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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 02/17/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed 02/17/26 has been entered.
1) Claims amended:
(1) Independent claims: 1 and 9.
2) Claims canceled: 6 and 14.
Claim Status
Claims 1-5, 7-13 and 15-16 are pending.
The pending claims comprise 2 groups:
1) Article1: 1-5, 7-8, and
2) Method1: 9-13, and 15-16.
All appear to have similar scope.
As of 02/17/2026, independent claim 1 is as followed:
1. (Currently Amended) At least one non-transitory computer-readable medium on which are stored instructions that, when executed by at least one processing device, enable the at least one processing device to perform a method of conducting a contest, the method comprising the steps of:
[1] compiling digital identifiers of a first set of multiple items, each said item of the first set having at least one characteristic different from each other item of the first set;
[2] making a graphical user interface (GUI) available to display devices of multiple user participants, the GUI displaying the digital identifiers of the multiple items,
[3] receiving from each of the user participants via selection of one or more of the digital identifiers displayed in the GUI an indication of the preference of each user participant for a first item of the first set over a second item of the first set, wherein the indications of preference comprise numerical values indicating a degree of respective preference and the selection comprises the user participant dragging within the GUI with a pointer device an icon depicting one of the numerical values and displayed within the GUI to one of the digital identifiers; and
[4] tallying the user indications to determine a first subset of one or more victorious set items of a first round of the contest, the first subset containing fewer items than does the first set.
Note: for referential purpose, numerals [1]-[4] are added to the beginning of each step.
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 1-5, 7-13 and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1: when considering subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, it must be determined whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e.,
(1) process,
(2) machine,
(3) manufacture or product, or
(4) composition of matter.
Step 2A, Prong 1: If the claim does fall within one of the statutory categories, it must then be determined whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception, i.e.,
1) law of nature,
2) natural phenomenon, and
3) abstract idea.
and if so, it must additionally be determined whether the claim is a patent-eligible application of the exception. If an abstract idea is present in the claim, any element or combination of elements in the claim must be sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Examples of abstract ideas include:
(1) Mathematical concepts -- mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, and mathematical calculations;
(2) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion).
(3) Certain methods of organizing human activities.
(i) fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk);
(ii) commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; Legal obligations; Advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations);
(iii) managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions).
>For instance, in Alice Corp. (Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014)), the Court found that “intermediated settlement” was a fundamental economic practice, which is considered as (1) a certain method of organizing human activities, which is an abstract idea.
(1) Step 2A, Prong 1: Does the claim recite a judicial exception?
(2) Step 2A, Prong 2: Are there any additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not integrate that exception into a practical application, then proceeds to step 2B.
(3) Step 2B: Are there any additional elements that adds an inventive concept to the claim? Determine whether the claim:
(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that is not “well-understood, routine, and conventional” in the field (see MPEP 2106.05(d)); or
(4) simply appends well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception.
Step 1:
In the instant case, with respect to claims 1-5, 7-13 and 15-16.
Claim categories:
1) Method1: 9-13 and 15-16,
2) Product: 1-5, and 7-8.
Analysis of Step 1:
Method: claims 9-13 and 15-16 are directed to a process; i.e., a series of steps or acts, for conducting a contest. (Step 1:Yes).
Product: claims 1-5 and 7-8 having instructions that when executed by a processor carrying out a method for conducting a contest. (Step 1: Yes).
Thus, the claims 1-5, 7-13 and 15-16 are generally directed towards one of the four statutory categories under 35 USC § 101.
Claims 1-5, 7-13 and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
A. Step 2A, Prong One:
Claim 1, as exemplary, recites a article/method for conducting a contest, is a fundamental economic principle or business practice for conducting a contest or game, which is considered as (i) a certain method of organizing human activities, which is an abstract idea.
(ii) commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; Legal obligations; Advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations);
B. Step 2A, Prong Two:
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical applications because it deals with a method for conducting a contest or game based on some rules/ strategies, by carrying out steps of:
The claims recites the additional elements of:
Steps: Types
[1] compiling identifiers (data). Data transforming, insignificant extra-solution activity (IE-SA) step.
[2] making a GUI displaying id (data) Data displaying on a GUI, IE-SA.
[3] receiving selection/indication of …(data) Data gathering, IESA.
Wherein indications … icon depicted value (data) Data displaying on a GUI, IE-SA.
[4] Tallying user indications (data) [to determine..] Business rules for determining a winner in a contest (Mental).
Steps [1], [2], [3] are data transforming, displaying and outputting data which are considered as insignificant extra-solution activity steps.
Step [4] is a mental steps/ business rule for tallying up selection of all the participants’ results to determine a winner in a contest. This is a method of organizing human activities/business practice for conducting a contest or game. These well known business activities for conducting a contest or game to determine best results.
