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 . 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.
DETAILED ACTION
The following Non-Final Office Action is in response to communication filed on 3/5/2026.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 are currently pending.
Claims 1, 9, 12 are currently amended.
Claims 1-20 are currently under examination and have been rejected as follows.
Continued Examination under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 03/05/2026 has been entered.
IDS
The information disclosure statements filed on 7/10/2025 and 12/27/2023 comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609 and is considered by the Examiner.
Objections
Claims 1, 12 are objected to for the following informalities in view of the amendments.
Claim 12 recites: “adding, by a computing system, assignable contact center agents…”, [bolded emphasis added].
Claim 12 is recommended to recite, as an example only: “adding, by the computing system, assignable contact center agents…”
Claim 12 recites: “A computing system for leveraging a heuristic-based approach to execution a computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization in contact centers”, [bolded emphasis added].
Claim 12 is recommended to recite, as an example only: “A computing system for leveraging a heuristic-based approach to execute a computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization in contact centers”.
Appropriate corrections are required.
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Response to Amendment
New objections are raised in view of the amendments.
The previously pending rejections under 35 USC 101 will be maintained. The 101 rejection is updated in view of the amendments.
New grounds for rejection 35 USC 103 are applied as necessitated by the amendments.
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Response to Arguments
Regarding Applicant’s remarks pertaining to 35 USC 101:
Step 2A Prong 1:
Applicant argues on page 9 of remarks 3/5/2026:
“Applicant respectfully… submits that, not only do the claims fail to recite an abstract idea such as "contract" or "risk" anywhere in the claims themselves, the Office Action has also mischaracterized the nature of the claims. More specifically, the claims are not directed to "optimally scheduling employee meetings within the scope of their contracts to maximize call center quality of service and minimize employees' time away from answering calls," which would be evident from a reading of the specification. In fact, the claims are directed to scheduling non-call activities of contact center agents, and the Office Action's interpretation grossly oversimplifies the complexities of contact center performance and mischaracterizes quality of service as described in the specification (e.g., average handle time, abandonment rate, etc.-not economic metrics).
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Examiner finds that Applicant’s submission that “the claims are directed to scheduling non-call activities of contact center agents” is not substantially different from Examiner’s interpretation “optimally scheduling employee meetings within the scope of their contracts to maximize call center quality of service and minimize employees' time away from answering calls”. Applicant specification states at ¶ [0001]: “Contact center performance is generally measured in terms of two conflicting objectives: quality of service and cost…. Therefore, contact centers attempt to schedule the right number of employees with the right skills at the right time to handle the interaction workload and meet the relevant quality standards.” The connection of the whole of the claims to economic principles and commercial interactions appears clear to Examiner.
Step 2A Prong 2:
Applicant argues on page 9 of remarks 3/5/2026:
“First, the Office Action concedes that the claims are directed to a technical solution but then ignores those technical improvements due to those improvements having a business benefit…. Second, the Office Action focuses solely on improvements to a "computer technology," whereas the law clearly articulates that claims reflecting improvements to "any other technology or technical field" likewise constitute practical integration of the alleged abstract idea….
“For avoidance of doubt, the complexities of this technical field are described throughout the specification of the subject application…. More directly, the application emphasizes that this is a computationally "hard" problem, which a person or ordinary skill in the art would readily appreciate is a problem for which no efficient algorithm exists (e.g., unable to be solved in polynomial time)….
“The Applicant respectfully submits that the claims are clearly directed to an improvement
that addresses those technical challenges and, therefore, the Applicant submits that the claims are clearly directed to an improvement to a technical field.”
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The amended claims introduce the additional element “mixed integer programming model” which performs the call center schedule optimization when the complexity of scheduling problem reaches a threshold. Examiner points to Velednitsky US 12154046 B1, hereinafter Velednitsky addressing claim limitations as amended (see 103 rejection section) as an example of applying mixed integer programming in efforts to improve efficiency in large scheduling optimizations, as well as Türker et al. (see 2B response below) generally referencing common application of MIP in workforce scheduling to improve efficiency, call centers included. Additional details of how the application of the MIP in Applicant claims as amended improve efficiency over existing technology remain unclear.
