DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Application
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . This communication is a non-final action in response to claims filed on 1/28/2026. Claims 1, 19, and 20-23 are currently pending and have been considered below.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 2/9/2026 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 non-statutory subject matter. Claims 1, 19, and 20-23 are determined to be directed to an abstract idea.
The claims 1, 19, and 20-23 are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, or abstract idea), without providing a practical application, and without providing significantly more.
Regarding Step 1 of the subject matter eligibility analysis per the most recent subject matter eligibility guidance (2019 PEG), Claims 1, 19, and 20-23 are directed to a method (i.e., process), and a device (i.e., apparatus/machine); therefore, all claims are directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention.
Regarding Step 2A-Prong 1 of the subject matter eligibility analysis per the most recent subject matter eligibility guidance (2019 PEG), Claims 1, 19 and 20-23 are directed specifically to the abstract idea of participating recommendation by participant recommendation method, comprising: acquiring a conference title, by responding to a first input operation, and matching text data in the conference title with a first tag, to extract a conference tag that matches the first tag from the text data, comprising one of: matching the text data in the conference title with a first tag, determining that the matching is successful, in a case of there is first text data in the text data being a same as the first tag, and determining the first text data as the conference tag, or matching the text data in the conference title with the first tag, determining that the matching is successful, in a case of second text data in the text data has a same keyword as the first tag, and determining the second text data as the conference tag; wherein the first tag is pre-configured and is used to characterize at least one of a conference type to which a participant in a conference pertains and a business type to which the participant in the conference pertains; acquiring first user information, by responding to a second input operation, and matching the first user information with a second tag, to obtain a first user tag that matches the second tag, comprising: matching the first user information with the second tag, determining that the matching is successful, in a case of the first user information pertains to a user attribute characterized by the second tag, and determining the user attribute to which the first user information pertains as the first user tag; wherein the second tag is pre-configured and is used to characterize the user attribute, and the user attribute comprises at least one of: a department attribute of a department to which a user belongs, a business attribute of business in which a user is engaged, or a position attribute of a user; performing correlation matching between the conference tag and the first user tag, to obtain a second user tag that is a same as at least one of a conference type characterized by the conference tag and a business type characterized by the conference tag, comprising one of: determining a position attribute and business attribute characterized by the first user tag as the second user tag, in a case of the position attribute and business attribute characterized by the first user tag have a same keyword as a conference type and business type characterized by the conference tag respectively, determining a business attribute characterized by the first user tag as the second user tag, in a case of the business attribute characterized by the first user tag has a same keyword as a business type characterized by the conference tag, or determining a department attribute characterized by the first user tag as the second user tag, in a case of the department attribute characterized by the first user tag has a same keyword as a conference type characterized by the conference tag; and filtering according to the second user tag, participating user information in a candidate set, to obtain second user information for participant recommendation; performing matching degree scoring on the correlation matching between the conference tag and the second user tag, to obtain a first scoring result; reordering, based on the first scoring result, the second user information, to obtain a first ranking result; obtaining, according to a historical conference in which the second user information and the first user information jointly participate, a first/second adjustment value, comprising: in a case where the conference tag is a conference business tag, adjusting a weight of the conference business tag by using a weight coefficient W1/W2, to obtain the second adjustment value, wherein the weight coefficient W1/W2 is used to characterize the weight of the historical conference in which the second user information and the first user information jointly participate; adjusting, according to the first/second adjustment value, the matching degree scoring, to obtain a second scoring result; updating, based on the second scoring result, the first ranking result, to obtain an updated second ranking result; and displaying, according to the second ranking result, the second user information, wherein the method further comprises: after determining that the second user information is selected, adding the selected second user information to a set of second tags for subsequent tag matching, thereby continuously and iteratively updating tag data in the set of second tags; which include abstract idea of mental processes (observing and evaluating data regarding conference and making judgement/opinion on participating recommendation); and certain methods of organizing human activities based on managing personal behavior and interactions between people (social activities, following instructions/rules to filtering/determining participating user information for participating recommendation). After considering all claim elements, both individually and in combination and in ordered combination, it has been determined that the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Regarding Step 2A-Prong 2 of the subject matter eligibility analysis per the most recent subject matter eligibility guidance (2019 PEG), while the claims 1, 19 and 20-23 recite additional limitations which are hardware or software elements or particular technological environment, such as a participant recommendation apparatus, electronic device, comprising: at least one processor; and a memory connected in communication with the at least one processor; wherein the memory stores an instruction executable by the at least one processor, and the instruction, when executed by the at least one processor, enables the at least one processor to execute the participant recommendation method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer instruction thereon, wherein the computer instruction is used to cause a computer to execute the participant recommendation method, these limitations are not enough to qualify as “practical application” being recited in the claims along with the abstract idea since these limitations are merely invoked as a tool to perform instruction of Abstract idea in a particular technological environment and/or are generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use, and merely applying and abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting use of an abstract idea to a particular field or a technological environment do not provide practical application for an abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05 (f) & (h)). The claims do not amount to "practical application" for the abstract idea because they neither (1) recite any improvements to another technology or technical field; (2) recite any improvements to the functioning of the computer itself; (3) apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; (4) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; (5) provide other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
