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 .
Response to Amendment
The following is a FINAL Office action in reply to the Amendments and Arguments received on August 21, 2025.
Status of Claims
Claim 1 has been amended.
Claim 1 is currently pending and has been examined.
Claim Objections
Examiner acknowledges amendments made to correct the objections. Objection has been withdrawn.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.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1:
Claim 1 is drawn to an apparatus. As such, claim 1 is drawn to one of the statutory categories of invention (Step 1: YES).
Step 2A - Prong One:
Claim 1 recites the following steps:
service provider marketing for homes/properties
Storing service provider information
receive and process that the provider has enter[ed] service provider information;
send for display a map wherein a first service provider identifies one or more service addresses of homes/properties by selecting locations on the map associated with the service addresses;
receive and store first service provider information sent from the provider wherein the first service provider information includes the one or more service addresses, a first service category, and contact information for the first service provider;
receive and process that the user is searching for service providers;
automatically send, for display selectable service categories, including the first service category, wherein the user may select more than one service category;
receive and process a selection of the first selected service categories from the user
detecting an address of a first service location that a user selects corresponding to the first service category;
automatically send, for display the address of the first service location that the user selects corresponding to the first service category;
receive and process the first service location sent from the user, wherein the first service location corresponds to the first service provider information;
send for display, the map with a first color designating all neighborhood addresses serviced by the first service provider;
send for display, a view of all the neighborhood addresses receiving services in the first service category and corresponding service providers for each address on the map with a different color for each service provider designating all the neighborhood addresses serviced by each service provider;
automatically send, the contact information for the first service provider; and
These steps, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, describe or set-forth identifying homes or properties that have been service by a merchant and listing other nearby homes or properties who have received service which amounts to a “commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations).” These limitations therefore fall within the "certain methods of organizing human activity" subject matter grouping of abstract ideas.
Alternatively, these steps, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, encompass a human manually (e.g., in their mind, or using paper and pen) identifying a list of service providers on a residential property such as by reading lawn sign or looking up the information in a printed material (i.e., one or more concepts performed in the human mind, such as one or more observations, evaluations, judgments, opinions), but for the recitation of generic computer components. If one or more claim limitations, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation(s) in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the "mental processes" subject matter grouping of abstract ideas.
As such, the Examiner concludes that claim 1 recites an abstract idea (Step 2A - Prong One: YES).
Step 2A - Prong Two:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim(s) recite the additional elements/limitations of:
A service provider marketing system
a server having a memory; a provider computing device coupled to the server, wherein a map interface is displayed on the provider computing device; and a user smartphone operating a mobile app coupled to the server,
a signal
provider computing device in the memory of the server
a user interface comprising
GPS of the user smartphone
the user smartphone programmed with the mobile app to contact the first service provider in response to selecting the contact information for the first service provider.
The requirement to execute the claimed steps/functions listed above is equivalent to adding the words ''apply it'' on a generic computer and/or mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. This/these limitation(s) do/does not impose any meaningful limits on producing the abstract idea and therefore do/does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application (see MPEP 2106.05(f)).
The Examiner has therefore determined that the additional elements, or combination of additional elements, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Accordingly, the claim(s) is/are directed to an abstract idea (Step 2A -Prong Two: NO).
Step 2B:
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
As discussed above in "Step 2A - Prong 2", the requirement to execute the claimed steps/functions listed above is equivalent to adding the words "apply it" on a generic computer and/or mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. These limitations therefore do not qualify as "significantly more" (see MPEP 2106.05 (f)).
The Examiner has therefore determined that no additional element, or combination of additional claims elements is/are sufficient to ensure the claim(s) amount to significantly more than the abstract idea identified above (Step 2B: NO).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gross (2016/0092959) in view of McCarney et al. (2011/0137730).
