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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) the limitations of “making a determination regarding whether sufficient data curation resources are available to perform a data curation process…”, “identifying a data curation resource…”, “selecting a curation target of the curation targets…” and “assigning the curation target to the data curation resource…” which is a process that can be perform in the mind. The limitations encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper, therefore, it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim recite the following additional elements of “a data manager” in performing the method of curating data. The recitation of a “data manager” which is described as any data processing system including hardware and/or software [specification, paragraph 36] in performing the processes are recited so generically that they represent not more than mere instructions to apply the exception using or on a generic computing system and performing generic computer function, MPEP 2106.05(f). Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, the claim is therefore directed to the judicial exception. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
The claim do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the recitation a “data manager” so generically that they represent not more than mere instructions to apply the exception using or on a generic computing system and performing generic computer function. Accordingly, the claim is not patent eligible under 35 USC 101.
As to claim 2, obtaining of data, impact score and a rank for at least one curation target amounts to data gathering which is insignificant extra solution activity and identifying the curation targets is directed to a mental process.
As to claims 3-9, the limitations recited in the claims further defines what the impact score is based on or metric/measure that contribute to the impact score thus are considered to merely apply the abstract idea which is neither a practical application under prong 2, or amount to significantly more under step 2B.
As to claim 10, the claim further recites “curating the curation target…” which is directed to a mental process.
As to claims 11-15, these claims are rejected for the same rationale as claims 1-5 above. Additionally, the claims recite the additional element of “non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by one or more processor” to perform operations which are merely generic computer components, thus is neither a practical application under prong 2, or amount to significantly more under step 2B.
As to claims 16-20, these claims are rejected for the same rationale as claims 1-5 above. Additionally, the claims recite the additional element of “processor” and “memory” which are merely generic computer components, thus is neither a practical application under prong 2, or amount to significantly more under step 2B.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4-12, 14-17 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by “Biocuration with insufficient resources and fixed timelines” to Rodriguez-Esteban.
As to claim 1, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the invention as claimed including method for curating data by a data manager, comprising:
making a determination regarding whether sufficient data curation resources are available to perform a data curation process for curation targets within a target period of time;
in an instance of the determination where there are insufficient data curation resources available [curation projects with fixed timelines and sufficient resources characterized and curation projects with fixed timelines and insufficient resources, p. 2, section Results]:
identifying a data curation resource of the data curation resources that has available curation bandwidth [used of all curation resources, last three lines of section Results];
selecting a curation target of the curation targets for the data curation resource based on a rank ordering of the curation targets, the rank ordering being based on an impact score for each of the curation targets [data items to be curated have different value and filtering to include valuable or high ranked items to set of item to be curated, value being a measure of importance, p. 2, section Value, return on curation and productivity; pp. 3-4, section Value scales]; and
assigning the curation target to the data curation resource in order to complete the data curation process for a portion of the curation targets within the target period of time [curation of highest value items within fixed timelines/deadlines Tmax, such that low-value items that does not meet the minimum estimated value will not be curated using available resources, p. 2, section Value, return on curation and productivity; p. 6, section Saving resources].
As to claim 2, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the invention as claimed including further comprising:
obtaining at least a portion of the data from a data source [“biological database are ‘open’ curation projects…not all relevant data may be curated”, pp. 1-2, section Introduction];
identifying the curation targets of the data;
obtaining the impact score for at least one curation target of the curation targets based on scoring criteria; and obtaining a rank for the at least one curation target based on the impact score, the rank being usable to order the at least one curation target [curation of highest value items of the data from the database within fixed timelines/deadlines Tmax, such that low-value items that does not meet the minimum estimated value will not be curated using available resources, p. 2, section Value, return on curation and productivity; p. 6, section Saving resources].
As to claim 4, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the invention as claimed including wherein each impact score is based at least in part, on a number of occurrences of the curation target in downstream use of the data [ranking curated items (i.e. value) based on presence/occurrence of keyword matches, pp. 6-7, Use case].
As to claim 5, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the invention as claimed including wherein each impact score is further based at least in part, on an attribution score for the curation target, the attribution score indicating a relative level of contribution to a future outcome in which the curation target is usable in the downstream use of the data [ranking/rating/value measurement of items as FP to TP being a factor in determining precision, a positive predictive value, p. 3, section Overhead and efficiency].
As to claim 6, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the invention as claimed including wherein each impact score is further based at least in part, on a level of confidence in predicting the future outcome through the downstream use of the data [items of particular ranking/rating/value measurement contributing to or being a factor in the accuracy or precision (i.e. a positive predictive value) of various filtering strategies, pp. 2-3, section Results; p. 3, section Overhead and efficiency].
As to claim 7, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the invention as claimed including wherein each impact score is further based at least in part, on a measure of importance of the curation target to a downstream consumer [items of particular ranking/rating/value measurement contributing to or being a factor in the accuracy or precision (i.e. a positive predictive value) of various filtering strategies, pp. 2-3, section Results; p. 3, section Overhead and efficiency].
As to claim 8, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the invention as claimed including wherein each impact score is further based at least in part, on a measure of dependence that the downstream consumer has on the predicting of the future outcome [value being a measurement depending on curation goal, p. 3, section Value scales lines 1-7].
As to claim 9, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the invention as claimed including wherein the portion of the curation targets excludes at least one of the curation targets [“not all relevant data may be curated”, p. 2, section Introduction, lines 3-6; low-value items are avoided for curation using an absolute threshold of a minimum estimated value, p. 6, section Saving resources].
As to claim 10, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the invention as claimed including further comprising: curating the curation target using the data curation resource to obtain at least partially curated data, the at least partially curated data complying with a schema for downstream use of the curation target [pp. 6-7, sections Use case and Discussion].
As to claims 11-12 and 14-15, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the method for curating data by a data manager recited in claims 1-2 and 4-5, therefore Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the method.
As to claims 16-17 and 19-20, Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the method for curating data as recited in claims 1-2 and 4-5, therefore Rodriguez-Esteban teaches the data processing system for performing the method.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 13 and 18 would be allowable by overcoming the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection above.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Rodriguez-Esteban teaches curation projects with fixed timelines and sufficient resources characterized and curation projects with fixed timelines and insufficient resources [p. 2, section Results]; used of all curation resources, hence identified, in performing the curation items of the project(s) [last three lines of section Results]; data items to be curated have different value and filtering to include valuable or high ranked items to set of item to be curated, value being a measure of importance [p. 2, section Value, return on curation and productivity; pp. 3-4, section Value scales]; and curation of highest value items within fixed timelines/deadlines Tmax, such that low-value items that does not meet the minimum estimated value will not be curated using available resources [p. 2, section Value, return on curation and productivity; p. 6, section Saving resources]. US PG Pub. 20220309411 disclosed prioritizing and used of curated data in training inference models [paragraphs 50 and 96].
The prior arts of record when taken individually or in combination do not expressly teach or render obvious invention as a whole as recited in claims 3, 13 and 18.
Neither a reference uncovered that would have provided a basis of evidence for asserting a motivation, nor one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, knowing the teaching of the prior arts of record would have combined them to arrive at the present invention as recited in claims 3, 13 and 18 as a whole.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QING YUAN WU whose telephone number is (571)272-3776. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM-6PM EST.
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/QING YUAN WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2199