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 .
Status of Claims
This Final Office action is in reply to the amendments/remarks filed on 15 September 2023
Claims 8, 11-19, 27 have been canceled.
Claims 1-7, 9, 10, 20-26, and 28-29 are currently pending and have been examined.
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 1-7, 9, 10, 20-26, and 28-29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more, and therefore directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Under Step 1 of the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (hereinafter “2019 PEG”), the claims fall within the statutory categories (namely, a system and non-transitory computer readable memory).
Under Step 2A Prong 1 of the 2019 PEG, the claims are analyzed to determine whether the claims recite any judicial exceptions including certain groupings of abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activity such as a fundamental economic practice, or mental processes).
Representative claim 1 recites in part,
receiving medical professional preferences for searching the database, the medical professional preferences including at least: a specialty area of practice, years of experience, a location, and receiving medical professional quality measure priority values, each priority value specifying a relative priority for a medical professional quality measure with respect to other quality measures specified within individual ones of the medical professional records; executing a query on the database and rendering a responsive set of medical professional records based on the medical professional preferences; applying a quality score threshold to the quality score specified within ones of the responsive set of medical professional records to render a set of qualified medical professional records; computing a set of match scores for the set of qualified medical professional records, each individual match score, for a corresponding individual one of the set of qualified medical professional records, being computed based upon: (1) the received medical professional quality measure priority values, and (2) the quality measures specified within the individual medical professional record; and outputting a ranked listing of the set of qualified medical professional records, according to the computed set of match scores, for presentation to a user,
The claim limitations can be considered as a mental process abstract idea category as they are related to gathering and analyzing medical professional records that meet medical professional preferences, medical professional quality measure priority values, and quality score threshold; computing match scores for the qualified medical records and outputting a ranked listing of the set of qualified medical professional records according to the computed set of match score.
The steps of receiving, processing, analyzing, and transmitting data mimic human thought processes of observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion, perhaps with paper and pencil, where the data interpretation is perceptible only in the human mind. The Courts generally treat collecting information as well as analyzing information by steps people go through in their minds and/or by pen & paper as essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea category. See FairWarning IP, LLC v. Latric Systems, Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The focus of the claims is on “selecting certain information, analyzing it, and reporting or displaying the results of the analysis. That is all abstract.” (SAP America, Inc. v. Investpic, LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1167 (Fed. Cir. 2018)). See also Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016) where collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying results from certain results of the collection and analysis was held to be an abstract idea. The recited steps do not involve any activities that cannot be practically accomplished by the human mind by evaluating obtained medical records and computing match scores by human judgement and/or via pen & paper. Furthermore, “the fact that the required calculations could be performed more efficiently via a computer processor does not materially alter the patent eligibility of the claimed subject matter.” See FairWarning, 839 F.3d at 1098. The Courts have established that even if the recitation of generic computer components is present, the claim can still be considered a mental process if it covers performance in the mind using observation, evaluation, and judgment and/or utilizing pen & paper, as is the case here. See CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“That purely mental processes can be unpatentable, even when performed by a computer, was precisely the holding of the Supreme Court in Gottschalk v. Benson”). Accordingly, the claims 1 and 20 recite an abstract idea.
Furthermore, representative claim 1 recites the concept of managing medical practice by selecting medical professionals based on their professional records and an ordering based on selection parameters, which is managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people, one of certain methods of organizing human activity. The mere nominal recitation of a generic computing components does not take the claim out of the methods of organizing human interactions grouping. Thus, the claim recites an abstract idea.
Under Step 2A Prong 2 of the 2019 PEG the claims are analyzed to determine whether the claims recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims include additional elements of “an electronic database” for maintaining and storing data; “a memory” storing computer-executable instructions; “a controller” in communication with the memory having a processor configured to execute the computer-executable instructions, the plurality of “slider bars, of the graphical user interface comprising the variety of user input controls”, are configured to facilitate, in association with the receiving medical professional quality measure priority values users designating ones of the medical professional quality measure priority values. The claimed computer components are recited at a high level of generality (see specification at [0192]: general-purpose microprocessors for receiving, storing, querying, computing, outputting, inputting information) and are merely invoked as tools to carry out the abstract concept.
The steps of receiving, querying the database, applying a quality score threshold and outputting are insignificant extra-solution activity of data gathering and output. Simply implementing the abstract idea on a generic computer is not a practical application of the abstract idea. When considered in combination, the claim does not amount to improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field, applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing. Accordingly, alone and in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Under Step 2B of the 2019 PEG the claims are analyzed to determine whether the claims recite additional elements that amount to an inventive concept (aka “significantly more”) than the recited judicial exception.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of using computing components to perform the claimed storing, receiving, querying, applying, computing, outputting and inputting steps amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components.
