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 .
This application claims priority to U.S. 17/882,950, filed August 8, 2022, entitled "Multi-Client Service System Platform," which application claims priority to U.S.11,449,775, filed December 17, 2019, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Number 62/785,544, filed December 27, 2018
This communication is responsive to the amendment filed on 10/13/2025.
Status of claims:
Claims 1, 4, 9, 11, 16 and 19 are amended.
Claims 1-20 are pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to respect to the amened claims have been considered in view of a new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by amendment.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract without significantly more.
Claims 1, 11 and 16,
Step 1:
The claims are directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.
Step 2A, Prong One:
The claims recite the limitations:
“identifying …. determining…; generating…” are processes that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind, but for the recitation of generic computer components. Nothing in the claim element precludes the steps from practically being performed in a human mind and in the context of these claims encompasses a user manually with the aid of pen and paper.
If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers mental processes but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the "Mental Processes" grouping of abstract ideas (concepts performed in the human mind including an observation, evaluation, judgement, and opinion). Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
Step 2A, Prong Two:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the additional elements
“receiving …; constructing … is output”, amount to data-gathering steps which is considered to be insignificant extra-solution activity, (See MPEP 2106.05(g)).
“providing…as a response…; are input…”, represents an extra-solution activity because it is a mere nominal or tangential addition to the claim, a mere generic transmission and presentation of collected and analyzed data. (See MPEP 2106.05 (g)).
“application programming interface; API framework; processor; memory; and non-transitory computer-readable device” are recited at a high level of generality such that they amount to on more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic component. (see MPEP 2106.05(f)). These limitations can also be viewed as nothing more than an attempt to generally link the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment of a computer (see MPEP 2106.05(h)).
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The insignificant extra-solution activities identified above, which include the data-gathering, and providing steps, are recognized by the courts as well-understood, routine, and conventional activities when they are claimed Ina merely generic manner (e.g., at a high level of generality) or as insignificant extra-solution activity (See MPEP 2106.05(d)(II) (i) Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPO2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (computer receives and sends information over a network); (v) Presenting offers and gathering statistics, OIP Techs., 788 F.3d at 1362-63, 115 USPO2d at 1092- 93).
“application programming interface; API framework; processor; memory; and non-transitory computer-readable device”, amount to elements that have been recognized as well-understood, routine, and conventional activity in particular fields, as demonstrate by: Relevant court decision: the followings are examples of court decisions demonstrating well-understood, routine and conventional activities: Computer readable storage media comprising instructions to implement a method, e.g., see (Versata Dev. Group, Inc.v. SAP Am., Inc.- similarly, the current invention recites “a computer program product, the computer program product comprising: one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media and program instructions collectively stored on the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to initiate operations.”
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
The claims as a whole, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. This is because the claims do not affect an improvement to the functioning of a computer itself; and the claim do not move beyond a general link of the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment.
Accordingly, claims 1, 11 and 16 are directed to an abstract idea.
Claim 2, recites the limitation. There is no additional elements recited so the claim does not provide a practical application and is not considered to be significantly.
Claim 3, recites the limitation. This additional element is recited at a high level of generality and would function in its ordinary capacity for having a dependency for asking a question by a user, this additional element does not integrate the integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and does not amount to significantly more. The same rationale applies claim 16.
Claim 4, recites the limitation. There is no additional elements recited so the claim does not provide a practical application and is not considered to be significantly.
Claim 5, recites the limitation. There is no additional elements recited so the claim does not provide a practical application and is not considered to be significantly.
Claim 6, recites the limitation. There is no additional elements recited so the claim does not provide a practical application and is not considered to be significantly.
Claim 7, recites the limitation. This additional element is recited at a high level of generality and would function in its ordinary capacity for constructing an inference, this additional element does not integrate the integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and does not amount to significantly more.
Claim 8, recites the limitation. This additional element is recited at a high level of generality and would function in its ordinary capacity for extracting a model identifier and a target feature, this additional element does not integrate the integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and does not amount to significantly more.
Claim 9, recites the limitation. There is no additional elements recited so the claim does not provide a practical application and is not considered to be significantly.