The claim does not result in an improvement to the functioning of the computer system or to any other technology or technical field. Further, the claim limitations are not indicative of integration into a practical application by applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way. The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic device. Accordingly, even in combination, these 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. The claim is directed to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice) for conducting a contest or game and does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
C. Step 2B:
The claims recites the additional elements of steps [1]-[4] above.
Steps [1], [2], [3] are data transforming, displaying and outputting data which are considered as insignificant extra-solution activity steps.
Step [4] is a mental steps/business rules for tallying up the user indications to determine a first subset of a first round of the contest. This is a method of organizing human activities/business practice for conducting a contest or game. These well known business activities for conducting a contest or game to determine best results.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because as discussed above, the additional elements, step [4], when considered individually does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea(s). As for the system claims, mere instructions to apply an exertion using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. These generic computer components are claimed at high level of generality to perform their basis functions which amount to no more than generally linking the use of the judicial exception to the particular technological environment of field of use and further see insignificant extra-solution activity MPEP 2106.05 (f), (g) and (h). The Symantec, TLI, and OIP Techs, court decisions cited in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II) indicate that mere receipt or transmission of data over a network, sorting data, analyzing data, and transmitting the data is a well-understood, routine and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner (as it is here). The claim are basically collect data, analyze data, and provide set of results, which are not patent eligible, see Electric Power Group, LLC. For these reasons, there is no inventive concept in the claim, and thus the claim is not patent eligible.
As for dep. claims 2-3 (part of 1 above), which deal with further details of the subset features, these further limit the abstract idea of the analysis of the contest/game, without including: (a) an improvement to another technology or technical field, (b) an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or (c ) meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, claims 2-3 are not considered as being “significantly more”, and thus do not facilitate the claim to meet the “inventive concept”.
As for dep. claims 4-5 (part of 1 above), which deal with further details of the preference features, these further limit the abstract idea of the analysis of the contest/game, without including: (a) an improvement to another technology or technical field, (b) an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or (c ) meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, claims 4-6 are not considered as being “significantly more”, and thus do not facilitate the claim to meet the “inventive concept”.
As for dep. claims 7-8 (part of 1 above), which deal with further details of the items of the contest, wines and wine brand, these further limit the abstract idea of the contest analysis, without including: (a) an improvement to another technology or technical field, (b) an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or (c ) meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, claims 7-8 are not considered as being “significantly more”, and thus do not facilitate the claim to meet the “inventive concept”.
Therefore, claims 1-5, 7-13, 15-16 are not drawn to eligible subject matter as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. step 2B: NO
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
On October 10, 2007, the Patent Office issued the "Examination Guidelines for Determining Obviousness Under 35 U.S.C. 103 in View of the Supreme Court Decision in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc.," 73 Fed. Reg. 57,526 (2007) (hereinafter the Examination Guidelines). Section III is entitled "Rationales to support rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103." Within this section is the following quote from the Supreme Court: "rejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by merely conclusory statements; instead there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness." KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S. Ct. 1727, 1741 (2007) (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)).
Under the Examination Guidelines, the following is a list of rationales that may be used to support a finding of obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103:
(a) combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results;
(b) simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results;
(c) Use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way;
(d) Applying a known technique to a known device (method, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results;
(e) "Obvious to try" choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success;
(f) Known work in one field of endeavor may prompt variations of it for use in either the same field or a different one based on design incentives or other market forces if the variations would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art; and
(g) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation (TSM) in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.
Each rationale is resolved using the Graham factual inquiries.
Claims 1-8 (Article (CRM)1) and respectively 9-16 (method1) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as obvious over:
Names Publications:
(1) FOROUTAN USP 2014/0.304.042, and
(2) SOMMER USP 2020/0.112.617, and
(3) SNELL WO 2008/144.239.
As for independent claims 1 and respectively 9 (method), FOROUTAN discloses a computer-implemented method and at least one computer-readable medium on which are stored instructions that, when executed by at least one processing device, enable the at least one processing device to perform a method of conducting a contest, the method comprising the steps of:
{see Fig.7, 990 “contest”, “Round 3”, “Round 1”, Fig. 1, 220 “Contest Creation Module”, 230 “Contest Management Module,”]}
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[1] processing digital identifiers of a first set of multiple items, each said item of the first set having at least one characteristic different from each other item of the first set;
{see Fig. 7, “Elimination contest 210,”
[0109 … work submissions (e.g. music demos) can be categorized (given genres) in an unlimited number of categories (e.g. Jazz, Rock, Pop)… music, fashion, literature and also establishes respective sub-categories, such as, for example, jazz, rock and pop, or shirts, shoes, pants, or novels, screenplays or poetry…Web pages may be constructed dynamically including content information retrieved from a database. A web server may access a template web page, …submission web page.. ]
[0146 “the top submitted content 920 moves into a contest phase 530 of TPICS. … the elimination contest 210, all of the top submitted content 920 in the last SPP is paired into groups of two. Each group of two works is placed in a contest room 980.”]
