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 Claims
The following is a non-final office action.
Claims [1-3, 5, 7-10, 12, 14-19, and 21-25] are currently pending and have been examined based on their merits.
Claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 14-15, and 19 are newly amended see REMARKS March 17, 2026.
Claim 4, 6, and 20 are newly cancelled see REMARKS March 17, 2026.
Claims 23-25 are newly added see REMARKS March 17, 2026.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 March 17, 2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 8-10, 12, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 8 recites the limitation "performing, by the server, a sort operation on the numerical value list to obtain a ranking result.” However, there is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. As the claim does not recite a server anywhere previously in the claim and therefore lacks antecedent basis for this limitation.
Therefore, claims 8-10, 12, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112.
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 1-3, 5, 7-10, 12, 14-19, and 21-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception that is an abstract idea without a practical application or significantly more.
Step 1: claims 1-3, 5, 7 and 21-25 recite a method (i.e. a series of steps), claims 8-10, 12, and 14 recite an electronic device, and claims 15-19 recites a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and therefore each claim falls within one of the four statutory categories.
Step 2A prong 1 (Is a judicial exception recited?):
The representative claim 1 recites: A method of managing physical equipment resources between a plurality of organizations based on multi-modal data historical data of interactions between the plurality of organizations, the method comprising: acquiring, collaborative data for the plurality of organizations, the collaborative data comprising values for collaboration dimensions for and between pairs of organizations, wherein a pair of organizations comprises each respective organization in the plurality of organizations and each other organization in the plurality of organizations with which the each respective organization collaborates, wherein there is a plurality of the each other organizations, wherein the collaborative data comprises offline collaborative data and online collaborative data; calculating, a plurality of collaboration indices between each pair of organizations using the collaborative data as input, wherein the calculated collaboration indices comprise indices for online collaborative mails and instant messaging, indices for offline collaborative meetings, and indices for project collaborations, the calculating comprising: for each collaboration dimension, generating, for each organization, a numerical value list comprising collaboration index values of all organizations collaborating with the organization, performing, a sort operation on the numerical value list to obtain a ranking result, and normalizing the ranking result to obtain the collaboration indices between each pair of organizations; calculating, for each pair of organizations, a degree of closeness between each pair of organizations according to a weighted sum of the collaboration indices between each pair of organizations, the calculating comprising: calculating, for each pair of organizations, a mean value of each collaboration index between the pair of organizations, and calculating a squared difference of each collaboration index according to the mean value of each collaboration index, and then optimizing a target function through a stochastic gradient descent algorithm to obtain a weight for each collaboration index, wherein the target function is aimed to minimize a weighted sum of the squared differences of each collaboration index, and calculating the degree of closeness between each pair of organizations as a weighted sum thereof; and automatically constructing in real time, an organizational collaboration network using each organization as a node, a relationship between each pair of organizations as an edge, and the degree of closeness between each pair of organizations as a weight of the edge, wherein the organizational collaboration network comprises a graph data structure representing a plurality of nodes, in which each node respectively represents one of the plurality of organizations; (presenting) the constructed organizational collaboration network; and indicating a re-allocation of physical equipment resources for at least one organization based on the constructed organizational collaboration network, wherein the re-allocation comprises at least one of re-planning or cutting an amount of the physical equipment resources of one of the plurality of organizations which is determined to have an importance score, calculated from the constructed organizational collaboration network, that does not satisfy a predetermined criterion based on a pre-allocated amount of physical equipment resources assigned to that organization.
