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 .
Prosecution Reopened
In view of the Appeal Brief filed on January 21, 2026, PROSECUTION IS HEREBY REOPENED. A new ground of rejection is set forth below.
To avoid abandonment of the application, appellant must exercise one of the following two options:
(1) file a reply under 37 CFR 1.111 (if this Office action is non-final) or a reply under 37 CFR 1.113 (if this Office action is final); or,
(2) initiate a new appeal by filing a notice of appeal under 37 CFR 41.31 followed by an appeal brief under 37 CFR 41.37. The previously paid notice of appeal fee and appeal brief fee can be applied to the new appeal. If, however, the appeal fees set forth in 37 CFR 41.20 have been increased since they were previously paid, then appellant must pay the difference between the increased fees and the amount previously paid.
A Supervisory Patent Examiner (SPE) has approved of reopening prosecution by signing below:
/FONYA M LONG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3682
Notice to Appellant
Status of Claims
At the time of the filing of the Appeal brief, dated January 21, 2026, claims 1-12 are pending. Claims 13-20 have been canceled. Now, Claims 1-12 remain pending and rejected.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: in the determining step of claim 1, the ‘medical device log fil parts’ should be ‘medical device log file parts’. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. In claim 1, Appellant claims “modifying a medical device log file uploader to reflect the order of the medical device log file parts”. It is unclear in the specification how this step is being performed, specifically ‘modifying a medical device log file uploader’. There does not appear to be support for ‘modifying a medical device log file uploader’ in the specification.
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.
4. Claims 1-12 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.
5. Claims 1-12 are directed to maintaining a log of events about the usage and status of the parts of a system, which is considered managing personal behavior. Managing personal behavior falls within a subject matter grouping of abstract ideas which the Courts have considered ineligible (Certain methods of organizing human activity). The claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, and do not include additional elements that provide an inventive concept (are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea).
Under step 1 of the Alice/Mayo framework, it must be considered whether the claims are directed to one of the four statutory classes of invention. In the instant case, claim 1-12 recite a system comprising a database and a processor. Therefore, the claims are each directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention (manufacture).
Under step 2A of the Alice/Mayo framework, it must be considered whether the claims are “directed to” an abstract idea. That is, whether the claims recite an abstract idea and fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Regarding independent claim 1, the claim sets forth a system of a medical device log file, wherein said log file includes data pertaining to the use, environment and/or performance of the medical device and for transferring at least a portion of the medical device log file, in the following limitations:
analyzing the medical device log file to generate notifications of maintenance issues and sending the notifications and, for each notification, defining a part of the medical device log file associated to the notification;
partitioning the medical device log file into parts, including the parts associated to the notifications and at least one part corresponding to the remainder of the medical device log file;
assigning costs and values to the medical device log file parts;
determining an order of the medical device log file parts based on the assigned costs and the assigned values for the medical device log file parts;
modifying to reflect the order of the medical device log file parts; and
transferring the medical device log file parts in the determined order; and
reviewing the medical device log file parts transferred from the medical device.
The above-recited limitations maintain a log of events about the usage and status of the parts of a system, which is considered managing personal behavior. This arrangement amounts to “managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people”. Such concepts have been considered ineligible certain methods of organizing human activity by the Courts (See MPEP 2106.04(a)).
Claim 1 does recite additional elements:
a database
at least one medical device;
instructions readable and executable by at least one electronic processor;
to the service center server;
a medical device log file uploader;
an interface.
These additional elements merely amount to the general application of the abstract idea to a technological environment (“a database”; “at least one medical device”; “instructions readable and executable by at least one electronic processor”; “to the service center server”; “a medical device log file uploader”; “an interface”) and insignificant pre-and-post solution activity (analyzing, partitioning, assigning, determining, modifying, and transferring). The specification makes clear the general-purpose nature of the technological environment. Paragraphs 7, 8, 10, 27, and 48-50 indicate that while exemplary general purpose systems may be specific for descriptive purposes, any elements or combinations of elements capable of implementing the claimed invention are acceptable. That is, the technology used to implement the invention is not specific or integral to the claim.
Therefore, considered both individually and as an ordered combination, the additional elements do no more than generally link the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use. That is, given the generality with which the additional limitations are recited, the limitations do not implement the abstract idea with, or use the abstract idea in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim. Additionally, the claims do not reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, do not apply or use the abstract idea to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition, do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; and do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the abstract idea. Accordingly, the Examiner concludes that the claim fails to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, and is therefore “directed to” the abstract idea.