Step 2B:
Applicant argues on page 11 of remarks 3/5/2026:
“The Applicant respectfully submits that at least [the recited] amended features constitute one or more "additional features" that are not well-understood, routine, or conventional, and therefore those features constitute "significantly more" than the alleged abstract idea.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The amended claims introduce the additional element “mixed integer programming model” which performs the call center schedule optimization when the complexity of scheduling problem reaches a threshold. Examiner submits that MIP models are conventionally used in large workforce scheduling problems (see Turgay Türker, Ayhan Demiriz; An MIP model to schedule the call center workforce and organize the breaks. AIP Conf. Proc. 2 June 2016; 1739 (1): 020048. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4952528). Türker et al. states at on p. 2, 7th ¶: “Rostering, which is also called tour scheduling, generates the complete schedule of all employees over the planning horizon by considering regulations and work place rules, such as the required number of off-days, in addition to the workforce requirements. Good rosters have many benefits for an organization, such as lower costs, more effective utilization of resources and fairer workloads and distribution of shifts [17]. The problem is generally formulated with MIP models [10]. Thompson [18] evaluates different shift and tour scheduling MIP models in terms of labor costs, service levels and agent utilization via a thorough simulation analysis. Similar MIP models can be found in many studies (see e.g., [4], [19], [20], [21].)”
Accordingly, the previously pending rejections under 35 USC 101 will be maintained. The 101 rejection is updated in view of the amendments.
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Regarding Applicant’s remarks pertaining to 35 USC 102/103:
Applicant argues on page 14 of remarks 3/5/2026:
“The Applicant respectfully submits that the art of record does not teach or suggest at least
those amended features of independent claim 1. Accordingly, the Applicant respectfully submits that independent claim 1, as amended, is patentable over the asserted art, and withdrawal of the
rejection of independent claim 1 is respectfully requested….
“The Applicant respectfully submits that the art of record does not teach or suggest at least
those amended features of independent claim 12. Accordingly, the Applicant respectfully submits that independent claim 12, as amended, is patentable over the asserted art, and withdrawal of the rejection of independent claim 12 is respectfully requested.”
Examiner considers Applicant’s arguments but finds them moot on new grounds of rejection. Examiner points to reference Velednitsky which teaches the amended claim limitations in combination with original references Chobe and McIllwaine. Citations and additional details are included in the 103 rejection section below.
Accordingly, new grounds for rejection 35 USC 103 are applied as necessitated by the amendments.
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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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claims 1-11 are directed to a method or process which is a statutory category.
Claims 12-20 are directed to a system or machine which is a statutory category.
Step 2A Prong One: The claims recite, describe, or set forth a judicial exception of an abstract idea (see MPEP 2106.04(a)). Specifically, the claims recite, describe or set forth mitigating risk and agreements in the form of contracts including: “leveraging a heuristic-based approach to… multi-objective schedule optimization”, “adding… assignable contact center agents to pre-existing scheduled sessions”, “selecting… a session from a plurality of candidate sessions to open in response to adding the assignable contact center agents to the pre-existing scheduled sessions”, “assigning… unassigned contact center agents to the opened session as a function of a quality of service of the contact center determined… to result from assignment of each respective unassigned contact center agent to the opened session, wherein at most one session of the plurality of candidate sessions is open for assignment at a given time”. Furthermore, specifically, the claims recite, describe or set forth mathematical calculations including “execute a computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization in contact centers”, “determining… that at least one of a number of agents to assign to a plurality of candidate sessions or a number of the plurality of candidate sessions exceeds a respective threshold value for which the computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization can be executed using a mixed integer programming model”.