Regarding Step 2B of the subject matter eligibility analysis per the most recent subject matter eligibility guidance (2019 PEG), while the claims 1, 19 and 20-23 recite additional limitations which are hardware or software elements or particular technological environment, such as a participant recommendation apparatus, electronic device, comprising: at least one processor; and a memory connected in communication with the at least one processor; wherein the memory stores an instruction executable by the at least one processor, and the instruction, when executed by the at least one processor, enables the at least one processor to execute the participant recommendation method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer instruction thereon, wherein the computer instruction is used to cause a computer to execute the participant recommendation method, these limitations are not enough to qualify as “significantly more” being recited in the claims along with the abstract idea since these limitations are merely invoked as a tool to perform instruction of Abstract idea in a particular technological environment and/or are generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use, and merely applying and abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting use of an abstract idea to a particular field or a technological environment do not provide significantly more to an abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05(f) & (h)). The claims do not amount to "significantly more" than the abstract idea because they neither (1) recite any improvements to another technology or technical field; (2) recite any improvements to the functioning of the computer itself; (3) apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; (4) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; (5) add a specific limitation other than what is well-understood, routine and conventional in the field; (6) add unconventional steps that confine the claim to a particular useful application; nor (7) provide other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Therefore, since there are no limitations in the claims 1, 19 and 20-23 that transform the exception into a patent eligible application such that the claims amount to significantly more than the exception itself, and looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually, the claims are rejected under 35 USC § 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Response to arguments
Arguments on rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101:
Applicants argued that the claims are directed to an improvement of technology. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Additional elements consist of generic computing technologies which are used to apply the abstract idea in a particular technological environment (See MPEP 2106.05(f)). Note that “it is important to keep in mind that an improvement in the abstract idea itself (e.g. a recited fundamental economic concept) is not an improvement in technology. For example, in Trading Technologies Int’l v. IBG, 921 F.3d 1084, 1093-94, 2019 USPQ2d 138290 (Fed. Cir. 2019), the court determined that the claimed user interface simply provided a trader with more information to facilitate market trades, which improved the business process of market trading but did not improve computers or technology.” (MPEP 2106.05(a)II)
Conclusion
Closest prior art to the invention includes: Shetty (US 11216787 B1) and Miller et al (US 20230115098 A1). None of the prior art alone or in combination teaches the claimed invention, wherein the novelty is in combination of all of the limitations.
Additional relevant prior art not relied upon includes:
Akolkar (US-20200076634-A1), regarding “A prescriptive meeting resource recommendation engine automatically learns participant and resource preferences in the context of given meeting input data using natural language features, and automatically recommends all relevant participants and resources (teleconferences, web meetings, links, etc.) to the meeting creator. The engine uses a feature data store to associate historical persons and historical resources with various natural language features, e.g., chargrams. As the host enters text in an invitation template (such as in the title field), the engine extracts current natural language features and computes current participant scores and current resource scores based on the current natural language features. A “forgetfulness” routine is applied to the feature data store to phase out the influence of stale data. After receiving user confirmation, the system takes appropriate action such as electronically sending invitations to the recommended participants and making reservations for the recommended resources”;
Panchaksharaiah (US-20230199120-A1), regarding “the Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents, an analyze the text within those documents to determine the topics of the main conference session. In yet another embodiment, the conference management system may listen to audio output during the main conference for words spoken by the users to determine topics for the breakout room. The conference management system may also determine the topics of the main conference by accessing electronic devices of the users and other databases which may store interactions between the users relating to the main conference session. For example, the conference management system may access emails or texts between users of the main conference session, prior to the meeting, to determine topics that are relevant and/or will be discussed at the main conference session”;
Gupta (US-20230007063-A1), regarding “the title and agenda may be uttered by one of the participants during the conference call and the system, by applying natural language processing (NLP) algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms may determine the topic and agenda based on analyzing the uttered speech”;
Akhoury (US-20230052258-A1), regarding “As described above, the audio 130 may be converted to text data, and used to determine the first topic of interest to the first user 102a.”;
Tay (US-20220254348-A1), regarding “wherein the correlating step comprises matching the notes timestamps to the meeting timestamps and wherein the correlated meeting text comprises the meeting record and the meeting notes, determining topics from the correlated meeting text, determining an importance score associated with each topic based, at least in part, on the correlated meeting text, and generating a meeting summary comprising the topics and associated importance scores”;
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MEHMET YESILDAG whose telephone number is (571)272-3257. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30 am - 5:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jerry O'Connor can be reached on (571) 272-6787. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MEHMET YESILDAG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624