DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the
first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This action is responsive to the application filed 01/20/2023.
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination. Claims 1, 16, and 20 are independent Claims.
Drawings
2. The drawings filed 01/20/2023 are acceptable for examination purposes.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement filed (01/30/2023) has been received, entered into the record, and considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 UC § 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step1: determine whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. If YES, proceed to Step 2A, broken into two prongs.
Step 2A, Prong 1: determine whether or not the claims recite a judicial exception (e.g., mathematical concepts, mental processes, certain methods of organizing human activity). If YES, the analysis proceeds to the second prong.
Step 2A, Prong 2: determine whether or not the claims integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. If NOT, the analysis proceeds to determining whether the claim is a patent-eligible application of the exception (Step 2B).
Step 2B: If any element or combination of elements in the claim is sufficient to ensure that the claim integrates the judicial exception into a practical application, or else amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Regarding Claims 1-15:
Step 1 Analysis
Claims 1-15 are directed to a method and therefore fall into one of the statutory categories.
Step 2 Analysis
Independent claim 1 includes the following recitation of an abstract idea:
“computing a predicted ETA for the vehicle to travel from a particular location to the first location” and “performing an action based on the refined ETA” (the limitations encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas).
Independent claim 1 recites the following additional elements, which, considered individually and as an ordered combination do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application:
“receiving a request for the vehicle to conduct a trip that includes a first location” (this is insignificant extra-solution activity, which does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(g). The courts have identified mere data gathering is well-understood, routine and conventional activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d)). The additional limitation “refining the predicted ETA to compute a refined ETA using a ...model that takes as input a plurality of features associated with the trip, the plurality of features including geospatial features transformed using a locality-sensitive hashing function” is merely applying the judicial exception or abstract idea. Therefore, this additional limitation does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
The elements “a computer-implemented” and “a machine-learned model” are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f).
The claimed limitations therefore do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 2, the limitations “discretizing the continuous features into buckets” and “mapping the discretized continuous features to embeddings using the buckets” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The element “the plurality of features further include continuous features” is an additional element that recites insignificant extra solution activity which does not amount to a practical application, nor amount to significantly more. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 3, the limitations “transforming the geospatial features to generate geohash strings at different resolution grids based on a latitude and a longitude of the particular location and a latitude and a longitude of the first location” and “mapping the geohash strings to a unique index to look-up respective embeddings” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The element “the locality-sensitive hashing function is a geohash function” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 4, the limitations “mapping the geohash strings to the unique index comprises mapping each grid cell to multiple ranges of bins using multiple independent hash functions” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 5, the element “the locality-sensitive hashing function hashes locations into buckets based on similarity” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 6, the limitations “inputting embeddings corresponding to the plurality of features into a self-attention layer of the... model to perform a sequence-to-sequence operation that takes in a sequence of vectors and produces a reweighted sequence of vectors” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The element “the machine-learned model” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 7, the element “each vector of the sequence represents a single feature, and wherein the self-attention layer uncovers pairwise interactions among the plurality of features by computing an attention matrix of pairwise dot products and using the attention matrix to reweight the plurality of features” is an additional element that recites insignificant extra solution activity which does not amount to a practical application, nor amount to significantly more. Accordingly, the claim is not patent eligible under 35 USC 101.
