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 .
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 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis 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.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-5, 7-10, and 12-18 remain pending, and are rejected.
Claims 6, 11, and 19 have been cancelled.
Claim 20 has been added, and is withdrawn by election by original presentation (see below).
Election/Restrictions
Newly submitted claim 20 directed to an invention that is independent or distinct from the invention originally claimed for the following reasons:
Invention I (claim 105, 7-10, and 12-18) and Invention II (claim 20) are directed to related inventions. The related inventions are distinct if: (1) the inventions as claimed are either not capable of use together or can have a materially different design, mode of operation, function, or effect; (2) the inventions do not overlap in scope, i.e., are mutually exclusive; and (3) the inventions as claimed are not obvious variants. See MPEP § 806.05(j). In the instant case, the inventions as claimed have a materially different design, mode of operation, and function. Invention I is directed to registering a supplier and seller hierarchy in databases, register sales products of the top seller, generate an online shop, register a content creator and their content as a seller in the seller hierarchy, and determining a top seller for the content creator to be subordinate to based on preset criteria and usage history information. Invention II is directed to storing supplier and seller information, maintaining a hierarchical constraint for sub-sellers, tracking creation of promotional content associated with products and purchasing activity, generating profiles for users based on the tracked interactions, evaluating users with product knowledge and engagement likely to enhance sales, generating an invitation message to activate seller status and engage with the online shop. Inventions I and II are directed to related processes, but are materially different as invention II recites numerous elements not claimed in invention I, such as the hierarchical constraint, tracking user interactions, generating profiles, and evaluating users with product knowledge and engagement likely to enhance sales.
Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all the inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because one or more of the following reasons apply:
(1) the inventions have acquired a separate status in the art in view of their different classification
(2) the inventions have acquired a separate status in the art due to their recognized divergent subject matter
(3) the inventions require a different field of search (e.g., searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search strategies or search queries).
Since applicant has received an action on the merits for the originally presented invention, this invention has been constructively elected by original presentation for prosecution on the merits. Accordingly, claim 20 withdrawn from consideration as being directed to a non-elected invention. See 37 CFR 1.142(b) and MPEP § 821.03.
To preserve a right to petition, the reply to this action must distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement. Otherwise, the election shall be treated as a final election without traverse. Traversal must be timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are subsequently added, applicant must indicate which of the subsequently added claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 8/20/2025 with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered, but are not persuasive for at least the following rationale:
Applicant’s arguments filed on 8/20/2025 with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 for claims directed to a judicial exception are not persuasive.
Notably, on pages 10-11 of the Applicant’s Remarks, arguments are made that the claims are directed to a specific, server-side technical solution for scaling and managing seller onboarding in a structured, hierarchical e-commerce environment, highlighting that the claims use a server-executed analysis of structured usage information, a data-driven determination of seller eligibility using stored decision criteria, automated system actions including seller registration, online shop generation, and transmission of consulting/invitation information, and platform-level management of hierarchical relationships controlled via updates to structured databases. It is argued that the claims solve the technical problem of how to automatically and scalably configure seller participation within a hierarchical system based on user behavior, without relying on manual input. On pages 11-13, the Applicant argues that the claims recite specific sever-executed processes that dynamically reconfigure system structure and user-facing content in response to usage-driven conditions for real-time adaption of the platform, and alters the platform’s configuration and adapts the presentation layer according to the usage-driven conditions. It is also argued that the improves the functioning of the e-commerce platform by enabling personalized online shop content tailored to buyer or creator activity, dynamic restructuring of seller roles within the platform’s hierarchy, and salable, logic-driven platform architecture that minimizes admin input.
Comparisons are also drawn to Bascom in that a non-conventional arrangement of infrastructure is utilized. On pages 14-15, arguments are made that the claims recite significantly more than any alleged abstract idea with non-conventional and non-generic technical elements, including a processor configured to analyze structured usage history data including content creation and purchase records generated from real-time user activity, a server-side, rule-based selection process using predefined eligibility criteria, automatic configuration and generation of online shops and seller account structures, and real-time transmission of personalized consulting and invitation information to remote terminals.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The Applicant’s alleged technical improvements are not in fact technical, and are only improvements/changes to the abstract idea. Elements such as scaling and managing seller onboarding in a structured, hierarchical e-commerce environment, analysis of structured usage information, a data-driven determination of seller eligibility using stored decision criteria, automated system actions including seller registration, online shop generation, and transmission of consulting/invitation information, and platform-level management of hierarchical relationships are all business practices, and fall under the abstract grouping of certain methods of organizing human activity as commercial or legal activities and managing personal relationships. Seller onboarding in a hierarchical commerce environment and determining seller eligibility using stored decision criteria is merely a business practice of bringing more sellers into an organization that has the sellers organized in a hierarchy, analyzing structured usage information is merely analyzing data, and seller registration, shop generation and transmission of consulting/invitation information only represent further business practices of building a sales force. These abstract concepts are then merely linked to a computing environment by implementing the processes on a server. Merely automating an abstract idea on a computing device does not constitute a technical improvement or an integration of the judicial exception to a practical application. These elements only provide a general link to a particular technological environment. The generation of an online store is also generic activity applied to the abstract idea. The claims, nor the specification, recite any detail to the technical process of how the online shop is generated, the claims merely reciting the general generation of the online store including abstract elements, such as the sales products of the top seller. The updating of the databases or the reconfiguration of system structure also does not reflect a technical improvement. The updating of a database is merely the storing of new or additional information, and the reconfiguration of the system structure is not directed to any structure of computing components or elements, but to the sales structure. The adapting of the presentation layer also does not change or improve the computer’s ability to display information, but only changes what information is displayed based on the changes to the sales information.
