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
Applicant’s response to Office action was received on September 22, 2025.
In response to Applicant’s amendment of the claims, all of the prior art claim rejections, from the previous Office action, are hereby withdrawn.
In response to Applicant’s amendment of the claims, all of the indefiniteness rejections, from the previous Office action, are hereby withdrawn.
In response to Applicant’s amendment of the claims, the 101 rejection of claim 11, from the previous Office action, due to the computer program instructions, is hereby withdrawn.
Note: Applicant’s response was technically non-compliant. Specifically, the dependency of claim 5 has been amended in a confusing way; it appears to be an accident. In order to expedite prosecution, Examiner is waiving this non-compliancy. Please note that Examiner is interpreting this amendment as causing claim 5 to depend from claim 4 instead of claim 1, as that appears to be the intended amendment from the context of prosecution of this application.
In response to Applicant’s amendment of the claims, the corresponding 101 Alice-type claim rejections, from the previous Office action, have been correspondingly amended, below in this Office action.
Regarding the 101 Alice-type rejections, Applicant first argues that the present claims implicate user activity, since the data pertains to particular users, who may be prospective employees or may be prospective employers. Likewise, Applicant continues, the present claims provide processing that derives the data it analyzes from people, because data is derived from, for example, structured texts. However, Applicant continues that these are not enough to cause the claims to recite organized human activity at all, much less a “certain method of organizing human activity.”
Examiner disagrees. “Certain method(s) of organizing human activity” is described in terms of three subgroupings, two of which Examiner linked Applicant’s claims to: (1) commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations): a job offer could relate to legal interactions; and (2) managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions): matches job seekers to potential employers, both of which may involve people. (This discussion is taken from the 101 rejections below. As can be seen above, for each of the two subgroupings, Examiner provided a brief explanation of the link between the claims and the corresponding subgrouping.)
Looking to representative claim 1, the claim can be summarized as a device that takes input data regarding a user, and potential job offer data, and then folllows an organized algorithm to match such user to one of the job offers. Applicant’s argument here seems to be that the claim language is merely associated in certain ways with human activity, but does not actually recite certain method(s) of organizing human activity.
In response, again, the MPEP describes the category of certain method(s) of organizing human activity by using the exemplary subgroupings. Examiner is using this as the standard as to whether a certain method(s) of organizing human activity is recited, as opposed a consideration of degrees of association between human activity and particular claim language (although presumably those type of relationships would follow as well from Examiner’s analysis). Looking to the first group, we have “commercial or legal interactions” which is described as “including agreements in the form of contracts”. The second-to-last paragraph of claim 1 recites “apply at least one predefined rule based on the matching score and/or said effort score, so as to obtain at least one proposition of job offer chosen from the list of job offers”. Thus, claim 1 recites determining a particular job offer for a user. The description of “commercial or legal interactions” above includes contracts as an example. An offer is typically one part of contract formation, so it follows that the determination of a job offer would similarly fall under “commercial or legal interactions” and thus also “certain method(s) of organizing human activity”. This is from following such guidance from the MPEP.
The second subgrouping used by Examiner was “managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people”. Again, the claims process input data to determine an appropriate job offer for a user. This is performed via language recited in the claims, not merely implied. Determining an appropriate job offer for a user is managing interactions between people, specifically, the user and the employer. Even if one argues that the employer is not explicitly recited as a human being in claim 1 (for example), it is understood that, in today’s world, most employers are human beings or organizations including human beings. Furthermore, if a claim encompasses both statutory and non-statutory subject matter, then a 101 rejection is appropriate, and claim 1 (for example) encompasses the user and the employer being humans. Therefore, Examiner does not find this Applicant argument to be persuasive.
Regarding Applicant’s argument with respect to Step 2A, Prong 2, Examiner does not find Applicant’s arguments to be persuasive because the claims currently amount to mere abstract idea performed on generic computing system components, without more, which are not eligible under USPTO 101 guidance. Examiner is not aware of any improvements to the additional elements beyond the abstract idea, whether alone or in combination, which meaningfully contribute to invoking any of the 101 considerations for eligibility. Applicant mentions the machine-learning, but looking at the machine-learning in claim 1 (for example), it does not appear from Applicant’s application that Applicant is claiming to have invented any of the machine-learning algorithms used in claim 1 (for example). Applicant mentions using multiple machine-learning models, but this would just be an aggregation and not automatically an improvement to machine-learning as a technology. Therefore, Examiner does not find this Applicant argument to be persuasive.
Novel/Non-Obvious Subject Matter
Examiner has determined that all of Applicant’s claims have overcome having prior art rejections. The reason for this is that Examiner does not believe that, at the time of Applicant’s priority date, it would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine prior art disclosures to result in the particular combinations of elements/limitations in the claims, including the particular configurations of the elements/limitations with respect to each other in the particular combinations, without the use of impermissible hindsight.