Optimally scheduling employee meetings within the scope of their contracts to maximize quality of service and minimize time away from answering calls falls both within mitigating risk as it pertains to fundamental economic principles and agreements in the form of contracts as they pertain to commercial or legal interactions, each under the larger abstract grouping of Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) II). Further, executing a computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization with a mixed integer programming model falls within the abstract grouping Mathematical Concepts1 (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) I). Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong Two: Independent claims 1, 12 recite the following additional elements: “computing system”, “processor”, “memory”, and “mixed integer programming model”. The functions of these additional elements include examples such as “determining… a number of agents to assign to a plurality of candidate sessions or a number of the plurality of candidate sessions exceeds a respective threshold value”, “the computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization can be executed using a mixed integer programming model”, “add assignable contact center agents to pre-existing scheduled sessions”, “select a session from a plurality of candidate sessions”, “open the selected session”, and “assigning… unassigned contact center agents to the opened session as a function of a quality of service of the contact center determined… to result from assignment of each respective unassigned contact center agent to the opened session”. The additional elements are recited at a high level of generality (i.e. as a generic computer performing functions of mathematical calculations, collecting, processing, communicating and presenting data, etc.) such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Therefore, these functions can be viewed as not meaningfully different than a business method or mathematical algorithm being applied on a general-purpose computer as tested per MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)(i). The claims are directed to an abstract idea and the judicial exception does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Step 2B: According to MPEP 2106.05(f)(1), considering whether the claim recites only the idea of a solution or outcome i.e., the claims fail to recite the technological details of how the actual technological solution to the actual technological problem is accomplished. The recitation of claim limitations that attempt to cover an entrepreneurial and thus abstract solution to an entrepreneurial problem with no technological details on how the technological result is accomplished and no description of the mechanism for accomplishing the result do not provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Furthermore, Examiner applies MPEP 2106.05(h)(vi) as merely indicating a field of use or technological environment in which to apply a judicial exception, as the claims are akin to limiting the abstract idea of collecting information (agent skills and availability), analyzing it (impact of scheduling agents on call center service quality), and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis (agent schedules).
Dependent claims 2-11, 13-20 do not appear to provide any additional computer-based elements, let alone for such additional computer-based elements to integrate the abstract idea into practical application (Step 2A prong two) or providing significantly more (Step 2B).
Further, dependent claims 2-11, 13-20 merely incorporate the additional elements recited in claims 1, 12 along with further narrowing of the abstract idea of claims 1, 12 along with their execution of the abstract idea. Specifically, the dependent claims narrow the computing system, processor, and memory to capabilities such as sort, average, assign, select, determine, re-assign, open, and schedule various forms of data such as agents, sessions, on queue percentages, quality of service, percentage of agents, minimum staffing requirements, planning groups, group size, average number of sessions, coverage, and maximum session size which, when evaluated per MPEP 2106.05(f)(2) represent mere invocation of computers to perform existing processes. Therefore, the additional elements recited in the claimed invention individually and in combination fail to integrate a judicial exception into a practical application (Step 2A prong two) and for the same reasons they also fail to provide significantly more (Step 2B). Thus, claims 1-20 are reasoned to be patent ineligible.
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REJECTIONS BASED ON PRIOR ART
Examiner Note: Some rejections will contain bracketed comments preceded by an “EN” that will denote an examiner note. This will be placed to further explain a rejection.
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Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 4-6, 10-12, 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over:
Chobe et al. US 20250124369 A1, hereinafter Chobe, in view of
McIllwaine et al. US 6628777 B1, hereinafter McIllwaine, and in further view of
Velednitsky US 12154046 B1, hereinafter Velednitsky. As per,
Regarding Claim 1: Chobe teaches:
A method of leveraging a heuristic-based approach to [..] multi-objective schedule optimization in contact centers (Chobe ¶ [0005]), the method comprising:
[..]
adding, by a computing system, assignable contact center agents to pre-existing scheduled sessions [..] (Chobe ¶ [0083]: According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, operation 260 comprising allocating the total number of agents in the time-range of scheduled work-shifts that include open slots to the determined number of sessions of the multi-session meeting based on agents skill requirement during the received time-range of scheduled workshifts);
selecting, by the computing system, a session from the plurality of candidate sessions to open in response to adding the assignable contact center agents to the pre-existing scheduled sessions; opening, by the computing system, the selected session (Chobe ¶ [0101]: …the process of the computer-implemented method 200 in FIG. 2 may iteratively allocate a total number of agents to an average of lower-bound number of sessions and upper-bound number of sessions by using the greedy algorithm and the round-robin method and then assess the allocation of the agents to the sessions… if the contact center is understaffed after the allocation, then the number of sessions may be increased by updating the lower-bound); and
assigning, by the computing system, unassigned contact center agents to the opened session [..], wherein at most one session of the plurality of candidate sessions is open for assignment at a given time (Chobe ¶ [0033]: When scheduling the meetings using the feature of
flexible Meeting Scheduler where Meetings are scheduled over a span of days for the agents, such that only one meeting is assigned to the agent under one request, it is necessary to ensure the contact center is adequately staffed to handle the customer calls. Mid-¶ [0037]: The buffer-level may be considered against the number of agents having the skill-type when scheduling the sessions of the multi-session meeting in the scheduled work-shifts of the agents, such that the scheduled sessions with agents having the skill-type may not leave the contact center with a number of agents with that skill-type below the buffer-level).
