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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
Claim(s) 21-40 have been examined.
Claim(s) 1-20 have been canceled.
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 21-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claims recite a judicial exception which is not integrated into a practical application and the claims lack an inventive concept.
Step 1 is the first inquiry into eligibility analysis and asks whether the claims are directed to a statutory category. In this instance, the answer must be in the affirmative because they recite a method, medium, and system.
Step 2A prong 1 is the next step in the eligibility analyses and asks whether the claimed invention recites a judicial exception. In this instance, the claims recite the following limitations which comprise the abstract idea:
identify a first product activity of a first customer, the first product activity identifying a first set of products of a product portfolio offering in which the first customer has expressed interest, wherein the first product activity includes at least an in-store activity of the first customer;
analyze interdependence between products of a second set of products of the product portfolio offering purchased by a second customer, wherein interdependence corresponds to a dependence of one of two or more products on another of the two or more products to accomplish a task;
generate an optimized product portfolio offering for the first customer by predicting a set of related products from the product portfolio offering based on: similarity between the first set of products and the second set of products of the product portfolio offering purchased by the second customer, and interdependence between products of the first set of products and products of the second set of products;
rank products of the optimized product portfolio offering based on the products’ ability to enable sale of one or more other products of the optimized product portfolio;
This is an abstract idea because it is a certain method of organizing human activity because it involves commercial interactions such as marketing behaviors and/or activities.
Step 2A prong 2 is the next step in the eligibility analyses and looks at whether the abstract idea is integrated into a practical application. This requires an additional element or combination of additional elements in the claims to apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
In this instance, the claims recite the additional elements such as:
one or more processing resources;
a non-transitory machine readable medium;
based on the ranking of products of the optimized product portfolio offering, display a recommended product subset comprising a reduced number of products from the optimized product portfolio offering.
However, these elements do not amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use 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 claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
In addition, the recitations of the additional limitations are recited at a high level of generality and also do not amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use 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 claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
The dependent claims also fail to recite elements which amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use 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 claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. For example, claim 22-29 are directed to the abstract idea itself. In addition, even if these claims were not directed to the abstract idea, they do not amount to an integration according to any one of the considerations above.
Step 2B is the next step in the eligibility analyses and evaluates whether the claims recite additional elements that amount to an inventive concept (i.e., “significantly more”) than the recited judicial exception. According to Office procedure, revised Step 2A overlaps with Step 2B, and thus, many of the considerations need not be re-evaluated in Step 2B because the answer will be the same.
In Step 2A, several additional elements were identified as additional limitations:
one or more processing resources;
a non-transitory machine readable medium;
based on the ranking of products of the optimized product portfolio offering, display a recommended product subset comprising a reduced number of products from the optimized product portfolio offering.
These additional limitations, including the limitations in the dependent claims, do not amount to an inventive concept because they are recited at a high level of generality and also do not amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use 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 claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
In addition, they were already analyzed under Step 2A and did not amount to a practical application of the abstract idea.
Therefore, the claims lack one or more limitations which amount to an inventive concept in the claims.
For these reasons, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Terminal Disclaimer
The terminal disclaimer filed on 12/03/2025 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of 11,538,084 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 21-40 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Linden (US 2002/0019763) in view of Mital (US 2011/0264526) in further view of Blackhurst (US 2011/0191157).
Referring to Claim 21, Linden teaches a system comprising:
one or more processing resources and a non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions executable by the processing resource to (see Linden Fig. 1):
identify a first product activity of a first customer, the first product activity identifying a first set of products of a product portfolio offering in which the first customer has expressed interest (see Linden ¶¶0060,89,98, the system collects a list of items of known interest based on items viewed by a user, items purchased by a user, items added to a user’s shopping cart, items rated by a user, etc);
analyze interdependence between products of a second set of products of the product portfolio offering purchased by a second customer (see Linden Fig. 1, 77,79);
generate an optimized product portfolio offering for the first customer by predicting a set of related products from the product portfolio offering based on (see Linden ¶0089):
interdependence between products of the first set of products and products of the second set of products (see Linden ¶¶0090,81, the items of known interest to the user are used to find similar items, items that other users have purchased when the purchased the items of known interest);
similarity between the first set of products and a second set of products of the product portfolio offering purchased by a second customer (see Linden ¶¶0090,81, the items of known interest to the user are used to find similar items, items that other users have purchased when the purchased the items of known interest);
rank products of the optimized product portfolio offering (see Linden ¶0093, the resulting similar items lists are merged and then “sorted” in the “order of highest-to-lowest score” according to the weighting) based on the products’ ability to enable sale of one or more other products of the optimized product portfolio (see Linden ¶¶0091,13, the weighting is based on the user’s affinity with a corresponding item which makes the item highly relevant to the user’s current shopping purpose);
based on the ranking of products of the optimized product portfolio offering, display a recommended product subset (see Linden ¶¶0174,96) comprising a reduced number of products from the optimized product portfolio offering (see Linden ¶¶0174,96, the top 5 items instead of 15).
