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 .
Disposition of Claims
Claims 1-20 are pending in the instant application. No claims have been cancelled. No claims have been added. Claims 1,4,5, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, and 20 have been amended. The rejection of the pending claims is hereby made final.
101
Regarding Applicant’s arguments pertaining to the pending rejection under 35 USC 101, the examiner submits that Applicant’s arguments and amendments are not found to be persuasive.
The examiner submits that for subject matter eligibility, the examiner’s burden is met by clearly articulating the reason(s) why the claimed invention is not eligible and explains why they do not amount to significantly more than the exception. This rationale may rely, where appropriate, on the knowledge generally available in the art, on the case law precedent, on applicant's own disclosure, or on evidence. The courts consider the determination of whether a claim is eligible to be a question of law. Accordingly, courts do not rely on evidence that a claimed concept is a judicial exception, and in most cases resolve the ultimate legal conclusion on eligibility without making any factual findings. For example, Alice Corp, Myriad, Mayo, Bilski, Diehr, Flook, and Benson relied solely on comparisons to concepts found to be exceptions in past decisions when identifying judicial exceptions. Similarly, the Interim Eligibility Guidance follows the analysis used by the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit by comparing claimed concepts to prior court decisions to identify a law of nature, phenomenon, or an abstract idea for step 2A. For step 2B, examiners must rely on what the courts have recognized, or those in the art would recognize, as elements that are well understood, routine, and conventional.
The examiner submits that, consistent with the statute and legislative history of the AIA , the examiner interprets the pending claims using the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of Applicant's specification. See Office Patent Trial Practice Guide, 77 Fed.Reg. 48,756, 48,766 (Aug. 14, 2012); 37 C.F.R. § 42.300(b); In re Cuozzo Speed Techs., LLC, No. 2014-1301, 2015 WL 448667, at *5–8 (Fed. Cir.Feb. 4, 2015). There is a “‘heavy presumption’ that a claim term carries its ordinary and customary meaning.” CCS Fitness, Inc. v. Brunswick Corp.,288 F.3d 1359, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2002). The examiner has determined that the analysis of the pending claims did not require an express interpretation of any term.
The pending claims are found to be directed to systems and methods for inventory management (see at least claim 1). In Mayo, the Supreme Court set out a two-step “framework for distinguishing patents that claim laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that claim patent-eligible applications of those concepts.” Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355. First, courts must determine if the claims at issue are directed to a patent-ineligible concept. See id. If not, the inquiry ends, as the claims are patent-eligible. But if so, the next step is to look for an “‘inventive concept’—i.e., an element or combination of elements that is sufficient to ensure that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the [ineligible concept] itself.” Id. After carefully applying the two step framework, the examiner submits that the pending claims are directed to an abstract idea that falls under the category of an idea of itself. The claim limitations, analyzed individually and as a whole, recite nothing more than the determination and dissemination of inventory allocation data. The series of steps covered by the pending claims could all be performed by a human without a computer (see at least Cybersource). Because the claims are directed to an abstract idea, the claims must include an “inventive concept” in order to be patent-eligible. No such inventive concept is present in the pending claims. The claims merely add only generic computer components such as a ““machine learning model” , “computing device”, and "processor.” These generic computer components do not satisfy the inventive concept requirement (see at least Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), BuySAFE, and Accenture Global Servs. GmbH v. Guidewire Software, Inc.). Nothing as recited in the pending claims “purport[s] to improve the functioning of the computer itself" or "effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field." Alice 134 S. Ct. at 2359. Nor do the claims solve a problem unique to the internet (see DDR Holdings). Because the claims are directed to an abstract idea and nothing in the claims adds an inventive concept, the claims are not patent eligible under 101.
