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 .
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 1-23 are rejected under 35 USC 101.
Step 2A, Prong One
Claims 1–19 and 21–23 are directed to a judicial exception, namely an abstract idea of organizing human activity and/or a mathematical relationship. More particularly, the claims recite collecting information, 1 analyzing the collected information, and determining a result based on the analysis. The claimed method includes measuring one or more body or behavior parameters of a young animal, receiving measuring values, processing the measuring values, and detecting a phase transition or determining an extent of attention to solid food. Such activities are directed to data gathering and evaluation, which are concepts that can be performed mentally or with the aid of generic tools and therefore recite an abstract idea.
Claim 20, although recited as a system, is likewise directed to the same abstract idea. The system claim recites a plurality of measuring instruments and a controller configured to receive measuring values and detect a phase transition based on those values. The recited system elements are generic components used to perform routine sensing and analysis functions. Accordingly, claim 20 also recites an abstract idea.
Step 2A, Prong Two
The claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Although the claims recite a measuring instrument, a controller, and in some instances a data processing model, these additional elements are recited at a high level of generality and do not impose any meaningful limit on the abstract idea. The claims do not recite an improvement in the functioning of a computer, a particular machine integral to the performance of the claimed method, or a transformation of an article into a different state or thing.
Rather, the additional elements are merely used as tools to gather, process, and analyze information about the young animal. The recited limitations relating to, for example body or behavior parameters, regression models, fields of interest, and stress condition do not alter the fundamental character of the claims. These features amount to field-of-use limitations, data sources, or outputs of the abstract analysis, and therefore do not amount to a practical application.
Accordingly, claims 1–23 fail to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B
The claims also do not recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The measuring instruments, controller, and data processing model are recited generically and perform only routine and conventional functions of measuring, receiving, processing, and outputting information.
The claimed use of a self-learning data processing model, including neural network, random forest, or regression-based implementations, does not, by itself, add an inventive concept. The claims do not recite a particular improvement in computer functionality or a non-conventional arrangement of components. Instead, they apply known data-processing techniques to the field of animal monitoring.
The additional limitations in claims 21–23 also do not add significantly more. Claim 21 merely provides examples of fields of interest. Claim 22 merely narrows the regression model to conventional linear or nonlinear regression models. Claim 23 merely identifies stress as a type of state of health. These recitations do not amount to more than insignificant extra-solution activity or well-understood, routine, and conventional activity.
Claim 20 similarly recites only generic measuring instruments and a controller configured to receive data and decide based on that data. The system claim therefore also fails to add significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
For these reasons, claims 1–23 are directed to a judicial exception without significantly more and are therefore not patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Conclusion
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/MICHAEL FUELLING/ Supervisory Patent Examiner
1 The recitation of a measuring instrument “attached to the young animal or introduced into the young animal” narrows the claim to direct animal-associated sensing and does not appear to encompass embodiments in which measurement is obtained solely through remote monitoring from an external location.
Prosecution Insights