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 .
STATUS OF CLAIMS
This Non-Final action is in reply to the arguments/amendments filed 11/10/2025.
Claims 8 and 17 were previously cancelled.
Claims 1-7, 9-16 and 18 are pending.
Request for Continued Examination
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11/10/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
With respect to the 35 USC 101 rejection, applicant states, “There are substantial limitations in the claims that differentiate them from the broad general idea of ‘organizing human activity” and that, “the server providing customer involvement campaign success rate to the business” presents substantial feature and functionality that distinguish the claims from the mere idea of organizing human activity”, and that, “the claimed resulting customer involvement campaign success rate involves a series of analyses, specifically cross-comparative analysis among customer reviews, origination of customer review determination and application of specified rules for a determinative campaign success rate”. Applicant then states, “the claims recite self-learning technology of the server improving the rules over time to improve accuracy, includes the ability to perform the actions of ‘fine tuning percentage thresholds, providing additional combinations of rules, ordering the rules, adding additional rules for additional languages” and that, “these actions are not abstract”. Applicant then states, “These analyses are a significant improvement in the technological evaluation of online computer data in the form of an ad campaign”, “recite meaningful limitations beyond supplementing the abstract using generic computer and networking components performing generic computer function…and linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use”, “the claims are directed to an improved processing method involving computer technology”, and “provide significantly more”. Applicant’s arguments have been re-considered but are unpersuasive. Applicant’s specification evidences the focus on organizing and managing the activities, interactions between customer(s), third-party websites and a business via collecting/storing private review, obtaining/storing a plurality of public reviews, applying rules to the match distances to determine the likelihood of a match, evaluating and providing a customer involvement campaign success rate to the business- see applicant’s specification ¶4, 7, and 18. Hence, the claim limitations are directed to the management of personal behavior, relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions) (i.e. interactions between people (providing public and/or private reviews from a plurality of customers, third-party regarding a business) and applying rules or instructions to determine match distances and providing a customer involvement campaign success rate to the business within certain methods of organizing human activities grouping of abstract ideas. Examiner maintains that the claim limitations are directed to an abstract idea.
As noted in the Final action (5/9/2025) the recited “computing device”, “server”, “database”, “application interfaces (APIs)” [claim 1]; “non-transitory storage medium”, “processor” [claim 10], are merely standard computer technology and hardware/software components- see applicant’s disclosure (¶20: “the methods described herein may be implemented on one or more server computers referred to herein as matching servers 110. A server computer includes software and hardware for providing the functionality and features described herein. A server computer may include one or more of: logic arrays, memories, analog circuits, digital circuits, software, firmware, and processors such as microprocessors, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), programmable logic devices (PLDs) and programmable logic arrays (PLAs). The methods, functionality and features described herein may be embodied in software which operates on a server computer and may be in the form of firmware, an application program, an applet (e.g., a Java applet), a browser plug-in, a COM object, a dynamic linked library (DLL), a script, one or more subroutines, or an operating system component or service. The software may maintain a database of information about businesses and their customers. The database may be implemented using the structured query language more commonly known as SQL or MySQL as well as other database software. The hardware and software and their functions may be distributed such that some are performed by one server computer and others by other server computers. The server and the software may access third party review servers 140 via application interfaces (API’s) made publicly accessible by third party review companies”; ¶21: “the processes may be implemented with any computing device. A computing device as used herein refers to any device with a processor, memory and a storage device that executes instructions including, but not limited to, personal computers, server computers, computing tablets, smart phones, portable computers, and laptop computers”) and fail to operate any exceptional manner; there is no evidence in the disclosure to suggest achieving an actual improvement in the computer functionality itself, or improvement in any specific computer technology other than utilizing ordinary computational tools to automate and perform the abstract idea for obtaining private and public reviews of a business, applying rules to the match distances to determine the likelihood of a match, evaluating and providing a customer involvement campaign success rate to the business in a computing environment —see MPEP 2106.05(a). Accordingly, applicant has not shown an improvement or practical application under the guidance of MPEP section 2106.04(d) or 2106.05(a). Applicant’s limitations as recited above do nothing more than supplement the abstract idea using generic computer and networking components performing generic computer functions (obtaining, sending, collecting, storing, evaluating, applying, improving, tuning, ordering, adding, providing) such that it amounts to no more than mere instruction to apply the exception using a generic computer component-see MPEP 2106.05(f) and linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(h). Moreover, the application programming interface is only generically recited in the disclosure to further process /transmit/communicate received data utilizing rules logic – see applicant’s disclosure ¶20, ¶22, and fails to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea and amounts to no more than applying the judicial exception