DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013 is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of the Application
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 03/23/2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
Claims 1, 8, and 15 are currently amended.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending following this response.
New matter
No new matter has been added to the amended claims.
Response to Arguments - 35 USC § 101
The arguments have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Claims can recite an abstract idea even if they are claimed as being performed on a computer. The Supreme Court recognized this in Benson, determining that a mathematical algorithm for converting binary coded decimal to pure binary within a computer’s shift register was an abstract idea. The Court concluded that the algorithm could be performed purely mentally even though the claimed procedures "can be carried out in existing computers long in use, no new machinery being necessary." 409 U.S at 67, 175 USPQ at 675. See also Mortgage Grader, 811 F.3d at 1324, 117 USPQ2d at 1699 (concluding that concept of "anonymous loan shopping" recited in a computer system claim is an abstract idea because it could be "performed by humans without a computer’).
Collecting data, recognizing certain data within the collected data set, and storing that recognized data in a memory in Content Extraction is according to the court an abstract idea that is similar to other concepts that have been identified as abstract by the courts. Present claim 1 is collecting and analyzing data using a generic computer processor. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude based on the similarity of the idea described in this claim to several abstract ideas found by the courts that claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea.
Further, the additional elements in the claims (“A system comprising: a processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that are executable by the processor to cause the processor to perform operations comprising:”, “from an optical character recognition model”, “the optical character recognition model configured to”, “executing an artificial intelligence model on the set of tokens to”, “the artificial intelligence model being configured to”, “to invoke an adapter layer to”, “executing, based on the set of tokens, a machine-learning model to cause the machine-learning model to”, “executing, using a step-wise prompting technique, the artificial intelligence model to”, “wherein the step-wise prompting technique comprises inputting a plurality of prompts into the artificial intelligence model in series to”, “and access to an interactive computing environment”, and “in the interactive computing environment”) do not improve any existing technology.
Applicant’s arguments in page 13 regarding the technical improvement recited in paragraph 0022 are not persuasive because paragraph 0022 recites “the artificial intelligence model can determine a risk indicator using less data about the receiving entity than other techniques”. The argued technical improvement “using less data, (i) memory usage, (ii) processing time, (iii) network bandwidth usage, (iv) response time, and the like for controlling access to the interactive computing environment is reduced, and functioning of a computing device is improved” are not technical improvement per se but they are a result of the AIM using less data. This is similar to reducing network bandwidth usage by receiving less phone calls in a call center wherein the reduction in bandwidth is not a result of technical improvement but as a result of a process change.
As a result, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, Step 2A Prong Two.
The Examiner does not agree with Applicant’s arguments "providing a responsive message that controls the interaction dispute and access to an interactive computing environment based on the first likelihood and the second likelihood, the responsive message including the final response to the interaction dispute that is configured to be provided in the interactive computing environment." As a technical solution. In order for the additional limitations in the claims to integrate the abstract idea into practical application, the additional elements should provide technical improvements over the prior art systems. Providing a response message with BRI is just displaying analysis results which is still abstract. The stepwise prompting technique or (providing a responsive message) to refine responses is not technically described in the claim as instantly amended. A skilled in the art would interpret the executing step in claim 1 as multiple input and multiple output to the AI model.
In conclusion, the Examiner maintains the rejections of the pending claims under 35 USC § 101 in the present office action.
Response to Arguments - 35 USC § 103
The arguments have been fully considered and found to be persuasive.
None of the cited documents by the Examiner, taken individually or in combination, discloses or suggests the features in the independent claims as amended, nor could a person skilled in the art easily conceive of such features even in the light of common technical knowledge at the time of filing. The pending claims 1-20 are therefore distinguished from the prior arts cited by the Examiner.
In conclusion, the Examiner withdraws the rejections of the pending claims under 35 USC § 103 in the present office action.
Claim Objections
Claim 20 is objected to because of the following informality: Claim 20 is not included in the set of claims filed on 03/23/2026.
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 non-statutory subject matter. Specifically, claims 1-20 are directed to an abstract idea without additional elements to integrate the claims into a practical application or to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claims 1-20 are directed to a process, machine, or manufacture (Step 1), however the claims are directed to the abstract idea of predicting a likelihood of successful dispute.
