DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Notice to Applicant
2. The following is a Final Office action. In response to Examiner’s Non-Final Action of 06/09/2025, Applicant, on 12/09/2025, amended Claims 1-20.
Claims 1-20 are pending in this application and have been rejected below.
Response to Amendment
3. Applicant’s amendments and arguments are acknowledged.
4. Claim Objections added in light of Applicant's amendments.
5. The prior 35 USC §101 rejection of Claims maintained despite Applicant's amendments and arguments.
Claim Objections
6. Claim 1 objected to for the following grammatical error: at line 33, “automatically scheduling of upcoming meetings in order of criticality” should read “automatically scheduling [[of]] upcoming meetings in order of criticality”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
7. 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.
8. Claims 1-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because, although they are drawn to statutory categories of system (machine) and method (process), they are also directed to a judicial exception (an abstract idea) without significantly more.
9. At Step 2A Prong One of the subject matter eligibility analysis, Claim 1 recites a customer contact ranked scheduling assistance system comprising: .. retrieve for a user .. customer scheduling data indicating a meeting deadline date, a meeting frequency value indicating how often in a designated time period a customer meeting occurs for each customer .. and .. retrieving a revenue percentage value representing a percentage of a user’s annual recorded sales revenue that is attributable to each of the plurality of customers relative to the user's total annual recorded sales revenue ..; .. identify the plurality of customers assigned to the user .. and .. determine, for the plurality of customers assigned to the user, a past due percentage value for each customer assigned to the user by dividing a number of days determined to be elapsed since the meeting deadline date by a number of days in the meeting frequency value during the designated time period from the customer scheduling data for the user and multiplying the past due percentage value with the revenue percentage value to determine a revenue-weighted criticality ranking for each of the plurality of customers assigned to the user; .. establish a ranked list of the plurality of customers assigned to the user in the order of determined revenue-weighted criticality ranking for each customer assigned to the user and apply that revenue-weighted criticality ranking to .. schedule customers assigned to the user ..; .. the plurality of customers for that user, listed in order of the revenue-weighted criticality ranking from highest to lowest, which is an abstract idea of Mental Processes - concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion), because scheduling customer meetings in order of criticality based on revenue is a process that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, can be performed in the mind, since it involves evaluation, judgement or observation. Furthermore, scheduling customer meetings in order of criticality based on revenue is a business process, which falls under the abstract idea category of Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity, particularly fundamental economic principles or practices (including mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations). Claims 8 and 15 recite similar abstract ideas.
At Step 2A Prong Two of the analysis, the judicial exception (abstract idea) is not integrated into a practical application because the independent Claims, including additional elements such as a computing system executing computer readable code instructions, a hardware processor executing computer readable code instructions, automatically, via a network interface device, from a user’s electronic calendar application, from a customer relations management (CRM) platform at a CRM database memory, a graphical user interface (GUI), a revenue tracking application, via a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display device, individually, and in combination, when viewed as a whole, are not an improvement to a computer or a technology, the claims do not apply the judicial exception with a particular machine, and the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing. Generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, as in the instant claims, is not indicative of integration into a practical application - see MPEP 2106.05(h); adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as in the instant claims, is also not indicative of integration into a practical application - see MPEP 2106.05(f). Furthermore, the limitation of displaying, via a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display device, the plurality of customers assigned to the user listed in order of the criticality ranking value from highest to lowest for automatically scheduling [[of]] upcoming meetings in order of criticality on the user's electronic calendar application is insignificant extra-solution activity (see MPEP 2106.05(g)). The Claims are therefore directed to the judicial exception.
At Step 2B of the analysis, the independent Claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (abstract idea), because these additional elements such as those listed above, individually or in combination, do not recite anything that is beyond conventional and routine use of computers (as evidenced by Figure 11 of the Drawings and paragraphs 146-159 of the Specification in the instant Application and court decisions such as buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) discussed at 2106.05(d) of the MPEP), do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, nor do they apply the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular field of use or technological environment. Adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea (see MPEP 2106.05(f)), or generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)), as in the instant claims, is not indicative of an inventive concept ("significantly more").
