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 .
IDS
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on January 16, 2024 is being considered by the Examiner.
Drawing
The drawing file on January 16, 2024 is accepted by the Examiner.
Specification
The specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim rejection – 35 U.S.C. §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.
In reference to claims 1-24: the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., abstract idea) without significantly more.
The requirement for subject matter eligibility test for products and processes requires first, the claimed invention must be to one of the four statutory categories. 35
U.S.C. §101 defines the four categories of invention that Congress deemed to be the appropriate subject matter of a patent: processes, machines, manufactures and compositions of matter. The latter three categories define "things" or "products" while the first category defines "actions" (i.e., inventions that consist of a series of steps or acts to be performed).
Second, the claimed invention also must qualify as patent-eligible subject matter, i.e., the claim must not be directed to a judicial exception unless the claim as a whole includes additional limitations amounting to significantly more than the exception. The judicial exceptions (also called "judicially recognized exceptions" or simply "exceptions") are subject matter that the courts have found to be outside of, or exceptions to, the four statutory categories of invention, and are limited to abstract ideas, laws of nature and natural phenomena (including products of nature).
In the first step, it is to be determined whether the patent claim under examination is directed to an abstract idea. If so, in the second step of analysis, it is to
be determined whether the patent adds to the idea "something more" or "significantly more" that embodies an "inventive concept."
In the instant case, claim 1 is representative and it is reproduced here with the limitations that are part of the abstract idea in bold:
An information display method comprising:
obtaining first information for displaying an evaluated property value as a comparison indicator for comparing compounds;
obtaining an evaluated property value of each of the compounds based on the first information, and generating a map indicating, at a position corresponding to a composition of each of the compounds, the evaluated property value of the compound;
generating a first image including the map, and outputting the first image to a displayer; and when the first information is changed, changing the map according to the first information changed, generating a second image including the map changed, and outputting the second image to the displayer.
Step 2A:
Prong I: The claim recites the steps of "obtaining first information for displaying an evaluated property value as a comparison indicator for comparing compounds; obtaining an evaluated property value of each of the compounds based on the first information, and generating a map indicating, at a position corresponding to a composition of each of the compounds, the evaluated property value of the compound; generating a first image including the map, and outputting the first image; and when the first information is changed, changing the map according to the first information changed, generating a second image including the map changed". These limitations could be carried out as a purely mental process (at least in a some relatively simple situations) and/or they could amount to a mathematical calculation (for example, generating map requires some kind of computational analysis). Therefore, the recited method falls in the abstract idea grouping of mental processes and/or mathematical concepts at Prong 1 of the §101 analysis.
Prong II:
This abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application at Prong 2 of the §101 analysis because the claim does not recite sufficient additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claim recites the method comprising the additional element steps of " outputting the second image to the displayer ". However, such step is considered insignificant extra-solution activity and is actually outputting the result of the mental process (see MPEP § 2106.05(g)).
The courts have found that adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception, e.g., mere data gathering in conjunction with a law of nature or abstract idea (such as a step of obtaining information about credit card transactions so that the information can be analyzed by an abstract mental process, as discussed in CyberSource v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1375, 99 USPQ2d 1690, 1694 (Fed. Cir. 2011)) is not enough to integrate the abstract idea into a particular practical application or make the claim qualify as "significantly more" (see MPEP § 2106.05(g)).
The claim does not recite applying the abstract idea with, or by use of, any particular machine, nor does the claim affect a real-world transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing. The claim amounts to manipulating data: displaying an evaluated property value”. The claim does not recite any particular real-world actions that are taken as a result of simply displaying the evaluated result in the form of plot or changing those values and replotted the result, that is output. The claim establishes a “displaying” those values as the general field-of-use, but does not recite a particular practical application being carried out within that field-of-use. Therefore, the claimed invention does not appear to be limited to the use of the mental process or math in a particular practical application, but instead the claim appears to monopolize the mental process or math itself, in any practical application where it might conceivably be used.
Step 2B:
Finally, at Step 2B, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea for the same reasons as discussed above with regard to Prong 2. Claim 1 is rejected as ineligible under 35 USC §101.
Claims 20, 22, 23 and 24 are analogous to claim 1, except claims 22, 23, and 24 are directed to “an information display device” and “a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium” additionally recites computer or processor and a computer-readable recording medium, and reciting the computer or processor, and the computer-readable recording medium are additional elements separate from the abstract idea that need to be considered at Prong 2 of the §101 analysis. However, these additional elements are merely generic computer processing components that are invoked as a tool to perform the abstract idea, which does not cause the claim as a whole to integrate the abstract idea into a particular practical application or provide significantly more than the recited abstract idea. Claims 20, 22, 23 and 24 are therefore rejected as ineligible under 35 U.S.C. §101.
Dependent claims 2: the instant claim is directed to attributing color to evaluated property values and would be considered a human activity or an extension of a human thought process.
Dependent claims 3, and 6-12: the instant claims are directed to the description of information on variables and would be considered human activity and/or an extension of a human thought process.
Dependent claims 4-5: the instant claims are directed to a computational analysis of evaluating properties of compounds and is considered a computational analysis and/ or human thought process.
Dependent claims 13-19: the instant claims are directed to generating a map associated with compounds and experimental values, and is considered human activity and/or human thought process.
Dependent claim 21: the instant claim is directed to outputting an image or map of an analysis of the corresponding compound which is considered insignificant extra-solution activity and amounts to outputting the result of the mental process (see MPEP 2106.05(g)).
Art of Interest
In reference to clams 1-24: Beckmann et al. (U.S. Patent No. 12,548,212, hereon Beckmann) discloses an information display method where the method converts time series data of at least one operational data source of a technical system into an image, includes providing a time series data of at least one operational data source of the technical system as a series of values of successive time stamps, wherein the values of the series of values vary over time. The method further includes the steps of assigning for each of the considered time stamps of the respective time series data either a value-depending color, a value-depending brightness, a value-depending pattern or a combination thereof to an image element of the image, and sequencing the image elements along a timeline, preferably without spaces between the image elements, to form for each time series data a set of linearly arranged image elements of the image (see Beckmann, abstract).
The instant application differs from Beckmann or any of the references considered in the prosecution of the instant application in that “generating a map indicating, at a position corresponding to a composition of each of the compounds, the evaluated property value of the compound; generating a first image including the map, and outputting the first image to a displayer; and when the first information is changed, changing the map according to the first information changed, generating a second image including the map changed, and outputting the second image to the displayer,” in combination with the rest of the claim limitations as claimed and defined by the Applicants.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Wright et al. (U.S. Patent No. 8,966,398) discloses a system and method for configuring the representation of a plurality of presentation elements in the visual representation on a user interface.
Agrafiotis et al. (U.S. Patent No. 7,188,055) discloses a method for visualizing and interactively analyzing data related to chemical compounds. A user selects a plurality of compounds to map and also selects for evaluating similarity and dissimilarity between the selected compounds.
Tan et al. (U.S. Patent No. 6,861,669) discloses a compound display for presenting images to a viewer where the display includes a first and second displays positioned such that the first display is viewable through the second display is not generating an image.
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/ELIAS DESTA/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857
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