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 .
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) 1-8, 10 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to judicial exceptions without significantly more.
Claim(s) 1-8 recite(s) methods and claim(s) 10 recite(s) a system. Therefore, claim(s) 1-8, 10 fall(s) within a statutory category.
Claim 1 recites abstract ideas.
determining anomalies in one or more log sources of a system…wherein: said determining anomalies is started in response to a memory consumption of the first application exceeding a predefined frame or a predefined increase rate; said determining anomalies includes analyzing the log sources and determining further applications based on a process tree…, said process tree comprising information on processes or applications which start other processes, said applications started by the first application, and identifying and analyzing log sources of the further applications; the anomalies include an application having ended within a predefined time period after its start, a memory consumption exceeding a predefined frame or a predefined increase rate, and/or an application starting more frequently than a predefined value within a predefined time period; determining…causes for each of the anomalies corresponds to evaluations, which are mental processes. The claim discloses log analysis from selected data sources to detect anomalies. The causes of the anomalies are determined by evaluating the result of a query. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the limitations in light of the specification encompasses evaluations ([0004]: Log sources are typically manually reviewed by a human to determine anomalies. [0021]: The cause of the anomaly from the query can be presented to a human for review).
Claim 1 does not recite additional limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application.
A computer-implemented method amounts to mere instructions to implement the abstract ideas on a computer, which is mere instructions to apply an exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
said log sources obtained by accessing one or more log files or log streams written by a first application amounts to mere data gathering, which is insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
correcting the causes for each of the anomalies by…applying the configured solution actions to the system…and the solution actions include changing a variable, restarting a program, installing an application, and/or updating an installed application amounts to an attempt to cover any solution to any identified problem with no restriction on how the result is accomplished and no description of the mechanism for accomplishing the result, which is mere instructions to apply an exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
querying a database that maps pre-known causes to respective solution actions amounts to mere data gathering, which is insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
presenting the results of the query to a user on a display of the system amounts to mere data output, which is insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
receiving a selected and configured solution action of the presented solution actions from the user amounts to mere data gathering and selecting a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated, which is insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
storing the configured solution action in the database amounts to mere data gathering, which is insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
said memory consumption determined by accessing system information of an operation system; process tree maintained by the operating system amounts to mere data gathering, which is insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions because the additional elements amount to mere instructions to apply an exception and insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(f) and MPEP 2106.05(g).
Claim 2 refines recited abstract ideas.
wherein determining anomalies comprises: converting texts stored in the log sources into structured data, wherein components of the texts are classified with respect to their underlying events and parameters of the components of text are determined, and wherein the structured data differentiates into constant components of the texts from variable components of the texts corresponds to data analysis steps recited at a high level of generality such that they could practically be performed using pen and paper, which are mental processes. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the limitation in light of the specification encompasses parsing and grouping human-readable text ([0010]-[0014]).
The claim does not contain additional limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application and does not contain additional limitations that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions.
Claim 3 refines recited abstract ideas.
wherein determining anomalies comprises: clustering rows of the log sources using common identifiers used in different rows; determining parameter values from the clusters corresponds to data analysis steps recited at a high level of generality such that they could practically be performed using pen and paper, which are mental processes. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the limitation in light of the specification encompasses parsing and grouping human-readable text ([0010]-[0014]).
converting the clusters into respective number vectors corresponds to mathematical relationships, which are mathematical concepts. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the limitation in light of the specification encompasses mathematical relationships ([0017]: the vector elements can be generated by means of a mapping function of text components, i.e. words or phrases or numbers, onto numerical values).
The claim does not contain additional limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application and does not contain additional limitations that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions.
Claim 4 refines recited abstract ideas.
wherein determining anomalies comprises: converting rows of the log sources and their time of arrival stamps into respective number vectors corresponds to mathematical relationships, which are mathematical concepts. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the limitation in light of the specification encompasses mathematical relationships ([0017]: the vector elements can be generated by means of a mapping function of text components, i.e. words or phrases or numbers, onto numerical values).
The claim does not contain additional limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application and does not contain additional limitations that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions.
Claim 5 refines recited abstract ideas.
wherein determining anomalies comprises: wherein a label designating the cluster as normal or abnormal is created for each cluster, respectively corresponds to evaluations, which are mental processes. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the limitation in light of the specification encompasses evaluations ([0017]: The decision as to whether a cluster or a row is designated as normal or not can be made, for example, using certain keywords).
