DETAILED ACTION
Remarks
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office Action is filed in response to Applicant’s arguments and amendment dated October 16, 2025. Claims 1-20 are currently amended, claims 21-22 are new, and claims 1-22 are pending in the application and have been fully considered by Examiner.
Applicant's arguments with respect to the prior art rejections are moot as the prior art rejections are withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments with respect to the 35 USC 101 rejections have been considered, but are not persuasive, as detailed below in the 35 USC 101 Argument - Rejections section.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns, paragraphs, figures and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
35 USC 101 Arguments – Rejections
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 35 USC 101 rejection have been fully considered, but are not persuasive, as follows:
With respect to claim 1, Applicant first argues that the claim does not recite a mental process because “‘performing, in the directed graph, a breadth-first search (BFS) to identify at least one zero-in-degree file of the plurality of files, the identified at least one zero-in-degree file having no incoming edge from another file of the plurality of files and corresponding to a respective parent node of the one or more parent nodes’, ‘subsequent to performing the BFS, performing a depth-first search (DFS) to identify at least one cascading file downstream of the identified at least one zero-in-degree file and corresponding to a respective child node of the one or more children nodes’, and ‘causing display, via a display of a first client device, of a pull request user interface, the pull request user interface including display of the series of pull requests in a sequence’… cannot be practically performed in the human mind with only the assistance of a pencil and paper.”1 Examiner agrees that the newly added limitation “causing display, via a display of a first client device, of a pull request user interface, the pull request user interface including display of the series of pull requests in a sequence” cannot be performed in the human mind and thus is not part of the identified Mental Process. However, Examiner respectfully disagrees with respect to the limitations “performing, in the directed graph, a breadth-first search (BFS) to identify at least one zero-in-degree file of the plurality of files, the identified at least one zero-in-degree file having no incoming edge from another file of the plurality of files and corresponding to a respective parent node of the one or more parent nodes” and “subsequent to performing the BFS, performing a depth-first search (DFS) to identify at least one cascading file downstream of the identified at least one zero-in-degree file and corresponding to a respective child node of the one or more children nodes.” Both breadth first search and depth first a relatively straightforward graph traversal techniques for exploring the nodes of a graph. Furthermore, a graph with nodes representing source code files of a simple source code project would not be very large or complex. Thus, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, a human using no more than pen and paper could (1) perform a depth first search of a simple graph representing a plurality of source code files in order to identify a root node; and (2) perform a breadth first search of the same graph to identify files impacted by a change to the file represented by the root node.
Applicant next argues “Even if … the claim as a whole is found to recite a mental process, the Assignee respectfully submits that the claims recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception or abstract idea into a practical application … [because] amended independent claim 1 includes additional elements that recite a specific improvement over prior art systems by applying graph traversal techniques in a specific order to efficiently traverse the directed graph and accurately identify related and non-related files as part of segmenting the directed graph into respective trees of related and hierarchically-arranged files. This facilitates efficiently and accurately generating a series of pull requests based on the segmented directed graph without consuming additional computing resources and time or requiring additional series of pull requests due to errors with earlier series of pull requests.”2 In response, Examiner notes that while technological improvements are relevant to the determination of whether the claim as a whole integrates the judicial exception (e.g., abstract idea) into a practical application, “the judicial exception alone cannot provide the improvement.”3 Here, even assuming that these limitations provide the alleged benefit, the graph traversal and pull request generating limitations are part the identified because they can be performed in the human mind with no more than pen and paper. Furthermore, all additional elements are either generic computing functionality or insignificant extra-solution activity, as discussed in detail below.
