DETAILED ACTION
This is a Non-Final Office Action in response to the Request for Continued Examination filed 07/14/2026.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 07/14/2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
Claims 1, 4-22 are currently pending in the application and have been examined.
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed 07/14/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections 35 U.S.C. § 101:
Applicant submits on pages 11-12 of the remarks that the claims are patent eligible. Examiner respectfully disagrees and notes that if a claim limitation covers observations or evaluations then it falls within the “mental process” grouping of abstract ideas, the claims recite a mental process performed on a computer. As the Federal Circuit has explained, "Courts have examined claims that required the use of a computer and still found that the underlying, patent-ineligible invention could be performed via pen and paper or in a person’s mind." Versata Dev. Group v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1335, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1702 (Fed. Cir. 2015). See also Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1318, 120 USPQ2d 1353, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (‘‘[W]ith the exception of generic computer-implemented steps, there is nothing in the claims themselves that foreclose them from being performed by a human, mentally or with pen and paper.’’); Mortgage Grader, Inc. v. First Choice Loan Servs. Inc., 811 F.3d 1314, 1324, 117 USPQ2d 1693, 1699 (Fed. Cir. 2016). See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2).
Applicant submits on pages 12-16 of the remarks that the pending claims are recite a practical application. The Examiner notes that the present claims do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application in a matter that imposes meaningful limit to the judicial exception. Furthermore, the additional elements recited in the claims are just applying the use of a generic computer environment to perform the abstract idea. These additional elements do not provide improvement to the computer technology and do not provide a meaningful link of the abstract idea to a practical application.
Applicant submits in pages 17-18 that the claims recite a combination of elements that is significantly more than an abstract idea. Examiner notes that when determining whether a claim recites significantly more in Step 2B the analysis takes into consideration whether the claim effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing. Transformation and reduction of an article ‘to a different state or thing’ is the clue to patentability of a process claim that does not include particular machines." Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 658, 95 USPQ2d 1001, 1007 (2010) (quoting Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 70, 175 USPQ 673, 676 (1972)). See MPEP 2106.05(c). Furthermore, the additional elements recited in the claims are merely reciting the use of a generic computer to perform generic computer functions of storing and transmitting data. These generic computer functions do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application and do not recite significantly more than the judicial exception.
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, 4-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
When considering subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101, it must be determined whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. If the claim does fall within one of the statutory categories, it must then be determined whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract idea), and if so, it must additionally be determined whether the claim is a patent-eligible application of the exception. If an abstract idea is present in the claim, any element or combination of elements in the claim must be sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Step 1: Independent claims 1 (system), 13 (system), and 19 (system) and dependent claims 4-12, 14-18, 20-22, fall within at least one of the four statutory categories of 35 U.S.C. 101: (i) process; (ii) machine; (iii) manufacture; or (iv) composition of matter. Claims 1, 4-22 are directed to a system (i.e. machine).
Step 2A Prong 1: The claims are directed to receive criteria; retrieve, based on the criteria, candidate data; generate… potential leads according to the criteria and the candidate data, ranking the potential leads in a ranked order according to a score generated via an algorithm; receive timing data and preference data; determine… a visit category for each potential lead from a plurality of visit categories, the plurality of visit categories comprising an appointment visit and an unscheduled visit; receive timing data and preference data modifying the ranked order; generate… a plan based on the potential leads, the timing data, the determined visit category, and the preference data, the plan comprising: appointment times for each selected potential lead categorized with an appointment visit category; and a reserved block of time for each selected potential lead categorized with an unscheduled visit category, the reserved block of time comprising a predetermined duration to visit the selected potential lead during a non-peak time; updating… the plan based on additional data received from the user device or a lead user device; dynamically train the first machine learning model based on the received timing data, preference data modifying the ranked order, additional data, and updates to the plan to modify future scores generated via the algorithm; and using the trained first machine learning model, ranking future potential leads by generating modified scores via the algorithm. (See PEG 2019 and MPEP 2106.05). If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation covers an observation or evaluation, then it falls under the “mental process” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
In addition, dependent claims 4-12, 14-18, 20-22 further narrow the abstract idea and do not serve to confer subject matter eligibility to the claims since they are directed to abstract ideas.