Claim 5 does not recite additional limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application.
training a machine learning (ML) model using the number vectors amounts to mere instructions to implement the abstract ideas on a computer, which is mere instructions to apply an exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions because the additional elements amount to mere instructions to apply an exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
Claim 6 recites abstract ideas.
clustering the anomalies according to a time of their occurrence and/or a logging granularity corresponds to data analysis steps recited at a high level of generality such that they could practically be performed using pen and paper, which are mental processes. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the limitation in light of the specification encompasses parsing and grouping human-readable text ([0010]-[0014]).
The claim does not contain additional limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application and does not contain additional limitations that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions.
Claim 7 recites abstract ideas.
for each of the clusters of the anomalies, generating a natural language query that describes the respective anomaly, wherein the generating comprises examining words in the clusters of the anomalies with respect to the frequency of the words within a cluster, the frequency of the words in all clusters of the log sources, the frequency of the words in all rows of the log sources, and the granularity of the words, and mapping the most frequent words thus determined to natural language sentences corresponds to data analysis steps recited at a high level of generality such that they could practically be performed using pen and paper, which are mental processes. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the limitation in light of the specification encompasses counting words and creating phrases ([0018]-[0019]).
The claim does not contain additional limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application and does not contain additional limitations that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions.
Claim 8 does not recite additional limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application.
wherein querying the database includes applying the natural language query to the database to obtain the solution actions, said solution actions for correcting the respective anomaly, wherein the database contains natural language questions regarding anomalies as well as corresponding solution actions, in particular wherein the solution actions comprise technical steps for resolving the respective anomalies amounts to mere data gathering, which is insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions because the additional elements amount to insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
Claim 10 does not recite additional limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application.
A system comprising: a processor running an application configured to perform the method of claim 1 amounts to mere instructions to implement the abstract ideas on a computer, which is mere instructions to apply an exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions because the additional elements amount to mere instructions to apply an exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
For at least the reasons provided above, claim(s) 1-8, 10 are not patent eligible.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Application Publication No. 20210042180 (“Sutton”) in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 20130047039 (“Manes”) and Non-Patent Literature Windows Task Manager: The Complete Guide (“Hoffman”).
Regarding claim 1, Sutton teaches
A computer-implemented method comprising:
determining anomalies in one or more log sources of a system, said log sources obtained by accessing one or more log files or log streams written by a first application; ([0021], [0027], [0050]: determine problems of a system by monitoring an application using logging agents)
determining and correcting causes for each of the anomalies by querying a database that maps pre-known causes to respective solution actions; ([0038], [0039], [0050], [0051]: determine remedial actions that map to problems in a repository)
presenting the results of the query to a user on a display of the system; (Fig. 2B, [0054], [0055]: send a notification of remedial actions for the problems to a user on a GUI)
receiving a selected and configured solution action of the presented solution actions from the user; ([0054], [0060]: a user can adjust how presented remedial actions are performed)
applying the configured solution actions to the system; and ([0054], [0057], [0060]: remedial actions are performed according to user adjustments)
storing the configured solution action in the database; ([0039], [0041], [0060]: user adjustments to remedial actions definitions and configurations are stored in the repository)
wherein:
said determining anomalies includes analyzing the log sources… ([0021], [0027], [0050]: determine problems of a system by monitoring an application using logging agents)
the solution actions include changing a variable, restarting a program, installing an application, and/or updating an installed application. ([0021], [0026]: remedial actions include resetting software)
Sutton does not teach the remaining limitations.
Manes teaches
said determining anomalies is started in response to a memory consumption of the first application exceeding a predefined frame or a predefined increase rate…([0017], [0019], [0033]: Trigger analysis of collected information of a process in response to the process memory usage exceeding a threshold)
said determining anomalies includes…determining further applications based on a process tree…, said process tree comprising information on processes or applications which start other processes, said applications started by the first application ([0030]: determine sub-processes started by other processes in a process tree), and identifying and analyzing log sources of the further applications; ([0016], [0030]: drill-down analysis of collected information of sub-processes)
the anomalies include an application having ended within a predefined time period after its start, a memory consumption exceeding a predefined frame or a predefined increase rate, and/or an application starting more frequently than a predefined value within a predefined time period; ([0033]: process memory usage exceeding a threshold)
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine Manes’ problem analysis with Sutton’s problem analysis.
One of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date would have been motivated to make the combination to provide problem analysis that looks at a system as a whole, taking into consideration interactions between processes and resources (Manes, [0027]).
Sutton in view of Manes does not teach the remaining limitations.