Although Chobe teaches assigning contact center agents considering leaving a number of skilled agents available to handle calls, Chobe does not specifically teach assigning contact center agents based on overall quality of service of the contact center, the schedule optimization being computationally hard as determined by a large number of agents, or executing the optimization using a mixed integer programming model.
However, McIllwaine in analogous art of call center staff planning teaches or suggests:
[assigning contact center agents] as a function of a quality of service of the contact center determined, by the computing system, to result from assignment of each respective unassigned contact center agent to the opened session (McIllwaine col. 2 line 34: …call centers employing conventional CBT techniques are often forced to make an unsatisfactory tradeoff between short-term call center performance [EN: quality of service] and longer-term agent knowledge and effectiveness. Col. 2 line 64: A scheduling component accepts agent work assignment data, analyzes the data to determine when the agent is scheduled to receive training or other information, and schedules the delivery of training material or other information to the agent. A monitoring component can monitor the agent's communications with customers to determine if the agent is available for training. Col. 3 line 8: The present invention thus advantageously integrates workforce management and work distribution components of a call center to schedule and deliver training materials or other information to the agent without disrupting the agent's customer contact duties or otherwise reducing the performance [EN: quality of service] of the call center).
McIllwaine and Chobe are found as analogous art of call center staff planning. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have modified Chobe’s contact center meeting session optimization system and method to have included McIllwaine’s teachings around assigning contact center agents based on overall quality of service of the contact center. The benefit of these additional features would have minimized the impact of training on call duties (McIllwaine ¶ [col. 2 lines 41-61]). The predictability of such modifications and/or variations, would have been corroborated by the broad level of skill of one of ordinary skills in the art as articulated by Chobe in view of McIllwaine (see MPEP 2143 G).
Further, the claimed invention could have also been viewed as a mere combination of old elements in a similar field of call center staff planning. In such combination each element would have merely performed same organizational and managerial function as it did separately. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that, given existing technical ability to combine the elements, as evidenced by Chobe in view of McIllwaine above, the to- be combined elements would have fit together like pieces of a puzzle in a logical, complementary, technologically feasible and/or economically desirable manner. Thus, it would have been reasoned that the results of the combination would have been predictable (see MPEP 2143 A).
Furthermore, Velednitsky in analogous art of call center staff planning teaches or suggests:
[..] execute a computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization in contact centers, the method comprising: determining, by a computing system, that at least one of a number of agents to assign to a plurality of candidate sessions or a number of the plurality of candidate sessions exceeds a respective threshold value for which the computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization can be executed using a mixed integer programming model; [..] in response to determining that the at least one of the number of agents to assign to the plurality of candidate sessions or the number of the plurality of candidate sessions exceeds the respective threshold value (Velednitsky col. 10 line 2: As discussed above, it may be useful to break a scheduling problem into different time windows, to facilitate more efficient and/or less complex generation of schedules, which may include a large number of agents and shifts (e.g., 100 to 1000s) [EN: threshold]…. However, in cases where a shift spans across multiple time windows, such as shifts 420d, 422d, 426b, 426c, 428b, and 428d, it may add more complexity to
solve for the various shifts as these may add complicating constraints to solve for. When solving very large mixed-integer programs, it is helpful to look for block structure: a way to partition the variables such that almost all of the constraints involve variables from only one set in the partition).
Velednitsky, McIllwaine and Chobe are found as analogous art of call center staff planning. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have modified Chobe’s contact center meeting session optimization system and method to have included Velednitsky’s teachings around the schedule optimization being computationally hard as determined by a large number of agents, or executing the optimization using a mixed integer programming model. The benefit of these additional features would have increased computational efficiency of the scheduling optimization (Velednitsky ¶ [col. 1 lines 29-40]). The predictability of such modifications and/or variations, would have been corroborated by the broad level of skill of one of ordinary skills in the art as articulated by Chobe in view of McIllwaine and Velednitsky (see MPEP 2143 G).