Claim 1
Gross discloses a service provider marketing system for homes/ properties:
A service provider marketing system for homes/properties comprising (Gross [0084]): See at least “A preferred embodiment of a system 100 for identifying, assessing, rating and reporting on real estate properties, building structures, etc. is depicted in FIG. 1.”
a server having a memory storing service provider information; a provider computing device coupled to the server, wherein a map interface is displayed on the provider computing device (Gross [0437][Figure 31C]); a user smartphone operating a mobile app coupled to the server, (Gross [0086]), See at least “In a preferred embodiment system 110 is part of a website which can be accessed through a conventional browser running on such devices, or alternatively through an app on Android or IOS device.”
wherein the server is programmed to: receive and process a signal that the provider computing device has accessed the system for entering service provider information; (Gross [0098][0259][0260][0279][0552]); See at least [0259] “a vendor may "claim" a property within database 2225, meaning, the vendor can associate their name with a feature, condition, etc. of a property. This claiming process may include both tags for actual clients and desired clients. The former would be used by a merchant to identify actual clients or jobs…” See also [0279] “At step 2322 a cell/smartphone or other mobile device's location is determined. This can be achieved by an automated verification system using any number of techniques known in the art, including through identifying and processing GPS, cell-tower triangulations, Wi-Fi network signals, etc. [signal].”
send for display on the provider computing device a map wherein a first service provider identifies one or more service addresses of homes/properties by selecting locations on the map associated with the service addresses (Gross [0441]); See also [0438] “Thus, when a user makes a query for merchant "Solarcity" projects in zip code 94303 for example, a map interface 3130 is generated with icons, symbol or other graphical indicia 3132 to denote jobs or projects tagged by such entity.” See also [0259] “a vendor may "claim" a property within database 2225, meaning, the vendor can associate their name with a feature, condition, etc. of a property.” See also [0261].
receive and store first service provider information sent from the provider computing device in the memory of the server (Gross [0124][0251]), See “All of this property related data [addresses] can be stored as part of prospect database 142 noted above.”
wherein the first service provider information includes the one or more service addresses, a first service category, and contact information for a first service provider (Gross [0098][0259][0260][0279][0552]); See at least [0098] “Vendor/Customer Account Admin module 180: preferably coordinates and manages vendor and customer accounts, including billing, alerts, etc.…” See also [0234][Figure 20a] “To facilitate the operations of search engines 1800 and 1900, FIG. 20A depicts an exemplary taxonomy that can be employed to map structure features, impairments, etc., categories to respective product/service categories, or vice versa to facilitate responding to queries and identifying prospects for customized advertising…”
receive and process a signal that the user smartphone has accessed the system and is searching for service providers (Gross [0260][0441][0442][Figure 31G]);See at least [0441] “Using conventional geolocation routines on a mobile device [signals], the system detects a physical location of the user, bring up maps with nearby properties, and allows the user to select a target home.” See [0442] “As noted earlier, the tags 3143 may also include active links which permit a user to access additional merchant data, either through the app, or through a browser.” Where the user searching for the homes on the maps brings up tags that allow the user to search for the service provider attached to the home. See also [0438] “Thus, when a user makes a query for merchant "Solarcity" projects in zip code 94303 for example, a map interface 3130 is generated with icons, symbol or other graphical indicia 3132 to denote jobs or projects tagged by such entity.”
automatically send, for display on the user smartphone, a user interface comprising selectable service categories, including the first service category , wherein the user may select more than one service category (Gross [0138]) See “As seen in FIG. 3A a target location is optionally provided at step 310, such as a City, neighborhood, zip code, street, or any other desired geographical qualifier. Other attributes, characteristics, categories, etc., can be specified at step 315 to the Lead Generator Engine 160 as desired to filter appropriate results.”
receive and process a selection of the selected service categories from the user smartphone; (Gross [0139]) See at least “a report of the results is presented to the user in accordance with the filtering parameters specified, and any desired formatting, sorting, etc. For example results presented on a mobile handset may vary dramatically from that shown on a webpage to a desktop user. The output results can be tailored for a particular platform using known techniques.”
