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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 December 18, 2025 has been entered.
Status of Claims:
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Claims, 1, 10, and 17 are amended by these communications.
Response to Remarks:
Regarding 101:
The Applicant asserts that the claims, as amended, are an improvement to the technological problem of fragmented, low response rate evaluations in contact center workflows. The Examiner does not agree with the rationale, and thus assertion, of the Applicant. The claims, as read by the Examiner, maybe an improvement to fragmented, low response rate evaluations, however, that’s an improvement to the subject matter of the invention’s technology, not another technical subject. To be sure, there’s no actual improvement to the computing systems of the workflows. The contact center workflows are functioning as designed and the computing systems are functioning in the ordinary and generic capacity.
Regarding 103:
The Applicant’s submission of amendments has clarified the claims, and so, the rejection has been updated below. The Examiner still feels that the prior art cited previously, are directed to the amended claims, however, the rejection itself has been updated to correspond with the new clarification.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is -directed to non-statutory subject matter. Claims 1-20 are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, natural phenomenon, or abstract idea) without significantly more.
Part I. 2A-prong one (Identify the Abstract Ideas)
The Alice framework, step 2A-Prong One (part 1 of Mayo test), here, the claims are analyzed to determine if the claims are directed to a judicial exception. MPEP §2106.04(a). In determining, whether the claims are directed to a judicial exception, the claims are analyzed to evaluate whether the claims recite a judicial exception (Prong One of Step 2A), and whether the claims recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (Prong Two of Step 2A). See 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (“PEG” 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50-57 (Jan. 7, 2019)).
Independent claims 1, 10 and 17 when “taken as a whole,” are directed to the abstract idea of assisting contact centers with customers, which as shown below is organizing human activity.
Under step 2A-Prong One (part 1 of Mayo test), here, the claimed invention in claims 1, 10 and 17 are directed to non-statutory subject matter because the claim(s) as a whole, considering all claim elements both individually and in combination, do not amount to significantly more than an abstract idea.
The above limitation falls within Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity in that they recite organizing human relationships (Including managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions groupings of abstract ideas, enumerated in the PEG, and thus, the claims are directed to an abstract idea under the first prong of Step 2A.)
Part II. 2A-prong two (additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application)
Under step 2A-Prong two (part 1 of Mayo test), this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application under the second prong of Step 2A. In particular, the claims recite the additional elements beyond the recited abstract idea. Such as, “…user device…agent device…contact center…database…workflow…interaction window…non-transitory computer readable medium…processor… server…graphical user interface…”
The courts have recognized the following computer functions as a merely generic manner (e.g., at a high level of generality) and as insignificant extra-solution activity (i.e., "receiving, processing, storing, transmitting/notifying/displaying/presenting data"; "automating mental tasks") as well-understood, routine, conventional. (MPEP 2106.05(d))
Accordingly, these 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. The claims are directed to an abstract idea with no significantly more elements.
As a result, Examiner asserts that claims 2-9, 11-16, and 18-20 are similarly directed to the abstract idea. Since these claims are directed to an abstract idea, the Office must determine whether the remaining limitations “do significantly more” than describe the abstract idea.
Part III. Determine whether any Element, or Combination, Amounts to“Significantly More” than the Abstract Idea itself
The Alice framework, we turn to step 2B (Part 2 of Mayo) to determine if the claim is sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to “significantly more" than the abstract idea itself. These additional elements recite conventional computer components and conventional functions of:
Claims 1, 10 and 17 do not include any limitations amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea, alone.
Claims 1, 10 and 17 include various elements that are not directed to the abstract idea. These elements include, “…user device…agent device…contact center…database…workflow…interaction window…non-transitory computer readable medium…processor… server…graphical user interface” these amounts to generic computing elements performing generic computing functions.
In addition, Fig. 1 & 3 of the Applicant’s specifications detail any combination of a generic computer system program to perform the method (i.e., commercially available processors). Generically recited computer elements do not add a meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because the Alice decision noted that generic structures that merely apply abstract ideas are not significantly more than the abstract ideas.
