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 .
Priority
The present application has claimed priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 from European Patent Application No. EP 19202262.2 filed 10/9/2019. Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Response to Amendment
The response filed on 1/2/2026 has been entered and made of record. Claims 1-20 are pending.
The previous rejections have been withdrawn of claims 1-12, 14, 16-17, and 19 under 35 USC 103 over Peracha in view of Gupta et al, Senturk-Doganaksoy et al, and Ke Le et al, claims 13 and 18 under 35 USC 103 over Peracha in view of Gupta et al, Senturk-Doganaksoy et al, Ke Le et al, and An, and claims 15 and 20 under 35 USC 103 over Peracha in view of Gupta et al, Senturk-Doganaksoy et al, and Ke Le et al, and further in view of Forrester. The rejections of claims 1-20 under 35 USC 101 have been maintained.
Drawings
The drawings wiled 9/28/2020 were accepted.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite the abstract idea of determining data (determining device usages and a threshold percentage, determine a difference between predicted and actual usage), comparing (comparing actual and predicted device usage), obtaining data (obtaining the predicted device usage), mapping (mapping predicted usage to actual device usage for a time interval), selecting (selecting the margin of error).
Step 2A, Prong 1
The limitations that describe the determining data, obtaining data, comparing, mapping, and selecting are processes that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. The claims also include elements of a computing device, a machine learning model, and raising an alert, however nothing in the claims precludes the steps from practically being performed in the mind.
Step 2A, Prong 2
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements regarding computing device, machine learning model, and raising an alert are considered insignificant extra-solution activity. These limitations are not considered improvements to the functioning of a technology or technical field. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the extrasolutionary elements are not considered significantly more than just applying the steps of determining data, obtaining data, comparing, mapping, and selecting.
Step 2B
In addition to the abstract idea, the claims have the computing device, machine learning model, and raising an alert, but they represent only well-understood, routine, conventional activity that can be performed on generic computers. The computing device and machine learning model are considered merely applying the steps on generic computers. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Peracha (US 20090199196 A1) discloses how well-understood, routine, and conventional raising an alert is: Peracha, paragraph 4: “The deviation information for the actual data point with respect to the predicted data point may be communicated through an interface as an indication of deviation level (e.g., low, medium, high).” The claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. As per claim 2, this claim recites an additional abstract idea of computing an accuracy. Computing a value is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind. There are no other additional elements.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. As per claim 3, this claim recites an additional element of a prediction model built using historic data.
(Step 2A, prong 2) The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements regarding a prediction model built using historic data are considered insignificant extra-solution activity. These limitations are not considered improvements to the functioning of a technology or technical field.
(Step 2B) The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the prediction model built using historic data are not considered significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements represent only well-understood, routine, conventional activity that can be performed on generic computer systems. Peracha (US 20090199196 A1) discloses how well-understood, routine, and conventional a prediction model built using historic data is: Peracha, paragraph 119: “Several types of functions providing statistical models of an application performance data time series may be used with the present technology;” abstract: “Resource usage baseline data may be determined from previous resource usage data associated with a resource and particular transaction (a resource-transaction pair).” The claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. As per claim 4, this claim recites an additional element of a linear regression model.
(Step 2A, prong 2) The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements regarding a linear regression model are considered insignificant extra-solution activity. These limitations are not considered improvements to the functioning of a technology or technical field.
(Step 2B) The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the linear regression model are not considered significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements represent only well-understood, routine, conventional activity that can be performed on generic computer systems. Gupta et al (US 20170140278 A1) discloses how well-understood, routine, and conventional a linear regression model is: Paragraph 31: "Various machine learning algorithms can be used in accordance with embodiments of the inventive subject matter, including, but not limited to, kernel density estimation, K-means, kernel principal components analysis, linear regression.” The claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non- statutory subject matter. As per claim 5, this claim recites an additional element of sending an electronic notification.
(Step 2A, prong 2) The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements regarding sending an electronic notification are considered insignificant extra-solution activity. These limitations are not considered improvements to the functioning of a technology or technical field.