Hoffman teaches
said memory consumption determined by accessing system information of an operation system; (Pg. 1, 9: Windows Task Manager provides process memory usage)
process tree maintained by the operating system (Pg. 1, 6, 19: Windows Task Manager provides process trees)
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine Hoffman’s monitoring with Sutton in view of Manes’ monitoring.
One of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date would have been motivated to make the combination because Windows Task Manager is a powerful tool for monitoring processes in Windows-based systems such as Sutton in view of Manes’ (Hoffman, Pg. 1; Manes, [0013])
Regarding claim 10, Sutton in view of Manes and Hoffman further teaches
A system comprising:
a processor running an application configured to perform the method of claim 1. (Sutton, [0066]: one or more general purpose hardware processors programmed to perform the techniques pursuant to program instructions, inter alia)
Claim(s) 2-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Application Publication No. 20210042180 (“Sutton”) in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 20130047039 (“Manes”), Non-Patent Literature Windows Task Manager: The Complete Guide (“Hoffman”), and US Patent Application Publication No. 20220179763 (“Chan”).
Regarding claim 2, Sutton in view of Manes and Hoffman does not teach the limitations.
Chan teaches
wherein determining anomalies comprises: ([0056]: problem diagnosis and anomaly detection)
converting texts stored in the log sources into structured data ([0038]: determine log line representations for log lines), wherein components of the texts are classified with respect to their underlying events and the parameters of the components of text are determined ([0035], [0038]: group log lines based on the source type and source values), and wherein the structured data differentiates into constant components of the texts from variable components of the texts. ([0038]: log line representation differentiates between constant components such as source types and variable component such as the source values)
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine Chan’s problem diagnosis with Sutton in view of Manes and Hoffman problem analysis.
One of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date would have been motivated to make the combination to utilize spatial information from related sources during problem diagnosis (Chan, [0057]).
Regarding claim 3, Sutton in view of Manes, Hoffman, and Chan further teaches
wherein determining anomalies comprises: (Chan, [0056]: problem diagnosis and anomaly detection)
clustering rows of the log sources using common identifiers used in different rows; (Chan, [0035], [0038]: grouping log lines by source type)
determining parameter values from the clusters; and (Chan, [0038]: extract features from the grouped logs)
converting the clusters into respective number vectors. (Chan, [0039]: generate numerical feature vectors for the grouped logs)
Regarding claim 4, Sutton in view of Manes, Hoffman, and Chan further teaches
wherein determining anomalies comprises: (Chan, [0056]: problem diagnosis and anomaly detection)
converting rows of the log sources and their time of arrival stamps into respective number vectors. (Chan, [0034], [0039]: generate feature vectors for the grouped log lines for a time window. Logs contain timestamps)
Regarding claim 5, Sutton in view of Manes, Hoffman, and Chan further teaches
wherein determining anomalies comprises: training a machine learning (ML) model using the number vectors, wherein a label designating the cluster as normal or abnormal is created for each cluster, respectively. (Chan, Fig. 3, 6, [0042], [0043]: train a machine learning model using the feature vectors to determine cluster labels for feature vectors as anomalous or normal)
Claim(s) 6, 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Application Publication No. 20210042180 (“Sutton”) in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 20130047039 (“Manes”), Non-Patent Literature Windows Task Manager: The Complete Guide (“Hoffman”), and US Patent Application Publication No. 20220206886 (“Srivastava”).
Regarding claim 6, Sutton in view of Manes and Hoffman does not teach the limitations.
Srivastava teaches
clustering the anomalies according to a time of their occurrence and/or according to a logging granularity. ([0032]: clustering based on keywords in error logs)
Clustering based on keywords in error logs involves selectively considering details of the error logs and corresponds to clustering according to logging granularity.
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine Srivastava’s anomaly clustering with Sutton in view of Manes and Hoffman’s problem diagnosis.
One of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date would have been motivated to make the combination to allow for root cause analysis of errors in complex systems (Srivastava, [0004], [0015]).
Regarding claim 7, Sutton in view of Manes, Hoffman, and Srivastava further teaches
for each of the clusters of the anomalies, generating a natural language query that describes the respective anomaly (Srivastava, [0023], [0046]: generate a label for an error log cluster by concatenating terms of the summary of the root cause, and use the label to retrieve a remedial action from a store), wherein the generating comprises examining words in the clusters of the anomalies with respect to the frequency of the words within a cluster, the frequency of the words in all clusters of the log sources (Srivastava, [0039], [0040]: a cluster characterization score is based on the frequency of terms in a cluster and the frequency of terms in all clusters), the frequency of the words in all rows of the log sources (Srivastava, Fig. 4, [0020], [0044]: preprocessing error logs using analysis of the frequency of terms among rows of error messages), and the granularity of the words (Srivastava, [0041]: terms that do not provide useful details on the failure are filtered), and mapping the most frequent words thus determined to natural language sentences. (Srivastava, [0039], [0040], [0046]: maximize the cluster characterization score to generate the summary of the root cause of the cluster of error logs by concatenating the most frequent terms).