Further, the claimed invention could have also been viewed as a mere combination of old elements in a similar field of call center staff planning. In such combination each element would have merely performed same organizational and managerial function as it did separately. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that, given existing technical ability to combine the elements, as evidenced by Chobe in view of McIllwaine and Velednitsky above, the to- be combined elements would have fit together like pieces of a puzzle in a logical, complementary, technologically feasible and/or economically desirable manner. Thus, it would have been reasoned that the results of the combination would have been predictable (see MPEP 2143 A).
Regarding Claim 12: Chobe teaches:
A computing system for leveraging a heuristic-based approach to [..] multi-objective schedule optimization in contact centers (Chobe ¶ [0005]), the system comprising:
at least one processor; and at least one memory comprising a plurality of instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by the at least one processor (Chobe ¶ [0017]), causes the computing system to:
[..]
add assignable contact center agents to pre-existing scheduled sessions [..] (Chobe ¶ [0083]: According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, operation 260 comprising allocating the total number of agents in the time-range of scheduled work-shifts that include open slots to the determined number of sessions of the multi-session meeting based on agents skill requirement during the received time-range of scheduled workshifts);
select the session from a plurality of candidate sessions to open in response to adding the assignable contact center agents to the pre-existing scheduled sessions; open the selected session (Chobe ¶ [0101]: …the process of the computer-implemented method 200 in FIG. 2 may iteratively allocate a total number of agents to an average of lower-bound number of sessions and upper-bound number of sessions by using the greedy algorithm and the round-robin method and then assess the allocation of the agents to the sessions… if the contact center is understaffed after the allocation, then the number of sessions may be increased by updating the lower-bound); and
assign unassigned contact center agents to the opened session [..], wherein at most one session of the plurality of candidate sessions is open for assignment at a given time (Chobe ¶ [0033]: When scheduling the meetings using the feature of flexible Meeting Scheduler where Meetings are scheduled over a span of days for the agents, such that only one meeting is assigned to the agent under one request, it is necessary to ensure the contact center is adequately staffed to handle the customer calls. Mid-¶ [0037]: The buffer-level may be considered against the number of agents having the skill-type when scheduling the sessions of the multi-session meeting in the scheduled work-shifts of the agents, such that the scheduled sessions with agents having the skill-type may not leave the contact center with a number of agents with that skill-type below the buffer-level).
Although Chobe teaches assigning contact center agents considering leaving a number of skilled agents available to handle calls, Chobe does not specifically teach assigning contact center agents based on overall quality of service of the contact center, the schedule optimization being computationally hard as determined by a large number of agents, or executing the optimization using a mixed integer programming model.
However, McIllwaine in analogous art of call center staff planning teaches or suggests:
[assigning contact center agents] as a function of a quality of service of the contact center determined, by the computing system, to result from assignment of each respective unassigned contact center agent to the opened session (McIllwaine col. 2 line 34: …call centers employing conventional CBT techniques are often forced to make an unsatisfactory tradeoff between short-term call center performance [EN: quality of service] and longer-term agent knowledge and effectiveness. Col. 2 line 64: A scheduling component accepts agent work assignment data, analyzes the data to determine when the agent is scheduled to receive training or other information, and schedules the delivery of training material or other information to the agent. A monitoring component can monitor the agent's communications with customers to determine if the agent is available for training. Col. 3 line 8: The present invention thus advantageously integrates workforce management and work distribution components of a call center to schedule and deliver training materials or other information to the agent without disrupting the agent's customer contact duties or otherwise reducing the performance [EN: quality of service] of the call center).
McIllwaine and Chobe are found as analogous art of call center staff planning. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have modified Chobe’s contact center meeting session optimization system and method to have included McIllwaine’s teachings around assigning contact center agents based on overall quality of service of the contact center. The benefit of these additional features would have minimized the impact of training on call duties (McIllwaine ¶ [col. 2 lines 41-61]). The predictability of such modifications and/or variations, would have been corroborated by the broad level of skill of one of ordinary skills in the art as articulated by Chobe in view of McIllwaine (see MPEP 2143 G).
Further, the claimed invention could have also been viewed as a mere combination of old elements in a similar field of call center staff planning. In such combination each element would have merely performed same organizational and managerial function as it did separately. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that, given existing technical ability to combine the elements, as evidenced by Chobe in view of McIllwaine above, the to- be combined elements would have fit together like pieces of a puzzle in a logical, complementary, technologically feasible and/or economically desirable manner. Thus, it would have been reasoned that the results of the combination would have been predictable (see MPEP 2143 A).