Regarding Applicant's assertions pertaining to the eligibility of the pending claims under 35 USC 101, the examiner submits that the Federal Circuit has found (see at least EPG v Alstom) that the collection, analysis, and display of certain results of collection and analysis to be a patent ineligible concept. The Court found that the process of gathering and analyzing information of a specified content, then displaying the results, devoid of any particular assertedly inventive technology for performing said functions to be directed to an abstract idea. The Federal Circuit has found that the when the focus of the claims is not on an improvement in computers as tools, but on certain independently abstract ideas that use computers as tools, that the claims fail to do more than merely selecting information, by content or source, for collection, analysis, and display does nothing significant to differentiate a process from ordinary mental processes, whose implicit exclusion from 101 undergirds the information based category of abstract ideas. The pending claims do not require an inventive set of components or methods that would generate new data and further do not invoke any inventive programming. The Courts have found that merely requiring the selection and manipulation of information to provide a humanly comprehensible amount of information useful for users, by itself does not transform the otherwise abstract processes of information collection and analysis. The two part analysis has to take into account how the desired result is achieved. The examiner submits that the computers, networks, and displays as recited in the pending claims does not transform the claimed subject matter into patent-eligible applications. The pending claims do not require any nonconventional computer, network, or display components or even a non-conventional and non-generic arrangement of known conventional pieces, but merely call for performance of the claimed information collection, analysis, and display functions on a set of generic computer components and display devices. Nothing in the claims, given their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification, requires anything other than off the shelf, conventional computer, network, and display technology for gathering, sending, and presenting the desired information. The pending claims further fail to include any requirement for performing the claimed functions of gathering, analyzing, and displaying in real time by use of anything other than generic technology. The claims therefore do not state an arguable inventive concept in the realm of application of the information based abstract idea.
For at least the reasoning provided above, the examiner submits that the rejection under 35 USC 101 is hereby maintained and made final. Appropriate correction and/or clarification is required.
102
Applicant’s arguments and amendments have been considered but are found to be moot in view of the new grounds of rejection presented 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Under 2106.03 Eligibility step 1, it must be considered whether the claims are directed to one of the four statutory classes of invention. In the instant case, claims 1-10 are directed to a system, claims 11-19 are directed to a method, and claim 20 is directed towards a non-transitory computer storage medium for inventory placement and demand allocation, each of which falls within one of the four statutory categories of inventions (process/apparatus). Accordingly, the claims will be further analyzed under 2106.04 Eligibility step 2A:
Under 2106.04 Eligibility step 2A, it must be considered whether the claims are “directed to” a judicial exception by referring to the groupings of subject matter. 2106.04, certain methods of organizing human activity include fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions).
Regarding representative independent claim 1, the claim sets forth a method inventory placement and demand allocation, in the following limitations:
receiving, from a computing device, a recommendation request regarding a plurality of nodes in a retail fulfillment network;
obtaining feature data based on the recommendation request; computing, using at least one machine learning model, recommendation data based on the feature data, wherein the recommendation data indicates at least one recommendation regarding inventory placement and demand allocation among the nodes in the retail fulfillment network; and
transmitting, in response to the recommendation request, the recommendation data to the computing device.
The above-recited limitations set forth an arrangement to generate item placement and inventory recommendations to a user based on demand and historical sales data associated with various products in warehouse setting. This arrangement amounts to certain methods of organizing human activity associated with sales activities and commercial interactions. Such concepts have been considered ineligible certain methods of organizing human activity by the Courts (See 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance).
Under 2106.04 Eligibility step 2A (prong 2), the next step in the eligibility analysis looks at whether the abstract idea is integrated into a practical application. This requires an additional element or combination of additional elements in the claims to apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
In this instance, the claims recite the additional elements such as:
a processor
a computing device
However, these elements do not amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
In addition, the recitations above are recited at a high level of generality and also do not amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
Independent claims 1 and 20 and dependent claims 2-10 and 12-19 also fail to recite elements which amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology or technical field, apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. For example, independent claims and dependent claims are directed to the abstract idea itself and do not amount to an integration according to any one of the considerations above.
Step 2B is the next step in the eligibility analyses and evaluates whether the claims recite additional elements that amount to an inventive concept (i.e., “significantly more”) than the recited judicial exception. According to Office procedure, revised Step 2A overlaps with Step 2B, and thus, many of the considerations need not be re-evaluated in Step 2B because the answer will be the same.
