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 .
Status of Claims
The following is a final office action.
Claims 1-2, 4-9, 11-16, and 18-23 are currently pending and have been examined on their merits.
Claims 1, 5-8, 12-15, and 19-20 are currently amended see REMARKS September 24, 2025.
Claims 3, 10, and 17 are newly canceled see REMARKS September 24, 2025.
Claims 21-23 are newly added see REMARKS September 24, 2025.
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, 4-9, 11-16, and 18-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1: Claims 1-2, 4-7, and 21-23 recites a system, and claim 8-9, 11-14 recites a method (i.e. a series of steps), and claims 15-16, and 18-20 recite a non-transitory computer readable medium and therefore each claim falls within one of the four statutory categories.
Step 2A prong 1 (Is a judicial exception recited?):
The representative claims 1, 8, and 15 recite: receiving a plurality of pieces of evidence; storing the plurality of pieces of evidence; subsequent to storing the plurality of pieces of evidence, receiving, a request for evidence associated with a first standard, the request comprising a first requirement and a second requirement of the first standard; in response to receiving the request, accessing a mapping table that relates each piece of evidence of the plurality of pieces of evidence to one or more standards of a plurality of standards, wherein the mapping table relates each piece of evidence of the plurality of pieces of evidence to the one or more standards of the plurality of standards based on each piece of evidence satisfying a requirement of the one or more standards; determining, by analyzing the mapping table, that the first standard is not one of the plurality of standards described in the mapping table; subsequent to determining that the first standard is not one of the plurality of standards described in the mapping table, identifying a first piece of evidence of the plurality of pieces of evidence related to the first standard determining that a second standard also involves the first requirement; determining that the second standard is one of the plurality of standards described in the mapping table; and identifying the first piece of evidence based on the first piece of evidence being correlated to the second standard in the mapping table and being usable to satisfy the first requirement; in response to identifying the first piece of evidence of the plurality of pieces of evidence related to the first standard, obtaining the first piece of evidence from the repository; identifying, based on the second requirement of the first standard, a second piece of evidence; determining that the second piece of evidence is not one of the plurality of pieces of evidence stored; in response to determining that second piece of evidence is not one of the plurality of pieces of evidence stored, obtaining the second piece of evidence by requesting the second piece of evidence; and subsequent to obtaining the first piece of evidence and the second piece of evidence, (sending) the first piece of evidence and the second piece of evidence as a response to the request for the evidence associated with the first standard.
The claims recite a certain method of organizing human activity. The claims recite a certain method of organizing human activity as the disclosure is directed to managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people. The claims recite a series of steps for requesting evidence associated with a standard and identifying additional standards and evidence associated with a first standard. The steps of merely mapping evidence or data to a requirement or a standard for an entity and generating a report that can be used in determining if the entity is within a standard is a certain method of organizing human activity as the steps are typically performed by a person such as a quality control manager or auditor.
Alternatively, the claims recite a mental process. The claims recite a method for receiving a request for evidence associated with a standard, accessing a mapping table that relates each piece of evidence to one or more standards and presenting the evidence to the user. The steps of requesting information such as evidence associated with a particular standard and presenting the requesting information to a user can be performed in the human mind or by using simple tools such as pen and paper. The courts have identified concepts such as observation, evaluation, judgement and opinion as reciting a mental process. Therefore, as the claims recite a method merely identifying information related to a request and presenting the information to a user such as evidence that is associated with a standard is an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong 2 (Is the exception integrated into a practical application?): The claims additionally recite;
Claim 1: A system comprising: a processing device; and a memory device that includes instructions executable by the processing device for causing the processing device to perform operations, a plurality of computing devices, a network request, a repository, and transmitting to the user device.
Claim 8: A computer, a plurality of computing devices, a network request, a repository, and transmitting to the user device.
Claim 15: A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that are executable by a processing device for causing the processing device to perform operations, a plurality of computing devices, a network request, a repository, and transmitting to the user device.
However, the additional elements merely amount to adding 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). Merely utilizing generic computer elements such as a computer and a user device to perform basic actions of the abstract idea by receiving, storing, and transmitting information is not an improvement to a technology. Furthermore, a method for receiving and processing information does not amount to improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(a), applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(b), effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(c), such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception, as discussed in MPEP 2106.05(e). Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Step 2B (Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more that the judicial exception?): As discussed above, the additional imitations amount to adding 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). See reasoning for Step 2A prong 2. Therefore, the claims do not amount to significantly more as they do not recite an improvement to a technology or technical field. The claims merely recite “apply it” or applying generic computer elements to store, process, and transmit information such as receiving a request for information or evidence associated with a standard and identifying and transmitting the requested information.
Claims 2, 4-7, 9, 11-14, and 16, 18-23 are directed to further narrowing the abstract idea of determining a piece of evidence associated with a standard based on a mapping table, detecting a modification of a requirement of a standard and updating the mapping table, and correlating evidence to a standard.
Additional elements recited by the dependent claims include:
Claims 5, 12, and 19: a second user device
Claims 4, 11, and 18 a log data tool
However, these elements are directed to merely “apply it” or applying generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea.