The comparisons to Bascom are also inapposite. In Bascom, the claims were found eligible because they applied the judicial exception in a meaningful way beyond a general link to a particular technological environment by taking advantage of the ability of ISPs to identify individual accounts that communicate with the ISP server to associate a request for internet content with a specific individual account such that filtering can be customized for a user while avoiding the need for potentially millions of local servers by installing the filters remotely in a single location. The instant claims do not provide such a specific implementation of arrangement that leverages the known pieces to provide a technical improvement, and as discussed above, merely automate the creation of a sales structure on a computing device. As such, the alleged elements providing significantly more than the abstract idea only further the abstract idea, and the claims as a whole are directed to a commercial endeavor.
In view of the above, the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 has been 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 1-5, 7-10, and 12-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claims are directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
Step 1:
Claims 1-5, 7-10, and 12-17 are directed to a server, which is an apparatus. Claim 18 is directed to a method, which is a process. Therefore, claims 1-5, 7-10, and 12-18 are directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention. Claim 19 is directed to non-statutory subject matter, as disclosed above, but will be analyzed in steps 2A and 2B for the sake of compact prosecution.
Step 2A (Step 1):
Taking Claim 1 as representative, claim 1 sets forth the following limitations reciting the abstract idea of organizing a hierarchy of sellers:
register a supplier of a product to be sold;
register supply products of the supplier;
register a plurality of sellers in a hierarchy consisting of an upper seller and at least one sub-seller subordinate to the upper seller, sales products, and sales conditions of the sub-seller being subordinate to the upper seller to whom the sub-seller is subordinate, and whether or not to register the sub-seller and a sales state being managed by the upper seller;
register sales products of a top seller in the hierarchy, the sales products being at least one of the supply products registered;
generates a shop of each of the plurality of sellers including at least one of the registered sales products of the top seller;
register a content creator;
register content of the content creator for promoting sales products in the shop, the registered content being provided to a user;
sell a product to a purchaser through the shop;
register the content creator and the purchaser, who are the users, as sellers in the hierarchy, based on usage history information in a process of selling the product, wherein the usage history information includes creation history information of content for promoting sales products on the platform service and purchase history information;
generate a shop of the user registered as the seller, the shop including at least one of the sales products of the top seller to whom the user registered at the seller is subordinate;
analyze the usage history information to determine a level of relevance to product sales;
determine a content creator or a purchaser with a higher understanding of the sales products to be sold for increasing sales as a user to be registered as a sub-seller subordinate to a designated top seller in the hierarchy based on a preset criteria and the analyzed usage history information;
transmit consulting information including information of the designated top seller and the invitation information to the determined user;
update the configuration of the sellers and the generated online shop in response to the registration and determination to reflect the seller hierarchy and adapt displayed content based on usage-driven conditions.
The recited limitations above set forth the abstract idea of organizing a hierarchy of sellers. These limitations amount to certain methods of organizing human activity, including commercial or legal interactions (e.g. advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, etc.). The claims recite steps for registering sales products and content of sellers and content creators to sell products in a shop, and registering users as seller in the hierarchy, which are sales activities and behaviors.
Such concepts have been identified by the courts as abstract ideas (see: 2106.04(a)(2)).
