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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 7, 11, 16, and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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.
the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter.
Claims 2, 6, 10, 15, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
As per claim 2, the claim recites a series of steps, therefore is a process.
The claim recites the limitation of “determining . . . ”. These limitations, as drafted, are processes that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, cover performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. Thus, the claim recites a mental process.
The limitation of “receiving . . . an identification . . . uploading . . . receiving . . . a request . . . sending . . . ” amounts to data gathering which is considered to be insignificant extra solution activity (MPEP 2106.05(g); this limitation is also a mere generic transmission and presentation of collected and analyzed data which is considered to be insignificant extra solution activity (MPEP 2106.05(g). Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to the abstract idea.
As discussed above, “receiving . . . an identification . . . uploading . . . receiving . . . a request . . . sending . . . ” amounts to data gathering which is considered to be insignificant extra solution activity (MPEP 2106.05(g). “adding . . . removing . . . generating . . . ” is simply appending well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception - see MPEP 2106.05(d) and Berkheimer Memo. See Vallance/Agrawal. The claim is ineligible.
As per claim 6, the claim recites a series of steps, therefore is a process.
The claim recites the limitation of “identifying . . . ”. These limitations, as drafted, are processes that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, cover performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. Thus, the claim recites a mental process.
The limitation of “receiving . . . an identification . . . uploading . . . receiving . . . a request . . . sending . . . ” amounts to data gathering which is considered to be insignificant extra solution activity (MPEP 2106.05(g); this limitation is also a mere generic transmission and presentation of collected and analyzed data which is considered to be insignificant extra solution activity (MPEP 2106.05(g). Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to the abstract idea.
As discussed above, “receiving . . . an identification . . . uploading . . . receiving . . . a request . . . sending . . . ” amounts to data gathering which is considered to be insignificant extra solution activity (MPEP 2106.05(g). “adding . . . removing . . . ” is simply appending well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception - see MPEP 2106.05(d) and Berkheimer Memo. See Vallance/Agrawal The claim is ineligible.
As per claim 10, see rejection on claim 2.
As per claim 15, see rejection on claim 2.
As per claim 19, see rejection on claim 6.
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.
Claims 1, 4-6, 8-9, 12-14, and 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vallance et al (US 10789846 ) (hereinafter Vallance) in view of Agrawal et al (US 2014/0201752 ) (hereinafter Agrawal).
As per claim 1, Vallance teaches:
A computer-implemented method for managing high-demand physical resource usage, the computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by a computer, an identification of a first physical resource to track availability of the first physical resource via an on-demand virtual queue from a first user who wants to utilize the first physical resource (Vallance, Fig, BOT 124, 162 1 Fig 8, 802, 804, 810, col 19 ll 66-67-under BRI, an identification of a first physical resource can be the ID of parking image to be analyzed and classified; an on-demand virtual queue can be GUI + BOT 124,162 + ML module 178 + a parking space request queue);
uploading, by the computer, an image of the first physical resource to the on-demand virtual queue, the image containing metadata regarding a geographic location of the first physical resource (Vallance, col 18, ll 60-63—under BRI, an image of the first physical resource can be an image of a parking area; under BRI, metadata regarding a geographic location can be what information in an image of a parking area);
receiving, by the computer, a request to utilize the first physical resource from a second user (Vallance, Fig 9, 902—under BRI, a request to utilize the first physical resource from a second user can be a respective instruction to locate an available parking space ) ;
adding, by the computer, the second user to the on-demand virtual queue for the first physical resource (Vallance, col 19 ll 66-67);
sending, by the computer, an indication that the first physical resource is available with the geographic location of the first physical resource to the second user who is first in the on-demand virtual queue (Vallance, Fig 9, 908—under BRI an indication that the first physical resource is available with the geographic location of the first physical resource to the second user who is first in the on-demand virtual queue can be notifying the user corresponding to the user command of an identification of one of the identified available parking spaces );
Vallance does not expressly teach:
removing, by the computer, the second user from the on-demand virtual queue in response to receiving an indication that the second user finished utilizing the first physical resource.
