DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to the request for continued examination filed 12 November 2025 and the supplemental amendment filed 19 November 2025.
Claims 1, 3, 11, 13, and 16 have been amended.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending. Claims 1-20 are rejected.
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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12 November 2025 has been entered.
Supplemental Amendment
The supplemental response/amendment filed 19 November 2025 has been entered.
Response to Amendment/Remarks
The rejections under 35 USC § 112 have been remedied by amendment and are withdrawn.
Regarding 35 USC § 101, Applicant’s remarks have been fully considered but are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the claims are similar to Example 37, arguing that “The overlay there capabilities (zoom capabilities, heat maps, and probability charts) provides a defined practical integration of technology.” Remarks at 9. Example 37 provides the following explanation for why the claims integrate the judicial exception into a practical application: “The claim as a whole integrates the mental process into a practical application. Specifically, the additional elements recite a specific manner of automatically displaying icons to the user based on usage which provides a specific improvement over prior systems, resulting in an improved user interface for electronic devices.” Applicant herein does not provide any support for a conclusion that the present claims provide a specific improvement over prior systems that results in an improved user interface. The argument is not persuasive.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: this claim, as amended, recites “generating, with the model, a score that the target audience group has exposure at one or more locations within a geographic zone.” The grammar in this amendment is such that it can be assumed that the score indicates that that the group has exposure, but to be more clear an amendment such as “a score indicating that the target audience group has exposure” may make the claim more clear. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 3 is objected to because of the following informalities: this claim, as amended, recites “further comprising validating the target location further comprises assessing a performance of a model that generates the score based on a known features.” The grammar in this amendment is a little rough but does not rise to the level of indefiniteness. Examiner suggests the following amendment: “further comprising validating the target location, which Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 11 is objected to because of the following informalities: this claim, as amended, recites “generating, with the model, a score for the target audience group has exposure at one or more locations within a geographic zone.” The grammar in this amendment is such that it can be assumed that the score indicates that that the group has exposure, but to be more clear an amendment such as “a score indicating that the target audience group has exposure” may make the claim more clear. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 13 is objected to because of the following informalities: this claim, as amended, recites “the one or more processors, are further configured to cause the system to validate the target location the one or more processors further execute instructions to assess a performance of a model that generates the score based on a known features.” The grammar in this amendment is a little rough but does not rise to the level of indefiniteness. Examiner suggests the following amendment: “the one or more processors, are further configured to cause the system to validate the target location wherein the one or more processors further execute instructions to assess a performance of a model that generates ….” Appropriate correction 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.
Claims 1-20 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) without significantly more.
Step 1
Claims 1-10 and claims 16-20 recite a series of steps and, therefore, is a process. Claims 11-15 recite a system and, therefore, is a machine or manufacture.
Step 2A-Prong One
Claims 1-20 recite the concept of determining and providing a score or value related to consumer campaign exposure (see, for example “identifying, for a target audience group, a demographic data, a visit history, or a purchase history of a consumer within the target audience group; defining a target location for an advertising campaign based on a penetration of the target audience group; training, to predict an exposure to the advertising campaign by the target audience group, a model that includes multiple target locations within a retailer network; generating, with the model, a score that the target audience group has exposure at one or more locations within a geographic zone; implementing a geo-location application associated with the demographic data; and providing, for a display in a client device, a map indicative of the score and the map, being further configured with interactive overlay features associated with the demographic data, including: zoom capabilities, heat maps, and probability charts” in claim 1). This concept falls into the certain methods of organizing human activity grouping of abstract ideas including advertising, marketing, or sales activities. The dependent claims further limit the abstract idea recited in claims 1, 11, and 15 by further defining data points that are utilized and further limiting how the score or value is determined. Thus, claims 1-20 recite an abstract idea.
In addition to the certain methods of organizing human activity grouping of abstract ideas, the claims also fall into the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. Some limitations, given their broadest reasonable interpretation, can be performed by a human either mentally or using pen and paper. These limitations include
identifying, for a target audience group, a demographic data, a visit history, or a purchase history of a consumer within the target audience group (claims 1 and 11);
defining a target location for an advertising campaign based on a penetration of the target audience group (claims 1 and 11);
aggregating the demographic data, the visit history, or the purchase history to a specific geographic area or census block group value associated with the consumer (claims 4 and 14);
defining the target location based on information describing where the target audience group lives, a visit place for the target audience group, or a purchase item associated with the target audience group (claims 5 and 15);
determining a radius threshold from a centroid that a selected portion of consumers within a demographic segment are willing to travel to purchase a type of product (claim 8);
selecting the consumer that is subscribed to the retailer network (claim 9);
determining a list of demographic features for a consumer sorted by a weight factor indicative of a likelihood that the consumer purchases a type of product based on a weighted average (claim 10);
retrieving, from multiple consumers, at least one of an urbanicity feature, a visit history feature, and a demographic feature, the urbanicity feature associated with a population density, and the visit history feature associated with consumer visits to a store (claim 16);
identifying a centroid for a common geographic area; aggregating the urbanicity feature, the visit history feature, or the demographic feature based on the centroid (claim 16);
determining an event predictor value associated with the centroid based on at least two features aggregated from the urbanicity feature, the visit history feature, and the demographic feature (claim 16);
forming a map including the common geographic area, indicative of a geographic distribution of the event predictor value (claim 16);
retrieving at least one of an urban value, a suburban value, and a rural value (claim 17);
retrieving a store location within the common geographic area, and selecting a radius from the store, wherein the visit history feature is associated with a consumer that resides within the radius from the store (claim 18);
correlating the urbanicity feature, the demographic feature, and the visit history feature (claim 19);
reducing a dimension of the visit history feature (claim 20).
Step 2A-Prong Two
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims recite the additional elements of a computer, a model, a geo-location application, and an audience location engine (claims 1-10), a system comprising one or more processors, a memory storing instructions, a model, and an audience location engine (claims 11-15), and a computer and an audience location engine (claims 16-20) and includes no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. 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
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed previously with respect to Step 2A-Prong Two, the additional element in the claim amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The same analysis applies here in Step 2B, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. See MPEP 2106.05(f). The claims do not provide an inventive concept (significantly more than the abstract idea). The claims are ineligible.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MEREDITH A LONG whose telephone number is (571)272-3196. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 9:30 - 6.
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/MEREDITH A LONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622