At Step 2A Prong One, dependent Claims 2-7, 9-14 and 16-20 incorporate (and therefore recite) the abstract ideas noted in the independent claims and further recite extensions of those abstract ideas.
At Step 2A Prong Two, dependent Claims 2-5, 9, 10 and 16-20 do not include any additional elements beyond those recited in the independent claim from which they depend, and therefore do not integrate the judicial exception (abstract idea) into a practical application for the same reasons as stated above at Step 2A Prong Two for the independent Claims.
At Step 2A Prong Two, dependent Claims 6, 7 and 11-14 do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application because these Claims, including additional elements such as those listed above for the independent Claims and dataset fieldname, email message, mapping application, individually and in combination, when viewed as a whole, are not an improvement to a computer or a technology, the Claims do not apply the judicial exception with a particular machine, and the Claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing. Generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, as in the instant Claims, is not indicative of integration into a practical application - see MPEP 2106.05(h); adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as in the instant claims, is also not indicative of integration into a practical application - see MPEP 2106.05(f). The Claims are therefore directed to the judicial exception.
At Step 2B, dependent Claims 2-5, 9, 10 and 16-20 do not include any additional elements beyond those recited in the independent claims from which they depend, and therefore do not provide an inventive concept that is sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons as stated above at Step 2B for the independent Claims.
At Step 2B, dependent Claims 6, 7 and 11-14 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (abstract idea), because these additional elements such as those listed above for the independent Claims and dataset fieldname, email message, mapping application, individually or in combination, do not recite anything that is beyond conventional and routine use of computers (as evidenced by Figure 11 of the Drawings and paragraphs 146-159 of the Specification in the instant Application and court decisions such as buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) discussed at 2106.05(d) of the MPEP), do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, nor do they apply the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular field of use or technological environment. Adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea (see MPEP 2106.05(f)), or generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)), as in the instant claims, is not indicative of an inventive concept ("significantly more").
Therefore, Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-eligible subject matter. See Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573__ U.S. 2014.
Response to Arguments
10. Applicant's arguments filed 12/09/2025 have been fully considered, but they are found not persuasive with regard to the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection, which has therefore been maintained.
11. Applicant argues (at pp. 13-15) that, at Step 2A Prong Two of the subject matter eligibility analysis, the independent claims incorporate a particular machine ("particularized machine ") as an additional element and are thus not directed to the judicial exception (by integrating the judicial exception into a practical application).
Examiner respectfully disagrees. As explained in detail at paragraph 9 above in this office action, the claims recite a judicial exception at Step 2A Prong One of the subject matter analysis; at Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements (for example, a computing system executing computer readable code instructions) are merely used as a tool to implement the abstract idea, and therefore do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (see MPEP 2106.05(f)). See also MPEP 2106.05(b)(1) (“It is important to note that a general purpose computer that applies a judicial exception, such as an abstract idea, by use of conventional computer functions does not qualify as a particular machine”). The claims are therefore directed to the judicial exception at Step 2A Prong Two (and similarly do not provide an inventive concept at Step 2B).
12. With regard to Applicant’s argument (at pp. 13-14) that the claimed subject matter incorporates a novel algorithm, “The Supreme Court’s decisions make it clear that judicial exceptions need not be old or long-prevalent, and that even newly discovered or novel judicial exceptions are still exceptions. .. Flook, 437 U.S. at 591-92, 198 USPQ2d at 198 ("the novelty of the mathematical algorithm is not a determining factor at all")“ (see MPEP 2106.04(I)).
Conclusion
13. 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.
14. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SARJIT S BAINS whose telephone number is (571)270-0317. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30am-6:00pm.
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/SARJIT S BAINS/Examiner, Art Unit 3623 /RUTAO WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3623