Regarding Claim 8, the limitations “calibrating a predicted residual, computed based on an output of the self-attention layer, using a calibration layer of the...model that includes learned bias parameters for different calibration features” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The element “the plurality of features further include calibration features” is an additional element that recites insignificant extra solution activity which does not amount to a practical application, nor amount to significantly more. The element “machine-learned model” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 9, the element “the calibration features include at least one of a request type, a trip type, and a route type” is an additional element that recites insignificant extra solution activity which does not amount to a practical application, nor amount to significantly more. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 10, the limitations “computing the predicted ETA for the vehicle comprises: accessing map data and real-time traffic data; using graph-based routing to identify a best path between the particular location and the first location based on the accessed data; and computing the predicted ETA as a sum of segment-wise traversal times along the best path” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 11, the limitations “the refined ETA is computed by adding a calibrated residual output of the machine-learned model to the predicted ETA computed using the graph-based routing” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The element “machine-learned model” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 12, the element “the machine-learned model is a self-attention-based deep learning model” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 13, the element “the plurality of features further include temporal features including minute of day, and day of week, and wherein the geospatial features include a begin location, and an end location, wherein the particular location is the begin location and the first location is the end location” is an additional element that recites insignificant extra solution activity which does not amount to a practical application, nor amount to significantly more. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 14, the element “the plurality of features further include real-time speed, historical speed, estimated distances, the predicted ETA, and context information” is an additional element that recites insignificant extra solution activity which does not amount to a practical application, nor amount to significantly more. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claim 15, the limitations “estimating a pickup time for the trip; estimating a drop-off time for the trip; matching a driver to the trip; and planning a delivery” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding Claims 16-19:
Step 1 Analysis
Claims 16-19 are directed to a non-transitory computer-readable medium and therefore fall into one of the statutory categories.
Step 2 Analysis
Independent claim 16 includes the following recitation of an abstract idea:
“computing a predicted ETA for the vehicle to travel from a particular location to the first location” and “performing an action based on the refined ETA” (the limitations encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas).
Independent claim 16 recites the following additional elements, which, considered individually and as an ordered combination do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application:
“receiving a request for a vehicle to conduct a trip that includes a first location” (this is insignificant extra-solution activity, which does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(g). The courts have identified mere data gathering is well-understood, routine and conventional activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d)). The additional limitation “refining the predicted ETA to compute a refined ETA using a... model that takes as input a plurality of features associated with the trip, the plurality of features including geospatial features transformed using a locality-sensitive hashing function” is merely applying the judicial exception or abstract idea. Therefore, this additional limitation does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
The elements “a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions” “one or more processors”, and “a machine-learned model” are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f).
The claimed limitations therefore do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Regarding claims 17-19, the claims correspond to claims 3, 6, and 5, respectively. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 20:
Step 1 Analysis
Claim 20 is directed to a system and therefore fall into one of the statutory categories.
Step 2 Analysis
Independent claim 20 includes the following recitation of an abstract idea:
“compute a predicted ETA for the vehicle to travel from a particular location to the first location” and “performing an action based on the refined ETA” (the limitations encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas).
Independent claim 20 recites the following additional elements, which, considered individually and as an ordered combination do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application:
“receive a request for a vehicle to conduct a trip that includes a first location” (this is insignificant extra-solution activity, which does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(g). The courts have identified mere data gathering is well-understood, routine and conventional activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d)). The additional limitation “refine the predicted ETA to compute a refined ETA using a... model that takes as input a plurality of features associated with the trip, the plurality of features including at least geospatial features transformed using a locality- sensitive hashing function”.
The elements “a system” “one or more processors”, “memory comprising instructions”, and “a machine-learned model” are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f).
The claimed limitations therefore do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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 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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fink (US 20110161001 A1) in view of Wang et al. (US 20190204087).
As to Claim 1:
Fink teaches a computer-implemented method for predicting an estimated time of arrival (ETA) of a vehicle, the method comprising:
receiving a request for the vehicle to conduct a trip that includes a first location (Abstract and [0071-0072]);
computing a predicted ETA for the vehicle to travel from a particular location to the first location (Abstract, [0054-0055], [0067], and [0071-0072]);
refining the predicted ETA to compute a refined ETA using a model that takes as input a plurality of features associated with the trip, the plurality of features including geospatial features transformed using a locality-sensitive function ([0054-0055], [0072-0072], and [0138]); and
performing an action based on the refined ETA ([0072-0072] and [0130]).
Fink, however, does not explicitly teach the following additional limitations:
Wang teaches compute a refined ETA using a machine-learned model (Abstract, [0079], and [0108]) and transformed using a locality-sensitive hashing function ([0054], [0097], and [0107]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Fink with Wang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for estimating an estimated time of arrival for an intended trip.
As to Claim 2:
discretizing the continuous features into buckets; and mapping the discretized continuous features to embeddings using the buckets ([0048-0049]).
As to Claim 3:
transforming the geospatial features to generate geohash strings at different resolution grids based on a latitude and a longitude of the particular location and a latitude and a longitude of the first location; and mapping the geohash strings to a unique index to look-up respective embeddings ([0033-0034] and [0118]).
