DETAILED ACTION
The following is a first office action upon examination of application number 18/139963.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1 and 5-7 in the reply filed on 12/23/2024 is acknowledged. Claims 2-4 have been withdrawn from consideration. Claims 1 and 5-7 have been examined on the merits discussed below.
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1 and 5-7 are rejected as failing to define the invention in the manner required by 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph.
Claims 1 and 5-7 are narrative in form and replete with indefinite language. The steps for performing desired functions which make up the method must be clearly and positively specified. The claim steps must be organized and correlated in such a manner as to present a complete operative method. The claim(s) must be in one sentence form only. Note the format of the claims in the patent(s) cited. Appropriate correction/clarification is required.
Claim 1 contains the trademark/trade name Apple. Claim 6 contains the trademark/trade names Feihe and Junlebao. Where a trademark or trade name is used in a claim as a limitation to identify or describe a particular material or product, the claim does not comply with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph. See Ex parte Simpson, 218 USPQ 1020 (Bd. App. 1982). The claim scope is uncertain since the trademark or trade name cannot be used properly to identify any particular material or product. A trademark or trade name is used to identify a source of goods, and not the goods themselves. Thus, a trademark or trade name does not identify or describe the goods associated with the trademark or trade name. In the present case, the trademark/trade names are used to identify/describe a mobile device manufacturer and formula products, accordingly, the identification/description is indefinite. Appropriate correction/clarification is required.
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 and 5-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
(Step 1) Claims 1 and 5-7 are directed to a method; thus these claims are directed to a process, which is one of the statutory categories of invention.
(Step 2A) The claims recite an abstract idea instructing how to facilitating transactions between consumers and product manufacturers, which is described by claim limitations reciting:
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To N>No M>M or N<No M<No or N→∞ M→∞ goes to infinite patent claims; Novel "non-retail" = "novel retail"; This method and platform facilitate a "novel retail" or "novel non-retail" which, compared to traditional retail, is not wholesale under traditional business but rather the method by which this platform directly faces consumers on behalf of the manufacturer, selling
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products or goods, or quantities of the same product or goods that are typically N>No or N<No or tend towards infinity as N→∞; In other words, products are delivered directly from the manufacturers
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to the consumers
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through this platform; Additionally, the "novel retail" or "novel non-retail" is achieved through planned economics under market economics; This method and platform
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produce, supply, and distribute (after payment)
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according to the demands of the consumers
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on the platform, i.e. supply
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according to demands of
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; The products are produced, supplied, and distributed to all people around the world, including all necessities such as clothing, food, shelter, entertainment, education, healthcare, elderly care, and child care, based on the best quality and lowest price of similar products globally, i.e., the best cost-performance ratio, i.e., supply according demand the best of qualities and lowest prices of products, goods & services for all of the people around the world from birth to death; The best quality is achieved … by the manufacturers on this platform in the design, production, and supply of products or goods for the platform's consumers or members, similar to how Apple produce the best smartphones in the same category of products; These products are not derived from market demand but are instead new products that are identified by entrepreneurs through insights into the future and analysis …, and only these products can succeed in the market; This fundamentally disrupts the entire sales concept under this method and platform for its members and consumers; The manufacturer under this method, platform and patent can produce, provide, and supply the best quality products, goods, or services in each industry and each product worldwide, ….; In other words, …optimize product quality in every industry and every product; The Method, the platform and the patent MMPALL+S+SS+M provide people best of quality products, goods and services is by or through or driven by fully utilizing…; The lowest price and best cost-performance ratio are achieved through the aggregation of a certain quantity of consumers, which is based on the demand of the consumers
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and the total demand of the same product or goods
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, which is at least a quantity of N>No, to achieve the desired outcome; This is similar to China's National Healthcare Security Administration's drug and consumable quantity procurement for national public hospitals, although it is not entirely similar or the same; The difference is that the National Healthcare Security Administration estimates the quantity, while this method and platform's demand
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quantity
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is an exact number of N>No; Since the products or goods under this method and platform are of the best quality and lowest price in the global market, they are naturally the products with the best cost performance ratio among (global) similar products or goods; This means that the manufacturers on this platform produce, supply, and distribute to consumers or members globally the products or goods with the best cost-performance ratio, quality, and lowest price. The identified limitations in the claims describing facilitating transactions between consumers and product manufacturers (i.e., the abstract idea) fall within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas, which covers fundamental economic practices and sales activities. Dependent claims 5 and 6 recite limitations that further narrow the abstract idea; therefore, these claims are also found to recite an abstract idea.
Additional elements such as use of artificial intelligence by the manufacturers…; … analysis by artificial intelligence machines…; using AI as the primary driver of the most advanced global technologies, including but not limited to big data, cloud computing, machine learning, 5G, and photon quantum computing etc.; … AI is used to optimize…; and using most modern and evolving advanced all high technologies of AI which includes big data, cloud computation, machine learning 5G, photon quantum computing etc. mainly using AI in each and every industry field and in each and every product, good and services, do not yield an improvement in the functioning of the computer itself, nor do they yield improvements to a technical field or technology; recitation of the use of AI only generally links the abstract idea to a technological environment. Similarly, additional elements in claim 7 related to artificial intelligence do not yield an improvement and only generally link the abstract idea to a technological environment. Accordingly, these additional element do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
(Step 2B) The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because as discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, additional elements such as use of artificial intelligence by the manufacturers…; … analysis by artificial intelligence machines…; using AI as the primary driver of the most advanced global technologies, including but not limited to big data, cloud computing, machine learning, 5G, and photon quantum computing etc.; … AI is used to optimize…; and using most modern and evolving advanced all high technologies of AI which includes big data, cloud computation, machine learning 5G, photon quantum computing etc. mainly using AI in each and every industry field and in each and every product, good and services, do not yield an improvement; further, the recitation of the use of AI only generally links the abstract idea to a technological environment. Similarly, additional elements in claim 7 related to artificial intelligence do not yield an improvement and only generally link the abstract idea to a technological environment. In addition, when taken as an ordered combination, the ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present as when the elements are taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2023/0334574 (Saint) – discloses a comprehensive financial system covering exchange of money, goods and services.
US 2002/0052825 (Bensemana) – discloses a system that matches products and services with consumers.
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/ALAN TORRICO-LOPEZ/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3625