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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This communication is a non-final action in response to application filed on 11/07/2023. Claims 1-4, 6 are pending.
IDS
The IDS filed on 11/07/2023 has been considered.
Claim Objection
Claims 1 and 3 are objected because it appears some words are missing after “in a past”. Examiner will interpret these terms as “in a past time period”.
Claims 2, 4 are objected based on dependency.
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 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because they recite an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 2A prong 1
As per claim 1, examiner believes the entire body of the claim recites an abstract idea. Please see the analysis below.
In this case, each and every step represent a series of rules to be follows to account for GHG emission. This falls into commercial/legal interaction as it represents accounting a business’ emissions, particularly produced by employee commutes. Therefore, claim 1 recites certain methods of organizing human activities, which is an abstract idea.
In addition, each of the steps can be performed mentally with help of physical aid such as pen and paper. Fig. 7 shows a table that can be used to aid calculation for the GHG emission. While the table in Fig. 7 doesn’t account for each and every step, multiple tables of similar format can be used to perform each step. Examiner notes the number of employee can be low enough that such calculation is low enough to be performed manually or even in human mind. Therefore, claim 1 also falls into mental processes.
Step 2A prong 2
Claim 1 only includes a memory and processor appearing in the preamble to perform the abstract idea. These additional elements, whether viewed individually or as an ordered combination, are nothing more than mere instructions to implement the abstract idea in a generic computer. Such additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into practical application.
Step 2B
As noted above in step 2A prong 2, of which the analysis still applies in step 2B, the additional elements, whether viewed individually or as an ordered combination, are nothing more than mere instructions to implement the abstract idea in a generic computer. Such additional element would not provide significantly more to an abstract idea. Therefore, claim 1 is not eligible.
Claim 2 merely further limit the same abstract idea and therefore step 2A prong 1, step 2A prong 2, and step 2B can be similarly analyzed. Claim 2 is still not eligible.
Claims 3-4, 6 can be substantially similarly analyzed as claims 1-2 and are not eligible either.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-4, 6 would be allowable if 101 rejection above is overcome.
Claim 1 includes the following limitations:
deriving, based on a vehicle usage rate of each distance class among distance classes for each precipitation amount class among precipitation amount classes based on a vehicle commuting distance of each employee among employees and precipitation amount data of each commuting day in a past, for said each precipitation amount class, a first approximation function that estimates the vehicle usage rate using a distance as a variable;
deriving a second approximation function that approximates a parameter value of the first approximation function using a precipitation amount as a variable;
integrating the first approximation function and the second approximation function to derive a function for estimating the vehicle usage rate using the distance and the precipitation amount as variables;
calculating a corrected vehicle usage rate in which an appearance rate of said each precipitation amount class is reflected in an output value of the function for said each precipitation amount class among the distance classes; and
calculating an estimated value of estimated GHG emissions based on the distance and a number of commuting days said each employee having the distance belonging to said each distance class, the corrected vehicle usage rate, and a GHG intensity among the distance classes.
Best prior art Ozawa (US 20190287391) teaches traffic demand being influenced by weather such as rainy days. Ozawa, however, does not teach each and every limitations above, such as GHG emission and an appearance rate for precipitation amount class.
Similarly, Best NPL “Total Greenhouse gas emission calculation method Guidelines Ver.1.0” shows calculation period on page 11, which also describes various factors to calculate greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly to Ozawa, it does not show each and every limitations above, such as GHG emission and an appearance rate for precipitation amount class.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GEORGE CHEN whose telephone number is (571)270-5499. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:30 AM -5:00 PM Eastern.
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GEORGE CHEN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3628
/GEORGE CHEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3628