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 .
Introduction
The following is a non-final Office action in response to Applicant’s RCE submission filed on 1/7/2026. Currently claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20 are pending and claims 1, 8, and 15 are independent. Claims 1, 8, and 15 have been amended from the previous claim set dated 8/7/2025. No claims have been newly added or cancelled.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 1/7/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendments
Applicant’s amendments are acknowledged and necessitated the new grounds of rejection in this Office action. In light of applicant’s amendments, the 35 USC § 103 rejections have been withdrawn because none of the prior art of record, taken individually or in combination, teach the claimed invention as detailed in the independent claims, wherein the novelty of the claimed invention is in the combination of limitations and not in any single limitation. Specifically, none of the prior art discloses an airport plane refueling management system which predicts a waiting time (not refueling time) of a plurality of available fuel trucks, and then uses that information in conjunction with truck current fuel levels, locations, and plane fuel orders, to recommend and dispatch an available fuel truck.
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 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 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), specifically an abstract idea, without significantly more. With respect to claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20, following the guidance contained within MPEP 2106, the inquiry for patent eligibility follows two steps: Step 1: Does the claimed invention fall within one of the four statutory categories of invention? Step 2A (Prong 1): Is the claim “directed to” an abstract idea? Step 2A (Prong 2): Is the claim integrated into a practical application? Step 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to “significantly more” than the abstract idea?
In accordance with these steps, the Examiner finds the following:
Step 1: Claim 1 and its dependent claims (claims 2-4, 6, 7) are directed to a statutory category, namely a system/machine. Claim 8 and its dependent claims (claims 9-11, 13, 14) are directed to a statutory category, namely a method. Claim 15 and its dependent claims (claims 16-18, 20) are directed to a statutory category, namely an article of manufacture.
Step 2A (Prong 1): Claims 1, 8, and 15, which are substantially similar claims to one another, are directed to the abstract idea of “Mental processes”, or more particularly, “Concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) (See MPEP 2106).” In this application that refers to using a computer system to analyze and evaluate the refueling schedule/strategy for an airport. To clarify this further, the Applicant’s disclosed invention is a conceptual system meant to perform the same function that an operations manager performs at an airport. The abstract elements of claims 1, 8, and 15, recite in part “Receive data…Determine wait time…Display wait time…Match orders…Generate recommendations…Provide task…”. Dependent claims 2-4, 6, 9-11, 13, 16-18, 20 add to the abstract idea the following limitations which recite in part “Determine fueling time…Update weights…Orders include…Train network…Match orders…Generate updated schedule…”. All of these additional limitations, however, only serve to further limit the abstract idea, and hence are nonetheless directed towards fundamentally the same abstract idea as independent claims 1, 8, and 15. Dependent claims 7 and 14 do not include any limitations that are directed toward the abstract idea and will be addresses in either the Step 2A (Prong 2) or Step 2B analysis below.
Step 2A (Prong 2): Independent claims 1, 8, and 15, which are substantially similar claims to one another, do not contain additional elements, either considered individually or in combination, that effectively integrate the exception into a practical application of the exception. These claims do include the limitation that recites in part “Predictive maintenance engine…Dataset ingestion module…database…trained neural network…Order interface…Processor…computer readable medium…Scheduler…User interface…Dispatcher…” which limits the claims to a networked/computer based environment, but this is insufficient with respect to integration into a practical application because it is merely applying the abstract idea to a general computer (See MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Dependent claims 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20 add the additional element which recites in part “Geofencing analysis module…Neural network…Scheduler…Solver…Deep neural network…” which again limits the claims to a networked/computer based environment, but this is also insufficient with respect to integration into a practical application because it is merely applying the abstract idea to a general computer (See MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Additionally, dependent claims 3, 10, 17 do not include any additional elements to conduct a further Step 2A (Prong 2) analysis.
Step 2B: Independent claims 1, 8, and 15, which are substantially similar claims to one another, include additional elements, when considered both individually and as an ordered combination, which are insufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements of these claims recite in part “Predictive maintenance engine…Dataset ingestion module…database…trained neural network…Order interface…Processor…computer readable medium…Scheduler…User interface … Dispatcher…”. These items are not significantly more because these are merely the software and/or hardware components used to implement the abstract idea (analyze and evaluate the refueling schedule/strategy for an airport) on a general purpose computer (See MPEP 2106.05(f)). This is exemplified in the Applicant’s specification in [0068] – “This disclosure contemplates that the nodes can be implemented using a computing device (e.g., a processing unit and memory as described herein).”