Using a computer for receiving, analyzing, and transmitting data amounts to electronic data query and retrieval—one of the most basic functions of a computer. For the receiving, querying the database, applying a quality score threshold and outputting steps that was considered extra-solution activity in Step 2A, this has been re-evaluated in Step 2B and determined to be well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field. The background does not provide any indication that the database, memory, controller, user interface, processor, slider tool are anything other than generic, off-the-shelf computer components (see specification at [0192]: general-purpose microprocessors). Micaelian (US Patent #6,714,929 B1) teaches that the use of “slider bars” for users to indicate the importance (weights) of certain criteria is well-understood in the art (Col. 8 lines 19-40). All of these computer functions are generic, routine, conventional computer activities that are performed only for their conventional uses. See Elec. Power Grp. v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Also see In re Katz Interactive Call Processing Patent Litigation, 639 F.3d 1303, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“Absent a possible narrower construction of the terms ‘processing,’ ‘receiving,’ and ‘storing,’ . . . those functions can be achieved by any general purpose computer without special programming”). None of these activities are used in some unconventional manner nor do any produce some unexpected result. Each step does no more than require a generic computer to perform generic computer functions. As to the data operated upon, “even if a process of collecting and analyzing information is ‘limited to particular content’ or a particular ‘source,’ that limitation does not make the collection and analysis other than abstract.” SAP America, Inc. v. InvestPic LLC, 898 F.3d 1161, 1168 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
Considered as an ordered combination, the computer components of claim 11 add nothing that is not already present when the steps are considered separately. The sequence of data reception-analysis-transmission is equally generic and conventional. See Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 715 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (sequence of receiving, selecting, offering for exchange, display, allowing access, and receiving payment recited an abstraction), Inventor Holdings, LLC v. Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc., 876 F.3d 1372, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (sequence of data retrieval, analysis, modification, generation, display, and transmission), Two-Way Media Ltd. v. Comcast Cable Communic’ns, LLC, 874 F.3d 1329, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (sequence of processing, routing, controlling, and monitoring). The ordering of the steps is therefore ordinary and conventional.
The analysis above applies to all statutory categories of invention. Although literally invoking a non-transitory computer-readable memory, independent claim 20 remain only broadly and generally defined, with the claimed functionality paralleling that of method claim 1. As such, claim 20 is rejected for at least similar rationale as discussed above.
Dependent claims 2-7, 9-10, 21-26, 28 and 29 do not add “significantly more” to the abstract idea. The dependent claims further recite the abstract idea of computing match scores and further definition of the quality measures without any meaningful practical application of the abstract idea.
Even when viewed as an ordered combination, the dependent claims simply convey the abstract idea itself applied on a generic computer and are held to be ineligible under Steps 2A1/2A2/2B of the 2019 PEG framework at least similar rationale as discussed above regarding claim 1.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 15 September 2023 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant contends: Applicant's claimed computer system includes a particularly recited combination/configuration of graphical user interface features that enhance/improve user input functionality of the claimed system (and method of operation of such system). In that regard, one can readily discern that the present enhanced/improved "graphic user interface" claims are far narrower than the interface claims of the notoriously well-known/publicized Apple "slide-to-unlock" US Patent 8,046,721. At no point was the validity of the '721 patent claims found to be unpatentable, and in view of such precedent one cannot find Applicant's claims to fall on the "unpatentable" side of the patentable/unpatentable line as the current claims, far narrower in scope, fall far from such dividing line.
The examiner points out that US Patent 8,046,721 is directed to “A device with a touch-sensitive display may be unlocked via gestures performed on the touch-sensitive display. The device is unlocked if contact with the display corresponds to a predefined gesture for unlocking the device. The device displays one or more unlock images with respect to which the predefined gesture is to be performed in order to unlock the device. The performance of the predefined gesture with respect to the unlock image may include moving the unlock image to a predefined location and/or moving the unlock image along a predefined path. The device may also display visual cues of the predefined gesture on the touch screen to remind a user of the gesture” (see Abstract). Applicant’s claimed invention is directed to a system and method of searching for a professional with the use of slider bars to prioritize various quality measures. However, there is no discussion in the specification about the improvements or enhancements to the graphical user interface by the use of the slider bar. Applicant’s claimed invention seeks to advance the method at which a person searches for a medical professional by using criteria important to the person seeking the medical professional (paragraph [0005]) and not to improvements in graphical user interface inputs. The slider bar as claimed is merely a tool for a user to input data.
Applicant has also failed to particularly define functionality and features that improve a user interface capability of a system. The Applicant’s specification lacks any technological details for how such a graphical user interface is constructed, operated, or applied. An exemplary recital as to its operation is “The user may enter this information using a graphical user interface (GUI) 300, as shown in Figure 3. The user enters information regarding a specialty of a professional at an interface 302 and subspecialties or expertise relating to the specialty at interfaces 304 and 306 during the operation 202. In addition, the user enters information about his/herself at the interface 308” (paragraph [0035]). Examiner maintains that the claim amendments are insufficient to overcome the 35 USC 101 rejections.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 extension fee 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 MAAME OFORI-AWUAH whose telephone number is (571)270-1359. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.
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, Lynda Jasmin can be reached on 571-272-6782. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
MAAME OFORI-AWUAH
Examiner
Art Unit 3629
/MAAME OFORI-AWUAH/Examiner, Art Unit 3629
/GABRIELLE A MCCORMICK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3629
Prosecution Insights