(Step 2B) The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the sending an electronic notification are not considered significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements represent only well-understood, routine, conventional activity that can be performed on generic computer systems. The sending and receiving of data has been recognized by the courts as being well-understood, routine, and conventional functions when they are claimed in a merely generic manner (e.g., at a high level of generality) or as insignificant extra-solution activity. See buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) and MPEP 2106.05(d), subsection II. The claims are not patent eligible.
As per claim 6, this claim has similar elements (requests) and is rejected similarly to claim 1.
Claim 7 recites substantially similar limitations to claim 1 and is thus rejected along the same rationale. Claim 7 also includes a memory and processors, but they are considered generic computer parts similar to the computing device of claim 1, and are treated the same way.
Claims 8-9 recite substantially similar limitations to claims 3-4 respectively and are thus rejected along the same rationales.
Claim 10 recites substantially similar limitations to claim 5 and is thus rejected along the same rationale.
As per claim 11, this claim has similar elements (requests) and is rejected similarly to claim 7.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. As per claim 12, this claim recites an additional abstract idea of determining a prediction accuracy. The determining a prediction accuracy is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind. There are no other additional elements.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. As per claim 13, this claim recites an additional abstract idea of determining that the usage is indicative of a fault condition. The determining that the usage is indicative of a fault condition is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind. There are no other additional elements.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non- statutory subject matter. As per claim 14, this claim recites an additional element of accessing a processor load.
(Step 2A, prong 2) The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements regarding accessing a processor load are considered insignificant extra-solution activity. These limitations are not considered improvements to the functioning of a technology or technical field.
(Step 2B) The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the accessing a processor load are not considered significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements represent only well-understood, routine, conventional activity that can be performed on generic computer systems. The sending and receiving of data has been recognized by the courts as being well-understood, routine, and conventional functions when they are claimed in a merely generic manner (e.g., at a high level of generality) or as insignificant extra-solution activity. See buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) and MPEP 2106.05(d), subsection II. The claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. As per claim 15, this claim recites an additional abstract idea of identifying the plurality of requests. The identifying the plurality of requests is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind. There are no other additional elements.
Claim 16 recites substantially similar limitations to claim 5 (and claim 1 upon which it depends) and is thus rejected along the same rationale.
Claim 17 recites substantially similar limitations to claim 3 and is thus rejected along the same rationale.
Claims 18-20 recite substantially similar limitations to claims 13-15 respectively and are thus rejected along the same rationales.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 1/2/2026 with respect to the 35 USC 103 rejections of claims 1, 7, and 16, and the claims dependent on them, have been fully considered and are persuasive. Applicant argues that the cited art (Peracha in particular) fails to teach “results in a percentage of the predicted device usages that accurately predict its corresponding actual device usage to meet or exceed the threshold percentage.” Upon additional consideration, examiner agrees because “the threshold percentage” specifically corresponds to the specific threshold percentage determined in a previous limitation. This makes the combination of Peracha and the other cited art not teach the exact limitations as claimed, because they don’t explicitly teach using this determined value for this step of the claim. Thus the previous 35 USC 103 rejections are withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments filed 1/2/2026 with respect to claims 1, 7, and 16, and the claims dependent on them, regarding the 35 USC 101 rejections have been fully considered but are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the claims are not directed to a mental process or abstract idea (remarks, pp. 7-8). Examiner disagrees, and maintains that the steps of determining data, obtaining data, comparing, mapping, and selecting can each be interpreted as mental processes. The inclusion of a machine learning model to implement the steps, and the time series performance data does not exclude these steps from being able to be performed in the mind. Applicant also argues that the claims should be eligible under 35 USC 101 under step 2A, prong 2 because the abstract idea is integrated into a practical application that improves the functioning of computer technology. Applicant points to a similarity to example 47 of the Subject Matter eligibility examples, but examiner argues that the current claims are more similar to claim 2 of the example instead of claims 1 or 3. Claim 1 of the example is considered eligible because it has no abstract ideas, and claim 3 is considered eligible because it is integrated into a practical solution because of how the steps of dropping and blocking packets and traffic in real time are implemented. The current claims however merely raise an alarm based on the determination, which is not considered an improvement to the technology by the examiner. Thus the argument is not persuasive.
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 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.
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/B.C.A/Examiner, Art Unit 2178
/STEPHEN S HONG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2178
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