (US 2005/0131872 A1; June 16, 2005), Simske (WO 2015/187126 A1; Dec. 10, 2015), Ghannam (US 2012/0253793 A1; Oct. 4, 2012), and Martinez-Guerra (US 6,523,172 B1; Feb. 18, 2003). Final Act. 5–6. ANALYSIS A. Obviousness Rejection of Claims 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 14, and 18–23 Appellant argues that while Calbucci describes replacing misspelled words and augmenting a query with area [geographic] information, nowhere in Calbucci, Simske, and Ghannam, whether taken alone or in combination, is there a description of determining whether the modified input question requires reformatting, i.e. rearranging words within the question to read logically and syntactically correct. Appeal Br. 42 (citing Calbucci, Figs. 2–4, ¶¶ 17–24). Appellant contends that while Martinez-Guerra does provide a translator, the translation performed by Martinez-Guerra is to a programming language and not to a logically and syntactically correct input question output as a transformed question. Appeal Br. 44 (emphasis in original); see also Reply Br. 3–4 (citing Martinez-Guerra 7:65–8:7, 8:49–51, 8:47–48, 8:52–54, 20:20–21). 2 The rejection of claims 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 14, and 18–23 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 has been withdrawn in the Answer. See Final Act. 2, Ans. 10. Appeal 2019-000688 Application 14/472,513 5 Appellant further contends that “while it is true that Martinez-Guerra describes using natural language, the natural language is only that which is received on the input stream.” Reply Br. 3. The Examiner finds that “Calbucci is relied upon for teaching receiving an input question from a user” (Ans. 11 (citing Calbucci ¶ 12)), and Martinez-Guerra teaches the claimed “translate statements defined by the user into logically and syntactically correct directives for performing the desired data transformations or operations.” Ans. 11 (citing Martinez- Guerra, Abstract). We agree with Appellant that Calbucci’s input queries are not framed as input questions; instead, they are word strings or phrases such as “compare price Buick and [Saturn]” (Calbucci ¶ 24), “Restaurants in Redmond, Wash.” (Calbucci ¶ 59), and “News about Iraq” (Calbucci ¶ 60). Further, Appellant’s disclosure distinguishes questions and queries, in that question decomposition stage 330 decompose[s] the question into one or more queries that are applied to the corpora of data/information 345 in order to generate one or more hypotheses. The queries are generated in any known or later developed query language, such as the Structure Query Language (SQL), or the like. Spec. ¶ 61. We agree with Appellant that Martinez-Guerra relies on a natural language input (albeit with respect to a “high level user language” (Martinez-Guerra, 3:29–36)) and the translated output is not a transformed question. As none of the references either individually or in combination handles queries framed as input questions, the combination of references fails to teach or suggest the claimed “in response to determining that the modified input question requires reformatting, reformatting, by the at least Appeal 2019-000688 Application 14/472,513 6 one pre-processor, the input question into a logically and syntactically correct input question.” Accordingly, we are constrained by the record to reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 1, as well as independent claims 11 and 20 commensurate in scope, and all dependent claims. CONCLUSION In summary: REVERSED Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 14, 18–23 103 Calbucci, Simske, Ghannam, Martinez-Guerra 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 14, 18– 23