Claim 8: obtaining a weight of an index, perform operations which manage physical equipment resources between a plurality of organizations based on multi-modal data historical data of interactions between the plurality of organizations, the operations comprising: acquiring, collaborative data for the plurality of organizations, the collaborative data comprising values for collaboration dimensions for and between pairs of organizations, wherein a pair of organizations comprises each respective organization in the plurality of organizations and each other organization in the plurality of organizations with which the each respective organization collaborates, wherein there is a plurality of the each other organizations, wherein the collaborative data comprises offline collaborative data and online collaborative data; calculating, a plurality of collaboration indices between each pair of organizations using the collaborative data as input, wherein the calculated collaboration indices comprise indices for online collaborative mails and instant messaging, indices for offline collaborative meetings, and indices for project collaborations, wherein a project collaboration is a management action, the calculating comprising: for each collaboration dimension, generating, for each organization, a numerical value list comprising collaboration index values of all organizations collaborating with the organization, performing, a sort operation on the numerical value list to obtain a ranking result, and normalizing the ranking result to obtain the collaboration indices between each pair of organizations; calculating, for each pair of organizations, a degree of closeness between each pair of organizations according to a weighted sum of the collaboration indices between each pair of organizations, the calculating comprising: calculating, for each pair of organizations, a mean value of each collaboration index between the pair of organizations, and calculating a squared difference of each collaboration index according to the mean value of each collaboration index, and then optimizing a target function through a stochastic gradient descent algorithm to obtain a weight of each collaboration index, the target function is aimed to minimize a weighted sum of the squared differences of each collaboration index, calculating the degree of closeness between each pair of organizations according to the weight; automatically constructing, an organizational collaboration network using each organization as a node, a relationship between each pair of organizations as an edge, and the degree of closeness between each pair of organizations as a weight of the edge, wherein the organizational collaboration network comprises a graph data structure representing a plurality of nodes, in which each node respectively represents one of the plurality of organizations; outputting instructions to (present) the constructed organizational collaboration network; and re-allocates physical equipment resources for at least one organization based on the constructed organizational collaboration network, wherein the re-allocation comprises cutting an amount of the physical equipment resources of one of the plurality of organizations which is determined to have an importance score, calculated from the constructed organizational collaboration network, that does not satisfy a predetermined criterion based on a pre-allocated amount of physical equipment resources assigned to that organization.
Claim 15: managing physical equipment resources between a plurality of organizations based on multi-modal data historical data of interactions between the plurality of organizations, the operations comprising: acquiring, collaborative data for the plurality of organizations, the collaborative data comprising values for collaboration dimensions for and between pairs of organizations, wherein a pair of organizations comprises each respective organization in the plurality of organizations and each other organization in the plurality of organizations with which the each respective organization collaborates, wherein there is a plurality of the each other organizations, wherein the collaborative data comprises offline collaborative data and online collaborative data; calculating, a plurality of collaboration indices between each pair of organizations to using the collaborative data as input, wherein the calculated collaboration indices comprise indices for online collaborative mails and instant messaging, indices for offline collaborative meetings, and indices for project collaborations, the calculating comprising: for each collaboration dimension, generating, for each organization, a numerical value list comprising collaboration index values of all organizations collaborating with the organization, performing, a sort operation on the numerical value list to obtain a ranking result, and normalizing the ranking result to obtain the collaboration indices between each pair of organizations; calculating, for each pair of organizations, a degree of closeness between each pair of organizations according to a weighted sum of the collaboration indices between each pair of organizations, the calculating comprising: iteratively synthesizing a weight value of each collaboration index through optimizing a target function using a stochastic gradient descent algorithm, wherein the target function minimizes a weighted sum of squared differences between each collaboration index and a mean value thereof, wherein the optimization assigns a larger weight value to a majority consensus collaboration index and a smaller weight value to a minority consensus collaboration index disagreeing with the majority consensus collaboration index; and obtaining a final degree of closeness via a weighted sum of the collaboration indices using the synthesized weight values; automatically constructing in real time, an organizational collaboration network using each organization as a node, a relationship between each pair of organizations as an edge, and the degree of closeness between each pair of organizations as a weight of the edge, wherein the organizational collaboration network comprises a graph data structure representing a plurality of nodes, in which each node respectively represents one of the plurality of organizations; feeding back the constructed organizational collaboration network to (present); and indicating a re-allocation of physical equipment resources for at least one organization based on the constructed organizational collaboration network, wherein the re-allocation comprises at least one of re-planning or cutting an amount of the physical equipment resources of one of the plurality of organizations which is determined to have an importance score, calculated from the constructed organizational collaboration network, that does not satisfy a predetermined criterion based on a pre-allocated amount of physical equipment resources assigned to that organization.
