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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/26/2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-7, 9, 10, and 12-22 are pending per Applicant’s 01/26/2026 filing with the USPTO.
Claims 1, 9, 12, 16, 19, and 21 are amended. Claims 8 and 11 was previously canceled. Claim 22 is newly added. No claims are withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 35 USC 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues:
Applicant notes that electronic calendaring applications are not listed in the enumerated “certain” groups of organizing human activity. Remarks p. 14.
Respectfully the Offices disagrees with Applicant’s assessment. Per the MPEP 2106.04(a) “certain” groups of organizing human activity includes for example - managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions). The Office finds that calendar is an instructions for the user about when, where, and with whom the user is to interact; therefore electronic calendaring applications fall within the abstract idea bucket of certain methods of organizing human activity.
The rejection of the previous Office action is maintained as updated below.
The claimed subject matter results in an improvement to the technological field of electronic scheduling by centralized scheduling in globally connected network and geographically distributed devices. Remarks p. 14.
Respectfully the Offices disagrees with Applicant’s assessment. In light of the recent USPTO “Advance notice of change to the MPEP in light of Ex Parte Dejardins” Memorandum, dated 12/05/2025 which states that the improvements as described in the specification need to be incorporated in the claim when the claim is viewed as a whole, see additions to MPEP 2106.04(d) at p. 2 of the Memo. The instant claims do not expressly or implicitly incorporate the argued improvement of centralized scheduling.
The rejection of the previous Office action is maintained as updated below.
The claims go beyond the concept of “apply it”. Rather, the claims detail how the process is performed – such as through the use of new novel data structures and algorithms that enable the improvements and specific interactive user-interface technologies. Remarks p 15.
Respectfully the Offices disagrees with Applicant’s assessment. Where MPEP 2106.05(f) provides, “the Supreme Court, in order to make a claim directed to a judicial exception patent-eligible, the additional element or combination of elements must do "‘more than simply stat[e] the [judicial exception] while adding the words ‘apply it’". Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, 573 U.S. 208, 221, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1982-83 (2014) (quoting Mayo Collaborative Servs. V. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66, 72, 101 USPQ2d 1961, 1965). Thus, for example, claims that amount to nothing more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer do not render an abstract idea eligible. Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 223, 110 USPQ2d at 1983.” For example in claim 1, the processor simply carries out the steps of the claimed invention using instructions stored in the memory. The processor just applies the program to the received data to generate and transmit recommendation information.
The rejection of the previous Office action is maintained as updated below.
"If the additional element (or combination of elements) is a specific limitation other than what is well-understood, routine and conventional in the field, for instance because it is an unconventional step that confines the claim to a particular useful application of the judicial exception, then this consideration favors eligibility.") This is demonstrated, at least, by the lack of any rejections for obviousness or novelty. Remarks p. 15.
Respectfully, the Offices disagrees with Applicant’s assessment. The standard of review under 35 USC §101 is different from that of 35 USC §102/103. Under 101 the standard for determining if the claimed invention was well-understood, routine, and conventional to a skilled artisan at the time of the patent is a factual determination akin to the analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as to whether an element is so well-known that it need not be described in detail in the patent specification. “Changes in Examination Procedure Pertaining to Subject Matter Eligibility, Recent Subject Matter Eligibility Decision (Berkheimer v. HP, Inc.)” Memorandum, dated 04/19/2018.
In the specification, Applicant does not describe any elements to the level of specificity that would indicate the elements are anything but well-understood, routine, and conventional to one skilled in the art. For example the Specification provides, “the client devices 702 and 724 may be any of a desktop or laptop computer, a mobile device, such as a mobile phone or tablet, or any similar device on which the conferencing application 704 is capable of operating” (Spec. [56]) also see “the invention may be practiced in an electrical circuit comprising discrete electronic elements, packaged or integrated electronic chips containing logic gates, a circuit utilizing a microprocessor, or on a single chip containing electronic elements or microprocessors” (Spec [77]).
The rejection of the previous Office action is maintained as updated below.
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 1-7, 9, 10, and 12-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea (i.e. certain methods of organizing human activity) without practical application or significantly more when the elements are considered individually and as an ordered combination.
