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 [1-20] are currently pending and have been examined based on their merits.
Claims 1-2, 5-9, 12-15, and 18-20 have been amended see REMARKS May 22, 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 May 22, 2026 has been entered.
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 a judicial exception that is an abstract idea without a practical application or significantly more.
Step 1: Claims 1-7 recite a method (i.e. a series of steps), claims 8-13 recite a system and claims 14-20 recite a non-transitory computer readable media and therefore each claim falls within one of the four statutory categories.
Step 2A prong 1 (Is a judicial exception recited?):
The representative claims 1, 8, and 14 recites: A method, comprising: receiving a content item, the content item associated with a user; parsing the content item, to identify content relating to a software service managed by an issue tracking system; extracting the content from the content item, the content including: message text; and metadata of the content item; and analyzing the message text to determine a number of sentences; in accordance with the number of sentences being greater than a threshold number of sentences, processing the message text using a featurization module to produce a set of segments, a number of the set of segments being fewer than the number of sentences of the message text; generating a content item descriptor associated with the content item, the content item descriptor comprising the set of segments; providing, the content item descriptor as input to determine a help-seek intent metric for the content, the set of content items comprising previously created customer support tickets classified with a help-seek intent metric, the help-seek intent metric indicating a probability that the content includes a request for help in relation to a software service; receiving, a particular help-seek intent metric, associated with the content item descriptor; determining, whether the particular help-seek intent metric satisfies an intent criteria; and in accordance with a determination that the particular help-seek intent metric satisfies the intent criteria: generating, a ticket request for creation of a ticket, the ticket request based on the content; in accordance with a determination that the particular help-seek intent metric does not satisfy the intent criteria, discarding the content item descriptor; and receiving- a ticket identifier and a comment field, in response to receiving the ticket identifier: storing a content item record comprising an association between the ticket identifier and a content identifier for the content item; generating a first response, the first response responsive to the identified message content relating to the software service and including a textual indication of a status of the ticket request; and responding, to the content item with the first response.
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 series of steps to generate a ticket for requesting help based on the intent of a content item. The method recites a series of steps or instructions for retrieving information, determining the intent of the information and if the intent exceeds a threshold level generating a ticket or request based on the data in the information. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
The claims alternatively recite a mental process. As the claims recite series of generating a ticket or request based on the content of a content item. The courts have identified steps of collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying results as reciting mental processes. Furthermore, merely performing observations, evaluations, judgement, and opinions have been identified as being practically performed in the human mind. Therefore, a series of steps for retrieving information such as a content item, determining help-seeking intent of the content item based on textual data and determining if the intent is above a threshold value, to generate and communicate a ticket request based on the textual data would be capable of being performed in the human mind or with simple tools such as pen and paper. A member of a customer support team for example would be capable of mentally viewing or receiving content items such as social media posts, determining their help seeking intent, and generating a ticket or request to help the person based on the content of the post. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong 2 (Is the exception integrated into a practical application?): The claims additionally recite;
Claim 1: A computer, a social media platform, an issue tracking system, a classification engine, the classification engine having been trained using a set of content items; communicating, the ticket request to the issue tracking system; storing a content item record comprising an association between the ticket identifier and a content identifier for the content item at the social media platform.
Claim 8: A computer processing system for generating ticket requests, comprising: a processing unit; non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by the processing unit, cause the computer processing system to perform operations, a social media platform, an issue tracking system, a classification engine, the classification engine having been trained using a set of content items; communicating, the ticket request to the issue tracking system; storing a content item record comprising an association between the ticket identifier and a content identifier for the content item at the social media platform.
Claim 14: A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by a processing unit, cause the processing unit to perform operations, a social media platform, an issue tracking system, a classification engine, the classification engine having been trained using a set of content items; communicating, the ticket request to the issue tracking system; storing a content item record comprising an association between the ticket identifier and a content identifier for the content item at the social media platform.
The additional elements of generic computer elements to receive and transmit information as well as perform the abstract idea of retrieving content items, determining a help seeking intent, and generating a ticket request based on the textual data of the content item 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, analyzing, and transmitting 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 retrieving a content item, determining a help seeking intent associated with the content item based on textual data, determining whether the intent exceeds a threshold, and generating a ticket request based on the textual data of the content item. Therefore, the additional elements do not direct the claims to significantly more.
The dependent claims 2-7, 9-13, and 15-20 further narrow the abstract idea of determining the help-seeking intent and tracking the status of a ticket generated including the messages communicated to resolve the ticket associated with an identifier, recited in the independent claims 1, 8, and 14 and are therefore directed towards the same abstract idea.
The dependent claims do not recite any further additional elements that were not disclosed in the above analysis.