Step 2A (Prong 2):
Examiner acknowledges that representative claim 1 recites additional limitations in the claims, such as:
a communication device;
a memory configured to store one or more instruction;
a processor configured to execute the one or more instructions stored in the memory;
an e-commerce platform service;
a supplier DB
a supply products database (DB);
a seller DB;
a sales products DB;
a content creator DB;
a content DB;
an online shop;
a terminal;
Taken individually and as a whole, representative claim 1 does not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception. The additional elements do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
Secondly, this is also because the claim fails to (i) reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, (ii) implement the judicial exception with, or use the judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, (iii) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or (iv) applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
While the claims recite a communication device, a memory, and processor, these elements are recited with a very high level of generality. The elements merely are recited as executing the instructions to generally link the abstract idea to a computing environment. The specification also discloses the elements with very high level of generality, such as on page 21-22, where the communication device is merely disclosed as communicating with an external device, connecting to a network in a wired manner or wirelessly. The memory is merely disclosed as including at least one type of storage medium among flash memory, hard disks, multimedia card micro types, etc. The processor is disclosed that it may include at least one processor such as a CPU. As such, it can be seen that there is no particularity to the additional elements, and they are any generic computing devices. The steps of generating an online shop and the e-commerce platform are also recited with a very high level of generality. While the steps are online, the steps merely recite the generation of the shop with no further details. As such, it can be seen that the generation is using any generic technique, and the step merely serves to link the shopping activity an online network environment.
In view of the above, under Step 2A (prong 2), claim 1 does not integrate the recited exception into a practical application (see again: MPEP 2106.04(d)).
Step 2B:
Returning to claim 1, taken individually or as a whole, the additional elements of claim 1 do not provide an inventive concept (i.e. whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself). As noted above, the additional elements recited in claim 1 are recited in a generic manner with a high level of generality and only serve to implement the abstract idea on a generic computing device. The claims result only in an improved abstract idea itself and do not reflect improvements to the functioning of a computer or another technology or technical field. As discussed above with respect to the integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements used to perform the claimed process ultimately amount to no more than the mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer and/or no more than a general link to a technological environment.
Even when considered as an ordered combination, the additional elements of claim 1 do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
In view of the above, representative claim 1 does not provide an inventive concept under step 2B, and is ineligible for patenting.
The analysis above applies to all statutory categories of invention. Regarding independent claim 18 (method) and independent claim 19 (even if the computer-readable storage medium was non-transitory), the claims recite substantially similar limitations as set forth in claim 1. The additional elements of claims 18 and 19 remain only broadly and generically defined, with the claimed functionality paralleling that of claim 1 (server). As such, claims 18 and 19 are rejected for at least similar rationale as discussed above.
Regarding Claims 18 (method): Claim 18 recites at least substantially similar concepts and elements as recited in claim 1 such that similar analysis of the claims would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. As such, claims 18 is rejected under at least similar rationale as provided above regarding claim 1.
Regarding Claims 19 (even if the computer-readable storage medium was non-transitory): Claim 19 recites at least substantially similar concepts and elements as recited in claim 1 such that similar analysis of the claims would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. As such, claims 19 is rejected under at least similar rationale as provided above regarding claim 1.
Dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-17 recite further complexity to the judicial exception (abstract idea) of claim 1, such as by further defining the algorithm for organizing a hierarchy of sellers. Thus, each of claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-17 are held to recite a judicial exception under Step 2A (Prong 1) for at least similar reasons as discussed above.
Under prong 2 of step 2A, the additional elements of dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-17 also do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, considered both individually or as a whole. More specifically, dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-17 rely on at least similar elements as recited in claim 1. Further additional elements (e.g., a terminal of the user (claim 2); at least one terminal among a plurality of sellers (claim 3); a terminal of a designated user (claim 4); a terminal of the determined user (claim 10)) are also acknowledged; however, the additional elements of claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-17 are recited only at a high level of generality (i.e. as generic computing hardware) such that they amount to nothing more than the mere instructions to implement or apply the abstract idea on generic computing hardware (or, merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea). Further, the additional elements do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (such as the Internet or computing networks).
Secondly, this is also because the claims fails to (i) reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, (ii) implement the judicial exception with, or use the judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, (iii) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or (iv) applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
Taken individually and as a whole, dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-17 do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception under step 2A (prong 2).
Lastly, under step 2B, claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-17 also fail to result in “significantly more” than the abstract idea under step 2B. The dependent claims recite additional functions that describe the abstract idea and use the computing device to implement the abstract idea, while failing to provide an improvement to the functioning of a computer, another technology, or technical field. The dependent claims fail to confer eligibility under step 2B because the claims merely apply the exception on generic computing hardware and generally link the exception to a technological environment.
Even when viewed as an ordered combination (as a whole), the additional elements of the dependent claims do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
Taken individually or as an ordered combination, the dependent claims simply convey the abstract idea itself applied on a generic computer and are held to be ineligible under Steps 2B for at least similar rationale as discussed above regarding claim 1. Thus, dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-17 do not add “significantly more” to the abstract idea.
Allowable Subject Matter
The claims have been indicated as free of the prior art for the reasons as indicated in the previous Office Action mailed on 3/20/2025.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TIMOTHY J KANG whose telephone number is (571)272-8069. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday: 7:30 - 5:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kelly Campen can be reached at 571-272-6740. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/T.J.K./ Examiner, Art Unit 3688
/KELLY S. CAMPEN/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3688