Step 1: Is the claimed invention to a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter?
Yes, the claims fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject. Claims 1-7 and 16-21 are to a system (machine). Claims 9, 10, 12, and 22 are to a method (process).
Step 2A, prong 1: Does the claim recite an abstract idea, law or nature, or natural phenomenon?
Yes, the claims are found to recite an abstract idea. Specifically, the abstract idea of certain methods of organizing human activity. Where certain methods of organizing human activity include fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions) (see MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection II).
Claim 1 (as a representative claim) recites the following, where the limitations found to contain elements of the abstract idea are in bold italics:
1. A cloud-based system for scheduling a virtual meeting, the system comprising:
at least one processor; and
memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor cause the system to perform operations comprising:
receiving, via an application programming interface (API) between the cloud based system and a plurality of client devices, location attributes and cross-geographic preferences for a plurality of users from the plurality of client devices, wherein each location attribute is associated with a location of a corresponding respective user of the plurality of users and the cross-geographic preferences include an indication of a geographic location with which the respective user frequently works, wherein the location of the respective user and the geographic location with which the respective user frequently works are provided by the respective user, and wherein each of the one or more geographic locations is a location in a different time zone than the location of the respective user;
storing the received location attributes and cross-geographic preferences in an aggregated data storage of the cloud-based server system;
receiving, from a requesting client device of the plurality of client devices, a request for scheduling data for one or more attendees of a virtual meeting, wherein the plurality of users includes the one or more attendees;
accessing, from the aggregating data storage based on the one or more attendees, one or more attendee location attributes of the stored location attributes and one or more attendee cross-geographic preferences of the stored cross-geographic;
generating, based on at least the one or more attendee location attributes and the one or more attendee cross-geographic preferences, a meeting time recommendation by identifying open times for each attended, filtering the open times based on local tie zones for the attendees as indicated in the accessed attendee location attributes and selecting one or more priority times of the filtered open times according to the accessed attendee cross-geographic preferences; and
transmitting the one or more first location attributes, the one or more first cross-geographic preferences, and the generated meeting time recommendation to the requesting client device.
Applicant’s claimed invention is directed toward the coordinating and scheduling of meetings, albeit an online meeting, between humans (attendee) based on the location attributes (e.g. user's time zone, stretch time configurations, local or regional holidays, observances that are particular to that time zone, instant specification [57]) and cross-geographic preferences (e.g. time periods reserved for meetings with specific cross-geographic collaborators, automatic indications of best meeting times for meeting organizers in other time zones, and/or pre-written reminder messages to meeting organizers about time-zone-dependent scheduling restrictions, instant specification [57]) of the human (attendee). Where the claims are found to be directed to the managing of relationships or interactions between people (i.e. an abstract idea) by managing their schedules, which is just a set of instructions – time, place, and with who. Where a calendar is just instructions to manage the personal behavior.
Step 2A, prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
No, the claimed invention does not recite additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Where a practical application is described as integrating the abstract idea by applying it, relying on it, or using the abstract idea in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on it such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize it, see October 2019: Subject Matter Eligibility at p. 11.
The identified judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recites the additional limitations see non-bold-italicized elements above. The other elements of the claim are determined to be insignificant extra solution activity of data gathering and outputting the results of the analysis step.
Where 2106.05(g) MPEP states, “term "extra-solution activity" can be understood as activities incidental to the primary process or product that are merely a nominal or tangential addition to the claim. Extra-solution activity includes both pre-solution and post-solution activity. An example of pre-solution activity is a step of gathering data for use in a claimed process, e.g., a step of obtaining information about credit card transactions, which is recited as part of a claimed process of analyzing and manipulating the gathered information by a series of steps in order to detect whether the transactions were fraudulent. An example of post-solution activity is an element that is not integrated into the claim as a whole, e.g., a printer that is used to output a report of fraudulent transactions, which is recited in a claim to a computer programmed to analyze and manipulate information about credit card transactions in order to detect whether the transactions were fraudulent.”
