DETAILED ACTION
The following is an initial Office Action upon examination of the above-identified application on the merits. Claims 1-15 are pending in this application.
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 .
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. Applicant has complied with the conditions for receiving the benefit of an earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. 371.
Information Disclosure Statement
The examiner has considered the information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 10 September 2025, 6 July 2023, and 31 May 2023.
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 1-15 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. The claim(s) recite(s), in part, engine acquisition circuitry to acquire or generate one or more engines including at least one of a control logic for controlling an air conditioning device or a setting parameter for controlling the air conditioning device; and device control circuitry to control the air conditioning device, using the engine acquired or generated by the engine acquisition circuitry, wherein the device control circuitry performs control, using one or more of each of the engines that are: an abstract control engine that is a control algorithm and a parameter of the air conditioning device, the control algorithm and the parameter do not depending on external input/output to/from the device control circuitry; a preprocessing engine that is an engine to perform processing of generating, from information input from outside the device control circuitry, information suitable for input to the abstract control engine; and a postprocessing engine that is an engine to perform processing generating, from output of the abstract control engine, information suitable for output to the outside of the device control circuitry, transmitting the information suitable for the output to the outside of the device control circuitry, or outputting the information suitable for the output to the outside of the device control circuitry. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because claims are directed to abstract ideas of concepts performed in the human mind (mental process -- acquire or generate one or more engines including at least one of a control logic for controlling an air conditioning device or a setting parameter for controlling the air conditioning device) and mathematical concepts (an abstract control engine, a preprocessing engine, and a postprocessing engine). The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because claims are directed to abstract ideas and extra-solution activities that do not have a physical or tangible form, such as mere data gathering, insignificant application, and/or mere instructions to apply a judicial exception.
The following is an analysis based on 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (2019 PEG).
Step 1, Statutory Category?
Claims 1-13 and 15 are directed to an air conditioning control system .
Claim 14 is are directed to a non-transitory storage medium.
Claims 1-15 are directed to at least one of the four statutory categories.
Step 2A, Prong One, Judicial Exception Recited?
Claims 1-15 are directed to abstract ideas of concepts performed in the human mind (mental process -- acquire or generate one or more engines including at least one of a control logic for controlling an air conditioning device or a setting parameter for controlling the air conditioning device) and mathematical concepts (an abstract control engine, a preprocessing engine, and a postprocessing engine) given the broadest reasonable interpretation.
As per claim 1 and 14, these claims similarly recite the limitations of “performing abstract control processing using a control algorithm and a parameter of the air conditioning device, the control algorithm and the parameter not depending on input from and output to an outside; performing preprocessing of generating, from information input from the outside, information suitable for input to the abstract control processing; and performing postprocessing of generating, from the output, information suitable for output to the outside, transmitting the information suitable for output to the outside, or outputting the information suitable for output to the outside.” As drafted, these limitations encompass concepts performed in the human mind and mathematical concepts. Mathematical concepts cover mathematical relationships and mathematical formulas or equations.
As per claim 2, this claim recites the limitations of “performing calculation on one or more pieces of input information given and generating information having a meaning different from that of the input information.” As drafted, these limitations encompass concepts performed in the human mind and mathematical concepts. Mathematical concepts cover mathematical relationships and mathematical formulas or equations.
As per claim 3, this claim recites the limitations of “the engine acquisition circuitry acquires the processing configuration from the processing configuration storage circuitry, and acquires or generates the abstract control, preprocessing, and postprocessing engines specified by the acquired processing configuration, and the device control circuitry acquires the processing configuration from the processing configuration storage circuitry, and controls the air conditioning device on the basis of the information on the acquired processing configuration.” As drafted, these limitations encompass concepts performed in the human mind.
As per claim 5, this claim recites the limitations of “preference estimation circuitry to estimate preference of a user regarding a control operation of the air conditioning device by using at least one of input information and internal data on the device control circuitry.” As drafted, these limitations encompass mathematical concepts. Mathematical concepts cover mathematical relationships and mathematical formulas or equations.
