DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Notice for all US Patent Applications filed on or after March 16, 2013
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 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.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 4/21/26 has been entered.
Status of the Claims
This communication is in response to communications received on 4/21/26. Claim(s) 1, 10, and 18 is/are amended, claim(s) 17 and 19-20 is/are cancelled, claim(s) 21-23 is/are new, and applicant does not provide any information on where support for the amendments can be found in the instant specification. Therefore, Claims 1-16, 18, and 21-23 is/are pending and have been addressed below.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see applicant’s remarks, filed 4/21/26, with respect to rejections under 35 USC 101 for claim(s) 1-20 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive as far as they apply to the amended 101 rejection(s) below.
Applicant respectfully traversed the rejection on pg. 9-15.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees because applicant is relying on 2106.05(d) “well understood, routine, and conventional” however Examiner is relying on 2106.05(f) “apply it.” Examiner relied on “apply it” because of item (2) Whether the claim invokes computers or other machinery merely as a tool to perform an existing process of 2106.05(f).
Thus, the argument(s) are unpersuasive.
Applicant’s arguments, see applicant’s remarks, filed 4/21/26, with respect to rejections under 35 USC 103 for claim(s) 1-20 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive as far as they apply to the amended 103 rejection(s) below.
Applicant respectfully traversed the rejection on pg. 15-19.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees because applicant argues Rankin doesn’t teach the determining step which was formerly the a set portion of the extracting limitation. However the argument doesn’t address Fig. 3 which was and is cited for the limitations in question.
Thus, the argument(s) are unpersuasive.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim(s) 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim(s) 23 is/are rejected. Claim(s) 23 state(s) the limitation “
wherein the digital badge database stores each digital badge issued to the team as a shared entry associated with the team, and wherein extracting the respective digital badge from at least one of the identified one or more entries associated with the team comprises:
generating the indication of the respective digital badge by selectively retrieving, from the shared entry, badge data corresponding to the tenure of the particular worker.”
Thus claim(s) 23 is/are indefinite because it is unclear what if shared entry means as entry shared between individual users of a team (not supported by instant specification) or shared entry means an entry for a team (supported by instant specification [0075-0076] ). Appropriate correction/clarification is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-16, 18, and 21-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter as noted below.
The limitation(s) below for representative claim(s) 1, 10, and 18 that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, is directed to tracking worker benefaction at an organization.
Step 1: The claim(s) as drafted, is/are a process (claim(s) 1-9, 21-23 recites a series of steps) and system (claim(s) 10-16, 18 recites a series of components).
Step 2A – Prong 1: The claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) (emphasis added):
Claim 1: receiving, by a platform, a request to update an account associated with a particular worker user of an organization to indicate one or more digital badges of associated with an organization;
determining, by the platform, a team of the organization associated with the particular worker during a tenure of the particular worker at the organization;
identifying, by the platform, one or more entries of a digital badge database that are associated with the team, wherein the one or more entries indicate one or more digital badges issued to the team based on a benefaction level determined for workers of the team;
determining, by the platform, whether a respective digital badge of the one or more digital badges was issued to the team based on activities performed by the team during the tenure of the particular worker;
responsive to determining that the respective digital badge was issued based on activities performed by the team during the tenure of the particular worker, extracting, by the platform, the respective digital badge from at least one of the identified one or more entries associated with the team; and
updating, by the platform, the account associated with the particular worker to include an indication of the respective digital badge in response to the request.
Claim(s) 10 and 18: same analysis as claim(s) 1.
Dependent claims 2-9, 11-17, and 19-20 recite the same or similar abstract idea(s) as independent claim(s) 1, 10, and 18 with merely a further narrowing of the abstract idea(s): .
The identified limitations of the independent and dependent claims above fall well-within the groupings of subject matter identified by the courts as being abstract concepts of:
a method of organizing human activity (commercial or legal interactions including advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, or business relations) because the invention is directed to economic and/or business relationships as they are associated with tracking worker benefaction at an organization.
