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 AIA .
Status of Claims
This communication is a Non-Final office action in response to RCE filed on 07/28/2026. Claims 1, 2, 4, 6- 9, 12, 13, 15-20 have been amended. Claims 11 and 21 have been canceled. Therefore, claims 1-10 and 12-20 are currently pending and have been addressed below.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 07/28/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant has amended claims 1, 12 and 19 to overcome the claim objections. Therefore, Examiner withdraws the claim objections for claims 1, 12 and 19. Applicant has amended the claims to overcome the 112(a) rejections. Therefore, the 112(a) rejections are withdrawn.
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 1-10 and 12-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception without a practical application and significantly more.
Step 1: Identifying Statutory Categories
When considering subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, it must be determined whether the claims are directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter (i.e., Step 1). In the instant case, claims 1-10 and 19-20 are directed to a method (i.e. a process). Claims 12-18 are directed to a system (i.e. a machine). Thus, each of these claims fall within one of the four statutory categories. Nevertheless, the claims fall within the judicial exception of an abstract idea.
Step 2A: Prong One: Abstract Ideas
Claims 1-10 and 12-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention recites an abstract idea. Independent claim 1, analogous to independent claims 12 and 19 recites: A method for enhanced identification of entities across different types of data sources comprising: establishing, a plurality of connection via one or more; receiving, over the plurality of connections from clinical data regarding a plurality of medical entities; obtain interaction data indicating interactions between the plurality of medical entities; generating a plurality of entity profiles for the plurality medical entities using the clinical data regarding the plurality of medical entities, each of the plurality of entity profiles comprising to clinical data corresponding to the respective plurality of entity profiles stored remote from the plurality of entity profiles: generating, a network graph data comprising edges between the plurality of entity profiles using the interaction data indicating interactions between the plurality of medical entities, the edges represented in the network graph data inserted into pairs of connected entity profiles within the network graph data that represent interactions between respective individuals; receiving a request comprising an identification of an event topic from a client device; retrieving the network graph data in response to the request; identifying a set of entity profiles that correspond to the event topic; for each entity profile identified in the retrieved network graph data structure: retrieving a document containing text associated with a medical entity of the entity profile stored in the entity profile, generating document embedding from the text of the document and a topic embedding from the identification of the event topic, executing a cosine similarity function on the document embedding and the topic embedding to generate a topic affinity score for the entity profile, calculating an affinity score for the entity profile based on an affinity distance score generated for each edge connected with the entity profile using Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm; generating, for each entity profile, a feature vector using an identifier of the entity profile the identification of the event topic, the affinity score for the entity profile; the edges connected with the entity profile, and the topic affinity score of the entity profile with the topic, and using the feature vector as input to generate, for an event associated with the event topic, composite score for the entity profile; selecting a speaker and one or more attendees for the event based on the generated composite scores for the entity profiles; generating a record comprising associations between identifications of the speaker, the one or more attendees, and the event; and presenting the record to the client that sent the request. The limitations as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, falls under the abstract groupings of:
Mathematical concepts (mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations and mathematical calculations) as independent claims recite for example: “a cosine similarity function on the document embedding and the topic embedding to generate a topic affinity score”; “calculating an affinity score for the entity profile based on an affinity distance score generated for each edge connected with the entity profile using Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm”; “generating a document embedding from the text of the document and a topic embedding from the identification of the event topic”; “generating a feature vector using an identifier of the entity profile, the identification of the event topic, the affinity score for the entity profile, the edges connected with the entity profile, and the topic affinity score of the entity profile with the topic”. Certain methods of organizing human activity (commercial or legal interactions (including 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). As the claims discuss “selecting a speaker and one or more attendees for the event based on the generated composite scores for the entity profiles” and “identifying a set of entity profiles that correspond to the event topic” which is one of certain methods of organizing human activity. Further, dependent claims add additional limitations, for example: (claims 2 and 13) generate composite scores for entity profiles; (claims 3 and 14) wherein selecting the speaker and the one or more attendees for the event comprises: one or more composite scores; and selecting the speaker and the one or more attendees for the event; (claims 4 and 15) wherein receiving clinical data regarding the plurality of medical entity comprises retrieving a document having a plurality of authors, wherein generating the plurality of entity profiles comprises: a plurality of authors from the document; and generating relationships between the plurality of authors responsive to the plurality of authors originating from the same document; (claim 5) receiving the request comprising the identification of the event topic from a form and updating to include data of the record; (claims 6 and 16) receiving a first geographic location for the event; and identifying entity profiles that have associations with geographic locations within a distance threshold of the first geographic location (claims 7 and 17) identifying a first set of entity profiles comprising first historical attendance data indicating entities that have previously attended an event associated with the event topic and a second set of entity profiles comprising second historical attendance data indicating entities that have not previously attended any events associated with the event topic; (claims 8 and 18) generate the one or more composite scores comprises: identifying the relationships between entity profiles and the plurality of entity profiles and the relationships between the plurality of entity profiles generate one or more affinity scores for the plurality of entity profiles, calculating one or more degrees of relationship for the relationships between entity profiles based on each of the relationships; receiving historical event attendance data for the plurality of entity profiles; entity profiles and the historical event attendance data to generate one or more attendance scores; using the one or more affinity scores and the one or more attendances scores for the plurality of entity profiles as input to generate the one or more composite scores; (claim 20) generate speaker scores, attendee scores, and affinity scores for entity profiles, but these only serve to further limit the abstract idea. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation of mathematical concepts and certain methods of organizing human activity, but for the recitation of generic computer components, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A: Prong Two