Furthermore, Velednitsky in analogous art of call center staff planning teaches or suggests:
[..] execute a computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization in contact centers, the system comprising: determining that at least one of a number of agents to assign to a plurality of candidate sessions or a number of the plurality of candidate sessions exceeds a respective threshold value for which the computationally hard multi-objective schedule optimization can be executed using a mixed integer programming model; [..] in response to determining that the at least one of the number of agents to assign to the plurality of candidate sessions or the number of the plurality of candidate sessions exceeds the respective threshold value (Velednitsky col. 10 line 2: As discussed above, it may be useful to break a scheduling problem into different time windows, to facilitate more efficient and/or less complex generation of schedules, which may include a large number of agents and shifts (e.g., 100 to 1000s) [EN: threshold]…. However, in cases where a shift spans across multiple time windows, such as shifts 420d, 422d, 426b, 426c, 428b, and 428d, it may add more complexity to solve for the various shifts as these may add complicating constraints to solve for. When solving very large mixed-integer programs, it is helpful to look for block structure: a way to partition the variables such that almost all of the constraints involve variables from only one set in the partition).
Velednitsky, McIllwaine and Chobe are found as analogous art of call center staff planning. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have modified Chobe’s contact center meeting session optimization system and method to have included Velednitsky’s teachings around the schedule optimization being computationally hard as determined by a large number of agents, or executing the optimization using a mixed integer programming model. The benefit of these additional features would have increased computational efficiency of the scheduling optimization (Velednitsky ¶ [col. 1 lines 29-40]). The predictability of such modifications and/or variations, would have been corroborated by the broad level of skill of one of ordinary skills in the art as articulated by Chobe in view of McIllwaine and Velednitsky (see MPEP 2143 G).
Further, the claimed invention could have also been viewed as a mere combination of old elements in a similar field of call center staff planning. In such combination each element would have merely performed same organizational and managerial function as it did separately. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that, given existing technical ability to combine the elements, as evidenced by Chobe in view of McIllwaine and Velednitsky above, the to- be combined elements would have fit together like pieces of a puzzle in a logical, complementary, technologically feasible and/or economically desirable manner. Thus, it would have been reasoned that the results of the combination would have been predictable (see MPEP 2143 A).
Regarding Claims 4, 15: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky teaches all the limitations of claims 1, 12 above.
Chobe further teaches:
wherein selecting (claim 4) / to select (claim 15) the session from the plurality of candidate sessions to open comprises determining a respective percentage of contact center agents that can attend each session of the plurality of candidate sessions (Chobe ¶ [0037]: …at the time of scheduling a multi-session meeting, the supervisor may use a UI 115a of a webapp 110a, such as Meeting Scheduler, to select skill type of the agents which are required for the multi-session meeting and to add a percentage buffer, i.e., buffer-level against them. The buffer-level may be considered against the number of agents having the skill-type when scheduling the sessions of the multi-session meeting in the scheduled work-shifts of the agents, such that the scheduled sessions with agents having the skill-type may not leave the contact center with a number of agents with that skill-type below the buffer-level).
Regarding Claims 5, 16: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky teaches all the limitations of claims 1, 12 above.
Chobe further teaches:
wherein selecting (claim 5) / to select (claim 16) the session from the plurality of candidate sessions to open comprises determining overstaffing with respect to minimum staffing requirements for each of a plurality of planning groups of the contact center that the unassigned contact center agents can handle (Chobe ¶ [0040]: an open slot may be a time interval e.g., 15 minutes within an agent schedule work-shift in which the agent is available to take customer requests such as calls or chats and the like. For a given time interval, the requirement of a given skill-type may be specified e.g., five agents are needed [EN: min staff requirement] who can handle voice calls in English. Based on the scheduled work-shifts that have been previously generated, six agents may be assigned during that time interval. Hence, the net staffing for that time interval, i.e., open slot may be overstaffed by one agent).
Regarding Claims 6, 17: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky teaches all the limitations of claims 1, 12 above.
Chobe further teaches:
further comprising re-assigning, by the computing system (claim 4) / wherein the plurality of instructions further causes the computing system to re-assign (claim 15), at least one contact center agent assigned to another session in response to determining that a number of contact center agents assigned to the opened session is not at least a minimum group size for the opened session (Chobe mid-¶ [0033]: An optimal number of sessions of a multi-session meeting should be created, i.e., neither too many sessions with a few agents [EN: not at least a minimum] in each session as may waste the time of the host of the sessions and nor too few sessions with a high number of agents in each session which may cause understaffing of the contact center for the time interval of the scheduled session. ¶ [0058]: …the total number of agents may be allocated iteratively [EN: reassigned] by using a greedy algorithm and round-robin method for selecting each agent for each session in the number of sessions of the multi-session meeting).