Step 2A – Prong 2: The claims are found to clearly be directed to the abstract idea identified above because the claims, as a whole, fail to integrate the claimed judicial exception into a practical application, specifically:
The additional elements unencompassed by the abstract idea include platform, database (claim(s) 1, 10, 18), a system comprising: a memory; and a processing device coupled to the memory (claim(s) 10), non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processing device (claim(s) 18), AI-driven (claim(s) 2), application (claim(s) 2-4, 11-13, 19-20), social media platform (claim(s) 3, 12, 20), distributed ledger network (claim(s) 5-6, 14-15), blockchain (claim(s) 6, 15), machine learning model (claim(s) 7-9, 16-17), neural network (claim(s) 8, 17), database (claim(s) 7, 9, 16, 22-23).
Thus the additional elements as described above with respect to Step 2A Prong 2 merely amount to (as additionally noted by instant specification [0033]) invoked as a tool and/or general purpose computer to apply instructions of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment, and/or mere application of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological field do not integrate an abstract idea into a practical application (MPEP 2106.05(f)&(h)).
Step 2B: The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements as described above with respect to Step 2A Prong 2 fails to describe:
Improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field - see MPEP 2106.05(a)
Applying or using a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition – see Vanda Memo
Applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine – see MPEP 2106.05(b)
Effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing - see MPEP 2106.05(c)
Applying or using 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 - see MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo.
Thus the additional elements as described above with respect to Step 2A Prong 2 merely amount to (as additionally noted by instant specification [0033]) invoked as a tool and/or a general purpose computer to apply instructions of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment, and/or mere application of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological field do not integrate an abstract idea into a practical application and thus similarly the combination and arrangement of the above identified additional elements when analyzed under Step 2B also fails to necessitate a conclusion that the claims amount to significantly more than the abstract idea for the same reasons as set forth above (MPEP 2106.05(f)&(h)).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
It has been held that a prior art reference must either be in the field of applicant’s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the applicant was concerned, in order to be relied upon as a basis for rejection of the claimed invention. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 24 USPQ2d 1443 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-8, 10-12, 14-16, 18, and 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rankins (US 2024/0330822 A1) in view of Antin et al. (US 2013/0086484 A1).
Regarding claim 1, 10, and 18 (currently amended), Rankins teaches a method comprising:
{A system comprising: a memory; and a processing device coupled to the memory, the processing device to perform operations comprising: - claim 10}
{A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processing device, cause the processing device to perform operations comprising: - claim 18}
receiving, by a platform, a request of an action on one or more digital badges associated with an organization [see at least Fig. 1 and [0051] “As shown in FIG. 1 , the computer implemented business management system 100 (hereinafter referred to “the system” 100) may include, but not limited to, at least a processor 1042, a memory unit 1044, a business management platform 108, and a plurality of network-connected computer user interfaces 102 for a plurality of participants.”;
Figs. 3A-3B and [0141] “Then, step 2104 involves tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery. This includes providing automatic leaderboards where team member and managers can see the best performers, and comparing metric results of teams/individuals. The same has been shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B. Herein, the top individual performances can be seen in FIG. 3A and the top performances have been shown in FIG. 3B.”];
determining, by the platform, a team of the organization associated with the particular worker during a tenure of the particular worker at the organization [see at least Fig. 3A and 3B and [0141] as noted in Fig. 3B “Banana Chips Gang” (Team), “Goals for Sellers Feb 2021”, “Goals for Sellers Jan 2021”, and “Member Contribution”];
identifying, by the platform, one or more entries of a digital badge data storage that are associated with the team, wherein the one or more entries indicate one or more digital badges issued to the team based on a benefaction level determined for workers of the team [see at least [0017] “creating goals for teams/individuals based on Key-Result-Area (KRA) metrics: tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery: creating levels of development for team members based on badges earned when successfully meeting or exceeding goals”;
[0059] data storage];
determining, by the platform, whether a respective digital badge of the one or more digital badges was issued to the team based on activities performed by the team during the tenure of the particular worker;
responsive to determining that the respective digital badge was issued based on activities performed by the team during the tenure of the particular worker, extracting, by the platform, the respective digital badge from at least one of the identified one or more entries associated with the team [for the limitations above, see at least Fig. 3A and 3B and [0141] as noted in Fig. 3B “Banana Chips Gang” (Team), “Goals for Sellers Feb 2021”, “Goals for Sellers Jan 2021”, and “Member Contribution”]; and
an action, by the platform, the account associated with the particular worker to include an indication of the respective digital badge in response to the request [see at least [0017] “a performance management module integrated with the marketing and sales management module, the learning management module, and the customer engagement module. Furthermore, the performance management module is configured to manage, track, align and reward the plurality of participants, by creating goals for teams/individuals based on Key-Result-Area (KRA) metrics: tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery: creating levels of development for team members based on badges earned when successfully meeting or exceeding goals: retrieving performance metrics from Sales and Marketing management module, Learning Management, and Customer Engagement module of the platform; and providing customized dashboards based on roles of the plurality of participants to enhance their performance, thereby allowing the organization to easily manage, track, align and reward their sales, marketing, customer engagement, and people development teams in one Integrated Platform.”;
[0106] “For example: the business management platform 108 may provide a dedicated training center wherein the respective participant (team member) can access courses and learn about skills such as, but not limited to, B2B sales, B2B marketing, Onboarding-Corp, Onboarding-Team, Sales strategies, Elevator pitches. These courses may have an assessment test at the end with predetermined passing score. Once cleared, the participant may be provided with badges, points, etc. to their respective profile. These helps elevate operational efficiency of the participants (employees) who can then enhance their skills and working profile.”;
[0141] “Then, step 2104 involves tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery. This includes providing automatic leaderboards where team member and managers can see the best performers, and comparing metric results of teams/individuals.”].
Rankins doesn’t/don’t explicitly teach but Antin discloses
update an account associated with a particular worker user of an organization to indicate one or more digital badges associated with an organization;
digital badge database;
updating the account associated with the particular worker to include digital badges [for the limitations above, see at least [0025] “As a result, the user's account data may be updated to include information pertaining to custom badge(s) generated by the user. In addition, the account data may be automatically updated to include information pertaining to badges that have been earned by the user.”;
[0050] “For example, the user may be a merchant such as a wholesaler, retailer, or other business proprietor (e.g., restaurateur), or an individual employed by or operating on behalf of the merchant. Thus, the input (e.g., first input and the second input) may be received from an individual associated with the business or organization.”;
[0026] “Data obtained, generated, received, and/or maintained by the server(s) 102 may be stored to one or more databases 118.”].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Rankins with Antin to include the limitation(s) above as disclosed by Antin. Doing so would further define Rankins’s (Rankins) [0001-0016] “allowing the organizations to easily manage, track, align and reward” teams and employees and Antin improves this by addressing the issue of “today's virtual badging systems fail to engage and motivate users” [see at least Antin [0002] ].
Furthermore, all of the claimed elements were known in the prior arts of a) Rankins and b) Antin and c) one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 2 and 11, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 1,
and Rankin teaches wherein the request is received from an application that hosts a profile associated with the particular worker, wherein users of the application can access information associated with the particular worker via the profile [see at least Fig. 1 and [0051] “As shown in FIG. 1 , the computer implemented business management system 100 (hereinafter referred to “the system” 100) may include, but not limited to, at least a processor 1042, a memory unit 1044, a business management platform 108, and a plurality of network-connected computer user interfaces 102 for a plurality of participants.”;
[0055] “The plurality of computer user interfaces 102 may be running a web browser or an installed device application, that allows the respective participant at the respective device to view web pages/content served by the business management platform 108 100. These plurality of participants may be registered members of the business management platform 108 and may be provided with the respective individual and/or team profile.”].
Regarding claim 3 and 12, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 2,
and Rankin teaches wherein the application hosting the profile associated with the particular worker is associated with at least one of the organization or a social media platform [see at least [0055] “The plurality of computer user interfaces 102 may be running a web browser or an installed device application, that allows the respective participant at the respective device to view web pages/content served by the business management platform 108 100. These plurality of participants may be registered members of the business management platform 108 and may be provided with the respective individual and/or team profile.”].
Regarding claim 5 and 14, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the digital badge database, and wherein identifying the one or more entries of the digital badge database that are associated with the team
and Rankin teaches wherein the digital badge data storage is a distributed ledger network, and wherein identifying the one or more entries of the digital badge data storage that are associated with the team comprises:
transmitting, to one or more nodes of the distributed ledger network, a request for data indicating one or more digital badges issued to the team; and
receiving the data indicating the one or more digital badges issued to the team from at least one of the one or more nodes of the distributed ledger network in response to the request [see at least [0059, 0063] “the system 100 may also include a data repository 106. The data repository 106 may be a local storage, a cloud-based storage (centralized network storage) or blockchain storage (decentralized infrastructure). In any manner, the data repository 106 is envisaged to be capable of providing the data to the processor 1042, when the data is queried appropriately using applicable processing, security and other data transfer protocols.”;
Figs. 3A-3B and [0141] “Then, step 2104 involves tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery. This includes providing automatic leaderboards where team member and managers can see the best performers, and comparing metric results of teams/individuals. The same has been shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B. Herein, the top individual performances can be seen in FIG. 3A and the top performances have been shown in FIG. 3B.”].
Regarding claim 6 and 15, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 5,
and Rankin teaches wherein the distributed ledger network is a blockchain network [see at least [0059, 0063] “the system 100 may also include a data repository 106. The data repository 106 may be a local storage, a cloud-based storage (centralized network storage) or blockchain storage (decentralized infrastructure). In any manner, the data repository 106 is envisaged to be capable of providing the data to the processor 1042, when the data is queried appropriately using applicable processing, security and other data transfer protocols.”].
Regarding claim 23, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 1,
and Rankin teaches wherein the digital badge database stores each digital badge issued to the team as a shared entry associated with the team [as noted by the 112 rejection it is unclear what the shared entry is and it is interpreted as entry,
then see at least [0017] “creating goals for teams/individuals based on Key-Result-Area (KRA) metrics: tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery: creating levels of development for team members based on badges earned when successfully meeting or exceeding goals”;
[0059] data storage], and wherein extracting the respective digital badge from at least one of the identified one or more entries associated with the team comprises:
generating the indication of the respective digital badge by selectively retrieving, from the shared entry, badge data corresponding to the tenure of the particular worker [see at least [0017] “a performance management module integrated with the marketing and sales management module, the learning management module, and the customer engagement module. Furthermore, the performance management module is configured to manage, track, align and reward the plurality of participants, by creating goals for teams/individuals based on Key-Result-Area (KRA) metrics: tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery: creating levels of development for team members based on badges earned when successfully meeting or exceeding goals: retrieving performance metrics from Sales and Marketing management module, Learning Management, and Customer Engagement module of the platform; and providing customized dashboards based on roles of the plurality of participants to enhance their performance, thereby allowing the organization to easily manage, track, align and reward their sales, marketing, customer engagement, and people development teams in one Integrated Platform.”;
[0106] “For example: the business management platform 108 may provide a dedicated training center wherein the respective participant (team member) can access courses and learn about skills such as, but not limited to, B2B sales, B2B marketing, Onboarding-Corp, Onboarding-Team, Sales strategies, Elevator pitches. These courses may have an assessment test at the end with predetermined passing score. Once cleared, the participant may be provided with badges, points, etc. to their respective profile. These helps elevate operational efficiency of the participants (employees) who can then enhance their skills and working profile.”;
[0141] “Then, step 2104 involves tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery. This includes providing automatic leaderboards where team member and managers can see the best performers, and comparing metric results of teams/individuals.”].
Claim(s) 4 and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rankins in view of Antin as applied to claim(s) 2 and 11 above and further in view of Moz, published May 3, 2013 (reference U on the Notice of References Cited).
Regarding claim 4 and 13, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 2,
and Rankin teaches original further comprising: responsive to receiving the request from the application, incrementing a counter associated with the profile associated with the particular worker, wherein the counter indicates a number of requests from the application for the one or more digital badges associated with the particular worker; and
Rankin further comprising: responsive to receiving the request from the application, the profile associated with the particular worker, data from the application for the one or more digital badges associated with the particular worker; and
original determining, based on a value of the incremented counter, whether to maintain the one or more digital badges associated with the worker at the platform
Rankin one or more digital badges associated with the worker at the platform [for the limitations above,
see at least [0017] “a performance management module integrated with the marketing and sales management module, the learning management module, and the customer engagement module. Furthermore, the performance management module is configured to manage, track, align and reward the plurality of participants, by creating goals for teams/individuals based on Key-Result-Area (KRA) metrics: tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery: creating levels of development for team members based on badges earned when successfully meeting or exceeding goals: retrieving performance metrics from Sales and Marketing management module, Learning Management, and Customer Engagement module of the platform; and providing customized dashboards based on roles of the plurality of participants to enhance their performance, thereby allowing the organization to easily manage, track, align and reward their sales, marketing, customer engagement, and people development teams in one Integrated Platform.”;
[0106] “For example: the business management platform 108 may provide a dedicated training center wherein the respective participant (team member) can access courses and learn about skills such as, but not limited to, B2B sales, B2B marketing, Onboarding-Corp, Onboarding-Team, Sales strategies, Elevator pitches. These courses may have an assessment test at the end with predetermined passing score. Once cleared, the participant may be provided with badges, points, etc. to their respective profile. These helps elevate operational efficiency of the participants (employees) who can then enhance their skills and working profile.”;
[0141] “Then, step 2104 involves tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery. This includes providing automatic leaderboards where team member and managers can see the best performers, and comparing metric results of teams/individuals.”].
Modified Rankins doesn’t/don’t explicitly teach but Moz discloses
further comprising: responsive to receiving the request, incrementing a counter associated with the webpage, wherein the counter indicates a number of requests for the webpage; and
determining, based on a value of the incremented counter, whether to maintain data [see at least [pg 1-2] when to delete a webpage given views of the webpage.]
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify modified Rankins with Moz to include the limitation(s) above as disclosed by Moz. Doing so would further define modified Rankins’s (Rankins) [0001-0016] “allowing the organizations to easily manage, track, align and reward” teams and employees and Moz improves this by determining when the reward may be ineffective [see at least Moz [pg 1-2].
Furthermore, all of the claimed elements were known in the prior arts of a) modified Rankins and b) Moz and c) one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 7-8 and 16-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rankins in view of Antin as applied to claim(s) 1 and 10 above and further in view of El Kharzazi (US 2019/0180244 A1).
Regarding claim 7 and 16, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 1,
and Rankin teaches further comprising: identifying data associated with actions performed by the workers of the team, wherein the data is identified from a plurality of data sources associated with at least one of the workers of the team or the organization;
the identified data, a benefaction level associated with the workers relative to other workers of the organization;
a respective benefaction level for the workers of the team relative to other workers of the organization [for the limitations above, see at least [0017] “creating goals for teams/individuals based on Key-Result-Area (KRA) metrics: tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery: creating levels of development for team members based on badges earned when successfully meeting or exceeding goals”;
Fig. 3A and 3B and [0141] as noted in Fig. 3B “Banana Chips Gang” (Team), “Goals for Sellers Feb 2021”, “Goals for Sellers Jan 2021”, and “Member Contribution”]; and
responsive to determining that the respective benefaction level for the workers of the team satisfies one or more criteria associated with a goal defined by at least one of the team or the organization, updating the digital badge database to indicate that one or more digital badges are issued to the team [see at least [0017] “a performance management module integrated with the marketing and sales management module, the learning management module, and the customer engagement module. Furthermore, the performance management module is configured to manage, track, align and reward the plurality of participants, by creating goals for teams/individuals based on Key-Result-Area (KRA) metrics: tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery: creating levels of development for team members based on badges earned when successfully meeting or exceeding goals: retrieving performance metrics from Sales and Marketing management module, Learning Management, and Customer Engagement module of the platform; and providing customized dashboards based on roles of the plurality of participants to enhance their performance, thereby allowing the organization to easily manage, track, align and reward their sales, marketing, customer engagement, and people development teams in one Integrated Platform.”;
[0106] “For example: the business management platform 108 may provide a dedicated training center wherein the respective participant (team member) can access courses and learn about skills such as, but not limited to, B2B sales, B2B marketing, Onboarding-Corp, Onboarding-Team, Sales strategies, Elevator pitches. These courses may have an assessment test at the end with predetermined passing score. Once cleared, the participant may be provided with badges, points, etc. to their respective profile. These helps elevate operational efficiency of the participants (employees) who can then enhance their skills and working profile.”;
[0141] “Then, step 2104 involves tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery. This includes providing automatic leaderboards where team member and managers can see the best performers, and comparing metric results of teams/individuals.”].
Modified Rankins doesn’t/don’t explicitly teach but El Kharzazi discloses
providing data as input to a machine learning model, wherein the machine learning model is trained to predict, based on given input indicating actions of workers, data;
obtaining one or more outputs of the machine learning model, wherein the one or more outputs indicate data [for the limitations above, see at least [0023-0025, 0032] various machine learning such as neural networks which evaluate employee performance for Human Resource].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify modified Rankins with El Kharzazi to include the limitation(s) above as disclosed by El Kharzazi. Doing so would further define modified Rankins’s (Rankins) [0001-0016] “allowing the organizations to easily manage, track, align and reward” teams and employees and El Kharzazi improves this by “simplifies the administration of Human Resources activities and the subsequent recordkeeping and legal compliance responsibilities” [see at least El Kharzazi [0001-0005].
Furthermore, all of the claimed elements were known in the prior arts of a) modified Rankins and b) El Kharzazi and c) one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 8, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 7,
and Rankin teaches wherein the machine learning model is a neural network
Modified Rankins doesn’t/don’t explicitly teach but El Kharzazi discloses
wherein the machine learning model is a neural network [see at least [0023-0025, 0032] various neural networks].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify modified Rankins with El Kharzazi to include the limitation(s) above as disclosed by El Kharzazi. Doing so would further define modified Rankins’s (Rankins) [0001-0016] “allowing the organizations to easily manage, track, align and reward” teams and employees and El Kharzazi improves this by “simplifies the administration of Human Resources activities and the subsequent recordkeeping and legal compliance responsibilities” [see at least El Kharzazi [0001-0005].
Furthermore, all of the claimed elements were known in the prior arts of a) modified Rankins and b) El Kharzazi and c) one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rankins in view of Antin and El Kharzazi as applied to claim(s) 7 above and further in view of Stackoverflow, published April 24, 2014 (reference V on the Notice of References Cited).
Regarding claim 9, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 7, as well as updating the digital badge database to indicate that the one or more digital badges are issued to the team and
the data associated with the actions performed by the workers of the team from at least one of the plurality of data sources.
Modified Rankins doesn’t/don’t explicitly teach but Stackoverflow discloses
further comprising: responsive to updating the database, removing the data [see at least [pg 1] “I'm trying to update my db with changes I've made in my entity models (a few extra table columns) … it will delete all my test data. Previously I've done this and used the Seed method to create some basic data”].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify modified Rankins with Stackoverflow to include the limitation(s) above as disclosed by Stackoverflow. Doing so would further define modified Rankins’s (Rankins) [0001-0016] “allowing the organizations to easily manage, track, align and reward” teams and employees and Stackoverflow improves this by determining when how data is managed such as when to remove data (small amount) or keep data (large amount) [see at least Stackoverflow [pg 1].
Furthermore, all of the claimed elements were known in the prior arts of a) modified Rankins and b) Stackoverflow and c) one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 21-22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rankins in view of Antin as applied to claim(s) 1 above and further in view of El Rathod (US 2023/0252540 A1).
Regarding claim 21, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 1, as well as wherein updating the account associated with the particular worker comprises: the indication of the respective digital badge.