using generic computing components and linking the use of the judicial exception to a computing environment. There is no improvement to the application interface (APIs) and the additional element is merely used generically to further process/compare/match/provide received data via a server over the network. Hence, the 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 focus of the claims is not on an improvement in computers as tools, but on certain independently abstract ideas that use generic computing components as tools. Applicant's “computing device”, “server”, “database”, “application interfaces (APIs)” [claim 1]; “non-transitory storage medium”, “processor” [claim 10], are generically used for data gathering, analysis and to further process received information. As evidenced by applicant's disclosure, the additional elements are not described in any way other than merely being conventionally “known” and used as a tool to perform the functions for obtaining, sending, collecting, storing, evaluating, applying, improving, tuning, ordering, adding, providing data/information. There is no evidence in the disclosure to suggest achieving an actual improvement in the computer functionality itself, or improvement in any specific computer technology other than utilizing generic computing components as a tool for data gathering and analysis, and to provide instructions to automate and perform the abstract idea. The claims do not solve any problem which is inherently rooted to computing technology and generally links the abstract idea to a particular technological environment-see MPEP 2106.05 (f-h). Further, the claimed self-learning technology of the server improving the rules over time to improve accuracy merely uses the “computing device”, “server”, “database”, “application interfaces (APIs)” [claim 1]; “non-transitory storage medium”, “processor” [claim 10], as a tool for data gathering and analysis. Similarly, "claiming the improved speed or efficiency inherent with applying the abstract idea on a computer" does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide an inventive concept. Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1367, 115 USPQ2d 1636, 1639 (Fed. Cir. 2015). Even when considered as a whole, the claims do not transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention since the claim limitations do not amount to a practical application or significantly more than the abstract idea for obtaining private and public reviews of a business, applying rules to the match distances to determine the likelihood of a match, evaluating and providing a customer involvement campaign success rate to the business in a computing environment. Hence, claims 1-7, 9-16 and 18 are directed to non-statutory subject matter and are rejected as ineligible subject matter under 35 USC 101. See 2019 PEG and MPEP 2106.
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 1-7, 9-16 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Claims 1-7, 9-16 and 18 are directed to a process (method), and non-transitory storage medium. Thus, each of the claims fall within one of the four statutory categories.
Step 2A-Prong 1: Claim 1 recites in part, “the method comprising: for each of a plurality of customers a server obtaining the private review of a business including the server sending a first prompt via email or text message over a network to each of the plurality of customers to leave the private review, the server collecting the private review and storing it in a database; the server sending a second prompt via email or text message over the network to each of the plurality of customers to leave a public review at a third party website hosted by a third party; the server obtaining a plurality of public reviews of the business from a plurality of third party websites over the network including the server periodically obtaining the public reviews for the business from multiple third party websites over the network via application interfaces (APIs) at the third party websites and the server storing the public reviews in the database; or each private review in the database, the server evaluating a likelihood the private review matches one of the plurality of public reviews for the business in the database including the server evaluating a match distance between text bodies in the public review and the private review, the server evaluating a match distance between reviewer names in the public review and the private review, the server evaluating a match distance between a review date of the public review and a link click date resulting from an email prompt to submit the public review, the server evaluating a match distance between ratings in the public review and the private review, the server applying rules to the match distances for the text body, the reviewer name, the review date, the link click date and the ratings to determine the likelihood of a match, including the server performing sequentially a hierarchical rule-based decision process to determine a likelihood of a match based on a predefined logical condition for the text body, the reviewer name, the review date, the link click date and the rating; the server evaluating the customer involvement campaign success rate based on the likelihood each of the private reviews for the plurality of customers matches one of the public reviews; the server improving the rules over time to improve accuracy, including at least two selected from the group including: fine tuning percentage thresholds, providing additional combinations of rules, ordering the rules, adding additional rules for additional language; server providing the customer involvement campaign success rate to the business...”
The underlined limitations above demonstrate independent claim 1 is directed toward the abstract idea for obtaining private and public reviews of a business, applying rules to the match distances to determine the likelihood of a match, evaluating and providing a customer involvement campaign success rate to the business a computing environment. Applicant’s specification discusses multiple field text content matching applicable in the area of online reviews and customer feedback identification. The disclosure emphasizes a system for identifying and evaluating a public review to determine its original source which can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular marketing method or business generation campaign. This evaluation can allow a business to determine if its marketing budget was invested wisely and if a third party providing the marketing method or business generation campaign should be rehired (¶4, ¶7, ¶18).
