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.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 1/5/26 has been entered.
Status of the Claims
This communication is in response to communications received on 1/5/26. Claim(s) none is/are amended, claim(s) none is/are cancelled, claim(s) none is/are new, and applicant does not provide any information on where support for the amendments and/or new claims can be found in the instant specification as there are not any amendments and/or new claims. Therefore, Claims 1, 4-5, 7-8, 11-12, 14-15, and 18-19 is/are pending and have been addressed below.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see applicant’s remarks, filed 1/5/26, with respect to rejections under 35 USC 101 for claim(s) 1, 4-5, 7-8, 11-12, 14-15, and 18-19 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. 11-18.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees because the claims are still an abstract idea directed to determining staff requirements while accounting for multi-skill and multi-session efficiency.
Applicant is relying on 2106.05(d) “well understood, routine, and conventional” however Examiner is relying on 2106.05(f) “apply it.” Examiner relied on “apply it” because of item (2) Whether the claim invokes computers or other machinery merely as a tool to perform an existing process of 2106.05(f).
While applicant attempts to explain how changing real time to instantaneously furthers the argument as noted on pgs. 14-18, the explanation still merely relies on apply it as noted above. The applicant appears to focus on caching as an improvement to computer technology without explaining how this version of caching is different than what is currently available. A similar argument can be made for simulation. A combination of equipment (such as the caching and other components) will likely overcome a 103 rejection if there are enough parts however a 101 rejection would likely need to show that the combination is an actual improvement to the technology instead of a combination of potentially well understood, routine, and conventional parts.
Examiner notes that if the claims followed example 47 claim 3 steps e and f from the 101 examples for July 2024 Subject Matter Eligibility Examples the claim(s) would likely overcome 101 rejection.
Thus, the argument(s) are unpersuasive.
Claims Without Prior Art Rejections
Claim(s) 1, 4-5, 7-8, 11-12, 14-15, and 18-19 do not have prior art rejections. The remaining rejections are 101s as noted below.
Closest prior art to the invention claims without rejections include
Ramanujan et al. (US 2008/0172275 A1) in view of Ouimette et al. (US 10, 447,853 B1) and Lewis et al. (US 9,883,037 B1) for claim(s) 1, 4-5, 7-8, 11-12, 14-15, and 18-19.
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, 4-5, 7-8, 11-12, 14-15, and 18-19 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, 8, and 15 that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is directed to determining staff requirements while accounting for multi-skill and multi-session efficiency.
Step 1: The claim(s) as drafted, is/are a process (claim(s) 8, 11-12 and 14 recites a series of steps) and system (claim(s) 1, 4-5, 7, 15, and 18-19 recites a series of components).
Step 2A – Prong 1: The claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) (emphasis added):
Claim 8: receiving, by a single-skill multi-session staff requirement generator coupled to a forecast database, a plurality of contact volumes, a plurality of processing times, and a plurality of service objectives for each of a plurality of contact types that are stored in the forecast database;
automatically calculating, by the single-skill multi-session staff requirement generator, workload staff requirement values for a range of the plurality of contact volumes, a range of the plurality of processing times, and a range of the plurality of service objectives for each of the plurality of contact types;
automatically storing, by the single-skill multi-session staff requirement generator coupled to a single-skill multi-session staff requirement cache database, the workload staff requirement values in a multi-session omni-channel (MSOC) staff requirement cache database;
via a workforce management user interface, receiving, by the single-skill multi-session staff requirement generator, a number of simultaneous sessions allowed for each of the plurality of contact types;
automatically calculating, by the single-skill multi-session staff requirement generator, single-skill multi-session staff requirement estimates for the range of the plurality of contact volumes, the range of the plurality of processing times, and the range of the plurality of service objectives for each of the plurality of contact types based on the number of simultaneous sessions allowed;
automatically storing, by the single-skill multi-session staff requirement generator, the single-skill multi-session staff requirement estimates in the single-skill multi-session staff requirement cache database;
via the workforce management user interface, receiving, by a multi-session omni-channel (MSOC) staff requirement generator coupled to the single-skill multi-session staff requirement cache database and an MSOC staff requirement, a plurality of skill groups and a plurality of contact types each skill group may serve;
automatically mapping, by the (MSOC) staff requirement generator, the plurality of contact types to the plurality of skill groups;
automatically defining, by the (MSOC) staff requirement generator, relationships among the plurality of contact types based on the mapping of the plurality of contact types to the plurality of skill groups;
automatically selecting, by the (MSOC) staff requirement generator, a contact type from the plurality of contact types;
automatically retrieving, by the (MSOC) staff requirement generator from the stored workload staff requirement values and the stored single-skill multi-session staff requirement estimates in the single-skill multi-session staff requirement cache database, a staff requirement estimate corresponding to a defined contact volume, a defined processing time, and a defined service objective for each contact type;
automatically determining, by the (MSOC) staff requirement generator, a capacity for agents serving the selected contact type to also serve other contact types from the plurality of contact types;
automatically determining, by the (MSOC) staff requirement generator, a plurality of normalized contact volumes for each contact type that is related to the selected contact type using the determined capacity of the agents, by normalizing each contact volume to the selected contact type based on the defined processing time and the defined service objective of the selected contact type;
automatically determining, by the (MSOC) staff requirement generator, a staff requirement estimate for the selected contact type based on the defined contact volume of the selected contact type, the normalized contact volume of each contact type that is related to the selected contact type, and the mapping of the plurality of contact types to the plurality of skill groups, and
automatically storing, by the (MSOC) staff requirement, the staffing requirement generator estimate for the selected contact type in the MSOC staff requirement database;
via the workforce management user interface, displaying to a user the plurality of contact volumes, the plurality of processing times, the plurality of service objectives, and the staff requirement estimate for the selected contact type;
via the workforce management user interface, receiving a change to one of the plurality of contact volumes, a change to one of the plurality of processing times, or a change to one of the plurality of service objectives; and
in response to the change, generating and displaying an updated staff requirement estimate for the selected contact type based on the change.
Claim 1 and 15: the same analysis as claim(s) 8.
Dependent claims 4-5, 7, 11-12, 14, and 18-19 recite the same or similar abstract idea(s) as independent claim(s) 1, 8, and 15 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 staffing requirements.
Step 2A – Prong 2: This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The additional elements unencompassed by the abstract idea include real time, single-skill mutli-session staff requirement generator coupled to a forecast database, automatically, single-skill mutli-session staff requirement cache database, user workforce management user interface, multi-session omni-channel (MSOC) staff requirement generator, MSOC staff requirement database, instantaneously (claim(s) 1, 8, and 15) a processor and a non-transitory computer readable medium (claims(s) 1), a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-readable instructions executable by a processor (claim(s) 15).
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 [0021, 0048]) 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 [0021, 0048]) 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.
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.
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/JAMES WEBB/Examiner, Art Unit 3624