/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
This office action is responsive to Request for Continued examination Request Transmittal received on 5/11/2026. Claims 1, 9 and 17 are amended. Claims 3 and 11 are previously cancelled. Claims 1, 2, 4- 10, 12- 20 are pending examination.
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, 2, 4- 10, 12- 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1: the claims are directed to a process (method claims 9-16), and a machine/manufacture (system claim 1 and media claims 17-20), which fall withing
statutory categories of § 101.
Step 2A, Prong One
Claim 1 recites limitations directed to certain method of organizing human activity and mental processes. Specifically, the claim recites concepts relating to: monitoring customer traffic and staffing levels at business locations, evaluating whether locations are overloaded or underloaded, assigning customers to service representative, routing service requests between location, matching service providers to users-based request parameters. These concepts represent commercial or business interactions, including managing customer service resources and allocating personnel based on demand, which fall within the category of certain method of organizing human activity. Additionally, the claim recites collecting information, analyzing information and making determinations based on the information such acts can be practically performed in the human mind or using pen and paper and therefore, represent mental processes. The additional recitation of: receiving GPS coordinates, receiving image data, using facial recognition, retrieving user profiles, and initiating communication sessions. These features merely gather data or apply generic computer technology to implement the abstract business practice.
Step 2A, Prong Two.
The additional elements recited int eh claims include: a processor, memory, communication interfaces, user mobile devices, computing devices, GPS coordinates, image data, facial recognition technology, communication sessions and geo location coordinates. These elements, individually or as n ordered combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claims only use generic computer components as tools to, collect information, analyze information, determining staffing or load conditions, route service requests, and communicate information between locations. The claims do not improve the functioning of a computer, improve network technology, improve facial recognition technology, improve communication protocols, improve image processing technology or provide any technological improvement to GPS systems or computing devices. Instead, the claims merely apply generic computer technology to automate a business practice of balancing customer service workloads among locations. The recited load checking engine and central assignment system are described functionally and generically without reciting any specific technological improvement to specialized processing technique. Furthermore, the claims simply link the abstract idea to a particular technological environment of networked computing environment involving mobile devices, camera and communication devices. Therefore, the claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Step 2B.
The additional elements recited int eh claims including: processors, memory, communication interfaces, mobile devices, image capture devices, facial recognition technology, communication sessions, and Geo-location processing are well understood, routine, and conventional computer components performing ordinary functions. The claims only require generic computer implementation of the abstract idea using conventional computer activities. The claims do not recite any specialized hardware or any improvement to network architecture, or any other technology. Accordingly, the claims do not recite significantly more than the abstract idea. In conclusion, claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 101 because the claims are directed to an abstract idea, specifically organizing human activity and performing mental processes related to customer service load balancing and request routing, and the claims do not include additional elements sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The applicant argues that the claims merely involve an abstract idea rather than recite one, and therefore no further eligibility analysis is required.
Response. The argument is not persuasive. Th examiner notes that the “merely involves” distinction applies in situations where a judicial exception has a little or no meaningful role in what is actually being claimed. Here, however, the core operative steps of the clam such as gathering information about user presence, comparing that information to a threshold, and directing users to available service personnel, appear to be, at least in part, aligned with abstract idea identified in the rejection.
The applicant argues that dynamically adjusting thresholds based on real time associate login data represents a particular technical implementation that integrates any alleged abstract idea into a practical application.
Response. The examiner notes that while the claim recites that a threshold is dynamically adjusted based on login data, the claim does not appear to specify the particular technical manner in which this adjustment is carried out. The examiner acknowledges that dynamic thresholds may have advantageous over statistic one, but adjusting a capacity figure based on the number available staff members appears to reflect a conceptual or organizational problem rather than a technical improvement to the computing system itself. The examiner notes that the specification’s explanation that the threshold accounts for associates who are out sick, on vacation, or arriving late, further suggests that the concept is one of staffing management rather than a technical advancement in computing.
The applicant contents that recitation of “generating and transmitting commands” to initiate a communication session between computing devices at different locations specifies a particular technical architecture.
Response. The examiner notes that claim recites that commands are generated and transmitted to cause the computing device to initiate a communication session, but does not appear to specify the technical details of how those commanded are generated, what protocol or mechanism is used, or how this process differs technically from conventional network communication methods. Reciting the result of a process which is in this case a communication session initiated, without specifying the technical means by which that result is achieved is not sufficient to integrate the abstract idea int a practical application. The cross-location communication is a functional feature of the clam but the steps appear to describe what happens rather than how it technically happens.
The applicant argues that the claims improve the functioning of a distributed computing system by enabling real-time adaptive load balancing with automated session establishment.
Response. The identified benefits appear to relate to improvements in how business service operation is managed across locations, rather than to an improvement in the technical functioning of the computing system or network itself. The examiner notes that the GPS systems, cameras and communication devices recited in the claim appear to operate in their ordinary and expected capacities. The claim does not describe a technical improvement to any of these technologies as opposed to using those technologies to reach a business or organizational outcome.
The applicant argues that the specific combination of GPS coordinate matching, facial recognition-based user identification, real time threshold adjustment, and automated video communication session initiation represent an unconventional technical combination that amounts to significantly more than the alleged abstract idea.
Response. The examiner notes that each of the recited technologies such as GPS location tracking, facial recognition video communication, and threshold-based routing, appears to have been known and available int eh art at or before the time of filling. The applicant has not provided evidence such a declaration under 37 C.F.R. 1.132, establishing that the recited combination was not well-understood, routine, or conventional in the art at the time of filling. In the absence of such evidence, the examiner is unable to conclude, based on applicant’s argument alone, that the combination rises to the level of significantly more that the abstract idea.
For these reasons, the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 101 is maintained.
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/SARGON N NANO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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