With respect to Step 2A Prong One of the frameworks, claim 1 recites an abstract idea. Claim 1 includes limitations for “receiving a set of tokens, the set of tokens representing at least evidence data relating to an interaction dispute, remove personally identifiable information from the evidence data to generate the set of tokens, and the set of tokens excluding the personally identifiable information; generate a first output, receive the set of tokens as input and generate the first output by identifying, from the set of tokens, a subset of the set of tokens related to the interaction dispute, wherein the first output comprises a first likelihood that represents a similarity between the subset of the set of tokens and the interaction dispute; generate a second output comprising (i) a second likelihood that traversing the interaction dispute will result in success, and (ii) a response to the interaction dispute; generate a third output comprising an adjustment to the response to generate a final response to the interaction dispute, apply the adjustment to the response; and providing a responsive message that controls the interaction dispute based on the first likelihood and the second likelihood, the responsive message including the final response to the interaction dispute that is configured to be provided”
The limitations above recite an abstract idea under Step 2A Prong One. More particularly, the limitations above recite certain methods of organizing human activity associated with managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people because the claimed elements describe a process for predicting a likelihood of successful dispute. As a result, claim 1 recites an abstract idea under Step 2A Prong One.
Claims 8 and 15 recite substantially similar limitations to those presented with respect to claim 1. As a result, claims 8 and 15 recite an abstract idea under Step 2A Prong One for the same reasons as stated above with respect to claim 1. Similarly, claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 recite certain methods of organizing human activity associated with managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people because the claimed elements describe a process for predicting a likelihood of successful dispute. As a result, claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 recite an abstract idea under Step 2A Prong One.
With respect to Step 2A Prong Two of the framework, claim 1 does not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Claim 1 includes additional elements that do not recite an abstract idea. The additional elements of claim 1 include “A system comprising: a processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that are executable by the processor to cause the processor to perform operations comprising:”, “from an optical character recognition model”, “the optical character recognition model configured to”, “executing an artificial intelligence model on the set of tokens to”, “the artificial intelligence model being configured to”, “to invoke an adapter layer to”, “executing, based on the set of tokens, a machine-learning model to cause the machine-learning model to”, “executing, using a step-wise prompting technique, the artificial intelligence model to”, “wherein the step-wise prompting technique comprises inputting a plurality of prompts into the artificial intelligence model in series to”, “and access to an interactive computing environment”, and “in the interactive computing environment”. When considered in view of the claim as a whole, the step of “receiving” does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because “receiving” is an insignificant extra solution activity to the judicial exception. When considered in view of the claim as a whole, the recited computer elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the computer elements are generic computer elements that are merely used as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea. As a result, claim 1 does not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application under Step 2A Prong Two.
As noted above, claims 8 and 15 recite substantially similar limitations to those recited with respect to claim 1. Although claim 8 further recites “A method comprising: receiving, by a computing system” and claim 15 further recites “A non-transitory computer-readable medium”, when considered in view of the claim as a whole, the recited computer elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the computer elements are generic computer elements that are merely used as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea. As a result, claims 8 and 15 do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application under Step 2A Prong Two.
Claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 do not include any additional elements beyond those recited by independent claims 1, 8, and 15. As a result, claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application under Step 2A Prong Two.
With respect to Step 2B of the framework, claim 1 does not include additional elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea. As noted above, claim 1 includes additional elements that do not recite an abstract idea. The additional elements of claim 1 include “A system comprising: a processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that are executable by the processor to cause the processor to perform operations comprising:”, “from an optical character recognition model”, “the optical character recognition model configured to”, “executing an artificial intelligence model on the set of tokens to”, “the artificial intelligence model being configured to”, “to invoke an adapter layer to”, “executing, based on the set of tokens, a machine-learning model to cause the machine-learning model to”, “executing, using a step-wise prompting technique, the artificial intelligence model to”, “wherein the step-wise prompting technique comprises inputting a plurality of prompts into the artificial intelligence model in series to”, “and access to an interactive computing environment”, and “in the interactive computing environment”. The step of “receiving” does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea because “receiving” is well-understood, routine, and conventional computer function in view of MPEP 2106.05(d)(ll). The recited computer elements do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea because the computer elements are generic computer elements that are merely used as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea. As a result, claim 1 does not include additional elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea under Step 2B.
As noted above, claims 8 and 15 recite substantially similar limitations to those recited with respect to claim 1. Although claim 8 further recites “A method comprising: receiving, by a computing system” and claim 15 further recites “A non-transitory computer-readable medium”, the recited computer elements do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea because the computer elements are generic computer elements that are merely used as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea. Further, looking at the additional elements as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when considering the additional elements individually. As a result, claims 8 and 15 do not include additional elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea under Step 2B.
Claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 do not include any additional elements beyond those recited by independent claims 1, 8, and 15. As a result, claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 do not include additional elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea under Step 2B.
Therefore, the claims are directed to an abstract idea without additional elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea. Accordingly, claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication from the examiner should be directed to Abdallah El-Hagehassan whose contact information is (571) 272-0819 and Abdallah.el-hagehassan@uspto.gov The examiner can normally be reached on Monday- Friday 8 am to 5 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rutao Wu can be reached on (571) 272-6045. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-3734.
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/ABDALLAH A EL-HAGE HASSAN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623
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