The claims recite a certain method of organizing human activity. The claims recite a certain method of organizing human activity as the disclosure recites managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people. The claims recite a method of creating a collaboration network between a series of organization by determining a degree of closeness between each organization. Merely identifying and calculating the closeness between organizations to identifying a collaboration network is merely a method for organizing and determining the relationships between a plurality of organizations. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
The claims alternatively recite a mental process. As the claims recite series of steps construct an organizational collaboration network between a plurality of organizations by calculating a degree of closeness between various organizations. The courts have identified steps of collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying results as reciting mental processes. Furthermore, merely performing observations, evaluations, judgements, and opinions can be practically performed in the human mind. Therefore, merely calculating a collaboration index between organizations to determine a collaboration network would be capable of being performed in the human mind or with simple tools such as pen and paper.
Alternatively the claims recite mathematical concepts. As the claims recite a process to calculate a value for the degree of closeness between organizations by performing mathematical calculations such as: “calculating, for each pair of organizations, a mean value of each collaboration index between the pair of organizations, and calculating a squared difference of each collaboration index according to the mean value of each collaboration index, and then optimizing a target function through a stochastic gradient descent algorithm to obtain a weight for each collaboration index, wherein the target function is aimed to minimize a weighted sum of the squared differences of each collaboration index, and calculating the degree of closeness between each pair of organizations as a weighted sum thereof.” As the claims recite merely mathematical calculations or steps for receiving numerical values and performing calculations to determine a value the claims are found to recite “mathematical concepts.”
Step 2A Prong 2 (Is the exception integrated into a practical application?): The claims additionally recite;
Claim 1: a computer, a server, an unsupervised machine learning process, displaying on a display, and generating, an output signal.
Claim 8: An electronic device, comprising: at least one processor configured to operate on instructions from a storage device; a display unit; and the storage device, which stores in non-transitory memory a model for obtaining a weight of an index, and further stores in non-transitory memory comprising: at least one processor; a storage device that stores instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations, the server, a project management system, an unsupervised machine learning process, display on the display unit, and generating an output signal.
Claim 15: A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, storing a computer instruction, wherein the computer instruction is used to cause a computer to perform operations, a server, a system comprising the server, a connecting network, and a plurality of user terminals each installed with one or more communication client software applications, an unsupervised machine learning process, a terminal device for display, and generating by the server, an output signal.
The additional elements of generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea of acquiring data and calculating a collaboration index is not an improvement to a technology or technical field. The additional elements merely recite using generic computer elements to perform the steps of receiving, assessing, and recording information. Therefore, the limitations merely amount to adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) to the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f). Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Step 2B (Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more that the judicial exception?): As discussed above, the additional imitations amount to adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f). The additional elements do not recite an improvement to a technology or technical field but merely utilize the generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea of constructing an organizational collaboration network by calculating a collaboration index based on a degree of closeness of organizations. Therefore, the additional elements do not direct the claims to significantly more.
The dependent claims 2-3, 5, 7, 9-10, 12, 14, 16-19, and 21-25 further narrow the abstract idea of calculating a collaboration index and arranging a numerical value list of each organization as recited in the independent claims 1, 8, and 15 and are therefore directed towards the same abstract idea.
The dependent claims do not recite any further additional elements.
Therefore, claims 1-3, 5, 7-10, 12, 14-19, and 21-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Response to arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see REMARKS, filed March 17, 2026, with respect to the rejections of claims 1-3, 5, 7-10, 12, 14-19, and 21-25 under U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
The applicant argues that the claims do not recite an abstract idea as they recite a method that is performed for a plurality of organizations using multi-modal collaborative data, and includes the computing steps of ranking and normalizing across all organizations, optimizing a target function through stochastic gradient descent in an unsupervised machine learning process, and automatically constructing a graph data structure, which cannot be practically performed in the human mind. However, the examiner respectfully disagrees as acquiring collaborative data, calculating a plurality of collaboration indices between each pair of organization using the collaborative data, generating a numerical value list, performing a sort operation, normalizing the ranking results, calculating a degree of closeness between each pair of organizations according to a weighted sum, calculating a mean value of each collaboration index between the pair of organizations, calculating a squared difference of each collaboration index according to the mean value of each collaboration index, calculating the degree of closeness between each pair of organization, and constructing an organizational collaboration network comprising graph data structure representing a plurality of nodes, and re-allocating physical equipment resources for at least one organization based on the organizational collaboration network are mental processes. As a person is capable of mentally, or by using simple tools such as pen and paper, of receiving data sets such as collaboration data, calculating values such as a collaboration index based on a series of mathematical steps, generating a list of results, generating a visual representation such as a graph of the results, and performing an action such as determining the allocation of resources for an organization based on the results. The claims merely recite a series of steps to receive and analyze a set of data to determine how to distribute resources based on a calculated score. As such the claims are found to recite concepts the courts have identified as being mental processes such as observation, evaluation, judgement, and opinions. Additionally, the courts have stated that claims are considered to recite a mental process even if they recite using a computer as a tool to perform a mental process. Therefore, the examiner finds the claims to merely recite limitations of collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying a certain result of the collection and analysis which is a mental process.
