DETAILED ACTION
In light of compact prosecution, applicant was contacted on 9/3/2025 for a potential proposal but applicant’s phone appears to be disconnected. This OA is thus issued.
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 6-8 are allowed.
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 1-5, and 9-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101. 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.
As per claim 1, a forwarder, an ingestion engine, and a user interface (under BRI) can be SW per se because spec is silent on definitions of these terms. Applicant is encouraged to claim HW constructs such as a processor/memory to overcome this rejection.
Claims 2-5 also do not add any HW components, and are rejected for the same reason.
As per claim 9, see rejection on claim 1.
Claims 10-13 also do not add any HW components, and are rejected for the same reason.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 9697104 teaches a method of using an identifier with transaction and traces. US 11700192 teaches a method of using a span identifier.
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/CHARLIE SUN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2196