DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Notice for all US Patent Applications filed on or after March 16, 2013
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Status of the Claims
This communication is in response to communications received on 11/21/25. Claim(s) 1, 4, 13, 19, and 20 has/have been amended, claim(s) none is/are cancelled, claim(s) none is/are new, and applicant states support can be found at instant specification [0008, 0042, 0066]. Therefore, Claims 1-4, 7-8, 10-17, and 19-22 is/are pending and have been addressed below.
Claims Without Prior Art Rejections
Claim(s) 3-4, 10-11 and 17-18 do/does not have prior art rejections. The remaining rejections are 101 as noted below.
Closest prior art to the invention include
Sabet et al. (US 2016/0260044 A1) in view of Nakahara (US 2017/0061355 A1), Korenblit et al. (US 2007/0198330 A1), and Superuser, published April 26, 2018 (reference U on the Notice of References Cited) for claim(s) 1-4, 7-8, 10-17, and 19-22.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see applicant’s remarks, filed 11/21/25, with respect to rejections under 35 USC 103 for claim(s) 1-4, 7-8, 10-17, and 19-22 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The Examiner respectfully withdraws rejections under 35 USC 103 for claim(s) 1-4, 7-8, 10-17, and 19-22.
Applicant’s arguments, see applicant’s remarks, filed 11/21/25, with respect to rejections under 35 USC 101 for claim(s) 1-4, 7-8, 10-17, and 19-22 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive as far as they apply to the amended 101 rejection(s) below.
Applicant respectfully traversed the rejection on pg. 11-14.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees because the claimed invention merely generates score, combines the generated scores, and combines the combined scores. While the analysis of various scores may be an improvement, the information provided is not an improvement to the technology under 35 USC 101.
While the invention may a) improve the business problem of improving an organization’s health by determining a cause of a health problem and taking corrective actions, b) the invention can be done without a computer.
The amendment to automatically perform may overcome the 101 rejection if more information on the actional event is provided.
Thus, the argument(s) are unpersuasive.
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) 1-4, 7-8, 10-17, and 19-22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter as noted below.
The limitation(s) below for representative claim(s) 1, 14, and 20 that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is directed to helping companies determine health scores for their organizations.
Step 1: The claim(s) as drafted, is/are a process (claim(s) 1-4, 7-8, 10-13, and 21, recites a series of steps) and system (claim(s) 14-17, 19-20, and 22 recites a series of components).
Step 2A – Prong 1: The claims are found to recite limitations that set forth the abstract idea(s) in the following representative claim(s):
Claim 1: aggregating, in a database, time allocation data and attention minutes data for a plurality of people at a plurality of organizations, wherein the time allocation data and attention minutes data is derived from electronic communication data obtained from a plurality of computing devices;
processing the aggregated time allocation data and attention minutes data from the database to determine a respective benchmark value, across the plurality of organizations, for each of a plurality of objective measures;
from one or more computing devices, receiving time allocation data and attention minutes data derived from electronic communication data associated with employees of a given organization;
analyzing the received time allocation data and attention minutes data derived from the electronic communication data associated with the employees of the given organization to determine, for each employee of the given organization, a total length of time for which electronic communication data associated with the employee exists;
selecting each individual in a subset of the employees of the given organization based upon the determined total length of time for which electronic communication data associated with each employee exists and a comparison between (i) a sum of the received time allocation data derived from the electronic communication data associated with the employees of the given organization and (ii) a minimum threshold;
for each selected individual in the subset of the employees of the given organization, scoring behavioral indicators for the individual by:
processing the received time allocation data and attention minutes data to determine a raw numeric value for each of the plurality of objective measures for the individual;
converting each determined raw numeric value to a respective unitless percentile metric score for each of the plurality of objective measures by comparing the determined raw numeric value for each of the plurality of objective measures to the determined respective benchmark value, across the plurality of organizations, for each of the plurality of objective measures; and
aggregating one or more unitless percentile metric scores to determine a respective score for each of a plurality of behavioral indicators for the individual wherein, for a given behavioral indicator, (i) a plurality of unitless percentile metric scores are quantitatively processed using a mathematical formula specific to the given behavioral indicator to determine the respective score and (ii) the mathematical formula dictates the plurality of unitless percentile metric scores;
aggregating one or more of the respective scores for the plurality of behavioral indicators for the selected individuals in the subset to determine a respective score for each of a plurality of organization characteristics for the given organization;
processing the respective scores for each of the plurality of organization characteristics to create a health score for the given organization;
comparing the created health score for the given organization to a threshold to determine an actionable event; and
automatically performing the actionable event by providing an indication of the determined actionable event to a computing system of the given organization, wherein (i) the computing system is configured to automatically perform the actionable event responsive to receiving the indication and (ii) the actionable event is at least one of: (a) performing electronic scheduling via a communications platform, (b) performing electronic calendaring through a calendaring application, and (c) modifying the computing system to at least one of provide computing tools and allocate computing resources.