detecting with GPS of the user smartphone an address of a first service location that a user selects corresponding to the first service category (Gross [0277][0279][0280][0441][0449]); See at least [0277] “The preferred process primarily relies on an automated "proof of presence" determination that confirms that a user ( or their device) is physically in or near the property of interest within an acceptable threshold of accuracy or risk.” And [0261] “When a user searching database 140 (such as shown in FIG. 27 or seeing a house on the street within a mobile application such as in FIG. 3) asks for houses with landscaping that is very good or better, the listings will include work done by the merchant.” See also [0441] “Using conventional geolocation routines on a mobile device, the system detects a physical location of the user…” Examiner interprets that the disclosure of the user identifying the particular property of interest [i.e., landscaping in paragraph [0261]] and the user device location verification disclosed in [0279] using GPS, satisfies the limitation.
automatically send, for display on the user smartphone, a user interface comprising GPS input of the address of the first service location that the user selects corresponding to the first service category (Gross [0279]-[0282][0371]);See at least [0279]“a cell/smartphone or other mobile device's location is determined. This can be achieved by an automated verification system using any number of techniques known in the art, including through identifying and processing GPS, cell-tower triangulations, Wi-Fi network signals, etc.” See also, “a final determination is made to grant or deny access to the customized property report.” See also [0280] “For example the user is prompted to depress a "find me" or "verify" virtual button on their device at different physical locations of the property. By comparing the different signals received at the different locations (for example at four corners of a lot) based on the measured strength of different Wife systems at such different locations, or different GPS, etc.) a verifications system at step 2324 can assess if the user is likely present at the structure in question...”
receive and process the first service location sent from the user computing device smartphone, wherein the first service location corresponds to the first service provider information (Gross [0412][0430]); See at least “while step 3058 is shown in FIG. 30C, the integrated offer logic 3050 may simply use the address information and nothing more to compare and create ( or locate) a cluster to match the user's profile. This is due to the fact that the user's target needs and intent can be gleaned directly from his/her query.” See [0372] where the reference teaches determining the location of the user and determining the home improvement service [first service provider].”
send for display, in response to input from the user smartphone, a map with a first color designating all neighborhood addresses serviced by the first service provider; send for display, in response to input from the user smartphone, a view of all the neighborhood addresses receiving services in the first service category and corresponding service providers for each address on the map with a different color for each service provider designating all the neighborhood addresses serviced by each service provider (Gross [0231][0286][0317][0318][0429]); Where the reference teaches map data displayed to a user in different colors. See at least [0438] that teaches service provider data shown using graphical indicia [colors] “Thus, when a user makes a query for merchant "Solarcity" projects in zip code 94303 for example, a map interface 3130 is generated with icons, symbol or other graphical indicia [colors] 3132 to denote jobs or projects tagged by such entity.” See also that the reference teaches color coding on a map using map data. “This interface allows a user to select a feature/condition from a drop-down menu 2780, and then view the results in pictorial form as individual icons 2790 overlaid on a geographical region…. The search engine retrieves the relevant data from tables 1650 (FIG. 17 A) for each structure and overlays it in iconic form on a map with a different color/icon for each rating. As seen in FIG. 27C for example, any house with "Superb" appeal is shown in yellow/gold, while poor houses are shown in orange, and so on.”
Gross does not explicitly disclose the user smartphone displaying selectable categories or ability to contact the service provider. McCarney teaches:
automatically send, for display on the user computing device smartphone, a user interface comprising the first service provider, wherein the server is further programmed to automatically process and send for display on the user computing device, the contact information for the first service provider; and the user smartphone programmed with the mobile app to contact the first service provider in response to selecting the contact information for the first service provider displayed on the user smartphone (McCarney [0354][0363][Claim 5]) See at least “The intermediary may provide a user interface for the parties to make such contacts, or the intermediary could simply provide a phone number, email or other contact information for a searcher or provider.”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have included in the method of marketing services allowing users seeking service to easily identify the services provider for homes in their neighborhood, as taught by Gross, the interface details and contact ability, as taught by McCarney, to identify a pool of searchers that could be the basis of group or other special discounts or offering (McCarney [0331]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed with respect to the rejection under 35 USC 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant Argues: Applicant respectfully submits that the amendments to claim 1 integrate any abstract idea into a practical application by reciting specific technical improvements that go beyond mere instructions to apply an abstract idea using generic computer components..