The dependent claims further limit the abstract idea without adding significantly more. Accordingly, the Examiner concludes that there are no meaningful limitations in the claims that transform the judicial exception into a patent eligible application such that the claim amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Further, Examiner notes that the additional limitations, when considered as an ordered combination, add nothing that is not already present when looking at the additional elements individually.
Therefore, the dependent claims are rejected as ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101 based on a rationale similar to independent claims 1 and 10 and 17.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharpe et al. (US Pub. No. 2016/0142541) (hereinafter, Sharpe) in view of Koing et al. (US Pub. No. 2021/0203784) (hereinafter, Koing).
As per claim 1,
Sharpe teaches,
a method comprising:
Sharpe does not teach, however, Koning does teach,
Executing, by a processor of an application server of a distributed computing system, chat messaging software stored in a memory to facilitate an interaction between a user device and an agent device of a contact center,
(Paragraph 62, noting “call analysis” and paragraph 69, noting as will be seen, the present invention may include or be enabled by a chat feature by which textual messages are exchanged between different parties, where those parties may include live persons, such as customers and agents, as well as automated processes, such as bots or chatbots.)
Monitoring, by the processor, audio signals transmitted between the user device and the agent device during the interaction;
(paragraph 47 noting in exemplary embodiments, the switch is coupled to a call controller 214 which, for example, serves as an adapter or interface between the switch and the remainder of the routing, monitoring, and other communication-handling components of the contact center)
Sharpe teaches a communication session between a user and an agent to discuss content provided by a client. Koing teaches routing incoming interactions of contact centers. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to incorporate the teachings of Koing within the invention of Sharpe with the motivation of generating the personalized routing profile so to include the preferred agent characteristics data of the first customer. Moreover, both inventions are within the same field of endeavor, namely, interactions between a seller and a customer.
Sharpe teaches,
receiving a query from the user device via a graphical user interface of the chat messaging software during the interaction;
(paragraph 71, noting “The interaction context object stores any user interactions captured including, but are limited to, user actions (e.g., clicking particular button such as “help” or “sales” button), browsing history of the current browsing session, URL or URI (universal resource indicator) string of the content, and/or a specific response from the user (e.g., response to question or survey), etc.…”; Examiner noting, the “specific response from the user (e.g. response to question…”) is functioning as a query from the user device)
determining a query intent based on the context of the one or more keywords
(Paragraph 78 noting “…The user intent may be determined based on the user interactions or browsing history with the content during the current browsing or user session at the point in time….”)
Sharpe does not explicitly teach, however, Koning does teach,
… using a machine learning (ML) model trained on user data;
(Paragraph 199 noting A predictive correlation or other data driven insight—generally referred to herein as an interaction predictor—is then identified via the machine learning algorithm of the predictor module 625 by monitoring and analyzing the customer database 610.)
Sharpe teaches a communication session between a user and an agent to discuss content provided by a client. Koing teaches routing incoming interactions of contact centers. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to incorporate the teachings of Koing within the invention of Sharpe with the motivation of generating the personalized routing profile so to include the preferred agent characteristics data of the first customer. Moreover, both inventions are within the same field of endeavor, namely, interactions between a seller and a customer.
Sharpe teaches,
Detecting a context of one or more keywords of text of the query;
(paragraph 66)
determining whether a workflow associated with the query intent is available in a database;
(paragraphs 78 read in light of paragraph 83, wherein paragraph 78 states, “A list of agent candidates may be identified based on the user value and the user intent….”; then the prior art goes on to explain that the listing of agents is a workflow directly associated with user intent on paragraph 83, wherein the prior art states, “The workflow process starts with identifying a first agent in a first workflow stage of the workflow and establishing a communication session between a user device of the user and a first agent device of the first agent….”)
based on a determination that the workflow is available in the database, executing the workflow;
(Paragraph 83 discussing the workflow of handling users/customers between agents)
Retrieving an evaluation from the database based on the context of the one or more keywords to obtain feedback associated with support actions of the interaction from a user of the user device;
(paragraph 84, noting “an interactive event driven survey system (e.g., data collection system) is utilized to survey or collect user satisfaction or feedback data concerning the support session provided by the agent or agents. In one embodiment, a server representing a survey system receives an interactive event at the beginning, during, or at the conclusion of a communication session between a user and an agent discussing content presented to the user by a client (e.g., enterprise or corporate client).”)