In light of the specification, [0013], error messages correspond to rows of logs.
Filtering out terms that do not provide useful details involves considering the detail of the words and corresponds to the granularity of the words.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable US Patent Application Publication No. 20210042180 (“Sutton”) in view of US Patent Application Publication No. 20130047039 (“Manes”), Non-Patent Literature Windows Task Manager: The Complete Guide (“Hoffman”), US Patent Application Publication No. 20220206886 (“Srivastava”), and Non-Patent Literature How To Google Your Errors (“swyz”).
Regarding claim 8, Sutton in view of Manes, Hoffman, and Srivastava further teaches
wherein querying the database includes applying the natural language query to a database to obtain the solution actions, said solution actions for correcting the respective anomaly, wherein the database contains…anomalies as well as corresponding solution actions (Srivastava, [0023], [0046]: generate a label for an error log cluster by concatenating terms of the summary of the root cause, and use the label to retrieve a remedial action from a store), in particular wherein the solution actions comprise technical steps for resolving the respective anomalies (Srivastava, [0023]: instructions for remedial actions)
Sutton in view of Manes, Hoffman, and Srivastava does not further teach wherein the database contains natural language questions regarding anomalies.
swyz teaches
wherein the database contains natural language questions regarding anomalies (Pg. 4-5: finding Stackoverflow questions that have solutions to the error)
In light of the specification, [0020], the broadest reasonable interpretation of a database is a search engine on the Internet.
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine Sutton in view of Manes, Hoffman, and Srivastava’s error remediation and swyz’s error resolution.
One of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date would have been motivated to make the combination to help find answers to issues that other people have resolved (swyz, Pg. 4-5).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 5, filed 10/13/2025, with respect to the objections of claims 1 and 6 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the objections of claims 1 and 6 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 5-6, filed 10/13/2025, with respect to the 112 rejection(s) of claim(s) 8 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the 112 rejection(s) of claim(s) 8 has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments, see pg. 6-12, filed 10/13/2025, with respect to the 101 rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-8, 10 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On pg. 7-8, Applicant argues:
“Claim 1 is further amended to include the following features:
"presenting the results of the query to a user on a display of the system;
receiving a selected and configured solution action of the presented solution actions;
applying the configured solution action to the system; and
storing the configured solution in the database".
This amendment to claim 1 addresses the 35 USC 101 rejection of claim 1 for allegedly reciting a mental process. Specifically, and as further asserted in response to the 35 USC 103 rejections (the remarks of which are incorporated by reference in this response to the 35 USC 101 rejections), the invention identifies anomalies and solutions to fix these. The solutions are obtained from a database and are presented to a user for selection and configuration. Thereafter, the selected and configured solution is applied to the system in order to fix the anomaly, and is stored in the database. Accordingly, the configured (and therefore, improved or at least varied) solution is available for being presented to the user the next time a similar anomaly is identified and corresponding solutions are obtained from the database. Put differently, the invention hence improves system maintenance in that user input is used to automatically supplement and improve the database containing anomalies and corresponding solution actions. Such effects cannot be achieved with mental processes alone.”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Presenting solutions from a database to a human (mere data output), requiring the human to select and configure a solution (mere data gathering and selecting a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated), and storing the human-configured solution in the database (mere data gathering) amounts to insignificant extra-solution activity. The claim does not reflect an improved solution and according to the applicant’s arguments, an improved solution is not required—the solution could just be something varied. The claim also does not reflect presentation of the configured solution to the user the next time a similar anomaly is identified. Therefore, the claim does not reflect improvements to system maintenance or to the database. Furthermore, even if the claims required a human to provide an improved solution, the claimed solution still amounts to an attempt to cover any solution to any identified problem with no restriction on how the result is accomplished and no description of the mechanism for accomplishing the result, which is mere instructions to apply an exception. Insignificant extra-solution activity and mere instructions to apply an exception do not integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application or amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions.
On pg. 8, Applicant argues:
“The Office Action alleges that the claims fail to comply with 35 USC 101 because they allegedly recite an abstract idea. Applicant respectfully disagrees and traverses the rejection. Applicant respectfully submits that the rejection is improper because amended independent claim 1 is not directed to an abstract idea such as a mental process or a mathematical concept.
