DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Application
The following is a non-Final Office Action. In response to Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) decision of November 26, 2025, which affirmed Examiner’s 35 USC 101 rejections and reversed Examiner’s 35 USC 103 rejections, Applicant, on January 26, 2026, requested, in a request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, consideration of arguments in the Appeal Brief September 26, 2024. Claim 2 was previously canceled. Claims 1 & 3-12 are now pending in this application and have been rejected below.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . 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.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on January 26, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant's most recent amendments, in view of the PTAB decision dated November 26, 2025, are not sufficient to overcome the 35 USCS 101 rejections for being directed to an abstract idea, and thus, the 101 rejections for being directed to an abstract idea are maintained below.
Applicant's most recent amendments, in view of the PTAB decision, are sufficient to overcome the 35 USC 103 rejections, and thus, the 35 USC 103 rejections are withdrawn.
Response to Arguments -35 USC § 101
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 35 USC 101 rejections for being directed to an abstract idea have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive.
Applicant’s request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114 requests consideration of arguments in the Appeal Brief September 26, 2024.
Examiner does not agree with nor find persuasive the arguments in Applicant’s Appeal Brief September 26, 2024 regarding the 35 USC 101 rejections for the reasons set forth in Examiner’s Answer dated December 17, 2024 and the PTAB decision dated November 26, 2025 affirming Examiner’s 35 USC 101 rejections. Therefore, the 35 USC 101 rejections are maintained below.
Response to Arguments - Prior Art
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the prior art rejections have been fully considered, and, in view of the PTAB decision dated November 26, 2025 reversing Examiner’s 35 USC 103 rejections, they are persuasive. Therefore, the 35 USC 103 rejections of claims 1 & 3-12 are withdrawn.
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 and 3-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims (claim 1, and similarly claim 3-12) recite “for setting order of cargo shipment comprising: … acquire one or more inputs from the user and transfer the acquired one or more inputs, and to send and receive signals to and from one or more external organizations; and acquire one or more inputs from the user and transfer the acquired one or more inputs …; … sends and receives signals to and from one or more external organizations; … receive preliminary data related to a ship and cargo from the one or more external organizations, … generate preliminary cargo shipment order data related to shipment order of the cargo on a basis of the preliminary data, simulate shipment of the cargo on the ship, in a sequential order to probe (1) whether there is a lack of a space for a shipment of the cargo, (2) whether there is a collision probability on the cargo's movement route, (3) whether the shipment is effective, and (4) whether the shipment reaches the cargo's destination, on a basis of the preliminary cargo shipment order data to validate the preliminary cargo shipment order data, re-generate the preliminary cargo shipment order data if it is invalidated by the simulation, set the preliminary cargo shipment order data as a determined cargo shipment order data if the preliminary cargo shipment order data is validated by the simulation, and transfer the determined shipment order data to the one or more external organizations, wherein the preliminary data includes structure-related information of the ship and information on the cargo to be shipped in the ship, and wherein the preliminary cargo shipment order data and the determined cargo shipment order data refer to an arrangement of the cargo in the ship's available loading space, and the preliminary cargo shipment order data includes a plurality sets of intermediate data calculated by a plurality of separate and distinct steps of calculation respectively, wherein the preliminary shipment order data is generated through a plurality of separate and sequential steps of (1) generating and storing cargo shippable zone data, (2) generating and storing cargo shipment zone data, (3) generating and storing cargo movement route data, (4) generating and storing subdivided cargo shipment zone data, (5) generating and storing subdivided cargo shipment zone data having order of priority, (6) implementing and storing subdivided cargo shipment zone data having order of priority, and (7) generating and storing preliminary cargo shipment order data, wherein the generating and storing cargo shippable zone data includes generating a cargo table, setting cargo shippable boundary, storing first data that includes the cargo table and the information on cargo shippable boundary in a first data group, and wherein generating and storing cargo shipment zone data includes probing whether there is data having similarity with the first data within a predetermined range, among the data stored in the first data group, generating second data which is a data on cargo shippable zone based on the first data and storing the second data in a second data group in the case that the answer to the probing is negative, or extracting the second data from the second data group in the case that the answer to the probing is positive, wherein each set of intermediate data of the plurality sets of intermediate data is an output that corresponds to one of the sequential, separate and distinct steps of calculation.” Claims 1 and 3-12, in view of the claim limitations, are directed to the abstract idea of setting order of cargo shipment by receiving input from users and preliminary data related to a ship and cargo from an external organization, generating preliminary cargo shipment order data related to shipment order of the cargo based on the preliminary data by simulating shipment of the cargo on the ship based on the preliminary cargo shipment order data, by probing in a sequential order whether there is a lack of a space for a shipment, there is a collision probability, the shipment is effective, and the shipment reaches the destination, re-generating the preliminary cargo shipment order data if the shipment of the cargo is not implemented, setting the preliminary cargo shipment order data as determined cargo shipment order data if the shipment of the cargo is implemented, and through a plurality of separate and sequential steps generating and storing shippable zones, shipment zones, movement routes, and subdivided cargo shipment zones, and transferring the shipment order data to the one or more external organizations.