In Step 2A, several additional elements were identified as additional limitations:
a processor
a computing device
These additional limitations, including the limitations in the independent claims and dependent claims, do not amount to an inventive concept because they were already analyzed under Step 2A and did not amount to a practical application of the abstract idea.
For these reasons, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101. Appropriate correction and/or clarification is required.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Qin (US 2016/0055452) in view of Kothari et al (US 2017/0147964).
Regarding claim 1, the prior art discloses a system, comprising: a processor and a non-transitory memory having instructions storing instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to: receive, from a computing device, a request for inventory placement and demand allocation a plurality of nodes in a retail fulfillment network, obtain feature data based on the request, compute, using at least one machine learning model, based on the feature data(see at least paragraphs [0022]-[0023] to Qin).
Qin does not appear to explicitly disclose a first inventory placement and a first demand allocation across the plurality of nodes in a retail fulfillment network; wherein the first demand allocation comprises a fraction of a demand for a first item of an inventory served by a first node in the retail fulfillment network; and obtain feedback for a grouping of the first item with a second item in the first inventory placement by embedding, as one-hot encoding, feature representations from the first item and the second item into the grouping; optimize the first inventory placement and the first demand allocation based on the feedback to obtain second inventory placement and second demand allocation across the plurality of nodes.
However, Kothari et al discloses a system and method for optimal reallocation of inventory under capacity violations, further comprising a first inventory placement and a first demand allocation across the plurality of nodes in a retail fulfillment network; wherein the first demand allocation comprises a fraction of a demand for a first item of an inventory served by a first node in the retail fulfillment network; and obtain feedback for a grouping of the first item with a second item in the first inventory placement by embedding, as one-hot encoding, feature representations from the first item and the second item into the grouping; optimize the first inventory placement and the first demand allocation based on the feedback to obtain second inventory placement and second demand allocation across the plurality of nodes (see at least paragraphs [0027, 0032, and 0037] to Kothari et al).
The examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). The examiner submits that the combination of the teaching of the system and method as disclosed by Qin and the system and method as taught by Kothari et al, in order to more efficiently reallocate inventory in a fulfillment network (see at least abstract to Kothari et al) could have been readily and easily implemented, with a reasonable expectation of success. As such, the aforementioned combination is found to be obvious to try, given the state of the art at the time of filing.
Regarding claim 2, the prior art discloses the system of claim 1, wherein each node in the retail fulfillment network comprises at least one of: a store, a warehouse, a fulfillment center, or a distribution center (see at least paragraph [0041] to Qin).
Regarding claim 3, the prior art discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the feature data comprises data related to at least one of: at least one fixed rule each specifying a certain product must be placed in one or more certain nodes (see at least paragraph [0022] to Qin); an item-location eligibility indicating which products are eligible for placement in which nodes; an item affinity, which includes pair-wise scores each indicating how likely a pair of two products will be purchased together(see at least paragraph [0038] to Qin); customer experience scores, which includes data on uplift in customer satisfaction when certain products are available to be delivered in a certain timeframe (see at least paragraph [0035] to Qin); a current inventory indicating quantities of each product currently stored in each node(see at least paragraph [0038] to Qin); item prices indicating prices of items and a revenue a retailer receives when selling each product; picking costs indicating costs of taking each product out of inventory at each node (see at least paragraph [0047] to Qin); shipment costs indicating costs of shipping one unit of any product from any node to any given customer location (see at least paragraph [0022] to Qin); a geo-demand indicating a baseline demand for each product, which is broken down by geographic area (see at least paragraph [0039] to Qin); a promise definition indicating a speed with which the retailer is capable of delivering a product from a given node to a customer in a geographic area(see at least paragraph [0047] to Qin); target days of supply indicating an amount of product which must be carried in a node in order to support retailer deliveries from the node to avoid out of stock (see at least paragraph [0043] to Qin); node attributes indicating attributes on each node; a delivery speed elasticity (see at least paragraph [0047] to Qin); or clusters of items that need to be placed together to maximize revenue and minimize cost(see at least paragraph [0038] to Qin).
