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 .
Response to Arguments
2. The Amendment filed on January 20, 2026, has been entered. The examiner acknowledges the amendments to claims 1, 4, 6, 9, and 11, the cancellation of claims 3 and 8.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101: Applicant argues a practical application on the basis of an improvement to computer technology and/or improving the functionality of a computer. The Examiner notes the additional description of the calculations underlying the software applied to navigating the distributed energy resources (DER) bidding and scheduling environment. The fundamental issues surrounding eligible subject matter have not changed. Claims disclose how additional elements are employed in a conventional manner, providing inputs via the communication interfaces to the processors and memory to perform the stated optimization calculations. These “orchestrate” operations of the DERs by an aggregator to communicate and “control” the DERs. Examiner notes that “control” is not a physical control but rather the result of the aggregator (which could be a human) bidding and negotiating contracts in the DER services market. The role of the invention appears to be enabling the aggregator through optimizing the DER resources and providing this output to the aggregator to develop the final schedule for obtaining the energy. This enablement presents itself as the application of abstract ideas on a computer and per MPEP 2106.05(f), does not amount to more than a recitation of the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) on a computer. The Examiner finds the Applicant’s arguments not compelling and the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101 will not be withdrawn. The request for reconsideration and issuance of the application is denied.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9, 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims, 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9, 11 are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, abstract idea) without providing significantly more.
Step 1
Step 1 of the subject matter eligibility analysis per MPEP § 2106.03, required the claims to be a process, machine, manufacture or a composition of matter. Claims 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9, 11 are directed to a process (method), machine (system), and product/article of manufacture, which are statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A
Claims 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9, 11 are directed to abstract ideas, as explained below.
Prong one of the Step 2A analysis requires identifying the specific limitation(s) in the claim under examination that the examiner believes recites an abstract idea, and determining whether the identified limitation(s) falls within at least one of the groupings of abstract ideas of mathematical concepts, mental processes, and certain methods of organizing human activity.
Step 2A-Prong 1
The claims recite the following limitations that are directed to abstract ideas, which can be summarized as being directed to a method, the abstract idea, optimizing a combination of various Distributed Energy Resources in a market for profit and meeting energy needs.
Claim 1 discloses a method, comprising: receiving a plurality of inputs, associated with a plurality of intraday market historical data, a plurality of data, a plurality of DER data including a DER asset forecast, and a DER technical information, wherein the plurality of DERs are heterogenous DERs, (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion)
orchestrating a plurality of operations of the plurality of DERs by a DER aggregator, wherein the DER aggregator is a centralized set-up for participating in an
intraday market and the DER aggregator comprises knowledge of characteristics of participating DERs and customer's preferences, demands, asset constraints, and generation availability, wherein the DER aggregator forecasts renewable generation and overall demand of the DER' s subscribers using historical logs and pertinent information of the subscribers; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, contracts, legal obligations, marketing, or sales activities), and wherein the DER aggregator is used to coordinate the plurality of DERs wherein the DER aggregator splits customer’s overall demand into flexible and fixed components by leveraging information about the customer’s appliance set and operational preferences collected periodically, (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, contracts, legal obligations, marketing, or sales activities),
creating a basic operation schedule of the plurality of DERs for a pre-defined
intraday time, using the plurality of inputs based on a scheduling technique subject to a plurality of constraints, wherein the first operation schedule comprises a set of basic price parameters, a set of basic volume parameters, a basic operation schedule of the plurality of DERs and the plurality of constraints are determined based on the plurality of inputs, wherein the plurality of constraints comprises a market and pool trading constraint, a network and battery constraint, a demand constraint,
a trade volume revision constraint, and a buy-sell constraint, (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, contracts, legal obligations, marketing, or sales activities), wherein the basic operation schedule is
expressed as:
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wherein the basic operation schedule for the DER aggregator in the intraday
markets is a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problem, wherein the MINLP problem is solved by converting complex non-linearities in the MINLP problem into a coupled mixed integer linear programming (MILP) simple maximization set-up, which is then solved in an iterative fashion, wherein the MINLP problem is converted to a MILP iterative relaxation problem by performing a piece-wise linear approximation for each of individual terms in a non-linear objective function, wherein integer variables are introduced due to either-or constraints in operation of batteries present in a DER pool, wherein the either-or constraints include either battery charge or discharge during a time slot enforced by a binary variable Zh,s, wherein charging or discharging rates of the batteries is determined by battery characteristics as a function of a state of change (SOC) and the binary variable Zh,s, ensures a battery is either charging or discharging in each delivery slot h, wherein the either-or constraints is relaxed by relaxing the binary variable Zh,s, and the binary variable is introduced in a problem reformulation upon maximum battery charging and discharging rates are independent of a SOC level, wherein the MILP iterative relaxation problem solves an entire problem size in less time to optimize the bids, thereby the MILP iterative relaxation problem is scalable than the MINLP problem, and wherein the problem size refers to a varying number of DERs,
wherein the intraday market is modelled using a joint price-volume dynamics
distribution and an optimal bidding strategy for trades or bids placed earlier are corrected based on revised forecasts of the demand and the generation while allowing for energy exchanges within the DER pool, wherein the bids placed are optimized using a bid optimization technique based on forecasts of a two-dimensional histogram, customer demands and a solar generation for time slots in an optimization window, wherein the two-dimensional histogram for the time slots in the optimization window is obtained using a persistence model, wherein the customer demands and the solar generation are forecasted
wherein a number of integer variables in the reformulation within the basic operation is limited by converting bi-variate terms into uni-variate terms,
wherein an amount of power injected by the plurality of DERs into a network is
limited by a hosting capacity and other operational limits of the network communicated by a network operator to the DER aggregator at least T slots in advance, wherein connectivity, voltage levels, line parameters, and background loads are defined in network specifications and increasing the power injection or withdrawal by the DER aggregator in all nodes until network operational constraints including thermal limits of the line parameters and the voltage levels at network buses are violated during network operations and values at which the violations take place are taken as the network limits at respective nodes; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations, contracts, legal obligations, marketing, or sales activities), and