As shown above, various contents/works having at least one characteristic different from each other item of the sets and sub-sets are submitted to the contest which has elimination rounds resulted from the votes of the participants for each round. The contest is carried out on the Internet using web pages, see [0149 web pages] and [0152 “web pages.”]
[2] making a graphical user interface (GUI) available to display devices of multiple user participants, the GUI displaying the digital identifiers of the multiple items,
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[3] receiving from each of the user participants via selection of one or more of the digital identifiers displayed in the GUI an indication of the preference of each user participant for a first item of the first set over a second item of the first set; wherein the indications of preference comprise numerical values indicating a degree of respective preference;
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Par. [0232]
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which deals with an indication of preference comprise numerical values, this is taught in FOROUTAN par. [0232].
[4] tallying the user indications to determine a first subset of one or more victorious set items of a first round of the contest, the first subset containing fewer items than does the first set.
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As shown above, in view of the teaching of “top-score,” and “a winner emerges from the final pool”, this reads over the feature “victorious” set items, and it contains fewer items than does the original first set.
t would have been obvious to call the top score as “victorious” in view of the term “low score.”
FOROUTAN fairly teaches the claims except for explicitly (1) disclosing the processing of the data (digital identifiers) of the first set in the first step by compiling it and (2) selection of value on the GUI by dragging within the GUI an icon depicting one of the numerical values to be displayed within the GUI to one of the digital identifiers.
In another interactive data processing system, SOMMER teaches the compiling the digital identifiers of a data set for use in the subsequent step in the digital data network relevant to the identifiers, see [008].
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Therefore, it would have been obvious to modify the interactive contest management system of FOROUTAN to include a compiling of the identifiers in the processing of identifiers of FOROUTAN as taught by SOMMER for using in subsequent creation step of the digital data network relevant to the identifier, see [0008].
FOROUTAN/SOMMER fairly teaches the claims except for explicitly (2) selection of value on the GUI by dragging within the GUI an icon depicting one of the numerical values to be displayed within the GUI to one of the digital identifiers.
In another workflow management on a GUI, SNELL discloses a selection of value on the GUI by dragging within the GUI an icon depicting one of the numerical values to be displayed within the GUI to one of the digital identifiers, see [0060].
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Therefore, it would have been obvious to modify the interactive contest management system of FOROUTAN/SOMMER to include a selection of value on the GUI by dragging within the GUI an icon (256) depicting one of the numerical values to be displayed within the GUI, process GUI 200, to one process workflow area 280 as taught by SNELL for displaying results on the GUI, see [0060]. In view of the teaching of selection of numerical values and displaying the numerical values in FOROUTAN Fig. 7, and [0032] above, it would have been obvious to combine this teaching with SNELL to drag and drop numerical value and displayed within the GUI to one of the digital identifiers.
As for dep. claim 2 (part of 1 above) and respectively 10 (part of 9 above), which deals with the features of the first subset, this is taught in FOROUTAN par. [0212].
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As for dep. claim 3 (part of 1 above) and respectively 11 (part of 9 above), which deals with the features of the first subset, this is taught in FOROUTAN par. [0212]
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As for dep. claim 4 (part of 1 above) and respectively 12 (part of 9 above), which deals with an indication of preference, this is taught in FOROUTAN par. [0128].
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As for dep. claim 5 (part of 1 above) and respectively 13 (part of 9 above), which deals with an indication of preference for each participant for respective items of the first set, this is taught in FOROUTAN par. [0015].
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As for dep. claim 7 (part of 1 above) and respectively 15 (part of 9 above), which deals with the specific feature of the items, i.e., are wines, this is taught in FOROUTAN par. [0132].
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As for dep. claim 8 (part of 1 above) and respectively 14 (part of 9 above), which deals with a specific feature of the characteristics, a wine brand, this is taught in FOROUTAN par. [0132 above “wine”] and [0068].
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Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 02/17//26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
(1) 101 Rejections:
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Applicant’s response does not indicate any errors in the examiner’s rejection. The amended features do not overcome the rejections for the reasons set forth above.
(2) 103 Rejections:
Amendment of the claim triggers new citation to address the amended features.
No claims are allowed.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Tan "Dean" D NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-6806. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F: 6:30-4:30 PM (ET).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sarah M Monfeldt can be reached on 571-270-1833. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TAN D NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3689