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 Claims
This Office Action is in response to the amendment filed on August 19, 2025. Claims 1-10 have been cancelled. Thus, claims 11-20 are pending. Claim 11 is independent.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments have been fully considered. However, upon further consideration, the arguments with respect to the rejection under 35 USC § 101 are not persuasive.
With respect to the rejection under 35 USC § 101, Applicants argued that independent claim 11 has been amended to include . . . “each of which is a physical action qualifying under the processes category of 35 USC 101 and reciting more than an abstract idea.”
However, the amended recitations of independent claim are methods of organizing human activity. For example, the steps of “determining the identified tire has to be inspected or replaced”, “removing the identified tire from the identified aeroplane”, and “after removing the removed tire, inserting, into the aeroplane, a replacement tire that is new” each demonstrate a human performing the steps. Furthermore, the remaining limitations in the claim are mental processes (concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion)) which is equivalent to a person comparing a set of data and making an inference from that data. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
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 11-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
101 Analysis – Step 1
Claim 11 is directed to a method (i.e., a process). Therefore, claim 11 is within at least one of the four statutory categories.
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong I
Regarding Prong I of the Step 2A analysis in the 2019 PEG, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether they recite subject matter that falls within one of the follow groups of abstract ideas: a) mathematical concepts, b) certain methods of organizing human activity, and/or c) mental processes.
Independent claim 1 includes limitations that recite an abstract idea (emphasized below) and will be used as a representative claim for the remainder of the 101 rejection.
Claim 1 recites:
11. A forecasting method, which is computer implemented, for forecasting a number of residual landings corresponding to achievement of a removal threshold of an identified tire that is installed on an identified aeroplane, the forecasting method comprising the following steps:
a step of introducing parameters, influencing the identified tire, into a system that carries out the forecasting method, the system comprising a communication network that manages data input into the system, the communication network having one or more communication servers that manage data corresponding to the parameters influencing the identified tire, and having at least one communication device that captures and that transmits these data to the communication servers, the step of introducing parameters comprising the following steps:
a step of identifying parameters influencing the identified tire, which step is carried out by the communication servers of the system, and in which step the parameters that are identified comprise data corresponding to historic information and to general information of the identified tire, the historic information comprising historic data corresponding to historic flights of the identified aeroplane having the identified tire installed thereon, the historic data including at least data for a departure or an arrival of the identified aeroplane, data for airports visited by the identified aeroplane, data for a manufacturer of the identified aeroplane, or data for a version of a model of the identified aeroplane; and
a step of creating a wear-state training database, which is introduced into a forecasting model for forecasting the number of residual landings corresponding to achievement of the removal threshold of the identified tire;
a step of training the forecasting model to predict the number of residual landings corresponding to achievement of the removal threshold of the identified tire, during which step a machine-learning method receives as input the parameters that are identified and data of the wear-state training database so that a processor may acquire known wear states corresponding to a number of residual landings carried out by the identified tire;
a step of forecasting the number of residual landings before achievement of the removal threshold of the identified tire, during which step the number of residual landings of the identified tire is computed on a basis of data corresponding to the parameters that are identified;
a comparing step during which the number of residual landings before achievement of the removal threshold of the identified tire, which is output by the forecasting model, is compared with a value of the removal threshold of the identified tire, and as a consequence the system creates a maintenance schedule for the identified tired a determination step including determining that the identified tire has to be inspected or replaced based on the comparing step;
a removing step including removing the identified tire from the identified aeroplane, based on the comparing step or based on an inspection carried out based on a comparing step, such that the identified tire is a removed tire when the removing step is completed; and
a replacement step, including, after removing the removed tire, inserting, into the aeroplane, a replacement tire that is new and that is of the same type as the removed tire, and updating the forecasting model to have a tread considered new.
The examiner submits that the foregoing bolded limitations constitute a mental process and organizing human activity because under its broadest reasonable interpretation, the claim covers performance of the limitation in the human mind and human activity.
101 Analysis – Step 2A, Prong II
Regarding Prong II of the Step 2A analysis in the 2019 PEG, the claims are to be analyzed to determine whether the claim, as a whole, integrates the abstract into a practical application. As noted in the 2019 PEG, it must be determined whether any additional elements in the claim beyond the abstract idea integrate the exception into a practical application in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception. The courts have indicated that additional elements merely using a computer to implement an abstract idea, adding insignificant extra solution activity, or generally linking use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use do not integrate a judicial exception into a “practical application.”
For the following reasons, the examiner submits that the above additional limitations that are not bolded do not integrate the above-noted abstract idea into a practical application because the additional limitation are merely implementing the abstract idea using a computer and do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Further, looking at the additional limitations as an ordered combination or as a whole, the limitations add nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. For instance, there is no indication that the additional elements, when considered as a whole, reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer or an improvement to another technology or technical field, apply or use the above-noted judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition, implement/use the above-noted judicial exception with a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is not more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP § 2106.05). Accordingly, the additional limitations do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
101 Analysis – Step 2B
Regarding Step 2B of the Revised Guidance, representative independent claim 11 does not include additional elements (considered both individually and as an ordered combination) that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons to those discussed above with respect to determining that the claim does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Dependent claims 12-20 do not recite any further limitations that cause the claims to be patent eligible. Rather, the limitations of dependent claims are directed toward additional aspects of the judicial exception and/or well-understood, routine and conventional additional elements that do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Therefore, dependent claims 11-20 are not patent eligible under the same rationale as provided for in the rejection of independent claim 11.
Therefore, claims 11-20 are ineligible under 35 USC §101.
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 DEMETRA R SMITH-STEWART whose telephone number is (571)270-3965. The examiner can normally be reached 10am - 6pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Peter Nolan can be reached at 571-270-7016. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DEMETRA R SMITH-STEWART/Examiner, Art Unit 3661
/PETER D NOLAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3661