Applicant additionally argues that any mental process recited in the claim is integrated into a practical application because “claim 1 recites ‘causing display, via a display of a first client device, of a pull request user interface, the pull request user interface including display of the series of pull requests in a sequence using a particular tree of the plurality of trees of the directed graph, wherein each pull request includes an indication of the indexed one or more changes associated with the respective files of the plurality of files associated with a respective pull request of the series of pull requests.’ These elements facilitate reviewing the series of pull requests in a predetermined sequence based on the directed graph such that a reviewer is able to step through the changes associated with each pull request to each of the respective files in a logical order, which facilitates efficient and accurate reviewing of the changes to the files.”4 However, insignificant extra-solution activity does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application and courts have held that displaying information is insignificant extra-solution activity5. Thus, this limitation does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Although the limitation “causing display …” argued here by Applicant is insignificant extra-solution activity as described above, even assuming that it is not insignificant extra-solution activity, Examiner further notes that while the claim does not need to recite the alleged improvement, “the claim must include the components or steps of the invention that provide the improvement.”6 Under the broadest interpretation, these claim limitations would not necessarily allow a reviewer to “step through the changes associated with each pull request to each of the respective files in a logical order,” as argued by Applicant. For example, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, this limitation would include using a tree of a directed graph to simply display a series of pull requests along with the names of the source code files containing an indexed change for the pull request. Without additional steps or components, which have not been claimed, this would not allow a user to “step through the changes associated with each pull request to each of the respective files in a logical order.” Thus, this limitation does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Applicant next argues that claim 1 “recites an inventive concept that is significantly more than the alleged abstract idea itself under Step 2B … [because] independent claim 1 recites specific improvements to systems and methods for generating a series of pull requests that facilitate the efficient and accurate creation of the series of pull requests at least by performing, in the directed graph, a BFS, and subsequently performing, in the directed graph, a DFS to segment the directed graph into respective trees upon which the created chain of pull requests is based. This may facilitate optimizing network resources by reducing the processing resources required to create a series of pull requests and further by reducing a need for additional processing resources to re- segment the directed graph to correct errors with the organization of the respective files as may be present with other methods.”7 However, as noted above, the improvement cannot come from the mental process itself. As described in detail below in the Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101 section, the limitations for generating a directed graph, segmenting the graph using BFS and DFS, and generating a series of pull requests are all part of the identified mental process. Moreover, all of the additional claim elements are either generic computing functionality or insignificant extra-solution activity (see the Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101 section below for details). Thus, the claim as a whole does not include additional elements, alone or in combination, that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
For the reasons set forth above, Applicant’s argument is not persuasive.
With respect to all other claims, Applicant references the arguments made with respect to claim 1, which are not persuasive for the reasons set forth above.
Claim Objections
Claims 8 and 18 objected to because of the following informalities:
With respect to claims 8 and 18, each recites “the creating” (see line 1 of claim 1 and line 2 of claim 18), which lacks antecedent basis. Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-22 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.
With respect to claims 1 and 11, the last 4 lines of claim 1 recites, with emphasis added, “wherein each pull request includes an indication of the indexed one or more changes associated with the respective files of the plurality of files associated with a respective pull request of the series of pull requests.” Although the claim previously recites “indexing one or more changes made to a plurality of plurality of files,” there is no previous recitation of “respective files of the plurality of files associated with a respective pull request of the series of pull requests” and it is unclear what this might refer to. Thus, the scope of the claim is indefinite. For purposes of compact prosecution only, Examiner has interpreted claim 1 as reciting “wherein each pull request includes an indication of one or more of the indexed one or more changes that are associated with respective files of the plurality of files associated with a respective pull request of the series of pull requests.”
Claim 11 recites limitations similar to claim 1 and is indefinite for the same reasons and has been interpreted similarly for purposes of compact prosecution (see above).
With respect to all dependent claims, each inherits the 35 USC 112(b) deficiency of is respective base claim (see the rejections of claims 1 and 11 above).
With respect to claims 2 and 12, lines 1-2 of claim 1 recites “wherein combining the two or more trees of the first plurality of trees ….” While the claim previously recites “first plurality of trees,” there is no previous recitation of “two or more trees” or “combining” trees and it is unclear what this may refer to. The scope of the claim is therefore indefinite. For purposes of compact prosecution only, Examiner has interpreted claim 2 as reciting “further comprising combining two or more trees of the first plurality of trees.”
Claim 12 recites limitations similar to claim 2 and is indefinite for the same reason and has been interpreted similarly for purposes of compact prosecution (see above).
With respect to claims 3-6 and 13-16, claims 3-6 inherit the deficiency of claim 1 and claims 13-16 inherit the deficiency of claim 12 (see above).