Regarding Claim 10: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky teaches all the limitations of claims 1, 12 above.
Chobe further teaches:
wherein assigning the unassigned contact center agents to the opened session comprises assigning the unassigned contact center agents to the opened session until an allowable negative impact to coverage of the contact center is met (Chobe mid-¶ [0033]: An optimal number of sessions of a multi-session meeting should be created, i.e., neither too many sessions with a few agents in each session as may waste the time of the host of the sessions and nor too few sessions with a high number of agents in each session which may cause understaffing [EN: negative impact to coverage] of the contact center for the time interval of the scheduled session. ¶ [0058]: …the total number of agents may be allocated [EN: assigned] iteratively by using a greedy algorithm and round-robin method for selecting each agent for each session in the number of sessions of the multi-session meeting).
Regarding Claim 11: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky teaches all the limitations of claims 1, 12 above.
Chobe further teaches: wherein assigning the unassigned contact center agents to the opened session comprises assigning the unassigned contact center agents to the opened session until a maximum session size is met (Chobe ¶ [0055]: …allocating for each open slot in the scheduled work-shifts in the time-range of scheduled work-shifts the received maximum number of agents in each session of the multi-session meeting of skill-based agents).
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Claims 2-3, 7-9, 13-14, 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over:
Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky as applied above in further view of
Brussat et al. US 20100086120 A1, hereinafter Brussat. As per,
Regarding Claims 2, 13: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky teaches all the limitations of claims 1, 12 above.
Although Chobe teaches objective function scheduling optimization, Chobe does not specifically teach the scheduling method to include sorting call center agents.
However, Brussat in analogous art of call center staff planning teaches:
wherein adding (claim 2) / to add (claim 13) the assignable contact center agents to pre-existing scheduled sessions comprises sorting the assignable contact center agents in descending order by at least one of a respective average number of sessions since a last time the respective assignable contact center agent was scheduled, an on queue percentage of the respective assignable contact center agent, and the resulting quality of service of the contact center if the respective assignable contact center agent is assigned (Brussat ¶ [0031]: According to an aspect of the invention, call center agents may be ranked [EN: sorted] in accordance with one or more performance metrics. Mid-¶ [0034]: As another example, performance metrics may relate to the time that it takes for an agent or group of agents to process received calls. As yet another example, performance metrics may relate to a customer's satisfaction with a given agent or a given group of agents. Examples of performance metrics that may be utilized include, but are not limited to, average handle time for calls, average hold time for calls, average wrap-up or after work time following calls, agent call quality scores, transfer rate, average transfer rate, average transfer time, first call resolution rate, average first call resolution rate, average non-interaction time, complaint rate, call quality, customer satisfaction, call type, call reason, agent personality, customer personality, other metrics and/or values attributable to a customer, other metrics and/or values attributable to an agent, etc.).
Brussat, Velednitsky, McIllwaine and Chobe are found as analogous art of call center staff planning. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to have modified Chobe’s contact center meeting session optimization system and method to have included Brussat’s teachings around ranking call center agents. The benefit of these additional features would have incorporated metrics to rank and more effectively organize individuals (Brussat ¶ [0002-0005]). The predictability of such modifications and/or variations, would have been corroborated by the broad level of skill of one of ordinary skills in the art as articulated by Chobe in view of McIllwaine, Velednitsky and Brussat (see MPEP 2143 G).
Further, the claimed invention could have also been viewed as a mere combination of old elements in a similar field of call center staff planning. In such combination each element would have merely performed same organizational and managerial function as it did separately. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that, given existing technical ability to combine the elements, as evidenced by Chobe in view of McIllwaine, Velednitsky and Brussat above, the to- be combined elements would have fit together like pieces of a puzzle in a logical, complementary, technologically feasible and/or economically desirable manner. Thus, it would have been reasoned that the results of the combination would have been predictable (see MPEP 2143 A).
Regarding Claims 3, 14: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky Brussat teaches all the limitations of claims 2, 13 above.
