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
This action is in reply to the claims filed on 05/26/2026
Claims 2, 6-7, and 21-22 are cancelled.
Claims 1 and 20 are amended.
Claims 1, 3-5, 8-20, and 23-25 are currently pending and have been examined.
Subject Matter Free of Prior Art
Claims 1, 3-5, 8-20, and 23-25 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. As explained on pages 2-3 of the Office Action dated 03/13/2025, the prior art of record – that is, Price (US 10,733,656 B1); Ghorbani et al. (US 2022/0284340 A1); and Malik et al. (US 2020/0410518 A1)— do not disclose or render obvious: wherein the optimal tendency matcher is configured to generate the tendency matching index by calculating a standard deviation of differences between the plurality of first weight values for the plurality of user tendency elements and the plurality of second weight values for the plurality of vehicle tendency elements for each of the plurality of vehicles. Specifically, Price discloses calculating a plurality of first weight values for a plurality of user tendency elements and calculating a plurality of second weight values for a plurality of vehicle tendency elements of each of the plurality vehicles (see Office Action 03/13/2025 pgs. 8-9). However , Price does not disclose or render obvious: generate the tendency matching index by calculating a standard deviation of differences between the plurality of first weight values for the plurality of user tendency elements and the plurality of second weight values for the plurality of vehicle tendency elements for each of the plurality of vehicles. Ghorbani discloses deriving a weight value distribution of the plurality of user tendency elements (¶ [0124]) and Malik discloses assigning weights to user parameters and weights to vehicle parameters (¶ [0009]). However, neither of these references discloses of renders obvious: generate the tendency matching index by calculating a standard deviation of differences between the plurality of first weight values for the plurality of user tendency elements and the plurality of second weight values for the plurality of vehicle tendency elements for each of the plurality of vehicles.
Moreover, even assuming arguendo that the features of the claims exist individually, the combination of features as claimed would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art because any combination of the evidence obtained to reach the combination of features as claimed would require substantial reconstruction of Applicant' s claimed invention relying on improper hindsight bias.
Accordingly, claims 1, 3-5, 8-20, and 23-25 are considered to be free of prior art rejections, however these claims remain rejected under 35 USC 101 as explained below.
Claim Rejections- 35 U.S.C. § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1, 3-5, 8-20, and 23-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Under Step 1 of the subject matter eligibility (SME) analysis described in MPEP 2106.03, the instant claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention identified by 35 U.S.C. 101. In the instant case, claims 1, 3-5, and 8-19 are directed to a system and claims 20 and 23-25 are directed to a method. Claims 1 and 20 are parallel in nature, therefore, the analysis will use claim 20 as the representative claim.
In Step 2A Prong One, it must be considered whether the claims recite a judicial exception. In the instant case, representative claim 20 recites abstract concepts including: receiving a response to a user tendency test from a user ... determining a user tendency based on a response to a user tendency test; determining a plurality of vehicle tendencies for each of a plurality of vehicles; generating a tendency matching index indicating a degree of matching between the user tendency and the vehicle tendency for each of the plurality of vehicles; transmitting information on the tendency matching index to the user ...; and receiving an optimal vehicle type selected by the user..., wherein generating the tendency matching index includes calculating a plurality of first weight values for a plurality of user tendency elements of the user tendency based on the response to the user tendency test, calculating a plurality of second weight values for a plurality of vehicle tendency elements of each of the plurality of vehicles, and generating the tendency matching index for each of the vehicles based on the plurality of first weight values for the plurality of user tendency elements and the plurality of second weight values for the plurality of vehicle tendency elements for each of the plurality of vehicles, wherein generating the tendency matching index includes calculating a standard deviation of differences between the plurality of first weight values for the plurality of user tendency elements and the plurality of second weight values for the plurality of vehicle tendency elements for each of the plurality of vehicles, wherein the vehicle tendency includes the plurality of vehicle tendency elements corresponding to the plurality of user tendency elements; wherein the plurality of user tendency elements and the plurality of vehicle tendency elements comprise at least two elements selected from among economics, safety, self- consciousness, technicality, reliability, functionality, and aesthetics, wherein the vehicle tendency determination device is configured to calculate the plurality of second weight values for the plurality of vehicle tendency elements based on vehicle data for each of the plurality of vehicles and vehicle evaluation data for each of the plurality of vehicles, wherein the vehicle data includes at least one of vehicle specifications, price, color, performance, or maintenance cost, and the vehicle evaluation data includes at least one of evaluation data for each vehicle provided by a vehicle evaluation institution and evaluation data collected from users.