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 1-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention recites a judicial exception, is directed to that judicial exception, specifically an abstract idea, as it has not been integrated into practical application and the claims further do not recite significantly more than the judicial exception. Examiner has evaluated the claims under the framework provided in the 2019 Patent Eligibility Guidance published in the Federal Register 01/07/2019 and has provided such analysis below.
Step 1: Claims 1-10 are directed to computer implemented methods and fall within the statutory category of processes; Claims 11-22 are directed to non-transitory computer-readable media and fall within the statutory category of articles of manufacture. Therefore, “Are the claims to a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter?” Yes.
In order to evaluate the Step 2A inquiry “Is the claim directed to a law of nature, a natural phenomenon or an abstract idea?” we must determine, at Step 2A Prong 1, whether the claim recites a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea, and further whether the claim recites additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2A Prong 1:
With respect to claims 1 and 11, The limitations of “determining one or more relationships between the plurality of files with changes based on the indexed one or more changes; generating a directed graph including a plurality of nodes corresponding to the plurality of files, the plurality of nodes including one or more parent nodes and one or more children nodes based on the determined one or more relationships between the plurality of files; and segmenting the directed graph into a first plurality of trees, comprising, for each tree of the first plurality of trees: performing, in the directed graph, a breadth first search (BFS) to identify at least one zero-in-degree file of the plurality of files, the identified at least one zero-in-degree file having no incoming edge from another file of the plurality of files and corresponding to a respective parent node of the one or more parent nodes; subsequent to performing the BFS, performing a depth first search (DFS) to identify at least one cascading file downstream of the identified at least one zero-in-degree file and corresponding to a respective child node of the one or more children nodes; and generating a series of pull requests based on the first plurality of trees, wherein each pull request in the series of pull requests corresponds to a tree of the first plurality of trees,” as claimed, is a process that, but for the recitation of generic computing components and under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind with no more than pen and paper. For example, with no more than pen and paper, a human developer could (1) create a directed graph representing human-readable source code files that the developer has determined to be changed; (2) segment the directed graph into a plurality of trees via (i) a depth first search of a simple graph representing a plurality of source code files in order to identify a root node and (ii) a breadth first search to identify files impacted by a change to the file represented by the root node; and (3) generating a series of natural language proposals to merge source code changes.
Therefore, Yes, claims 1 and 11 recite limitations that fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas.
As the claims have been identified as reciting judicial exceptions, Step 2A Prong 2 will evaluate whether the claims are directed to the judicial exception.
Step 2A Prong 2:
With respect to claims 1 and 11, The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the following additional elements: “computer-implemented,” and “non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprising instructions which, when executed by a processing unit, cause the processing unit to,” which merely recite instructions to implement an abstract idea on a generic computer, or merely uses a generic computer or computer components to perform the abstract idea, which does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.05(f)).
The claims further recite the following additional element(s): “indexing one or more changes made to a plurality of files in a feature branch of a source code repository, each indexed change represented by a key and value,” which is merely insignificant extra-solution activity such as data gathering and selecting a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated, which does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.05(g)), and will be analyzed further below in Step 2B as being Well-Understood, Routine, and Conventional (WURC).
The claims further recite the following additional element(s): “causing display, via a display of a first client device, of a pull request user interface, the pull request user interface including display of the series of pull requests in a sequence determined using a particular tree of the plurality of trees of the directed graph, wherein each pull request includes an indication of the indexed one or more chances associated with the respective files of the plurality of files associated with a respective pull request of the series of pull requests,” which is merely insignificant extra-solution activity such as displaying data, which does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (see MPEP § 2106.05(g)), and will be analyzed further below in Step 2B as being Well-Understood, Routine, and Conventional (WURC).
Therefore, “Do the claims recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application? No, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application and they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is therefore directed to an abstract idea.
After having evaluated the inquires set forth in Steps 2A Prong 1 and 2, it has been concluded that claims 1 and 11 not only recite a judicial exception but that the claims are directed to the judicial exception as the judicial exception has not been integrated into a practical application.