The Office finds that merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea; adding insignificant extra solution activity to the judicial exception; or only generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field is not sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea?
No, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and as part of the ordered combination. It is noted further that the claimed computing components are determined to be off the shelf generic component that do not lend in an way to the patent eligibility of the claimed invention, see generally instant specification [76-79].
Where 2106.05(d)(I)(2) of the MPEP states, “A factual determination is required to support a conclusion that an additional element (or combination of additional elements) is well-understood, routine, conventional activity. Berkheimer v. HP, Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1368, 125 USPQ2d 1649, 1654 (Fed. Cir. 2018). However, this does not mean that a prior art search is necessary to resolve this inquiry. Instead, examiners should rely on what the courts have recognized, or those in the art would recognize, as elements that are well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the relevant field when making the required determination. For example, in many instances, the specification of the application may indicate that additional elements are well-known or conventional. See, e.g., Intellectual Ventures v. Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1317; 120 USPQ2d at 1359 ("The written description is particularly useful in determining what is well-known or conventional"); Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d 1343, 1348, 115 USPQ2d 1414, 1418 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (relying on specification’s description of additional elements as "well-known", "common" and "conventional"); TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto. LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 614, 118 USPQ2d 1744, 1748 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (Specification described additional elements as "either performing basic computer functions such as sending and receiving data, or performing functions ‘known’ in the art.").”
These limitations do NOT offer an improvement to another technology or technical field; improvements to the functioning of the computer itself; apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; add a specific limitation other than what is well-understood, routine and conventional in the field, or add unconventional steps that confine the claim to a particular useful application; or other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Therefore, these additional limitations when considered individually or in combination do not provide an inventive concept that can transform the abstract idea into patent eligible subject matter.
The other independent claims recite similar limitations and are rejected for the same reasoning given above. However independent claim 16 is also briefly addressed under Step 2 of the Alice/Mayo analysis:
Step 2A, prong 1: Does the claim recite an abstract idea, law or nature, or natural phenomenon?
Yes, the claims are found to recite an abstract idea. Specifically, the abstract idea of certain methods of organizing human activity. Where certain methods of organizing human activity include fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions) (see MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection II).
Claim 16 (as a representative claim) recites the following, where the limitations found to contain elements of the abstract idea are in bold italics:
16. (Original) A system for scheduling a virtual meeting, the system comprising:
at least one processor; and
memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor cause the system to perform operations comprising:
receiving, as input into a meeting scheduling interface, one or more attendees for a virtual meeting;
sending a request, to a remote cloud-based server system, for location attributes of the one or more attendees;
receiving, from the cloud-based server system, the requested location attributes; and
causing display of an interactive scheduling user interface for the virtual meeting, the scheduling user interface comprising:
a first attendee indicator;
a second attendee indicator;
a first attendee time zone indicator adjacent to the first attendee indicator to indicate a time zone of the first attendee, the first attendee time zone indicator being based on the received location attributes;
a second attendee time zone indicator adjacent to the second attendee indicator to indicate a time zone of the second attendee, the second attendee time zone indicator being based on the received location attributes; and
a calendar grid, the calendar grid including a first row indicating availability of the first attendee at one or more time slots and a second row indicating availability of the second attendee at the one or more time slots
receiving, via the interactive scheduling interface, an additional attendee for the virtual meeting;
sending another request, to the remote cloud-based server system, for the location attributes of the additional attendee;
receiving, from the remote cloud-based server system, the location attributes for the additional attendee; and
updating the interactive scheduling user interface to include, for the additional attendee, a third attendee indicator, a third attendee time zone indicator, and a third tow indicating availability of the additional attendee.
The claim is to the display of combined calendar depicting the schedule of at least a first and second attendee with respect to their respective time zones and availability, see for example instant figure 2. Where the Office finds scheduling to be a type of instructions – specifically the managing of relationships or interactions between people. This finding is support by the instant specification at “Users of the conferencing application maintain a virtual calendar that allows them to indicate blocks of time that are available for virtual meetings or that are otherwise occupied. The virtual calendar may be inherent to the conferencing application or may be integrated into a separate application that interfaces with the conferencing application. Users typically make their virtual calendar visible to other individuals who are using a compatible virtual calendar (a process commonly referred to as "sharing").” See Spec. [17]
Step 2A, prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
No, the claimed invention does not recite additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Where a practical application is described as integrating the abstract idea by applying it, relying on it, or using the abstract idea in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on it such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize it, see October 2019: Subject Matter Eligibility at p. 11.