And
Maintaining continuity between the interaction and the evaluation by integrating the evaluation into the workflow wherein integrating the evaluation into the workflow comprises:
(paragraph 84 see notations above)
Transmitting, during the interaction and execution of the workflow, a request for an input to the user device;
(Paragraph 84, noting “According to one embodiment, an interactive event driven survey system (e.g., data collection system) is utilized to survey or collect user satisfaction or feedback data concerning the support session provided by the agent or agents…”)
Dynamically embedding evaluation questions inot the workflow based on the determined context;
Displaying, during the interaction and execution of the workflow, rating options associated with the input in an interaction window of the GUI;
(Paragraphs 84 and paragraph 203, wherein paragraph 203 notation states “…An answer type can be a multiple choice 3407, where a target can select one or more of the choices….”)
Receiving, via GUI, a rating selection based on one of the rating options during the interaction and execution of the workflow ;
(Paragraphs 84 and 203, noting on 203 “…An answer type can be a rating response 3409 or a scale slider 3408”)
and )
Sharpe does not explicitly teach, however, Koning does teach,
Determining, during the interaction and execution of the workflow, whether the interaction is a first-time interaction; and
(paragraphs 265-267)
Automatically executing a response action during the interaction and execution of the workflow, wherein the response action corresponds to the rating selection based on a determination that the interaction is a first-time interaction
(paragraphs 265-267 and see claim 3 for notations and examples)
Displaying, responsive to execution of the response action, a comment form component in the GUI such that the comment form component overlays the interaction window until the comment form component is completed or exited
(paragraph 189 with Fig. 5 element 282 and corresponding text)
wherein the evaluation is presented within a same interaction window as the
interaction, such that the user is not redirected to a separate survey interface or external
service,
(fig. 9 the evaluation being the actual wording of the fig. 9)
wherein the evaluation is triggered and personalized based on real-time analysis
of both audio and text signals of the interaction using the ML model,
(Fig. 9 above notation)
wherein, in response to a negative rating selection, automatically initiating a rescue workflow that comprises presenting a context-specific service offer or escalation option within the same interaction window and enabling the user to provide additional feedback via the comment form overlay, and
(Paragraphs 73, 226-228 and 265-267 and Fig. 9 above notation)
wherein evaluation data and workflow transitions are logged in association
with an interaction session identifier.
(paragraph 60).
Sharpe teaches a communication session between a user and an agent to discuss content provided by a client. Koing teaches routing incoming interactions of contact centers. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to incorporate the teachings of Koing within the invention of Sharpe with the motivation of generating the personalized routing profile so to include the preferred agent characteristics data of the first customer. Moreover, both inventions are within the same field of endeavor, namely, interactions between a seller and a customer.
As per claim 2,
Koing teaches,
the method of claim 1, wherein executing the response action comprises executing a first action based on the received rating selection being a highest rating
(Paragraph 209, noting Conventional contact centers typically predict a severity or importance for an incoming interaction based upon the intent of the interaction. For example, for any incoming interaction with an intent determined to be “stolen credit card”, a severity rating of “high severity” (i.e., high level of importance) is allocated..”; This is read in light of paragraph 279, wherein in paragraph 279 a “high” rating of emotional customers will execute the prior art system to a response action of associating the customer with empathetic customer service agents; thus, the association of customers with empathetic customer service agents is functioning as the execution of a first action and this is all based on the intent and predicted severity or importance as high)
Sharpe teaches a communication session between a user and an agent to discuss content provided by a client. Koing teaches routing incoming interactions of contact centers. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to incorporate the teachings of Koing within the invention of Sharpe with the motivation of generating the personalized routing profile so to include the preferred agent characteristics data of the first customer. Moreover, both inventions are within the same field of endeavor, namely, interactions between a seller and a customer.