scheduling the plurality of DERs at the pre-defined intraday time by optimizing the basic operation schedule, wherein the scheduling comprises determining a final set of price parameters, a final set of volume parameters, and a final operation schedule of the plurality of DERs, (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations), comprises:
initializing the set of basic price parameters in the basic operation schedule based on the plurality of intraday market historical data to obtain a first operation schedule; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations)
determining a first set of volume parameters using the first operation
schedule; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations),
obtaining a second operation schedule using the first set of volume
parameters in the first operation schedule; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations),
determining a first set of price parameters using the second operation
schedule based on the first set of volume parameters; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations),
determining a second set of volume parameters using the first operation
schedule based on the first set of price parameters; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations),
determining a second set of price parameters using the second operation
schedule based on the second set of volume parameters; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations),
determining a third set of volume parameters using the first operation
schedule based on the second set of price parameters; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations),
determining a third set of price parameters using the second operation
schedule based on the third set of volume parameters; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations),
computing a set of error parameters using the second set of price parameters, (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations),
the second set of volume parameters, the third set of price parameters and the third set of volume parameters; (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations),
comparing the set of error parameters to a set of error threshold parameters,
and performing one of:
a) setting the third set of price parameter as the final set of price
parameters and setting the third set of volume parameter as the final set of
volume parameters, if the set of error parameters is within the set of error
threshold parameters, and
b) iteratively solving the first operation schedule and the second
operation schedule until the set of error parameters is within the set of error
threshold parameters, if the set of error parameters is not within the set of
error threshold parameters; and
determining the final operation schedule of the plurality of DERs based on
the final set of price parameters, a final set of volume parameters using the basic operation schedule, (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations).
Additional limitations employ the method to set buy and sell price and set buy and sell volume (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, sales activities - claim 2), where constraints are based on the sets of forecasts and data, and the buy-sell constraint is determined based on the intraday market historical data where generation equals discharge and local generation, and is either exported to the intraday market or utilized to meet demand and balance power exchange equals power imported to the DER pool, (economic principles and practices calculating costs, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion, mathematical relationships, concepts, equations, and calculations, contracts, legal obligations, marketing, or sales activities – claim 4).
Each of these claimed limitations employ: organizing human activity in the form of fundamental economic principles and practices based on mitigating risk and calculating costs, following rules or instructions, conducting commercial or legal interactions including contracts, sales activities or behaviors; performing mental processes including, observation, evaluation, judgement, and opinion; and applying mathematical concepts using mathematical formulas, equations, or calculations.
Claims 6-7, 9 and 11 recite similar abstract ideas as those identified with respect to claims 1-2, 4, thus, the concepts set forth in claims 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9, and 11 recite abstract ideas.
Step 2A-Prong 2
As per MPEP § 2106.04, while the claims 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9, and 11 recite additional limitations which are hardware or software elements such as one or more hardware processors, a network, a plurality of distributed energy resources (DER), a solar, wind farms, electric vehicles, energy storage systems; a power system, DER aggregator provided technology to communicate and control the plurality of DERs, batteries present in a DER pool, and a stacked Long short-term memory (LSTM) network,
these limitations are not sufficient to qualify as a practical application being recited in the claims along with the abstract ideas since these elements are invoked as tools to apply the instructions of the abstract ideas in a specific technological environment. The mere application of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological field do not integrate an abstract idea into a practical application (MPEP § 2106.05 (f) & (h)).
Evaluated individually, the additional elements do not integrate the identified abstract ideas into a practical application. Evaluating the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually.
The claims do not amount to a “practical application” of the abstract idea because they neither (1) recite any improvements to another technology or technical field; (2) recite any improvements to the functioning of the computer itself; (3) apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; (4) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; (5) provide other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
Accordingly, claims 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9, and 11 are directed to abstract ideas.
Step 2B
Claims 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9, 11 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 analysis above describes how the claims recite the additional elements beyond those identified above as being directed to an abstract idea, as well as why identified judicial exception(s) are not integrated into a practical application. These findings are hereby incorporated into the analysis of the additional elements when considered both individually and in combination.
For the reasons provided in the analysis in Step 2A, Prong 1, evaluated individually, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than a judicial exception. Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than a judicial exception.
Evaluating the claim limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. In addition to the factors discussed regarding Step 2A, prong two, there is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely amount to instructions to implement the identified abstract ideas on a computer.
Therefore, since there are no limitations in the claims 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9, 11 that transform the exception into a patent eligible application such that the claims amount to significantly more than the exception itself, the claims are directed to non-statutory subject matter and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure or directed to the state of the art is listed on the enclosed PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL BOROWSKI whose telephone number is (703)756-1822. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jerry O’Connor can be reached on (571) 272-6787. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/MB/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3624
/MEHMET YESILDAG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624