DETAILED ACTION
This is a Final Office Action in response to the Amendment filed 09/16/2025.
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
Claims 1-2, 4, 7, 9-12, 14, 17-19 are currently pending in the application and have been examined.
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed 09/16/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections 35 U.S.C. § 101:
Applicant submits on pages 8-9 of the remarks that the claims are not directed to a judicial exception. Examiner respectfully disagrees and notes that under step 2A of the analysis of claims per the Alice framework, if a claim limitation covers managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people, then it falls within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. The Examiner also notes that the claimed steps are not technical but rather just apply the use of computer elements to send, receive and store the information. Examiner notes that in order to determine if an invention improves the functioning of a computer or other technology and integrate the judicial exception into a practical application, while the courts have not provided an explicit test for this consideration, MPEP 2106.04(a) and 2106.05(a) provide guidance, first the specification should be evaluated to determine if the disclosure provides sufficient details such that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the claimed invention as providing an improvement; second, if the specification sets forth an improvement in technology, the claim must be evaluated to ensure that the claim itself reflects the disclosed improvement. When looking at the specification, there is no explicit disclosure that the claimed invention would be recognized as improving any technology or computer system. Therefore, the improvement is not to the technology but to the abstract idea. Furthermore, the additional elements recited in the claims are cited in a very general sense performing a computer generic function of sending/receiving data and do not impose any meaningful limit on practicing the abstract idea.
Applicant submits on page 10 of the remarks that the claims are integrated into a practical application. Examiner respectfully disagrees and notes that the present claims do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application in a matter that imposes meaningful limit to the judicial exception.
Applicant submits on pages 12 of the remarks that the claims recite significantly more than the judicial exception and recite an inventive concept. Examiner notes that because the specification describes the additional elements in general terms without describing the particulars, the claim limitations may be broadly but reasonably construed as reciting conventional computer components and techniques, particularly in light of Applicant’s’ specification, as cited in the instant office action. See Berkheimer Memo. Claim 1 does not provide an inventive concept because the claim, in essence, merely recites various computer-based elements along with no more than mere instructions to implement the identified abstract idea using the computer-based elements.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4, 7, 9-12, 14, 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-patentable subject matter. The claims are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
With respect to claims 1-2, 4, 7, 9-12, 14, 17-19, the independent claims (claims 1 and 11) are directed, in part, to a system and a method for determining participant eligibility for enrolling in an event. Step 1 – First pursuant to step 1 in the January 2019 Guidance, claims 1-2, 4, 7, 9-10, are directed to a system which falls under the statutory category of a machine and claims 11-12, 14, 17-19 are directed to a method comprising a series of steps which falls under the statutory category of a process. Therefore, the claims are eligible under Step 1. However, these claim elements are considered to be abstract ideas because they are directed to a method of organizing human activity which includes managing personal behavior or relationships/interactions between people.
As per Step 2A - Prong 1 of the subject matter eligibility analysis, the claims are directed, in part, to receive performance-based event configuration parameters from an event organizer user, wherein the performance-based event configuration parameters comprise at least one of one or more predefined skill levels required for enrolling in a performance-based event; receive event enrollment data from each participant user, the event enrollment data comprising demographic information and a self-reported skill level of each participant user; and a performance verification system comprising: a second hardware processor; and a second non-transitory machine-readable storage medium encoded with instructions executable by the second hardware processor that cause the second hardware processor to: transmit an inquiry comprising participant demographic information and external agency information provided by the participant user to one or more external agency computing devices via an application programming interface (API) to verify the participant user’s self-reported skill level by retrieving user performance information from a performance tracking repository maintained by the external agencies; in response to the inquiry, retrieve, from the one or more external agency computing devices, performance data comprising at least one of event level, event history, and event scores as reported by the external agencies; the retrieved performance data to enable comparison of the participant user's self-reported skill level with the retrieved event level, event history, and event scores process the retrieved performance data to enable comparison of the participant user's self-reported skill level with the retrieved event level, event history, and event scores; determine eligibility of each participant user for enrolling in the performance-based event by verifying that the self-reported skill level corresponds to the retrieved performance data store an eligibility result for each participant user indicating whether the participant user qualifies for the performance-based event; cause the event management system to display, via an event management interface, a dynamically generated list of qualifying users based on the determined eligibility of each participant user; and cause the event management system to automatically enroll each qualifying participant user in the performance-based event based on the eligibility result, without manual intervention. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers managing personal behavior or relationships/interactions between people, then it falls within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
