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
Status of the Claims
This action is in response to applicant’s filing on December 15, 2025. Claims 2, 10 and 20 are canceled. Claims 1, 3-9, 11-19 and 21-23 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see page 9, filed December 15, 2025, with respect to Claim Objections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The Claim Objections of claims 4-6, 15 and 17-19 have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see page 11, filed December 15, 2025, with respect to 35 U.S.C. 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 1, 3, 8-9, 11-12, 14 and 16-17 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see page 11, filed December 15, 2025, with respect to 35 U.S.C. 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 1, 3-7, 11and 14-19 has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed December 15, 2025, with respect to 35 U.S.C. 101, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant essentially argues that the claims as amended recite patentable subject matter and/or that the amended claims recite a judicial exception integrated into a practical application. The examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicants amendments seek to overcome the rejection by stating that “controlling movement”, “send” and “travel” impose a meaningful limit on the judicial exception. The examiner still believes that the claim limitations above are insignificant post-solution activity as the specification does not describe such claim limitations in a meaningful way to convince one that this is not more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. Therefore the claims remain unduly broad and not able to overcome the statutory threshold.
In addition, Applicant contends that the amendments integrate the claim into a practical application. The examiner still believes that this is merely adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception as the specification does not describe such claim limitations in a meaningful way. For these reasons, the rejection is maintained below.
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, 3-9, 11-19 and 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea) without significantly more.
In sum, claims 1, 3-9, 11-19 and 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception to patentability (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) and do not include an inventive concept that is something “significantly more” than the judicial exception under the January 2019 patentable subject matter eligibility guidance (2019 PEG) analysis which follows.
Under the 2019 PEG step 1 analysis, it must first be determined whether the claims are directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention (i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter). Applying step 1 of the analysis for patentable subject matter to the claims, it is determined that the claims are directed to the statutory category of a process and a machine. Therefore, we proceed to step 2A, Prong 1.
Revised Guidance Step 2A - Prong 1
Under the 2019 PEG step 2A, Prong 1 analysis, it must be determined whether the claims recite an abstract idea that falls within one or more designated categories of patent ineligible subject matter (i.e., organizing human activity, mathematical concepts, and mental processes) that amount to a judicial exception to patentability.
Here, the claims recite the abstract idea of “obtaining, based on the segment, a path from the current location to a task destination” as recited in independent claim 1; “obtain a path that is from a current location of a first vehicle to a task destination, wherein the path comprises a segment of a road; determine, based on a first capacity of the segment, planning time information for the first vehicle to travel on the segment, wherein the planning time information comprises second information indicating a first moment at which the first vehicle enters the segment and third information indicating a second moment at which the first vehicle leaves the segment; identify that, between the first moment and the second moment, a total quantity of vehicles on the segment is greater than a second capacity of the segment and a priority of the first vehicle is higher than that of a second vehicle” as recited in independent claim 8; and “obtain, based on the segment, a path from the current location to a task destination; determine that checking of the second information or the planning time information has succeeded before traveling on the path based on the path information” as recited in independent claim 14.
The steps fall within one or more of the three enumerated 2019 PEG categories of patent ineligible subject matter, specifically, a mental process, that can be performed in the human mind since each of the above steps could alternatively be performed in the human mind or with the aid of pen and paper. This conclusion follows from CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., where our reviewing court held that section 101 did not embrace a process defined simply as using a computer to perform a series of mental steps that people, aware of each step, can and regularly do perform in their heads. 654 F.3d 1366, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2011); see also In re Grams, 888 F.2d 835, 840-41 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Meyer, 688 F.2d 789, 794-95 (CCPA 1982); Elec. Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F. 3d 1350, 1354-1354 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“we have treated analyzing information by steps people go through in their minds, or by mathematical algorithms, without more, as essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea category”).
Additionally, mental processes remain unpatentable even when automated to reduce the burden on the user of what once could have been done with pen and paper. See CyberSource, 654 F.3d at 1375 (“That purely mental processes can be unpatentable, even when performed by a computer, was precisely the holding of the Supreme Court in Gottschalk v. Benson.’’).
Revised Guidance Step 2A - Prong 2
Under the 2019 PEG step 2A, Prong 2 analysis, the identified abstract idea to which the claim is directed does not include limitations that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, since the recited features of the abstract idea are being applied on a computer or computing device or via software programming that is simply being used as a tool (“apply it”) to implement the abstract idea. (See, e.g., MPEP §2106.05(f)).