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims merely describe how to generally “apply” the abstract idea. In particular, the claims only recite the additional elements – (independent claims 1, 12 and 19) processor; data sources; network graph data structure; application programming interfaces (APIs), model using identifiers; social media; web pages; scraping; data source pointers; database; machine learning model; user interface; client device (claims 2, 13 and 20) trained machine learning model (claims 3 and 14) optimization model; (claims 8 and 18) affinity model; historical attendance model; a composite model. These additional elements are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Simply implementing the abstract idea on generic computer components is not a practical application of the abstract idea, as it adds the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(f). The limitations generally link the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use (such as computing or machine learning, see MPEP 2106.05(h)). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation and do not impose a meaningful limit to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Step 2B:
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to discussion of integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements amount to no more than mere instructions to apply an exception and generally link the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use. Furthermore, claims 1-10 and 12-20 have been fully analyzed to determine whether there are additional elements recited that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. The limitations fail to include an improvement to another technology or technical field, an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Thus, nothing in the claim adds significantly more to the abstract idea. Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely provide conventional computer implementation. The claims are ineligible. Therefore, since there are no limitations in the claim that transform the exception into a patent eligible application such that the claim amounts to significantly more than the exception itself, the claims are rejected under 35 USC 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Additional Prior Art Consulted
The prior art made of record and not relied upon which is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure includes the following:
Raikov et a. US 2019/0065277 A1 - "to identify a first subscriber to a first event topic associated with the event;" "each of the set of subscribers further subscribing to at least one event topic through the event broker"; "the pre-approval event topic may be used to generate a workflow that will require a set of administrative approvals be obtained before the virtual machine is provisioned."
Applicants are advised to review additional references supplied on the PTO-892 as to the state of the art of the invention.
Response to Arguments
Applicants arguments filed on 07/28/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Regarding 35 U.5.C. § 101 rejections: Examiner has updated the 101 rejection in light of the most recent claim amendments and maintains the 101 rejection. Applicant’s arguments have been fully considered but are found unpersuasive.
With respect to Applicant’s remarks (pages 13-16) “The claims, at least as amended herein, overcome the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claims recite an improvement in technology, and particularly an improvement to the processing of data from different types of data sources ...In Weisner, the Court ruled that claims directed to "improv[ing] computerized search results" are patent eligible because they solve a technical problem related to the Internet. The present claims similarly solve a computerized problem related to improving processing of data from different types of data sources over the Internet to generate improved results to respond to a request....Performing this process enables the system to "generate a meaningful output" from information "that is transmitted over the Internet ... between different types of data sources..." The examiner respectfully disagrees.
With respect to Applicants remarks on integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the computing elements are additional elements to perform the steps and amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Examiner has reviewed Applicants claims and specification and has found only generic computing elements.
With respect to the computing components, Applicant is merely reciting the known benefits of computing systems and known machine learning models (See Applicant’s spec, para 0080, recites a list of known machine learning models including “e.g., a support vector machine, a neural network, a random forest, etc.”). Further, with respect to newly added limitations cosine similarity and Dijkstra’s algorithm, these are well-known algorithms. Using already known machine learning models and well-known algorithms is not a technical solution to a technical problem. Rather, the computing systems and models are being used for the very purpose that such elements are known to be used for, e.g. more efficient, faster, etc.
Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. Each step does no more than require a generic
computer to perform generic computer functions. The claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of the computer itself. In addition, the claims do not affect an improvement in any
other technology or technical field. The specification spells out different generic equipment and parameters that might be applied using the concept and the particular steps such conventional processing would entail based on the concept of information access. Thus, the claims at issue amount to nothing significantly more than instructions to apply the abstract idea using some unspecified, generic computer(s). Therefore, Applicants remarks are found unpersuasive and Examiner maintains the 101 rejection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to REBECCA R NOVAK whose telephone number is (571)272-2524. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:30am - 5:00pm EST.
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, Lynda Jasmin can be reached at (571) 272-6782. 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.
/R.R.N./Examiner, Art Unit 3629
/LYNDA JASMIN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3629
Prosecution Insights