Therefore, claims 1-2, 4-9, 11-16, and 18-23 are rejected under U.S.C. 101.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see REMARKS, filed September 24 2025, with respect to the rejections of claims 1-2, 4-9, 11-16, and 18-23 under U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
The applicant argues that the additional elements direct the claims to a practical application as the claims recite a process for searching for and obtaining information sorted by a computing system that is faster, more flexible, and less computationally intensive than conventional searching and procurement approaches. The application further argues that the claims recite procuring multiple pieces of evidence in response to a request in an efficient manner and searching for information in a more flexible way and therefore the claims recite a practical application. However, the examiner respectfully disagrees as the claims recite a method for receiving a plurality of pieces of evidence, receiving from a user a request for evidence associated with a first standard, accessing a mapping table that relates each piece of evidence to one more standards, determining that the first standard is not one of the plurality of standards in the mapping table, identifying a first piece of evidence related to the first standard by determining that a second standard that also involves the first requirement, determining that the second standard is described in the mapping table, identifying that a piece of evidence correlated with the second standard in the table is usable to satisfy the first requirement, identifying a second piece of evidence that is not store in the repository, and transmitting the first and second piece of evidence to the user device and a response to the request for evidence with the first standard. The examiner finds that the claims recite an abstract idea as the claims merely recite a series of steps to evaluate and associate standards and evidence stored in a repository using a mapping table. The examiner finds that a person such as a quality control officer would be capable of mentally, or with basic tools such as pen and paper, reviewing information in a mapping table in response to a request for evidence associated with a first standard and identifying additional information such as second standards that share evidence and additional evidence associated with the first standard. As the claims recite concepts the courts have identified as being mental processes such as observation, evaluation, judgement, and opinion the claims are found to recite an abstract idea. Additionally, the additional elements of a system comprising a processing device with instructions to perform the claimed method are directed to merely “apply it” or applying generic computer elements to perform the abstract idea. The claims do not recite an improvement to a technology or technical field but merely recite using generic computer elements to automatically perform the abstract idea of evaluating a plurality of information to generate a response to a request. Therefore, the examiner finds the additional elements to be directed to merely “apply it” and the claims are not directed to a practical application.
Therefore, the examiner maintains the current 101 rejection.
Applicant argues that claims 2, 4-7, 9, 11-14, 16, and 18-23 are allowable as being dependent on claims 1, 8, and 15 and therefore are rejected under the same rejection.
Applicant’s arguments, see REMARKS, filed September 24, 2025, with respect to the rejections of 1-2, 4-9, 11-16, and 18-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Erwin (US 2023/0316184) in view of Zwilling (US 2008/0091676) are persuasive.
Claims 1, 8, and 15: The applicant argues that the current prior art does not disclose the newly amended claim limitations of “identifying, based on the second requirement of the first standard, a second piece of evidence; determining that the second piece of evidence is not one of the plurality of pieces of evidence stored in the repository; in response to determining that second piece of evidence is not one of the plurality of pieces of evidence stored in the repository, obtaining the second piece of evidence by requesting the second piece of evidence from a computing device of the plurality of computing devices; and subsequent to obtaining the first piece of evidence and the second piece of evidence, transmitting the first piece of evidence and the second piece of evidence to the user device as a response to the network request for the evidence associated with the first standard.” Upon further search and consideration the examiner agrees that the prior art does not disclose the newly amended claim limitations.
The closest prior art Erwin (US 2023/0316184) discloses a system for relating automated compliance verification framework that dynamically updates applicable regulations for an organization (Erwin [0002]). Erwin further discloses Automatically verifying regulations based on the recorded evidence and pairing regulations for an organization with benchmarks that can be used to verify the compliance (Erwin [0009]).
The second closest prior art Zwilling (US 2008/0091676) teaches a system of automatically auditing internal standards from documents of an organization to determine compliance (Zwilling [0033]). Zwilling further teaches determining a compliance report that can provide an organization with relevant records that have been located with respect to a compliance standard (Zwilling [0035]).
The third closest prior art is Salomon (US 2009/0089195) which teaches a system for tracking compliance by a company (Salomon [0005]). Salomon further teaches conducing an evaluation of compliance by extracting information from a database and determining a compliance level to a standard based on the stored information and associating information to regulatory requirements (Salomon [0013]).
However, the prior art independently and in combination do not disclose the claim limitations of “determining that the second piece of evidence is not one of the plurality of pieces of evidence stored in the repository; in response to determining that second piece of evidence is not one of the plurality of pieces of evidence stored in the repository, obtaining the second piece of evidence by requesting the second piece of evidence from a computing device of the plurality of computing devices; and subsequent to obtaining the first piece of evidence and the second piece of evidence, transmitting the first piece of evidence and the second piece of evidence to the user device as a response to the network request for the evidence associated with the first standard.”
Therefore, the examiner finds claims 1-2, 4-9, 11-16, and 18-23 allowable over U.S.C. 103.
Claims 2, 4-7, 9, 11-14, 16, and 18-23 were argued as being allowable only as being dependent on claims 1, 8, and 15. Therefore, the claims are also found to be allowable over U.S.C. 103.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure:
Howerton (US 2023/0376972) Building a compliance artifact.
Vanggaard (US 2023/0317261) Automated regulatory decision-making for compliance.
Hurry (US 2008/0082354) Compliance assessment reporting service.
Graves (US 2008/0271110) Systems and methods for monitoring compliance with standards or policies.
Arazy (US 2013/0198094) System and method for regulation compliance.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to COREY RUSS whose telephone number is (571)270-5902. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 7:30-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Lynda Jasmin can be reached on 5712726782. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/COREY RUSS/Examiner, Art Unit 3629
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