Representative Claim 1 is considered an abstract idea because the steps for, “obtaining the private review of a business… collecting the private review and storing it in a database; … sending a second prompt … to each of the plurality of customers to leave a public review …obtaining a plurality of public reviews of the business from a plurality of third party websites … periodically obtaining the public reviews for the business from multiple third party websites …storing the public reviews in the database; or each private review in the database …evaluating a likelihood the private review matches one of the plurality of public reviews for the business …evaluating a match distance between text bodies in the public review and the private review …evaluating a match distance between reviewer names in the public review and the private review …evaluating a match distance between a review date of the public review and a link click date …evaluating a match distance between ratings in the public review and the private review, …applying rules to the match distances for the text body, the reviewer name, the review date, the link click date and the ratings to …determine the likelihood of a match; including the server performing sequentially a hierarchical rule-based decision process to determine a likelihood of a match based on a predefined logical condition for the text body, the reviewer name, the review date, the link click date and the rating; evaluating the customer involvement campaign success rate based on the likelihood each of the private reviews for the plurality of customers matches one of the public reviews … improving the rules over time to improve accuracy, …providing the customer involvement campaign success rate to the business... ”pertains to managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions) since the steps are directed to the certain methods of organizing human activity grouping of abstract ideas hence, the claim recites an abstract idea--see MPEP 2106.04(II).
Step 2A-Prong 2: This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements “computing device”, “server”, “database”, “application interfaces (APIs)”[claim 1]; “non-transitory storage medium”, “processor” [claim 10], merely provide an abstract-idea based solution using data gathering and analysis; and merely provide instructions for organizing human interactions, and implement the abstract idea recited above utilizing the “computing device”, “server”, “database”, “application interfaces (APIs)”[claim 1]; “non-transitory storage medium”, “processor” [claim 10] as tools to perform the abstract idea, and generally links the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. See MPEP 2106.05 (f-h). These elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea—see MPEP 2106.05(g).
Independent claim 1 fails to operate the recited “computing device”, “server”, “database”, “application interfaces (APIs)” [claim 1]; “non-transitory storage medium”, “processor” [claim 10], (which are merely standard computer technology and hardware/software components- see applicant’s disclosure (¶20: “the methods described herein may be implemented on one or more server computers referred to herein as matching servers 110. A server computer includes software and hardware for providing the functionality and features described herein. A server computer may include one or more of: logic arrays, memories, analog circuits, digital circuits, software, firmware, and processors such as microprocessors, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), programmable logic devices (PLDs) and programmable logic arrays (PLAs). The methods, functionality and features described herein may be embodied in software which operates on a server computer and may be in the form of firmware, an application program, an applet (e.g., a Java applet), a browser plug-in, a COM object, a dynamic linked library (DLL), a script, one or more subroutines, or an operating system component or service. The software may maintain a database of information about businesses and their customers. The database may be implemented using the structured query language more commonly known as SQL or MySQL as well as other database software. The hardware and software and their functions may be distributed such that some are performed by one server computer and others by other server computers. The server and the software may access third party review servers 140 via application interfaces (API’s) made publicly accessible by third party review companies”; ¶21: “the processes may be implemented with any computing device. A computing device as used herein refers to any device with a processor, memory and a storage device that executes instructions including, but not limited to, personal computers, server computers, computing tablets, smart phones, portable computers, and laptop computers”) in any exceptional manner, and there is no evidence in the disclosure to suggest achieving an actual improvement in the computer functionality itself, or improvement in any specific computer technology other than utilizing ordinary computational tools to automate and perform the abstract idea for obtaining private and public reviews of a business, applying rules to the match distances to determine the likelihood of a match, evaluating and providing a customer involvement campaign success rate to the business in a computing environment —see MPEP 2106.05(a). Accordingly, applicant has not shown an improvement or practical application under the guidance of MPEP section 2106.04(d) or 2106.05(a). Applicant’s limitations as recited above do nothing more than supplement the abstract using generic computer and networking components performing generic computer functions (obtaining, sending, collecting, storing, evaluating, applying, improving, tuning, ordering, adding, providing) such that it amounts to no more than mere instruction to apply the exception using a generic computer component-see MPEP 2106.05(f) and linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(h). Independent claim 10 recites substantially similar limitations as independent claim 1, therefore it is also directed to the same abstract idea.