As per Step 2A - Prong 2 of the subject matter eligibility analysis, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim recites additional elements: “a system”; “an event management system”; “hardware processor”; “non-transitory machine-readable storage medium”; “computing devices”; “application programming interface calls”; “a performance verification system”; “event management interface”. These additional element in both steps are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic device performing a generic computer function of receiving and storing data) such that these elements amount no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Examiner looks to Applicant’s specification in at least figures 1-2 and related text and [0058-0060] to understand that the invention may be implemented in a generic environment that “Computing module 700 might include, for example, one or more processors, controllers, control modules, or other processing devices, such as a processor 704. Processor 704 might be implemented using a general-purpose or special-purpose processing engine such as, for example, a microprocessor, controller, or other control logic. In the illustrated example, processor 704 is connected to a bus 702, although any communication medium can be used to facilitate interaction with other components of computing module 700 or to communicate externally. Computing module 700 might also include one or more memory modules, simply referred to herein as main memory 708. For example, preferably random access memory (RAM) or other dynamic memory might be used for storing information and instructions to be executed by processor 704. Main memory 708 might also be used for storing temporary variables or other intermediate information during execution of instructions to be executed by processor 704. Computing module 700 might likewise include a read only memory ("ROM") or other static storage device coupled to bus 702 for storing static information and instructions for processor 704. The computing module 700 might also include one or more various forms of information storage devices 710, which might include, for example, a media drive 712 and a storage unit interface 720. The media drive 712 might include a drive or other mechanism to support fixed or removable storage media 714. For example, a hard disk drive, a floppy disk drive, a magnetic tape drive, an optical disk drive, a CD or DVD drive (R or RW), or other removable or fixed media drive might be provided. Accordingly, storage media 714 might include, for example, a hard disk, a floppy disk, magnetic tape, cartridge, optical disk, a CD or DVD, or other fixed or removable medium that is read by, written to or accessed by media drive 712. As these examples illustrate, the storage media 714 can include a computer usable storage medium having stored therein computer software or data.” Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they are mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer.
As per Step 2B of the subject matter eligibility analysis, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements are mere instructions to apply the abstract idea on a computer. When considered individually, these claim elements only contribute generic recitations of technical elements to the claims. It is readily apparent, for example, that the claim is not directed to any specific improvements of these elements and the invention is not directed to a technical improvement. When the claims are considered individually and as a whole, the additional elements noted above, appear to merely apply the abstract concept to a technical environment in a very general sense – i.e. a generic computer receives information from another generic computer, processes the information and then sends information back. In addition, when taken as an ordered combination, the ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present as when the elements are taken individually. Their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation. Therefore, when viewed as a whole, these additional claim elements do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea into a practical application of the abstract idea or that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The most significant elements of the claims, that is the elements that really outline the inventive elements of the claims, are set forth in the elements identified as an abstract idea. The fact that the generic computing devices are facilitating the abstract concept is not enough to confer statutory subject matter eligibility.
The dependent claims further refine the abstract idea. These claims do not provide a meaningful linking to the judicial exception. Rather, these claims offer further descriptive limitations of elements found in the independent claims and addressed above – such as by describing the nature and content of the data that is received/sent. While these descriptive elements may provide further helpful context for the claimed invention these elements do not serve to confer subject matter eligibility to the invention since their individual and combined significance is still not significantly more than the abstract concepts at the core of the claimed invention.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-2, 4, 7, 9-12, 14, 17-19 are allowable over prior art but have other pending rejections as indicated above.
The claims would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) set forth in this Office Action.
Conclusion
14. 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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.
15. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FRANCIS Z SANTIAGO-MERCED whose telephone number is (571)270-5562. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am-4:30pm EST.
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/FRANCIS Z. SANTIAGO MERCED/Examiner, Art Unit 3625
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