When considering the subject matter groupings articulated in MPEP 2106.04, the claims recite an abstract idea of “generating a matching index indicating a degree of matching between a user and vehicles”. These concepts are considered to be certain methods of organizing human activity. Certain methods of organizing human activity are defined by MPEP 2106.04 as including “fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)”. In this case, “generating matching index indicating a degree of matching between a user and vehicles” are certain methods of organizing human activity because these are sales activities and behaviors. Therefore, claims 1 and 20 recite an abstract idea.
If it is determined that the claims recite a judicial exception, then in Step 2A, Prong 2 of the SME analysis, it is then necessary to evaluate whether the claims recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application of that exception. This is the question of whether a claim is “directed to” a judicial exception. As explained in MPEP 2106.05, the evaluation of Prong Two requires the use of the considerations (e.g. improving technology, effecting a particular treatment or prophylaxis, implementing with a particular machine, etc.) identified by the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit, to ensure that the claim as a whole “integrates [the] judicial exception into a practical application [that] will apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the judicial exception.”
In this instant case, claims 1 and 20 recite the additional elements including: a vehicle tendency determination device; a user terminal; transmitting information ... to the user terminal; and receiving an optimal vehicle type selected by the user transmitted through an application of the user. Neither the device, terminal, or application are described in any relevant technical detail by the claims or specification. The broadest reasonable interpretation is that the device and terminal are computers connected to a network which operate to perform the abstract method. The use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data, or simply adding a general purpose computer/components after the fact to an abstract idea does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide significantly more (MPEP 2106.05(f)). Therefore, considered both individually and as an ordered combination, the additional elements do not amount to more than “apply it” or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer. Accordingly, the Examiner concludes that the claims fail to integrate the abstract idea of “generating matching index indicating a degree of matching between a user and vehicles” into a practical application. Claims 1 and 20 are thus directed to an abstract idea.
Under Step 2B of the SME analysis, if it is determined that the claims recite a judicial exception that is not integrated into a practical application of that exception, it is then necessary to evaluate the additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether they provide an inventive concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself).
As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element(s) individually and in combination are merely being used to apply the abstract idea to a general computer components. The invention as claimed merely automates “generating matching index indicating a degree of matching between a user and vehicles” (i.e., the abstract idea) and does not add meaningful limitations to the abstract ideas beyond generally linking the abstract process to implementation via computers/software. Therefore, the additional elements, alone or in ordered combination, do not render the claim as being significantly more than the underlying abstract idea, and the claims 1 and 20 are ineligible.
Dependent claim(s) 3-5, 8-19 and 23-25 do not aid in the eligibility of the independent claims. These claims merely further define the abstract idea without reciting any further additional elements. Thus, dependent claims 3-5, 8-19 and 23-25 are also ineligible.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 05/26/2026 with respect to the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejections have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Prong Two of Step 2A
On page 12 of the Remarks, Applicant argues that amended claims 1 and 20 recite “a particular technique” (calculating a standard deviation of differences between the user and vehicle tendency weight values) that integrates the exception into a practical application.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Prong Two asks whether the additional elements integrate the recited abstract idea into a practical application of the abstract idea. Because a judicial exception is not eligible subject matter, Bilski, 561 U.S. at 601, 95 USPQ2d at 1005-06 (quoting Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. at 309, 206 USPQ at 197 (1980)), if there are no additional claim elements besides the judicial exception, or if the additional claim elements merely recite another judicial exception, that is insufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. See, e.g., RecogniCorp, LLC v. Nintendo Co., 855 F.3d 1322, 1327, 122 USPQ2d 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2017) ("Adding one abstract idea (math) to another abstract idea (encoding and decoding) does not render the claim non-abstract"); Genetic Techs. Ltd. v. Merial LLC, 818 F.3d 1369, 1376, 118 USPQ2d 1541, 1546 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (eligibility "cannot be furnished by the unpatentable law of nature (or natural phenomenon or abstract idea) itself.").