Although Chobe teaches objective function scheduling optimization including assigning individuals to scheduled sessions, Chobe does not specifically teach the scheduling method to include sorting call center agents.
However, Brussat in analogous art of call center staff planning teaches:
wherein adding (claim 3) / to add (claim 14) the assignable contact center agents to the pre-existing scheduled sessions further comprises assigning the assignable contact center agents according to the sorted descending order (Brussat ¶ [0063]: Once a proficiency score is determined for each agent or for each group of agents at block 410, operations may continue at block 415, and the agents may be ranked in accordance with their proficiency scores. In this regard, incoming calls may be routed or assigned to agents that are capable of processing the calls in a timely and/or satisfactory manner. Routing calls in this manner may lead to improved customer satisfaction).
Rationales to have modified / combined Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky / Brussat are above and reincorporated.
Regarding Claims 7, 18: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky teaches all the limitations of claims 1, 12 above.
Although Chobe teaches objective function scheduling optimization including assigning individuals to scheduled sessions, Chobe does not specifically teach the scheduling method to include sorting call center agents.
However, Brussat in analogous art of call center staff planning teaches:
wherein assigning (claim 7) / to assign (claim 18) the unassigned contact center agents to the opened session comprises sorting the unassigned contact center agents in descending order by a respective average number of sessions since a last time the respective unassigned contact center agent was scheduled (See Brussat discussion of ranking agents based on length of time since last being called upon at ¶ [0040]: As another example of utilization rules or parameters, agent idle time and/or availability time within a queue of available agents may be taken into consideration. In this regard, a call may be routed to an agent that has been available for a relatively longer period of time than another agent that may have a higher base proficiency score).
Rationales to have modified / combined Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky / Brussat are above and reincorporated.
Regarding Claims 8, 19: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky teaches all the limitations of claims 1, 12 above.
Although Chobe teaches objective function scheduling optimization including assigning individuals to scheduled sessions, Chobe does not specifically teach the scheduling method to include sorting call center agents.
However, Brussat in analogous art of call center staff planning teaches:
wherein assigning (claim 8) / to assign (claim 19) the unassigned contact center agents to the opened session comprises sorting the unassigned contact center agents in descending order by an on queue percentage of the respective unassigned contact center agent (See Brussat discussion of various call center agent metrics, used to rank agents, interchangeable with or usable in combination to calculate ‘on queue percentage’ at mid-¶[0034]: Examples of performance metrics that may be utilized include, but are not limited to, average handle time for calls, average hold time for calls, average wrap-up or after work time following calls… transfer rate, average transfer rate, average transfer time, first call resolution rate, average first call resolution rate, average non-interaction time…. ¶ [0031]: According to an aspect of the invention, call center agents may be ranked in accordance with one or more performance metrics).
Rationales to have modified / combined Chobe / McIllwaine / Brussat are above and reincorporated.
Regarding Claims 9, 20: Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky teaches all the limitations of claims 1, 12 above.
Although Chobe teaches objective function scheduling optimization including assigning individuals to scheduled sessions, Chobe does not specifically teach the scheduling method to include sorting call center agents.
However, Brussat in analogous art of call center staff planning teaches:
wherein assigning (claim 9) / to assign (claim 20) the unassigned contact center agents to the opened session comprises sorting the unassigned contact center agents in descending order by the resulting quality of service of the contact center if the respective unassigned contact center agent is assigned (See Brussat discussion of various call center agent metrics, used to rank agents by quality of service provided at mid-¶ [0034]: Examples of performance metrics that may be utilized include, but are not limited to, average handle time for calls, average hold time for calls… agent call quality scores, transfer rate, average transfer rate, average transfer time, first call resolution rate, average first call resolution rate… complaint rate, call quality, customer satisfaction… agent personality… other metrics and/or values attributable to an agent, etc. ¶ [0031]: According to an aspect of the invention, call center agents may be ranked in accordance with one or more performance metrics).
Rationales to have modified / combined Chobe / McIllwaine / Velednitsky / Brussat are above and reincorporated.
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Conclusion
The following art is made of record and considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure:
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/REED M. BOND/Examiner, Art Unit 3624
June 25, 2026
/HAMZEH OBAID/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624
1 MPEP 2106.04(a): “examiners should identify at least one abstract idea grouping, but preferably identify all groupings to the extent possible”.
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