Dependent claims 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20 include additional elements, when considered both individually and as an ordered combination and in view of their respective independent claims, which are insufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Specifically, dependent claims 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20 include the additional element which recites in part “Geofencing analysis module…Neural network…Scheduler…Solver…Deep neural network…” These are consistent additional elements that are addressed above in claims 1, 8, and 15, and are not significantly more because these are again merely the software and/or hardware components used to implement the abstract idea (analyze and evaluate the refueling schedule/strategy for an airpor) on a general purpose computer (See MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Additionally, dependent claims 3, 10, 17 do not include any additional elements to conduct a further 2B analysis.
Accordingly, whether taken individually or as an ordered combination claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20 are rejected under 35 USC § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception, an abstract idea, without significantly more.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 1/7/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive and/or are moot in light of the new rejections addressed above.
Regarding the arguments related to the 35 USC § 101 rejections, as addressed above according to guidance contained within MPEP 2106 for 35 USC § 101 rejections, the Examiner maintains that the claimed invention is an abstract idea, without significantly more, and not integrated into a practical application.
The Applicant argues that the claims overcome the 101 rejection because the claims do not fall into the enumerated bucket of “mental processes.” Specifically, the Applicant argues that the claims are patent eligible because there are certain limitations that cannot be performed by the human mind. Examiner does not find this persuasive because the claim is interpreted as a method to analyze and evaluate the refueling schedule/strategy for an airport which is considered a mental/evaluative process. The additional elements that the Applicant identifies (trained neural network, data used for analysis, etc.) are simply interpreted as the software/hardware used to implement the abstract idea on a general purpose computer.
Examiner will note however, if additional structural elements are claimed to specifically limit the abstract idea to an airport (e.g. runways, control towers, terminals, jetways, etc) that is potentially a route to overcoming the 101 rejection because it would integrate the abstract idea into the practical application of an airport.
Regarding the 35 USC 35 USC § 103 as addressed above and in light of applicant’s amendments, the 35 USC § 103 rejections have been withdrawn because none of the prior art of record, taken individually or in combination, teach the claimed invention as detailed in the independent claims, wherein the novelty of the claimed invention is in the combination of limitations and not in any single limitation. Specifically, none of the prior art discloses an airport plane refueling management system which predicts a waiting time (not refueling time) of a plurality of available fuel trucks, and then uses that information in conjunction with truck current fuel levels, locations, and plane fuel orders, to recommend and dispatch an available fuel truck.
The closest prior art to the invention includes:
Blagg et al. (US 20080065449 A1)
Patel et al. (US 11006078 B1)
Baddi et al. (EP 4071682 A1)
Guo et al. (CN 113344368 A)
de Oliveira et al. (US 20210103860 A1)
Huang et al. (CN 113344368)
Bodkhe et al. (WO 2020057781 A1)
and
W. Quan, et al. “Dynamic Scheduling for Airport Special Vehicles Based on a Multi-strategy Hybrid Algorithm," 2022 41st Chinese Control Conference (CCC), Hefei, China, 2022, pp. 1916-1921, doi: 10.23919/CCC55666.2022.9901875 [online], [retrieved on 2025-05-03]. Retrieved from the Internet <https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9901875?source=IQplus>
and
Z. Zhaohua, et al. “Research on airport Special Vehicle Scheduling problem," 2020 International Conference on Virtual Reality and Intelligent Systems (ICVRIS), Zhangjiajie, China, 2020, pp. 1076-1078, doi: 10.1109/ICVRIS51417.2020.00262 [online], [retrieved on 2025-05-03]. Retrieved from the Internet <https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9539279?source=IQplus>
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael R Koester whose telephone number is (313)446-4837. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday 8:00AM-5:00 PM EST.
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/MICHAEL R KOESTER/Examiner, Art Unit 3624
/Jerry O'Connor/Supervisory Patent Examiner,Group Art Unit 3624