DETAILED ACTION
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 the Claims
Claim 1-20 were previously pending. Claims 1, 11, and 18 were amended in the reply filed May 18, 2026. Claims 1-20 are currently pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed with respect to the rejection made under § 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the invention saves user time and provides a more accurate risk level and actionable intelligence to the user for multiple projects. Remarks, 8. This is an improvement to certain methods of organizing human activities rather than an improvement particular to computers or any other technology. Project management is an abstract idea. Using artificial intelligence to save time and improve accuracy does not improve the computer itself and instead describes using computers as tools to improve human activities. See Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2015) ("claiming the improved speed or efficiency inherent with applying the abstract idea on a computer [does not] provide a sufficient inventive concept"); Bancorp Servs., L.L.C. v. Sun Life Assur. Co. of Can. (U.S.), 687 F.3d 1266, 1278 (Fed. Cir. 2012) ("[T]he fact that the required calculations could be performed more efficiently via a computer does not materially alter the patent eligibility of the claimed subject matter."). "[R]elying on a computer to perform routine tasks more quickly or more accurately is insufficient to render a claim patent eligible." OIP Technologies, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (citing Alice Corp., 134 S. Ct. at 2359). Similarly, Applicant's argument that the claims "provide an improvement to at least the technology of prediction of risk level or next-step action immediacy in project management" (Remarks, 9) is unpersuasive because this is not a technology. Instead, it plainly fits within the abstract category of certain methods of organizing human activities. Accordingly, the rejection 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter (abstract idea without significantly more). Claims are eligible for patent protection under § 101 if they are in one of the four statutory categories and not directed to a judicial exception to patentability. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014). Claims 1-20, each considered as a whole and as an ordered combination, are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea) without significantly more.
MPEP 2106 Step 2A – Prong 1:
The claims recite an abstract idea reflected in the representative functions of the independent claims—including:
accessing project metadata associated with a project;
accessing communication data associated with the project;
executing a rule-based analytics model to generate a first risk score of the project based on the project metadata and the communication data, wherein the rule-based analytics model comprises a plurality of user-defined rules for the project;
executing an analytics model to generate a second risk score of the project based on the project metadata and the communication data;
in response to determining a difference between the first risk score and the second risk score satisfies a threshold value, determining a risk level of the project corresponding to the first risk score of the second risk score the second risk score, the risk level indicating whether a next-step action is immediately required; and
providing a notification message based on the risk level to a user associated with the project;
receiving a user action in response to the notification message.
These limitations taken together qualify as a certain method of organizing human activities because they recite collecting, analyzing, and outputting information for determining the risk of projects for an entity based upon communications among people (i.e., in the terminology of the 2019 Revised Guidance, fundamental economic principles or practices (including mitigating risk); commercial interactions (including business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities)). Additionally, it covers purely mental processes (e.g., an employee of a business entity observing project data, evaluating it, and arriving at a judgment on the risk level of the project).
It shares similarities with other abstract ideas held to be non-statutory by the courts (see Fairwarning IP, LLC v. Iatric System, Inc., 839 F.3d 1089 (Fed. Cir. 2016)—analyzing records of human activity to detect suspicious behavior, similar because at another level of abstraction the claims could be characterized as analyzing records of human activity to detect project risk; Electric Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016)—process of gathering and analyzing information of a specified content, then displaying the results, similar because at another level of abstraction the claims could be characterized as process of gathering and analyzing information of a project risk, then displaying the results).
These cases describe significantly similar aspects of the claimed invention, albeit at another level of abstraction. See Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1240-41 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("An abstract idea can generally be described at different levels of abstraction. As the Board has done, the claimed abstract idea could be described as generating menus on a computer, or generating a second menu from a first menu and sending the second menu to another location. It could be described in other ways, including, as indicated in the specification, taking orders from restaurant customers on a computer.").
MPEP 2106 Step 2A – Prong 2:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because there are no meaningful limitations that transform the exception into a patent eligible application. The elements merely serve to provide a general link to a technological environment (e.g., computers and the Internet) in which to carry out the judicial exception (communication analytics platform; artificial intelligence (AI)-based analytics model; communications interface; non-transitory computer-readable medium; one or more processors communicatively coupled to the communications interface and the non-transitory computer-readable medium, the one or more processors configured to execute processor-executable instructions stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium; fine-tuning the AI-based analytics model based on the user action—all recited at a high level of generality).