Therefore, claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see REMARKS, filed November 12, 2025, with respect to the rejections of claims 1-20 under U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
The applicant argues that claims do not recite an abstract idea as they contains structural and computational complexities that require machine execution and exceed human cognitive limits such as producing a set of segments based on a threshold number of sentences and generating a content item descriptor and a classification engine to determine a help-seek metric, generating a help-seek metric based on historical issue-tracking logs, and generate data structures to respond via social media platform. However, the examiner respectfully disagrees as the claims recite a method comprising receiving a content item associated with a user, parsing the content item to identify content relating to a service, extracting the content, analyzing the message text to determine a number of sentences, processing the message text to produce a set of segments, generating a content item descriptor, receiving a particular help-seek intent metric associated with the content item descriptor, determining whether the help-seek intent metric satisfies an intent criteria, generating a ticket request for creation of a ticket, determining that the help-seek metric does not satisfy an intent criteria and discarding the content item descriptor, generating a first response including a textual indication of a status of the ticket request, and responding to the content item with the first response. The claims recite a mental process as a person is mentally, or with simple tools such as pen and paper, capable of monitoring, receiving, and analyzing content item to determine a help-seek metric and generating a ticket and a response based on the help-seek metric. A customer support agent for instance is capable of reviewing messages or content and identifying when the content contains a request for help and subsequently responding to the request. The claims are found to recite concepts the courts have identified as being a mental process such as observation, evaluation, judgement, and opinion. Additionally, the courts have stated that claims that perform a mental process in a computer environment or user a computer as a tool to perform the mental process as still considered to recite a mental process. Alternatively, the claims recite a certain method of organizing human activity as they recite a series of steps for merely receiving content from a user, analyzing the content to determine if a user is request assistance, generating a customer support ticket and a response to resolve the ticket. Which the examiner finds to be a series of steps to manage personal behavior or interactions between people as the claims merely recite a process for identifying users seeking help and allowing a customer support agent to respond. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
The applicant argues that the additional elements are directed to a practical application as they recite an improvement in the technology of identifying and responding to an issue with a software application by receiving a combination of elements that provide for identifying the issue and allowing an agent to response via a user interface of the issue tracking system separate from the social media site, discarding content item descriptors that do not satisfy a help-seek metric, and storing a content item record comprising an association between the ticket identifier and a content identifier. However, the examiner respectfully disagrees as the additional elements are directed to merely apply it. The claims merely recite generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea of receiving and analyzing user posted content to generate a response and a ticket. Merely automating the process of reviewing content and generating a response is not an improvement to a technology or technical field but applying generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea. Additionally, merely receiving a comment via an interface from an agent, wherein the comment is in regard to the content item and storing the content item record; and generating a response message based on the comment including a textual indication of a status and communicating the social media response message and the content item identifier to the social media platform to cause the social media platform to display the social media response message is not an improvement to the technology of a social media network. The claim merely recites a computer performing the basic functions of receiving information such as a ticket identifier and a comment field including a comment received from an agent, analyzing the information, storing the content item, generating a response message based on the comment, and communicating the message to the platform. Merely analyzing, storing, communicating information is not an improvement to the basic functions of a computer system but merely applying computer elements to perform the abstract idea of generating a comment from an agent regarding content from a user and sharing the content with the user.
As the additional elements are directed to merely “apply it” the claims do not amount to significantly more. The claims do not recite an improvement to a technology or technical field but merely applying generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea of receiving and processing information to determine a response.
Therefore, the examiner maintains the current 101 rejection.
Applicant argues that claims 2-7, 9-13, and 15-20 are allowable as being dependent on claims 1, 8, and 14 and therefore are rejected under the same rejection.
Applicant’s arguments, see REMARKS, filed May 22, 2026, with respect to the rejections of Claims 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gordon (US 2013/0179440) in view of Gupta (US 2019/0026653) further in view of Famous (US 2012/0072358) are persuasive.
Claims 1, 8, and 14: Applicant argues that the current prior art does not disclose the amended claim limitations. Upon further search and consideration the examiner agrees that the current combination of prior art either separately or combined does not disclose the amended claim limitations “analyzing the message text to determine a number of sentences; in accordance with the number of sentences being greater than a threshold number of sentences, processing the message text using a featurization module to produce a set of segments, a number of the set of segments being fewer than the number of sentences of the message text; generating a content item descriptor associated with the content item, the content item descriptor comprising the set of segments.”
The closest prior art Gordon (US 2013/0179440) discloses monitoring a workflow environment to identify content shared via a plurality of communication channels. Using an analysis engine to determine a sentiment of the content and if the content contains a trigger for help or assistance. While initiating an issue ticket and linking a user with a customer service agent to resolve the issue ticket.
The second closest prior art Gupta (US 2019/0026653) teaches a smart ticketing system for a social media platform. Gupta further teaches receiving content from a plurality of users on a social media platform and performing a series of steps to reduce noise by removing non-actionable communications to help identify requests for help with technical support issues or inquires. Gupta further teaches generating a ticket and connecting a user seeking help with an agent to resolve the issue.
The third closest prior art Famous (US 2012/0072358) teaches a system of identifying social media posts by a customer and identifying that the post contains a customer support request. While providing a user interface for an agent to view a collection of the user posts associated with a generated customer service ticket and to communicate with the user.
However, the combination of prior art does not disclose the newly amended claim limitations.
Therefore, claims 1, 8, and 14 are allowable over U.S.C. 103.
Claims 2-6, 9-13, and 15-20 were argued as being allowable only as being dependent on claims 1, 8, and 14. Therefore, they are also allowable over U.S.C. 103.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Li (US 2017/0091629) Intent platform.
Doddmani Manjunath (US 2017/0243303) Social media analytics and response.
Boetje (US 2006/0182230) Systems, methods, and computer program products for automatically pushing a status change message as a result of repair services that are performed on a network.
White (US 2013/0073470) Method and system for providing online trouble ticket servicing.
Klemm (US 2017/0098282) Social media integration in omni-channel customer issue resolution.
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
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