However, Agrawal discloses:
removing, by the computer, the second user from the on-demand virtual queue in response to receiving an indication that the second user finished utilizing the first physical resource (Agrawal, [0059]—under BRI, removing . . . the second user from the on-demand virtual queue in response to receiving an indication that the second user finished utilizing the first physical resource can be once the job request is in a completed state, the state tracking component may further cause the job request to be removed from the queue).
Both Agrawal and Vallance pertain to the art of using queue data structures.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Agrawal’s method to remove user from queue because it is well-known in the art that queue is a limited resource in a system, therefore an entry needs to be removed when there is no longer a reason to occupy a space to conserve system resources.
As per claim 4, Vallance/Agrawal teaches:
The computer-implemented method of claim 1 (see rejection on claim 1), wherein the on-demand virtual queue corresponds to the first physical resource (Vallance, Fig, BOT 124, 162 1 Fig 8, 802, 804, 810, col 19 ll 66-67), and wherein the computer generates the on-demand virtual queue enabling users who want to use the first physical resource to register in the on-demand virtual queue to receive an indication that the first physical resource is available for a particular user to use, allowing the users to avoid long lines, long wait times, and uncertainty for obtaining the first physical resource for usage (Vallance, col 22, ll 23-26) .
As per claim 5, Vallance/Agrawal teaches:
The computer-implemented method of claim 1 (see rejection on claim 1), wherein the computer dynamically alters an order of the first user and the second user in the on-demand virtual queue based on at least one of the geographic location of the first physical resource, a geolocation of the first user and the second user when requesting usage of the first physical resource, and a requested time to utilize the first physical resource by the first user and the second user (Vallance, col 22, ll 16-20-under BRI, alters an order of the first user and the second user in the on-demand virtual queue can be releasing the spot to another user . . . dequeuing ).
As per claim 6, Vallance/Agrawal teaches:
The computer-implemented method of claim (see rejection on claim 6) , further comprising:
identifying, by the computer, a second physical resource that is an equivalent physical resource to the first physical resource (Vallance, col 20, ll 38).
As per claim 8, Vallance/Agrawal teaches:
The computer-implemented method of claim 1 (see rejection on claim 1), wherein the first physical resource is one of a physical tool, physical machine, physical instrument, or physical part of an object that is being one of manufactured or repaired (Vallance, col 20 ll 38—under BRI, physical part of an object that is being one of manufactured or repaired can be parking spaces [that are constructed (a synonym of manufactured)] ).
As per claim 9, see rejection on claim 1.
As per claim 12, see rejection on claim 4.
As per claim 13, see rejection on claim 5.
As per claim 14, see rejection on claim 1.
As per claim 17, see rejection on claim 4.
As per claim 18, see rejection on claim 5.
As per claim 19, see rejection on claim 6.
Claims 2, 10, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vallance/Agrawal as applied above, and further in view of Shah et al ( US 2024/0152398) (hereinafter Shah) .
As per claim 2, Vallance/Agrawal teaches:
The computer-implemented method of claim 1 (See rejection on claim 1).
Vallance/Agrawal does not expressly teach:
further comprising:
determining, by the computer, whether the on-demand virtual queue had already been generated for the first physical resource based on a previous user request to track the availability of the first physical resource; and
generating, by the computer, the on-demand virtual queue for the first physical resource in response to the computer determining that the on-demand virtual queue had not already been generated for the first physical resource.
However, Shah discloses:
further comprising:
determining, by the computer, whether the on-demand virtual queue had already been generated for the first physical resource based on a previous user request to track the availability of the first physical resource; and
generating, by the computer, the on-demand virtual queue for the first physical resource in response to the computer determining that the on-demand virtual queue had not already been generated for the first physical resource (Shah, [0070]).
Both Shah and Vallance/Agrawal pertain to the art of using queue data structures.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Shah’s method to create a new queue because it is well-known in the art that when there is no queue, the system has no place to store requests, therefore there is a need to create a new queue.
As per claim 10, see rejection on claim 2.
As per claim 15, see rejection on claim 2.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 2022/0188272 teaches a method for removing users from a queue.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHARLIE SUN whose telephone number is (571)270-5100. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM.
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/CHARLIE SUN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2198