In addition, limitations reciting data gathering such as “sending first information of a current location of a vehicle; and receiving, from the server in response to the first information, path information comprising second information about a segment of a road and planning time information for the vehicle to travel on the segment; receiving indication information instructing either the vehicle to leave the segment before a third moment or the vehicle to enter the segment after a fourth moment” as recited in claim 1; “send, to the first vehicle, path information comprising first information about the segment and the planning time information; and send, to the second vehicle and in response to identifying that, between the first moment and the second moment, the total quantity of vehicles on the segment is greater than the second capacity and the priority is higher than that of the second vehicle” as recited in claim 8; and “send, to a server, first information of a current location of the apparatus; and apparatus: receive, from the server and in response to the first information, path information comprising second information about a segment of a road and planning time information of the apparatus traveling on the segment” as recited in claim 14 are also insignificant pre-solution activity that merely gather data and, therefore, do not integrate the exception into a practical application for that additional reason. See In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 963 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc), aff’d on other grounds, 561 U.S. 593 (2010) (characterizing data gathering steps as insignificant extra-solution activity); see also CyberSource, 654 F.3d at 1371-72 (noting that even if some physical steps are required to obtain information from a database (e.g., entering a query via a keyboard, clicking a mouse), such data-gathering steps cannot alone confer patentability); OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (presenting offers and gathering statistics amounted to mere data gathering). Accord Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55 (citing MPEP § 2106.05(g)).
Furthermore, the limitation “controlling movement of the vehicle on the path in response to obtaining the path” as recited in claim 1; “travel on the path in response to obtaining the path” as recited in claim 14 merely uses generic computing components (“apparatus”) but also constitutes insignificant post-solution activity. The Supreme Court guides that the “prohibition against patenting abstract ideas ‘cannot be circumvented by attempting to limit the use of the formula to a particular technological environment’ or [by] adding ‘insignificant postsolution activity.’” Bilski, 561 U.S. at 610-11 (quoting Diehr, 450 U.S. at 191-92).
Revised Guidance Step 2B
Under the 2019 PEG step 2B analysis, the additional elements are evaluated to determine whether they amount to something “significantly more” than the recited abstract idea, (i.e., an innovative concept). Here, the additional elements, such as: “apparatus”, “one or more memories”, and “at least one processor” do not amount to an innovative concept since, as stated above in the step 2A, Prong 2 analysis, the claims are simply using the additional elements as a tool to carry out the abstract idea (i.e., “apply it”) on a computer or computing device and/or via software programming. (See, e.g., MPEP §2106.05(f)). The additional elements are specified at a high level of generality to simply implement the abstract idea and are not themselves being technologically improved. (See, e.g., MPEP §2106.05 I.A.); (see also, ¶¶ 95-98, 199-202 of the specification). See Alice, 573 U.S. at 223 (“[T]he mere recitation of a generic computer cannot transform a patent-ineligible abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.”). Thus, these elements, taken individually or together, do not amount to “significantly more” than the abstract ideas themselves.
The additional elements of the dependent claims merely refine and further limit the abstract idea of the independent claims and do not add any feature that is an “inventive concept” which cures the deficiencies of their respective parent claim under the 2019 PEG analysis. None of the dependent claims considered individually, including their respective limitations, include an “inventive concept” of some additional element or combination of elements sufficient to ensure that the claims in practice amount to something “significantly more” than patent-ineligible subject matter to which the claims are directed.
The elements of the instant process steps when taken in combination do not offer substantially more than the sum of the functions of the elements when each is taken alone. The claims as a whole, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself because the claims do not effect an improvement to another technology or technical field (e.g., the field of computer coding technology is not being improved); the claims do not amount to an improvement to the functioning of an electronic device itself which implements the abstract idea (e.g., the general purpose computer and/or the computer system which implements the process are not made more efficient or technologically improved); the claims do not perform a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (i.e., the claims do not use the abstract idea in the claimed process to bring about a physical change. See, e.g., Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1081), where a physical change, and thus patentability, was imparted by the claimed process; contrast, Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584 (1078), where a physical change, and thus patentability, was not imparted by the claimed process); and the claims do not move beyond a general link of the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment
As for dependent claims 3-7, 9, 11-13, 15-19 and 21-23, these claims include all the limitations of the independent claim from which they depend and therefore recite the same abstract idea. The claims also fail to add additional limitations that would amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the invention of the claims as a whole, considering all claim elements both individually and in combination, are not patent eligible.
Conclusion
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.
Inquire
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRIAN P SWEENEY whose telephone number is (313)446-4906. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday from 7:30AM to 5:00PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James J. Lee, can be reached at telephone number 571-270-5965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BRIAN P SWEENEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3668
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