As per claim 3,
Koing teaches,
the method of claim 1, wherein executing the response action comprises:
executing a first action based on the received rating selection being a highest rating;
(Paragraph 209, noting Conventional contact centers typically predict a severity or importance for an incoming interaction based upon the intent of the interaction. For example, for any incoming interaction with an intent determined to be “stolen credit card”, a severity rating of “high severity” (i.e., high level of importance) is allocated..”; This is read in light of paragraph 279, wherein in paragraph 279 a “high” rating of emotional customers will execute the prior art system to a response action of associating the customer with empathetic customer service agents; thus, the association of customers with empathetic customer service agents is functioning as the execution of a first action and this is all based on the intent and predicted severity or importance as high)
and
transmitting a product suggestion based on a determination that the interaction is a first-time interaction of a user of the user device and a comment was obtained from the user via the user device
(Paragraphs 73, 226-228 and 265-267; Examiner noting on paragraph 73: “…For example, if a customer intent is unknown when the conversation initially ensues, the default chatbot may be invoked to ask questions about the customer intent…” This paragraph discussing intent which goes back to claim 1, also, functions as teaching the “comment was obtained from the user” limitation elements since the chatbot invokes questions and answers, thus, the answers are comments from the users; Paragraph 226-228 noting “Alternatively, the behavioral factor of the interaction predictor may be defined as a behavioral tendency attributable to the first customer given the first interaction type. For example, the behavioral tendency may include an upselling/cross-selling opportunity rating, which rates a willingness of the first customer to consider an upselling or cross-selling offer given the first interaction type. In this embodiment, the interaction data included in the dataset may include data from interactions describing unsuccessful upselling or cross-selling offers, successful upsell or cross-selling offers, and/or service or products purchased by the first customer in relation to upselling or cross-selling offers….” With paragraphs 265-267 as Examples of paragraphs 226-228 in action. These sections of the prior art are discussing how upselling/cross selling of products/services (i.e., transmitting a product suggestion) when it is found that the user and agent have no prior interaction, thus, using a form of demographic information for the upselling/cross selling of product/services.)
Sharpe teaches a communication session between a user and an agent to discuss content provided by a client. Koing teaches routing incoming interactions of contact centers. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to incorporate the teachings of Koing within the invention of Sharpe with the motivation of generating the personalized routing profile so to include the preferred agent characteristics data of the first customer. Moreover, both inventions are within the same field of endeavor, namely, interactions between a seller and a customer.
As per claim 4,
Koing teaches,
the method of claim 1, wherein executing the response action comprises: executing a first action based on the received rating selection being a highest rating; and transmitting a service offer…
(Paragraphs 73, 226-228 and 265-267; Examiner noting on paragraph 73: “…For example, if a customer intent is unknown when the conversation initially ensues, the default chatbot may be invoked to ask questions about the customer intent…” This paragraph discussing intent which goes back to claim 1, also, functions as teaching the “comment was obtained from the user” limitation elements since the chatbot invokes questions and answers, thus, the answers are comments from the users; Paragraph 226-228 noting “Alternatively, the behavioral factor of the interaction predictor may be defined as a behavioral tendency attributable to the first customer given the first interaction type. For example, the behavioral tendency may include an upselling/cross-selling opportunity rating, which rates a willingness of the first customer to consider an upselling or cross-selling offer given the first interaction type. In this embodiment, the interaction data included in the dataset may include data from interactions describing unsuccessful upselling or cross-selling offers, successful upsell or cross-selling offers, and/or service or products purchased by the first customer in relation to upselling or cross-selling offers….” With paragraphs 265-267 as Examples of paragraphs 226-228 in action. These sections of the prior art are discussing how upselling/cross selling of products/services (i.e., transmitting a product suggestion) when it is found that the user and agent have no prior interaction, thus, using a form of demographic information for the upselling/cross selling of product/services.)
Sharpe teaches a communication session between a user and an agent to discuss content provided by a client. Koing teaches routing incoming interactions of contact centers. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to incorporate the teachings of Koing within the invention of Sharpe with the motivation of generating the personalized routing profile so to include the preferred agent characteristics data of the first customer. Moreover, both inventions are within the same field of endeavor, namely, interactions between a seller and a customer.
Sharpe teaches,
…based on a determination that the user is a priority user.