Under step 2B of the Alice/Mayo framework, it must finally be considered whether the claim includes any additional element or combination of elements that provide an inventive concept (i.e., whether the additional element or elements are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea). As indicated above, considered both individually and as an ordered combination, the additional elements do not implement the abstract idea with, or use the abstract idea in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, do not reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, do not apply or use the abstract idea to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition, do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, and do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the abstract idea
Further, the additional elements (recited above) simply append well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception. Communicating information (i.e., receiving or transmitting data over a network) has been repeatedly considered well-understood, routine, and conventional activity by the Courts (See MPEP 2106.05(d)). Accordingly, the Examiner asserts that the additional elements, considered both individually, and as an ordered combination, do not provide an inventive concept, and the claim is ineligible for patent.
Independent Claims 12 and 17 are parallel in scope to claim 1 and ineligible for similar reasons.
Dependent claims:
Each of the steps of the dependent claims 2-12 only serve to further limit or specify the features of independent claim 1 accordingly, and hence are nonetheless directed towards fundamentally the same abstract idea as the independent claim and utilize the additional elements already analyzed in the expected manner.
Claim 2 sets forth:
wherein the assigning includes: determining the costs of the parts based on sizes of the medical device log file parts.
Such a recitation merely embellishes the abstract idea of maintaining a log of events about the usage and status of the parts of a system, which is considered managing personal behavior. The claim does not set forth any additional limitations. Accordingly, the claim does not confer eligibility on the claimed invention and is ineligible for similar reasons to claim 1.
Response to Arguments
6. Appellant's arguments filed in the appeal brief on January 21, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive and will be addressed hereinbelow.
Appellant argues that the pending claims are not directed to a mental process.
In response, these arguments are moot in view of the rejection set forth above. The claims are directed to a method of organizing human activity as analyzed and set forth in the rejection above (see 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection above).
Appellant further argues that the claimed invention improves the functioning of a computer or improves another technology or technical field and that the claims are therefore integrated into a practical application.
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, and does not include additional elements that provide an inventive concept (are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea). (Digitech Image Tech., LLC v. Electronics for Imaging, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2014)). The claims do not recite any unconventional computer functions. The structural elements as claimed are for mere convenience. As a result, there are no meaningful limitations in the claim that transform the exception into a patent eligible application such that the claim amounts to significantly more than the exception itself, and the claims are properly rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim is silent on any computer operation and specific technological implementation that would move the claim beyond a general link to a technological environment. The additional elements in the claims do not provide an improvement in computer-related technology, they merely amount to the general application of the abstract idea to a technological environment.
Accordingly, the claims do not recite additional limitations that integrate the exception into a Practical Application, and the application of the abstract idea is therefore not eligible.
Appellant further argues that the claims amount to significantly more that the abstract idea itself and that the claims are analogous to BASCOM.
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees. Regarding BASCOM, BASCOM was found eligible based on considerations relevant to Part 2B (does the claim as a whole amount to significantly more than the abstract idea) of the two-part framework outlined in MPEP §2106; where claim 1 "carve[s] out a specific location for the filtering system (a remote ISP server) and require the filtering system to give users the ability to customize filtering for their individual network accounts". In contrast, Appellant’s invention aims to solve a -- producing log files containing information about the usage and the status of the parts of the system --rather than a technological one. The specification is silent in regards to improving the additional elements recited in the claims. Examiner finds, Appellants have not identified anything in the claimed invention that shows or submits the technology is being improved or there was a problem in the technology that the claimed invention solves.
Further, in order for an alleged application of an abstract idea to be considered eligible, it must amount to significantly more than the abstract idea (i.e., pass step 2B of the Mayo test). As shown in the rejection above, the application of the abstract idea recited merely applies the idea in a generic computer environment (a database, at least one medical device, a processor, a server, a medical device log file uploader, and an interface) using generic computer functions (analyzing the log file, partitioning the log file, assigning values to parts, determining an order of the parts, modifying the log file, transferring the log file parts, and reviewing the log file parts). Accordingly, it does not amount to significantly more, and the application of the abstract idea is therefore not eligible.
Accordingly, it does not amount to significantly more, and the application of the abstract idea is therefore not eligible.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to appellant's disclosure.
EQUIPMENT REPAIR SYSTEM AND METHOD (US 20210117890 A1) teaches monitoring equipment to determine whether, when, and/or how to repair the equipment.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Amber Misiaszek whose telephone number is 571-270-1362. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-5:30, First Friday Off.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, appellant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Fonya Long can be reached on 571-270-5096. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/AMBER A MISIASZEK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3682
Prosecution Insights