Step 2B:
With respect to claims 1 and 11, The claims do not include additional elements, alone or in combination, that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to the integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements amount to no more than generic computing components applying the abstract idea and insignificant extra-solution activity that is WURC (see MPEP § 2106.05(d)(II)).
Therefore, “Do the claims recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?” No, these additional elements, alone or in combination, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Having concluded the analysis within the provided framework, claims 1 and 11 do not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
With respect to claims 2 and 12, the limitations provide additional details of determining whether trees can be combined, merging the trees, and further describing the pull request, which could also be performed in the human mind with no more than pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the judicial exception and do not have elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, claims 2 and 12 do not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
With respect to claims 3 and 13, the limitations provide additional details of determining whether trees can be combined based on size, which could also be performed in the human mind with no more than pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the judicial exception and do not have elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, claims 3 and 13 do not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
With respect to claims 4 and 14, the limitations provide additional details of determining whether trees can be combined based on type or category of changed files, which could also be performed in the human mind with no more than pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the judicial exception and do not have elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, claims 4 and 14 do not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
With respect to claims 5 and 15, the limitations provide additional details of determining whether trees can be combined based a number of allowed pull requests, which could also be performed in the human mind with no more than pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the judicial exception and do not have elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, claims 5 and 15 do not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
With respect to claims 6 and 16, the limitations provide additional details of determining whether trees can be combined based having a common child node, which could also be performed in the human mind with no more than pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the judicial exception and do not have elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, claims 6 and 16 do not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
With respect to claims 7, 8, 17, and 18, the limitations provide additional details for creating the pull requests, which could also be performed in the human mind with no more than pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the judicial exception and do not have elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, claims 7, 8, 17, and 18 do not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
With respect to claims 9, 10, 19, and 20, the limitations provide additional details for performing the BFS and DFS, which could also be performed in the human mind with no more than pencil and paper. Thus, the claims are directed to the judicial exception and do not have elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, claims 9, 10, 19, and 20 do not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
With respect to claim 21, the limitations provide additional details for segmenting the directed graph into trees, which could also be performed in the human mind with no more than pencil and paper. Thus, the claim is directed to the judicial exception and does not have elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, claim 21 does not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
With respect to claim 22, the limitations provide additional details for combining trees, which could also be performed in the human mind with no more than pencil and paper. Thus, the claim is directed to the judicial exception and does not have elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, claim 22 does not recite patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure Gasparini et al. “ChangeViz: Enhancing the GitHub Pull Request Interface with Method Call Information” teaches a user interface for displaying pull request details; Van Zijst et al. US 9430229 user interface display for use in merge preview; Malik “Git repository visualization: Visualizing fille authorship and dominance” which teaches pull request visualization on a per file basis; Specifically, Sundaresan et al. US 20230236811 teaches tree-editing to resolve merge conflicts; Newman et al. teaches a version control repository that stores blobs (binary large objects), trees, and commits; Salman et al. “Automatic Identification of Similar Pull-Requests in GitHub’s Repositories Using Machine Learning” teaches a Depth-First Search (DFS) algorithm to split a tree into a set of candidate PR clusters; Rojas et al. “Efficient Search Algorithms Leveraging Inverted Indexing and Parallel Processing for Large-Scale Commonsense Knowledge Repositories” teaches a BFS repository search algorithm; and Cohen et al. US 20080196012 teaches analyzing programs using DFS and BFS.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 STEPHEN DAVID BERMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-7206. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F, 9-6 Eastern.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hyung S. Sough can be reached on 571-272-6799. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/STEPHEN D BERMAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2192
/S. Sough/SPE, Art Unit 2192
1 See p. 10.
2 See Remarks at pp. 10-11.
3 See MPEP § 2106.05(a); see also MPEP §2106.04(d)(1) Evaluating Improvements in the Functioning of a Computer, or an Improvement to Any Other Technology or Technical Field in Step 2A Prong Two, “a detailed explanation of how examiners should evaluate this consideration are provided in MPEP § 2106.05(a)”
4 See Remarks at p. 10.
5 See MPEP § 2106.05(g).
6 See MPEP § 2106.05(a).
7 See Remarks at p. 11.