Generating correct-by-construction office action replies from an interview and online corpora

Abstract

Systems for generating a USPTO office action response document based on an input USPTO Office Action document. A method implementation for constructing the USPTO office action response traverses a ruletree that has been dynamically formed from user answers to successive questions based on characteristics of the USPTO Office Action document. The ruletree comprises a first set of data items that pertains to an HCI and the ruletree further comprises a second set of data items that pertain to the target USPTO office action response document. Correspondence between the set of user answers to questions and passages in the USPTO office action response document are maintained in the ruletree. The ruletree expands and contracts during user interaction. To generate the USPTO office action response document, the ruletree is traversed in a sorted order, where traversal of a node generates a passage or passages in the generated USPTO office action response document.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method for constructing a document from a set of rules, the computer-implemented method comprising:
 accessing a set of document passage templates;   accessing a data structure comprising one or more instances of initial rules, wherein at least one of the one or more instances of the initial rules is determined based on a document type specification, and wherein the at least one of the one or more instances of the initial rules comprises a reference to a passage from the document passage templates;   identifying a first user interface screen device to display in a human-computer interface (HCI), the first user interface screen device being based at least in part on the passage from the document passage templates;   receiving first user input from the first user interface screen device;   adding, in response to the receiving of the first user input, at least one new instance of a rule to form a modified data structure;   retrieving at least one item from the set of the document passage templates based at least in part on the modified data structure; and   generating a document based at least in part on the modified data structure and at least a portion of the set of document passage templates.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising deleting at least one instance of a rule from the modified data structure to form a second modified data structure. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein a rule pertaining to at least one question derives from a document template. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the document passage templates comprise at least one of, a paragraph, or a plurality of paragraphs, or a figure, or a sentence, or a portion of a sentence, or a variable specification, or any combination thereof. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the variable specification comprises at least a variable name. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the variable specification further comprises at least one parameter list. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein a rule comprises a first ruleset of rules that have fired and second ruleset of rules that have not fired. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein at least one of the rules comprises a firing condition and a firing status. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising generating an output document corresponding to the document type specification. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the document type specification comprises at least one of, a non-final office action reply, a final office action reply, a pre-appeal brief, or an appeal brief. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user interface screen device is a question group. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the user interface screen device comprises a dynamically-generated question group, and wherein composition of the question group is based at least in part on a user input. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the user interface screen device comprises a dynamically-generated question group, wherein composition of the question group is based at least in part on one or more parsed fields from an input USPTO office action document. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the input USPTO office action document is at least one of, a non-final office action, a final office action, a notice of allowance, or a notification of missing parts. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the question group comprises a question with at least one of, a numeric answer, or a string answer, or a checkbox Boolean answer, or a pulldown menu item selection answer, or any combination therefrom. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the question with a numeric answer comprises a question string having a string value “claim”, or a string value “argue”. 
     
     
         17 . A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when stored in memory and executed by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform a set of acts for constructing a document from a set of rules, the set of acts comprising:
 accessing a set of document passage templates;   accessing a data structure comprising one or more instances of initial rules, wherein at least one of the one or more instances of the initial rules is determined based on a document type specification, and wherein the at least one of the one or more instances of the initial rules comprises a reference to a passage from the document passage templates;   identifying a first user interface screen device to display in a human-computer interface (HCI), the first user interface screen device being based at least in part on the passage from the document passage templates;   receiving first user input from the first user interface screen device;   adding, in response to the receiving of the first user input, at least one new instance of a rule to form a modified data structure;   retrieving at least one item from the set of the document passage templates based at least in part on the modified data structure; and   generating a document based at least in part on the modified data structure and at least a portion of the set of document passage templates.   
     
     
         18 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 17 , further comprising instructions which, when stored in memory and executed by the one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform acts of deleting at least one instance of a rule from the modified data structure to form a second modified data structure. 
     
     
         19 . A system for constructing a document from a set of rules, the system comprising:
 a storage medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions; and   one or more processors that execute the instructions to cause the one or more processors to perform a set of acts, the set of acts comprising,
 accessing a set of document passage templates; 
 accessing a data structure comprising one or more instances of initial rules, wherein at least one of the one or more instances of the initial rules is determined based on a document type specification, and wherein the at least one of the one or more instances of the initial rules comprises a reference to a passage from the document passage templates; 
 identifying a first user interface screen device to display in a human-computer interface (HCI), the first user interface screen device being based at least in part on the passage from the document passage templates; 
 receiving first user input from the first user interface screen device; 
 adding, in response to the receiving of the first user input, at least one new instance of a rule to form a modified data structure; 
 retrieving at least one item from the set of the document passage templates based at least in part on the modified data structure; and 
 generating a document based at least in part on the modified data structure and at least a portion of the set of document passage templates. 
   
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 19 , further comprising instructions which, when stored in memory and executed by the one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform acts of deleting at least one instance of a rule from the modified data structure to form a second modified data structure.