Claim 10, recites the limitation. There is no additional elements recited so the claim does not provide a practical application and is not considered to be significantly.
Claims 12-15 are rejected under the same analysis as applied to claims 2-10 above.
Claims 17-20 are rejected under the same analysis as applied to claims 2-10 above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-8 and 11-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Minkin et al., (US 2018/0165604), hereinafter “Minkin”, in view of Bui et al., (US 2018/0239959), hereinafter “Bui”.
As per claim 1, Minkin discloses a method, comprising:
- receiving an inference request from a client as an application programming interface (API) call received by an API framework (par. [0294] and [0297], first user interface screen for a flight delay workflow use case; and par. [0162]-[0164], mobile applications, mobile devices such as smart phones/tablets, application programming interfaces (APIs)).
- identifying features to input into the machine learning model by determining that the inference request is a domain-specific request for an inference to be performed by the machine learning model as the task based upon a target defining the features as data items of a software product of the client within which the task is integrated (par. [0295], “What causes flight delays?”; par. [0164] and [0167], the API instructs the databases to store (and retrieve from the databases) information such as user information, system information, results information, raw data information, or others as appropriate; and par. [0143], produce a predicted state based on one or more target labels and may also include many model influencer features and any measure of errors applicable on applications for a predicted case and an actual outcome);
- generating an inference outcome by executing the machine learning model to process the features, wherein the data items defined by the target as the features are input into the machine learning model that generates the inference outcome as a result of performing the inference for the inference request (par. [0008], automatically generating and executing the necessary workflow steps to perform a given analytical task; par. [0143], produce a predicted state based on one or more target labels and may also include many model influencer features and any measure of errors applicable on applications for a predicted case and an actual outcome; and par. [0217], resulting analytical workflow tasks can reside in a goal hierarchy where goals contain sub-goals, wherein at leaf nodes of the goal hierarchy are task execution “blocks” that can generate actual commands for the analysis, and wherein each task can involve one or more decisions that determine how to conduct the analysis); and
- constructing an inference response to the inference request based upon the inference outcome, wherein the inference response is output as an output response to the task being performed by the machine learning model processing the features (par. [0204]-[0206] and [0298], construction of a cognitive model for analytics goal evaluation and transmission to a “world model”, produce actions and recognize states associated with the construction of an analytical workflow, and generate objects from maps for evaluation, providing suggestions, remapping of question and answers, rephrasing, providing new analysis plans, adding or clarifying information, modification of analysis plans, invalidation of steps or assumptions, and other functions and model selection output is sent to model construction module; par. [0143], produce a predicted state based on one or more target labels and may also include many model influencer features and any measure of errors applicable on applications for a predicted case and an actual outcome); and
- providing the inference response to the client through the API framework as a response to the API call of the inference request (par. [0204]-[0206] and [0298], in response, the system has provided several suggestions that the user may wish to use, in order to determine how weather causes flight delays; par. [0143], produce a predicted state based on one or more target labels and may also include many model influencer features and any measure of errors applicable on applications for a predicted case and an actual outcome; and par. [0164] and [0167], the API instructs the databases to store (and retrieve from the databases) information such as user information, system information, results information, raw data information, or others as appropriate).
Minkin directs to automatically generates and executes the necessary workflow steps to perform a given analytical task (par. [0008]). However, Minkin does not explicitly disclose the limitation “wherein the inference request specifies a task”
Meanwhile, Bui discloses the inference request specifies a task to be performed by a machine learning model associated with the task (par. [0124], [0135], [0156], [0158] and [0159], interact with users through emails, with the emails specifying identifiers associated with particular tasks, and with the emails enabling users to provide information to the system which may cause the system to (1) update user interfaces, for instance update user interfaces for particular users to specify information received in an email, (2) update particular tasks, (3) cause completion of particular tasks).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the system of Minkin to include the features as disclosed by Bui in order to utilize a unified system and a central data repository for creation of reports, so as to ensure that the reports are accurate and consistent and to minimize the time spent on preparing the reports manually.
