DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of the Application
Receipt is acknowledged of the request for continued examination filed 10/17/2025 and the amendment and response filed 9/30/2025. Claims 1-20 are pending in the application. Claims 1, 13 and 18 were amended.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 9/30/2025 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/17/2025 and 1/20/2026 and 1/26/2026 were filed before the close of prosecution in the application. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments in view of claim amendments have been considered, and are persuasive. The rejection under 35 USC 112(b) is withdrawn.
Potentially Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 1 may be allowable, if the nature of “a modification” and the salient features of the method are specifically included in the claim, for example by including limitations from dependent claims 2,3 and 5-8. As presented, the claim is not commensurate in scope with applicant’s previous arguments.
As pointed out in the disclosure, the method improves precision in customizing beverages ([0008]-[0011]). Specifically the improvement is effected by introducing a recipe generation policy that systematically records and applies modified recipe inputs across computationally complex ingredient combinations, measures and volume proportions. The method dynamically generates dispensing control instructions based on stored modification histories, thereby improving repeatability, accuracy and scalability of beverage preparation. The technical improvement is therefore realized through a sequence of operations defined by the method claims.
The corresponding system and non-transitory computer readable medium claims are directed to implementations configured to execute the method, and do not rely on modifications to underlying hardware or computer architecture. Therefore, the potential patentability resides in the method steps executed by the system, rather than the system itself.
Correspondence
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Subbalakshmi Prakash whose telephone number is (571)270-3685. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Emily Le can be reached at (571) 272-0903. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SUBBALAKSHMI PRAKASH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1793