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 .
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 1-10 are rejected under 35 USC 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. A subject matter eligibility analysis is set forth below. See MPEP 2106.
Under step 1, claim 1 belongs to a statutory category, namely it is a method claim. Likewise, claim 9 is a device and claim 10 is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium.
Under step 2A, prong 1: claims 1, 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e. “mathematical relationships or algorithms”) which the court has identified as abstract without significantly more. Claims 1, 9 and 10 are directed to the abstract idea of a dividing step of dividing a range of a single variable which indicates a state of the plant into a plurality of first range bands on the basis of a frequency distribution of the single variable; and a unit space creating step of creating a plurality of unit spaces which serve as a basis of calculation of the Mahalanobis distance on the basis of the respective data of the plurality of variables respectively corresponding to a plurality of second range bands of the single variable determined on the basis of the plurality of first range bands, a step of calculating the Mahalanobis distance for data of the plurality of variables to be evaluated by using, among the plurality of unit spaces, a unit space corresponding to a value of the single variable at a time of acquisition of the data of the plurality of variables to be evaluated; and
a step of determining presence or absence of an abnormality of the plant on the basis of the Mahalanobis distance. These limitations fall under mathematical concepts. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the only additional elements are a plant monitoring device and a program for monitoring a plant, which are conventional or generic equipment which do not add anything significant to the judicial exception because these elements are needed in order to create a plurality of unit spaces. The claims as a whole do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
The generic data processing are recited so generically (no details whatsoever are provided other than e.g., “creating a plurality of unit spaces which serve as a basis of calculation of the Mahalanobis distance on the basis of the respective data of the plurality of variables respectively corresponding to a plurality of second range bands of the single variable determined on the basis of the plurality of first range bands”) that it represents no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exceptions on a computer. It can also be viewed as nothing more than an attempt to generally link the use of the judicial exceptions to the technological environment of a computer. Noting MPEP 2106.04(d)(I): “It is notable that mere physicality or tangibility of an additional element or elements is not a relevant consideration in Step 2A Prong Two. As the Supreme Court explained in Alice Corp., mere physical or tangible implementation of an exception does not guarantee eligibility. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 224, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014) ("The fact that a computer ‘necessarily exist[s] in the physical, rather than purely conceptual, realm,’ is beside the point")”.
Thus, under Step 2A, prong 2 of the analysis, even when viewed in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application and the claims are directed to the judicial exception. No specific practical application is associated with the claimed system. For instance, nothing is done with the determined presence or absence of an abnormality of the plant.
Under Step 2B, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements, as described above, merely amount to a general purpose computer system that attempts to apply the abstract idea in a technological environment, limiting the abstract idea to a particular field of use.
Dependent claims 2-8 merely expand upon the abstract idea further defining the abstract steps of claim 1, and therefore stand rejected under 35 USC 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see page 26, filed 7/06/2026, with respect to claims 1, 9 and 10 have been fully considered and are partially persuasive. The rejection under of claims 1, 4 and 8-10 has been withdrawn.
Applicant argues that the claims are patent eligible because they recite a practical application and improves the technology.
In response the Examiner points to the fact that claims as described above simply describe an abstract idea. The additional step of determining a presence or absence of an abnormality is simply the result of the Mahalanobis distance calculation which is still an abstract step.
Regarding Enfish comments, In Enfish, the focus of the claims is on the specific asserted improvement in computer capabilities (i.e. a self-referential table for a computer database). In sum, the self-referential table recited in the claims is a specific type of data structure designed to improve the way a computer stores and retrieves data in memory. The claimed invention achieves benefits over conventional databases such as increased flexibility, faster search times and smaller memory requirements. In the current application Applicants are not improving the computer technology but merely using a computer processor to perform calculations and data processing (i.e. Mahalanobis distance calculations) which is considered abstract.
Regarding Ex parte Desjardins, they improved the technology by training a machine learning model. In the instant application they are merely using a computer to calculate a Mahalanobis distance to determine an abnormality in the system. There’s no mention of training an AI model to improve the technology.
Regarding Recentive Analytics comments, as Applicant mentions: “patents that do no more than claim the application of generic machine learning to new data environments" are insufficient for patent eligibility, unless "improvements to the machine learning models to be applied" are disclosed.” In the instant application no improvement to a machine learning model is recited but using a computer to calculate a Mahalanobis distance to determine an abnormality in the system.
Regarding the DDR Holdings case the court found that the claims were patent eligible under 35 USC § 101 because the claims were geared towards interactions with the Internet with significant added activity and the data was manipulated to yield unconventional results. A result that overrides the routine and conventional sequence of events ordinarily triggered by the click of a hyperlink. Therefore the claims recited an invention that is not merely routine or conventional in the art or in use of the Internet. In the current application Applicants are merely using a computer processor to perform a Mahalanobis distance to determine an abnormality in the system. The calculations using Mahalanobis distance yield predictable results and therefore considered abstract.
Regarding the Diehr case, the court found the claims eligible because when viewing the claim as a whole, the combination of all these steps taken together, including the constant determination of the temperature of the mold, the repetitive calculations and comparisons, and the opening of the press based on the calculations, amount to significantly more than simply calculating the mold time using the Arrhenius equation because they add meaningful limits on use of the equation. The claim does not merely recite the equation in isolation, but integrates these ideas into the molding process. The additional steps specifically relate to the particular variables used, how the variables are gathered, the process by which the rubber is molded and cured, and how the result of the cure time calculation is used. The totality of the steps act in concert to improve another technical field, specifically the field of precision rubber molding, by controlling the operation of the mold. In addition, the claimed steps taken as a combination effect a transformation of the raw, uncured synthetic rubber into a different state or thing, i.e., a cured and molded rubber product. Thus, the claim amounted to significantly more than the mathematical relationship (i.e., the abstract idea of the Arrhenius equation).
In the current claims, Applicants are using a statistical distance metric (Mahalanobis distance) to determine an abnormality in the system. The claims do not contain limitations that may be enough to qualify them as significantly more.
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 MANUEL A RIVERA VARGAS whose telephone number is (571)270-7870. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-6:00.
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/MANUEL A RIVERA VARGAS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857
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