When all of the claim elements are considered as a whole, Applicant's invention of independent claim 1 is not directed to an abstract idea. The USPTO has stated (such as in the Memorandum dated November 2, 2016 regarding "Recent Subject Matter Eligibility Decisions") the claims must be considered as a whole and not oversimplified, which is in contrast to how the Office Action considered the claims.”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims have been considered as a whole in the entire analysis to amount to judicial exceptions without significantly more. Applicant's arguments do not specifically point out how the Office Action allegedly oversimplified the claims.
On pg. 9, Applicant argues:
“The USPTO's 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance explains that a claim is directed to a "mental process" only when it covers concepts that can be performed in the human mind or with mere pen and paper. Amended claim 1, however, requires a specific computer-implemented method requiring the claim features described above.
The method of amended claim 1 cannot be performed as a series of mental steps by a human because they involve processing large volumes of data at speeds and scales that far exceed human capability, and they require specialized computing hardware. Accordingly, amended independent claim 1 and those claims dependent therefrom do not fall within the category of "mental processes."”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims do not reflect “processing large volumes of data at speeds and scales that far exceed human capability” and the specification, [0004], describes that a human typically manually reviews logs to determine anomalies. Furthermore, specialized hardware is not recited in the claims. Therefore, the claim is directed to mental processes.
On pg. 9, Applicant argues:
“The USPTO guidance further identifies "mathematical concepts" as including mathematical relationships, formulas, or calculations. Amended claim 1 does not recite a mathematical formula or abstract calculation. Rather, the claim calls for a practical application of technology that requires the features of amended claim 1.
The technological features of amended claim 1 are tied to a particular technological environment. Even to the extent that the claims may involve some mathematical operations, such operations are integrated into a larger process that produces a specific, useful, and concrete result. Amended claim 1 is thus not directed to a mathematical concept in the abstract.”
Claim 1 was not indicated as being direct to mathematical concepts. Furthermore, the claims do not reflect how the abstract ideas are tied to a practical application of technology or a particular technological environment.
On pg. 9-10, Applicant argues:
“Thus, even if Applicant's claims recite a judicial exception, the claims are not "directed to" the judicial exception because the judicial exception is integrated into the claimed practical application of the claimed method of amended claim 1.
Under Step 2A, Prong Two of the USPTO guidance, a claim that integrates a judicial exception into a practical application is not "directed to" the exception itself. Here, amended claim 1 is directed to a method for self-healing applications by way of automatic analysis of log sources.”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. “by way of automatic analysis of log sources” amounts to performing a mental process using a computer, which is still a mental process. The claim does not reflect “self-healing applications”, and if it did, the “self-healing” solutions amount to an attempt to cover any solution to any identified problem with no restriction on how the result is accomplished and no description of the mechanism for accomplishing the result, which is mere instructions to apply an exception. Mere instructions to apply an exception does not integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application or amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions.
On pg. 10-12, Applicant argues:
“The Office asserts that claim 1 and the dependent claims are directed to an abstract idea and do not recite additional elements that amount to "significantly more" than the exception. Applicant respectfully submits that the rejection is improper because claim 1 recites specific, non-conventional elements that transform the alleged exception into a patent-eligible application, as explained in detail below.
The features of claim 1 go beyond simply "applying" an abstract idea. Each recited element provides concrete structure and functionality that cannot be characterized as routine or conventional. When considered as an ordered combination, the claim elements provide a technical improvement in the fields of methods for self-healing applications by means of automatic analysis of log sources.
Applicant submits that the claim elements of claim 1 are not well-understood, routine, or conventional. And the Office has not provided any evidence that the above- recited elements are well-understood, routine, or conventional. MPEP §2106.05(d) makes clear that mere conclusory statements (such as those set forth in the Office Action) are insufficient. Applicant submits that the claimed features, both individually and in combination, reflect specific technical solutions developed by Applicant and therefore cannot be dismissed as routine.”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The additional elements were not indicated as well-understood, routine, or conventional and therefore, evidence is not required. The additional elements were indicated as insignificant extra-solution activity and mere instructions to apply an exception, which does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions. As indicated above, the alleged technical improvement amounts to mental processes and mere instructions to apply an exception, which does not amount to significantly more than the judicial exceptions.
Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 13-15, filed 10/13/2025, with respect to the 103 rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-8, 10 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of newly cited prior art.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US Patent Application Publication No. 20190121717: allow users to submit error fixes that are stored and made available to other users
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/A.L./Examiner, Art Unit 2113
/MARC DUNCAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2113