Regarding claim 4, the prior art discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the data comprises data related to at least one of: demand allocation ratios indicating what fraction of demand for each product in each geographic area each week will be served via each node; binary placement decisions indicating whether each product will or will not be stored in each node each week; reason codes each including descriptions of one or more reasons behind a corresponding binary placement decision; automated validation data including a list of validation checks performed during recommendation output generation and information on whether the validation checks were successful; or sale related benefit data indicating individual costs and benefits considered during recommendation output generation (see at least paragraph [0045] to Qin).
Regarding claim 5, the prior art discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the data is computed based on: generating model parameters based on the feature data; generating decision variables based on the feature data; generating constraints based on the feature data; and maximizing an objective function while meeting the constraints, wherein: the objective function is computed based on a difference between expected revenue and fulfillment costs, and the objective function is maximized by tuning the decision variables given the model parameters while meeting the constraints (see at least paragraph [0081] to Qin).
Regarding claim 6, the prior art discloses the system of claim 5, wherein the fulfillment costs comprise: product shipment cost, inventory holding cost, and penalty cost for recommendations of removing products from nodes and/or adding products to nodes(see at least paragraph [0037] to Qin).
Regarding claim 7, the prior art discloses the system of claim 5, wherein the constraints comprise: a first constraint on space available overall at a node; a second constraint on a volume of space available for storing hazardous materials at a node; a third constraint on a total number of products that can be stored at a node; a fourth constraint on a maximum number of items that can be sent to a node during a time period; a fifth constraint on a maximum number of items that can be sent from a node during a time period; and additional constraints related to operational rules based on requirements from a retailer and/or a vendor (see at least paragraph [0035] to Qin).
Regarding claim 8, the prior art discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the data is computed based on: determining, for each item, whether the item has a sales history; for items with a sales history: extracting, for each item, data including item information, node information and shipping options from the sales history, and computing a delivery speed elasticity for each item based on the extracted data; for items lacking a sales history: determining, for each item, a categorical hierarchy, and computing a delivery speed elasticity for each item based on the categorical hierarchy; predicting, for each item and for each of a set of feasible shipping speed options, a demand update based on the delivery speed elasticity, given at least one constraint of the retail fulfillment network; generating, for each item, a ranked list of recommended shipping speed options based on the predicted demand update; and computing, based on the ranked list for each item, the at least one recommendation regarding inventory placement and demand allocation among the nodes in the retail fulfillment network (see at least paragraphs [0046]-[0048] to Qin).
Regarding claim 9, the prior art discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the data is computed based on: determining, for each item, a geo-demand representation representing a down- stream demand of the item at each given geographic location (see at least paragraph [0035] to Qin); determining, for each item pair of two items, an item affinity measuring how much more likely the two items are to be purchased together than if they were purchased independently (see at least paragraph [0035] to Qin); determining, for each item, a delivery speed elasticity at each given geographic location (see at least paragraph [0035] to Qin); clustering items of the retail fulfillment network into a plurality of bundles based on the geo-demand representation, the item affinity and the delivery speed elasticity; and computing, for each of the plurality of bundles, a same recommendation regarding inventory placement and demand allocation for all items in the bundle(see at least paragraph [0035] to Qin).
Regarding claim 10, the prior art discloses the system of claim 9, wherein: the geo-demand representation is predicted based on a machine learning model, which is trained based on historical item demand data at different geographic locations; a total number of items in each bundle has an upper bound that depends on a total sales volume of the bundle; and the upper bound increases as the total sales volume decreases (see at least paragraph [0067] to Qin).
Claims 11-20 each contain recitations substantially similar to those addressed above and, therefore, are likewise rejected.
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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The examiner has considered all references listed on the Notice of References Cited, PTO-892.
The examiner has considered all references cited on the Information Disclosure Statement submitted by Applicant, PTO-1449.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TALIA F CRAWLEY whose telephone number is (571)270-5397. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday thru Thursday; 8:30 AM-4:30 PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Fahd A Obeid can be reached on 571-270-3324. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TALIA F CRAWLEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627