As per claim 2, the combination of Minkin and Bui discloses the invention as claimed. In addition, Bui discloses determining that the task relates to an email task to be performed by the client, wherein the inference response includes a suggested instruction for performing the email task (par. [0124], [0135], [0156], [0158] and [0159], interact with users through emails, with the emails specifying identifiers associated with particular tasks, and with the emails enabling users to provide information to the system which may cause the system to (1) update user interfaces, for instance update user interfaces for particular users to specify information received in an email, (2) update particular tasks, (3) cause completion of particular tasks).
As per claim 3, the combination of Minkin and Bui discloses the invention as claimed. In addition, Minkin discloses the inference request comprises a question asked by the client through the inference request, and wherein the inference response comprises an answer generated by the machine learning model to the question (par. [0183], prepared application is sent to the client portion for presentation and a question is asked at client portion).
As per claim 4, the combination of Minkin and Bui discloses the invention as claimed. In addition, Minkin discloses the client comprises a client system, and wherein the inference request is received as the API call through the API framework of a machine learning-as-a-service system hosting the machine learning model (par. [0162]-[0164], mobile applications, mobile devices such as smart phones/tablets, application programming interfaces (APIs)).
As per claim 5, the combination of Minkin and Bui discloses the invention as claimed. In addition, Minkin discloses generating a set of candidate inference outcomes using a plurality of machine learning models including the machine learning model, wherein a candidate inference outcome is selected from the set of candidate inference outcomes as the inference outcome for constructing the inference response (par. [0204], construction of a cognitive model for analytics goal evaluation and transmission to a “world model”).
As per claim 6, the combination of Minkin and Bui discloses the invention as claimed. In addition, Minkin discloses the inference response includes a suggested instruction comprising information of a contact stored within a database (par. [0164] and [0167], the API instructs the databases to store (and retrieve from the databases) information such as user information, system information, results information, raw data information, or others as appropriate).
As per claim 7, the combination of Minkin and Bui discloses the invention as claimed. In addition, Minkin discloses constructing the inference response to include a marketing decision suggestion for the client to use in making a marketing decision (par. [0217], resulting analytical workflow tasks can reside in a goal hierarchy where goals contain sub-goals, wherein at leaf nodes of the goal hierarchy are task execution “blocks” that can generate actual commands for the analysis, and wherein each task can involve one or more decisions that determine how to conduct the analysis).
As per claim 8, the combination of Minkin and Bui discloses the invention as claimed. In addition, Minkin discloses extracting a model identifier and a target feature from the inference request for use in processing the inference request (par. [0143], produce a predicted state based on one or more target labels and may also include many model influencer features and any measure of errors applicable on applications for a predicted case and an actual outcome).
As per claims 11-15, are non-transitory machine readable medium claims to execute the method as described in claims 1-8. Therefore, claims 11-15 are rejected along the same rationale that rejected claims 1-8.
As per claims 16-20, are computing device claims to perform the method as described in claims 1-8. Therefore, claims 16-20 are rejected along the same rationale that rejected claims 1-8.
Claims 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Minkin and Bui, and further in view of Djukic et al., (US 2016/0301579), hereinafter “Djukic”.
As per claims 9-10, the combination of Minkin and Bui discloses the invention as claimed except for the limitation “the client is a service provider hosting a software product accessible to users and the client is a service provider of a customer relationship management system”.
Meanwhile, Djukic discloses the client is a service provider hosting the software product accessible to users (par. [0035], the network clients includes a service portal, and the network-as-a-service, and includes a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and a service database) and the client is a service provider of a customer relationship management system (par. [0035], the network clients includes a service portal, and the network-as-a-service, and includes a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and a service database).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combined system of Minkin and Bui to include the features as disclosed by Djukic in order to provide the service enhancements to improve customer Quality-of-service (QoS) or Quality-of-experience (QoE) experience, so that a customer can pay high rate for the enhanced service.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LOAN T NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)-270-3103. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm, Thursday-Friday from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aleksandr Kerzhner can be reached on (571) 270-1760. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-270-4103. 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://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). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
3/10/2026
/LOAN T NGUYEN/Examiner, Art Unit 2165
/ALEKSANDR KERZHNER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2165
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