The identified judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recites the additional limitations see non-bold-italicized elements above. The other elements of the claim are determined to be insignificant extra solution activity of data gathering (“receiving” and “sending” steps) and outputting (“display” step) the results of the analysis step.
Where 2106.05(g) MPEP states, “term "extra-solution activity" can be understood as activities incidental to the primary process or product that are merely a nominal or tangential addition to the claim. Extra-solution activity includes both pre-solution and post-solution activity. An example of pre-solution activity is a step of gathering data for use in a claimed process, e.g., a step of obtaining information about credit card transactions, which is recited as part of a claimed process of analyzing and manipulating the gathered information by a series of steps in order to detect whether the transactions were fraudulent. An example of post-solution activity is an element that is not integrated into the claim as a whole, e.g., a printer that is used to output a report of fraudulent transactions, which is recited in a claim to a computer programmed to analyze and manipulate information about credit card transactions in order to detect whether the transactions were fraudulent.”
The Office finds that merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea; adding insignificant extra solution activity to the judicial exception; or only generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field is not sufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea?
No, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and as part of the ordered combination. It is noted further that the claimed computing components are determined to be off the shelf generic component that do not lend in an way to the patent eligibility of the claimed invention, see generally instant specification [76-79].
Where 2106.05(d)(I)(2) of the MPEP states, “A factual determination is required to support a conclusion that an additional element (or combination of additional elements) is well-understood, routine, conventional activity. Berkheimer v. HP, Inc., 881 F.3d 1360, 1368, 125 USPQ2d 1649, 1654 (Fed. Cir. 2018). However, this does not mean that a prior art search is necessary to resolve this inquiry. Instead, examiners should rely on what the courts have recognized, or those in the art would recognize, as elements that are well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the relevant field when making the required determination. For example, in many instances, the specification of the application may indicate that additional elements are well-known or conventional. See, e.g., Intellectual Ventures v. Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1317; 120 USPQ2d at 1359 ("The written description is particularly useful in determining what is well-known or conventional"); Internet Patents Corp. v. Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d 1343, 1348, 115 USPQ2d 1414, 1418 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (relying on specification’s description of additional elements as "well-known", "common" and "conventional"); TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto. LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 614, 118 USPQ2d 1744, 1748 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (Specification described additional elements as "either performing basic computer functions such as sending and receiving data, or performing functions ‘known’ in the art.").”
These limitations do NOT offer an improvement to another technology or technical field; improvements to the functioning of the computer itself; apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; add a specific limitation other than what is well-understood, routine and conventional in the field, or add unconventional steps that confine the claim to a particular useful application; or other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Therefore, these additional limitations when considered individually or in combination do not provide an inventive concept that can transform the abstract idea into patent eligible subject matter.
The dependent claims do not further limit the claimed invention in such a way as to direct the claimed invention to statutory subject matter.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Killeoglu et al (US 2021/0264376 A1) teaches Time zones may be considered when searching for a common date and time. For example, the maximum difference in time zones from the attendees may be determined. If the attendees are all relatively close, e.g., all within four time zones, then the common time may be limited based upon business hours. If the attendees are spread further across the globe, e.g., more than four time zones, then the possible common times may be expanded to account for the time zones. For example, possible meeting times may be from 7 am until 9 pm for each attendee based on the attendee's time zone.
Chandra et al (US 2023/0401539 A1) teaches technical advantage of the methods and systems of the present disclosure is distributing the load of virtual meetings by scheduling global meetings across the working hours of the individual subgroups instead of having all the meetings occur, for example, at 9 pm Pacific Time or 9 pm Indian Standard Time, or 7 am in Suzhou and 7 am Pacific Time, which are common times for international virtual meetings.
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/FOLASHADE ANDERSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623