Although they have and execute instructions to perform the abstract idea itself (e.g., modules, program code, “platform,” etc. to automate the abstract idea), this also does not serve to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application as it merely amounts to instructions to "apply it." Aside from such instructions to implement the abstract idea, they are solely used for generic computer operations (e.g., receiving, storing, retrieving, transmitting data), employing the computer as a tool. See FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("[T]he use of generic computer elements like a microprocessor or user interface do not alone transform an otherwise abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter.") (citing DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245,1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014)) (emphasis added). See also Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., 134 F.4th 1205 (Fed. Cir. 2025). In that case, similar to here, “[t]he requirements that the machine learning model be ‘iteratively trained’ or dynamically adjusted in the Machine Learning Training patents do not represent a technological improvement” because “[i|terative training using selected training material and dynamic adjustments based on real-time changes are incident to the very nature of machine learning.” Id. at 1212.
The claims only manipulate abstract data elements into another form in the abstract field of project management. They do not set forth improvements to another technological field or the functioning of the computer itself and instead use computer elements as tools to improve the functioning of the abstract idea identified above. Looking at the additional limitations and abstract idea as an ordered combination and as a whole adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Rather than any meaningful limits, their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation of the abstract idea identified in Prong One. None of the additional elements recited "offers a meaningful limitation beyond generally linking 'the use of the [method] to a particular technological environment,' that is, implementation via computers." Alice Corp., slip op. at 16 (citing Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 610, 611 (U.S. 2010)).
At the levels of abstraction described above, the claims do not readily lend themselves to a finding that they are directed to a nonabstract idea. Therefore, the analysis proceeds to step 2B. See BASCOM Global Internet v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("The Enfish claims, understood in light of their specific limitations, were unambiguously directed to an improvement in computer capabilities. Here, in contrast, the claims and their specific limitations do not readily lend themselves to a step-one finding that they are directed to a nonabstract idea. We therefore defer our consideration of the specific claim limitations’ narrowing effect for step two.") (citations omitted).
MPEP 2106 Step 2B:
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons as presented in Step 2A Prong 2 (i.e., they amount to nothing more than a general link to a particular technological environment and instructions to apply it there). Moreover, the additional elements recited are known and conventional computing elements (communication analytics platform; artificial intelligence (AI)-based analytics model; communications interface; non-transitory computer-readable medium; one or more processors communicatively coupled to the communications interface and the non-transitory computer-readable medium, the one or more processors configured to execute processor-executable instructions stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium; fine-tuning the AI-based analytics model based on the user action—see published Specification ¶¶ 0070, 82, 90, 113-115 describing these at a high level of generality and in a manner that indicates that the additional elements are sufficiently well-known that the specification does not need to describe the particulars of such additional elements to satisfy the statutory disclosure requirements).
The Federal Circuit has recognized that "an invocation of already-available computers that are not themselves plausibly asserted to be an advance, for use in carrying out improved mathematical calculations, amounts to a recitation of what is 'well-understood, routine, [and] conventional.'" SAP Am., Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 890 F.3d 1016, 1023 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (alteration in original) (citing Mayo v. Prometheus, 566 U.S. 66, 73 (2012)). Apart from the instructions to implement the abstract idea, they only serve to perform well-understood functions (e.g., receiving, storing, retrieving, transmitting data—see Specification above as well as Alice Corp.; Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307 (Fed. Cir. 2016); and Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 2015) covering the well-known nature of these basic computer functions).
"The use and arrangement of conventional and generic computer components recited in the claims—such as a database, user terminal, and server— do not transform the claim, as a whole, into 'significantly more' than a claim to the abstract idea itself. We have repeatedly held that such invocations of computers and networks that are not even arguably inventive are insufficient to pass the test of an inventive concept in the application of an abstract idea." Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Services, 859 F.3d 1044, 1056 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely provide conventional computer implementation.
Dependent Claims Step 2A:
The limitations of the dependent claims but for those addressed below merely set forth further refinements of the same abstract idea identified above without changing the analysis already presented (i.e., they merely narrow the abstract idea without adding any new additional elements beyond it). Additionally, for the same reasons as above, the limitations fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they use the same general technological environment and instructions to implement the abstract idea as the independent claims (i.e., generic computers and AI).
Claim 2 adds that the communication analytics platform is integrated with a generic third-party platform, but this merely serves to further limit the general link to a particular technological environment in which the abstract idea is executed. Moreover, the Specification indicates that the third-party platform is merely used as a source for retrieving data (see published Specification ¶ 0070).
Dependent Claims Step 2B:
The dependent claims merely use the same general technological environment and instructions to implement the abstract idea. Although they add the elements identified in 2A above (communication analytics platform is integrated with a generic third-party platform), these do not amount to significantly more for the same reasons they fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Moreover, the Specification also indicates this is the routine use of known elements for the same reasons presented with respect to the elements in the independent claims above (see published Specification ¶ 0070). Accordingly, they are not directed to significantly more than the exception itself, and are not eligible subject matter under § 101.
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 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 DANIEL VETTER whose telephone number is (571)270-1366. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-6:00.
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/DANIEL VETTER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3628
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