As per Step 2A - Prong 2 of the subject matter eligibility analysis, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim recites additional elements: a system, processors, graphical user interface, user device, memory machine learning model. These additional element in both steps are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic device performing a generic computer function of receiving and storing data) such that these elements amount no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Examiner looks to Applicant’s specification in at least figures 1-3 and related text and [0039-0043] to understand that the invention may be implemented in a generic environment that “According to some embodiments, the user device 302 and web server 310, as depicted in FIG. 3 and described below, may have a similar structure and components that are similar to those described with respect to trip planning system 220 shown in FIG. 2. As shown, the trip planning system 220 may include a processor 210, an input/output (I/O) device 270, a memory 230 containing an operating system (OS) 240 and a program 250. In certain example implementations, the trip planning system 220 may be a single server or may be configured as a distributed computer system including multiple servers or computers that interoperate to perform one or more of the processes and functionalities associated with the disclosed embodiments. In some embodiments trip planning system 220 may be one or more servers from a serverless or scaling server system. In some embodiments, the trip planning system 220 may further include a peripheral interface, a transceiver, a mobile network interface in communication with the processor 210, a bus configured to facilitate communication between the various components of the trip planning system 220, and a power source configured to power one or more components of the trip planning system 220. A peripheral interface, for example, may include the hardware, firmware and/or software that enable(s) communication with various peripheral devices, such as media drives (e.g., magnetic disk, solid state, or optical disk drives), other processing devices, or any other input source used in connection with the disclosed technology. In some embodiments, a peripheral interface may include a serial port, a parallel port, a general-purpose input and output (GPIO) port, a game port, a universal serial bus (USB), a micro-USB port, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) port, a video port, an audio port, a BluetoothTM port, a near-field communication(NFC) port, another like communication interface, or any combination thereof. In some embodiments, a transceiver may be configured to communicate with compatible devices and ID tags when they are within a predetermined range. A transceiver may be compatible with one or more of: radio-frequency identification (RFID), near-field communication (NFC), BluetoothTM, low-energy BluetoothTM (BLE), WiFiTM, ZigBeeTM, ambient backscatter communications (ABC) protocols or similar technologies. A mobile network interface may provide access to a cellular network, the Internet, or another wide-area or local area network. In some embodiments, a mobile network interface may include hardware, firmware, and/or software that allow(s) the processor(s) 210 to communicate with other devices via wired or wireless networks, whether local or wide area, private or public, as known in the art. A power source may be configured to provide an appropriate alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC) to power components.” Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they are mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer.
As per Step 2B of the subject matter eligibility analysis, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements are mere instructions to apply the abstract idea on a computer. When considered individually, these claim elements only contribute generic recitations of technical elements to the claims. It is readily apparent, for example, that the claim is not directed to any specific improvements of these elements and the invention is not directed to a technical improvement. When the claims are considered individually and as a whole, the additional elements noted above, appear to merely apply the abstract concept to a technical environment in a very general sense – i.e. a generic computer receives information from another generic computer, processes the information and then sends information back. In addition, when taken as an ordered combination, the ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present as when the elements are taken individually. Their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation. Therefore, when viewed as a whole, these additional claim elements do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea into a practical application of the abstract idea or that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The most significant elements of the claims, that is the elements that really outline the inventive elements of the claims, are set forth in the elements identified as an abstract idea. The fact that the generic computing devices are facilitating the abstract concept is not enough to confer statutory subject matter eligibility. Next, when the “machine learning” is evaluated as an additional element, this feature is recited at a high level of generality and encompasses well-understood, routine, and conventional prior art activity. See, e.g., Balsiger et al., US 2012/0054642, noting in paragraph [0077] that “Machine learning is well known to those skilled in the art.” See also, Djordjevic et al. US 2013/0018651, noting in paragraph [0019] that “As known in the art, a generative model can be used in machine learning to model observed data directly.” See also, Bauer et al., US 2017/0147941, noting at paragraph [0002] that “Problems of understanding the behavior or decisions made by machine learning models have been recognized in the conventional art and various techniques have been developed to provide solutions.” Accordingly, the use of machine learning to generate a learning model does not add significantly more to the claims.
The dependent claims further refine the abstract idea and do not provide a meaningful linking to the judicial exception. Rather, these claims offer further descriptive limitations of elements found in the independent claims and addressed above – such as by describing the nature and content of the data that is received/sent. While these descriptive elements may provide further helpful context for the claimed invention these elements do not serve to confer subject matter eligibility to the invention since their individual and combined significance is still not significantly more than the abstract concepts at the core of the claimed invention.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 4-22 are allowable over prior art but have other pending rejections as indicated above. Although the prior art made of records discloses systems and methods for trip planning and trip recommendations, the prior art does not specifically disclose the sequence of steps: “…receive timing data and preference data modifying the ranked order; generate, using a dynamically trained second machine learning model, a plan based on the potential leads, the timing data, the determined visit category, and the preference data, the plan comprising: appointment times for each selected potential lead categorized with an appointment visit category; and a reserved block of time for each selected potential lead categorized with an unscheduled visit category, the reserved block of time comprising a predetermined duration to visit the selected potential lead during a non-peak time; using the second machine learning model, the plan based on additional data received from the user device or a lead user device; dynamically train the first machine learning model based on the received timing data, preference data modifying the ranked order, additional data, and updates to the plan to modify future scores generated via the algorithm…” as recited in the claims.
The claims would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) set forth in this Office Action.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FRANCIS Z SANTIAGO-MERCED whose telephone number is (571)270-5562. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am-4:30pm EST.
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/FRANCIS Z. SANTIAGO MERCED/Examiner, Art Unit 3625
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