(Paragraph 129, noting “…A client may provide better services or resources (e.g., a more experience agent, a better communication channel, more promotions or discounts offered, etc.) to a user with a higher user value, i.e., a more valuable user to the client…”)
As per claim 5,
Sharpe teaches,
the method of claim 1, wherein executing the response action comprises executing a second action when the received rating selection is less than a threshold
(Paragraph 176, noting “Alternatively, a survey is sent to the user and feedback is received back from the user indicating that the feedback from the user is below a predetermined threshold (e.g., a rating of less than 3 stars). In response, the agent matching system transmits information of a second workflow stage to the agent connect system. The agent connect system can then connect the user with a second agent associated with the second workflow stage, and so on, until the user is satisfied…”)
As per claim 6,
Sharpe teaches,
the method of claim 1, wherein executing the response action comprises:
executing a second action when the received rating selection is less than a threshold;
(Paragraph 176, see claim 5 notations)
And
Sharpe does not explicitly teach, however, Koing does teach,
transmitting a service offer based on a determination that the interaction is a first-time interaction of a user of the user device and a comment was obtained from the user via the user device.
(Paragraphs 73, 226-228 and 265-267; Examiner noting on paragraph 73: “…For example, if a customer intent is unknown when the conversation initially ensues, the default chatbot may be invoked to ask questions about the customer intent…” This paragraph discussing intent which goes back to claim 1, also, functions as teaching the “comment was obtained from the user” limitation elements since the chatbot invokes questions and answers, thus, the answers are comments from the users; Paragraph 226-228 noting “Alternatively, the behavioral factor of the interaction predictor may be defined as a behavioral tendency attributable to the first customer given the first interaction type. For example, the behavioral tendency may include an upselling/cross-selling opportunity rating, which rates a willingness of the first customer to consider an upselling or cross-selling offer given the first interaction type. In this embodiment, the interaction data included in the dataset may include data from interactions describing unsuccessful upselling or cross-selling offers, successful upsell or cross-selling offers, and/or service or products purchased by the first customer in relation to upselling or cross-selling offers….” With paragraphs 265-267 as Examples of paragraphs 226-228 in action. These sections of the prior art are discussing how upselling/cross selling of products/services (i.e., transmitting a product suggestion) when it is found that the user and agent have no prior interaction, thus, using a form of demographic information for the upselling/cross selling of product/services.)
As per claim 7,
Sharpe teaches,
the method of claim 1, wherein executing the response action comprises:
executing a second action when the received rating selection is less than a threshold;
(Paragraph 176, see claim 5 notations)
and
initiating a communication session with a live agent based on a determination that the user is a priority user
(Paragraph 129, noting “…In one embodiment, user value 812 is a numeric value representing a level of relationship between the user and the client. A client may provide better services or resources (e.g., a more experience agent, a better communication channel, more promotions or discounts offered, etc.) to a user with a higher user value, i.e., a more valuable user to the client….”; Examiner noting: the “more valuable user” is functioning as a priority user)
As per claim 8,
Sharpe teaches,
the method of claim 1, wherein integrating the evaluation enables a conversation between the contact center agent via the agent device and a user via the user device
(Paragraph 4, noting “ Once the system has evaluated the inbound caller's information, if any, the system searches for an available agent to service the call. Availability of agents may be dependent on any number of factors such as a skill area, level of that skill and/or a schedule of the agent.”)
As per claim 9,
Sharpe teaches,
the method of claim 1, wherein the evaluation is based on a conversation between the contact center agent via the agent device and a user via the user device within the workflow.
(Paragraph 176, wherein the Examiner is interpreting the “evaluation” of the claim as the ratings stars, similar to that of claim 5, and the prior art discussing how the stars are a given evaluation ratings of the interactions (i.e., conversation) between the contact center agent and the client (i.e., user) and this is within the various conversation workflows)
As per claims 10-16:
Claims 10-16 disclose similar limitations as the claims above. Therefore, they are rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 17:
Claim 17 disclose similar limitations to claim 1 above. Therefore, it is rejected under similar rationale.
As per claims 18-20:
Claims 18-20 disclose similar limitations as the claims above. Therefore, they are rejected under similar rationale.
Conclusion:
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZAHRA ELKASSABGI whose telephone number is (571)270-7943. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday 11:30 to 8:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rutao Wu can be reached on 571.272.6045. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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ZAHRA . ELKASSABGI
Examiner
Art Unit 3623
/RUTAO WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3623