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(s) 1-2 and 4-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
As per Claim(s) 1 and 10-11, Claim(s) 1 and 10-11 recite(s):
- providing to a user information on at least one job offer based on the analysis of the user's information associated to its career, qualifications and education;
- at least one structured text comprising the user's information associated to his career, qualifications and education;
- a list of job offers comprising, for each job offer, at least one qualification and at least one skill required for the associated job offer;
- a list of available qualifications associated to the job offers of the list of job offers;
- estimate at least one skill of the user using a previously trained first learning algorithm configured to receive as input the at least one structured text and provide as output at least one skill;
- for each available qualification from the list of available qualifications that is not already acquired by the user, evaluate an effort score representing an effort for the user to obtain said available qualification and, using the estimated at least one skill of the user, evaluate at least one missing skill of the user necessary to obtain said available qualification;
- compute a matching score between the user and each of the job offer in the list of job offers using a binary classification learning model;
- apply at least one predefined rule based on the matching score and/or said effort score, so as to obtain at least one proposition of job offer chosen from the list of job offers;
- wherein the at least one predefined rule is a second learning model configured to receive as input at least the matching score and/or the effort score and provide as output a probability of suitability between the user and each job offer of the list of job offers.
Each of the above limitations falls within the abstract-idea category of “Certain methods of organizing human activity.” Specifically, those limitations relate to the following subject matter that is grouped into the category of “Certain methods of organizing human activity”:
- commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations): a job offer could relate to legal interactions;
- managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions): matches job seekers to potential employers, both of which may involve people.
To the extent that any of these limitations are recited alongside recitations of generic computer components, as described below in this rejection: If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers subject matter recognized as certain methods of organizing human activity but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Certain method of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim(s) recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claim(s) recite the following additional elements/limitations, each of which are addressed in the list below with the reason(s) why they do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application:
- a device; at least one input configured to receive (data); at least one processor configured; machine learning; computer-implemented; a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer program instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the method: These element(s)/limitation(s) amount to mere instructions to apply an exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f). In making this determination, examiners may consider whether the claim invokes computers or other machinery merely as a tool to perform an existing process. Mere instructions to apply an exception is a consideration with respect to both integration of an abstract idea into a practical application and significantly more. MPEP 2106.05(f)(2) states: “Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation) does not provide significantly more. See Affinity Labs v. DirecTV, 838 F.3d 1253, 1262, 120 USPQ2d 1201, 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (cellular telephone); TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto, LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 613, 118 USPQ2d 1744, 1748 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (computer server and telephone unit).” This is the case with these particular claim element(s)/limitation(s). Those elements/limitations do not meaningfully limit the claim because implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, similar to how the recitation of the computer in the claim in Alice amounted to mere instructions to apply the abstract idea of intermediated settlement on a generic computer. Therefore, these particular claim element(s)/limitation(s) do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application for at least this reason.
Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology.
Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim(s) are directed to an abstract idea.
The claim(s) do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, either individually or as an ordered combination. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of computer-related components amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept.
The claim(s) are not patent eligible.
As per dependent claim(s) 2 and 4-9, these claim(s) incorporate the above abstract idea via their dependencies on the respective independent claim(s). The additional element(s)/limitation(s) of the respective independent claim(s) do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, nor do they add significantly more, with respect to those dependent claim(s), under the same reasoning as above with respect to the respective independent claim(s).
Those dependent claim(s) add the following generic computer components, which do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, nor add significantly more, under the same reasoning as given above with respect to generic computer components in the independent claim(s). Those additional generic computer components and their corresponding dependent claim(s) are as follows:
- XGBoost (Claims 8-9).
The remaining added elements/limitations of those dependent claim(s) do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application nor add significantly more because they all merely add further functional step(s) and/or detail to the abstract idea; as part of the abstract idea, they cannot integrate into a practical application or be significantly more than the abstract idea of which they are a part. For example, the remaining portion of claim 6 merely adds detail to the algorithm.
Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, nor add significantly more. Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology.
Claim(s) 1-2 and 4-11 are therefore not drawn to eligible subject matter as they are directed to an abstract idea that is not integrated into a practical application and is without significantly more.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Millmore, US 20150046356 A1 (identification of skills gaps based on previous successful hires).
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 NATHAN ERB whose telephone number is (571)272-7606. The examiner can normally be reached M - F, 11:30 AM - 8 PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, JEFFREY ZIMMERMAN can be reached at (571) 272-4602. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
nhe
/NATHAN ERB/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3628