Calculating a standard deviation is itself an abstract mathematical concept, which cannot furnish eligibility. The tendency elements, which Applicant argues “are not generic data fields”, describe only the content of the data being analyzed. Limiting the data to a particular type or field relevant to vehicle-recommendation criteria merely indicates a field of use in which to apply the abstract idea, which is not sufficient to integrate an abstract idea into a practical application (see “ Limiting the abstract idea of collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis to data related to the electric power grid, because limiting application of the abstract idea to power-grid monitoring is simply an attempt to limit the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1354, 119 USPQ2d 1739, 1742 (Fed. Cir. 2016)” in MPEP 2106.05(h)).
Applicant further argues that the generated matching index “is not an end in itself” because the claim further recites “transmitting information on the tendency matching index to an application of the user terminal and receiving, through the application of the user terminal, an optimal vehicle type selected by the user” (Remarks,pg.13).
The steps of transmitting the resulting index and receiving a user selection are insignificant extra-solution activity (data gathering and outputting) which rely on a generic application of a generic user terminal to perform the well known functions of transmitting data over a network. Mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer do not meaningfully limit the abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05(f)). Furthermore, and in response to Applicant’s argument that the claims do not preempt the general idea of matching users to vehicles, Examiner notes that lack of preemption does not render a claim eligible. It is necessary to evaluate eligibility using the Alice/Mayo test, because while a preemptive claim may be ineligible, the absence of complete preemption does not demonstrate that a claim is eligible. Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 191-92 n.14, 209 USPQ 1, 10-11 n.14 (1981) ("We rejected in Flook the argument that because all possible uses of the mathematical formula were not pre-empted, the claim should be eligible for patent protection").
Accordingly, claims 1, 3-5, 8-20, and 23-25 are not integrated into a practical application because the recited additional elements do not transform the nature of the claim and instead amount to mere instruction to apply the abstract idea on a computer.
B. Step 2B
On page 14 of the Remarks, Applicant argues “the amended independent claims recite significantly more than the alleged judicial exception” because the claims recite an ordered combination (specific mechanism for generating vehicle-specific tendency matching indices).
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. As stated above, the standard deviation calculation is part of the abstract idea and there cannot supply the inventive concept. Similarly, generating a vehicle-specific tendency matching index using a specific calculation applied to weight values is a more specific, but no less abstract, description of the identified abstract idea of “generating a matching index indicating a degree of matching between a user and vehicles” (Office Action, pg. 5). The additional elements recited in the claim are a user terminal, an application, and transmitting and receiving data. Considered as an ordered combination, these elements follow the conventional sequence of receiving data, processing it, and outputting a result.
For at least these reasons, the Examiner is maintaining the 101 rejection of claims 1, 3-5, 8-20, and 23-25.
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pgs. 14-16, filed 12/30/2025, with respect to 35 U.S.C. 102/103 rejections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 102/103 rejections have been withdrawn.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Z. Liu, J. Yang and B. Liang (NPL Reference U) proposes a research on the identification algorithm of commercial vehicle influencing factors based on partial least squares structural equation, in order to bring higher quality commercial vehicle after-sales service to customers and comprehensively improve the core competitiveness of commercial vehicle sales enterprises.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
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/K.G.W./Examiner, Art Unit 3688 /KELLY S. CAMPEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3691
