DETAILED ACTION
This Final Office Action is in response to Applicant's arguments filed on January 7, 2026. Applicant has amended claims 1, 6-7, 14, 16, 20 and canceled claim 10. Currently, claims 1-9, 11-21 are pending. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendments
The 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections of claims 1-9, 11-21 are maintained in light of applicant’s amendments to claims 1, 6-7, 14, 16, 20.
The 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections of claims 1-9, 11-21 are withdrawn in light of applicant’s amendments to claims 1, 6-7, 14, 16, 20.
Response to Arguments
Applicant remarks submitted on 1/7/26 have been considered but are not persuasive. Applicant argues on p. 8 of the remarks that the 101 rejections are improper. Examiner disagrees. Applicant argues that the claims are directed to statutory processes and not mere business relations nor a disembodied calculation divorced from an industrial technological environment. Applicant argues on p. 9 of the remarks that the claims are not directed to organizing human activity. Examiner disagrees and notes that a carbon footprint is the business/human activity caused by a business and that data is organized by the aggregating and calculations. It is not gathering what makes the claim organizing human activity but rather that the claims are a type of business analysis of gathered or received data. Applicant further argues on p. 9 of the remarks that the claims are integrated into a practical application in industrial production monitoring. Examiner notes this is generally linking to such an environment where the claims are directed to analysis of data from such a system as opposed to how such a system operates or functions. Applicant further argues on p. 10 of the remarks that the ordered combination recites significantly more than the abstract idea. Examiner disagrees and notes the ordered combination of elements behaves in a routine way for data analysis where data is received, analyzed and output. The elements were considered both individually and in combination. Moreover, the Berkheimer requirements were met by citing of p. 9, 15-17 of applicant's own specification. Applicant further argues on p. 11 that the Ex Parte Desjdarins guidance and memo supports the claims are eligible. Examiner notes the claims in the Ex Parte Desjdarins decision are not similar to applicant’s claims and the use of machine learning or AI does not approach anything that is in applicant’s claims and that the claims are ineligible under the close call standard as well. The dependent claims are ineligible for the same reasons. Therefore, the 101 rejections are maintained.
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 1-9, 11-21 are clearly drawn to at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter recited in 35 U.S.C. 101 (methods and system). Claims 1-9, 11-21 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. Claims 1, 16 and 19 recite the abstract idea of determining a carbon footprint of a product in a production process of a production plant by receiving process data associated with an interconnected production process, the process data comprising information about one or more process steps from raw materials to product, the process data comprises the information which reagents are required at which amounts for each process step, information about which by-products are obtained in which amount, information which intermediate or intermediates are obtained in each process step and at which yield, information about any direct greenhouse gas emissions by the process step or any combination thereof and receiving carbon footprint data associated with one or more raw materials and receiving energy data comprising information about energy consumption for one or more process steps and determining the carbon footprint of the product by applying a rule-based allocation model to associate contributions of the process data, the carbon footprint data of each raw material, and the energy data to respective process steps and propagating intermediate carbon footprint contributions across interconnected process steps according to a dependency of the production process and aggregating the carbon footprint contributions from each of the raw materials, the energy consumption, and direct emissions at each process step to calculate a product-level carbon footprint and generating a structured output data set comprising the carbon footprint of the product and contribution breakdowns for the respective process steps. The claims are directed to a type of determining carbon footprint based on the gathered data. Under prong 1 of Step 2A, these claims are considered abstract because the claims are certain methods of organizing human activity such as commercial interactions including business relations. Applicant’s claims are organized human activity such as commercial interactions including business relations because the claims show determining carbon footprint (where carbon footprint which is human/business activity) and that the carbon footprint is determined (organized) by gathering. Under prong 2 of Step 2A, the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims (the judicial exception and any additional elements individually or in combination such as computer-implemented, executed by at least one processor communicatively coupled to a memory, a production management system, automatically determining by the processor, a dependency graph, displaying a visualization of the carbon footprint of the product and the contribution breakdowns for user analysis, system and a processor and sensing energy data comprising information about the energy consumption for one or more process steps via one or more sensors and updating, by the processor, the structured output data set and the visualization of the carbon footprint of the product and/or its contributions in response to updated versions of the process data, the carbon footprint data, and/or the energy data received via the production management system are not an improvement to a computer or a technology, the claims do not apply the judicial exception with a particular machine, the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing nor do the claims apply the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment such that the claims as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. These limitations at best are merely implementing an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea - see MPEP 2106.05(f). Under Step 2B, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements individually or in combination such as computer-implemented, executed by at least one processor communicatively coupled to a memory, a production management system, automatically determining by the processor, a dependency graph, displaying a visualization of the carbon footprint of the product and the contribution breakdowns for user analysis, system and a processor and sensing energy data comprising information about the energy consumption for one or more process steps via one or more sensors and updating, by the processor, the structured output data set and the visualization of the carbon footprint of the product and/or its contributions in response to updated versions of the process data, the carbon footprint data, and/or the energy data received via the production management system (as evidenced p. 9, 15-17 of applicant’s own specification) are well understood, routine and conventional in the field. Dependent claims 2-5, 8-9, 11-12, 14, 17 also do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements either individually or in combination are merely an extension of the abstract idea itself by further showing subdividing the production process into at least two process steps based on the process data and calculating the carbon footprint for an intermediate produced in a preceding process step and using the carbon footprint of the intermediate as input for the calculation of the carbon footprint of a subsequent process step and preparing a consolidated bill of materials for each process step, wherein the bill of materials lists all raw materials which are either directly used in this process step or in any preceding process step, wherein amounts of these raw materials are adjusted according the usage of the an intermediate produced in a preceding process step and determining for each process step which process step precedes this process step based on the amount of a particular starting material used in this process step and the amount of the same material produced by other process steps and wherein the carbon footprints of a raw material are gathered for each supplier together with an identifier of the supplier and wherein determining the carbon footprint takes into account the amount of raw material from a particular supplier and its associated carbon footprint and wherein the production plant executes interconnected process steps and wherein determining the carbon footprint comprises preparing a consolidated bill of materials for each process step to arrive at the carbon footprint contribution of the raw materials for each process step and wherein determining the carbon footprint of the product comprises determining the contribution of the energy in each process step and adding shares of it according to the process data and a method for calculating and/or optimizing carbon footprints of downstream products and/or in connection with a product identifier comprising receiving the carbon footprint of the product obtained by the method and associating the carbon footprint with a product identifier and providing the carbon footprint in connection with the product identifier for calculating or optimizing a carbon footprint of a downstream product and wherein the input comprises an interface to a consolidation system which collects process data from different production plant(s), wherein the consolidation system consolidates the process data to identify intermediates produced by different production plants and wherein the output comprises a user interface configured to display the carbon footprint of the product and one or more contribution(s) comprising the contribution of the raw materials, the contribution of the energy, and/or the contribution of the direct emissions of each process step. Dependent claims 6-7, 13, 14-15, 19, 21 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements individually or in combination such as wherein the process data is gathered from the production plant via a centralized or decentralized computing apparatus and wherein the energy data is gathered from the energy source or the production plant via a centralized or decentralized computing apparatus and wherein the process data is gathered through an interface to different production plants and an interface and a non-transitory computer readable data medium storing a computer program including instructions for executing steps of the method and wherein the process data is gathered through an interface to different computing or storage resources communicatively connected to the different production plants and wherein the energy data is sensed directly as at least one energy source to determine the amount of energy consumed by or from the energy source and wherein the energy data comprises carbon emissions information caused by each at least one energy source from which energy is received(as evidenced p. 9, 15-17 of applicant’s own specification) are well understood, routine and conventional in the field.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-9, 11-21 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Lobato et al. (US 2014/0249892 A1), an environmental sustainability system that includes a server connected to a plurality of work stations, at least one per company integrated in the system; each of the work stations including means for entering data (2) and its submittal to the server via a WLAN; and where said server also includes a first means for accessing the application on the server; a second means for administering the application on the server, configured for managing the administrative data upon which the application is based; a third means for inventorying, configured for defining parameters and requests, and a fourth means for companies, where the sources and their emissions are contained as well as the means for calculating them
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 extension fee 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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/SUJAY KONERU/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624