Claim 14 and 20: the same analysis as claim(s) 1.
Dependent claims 2-4, 5, 7-8, 10-13, 15-17, 19, and 21-22 recite the same or similar abstract idea(s) as independent claim(s) 1, 14, and 20 with merely a further narrowing of the abstract idea(s).
The identified limitations of the independent and dependent claims above fall well-within the groupings of subject matter identified by the courts as being abstract concepts of:
a method of organizing human activity (commercial or legal interactions including advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, or business relations) because the invention is directed to economic and/or business relationships as they are associated with helping companies determine health scores for their organizations,
a method of organizing human activity (managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions) because the invention is directed to following rules or instructions (via various scoring methodology) to help companies determine health scores for their organizations, and
mental process (concepts performed in the human mind including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) because the invention is directed to performing an evaluation of worker data (that could be done in the mind) to help companies determine health scores for their organizations.
Step 2A – Prong 2: This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The additional elements not encompassed by the abstract idea include automatic, computing system, databases, computing devices, device, automatically, computing system, computing tools, computing resources, communications platform (claim(s) 1, 14, and 20) system comprising: a processor and a memory (claims(s) 14), computer program product comprising: one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage devices and additionally a processor and apparatus associated with the processor (claim(s) 20), processor and the memory (claim(s) 15-19).
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements as described above with respect to Step 2A Prong 2 fails to describe:
Improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field - see MPEP 2106.05(a)
Applying or using a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition – see Vanda Memo
Applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine – see MPEP 2106.05(b)
Effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing - see MPEP 2106.05(c)
Applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception - see MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo.
Thus the additional elements as described above with respect to Step 2A Prong 2 are merely (as additionally noted by instant specification [00106]) invoked as a tool and/or general purpose computer to apply instructions of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment, and/or mere application of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological field do not integrate an abstract idea into a practical application (MPEP 2106.05(f)&(h)).
Step 2B: The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Thus the additional elements as described above with respect to Step 2A Prong 2 are merely (as additionally noted by instant specification [00106]) invoked as a tool and/or a general purpose computer to apply instructions of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment, and/or mere application of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological field do not integrate an abstract idea into a practical application and thus similarly the combination and arrangement of the above identified additional elements when analyzed under Step 2B also fails to necessitate a conclusion that the claims amount to significantly more than the abstract idea for the same reasons as set forth above (MPEP 2106.05(f)&(h)).
Conclusion
When responding to the office action, any new claims and/or limitations should be accompanied by a reference as to where the new claims and/or limitations are supported in the original disclosure.
Applicant's amendment necessitated any new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP §706.07(a). 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMES WEBB whose telephone number is (313)446-6615. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 10-3.
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, Jerry O’Connor can be reached on (571) 272-6787. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/J.W./Examiner, Art Unit 3624
/Jerry O'Connor/Supervisory Patent Examiner,Group Art Unit 3624
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