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:
Response to Remarks:
Regarding 101:
The Applicant essentially argues that the Specification asserts a practical application, because the invention uses less memory and resources due to the effects of the application/invention/software. While the Examiner concedes there may be an improvement to the abstract idea of optimizing matching for skills between customers and service agents, the Examiner does not include an improvement to the functionality of the computer or another technology or technical field. For clarity, the computing system is merely using less resources and memory, because of the improvement of the abstract idea, not the improvement to the actual computer system. Therefore, the Examiner maintains the rejection as claimed.
Regarding 102/103:
The Examiner maintains that the indicated allowable subject matter of the Final Office Action, dated January 3, 2025, is still relevant. Therefore, in light of the amendments that of which include allowable subject matter into the independent claims, the rejection’s withdrawal is maintained.
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 1-3,5-10,12-17,19-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Claims 1-3. 5-10, 12-17, and 19-23 are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, natural phenomenon, or abstract idea) without significantly more.
PART I. IDENTIFY THE ABSTRACT IDEAS
Independent claims 1, 8, and 15, when “taken as a whole,” are directed to the abstract idea of a mental process and organizing human activity. Specifically, matching the optimal service agents with customers issues based on historical classification of issues.
In the Supreme Court Decision in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v CLS Bank International, et al. the court outlined several examples of abstract ideas including fundamental economic practices, certain methods of organizing human activities, an idea of itself, and mathematical relationships. However, this list merely presents examples of abstract ideas and is not meant to limit abstract ideas to these four categories.
Further, specifically, claims 1-3. 5-10, 12-17, and 19-23 are directed to the abstract idea of a mental process and organizing human activity.
To be an abstract idea under a mental process, the limitations may encompass, among other things, limitations that can be accomplished by the human mind.
Here, the limitations of claim 1, similarly claims 8 and 15 may be accomplished by a person/human mind. Such as, “…extracting terms from telemetry data for a portion of the customer-encountered issues that were resolved by service agents; obtaining generating taxonomic groups based on conducting a pairwise comparison of the extracted terms by at least: constructing a structure that represents a taxonomy of the extracted terms using a result of the pairwise comparison of the extracted terms; grouping service requests for the customer-encountered issues that were resolved by the service agents based on the taxonomy to obtain first groupings of the service requests; obtaining the customer encountered issues, wherein the customer-encountered issues are stored in a storage of the RMS and a processing of each of the customer-encountered issues by the RMS requires consumption of a first quantity of limited computing resources of the processor and the storage, and wherein a first number of the customer-encountered issues is resolved per a unit of time based on the first quantity; performing a customer-encountered issues assignment procedure that reduces the required consumption from the first quantity of limited computing resources to a second quantity lower than the first quantity such that a second number of the customer-encountered issues is resolved per the unit of time based on the second quantity, wherein the second number is larger than the first number, and the customer-encountered issues assignment procedure comprising: classifying the service requests to identify second groupings for the service requests; and revising the structure based on a difference between the first groupings and the second groupings to obtain the taxonomic groups; obtaining skill ratings for the service agents based on the taxonomic groups and the portion of the customer-encountered issues; assigning a service agent, from among the service agents, to work a service request for an unresolved customer-encountered issue of the customer-encountered issues based on the skill ratings that are obtained to resolve the unresolved customer-encountered issue, the service request being one of the service requests and being associated with a client device having the unresolved customer-encountered issue…is obtained after the unresolved customer-encountered issue is resolved by the service agent assigned to work the service request; injecting the service request into a service request queue serviced by the service agent that is assigned to the service request…”are all limitations that maybe accomplished with just the human mind and/or pen and paper or are organizing human activity.
Moreover, the Examiner further asserts that dependent claims of 2-3. 5-7, 9-10, 12-17, and 19-23 are similarly directed to the abstract idea. Since these claims are directed to an abstract idea, the Office must determine whether the remaining limitations “do significantly more” than describe the abstract idea.
PART II. DETERMINE WHETHER ANY ELEMENT, OR COMBINATION, AMOUNTS TO
“SIGNIFICANTLY MORE” THAN THE ABSTRACT IDEA ITSELF
Under the Alice framework, claims 1, 8, 15 do not include any limitations amounting to
significantly more than the abstract idea, alone. Claims 1, 8, 15 do include various
elements that are not directed to the abstract idea. These elements include “…client device…memory…computer program instructions…user device…response management system…processor…service request queue…data processing system”
Examiner submits that the elements such as, memory, processor, computer program instructions, databases., user interface, data processing system and computing system are generic computing elements performing generic computing functions. Other elements, such as, response management system and/or service request queue are generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. As a result, these computing elements do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Once these limitations were discounted from the claims as non-indicative indication integration into a practical application all that remained was the abstract principle, which is not enough. These limitations do not provide sufficient additional features or limit the abstract concept in a meaningful way. As a result, claims 1, 8, and 15 do not include limitations amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea.
The dependent claims recite various limitation elements, such as, “…persistent storage…error message and a log” which do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. The use of generic computer elements, such as these, do not transform an otherwise abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter. These limitation elements only add generic computer components to otherwise-ineligible claims.
Accordingly, the Examiner concludes that there are no meaningful limitations in the claims that transform the judicial exception into a patent eligible application such that the claim amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Further, Examiner notes that the additional limitations, when considered as an ordered combination, add nothing that is not already present when looking at the additional elements individually.
Having examined each of the limitations of the claimed invention — individually and collectively — Applicant’s additional elements perform routine operations, including those identified by the courts as well-understood, routine, and conventional computer functions. Viewed as a whole, these additional elements (recited in claims with a judicial exception) do not qualify as significantly more than a claimed judicial exception (e.g., the claims do not: (1) include improvements to another technology or technical field; (2) include improvements to the functioning of a claimed computer itself; (3) apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; (4) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; (5) add a specific limitation other than what is well-understood, routine and conventional in the field, or add unconventional steps that confine the claims to a particular useful application; or (6) present other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment (see the December 2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility, p. 74624)). Therefore, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 ZAHRA ELKASSABGI whose telephone number is (571)270-7943. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday 11:30 to 8:00.
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ZAHRA . ELKASSABGI
Examiner
Art Unit 3623
/RUTAO WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3623