Dependent claims 2-7, 9, 11-16 and 18 fail to cure the deficiencies of the above noted independent claim from which they depend and are therefore rejected under the same grounds. The dependent claims further recite the abstract idea without imposing any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Dependent claims 2-7, 9, 11-16 and 18, recite additional data gathering and processing steps. For example dependent claims 2 and 11 recite in part, “…wherein the evaluating a match distance between text bodies in the public review and the private review comprises…”; claims 3, 5, 12 and 14 recite in part, “…wherein the distance is calculated using…”, claims 4 and 13 recite in part, “…wherein the evaluating a match distance between reviewer names in the public review and the private review comprises…”; claims 6 and 15 recite in part, “..wherein the evaluating a match distance between review dates of the public review and the private review comprises...”; claims 7 and 16 recite in part, “…wherein the evaluating a match distance between ratings in the public review and the private review comprises...”; claims 9 and 18 recite in part, “…further comprising: the server receiving notification that …”, which are still directed toward the abstract idea identified previously and are no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a computer or with computing components.
The additional elements in the dependent claims “Levenshtein Distance function” only serves to further limit the abstract idea utilizing the “computing device”, “server”, “database”, “application interfaces (APIs)” [claim 1]; “non-transitory storage medium”, “processor” [claim 10], as a tool, and generally link the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, and hence are nonetheless directed towards fundamentally the same abstract idea as their respective independent claim since they fail to impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the abstract idea fails to integrate into any practical application. Thus, under Step 2A-Prong Two the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B: The claim(s) does/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, the additional elements “computing device”, “server”, “database”, “application interfaces (APIs)” [claim 1]; “non-transitory storage medium”, “processor” [claim 10], amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component which does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application nor provide an inventive concept (significantly more than the abstract idea).
Further, giving the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim limitations in light of the specification, applicant’s application interfaces (APIs) amounts to no more than applying the judicial exception using generic computing components (software applications or program) for carrying out the method/system steps and linking the use of the judicial exception to a computing environment. In this case, the application interfaces are generically used (see applicant’s disclosure ¶20: “The methods, functionality and features described herein may be embodied in software which operates on a server computer and may be in the form of firmware, an application program, an applet (e.g., a Java applet), a browser plug-in, a COM object, a dynamic linked library (DLL), a script, one or more subroutines, or an operating system component or service. The software may maintain a database of information about businesses and their customers. The database may be implemented using the structured query language more commonly known as SQL or MySQL as well as other database software. The hardware and software and their functions may be distributed such that some are performed by one server computer and others by other server computers. The server and the software may access third party review servers 140 via application interfaces (API’s) made publicly accessible by third party review companies”; ¶22: “the techniques may be implemented in software and stored on a machine-readable storage medium in a storage device included with or otherwise coupled or attached to a matching server 110 or other computing device. That is, the software may be stored on machine readable storage media) to further process /transmit/communicate received data utilizing rules logic and fails to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea and amounts to no more than applying the judicial exception using generic computing components and linking the use of the judicial exception to a computing environment. There is no improvement to the application interface (APIs) and the additional element is merely used generically to further process/compare/match/provide received data via a server over the network. Hence, the 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.
Accordingly, even when considered as a whole, the claims do not transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention since the claim limitations do not amount to a practical application or significantly more than an abstract idea for obtaining private and public reviews of a business, applying rules to the match distances to determine the likelihood of a match, evaluating and providing a customer involvement campaign success rate to the business in a computing environment. Hence, claims 1-7, 9-16 and 18 are directed to non-statutory subject matter and are rejected as ineligible subject matter under 35 USC 101. See 2019 PEG and MPEP 2106.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Schneider, US Patent Application Publication No US 2008/0010365 A1, “Methods, Products, Systems, and Devices for Processing Reusable Information”, relating to methods and systems of providing information, and processing reusable information.
Park, US Patent Application Publication No US 2018/0150855 A1, “Business District Information Provision System, Business District Information Provision Server, Business District Information Provision Method, Service Application Server, and Service Application server Operation Method”, relating to improving the business success rate of a founder by providing optimally located business district information designed on the basis of business district information big data reflecting a consumer intention related to business district information to the founder.
Del Favero et al., US Patent US 8255248 B2, “Method and Computer Program Product for Obtaining Reviews of Businesses from Customers”, relating to automatically soliciting the business reviews in an efficient and customized manner so as to provide benefits to a provider of the community based business listing and review system and the user.
Conclusion
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Kimberly L. Evans whose telephone number is 571.270.3929. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday, 9:30am-5:00pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Lynda Jasmin can be reached at 571.272.6782.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair <http://pair-direct.uspto.gov >. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866.217.9197 (toll-free). Any response to this action should be mailed to: Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, VA 22313-1450 or faxed to 571-273-8300. Hand delivered responses should be brought to the United States Patent and Trademark Office Customer Service Window: Randolph Building 401 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA 22314.
/KIMBERLY L EVANS/ Examiner, Art Unit 3629
/LYNDA JASMIN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3629