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 .
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed 28 January 2026 has been entered. Claim(s) 10-13 remain pending in the application. Applicant’s amendments to the claims have overcome each and every rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102/103 previously set forth in the Office Action mailed 20 October 2025.
The interpretation of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) is withdrawn in light of the amendments to the claims which clarify the structures which perform the claimed functions.
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.
Utilizing the two step process adopted by the Supreme Court (Alice Corp vs CLS Bank Int'l, US
Supreme Court, 110 USPQ2d 1976 (2014) and the recent 101 guideline Federal Register Vol. 84, No., Jan
2019)), determination of the subject matter eligibility under the 35 U.S.C. 101 is as follows: Specifically, the Step 1 requires claim belongs to one of the four statutory categories (process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter). If Step 1 is satisfied, then in the first part of Step 2A (Prong One), identification of any judicial recognized exceptions in the claim is made. If any limitation in the claim is identified as judicial recognized exception, then in the second part of Step 2A (Prong Two), determination is made whether the identified judicial exception is being integrated into practical application. If the identified judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application, then in Step 2B, the claim is further evaluated to see if the additional elements, individually and in combination provide "inventive concept" that would amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. If the element and combination of elements do not amount to significantly more than the judicial recognized exception itself, then the claim is ineligible under the 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 10-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception, in this case an abstract idea, without significantly more. The claim recite(s) "a principal component analysis unit that reads a sampling-processed acceleration signal from the storage unit and performs principal component transformation processing and calculates a feature amount in a principal component space to evaluate movement quality of the joint" and “and an evaluation unit that sets up a threshold value that determines good or bad of the movement quality of the joint, from the feature amount of a plurality of previously accumulated persons in the principal component space; the principal component analysis unit transforms the sampling-processed acceleration signal read from the storage unit into a feature amount of a first principal component and a second principal component, the feature amount of the first principal component is an amount showing rapid early sway in the axis direction of the movable joint axis in a period of time immediately after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value and the feature amount of the second principal component is an amount showing presence or absence of a peak value in a late period of time after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value”. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application and the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Claim 10 satisfies Step 1, namely the claim is directed to one of the four statutory classes, machine. Following Step 2A Prong one, any judicial exceptions are identified in the claims. In claim 10, the limitations "a principal component analysis unit that reads a sampling-processed acceleration signal from the storage unit and performs principal component transformation processing and calculates a feature amount in a principal component space to evaluate movement quality of the joint" and “and an evaluation unit that sets up a threshold value that determines good or bad of the movement quality of the joint, from the feature amount of a plurality of previously accumulated persons in the principal component space; the principal component analysis unit transforms the sampling-processed acceleration signal read from the storage unit into a feature amount of a first principal component and a second principal component, the feature amount of the first principal component is an amount showing rapid early sway in the axis direction of the movable joint axis in a period of time immediately after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value and the feature amount of the second principal component is an amount showing presence or absence of a peak value in a late period of time after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value” are abstract ideas as they are directed to a mental process, where PCA is capable of being performed in the human mind alone or with the aid of pen and paper using the gathered data and the setting of a threshold for determining good or bad movement quality may be a matter of simple judgment performed in the mind. With the identification of an abstract idea, the next phase is to proceed Step 2A, Prong Two, wherewith additional elements and taken as a whole, evaluation occurs of whether the identified abstract idea is integrated into a practical application.
