Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 23, 2021

2021000195 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 23, 2021)

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.
15/481,583 04/07/2017 Ming Qian RPS920170013USNP(710.540) 4708
58127 7590 12/23/2021
FERENCE & ASSOCIATES LLC
409 BROAD STREET
PITTSBURGH, PA 15143
EXAMINER
ROBINSON, GRETA LEE
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2169
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/23/2021 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 MING QIAN, SONG WANG, and JIAN LI
____________

Appeal 2021-000195
Application 15/481,583
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, JAMES R. HUGHES, and
NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.

BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction over the pending
rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42 (2019). Appellant identifies Lenovo (Singapore) PTE,
LTD, as the real party in interest. (Appeal Br. 3.)

Appeal 2021-000195
Application 15/481,583

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THE INVENTION
Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention is directed to maintaining
an interaction session in an information handling device that receives
multiple user inputs and responsive outputs during the session. (Spec.,
Abstr.)
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
1. A method, comprising:
receiving, at an information handling device, an
indication to begin an interaction session with a digital
assistant, wherein the interaction session comprises receiving at
least one user input and providing at least one output responsive
to the at least one user input;
receiving another at least one user input after the at least
one output;
determining, using a processor and without additional
human input, whether the interaction session has concluded,
wherein the determining comprises determining that the
interaction session has not concluded responsive to identifying
that the another at least one user input is contextually related to
the at least one output; and
responsive to determining that the interaction session has
not concluded, providing another at least one output that is
contextually responsive to the another at least one user input.
(Appeal Br. 22 (Claims App.).)
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Karashchuk et al. (US 2017/0132019 A1, pub. May 11,
2017) and D’Agostino et al. (US 2018/0097889 A1, pub. Apr. 5, 2018).
(Final Act. 3–7.)
Appeal 2021-000195
Application 15/481,583

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ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellant’s arguments present the following issue:2
Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Karashchuk and D’Agostino would have taught or suggested the third and
fourth limitations of claim 1 (hereafter referred to as the “contextually
related input” and “contextually responsive output” limitations), and the
commensurate limitations of independent claims 11 and 20. (Appeal Br. 18–
20.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s
arguments. Arguments Appellant could have made, but chose not to make
are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). We disagree
with Appellant’s arguments, and we adopt as our own: (1) the pertinent
findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Action from which this
appeal is taken (Final Act. 3–7); and (2) the corresponding reasons set forth
by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s
Appeal Brief. (Ans. 3–5.) We concur with the applicable conclusions
reached by the Examiner and emphasize the following.
The Specification describes the contextually related input and
contextually responsive output limitations of the claims as follows:
[T]he determination [of whether the interaction session has
concluded] may comprise determining that additional user

2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed June 15, 2020) (Appeal Br.);
the Reply Brief (filed Oct. 6, 2020) (Reply Br.); the Final Office Action
(mailed Mar. 10, 2020) (Final Act.); and the Examiner’s Answer (mailed
Aug. 6, 2020) (Ans.) for the respective details.
Appeal 2021-000195
Application 15/481,583

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input, provided after the output, is or is not associated with the
output. An embodiment may determine whether the subsequent
user input is associated with the output by analyzing the
subsequent user input (e.g. using contextual analysis, word
parsing, word matching, a combination thereof, etc.).
Responsive to determining that the subsequent user input is
associated with the output, an embodiment may determine that
the interaction session has not been concluded.
. . . .
For example, in response to the first user query “what is the
fastest route from home to work” a digital assistant may
provide a set of directions to the user. A user may then provide
the second user query “how did you determine that?”
Responsive to receiving the second user query, an embodiment
may provide, at 308, another output explaining how and/or why
it provided the first output. In an embodiment, the explanation
may include citing sources (e.g., Wikipedia®, Google® search
results, etc.), providing additional information to the user (e.g.,
visual information such as maps, charts, etc.), a combination
thereof, and the like.
(Spec. ¶¶ 38, 42.)
The Examiner’s rejection is in part based on the disclosure in
Karashchuk of an “an intelligent automated assistant” which displays in a
graphical user interface a series of messages between a user of the device
and the digital assistant, and which stores the contextual state of the
messages in order to form responses in accordance with a user intent derived
from user input. (Final Act. 3–5; Ans. 5; Karashchuk, Abstr., Figs. 9A-L,
11A, 12D, 14A–F, ¶¶ 36, 83, 212, 245–246, 268, 276, 281.) The Examiner
also relies on the disclosure in D’Agostino of processing interaction requests
across multiple devices. (Final Act. 5; Ans. 5; D’Agostino Abstr., Fig. 7,
¶¶ 19, 64–65, 70–71.)
Appeal 2021-000195
Application 15/481,583

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Appellant argues that “Karashchuk appears to simply disclose that the
system may receive a user input and provide a corresponding output with no
consideration as to whether a subsequently provided user input is referring
to, or is contextually related to the output.” (Appeal Br. 19.) Appellant
refers to Figure 9A of Karashchuk, in which a user input, “Tell John Smith
I’ll be late” is followed by the response “Consider it done,” followed by the
user input, “How’s it going?” followed by “I’m fine . . . Thanks for asking.”
(Id.) As Appellant points out, the subsequent user input is disparate from
and not contextually related to the first output answer. (Id.)
However, Karashchuk is not so limited — the Examiner cites, for
example, Figure 14E of Karashchuk, set forth below. (Ans. 5.)

Figure 14E illustrates a user interface of a digital assistant.
Appeal 2021-000195
Application 15/481,583

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The illustrated user interface of Figure 14E includes the user input,
“Hey Siri, any Chinese restaurants nearby?” followed by the response, “I
found several Chinese restaurants nearby,” followed by a second input,
“How about just the cheap ones?” followed by the response “OK, here are
several Chinese restaurants nearby that are inexpensive [Tap for details].”
This exchange is comparable in pertinent respects to the above example in
the Specification, and based on this and the record as a whole, we are
persuaded that the Examiner did not err in finding that the cited combination
teaches or suggests the contextually related input and contextually
responsive output claim limitations at issue.
Appellant also argues that D’Agostino has input requests that initiate a
new interaction request rather than continuing an existing interactive
session, as required. (Appeal Br. 20.) However, as set forth above,
Karashchuk discloses this aspect of the claims.
Therefore, we sustain the rejections of independent claims 1, 11, and
20 over Karashchuk and D’Agostino. We also sustain the rejections of
claims 2–10 and 12–19, which are not argued separately with particularity.

Appeal 2021-000195
Application 15/481,583

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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35
U.S.C. §
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–20 103 Karashchuk,
D’Agostino
1–20

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED