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 .
The amendment filed on April 30, 2026 has been considered.
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 9-12, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davila et al. (US 2018/0066517) in view of Markovic et al. (US 2020/0272662) and Chow et al. (US 20130086501).
Regarding claims 1, 11, and 17, Davila et al. discloses a computer-implemented method for managing one or more hydrocarbon wells formed in the Earth's subsurface (well site drilling operation, Abstract, lines 1-2 implemented by a computer system, paragraph 0013; Fig. 10), the computer-implemented method comprising:
obtaining a well dataset for the one or more hydrocarbon wells (obtaining well site data related to drilling, Abstract, lines 3-4);
identifying one or more entities within the well dataset (events of drilling operations, Abstract, lines 7-9), wherein each of the one or more entities has at least one corresponding well attribute (well site parameters in well site data. Abstract, lines 4-6) and corresponding entity dates (event dates, paragraph 0056);
generating a network graph of the one or more entities (paragraph 0049, lines 1-2; Figs. 4-8; where FIGS. 4-8 shows monitoring drilling operations at one or more well sites in a petroleum field, paragraph 0049, lines 2-5. The claimed network graph, e.g. 501, shown in Figs. 5’s of the application includes clusters of similar wells, 506, 508) based on a similarity index between the one or more entities (the events are related to a common well site(s), paragraph 0007), wherein the similarity index utilizes the corresponding well attributes (parameters common website are based on the common well site, Abstract, lines 4-6);
identifying one or more entities (operations by drilling system, paragraph 0028, lines 4-7; paragraph 0034, lines 1-4) within the network graph (Fig. 4 shows network graph of systems 200, 300, 400), wherein the one or more entities correspond to a first hydrocarbon well of the one or more hydrocarbon wells (operations of drilling system 200 correspond to the well site); and
generating, on a display device, a visualization of the first hydrocarbon well including the one or more entities of the first cluster (Fig. 4).
Davila et al. does not expressly disclose each of the one or more entities is represented as a node of the network graph and edges between nodes represent the similarity index between the one or more entities.
Markovic et al. discloses each of the one or more entities is represented as a node (node ID’s, Fig. 6) of the network graph (Fig. 6) and edges (edges between node ID’s, Fig. 6) between nodes (node ID’s) represent the similarity index (similar to edge) between the one or more entities (WELL 1 and WELL 2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to provide Davila et al. with edges between nodes as disclosed by Markovic et al. for the purpose of representing the similarity index.
Davila et al. further does not expressly disclose identifying a first cluster of the one or more entities within the network graph.
Chow et al. discloses identifying a first cluster of the one or more entities (displaying group(s) of related events, Abstract, lines 1-3) within the network graph (Fig. 3 shows a network graph of events)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to provide Davila et al. with identifying a first cluster of the one or more entities as disclosed by Chow et al. for the purpose of displaying groups of related events.
Regarding claim 11, Davila et al. further discloses a non-transitory, computer-readable medium (1010) having instructions stored thereon that are executable by a processor (1012) to perform operations (paragraph 0064, lines 1-3).
Regarding claim 17, Davila et al. further discloses
a processor (1012); and
a computer-readable medium (1010) having instructions stored thereon (paragraph 0064, lines 1-3) that are executable by the processor (paragraph 0064, lines 1-3).
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Davila et al. discloses the one or more entities include a hydrocarbon well job (paragraph 0028, lines 4-5), a hydrocarbon well activity (paragraph 0028, lines 4-5), and a public record.
It is noted that the one or more entities include a public record is an alternative limitation because it is recited in the alternative form.
Regarding claim 4, Davila et al. does not disclose the visualization includes a timeline of the one or more entities of the first cluster displayed in chronological order based on the entity date, a Gantt chart of the one or more entities of the first cluster, and a cluster of the one or more entities of the first cluster.
Chow et al. discloses the visualization includes a cluster of the one or more entities of the first cluster (groups of events, Fig. 3, paragraph 0026).
It is noted that the visualization includes a timeline of the one or more entities of the first cluster displayed in chronological order based on the entity date, a Gantt chart of the one or more entities of the first cluster are alternative limitations because they are recited in the alternative form.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to provide Davila et al. with identifying a first cluster of the one or more entities as disclosed by Chow et al. for the purpose of displaying groups of related entities/events.
Regarding claim 9, Davila et al. discloses
identifying the one or more entities within the network graph (200, Fig. 4, 200, paragraph 0028, lines 4-7, 300, Fig. 4, 300, paragraph 0034, lines 1-4), wherein the one or more entities correspond to a plurality of hydrocarbon wells of the one or more hydrocarbon wells (paragraph 0034, lines 1-4); and
generating, on a display device, the visualization of the plurality of hydrocarbon wells (Fig. 4).
Chow et al. discloses identifying a second cluster of the one or more entities within the network graph (displaying groups of related events, Abstract, lines 1-3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to provide Davila et al. with identifying the first cluster of the one or more entities within the network graph as disclosed by Chow et al. for the purpose of displaying groups of related entities/events.
Regarding claim 10, Davila et al. discloses performing a wellbore operation based on the visualization (paragraph 0034, lines 1-4).
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davila et al. in view of Chow et al. as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Heidari (US 2023/0273179).
Regarding claim 3, Davila et al. as modified by Chow et al. discloses the claimed limitation as discussed above, except the well attributes include a well name, a hydrocarbon well identifier, and well surface location coordinates.
Heidari discloses well attributes include a well name (paragraph 0054, line 1-2), a hydrocarbon well identifier (well name, paragraph 0054, line 1-2), and well surface location coordinates (paragraph 0054, line 1-2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to provide Davila et al. as modified with well attributes include a well name, a hydrocarbon well identifier, and well surface location coordinates as disclosed by Heidari for the purpose of identifying the hydrocarbon well.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-8, 13-16, and 18-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Reasons For Allowance
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The combination as claimed wherein a computer-implemented method and system for managing one or more hydrocarbon wells formed in the Earth's subsurface comprising tokenizing each of the well attributes for the respective entities; generating the similarity index between the one or more entities utilizing the tokenized well attributes for the respective entities (claims 5, 13, 18) or increasing a similarity threshold of the similarity index; wherein the similarity index for the one or more entities are above the similarity threshold (claims 6, 14, 19) or generating geo-spatial autocorrelation between the one or more entities to refine the first cluster (claims 7, 15, 20) is not disclosed, suggested, or made obvious by the prior art of record.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed April 30, 2026 have been fully considered.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to objection to the specification have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objection to the specification has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments and amendments with respect to the objections to the drawings have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objections to the drawings have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments and amendments with respect to the to the rejections under 35 USC 112(d) have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection under 35 USC 112(d) has been withdrawn.
With respect to the rejections under 35 USC 103, Applicants argue that the cited references do not teach “claimed network graph is a structured data representation in which each entity is represented as a node and relationships between entities, defined by a similarity index, are represented as edges between nodes.”
Examiner’s position is that Applicant’s arguments and amendments with respect to the rejections under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejections have been withdrawn.
However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Markovic et al., as discussed above. Markovic et al. discloses a network graph (Fig. 6) is a structured data representation in which each of the one or more entities is represented as a node (node ID’s, Fig. 6) of the network graph (Fig. 6) and edges (edges between node ID’s, Fig. 6) between nodes (node ID’s) represent the similarity index (similar to edge) between the one or more entities (WELL 1 and WELL 2).
Applicant’s remaining arguments have been considered but are traversed in view of the grounds of rejection discussed above.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael Nghiem whose telephone number is (571) 272-2277. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Schechter can be reached at (571) 272-2302. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/MICHAEL P NGHIEM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857 June 26, 2026
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