In Step 2A, Prong Two, the claim does not recite any additional elements or evidence that amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception. Besides the abstract idea, the claim recites the additional elements “an inertia sensor; a load sensor; and a processor, wherein: the inertia sensor is attached in a vicinity of a joint in parallel to a detection axis with respect to an axis direction of a movable joint axis with a range of motion of joint movement among joint axes of the joint that connects bones on both sides, and detects acceleration in the axis direction of the movable joint axis; the load sensor measures a load applied in a connection direction of the bones on both sides by a magnitude of the acceleration; the processor includes: a data obtaining unit that, when detecting that a change in the magnitude of the acceleration measured by the load sensor exceeds a predetermined threshold value, performs sampling processing for a predetermined period of time on an acceleration signal detected by the inertia sensor and stores in a storage unit”, “a display processing unit that displays the feature amount calculated by the principal component analysis unit on a display unit”, and “the display processing unit displays the threshold value as a figure and the feature amount of the first principal component and the second principal component transformed by the principal component analysis unit as a plot, in the principal component space in which the first principal component and the second principal component that are displayed on the display unit are used as two axes”. However, these components may be seen as the use of well-understood, routine, or conventional elements to perform a non-mental process in order to gather data for the mental process step, much like the example given in MPEP 2106.04(d)(2)(c), such that these limitations are extra-solution activity and thus do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The detection and sampling processing steps lead to the limitations of processing, calculating, and determining which fall into the judicial exception and which in turn lead merely to displaying such that the end result of use of the system is only the generic displaying of a plot and figure of the outputs of the judicial exception. As this is not defined as requiring any further action, such as a particular form of prophylaxis or treatment or an improvement to a computer or other technology, the claim limitations constitute mere generation of data, in this case the acceleration and load data such that the claim does not integrate the judicial exception into any practical application. Regarding “the processor” and its components, the limitation amounts to nothing more than an instruction to apply the abstract idea using a generic computer, which does not render an abstract idea eligible. The steps performed by these units are, as claimed, capable of being performed in the human mind similar to the examples given in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A)-(C), wherein it is described that “a claim to ‘collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis’ where the data analysis steps are recited at a high level of generality such that they could practically be performed in the human mind” recites a mental process and that claims which merely use a computer as a tool to perform a mental process are not eligible when “there is nothing in the claims themselves that foreclose them from being performed by a human, mentally or with pen and paper” such as “mental processes of parsing and comparing data” when the steps are recited at a high level of generality and a computer is used merely as a tool to perform the processes. Furthermore, while the abstract idea itself may be an improvement over the existing technology, per Genetic Technologies Limited v. Merial LLC (Fed Cir., 2016) the inventive concept of step 2 of the Alice/Mayo analysis cannot be supplied by the abstract idea. The inventive concept necessary at step two of the Mayo/Alice analysis cannot be furnished by the unpatentable abstract idea itself. That is, under the Mayo/Alice framework, a claim directed to a newly discovered abstract idea cannot rely on the novelty of that discovery for the inventive concept necessary for patent eligibility; instead, the application must provide something inventive, beyond mere “well-understood, routine, conventional activity.” Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1294; see also Myriad, 133 S. Ct. at 2117; Ariosa, 788 F.3d at 1379. For this reason, the abstract limitations may not be seen as an improvement which integrates the judicial exception into a practical application. Consequently, with the identified abstract idea not being integrated into a practical application, the next step is Step 2B, evaluating whether the additional elements provide "inventive concept" that would amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the claim elements are recited with a high level of generality (as written, each claimed step of the process may be performed by a person in an undefined manner) that there are no meaningful limitations to the abstract idea. Consequently, with the identified abstract idea not being integrated into a practical application, the next step is Step 2B, evaluating whether the additional elements provide "inventive concept" that would amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
In Step 2B, claim 10 does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Besides the abstract idea, the claim recites the additional elements “an inertia sensor; a load sensor; and a processor, wherein: the inertia sensor is attached in a vicinity of a joint in parallel to a detection axis with respect to an axis direction of a movable joint axis with a range of motion of joint movement among joint axes of the joint that connects bones on both sides, and detects acceleration in the axis direction of the movable joint axis; the load sensor measures a load applied in a connection direction of the bones on both sides by a magnitude of the acceleration; the processor includes: a data obtaining unit that, when detecting that a change in the magnitude of the acceleration measured by the load sensor exceeds a predetermined threshold value, performs sampling processing for a predetermined period of time on an acceleration signal detected by the inertia sensor and stores in a storage unit”, “a display processing unit that displays the feature amount calculated by the principal component analysis unit on a display unit”, and “the display processing unit displays the threshold value as a figure and the feature amount of the first principal component and the second principal component transformed by the principal component analysis unit as a plot, in the principal component space in which the first principal component and the second principal component that are displayed on the display unit are used as two axes”. The limitations constitute extra-solution activity to the judicial exception, which does not amount to an inventive concept when the activity is well-understood, routine, or conventional, and are thus not indicative of integration into a practical application. The claim limitation constitutes adding generic sensors, a processor, and a display which Kianifar (US 20180289324 A1) describes as well-understood, routine, or conventional in its description an IMU including sensors which may measure linear acceleration, angular velocity, and load which are known in the art and are routine and conventional in various studies of human joints (Paragraph 0015, 0039, 0058, 0121), computers for processing sensor data (Paragraph 0038 and Paragraphs 0009-0016 which describe computer-based diagnosis or analysis methods), and displays or screens for enabling a readout of data (Paragraph 0047 and Paragraphs 0009-0016 which describe computer-based diagnosis or analysis methods which must allow some form of visual output in order to provide the analysis for investigation). As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the present elements amount to no more than mere indications to apply the exception.