Modified Rankins doesn’t/don’t explicitly teach but Rathod discloses
transmitting, via an application programming interface (API), data to an external application associated with an additional platform, wherein the account is hosted by the external application [see at least [0106] “In another embodiment external domains, applications, websites, servers, networks, platforms and databases enables user application to pull one or more types of contents posted by user or related to user or allow to access by user from external domains, applications, websites, servers, networks, platforms and databases via application program interface (APIs) and software development toolkit (SDKs).”;
[0001] “In another embodiment enabling user to transfer or access user related data or content and followers or connected or related users associated with one or more external domains or applications to one or more other domains or applications. In another embodiment enabling second network or application to identify or determine eligibility, rank, wight and offers of user on first network or application. In another embodiment enabling integrated mini apps or extremal applications or websites to instantly create mass userbase by synchronizing relevant or filtered or as per requirement specification or rule based or filtered or contextual or subscribed user account information or data from the server database of parent application or website or domain or network to integrated mini apps or extremal applications or websites based on user permission and privacy settings.”].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify modified Rankins with Rathod to include the limitation(s) above as disclosed by Rathod. Doing so would further define modified Rankins’s (Rankins) [0001-0016] “allowing the organizations to easily manage, track, align and reward” teams and employees and Rathod improves this by furthering the competition and growth of Rankin ([0023 which relates to 0001-0016]) via expanding competition and growth [see at least Rathod [0002-0011] ].
Furthermore, all of the claimed elements were known in the prior arts of a) modified Rankins and b) Rathod and c) one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 22, modified Rankins teaches the method of claim 1,
and Rankin teaches further comprising; the identified one or more entries of the digital badge database, a badge history associated with the particular worker;
obtaining one or more recommended actions to be taken with respect to the particular worker based on the badge history; and
performing an operation associated with the one or more recommended actions [see at least [0017] “creating goals for teams/individuals based on Key-Result-Area (KRA) metrics: tracking goals of teams/individual participants and awarding badges for successful goal delivery: creating levels of development for team members based on badges earned when successfully meeting or exceeding goals”;
[0059] data storage;
[0077-0080] “Additionally, the marketing and sales management module 1082 is integrated with the Performance management module 1088, which in combination enables the following features in the business management platform 108:
Manage, track, align, and reward marketing/sales goals.
Visualize sales and marketing data in our dashboards.
Built-in Gamification features.”;
[0082] “After that, at step 206, the learning management module 1084 is configured to facilitate functionalities such as, but not limited to, course creation, course assessment, course Consumption and course metrics for development of the plurality of participants by training the teams and the individual team members based on the respective roles and requirements of the organization.”].
Modified Rankins doesn’t/don’t explicitly teach but Rathod discloses
determining, based on the first data, second data associated with the particular worker [see at least [0106] “In another embodiment external domains, applications, websites, servers, networks, platforms and databases enables user application to pull one or more types of contents posted by user or related to user or allow to access by user from external domains, applications, websites, servers, networks, platforms and databases via application program interface (APIs) and software development toolkit (SDKs).”;
[0001] “In another embodiment enabling user to transfer or access user related data or content and followers or connected or related users associated with one or more external domains or applications to one or more other domains or applications. In another embodiment enabling second network or application to identify or determine eligibility, rank, wight and offers of user on first network or application. In another embodiment enabling integrated mini apps or extremal applications or websites to instantly create mass userbase by synchronizing relevant or filtered or as per requirement specification or rule based or filtered or contextual or subscribed user account information or data from the server database of parent application or website or domain or network to integrated mini apps or extremal applications or websites based on user permission and privacy settings.”;
[0013] “The other object of the present invention is identifying rank, weight, offers, eligibility of/for user based on number of posts or contents published, number of followers, connections and reactions on posted contents by user on one or more external networks or applications.”].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify modified Rankins with Rathod to include the limitation(s) above as disclosed by Rathod. Doing so would further define modified Rankins’s (Rankins) [0001-0016] “allowing the organizations to easily manage, track, align and reward” teams and employees and Rathod improves this by furthering the competition and growth of Rankin ([0023 which relates to 0001-0016]) via expanding competition and growth [see at least Rathod [0002-0011] ].
Furthermore, all of the claimed elements were known in the prior arts of a) modified Rankins and b) Rathod and c) one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Conclusion
When responding to the office action, any new claims and/or limitations should be accompanied by a reference as to where the new claims and/or limitations are supported in the original disclosure.
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/JAMES WEBB/Examiner, Art Unit 3624
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