DETAILED ACTION
This Final Office Action is in response to Applicant's arguments filed on February 26, 2026. Applicant has amended claims 1 and 26. Currently, claims 1, 3-7, 9-10, 12, 14-19, 21, 23, 26 are pending. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendments
The 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections of claims 1, 3-7, 9-10, 12, 14-19, 21, 23, 26 are maintained in light of applicant’s amendments to claims 1 and 26.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s remarks submitted on 2/26/26 have been considered but are not persuasive. Applicant argues on p. 8 of the remarks that the 101 rejection is improper. Examiner disagrees. Applicant argues on p. 9 of the remarks that the claims are not directed to organizing human activity or mental processes. Applicant argues that the claims are not about commercial interactions including marketing and business relations. Examiner notes that workforce data is considered human activity and specifically commercial or business activity and that data is organized via the comparisons and reports. Moreover, the claims are also a mental process because the claims are a type of observation. Although there are steps that require pen or paper and some additional steps that have computing components, the actual abstract idea parts can be done mentally or by pen and paper and the physical aspects are considered additional elements. Applicant argues on p. 10 of the remarks that the claims integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Applicant argues that preserving confidentiality with a non disclosure rule and an interactive dashboard shows practical implementation. Examiner disagrees. Examiner notes utilizing confidential data is part of the abstract idea and improving security because the claims “gate” confidentiality data is not an improvement sufficiently tethered to the claims. In this instance, the gating is just a characteristic from the comparison of data and thus part of the abstract idea itself. Examiner further notes the interactive dashboard and a displayed graph are tools for implementing the abstract idea and, at best, merely linking the abstract idea to specific computing environments as opposed to an improvement to a computer or another technology. Applicant further argues on p. 12 of the remarks that the additional elements are significantly more than the abstract idea. Examiner disagrees. Applicant argues the ordered combination is significantly more than the abstract idea but all the elements are ones typically used in data analysis and displaying data after data gathering and analysis is the routine and conventional order. Applicant makes comparisons to examples 47-48. Examiner notes applicant’s claims are not equivalent to those examples and have different abstract ideas and additional elements and deemed ineligible because of different in subject matter. Therefore, the claims remain rejected under 101.
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, 3-7, 9-12, 14-19, 21-23, 26 are clearly drawn to at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter recited in 35 U.S.C. 101 (system and method). Claims 1, 3-7, 9-12, 14-19, 21-23, 26 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. Claims 1 and 26 recite the abstract idea of retrieving, from a plurality of different educational institutions by directly integrating with a plurality of human resources (HR) or payroll systems workforce data defining teaching workforce characteristics that impact student educational outcomes and retrieving from a plurality of different educational institutions by directly integrating with one or more school reporting systems, outcome data defining student educational outcomes, the workforce data and the outcome data relating to a plurality of different educational institutions and validating the workforce data and/or the outcome data to determine that the data is within one or more boundaries in relation to which the workforce data and/or the outcome defined and determining, based upon the workforce data and the outcome data relating to the plurality of different educational institutions, one or more statistical relationships between teaching workforce characteristics and student educational outcomes relating to the plurality of different educational institutions based on determining a correlation between each pair of data from the workforce data and the outcome data and determining, based upon the one or more statistical relationships, one or more variables of the teaching workforce characteristics relating to the plurality of different educational institutions, the one or more variables correlated with at least one student educational outcome, wherein the one or more variables are determined by identifying variables where the correlation with the at least one educational outcome is above a threshold and determining one or more ranges for the one or more variables, based upon the data of the plurality of different educational institutions, to create benchmarks against which the educational institutions can compare themselves and receiving a comparison request relating to an educational institution or group of educational institutions of the plurality of different educational institutions, the request including one or more control variables, wherein the comparison group is defined in part according to the control variables and defining a comparison group comprising one or more of the plurality of different educational institutions and determining that the comparison group is sufficiently large to maintain workforce data and outcome data confidentiality and upon determining that the comparison group is sufficiently large, comparing, one or more characteristics of an educational institution or group of educational institutions of the plurality of different educational institutions to the one more variables of the teaching workforce characteristics of the comparison group and generating a report comprising the one or more characteristics of the educational institution or group of educational institutions of the plurality of different educational institutions, the one or more variables of the teaching workforce characteristics of the comparison group and the one or more ranges to enable variables for improvement to be identified that have a greatest impact on educational outcomes for that educational institution or group of educational institutions wherein the characteristics are displayed with reference to the one or more ranges, the one or more ranges including an acceptable range and at least one range that is outside of the acceptable range wherein the acceptable range and the at least one range that is outside of the acceptable range are color coded and wherein if the comparison group is not sufficiently large to maintain workforce data and outcome data confidentiality, not include any data for the comparison group and propose alternative parameters to define a comparison group having a sufficient size. The claims are directed to a type of comparison of educational institutions. This is considered abstract because the claims are certain methods of organizing human activity such as commercial interactions including marketing and business relations and mental processes including an observation or evaluation. The claims are show methods of organizing human activity because the claims show various educational institution and workforce data which is a type of commercial interactions and analysis and organization of such human activity data. The claims also show mental processes including an observation or evaluation because the claims show an observation or evaluation of an educational institution. The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims (the judicial exception and the additional elements individually or in combination such as a system and a server and a plurality of computing and maintaining data confidentiality maintaining data confidentiality and automatically retrieving and automatically validating and interactive reports and wherein at least a subset of the one or more characteristics are displayed in the interactive report according to their impact on education outcomes in the educational institution or group of educational institutions and graphically displaying data and a graph in which workforce metrics are provided according to a magnitude of impact on performance, wherein the report is an interactive dashboard that updates based upon user interactions that define at least the comparison group or variables being compared and not display any data for the comparison group) are not an improvement to a computer or a technology, the claims do not apply the judicial exception with a particular machine, the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing nor do the claims apply 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 claims as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements individually or in combination such as a system and a server and a plurality of computing devices and maintaining data confidentiality and automatically retrieving and automatically validating and interactive reports and wherein at least a subset of the one or more characteristics are displayed in the interactive report according to their impact on education outcomes in the educational institution or group of educational institutions and graphically displaying data and a graph in which workforce metrics are provided according to a magnitude of impact on performance, wherein the report is an interactive dashboard that updates based upon user interactions that define at least the comparison group or variables being compared and not display any data for the comparison group (as evidenced by Fig 1 of applicant’s own specification) are for mere data gathering, data transformation and extra solution activity. Dependent claims 3-7, 9-12, 14-19, 21, 23 also not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements either individually or in combination are merely an extension of the abstract idea itself by further showing more specifics on the type of workforce data and outcome data and where the data is retrieved from 3rd parties and parameters for the characteristics and comparing the characteristics and displaying an association of the parameters and showing what parameters have the greatest impact on the outcomes for the school and generating reports that are interactive or have a dashboard or selecting institutions from larger groups.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 3-7, 9-10, 12, 14-19, 21, 23, 26 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Rollings et al. (US 2020/0034823 A1), a method for selectively displaying information regarding activity in a geographic area by receiving data regarding a plurality of card-present payment transactions that have been conducted in the geographic area during a time interval, determining a plurality of segments of the geographic area, assigning each of the transactions to the segment in which the transaction was conducted, determining aggregate transaction data for each of the segments based on data regarding the transactions that have been assigned to that segment; generating a transaction index for each segment based on a comparison of the aggregate transaction data of that segment with aggregate transaction data of at least one different segment and/or least one predetermined metric, and generating a visual representation comprising data regarding the transaction index of at least one of the segments
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.
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/SUJAY KONERU/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624