In Summary, claim 10 recites abstract idea without being integrated into a practical application, and does not provide additional elements that would amount to significantly more. As such, taken as a whole, the claim and is ineligible under the 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 12 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 for similar reasons.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception, in this case an abstract idea, without significantly more. As each of these claims depends from claim 10, which was rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 in paragraph 5 of this action, these claims must be evaluated on whether they sufficiently add to the practical application of claim 10, or comprise significantly more than the limitations of claim 10.
Besides the abstract idea of claim 10, claim 11 recites further limitations of the well-understood, routine, or conventional elements of the inertia sensor and load sensor which are additionally well-understood, routine, or conventional in light of Kianifar. The limitations provide no practical application, nor do they provide meaningful limitations to the abstract idea.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 20 January 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
While the applicant argues that the newly amended limitations constitutes a practical operational effect via the inclusion of principal component analysis which processes the signal “using mutually different periods of time” and “focusing on mutually different physical phenomenon of acceleration” while maintaining high determination accuracy (see page 7 of applicant’s remarks, dated 28 January 2026), this element remains part of the judicial exception and thus cannot provide an improvement to the abstract idea nor can it be seen as a practical application when the analysis step is capable of being performed as a mental process and requires no particular form of prophylaxis or treatment, nor any change in the operation of the apparatus. While the displaying “is designed to make evaluation easy” (see page 7 of applicant’s remarks), this further supports that the apparatus ultimately provides some output which itself creates no practical application and which may or may not be used to perform an evaluation and thus effect treatment by a user.
The claims remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Conclusion
Claims 10-13 are not rejected under 25 U.S.C. 102/103.
The prior art of the record fails to teach and/or fairly suggest, in combination with all other recited limitations, “transforms the sampling-processed acceleration signal read from the storage unit into a feature amount of a first principal component and a second principal component, the feature amount of the first principal component is an amount showing rapid early sway in the axis direction of the movable joint axis in a period of time immediately after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value and the feature amount of the second principal component is an amount showing presence or absence of a peak value in a late period of time after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value” as claimed in each of claims 10, 12, and 13.
The most pertinent prior art of the record, Kianifar (US 20180289324 A1—previously cited) discloses the principal component analysis unit transforms the waveform signal into first and second principal components (Paragraph 0063-- the number of features or PCs was increased one by one up to the point that further increases did not improve performance; paragraph 0065-- SPCA (first four PCs) resulted in the best accuracy) but fails to disclose the first principal component shows rapid early sway in the axis direction of the movable joint axis in a period of time immediately after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value; and the second principal component shows presence or absence of a peak value in a late period of time after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value. Berme (US 20200139229 A1—previously cited) provides a general disclosure of using principal components to determine body sway (Paragraph 0366) but is similarly silent as to the first principal component shows rapid early sway in the axis direction of the movable joint axis in a period of time immediately after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value; and the second principal component shows presence or absence of a peak value in a late period of time after the change in the magnitude of the acceleration detected by the load sensor exceeds the predetermined threshold value.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANNA ROBERTS whose telephone number is (571)272-7912. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-4:30 EST.
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/ANNA ROBERTS/Examiner, Art Unit 3791 /ALEX M VALVIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3791