Examiner respectfully disagrees. As outlined above, the only features here that may be considered to be an “additional element” are generic computing elements using generic computer implementation that do not transform the claims into eligible subject matter. Such a requirement amounts to a general requirement to perform the to be performed using a general-purpose computer, which does not constitute “significantly more”. Nor does a requirement to perform a function using a general-purpose computer serve to integrate the idea into a practical application.
Applicant Argues: This automated GPS detection and verification provides a technical solution to the problem of manual address entry and verification by integrating GPS functionality directly into the service matching process.
Independent claim 1 is directed to a system configured to collect and analyze data. In other words, the independent claim is directed to a set of rules performed by a computer (i.e. software). The reviewing court instructs Examiners that “[software can make nonabstract improvements to computer technology just as hardware improvements can, and sometimes the improvements can be accomplished through either route.” Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Examiner must also determine if “the claims are directed to an improvement to computer functionality versus being directed to an abstract idea, even at the first step of the Alice analysis.” Id. Here, the limitations at issue are not directed to an improvement of a computer’s functionality. Accordingly, the independent claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Applicant Argues: These specific interface improvements enable users to quickly understand service coverage through visual means rather than reviewing text-based address lists.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Color changing icons are not technological improvements and do not represent a technical solution to a technical problem. The Applicant cannot point to anything that was specifically done either in the claimed subject matter, the specification, or provided reasoning to show how this is significantly more or provides an improvement to the technology of the conventional system implementation. Moreover, the Examiner respectfully notes that the needed "improvement" in terms of patent eligibility is not one resulting from programming a generic processor to perform a different (or even improved) function, but rather a specific and actual improvement to the machine itself is needed. Based on these findings of fact, the Examiner contends the claims are indeed directed towards an abstract idea and Applicant's arguments to the contrary are considered to be non-persuasive.
Applicant's arguments filed with respect to the rejection under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant Argues: Neither reference appears to teaches or suggests the specific interactive map interface
where "a first service provider identifies one or more service addresses of homes/properties by selecting locations on the map associated with the service addresses" as recited by claim 1..
Examiner respectfully disagrees and has addressed the limitations above. For further clarity see also [0259] “a vendor may "claim" a property within database 2225, meaning, the vendor can associate their name with a feature, condition, etc. of a property.”
Applicant Argues: Further, the combination of these references appear to fail to teach or suggest the
simultaneous selection of multiple service categories and the integrated map view with overlapping colors as recited by claim 1 as amended.
Examiner respectfully agrees and has relied on Gross for the disclosure. Regarding the color coding… See at least [0438] that teaches service provider data shown using graphical indicia [colors] “Thus, when a user makes a query for merchant "Solarcity" projects in zip code 94303 for example, a map interface 3130 is generated with icons, symbol or other graphical indicia [colors] 3132 to denote jobs or projects tagged by such entity.” The broadly cite “other graphical indicia” addresses the claim requirement of using colors to denote merchants on the map. Figure 30L also shows color coding.
Applicant Argues: It does not appear to teach displaying an integrated map view showing services across multiple selected categories with overlapping colors for properties receiving multiple services.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Paragraph [0438] also states “Again other information can be presented as well as desired for any application.” and also teaches that “a map interface 3130 is generated with icons, symbol or other graphical indicia 3132 to denote jobs or projects tagged by such entity.” See also Figure 31D which shows icons on a house displaying various vendors.
Conclusion
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RASHIDA R SHORTER whose telephone number is (571)272-9345. The examiner can normally be reached Monday- Friday from 9am- 530pm.
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/RASHIDA R SHORTER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3626