The applicant further argues that the claims do not recite a certain method of organizing human activities as the claims recite obtaining data to be used for resource management. However, the examiner respectfully disagrees as the claims recite a series of steps or instructions for acquiring collaboration data, calculating a plurality of collaboration indices, and re-allocating physical equipment resources based on the results of the calculations. Merely receiving information, processing the information based on a series of steps, and allocating resources based on a determined value are found to be a plurality of instructions to manage the interactions between entities and therefore the claims recite a certain method of organizing human activities.
Alternatively, the examiner finds the newly amended claims to recite mathematical concepts as the claims recite a plurality of mathematical calculations. The claims recite calculating a plurality of collaboration indices, normalizing the ranking result, calculating a mean value of each collaboration index between the pair of organizations and calculating a squared difference of each collaboration index according to the man value of each collaboration index, and calculating the degree of closeness between each pair of organizations as a weighted sum thereof.
Therefore, the claims are found to recite an abstract idea.
The applicant further argues that the additional elements are directed to a practical application as they recite a technical architecture of an acquisition of multi-modal collaborative data across a plurality of organizations, generation of ranked and normalized collaboration indices, unsupervised machine learning, real-time construction of a weighted graph data structure, and generation of a resource re-allocation signal. However, the examiner respectfully disagrees as the additional elements of a computer comprising generic computer elements such as a processor and a server and a machine learning model to perform the abstract idea of receiving collaborative data, analyzing the data by performing operations such as generating a ranked and normalized collaboration indices, and determining a result such as generating a weighted graph data structure and a resource re-allocation signal based on the results are directed to merely “apply it” or applying generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea. The claims do not recite an improvement to a computer or technical field and the claims do not recite any claim limitations beyond merely applying generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea of receiving and analyzing collaborative data to determine a result.
Therefore, the additional elements do not direct the claims to a practical application.
The applicant further argues that the claims are directed to significantly more as they resolve a technical problem of fusing multi-modal data streams into a reliable single metric and use automatically generate collaboration networks in real time by integrating a machine learning algorithm. However, the examiner respectfully disagrees as the additional elements are directed to merely “apply it” or applying generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea. As the claims merely recite using a generic machine learning algorithm to perform the abstract idea of receiving and analyzing information to generate a collaboration network or a graphical representation of the relationship between entities. The claims are not directed to significantly more as they do not recite an improvement to a technology or technical field of receiving and processing information to generate a display.
The applicant further argues that claims 21 and 23 cannot be performed in the human mind as they recite data too vast for the human mind. However, the examiner respectfully disagrees as the courts have stated that a mental process using a computer as a tool or in a computer environment are still considered to be a mental process. Therefore, as a person is capable of performing the calculations given enough time, merely using a computer to perform these steps faster and easier does not direct the claims away from reciting a mental process. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Therefore, the examiner maintains the current 101 rejection.
Applicant argues that claims 2-3, 5, 7, 9-10, 12, 14, 16-19, and 21-25 are allowable as being dependent on claims 1, 8, and 15 and therefore are rejected under the same rejection.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Grady Smith (US 2017/0236081) System and methods for processing information regarding relationships and interactions to assist in making organizational decision.
Senay (US 2002/0038218) Methods for graphically representing interactions among entities.
Cogan (US 2010/0235489) Systems and methods for determining electronic relationships.
Young (US 2010/0094685) System and method for determining a value for an entity.
Galvin (US 8386639) System and method for optimized and distributed resource management.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to COREY RUSS whose telephone number is (571)270-5902. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 7:30-4:30.
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/COREY RUSS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3629