As to Claim 4:
Fink does not explicitly teach, Wang teaches mapping the geohash strings to the unique index comprises mapping each grid cell to multiple ranges of bins using multiple independent hash functions ([0070], [0097], and [0109]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Fink with Wang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for estimating an estimated time of arrival for an intended trip.
As to Claim 5:
Fink does not explicitly teach, Wang teaches the locality-sensitive hashing function hashes locations into buckets based on similarity ([0079], [0081], and [0087]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Fink with Wang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for estimating an estimated time of arrival for an intended trip.
As to Claim 6:
Fink does not explicitly teach, Wang teaches inputting embeddings corresponding to the plurality of features into a self-attention layer of the machine-learned model to perform a sequence-to-sequence operation that takes in a sequence of vectors and produces a reweighted sequence of vectors ([0050], [0079], and [0094]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Fink with Wang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for estimating an estimated time of arrival for an intended trip.
As to Claim 7:
Fink does not explicitly teach, Wang teaches each vector of the sequence represents a single feature, and wherein the self-attention layer uncovers pairwise interactions among the plurality of features by computing an attention matrix of pairwise dot products and using the attention matrix to reweight the plurality of features ([0028-0029] and [0050]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Fink with Wang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for estimating an estimated time of arrival for an intended trip.
As to Claim 8:
Fink teaches the plurality of features further include calibration features, wherein the method further comprises calibrating a predicted residual, computed based on an output of the self-attention layer, using a calibration layer of the machine- learned model that includes learned bias parameters for different calibration features ([0050] and [0094]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Fink with Wang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for estimating an estimated time of arrival for an intended trip.
As to Claim 9:
Fink teaches the calibration features include at least one of a request type, a trip type, and a route type ([0029] and [0058]).
As to Claim 10:
Fink teaches accessing map data and real-time traffic data; using graph-based routing to identify a best path between the particular location and the first location based on the accessed data; and computing the predicted ETA as a sum of segment-wise traversal times along the best path ([0029] and [0067]).
As to Claim 11:
Fink does not explicitly teach, Wang teaches the refined ETA is computed by adding a calibrated residual output of the machine-learned model to the predicted ETA computed using the graph-based routing ([0079] and [0108]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Fink with Wang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for estimating an estimated time of arrival for an intended trip.
As to Claim 12:
Fink does not explicitly teach, Wang teaches the machine-learned model is a self-attention-based deep learning model ([0079] and [0108]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Fink with Wang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for estimating an estimated time of arrival for an intended trip.
As to Claim 13:
Fink teaches the plurality of features further include temporal features including minute of day, and day of week, and wherein the geospatial features include a begin location, and an end location, wherein the particular location is the begin location and the first location is the end location (Fig. 11, [0071] and [0131-0133]).
As to Claim 14:
the plurality of features further include real-time speed, historical speed, estimated distances, the predicted ETA, and context information (Fig. 11, [0019], [0054], and [0060]).
As to Claim 15:
Fink teaches the action comprises at least one of: estimating a pickup time for the trip; estimating a drop-off time for the trip; matching a driver to the trip; and planning a delivery ([0036] and [0058]).
As to Claims 16-19:
Refer to the discussion of Claims 1, 3, 6, and 5 above, respectively, for rejections. Claims 16-19 are the same as Claims 1, 3, 6, and 5, except Claims 16-19 are medium Claims and Claims 1, 3, 6, and 5 are method Claims.
As to Claim 20:
Refer to the discussion of Claim 1 above for rejection. Claims 20 is the same as Claim 1, except Claim 20 is a system Claim and Claim 1 is a method Claim.
Conclusion
6. The prior art made of record, listed on PTO 892 provided to Applicant is considered to have relevancy to the claimed invention. Applicant should review each identified reference carefully before responding to this office action to properly advance the case in light of the prior art.
Contact information
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the
examiner should be directed to MAIKHANH NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571) 272-4093. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday (8:00 am – 5:30 pm). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, TAMARA KYLE can be reached at (571)272-4241.
The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MAIKHANH NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2144