Each of these limitations are directed to setting shipment order data for shipping cargo on a ship based on data related to the ship and cargo, which is directed to managing sale and marketing activity, fundamental economic principals, and commercial interactions, specifically the sales and marketing activity, economic principals, and commercial interactions of a shipping business entity when conducting their business of shipping cargo, and thus, the claims recite a certain method of organizing human activity. Further, as a whole, in view of the claim limitations, but for the computer components and systems performing the claimed functions, the broadest reasonable interpretation of the recited receiving input from users and preliminary data related to a ship and cargo from an external organization, generating preliminary cargo shipment order data related to shipment order of the cargo based on the preliminary data by simulating shipment of the cargo on the ship based on the preliminary cargo shipment order data, by probing in a sequential order whether there is a lack of a space for a shipment, there is a collision probability, the shipment is effective, and the shipment reaches the destination, re-generating the preliminary cargo shipment order data if the shipment of the cargo is not implemented, setting the preliminary cargo shipment order data as determined cargo shipment order data if the shipment of the cargo is implemented, and through a plurality of separate, distinct, and sequential steps generating and storing shippable zones, shipment zones, movement routes, and subdivided cargo shipment zones, and transferring the shipment order data to the one or more external organizations could all be reasonably interpreted as a human making observations of data regarding the order, a human mentally using judgment to generate preliminary cargo shipment data, a human mentally performing an evaluation in sequential, separate, and distinct steps and using judgment to simulate the shipment based on the preliminary cargo shipment data and in a sequential order whether conditions regarding the cargo are met, a human mentally using judgment to decide whether to set the preliminary cargo shipment data or otherwise a human mentally using judgement to regenerate preliminary cargo shipment data, which may be generated and stored mentally and/or with a pen and paper in sequential, separate, and distinct steps using mental judgement and evaluation, and a human transferring the shipment order data manually and/or with a pen and paper; therefore, the claims recite mental processes. Accordingly, since the claims recite mental processes and a certain method of organizing human activity, the claims recite an abstract idea under the first prong of Step 2A.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application under the second prong of Step 2A. In particular, the claims recite the additional elements beyond the recited abstract idea of “[a] device,” “one or more computer processors, one or more computer-readable memories and one or more computer-readable, tangible storage devices, one or more databases,” “wherein the one or more computer processors are configured to interface with a user,” “computer readable program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more computer-readable, tangible storage devices for execution by at least of the one or more computer processors via at least one of the one or more computer-readable memories, to perform operations,” and “at least one of the one or more computer processors is configured to” in claim 1, and similarly claims 3-12; however, when viewed as an ordered combination, and pursuant to the broadest reasonable interpretation, each of the additional elements are computing elements recited at a high level of generality implementing the abstract idea on a computer (i.e. apply it), and thus, are no more than applying the abstract idea with generic computer components, which is not sufficient to integrate an abstract idea into a practical application. In addition, these additional elements merely generally link the abstract idea to a field of use, namely a generic computing environment. Moreover, aside from the aforementioned additional elements, the remaining elements of dependent claims 3-12 do not integrate the claims into a practical application because these claims merely recite further limitations that provide no more than simply narrowing the recited abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception under Step 2B. As noted above, the aforementioned additional elements beyond the recited abstract idea, as an order combination, are no more than mere instructions to implement the idea using generic computer components (i.e. apply it), and further, generally link the abstract idea to a field of use, which is not sufficient to amount to significantly more than an abstract idea; therefore, the additional elements are not sufficient to amount to significantly more than an abstract idea. Additionally, these recitations as an ordered combination, simply append the abstract idea to recitations of generic computer structure performing generic computer functions that are well-understood, routine, and conventional in the field as individually evinced by Applicant’s specification at p. 4, ln. 1-6 (describing that the embodiments of the invention may be implemented using a server comprising a computer or laptop with control being implemented by a processor). Moreover, aside from the aforementioned additional elements, the remaining elements of dependent claims 3-12 do not transform the recited abstract idea into a patent eligible invention because these claims merely recite further limitations that provide no more than simply narrowing the recited abstract idea.
Looking at these limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing additional that is sufficient to amount to significantly more than the recited abstract idea because they simply provide instructions to use a generic arrangement of generic computer components and recitations of generic computer structure that perform well-understood, routine, and conventional computer functions that are used to “apply” the recited abstract idea. Thus, the elements of the claims, considered both individually and as an ordered combination, are not sufficient to ensure that the claims as a whole amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Since there are no limitations in these claims that transform the exception into a patent eligible application such that these claims amount to significantly more than the exception itself, claims 1 and 3-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHARLES A GUILIANO whose telephone number is (571)272-9859. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 10:00 am - 6:00 pm.
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, Rutao Wu can be reached at 571-272-6045. 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.
CHARLES GUILIANO
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3623
/CHARLES GUILIANO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623