Linden does not teach wherein interdependence comprises a dependence on one of two or more products on another of the two or more products to accomplish a task. However, Mital teaches this (see Mital ¶¶0035,37, one or more data sets, where each data set contains items that relate to a task that is inferred to be of interest to the user; the data set can also relate to one or more goals associated with the task, such that the task may be “to find information about cameras” and the goal may be “taking close-up pictures”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of invention to combine these references because the results would be predictable. Specifically, Linden would continue to teach an interdependence except that now the interdependence would include a dependence on one of two or more products on another of the two or more products to accomplish a task according to the teachings of Mital. This is a predictable result of the combination.
The combination does not teach wherein the product activity includes at least an in-store activity of the first customer. However, Blackhurst teaches wherein product activity includes at least an in-store activity of the first customer (see Blackhurst ¶0058). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of invention to combine these references because the results would be predictable. Specifically, the combination would continue to teach identifying products based on product activity of a first customer except that now the product activity would also include in-store purchases according to the teachings of Blackhurst. This is a predictable result of the combination.
Referring to Claim 22, the combination teaches the system of claim 21, further comprising instructions to obtain the product portfolio offering from a digital products data store (see Linden ¶0060, all the items are stored in database 36).
Referring to Claim 23, the combination teaches the system of claim 21, wherein ranking the products of the optimized product portfolio offering is further based on the products’ ability to complete a task of the first customer (see Mital ¶0084, the task model returns metrics about how well the task is completed based on the items in the collection).
Referring to Claim 24, the combination teaches the system of claim 21, further comprising instructions to aggregate and store data of the first customer into a data lake based on the first product activity of the first customer and global purchases of the first customer (see Linden Fig. 3A-B).
Referring to Claim 25, the combination teaches the system of claim 21, wherein predicting the set of related products comprises using a predictive analytics layer (see Linden ¶0091, during the weighting process of the similar items lists, the system will “presume” that a user has a greater affinity for certain items, such as recently purchased items over earlier purchased items and recently viewed items over items viewed prior in time).
Referring to Claim 26, the combination teaches the system of claim 21, further comprising instructions to recommend the set of related products to the first customer based on second product activity of the second customer (see Linden ¶¶0090-91,96).
Referring to Claim 27, the combination teaches the system of claim 26, wherein the first product activity of the first customer is identified from a first data store and the second product activity of the second customer is identified from a second data store (see Linden ¶0060, all the items are stored in database 36 and in different tables according to Fig. 3B).
Referring to Claim 28, the combination teaches the system of claim 21, wherein generating the optimized product portfolio offering is further based on a similarity between a customer type of the first customer and a customer type of the second customer (see Linden ¶¶0086,89, one or more products other users have bought and the user has bought).
Referring to Claim 29, the combination teaches the system of claim 21, wherein the recommended product subset is displayed via at least one of an online menu, an in-store register, an eCommerce portal, a call center, an email campaign, and an offline campaign (see Linden ¶0096).
Referring to Claims 30-40, this claim is similar to claim 21-29 and therefore rejected under the same reasons and rationale.
Remarks
In regards to the double patenting rejection, the rejection has been withdrawn because the applicant has amended the claims and overcome the rejection.
In regards to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101, the applicant first argues on page 8 that there is no judicial exception. The examiner respectfully disagrees because at the very least, the limitation “identify a first product activity of a first customer, the first product activity identifying a first set of products of a product portfolio offering in which the first customer has expressed interest, wherein the first product activity includes at least an in-store activity of the first customer” is an abstract idea because it is a certain method of organizing human activity because it involves commercial interactions such as marketing behaviors and/or activities. For this reason, the applicant’s argument is not persuasive.
In regards to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101, the applicant first argues on page 9 that under Step 2A Prong 1, not all methods of organizing human activity are abstract ideas. In response, the examiner remarks that at the very least, the applicant has not explained why “identify a first product activity of a first customer, the first product activity identifying a first set of products of a product portfolio offering in which the first customer has expressed interest, wherein the first product activity includes at least an in-store activity of the first customer” is not an abstract idea. For this reason, the applicant’s argument is not persuasive.
In regards to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101, the applicant first argues on page 10 that under Step 2A Prong 2, that the claims recite an improvement to technology, namely “analyze interdependence between products of a second set of products of the product portfolio offering purchased by a second customer, wherein interdependence corresponds to a dependence of one of two or more products on another of the two or more products to accomplish a task”. The applicant argues that this “allows for the product portfolio to be reduced”. The examiner respectfully responds that nowhere does this limitation recite technology and therefore it cannot be an improvement to a non-recited technology. For this reason, the applicant’s argument is not persuasive.
In regards to the rejections under the prior art, the applicant argues that Mital does not teach analyzing the interdependence which is part of the newly amended limitation. However, the examiner respectfully responds that this portion of the limitation is taught by Linden. The prior art reference of Mital is being used to teach the that interdependence can merely comprise a dependence on one of two or more products on another of the two or more products to accomplish a task. For these reasons, the applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
Conclusion
Additional prior art related to the invention but not relied upon includes:
Ouimet (US 2015/0206224) teaches mapping data structures with intelligent personal agents.
Fung (US 2015/0088692) teaches identifying products for performing a task.
Reference U (see PTO-892) teaches predicting missing items in a user's shopping cart.
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 MATTHEW E ZIMMERMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5278. The examiner can normally be reached 8-4pm M-T, 8-12pm W.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant 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, Jeff Smith can be reached at (571)272-6763. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MATTHEW E ZIMMERMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3688
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