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 .
Specification
The following guidelines illustrate the preferred layout for the specification of a utility application. These guidelines are suggested for the applicant’s use.
Arrangement of the Specification
As provided in 37 CFR 1.77(b), the specification of a utility application should include the following sections in order. Each of the lettered items should appear in upper case, without underlining or bold type, as a section heading. If no text follows the section heading, the phrase “Not Applicable” should follow the section heading:
(a) TITLE OF THE INVENTION.
(b) CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS.
(c) STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT.
(d) THE NAMES OF THE PARTIES TO A JOINT RESEARCH AGREEMENT.
(e) INCORPORATION-BY-REFERENCE OF MATERIAL SUBMITTED ON A READ-ONLY OPTICAL DISC, AS A TEXT FILE OR AN XML FILE VIA THE PATENT ELECTRONIC SYSTEM.
(f) STATEMENT REGARDING PRIOR DISCLOSURES BY THE INVENTOR OR A JOINT INVENTOR.
(g) BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION.
(1) Field of the Invention.
(2) Description of Related Art including information disclosed under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98.
(h) BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION.
(i) BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING(S).
(j) DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION.
(k) CLAIM OR CLAIMS (commencing on a separate sheet).
(l) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE (commencing on a separate sheet).
(m) SEQUENCE LISTING. (See MPEP § 2422.03 and 37 CFR 1.821 - 1.825). A “Sequence Listing” is required on paper if the application discloses a nucleotide or amino acid sequence as defined in 37 CFR 1.821(a) and if the required “Sequence Listing” is not submitted as an electronic document either on read-only optical disc or as a text file via the patent electronic system.
The BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION is missing from the specification.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(4) because reference characters "106" and "200" have both been used to designate a well bore (paragraph 0032).
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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.
Pursuant to the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (MPEP 2106), the following analysis is made:
Under step 1 of the Guidance, the claims fall within a statutory category.
Under step 2A, prong 1, claims 1, 9, and 16 recite an abstract idea of “analyze a cement layer of the wellbore, the cement layer positioned to couple the casing string to the wellbore” (mental process), “decreasing a number of dimensions associated with the plurality of acoustic data to generate a dimension-reduced dataset comprising a predetermined dimensionality” (mental process), “subsequent to generating the dimension-reduced dataset, analyzing the dimension-reduced dataset to determine a likelihood of an anomaly being present in the cement layer of the wellbore” (mental process), “outputting a cement map based on the dimension-reduced dataset, the cement map indicating a presence of the anomaly in the cement layer of the wellbore for use in adjusting a wellbore operation” (mental process).
The mere nominal recitation of a generic processor (process/memory) does not take the claim limitation out of the abstract idea (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) (III)).
Under step 2A, prong 2, Under step 2A, prong 2, the claim limitations are not integrated into a practical application (MPEP 2106.04(d)(I)).
“[R]eceiving a plurality of acoustic data from the downhole tool, the plurality of
acoustic data” and “outputting, via a user interface, a cement map …” are directed to insignificant extra-solution activities (see MPEP 2106.05(g)).
Under step 2B, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
“[R]eceiving a plurality of acoustic data from the downhole tool, the plurality of
acoustic data” and “outputting, via a user interface, a cement map …” are also directed to well-understood, routine and conventional activities known in the industry (see MPEP 2106.05(d)).
Accordingly, the additional elements do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea.
The remaining dependent claims do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea.
Claims 6, 14, and 19 are directed to conventional insignificant extra solution activities.
Claims 2-8, 10-15, and 17-20 are directed to an abstract idea.
Accordingly, claims 1, 9, and 16 are not patent eligible under 35 USC 101.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 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, 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.
Claims 1, 9, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhu et al. (US 2021/0270127) in view of Topping et al. (US 201/0033742).
Regarding claims 1, 9, and 16, Zhu et al. discloses a system and method (Abstract) comprising:
a downhole tool (101) deployable downhole in a wellbore (350) using a tool string (115, Fig. 2) positionable within a casing string (370) of the wellbore (paragraph 0035, lines 1-4);
a processing device (305); and
a memory device that includes instructions executable by the processing device for causing the processing device to perform operations (paragraph 0105, lines 11-14) comprising:
receiving a plurality of acoustic data from the downhole tool (receiving sonic
data by receivers from transmitters of sonic tool, paragraph 0032, lines 4-12), the plurality of acoustic data used to analyze a cement layer of the wellbore (paragraph 0032, lines 15-20; Abstract, lines 13-17), the cement layer positioned to couple the casing string to the wellbore (cement layers, 390a, 390b, are between casings, 380a, 380b, of wellbore, Fig. 3);
decreasing a number of dimensions associated with the plurality of acoustic data to generate a dimension-reduced dataset comprising a predetermined dimensionality (high-dimensional representation of the sonic waveform data is input to an unsupervised machine learning system to determine a low-dimensional representation of the sonic waveform data, paragraph 0032, lines 12-15);
subsequent to generating the dimension-reduced dataset, analyzing the
dimension-reduced dataset to determine a likelihood of an anomaly being present in the cement layer of the wellbore (paragraph 0032, lines 15-20; Abstract, lines 13-17); and
a presence of the anomaly in the cement layer of the wellbore is for use in adjusting a wellbore operation (evaluation of well integrity to prevent uncontrolled flow of subterranean formation fluids, paragraph 0003).
Zhu does not disclose outputting, via a user interface, a cement map based on the dimension-reduced dataset, the cement map indicating a presence of the anomaly in the cement layer of the wellbore.
Topping et al. discloses outputting, via a user interface, a cement map based on the dimension-reduced dataset, the cement map indicating a presence of the anomaly in the cement layer of the wellbore (the bond map can be presented as an image with different regions shown reflecting the quality of the bonding … these maps of FIGS. 1A-1C can provide indications where cement is and where cement is lacking through the multiple strings, paragraph 0011, lines 8-14).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to provide Zhu with a cement map as disclosed by Topping et al. for the purpose of indicating the where cement is and where cement is lacking through the multiple strings.
Prior Art Note
Claims 2-8, 10-15, and 17-20 do not have prior art rejections.
The combination as claimed wherein a system and method comprising generate a proximity dataset comprising a plurality of azimuth pairs, a respective distance between each azimuth in an individual azimuth pair of the plurality of azimuth pairs corresponding to the likelihood of the anomaly being present in the cement layer of the wellbore (claim 2, 10, 17) or outputting, via the user interface, a visual indicator on the cement map, wherein the visual indicator indicates a size of the anomaly (claims 6, 14, 19) or selecting, based on a variance threshold, a subset of the number of dimensions to determine the predetermined dimensionality of the dimension-reduced dataset, wherein a collective variance of the subset meets the variance threshold (claims 8, 15, 20) is not disclosed, suggested, or made obvious by the prior art of record.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael Nghiem whose telephone number is (571) 272-2277. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Schechter can be reached at (571) 272-2302. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/MICHAEL P NGHIEM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857 May 29, 2026
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