As per claims 6, this claim recites the limitations of “environmental characteristic estimation circuitry to estimate a characteristic of an environment to be air conditioned by the air conditioning device by using at least one of input information and internal data on the device control circuitry.” As drafted, these limitations encompass mathematical concepts. Mathematical concepts cover mathematical relationships and mathematical formulas or equations.
As per claim 7, this claim recites the limitations of “used engine determination circuitry to specify one or more of the abstract control, preprocessing, and postprocessing engines to be used, on the basis of an analysis result that is information analyzed using input information or internal data on the device control circuitry, wherein the engine acquisition circuitry acquires or generates the abstract control, preprocessing, and postprocessing engines specified by the used engine determination circuitry.” As drafted, these limitations encompass concepts performed in the human mind.
As per claims 13 and 15, these claims similarly recite the limitations of “the information on the abstract control, preprocessing, and postprocessing engines used by the used engine determination circuitry is at least one of information that specifies a spatial environment around the air conditioning device or information indicating a feature of the spatial environment.” As drafted, these limitations encompass mathematical concepts. Mathematical concepts cover mathematical relationships and mathematical formulas or equations.
Claims 4, 8, 11 and 12 further elaborate upon the recited abstract ideas in claim 1.
Claim 9 further elaborate upon the recited abstract ideas in claim 7.
Claim 10 further elaborate upon the recited abstract ideas in claim 8.
Claims 1-15 are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. Claim(s) 1-15 are directed to abstract ideas (concepts performed in the human mind and mathematical concepts).
Step 2A, Prong Two, Integrated into a Practical Application?
The claims recite the following additional limitations:
As per claims 1-15, these claims similarly recite the limitation of “acquire or generate one or more engines including at least one of a control logic for controlling an air conditioning device or a setting parameter for controlling the air conditioning device.” As drafted, these limitations encompass no more than an insignificant extra-solution activity of data gathering. Extra-solution activity includes both pre-solution and post-solution activity. An example of pre-solution activity is a step of gathering data for use in a claimed process, e.g., a step of obtaining information about credit card transactions, which is recited as part of a claimed process of analyzing and manipulating the gathered information by a series of steps in order to detect whether the transactions were fraudulent. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
The additional elements recite insignificant extra-solution activity as pre-solution data gathering and post solution data outputting and do not provide integration into a practical application. The additional claim limitations, claim elements together and claims in their entirety do not provide integration into a practical application. The additional claim limitations, claim elements together and claims in their entirety do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or provide an inventive concept (significantly more than the abstract idea). The concept described in the claim(s) is not meaningfully different than those concepts found by the courts to be abstract ideas. As such, the description in the claims describes the concept identified as an abstract idea (data gathering, data outputting and data transmission). The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they do not integrate the exception into a practical application of the exception.
Claims 1-15 do not integrate the recited abstract ideas into a practical application.
Step 2B, Inventive Concept (Significantly More)?
When considered both individually and as an ordered combination, the additional elements and elements of claims 1-15 do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons discussed above as to why the additional limitations do not integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application. The additional elements of outlined in Step 2A performing functions as designed simply accomplish execution of the abstract ideas. The additional limitations identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above are carried over and they also do not provide significantly more.
As per claims 1-15, these claims similarly recite the limitation of “acquire or generate one or more engines including at least one of a control logic for controlling an air conditioning device or a setting parameter for controlling the air conditioning device.” As drafted, these limitations encompass insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g), Courts have held found mere data gathering and insignificant application to be insignificant extra-solution activity.
Considering the additional elements individually and in combination and the claims as a whole, the additional elements do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Hence, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claims 1-15 are therefore drawn to ineligible subject matter as they are directed to abstract ideas without significantly more.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The following references are cited to further show the state of the art with respect to intelligent air conditioning control:
US 9,927,137 B2 to Hiraoka et al.
JP 7241524 B2 to FUKUDA et al.
JP 7237173 B2
JP 7006859 B2
CN 110736244 B to LIANG et al.
CN 109708278 B to ZHANG et al.
CN 107014037 B to LIU et al.
CN 106594870 B to LIU et al.
CN 105204551 B to YU et al.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Crystal J Barnes-Bullock whose telephone number is (571)272-3679. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8 am - 5 pm.
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/CRYSTAL J BARNES-BULLOCK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2117 28 September 2025