DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
This Final office action is in response to Applicant’s amendment filed 10/8/2025. Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12, 14 and 16 have been amended. Claims 3, 7, 8, 11, 15 and 17 have been canceled. Claims 1, 2, 4-6, 9, 10, 12-14 and 16 are pending.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
The previously pending objections to claims 1 and 9 have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed 10/8/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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, 4-6, 9, 10, 12-14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Here, under step 1 of the Alice analysis, method claims 1, 2, and 4-6 are directed to a series of steps, and system claims 9, 10, 12-14 and 16 are directed to at least one digital computer. Thus the claims are directed to a process and machine, respectively.
Under step 2A Prong One of the analysis, the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite registering the use of pieces of playground furniture, including providing, mapping, storing, defining, collecting, determining, comparing, and generating steps.
The limitations of providing, mapping, storing, defining, collecting, determining, comparing, and generating, are a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers organizing human activity concepts, but for the recitation of generic computer components.
Specifically, the claim elements providing a children's playground comprising a number of pieces of playground furniture; mapping the children's playground by overlaying a grid on a camera view of the children's playground, so as to provide the grid with a number of meshes identifying a respective location of each piece of the playground furniture; storing information defining the grid; defining, for each of the meshes, an activity reference level, based at least in part, on a type of piece of playground furniture located in the mesh, if any; storing information regarding the activity reference level, wherein the activity reference level is based at least in part on the type of piece of playground furniture located in the mesh; collecting the captured activity data; determining an activity level in the meshes of the grid based on the captured activity data; comparing the determined activity level in the meshes with the activity reference levels in the meshes stored; determining whether the activity level for each respective piece of playground furniture is within a predetermined range based on the activity reference level for that specific piece of playground furniture; and generating an electronic alert when the activity level is outside the predetermined range.
That is, other than reciting at least one digital computer having digital storage and at least one activity detector configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission, the claim limitations merely cover managing personal behavior, including following rules or instructions, thus falling within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Under Step 2A Prong Two, the eligibility analysis evaluates whether the claim as a whole integrates the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims include at least one digital computer having digital storage and at least one activity detector configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission. The at least one digital computer having digital storage and at least one activity detector configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission in the steps is recited at a high-level of generality, such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. As a result, the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of at least one digital computer having digital storage and at least one activity detector configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept.
None of the dependent claims recite additional limitations that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Claims 2 and 4-6 further describe determining whether the activity level for each respective piece of playground furniture, the electronic alert, and the digital computer. Similarly, dependent claims 10, 12-14 and 16 recite additional details that further restrict/define the abstract idea. A more detailed abstract idea remains an abstract idea.
Under step 2B of the analysis, the claims include, inter alia, at least one digital computer having digital storage and at least one activity detector configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission.
As discussed with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements in the claim amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The same analysis applies here in 2B, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception on a generic computer cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B.
There isn’t any improvement to another technology or technical field, or the functioning of the computer itself. Moreover, individually, there are not any meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, i.e., implementation via a computer system. Further, taken as a combination, the limitations add nothing more than what is present when the limitations are considered individually. There is no indication that the combination provides any effect regarding the functioning of the computer or any improvement to another technology.
In addition, as discussed in paragraphs 0035 and 0036 of the specification, “Turning now to Fig. 3 and 4, examples of the data processing in the computer 4 that could be performed are described. In Fig. 3 the computer 4 receives, in box 310, input data from the one or more activity detectors 3. In box 320 the computer performs object detection. How this object detection is performed depends on the input from the activity detectors 3. If for instance the sensor module 301 is an imaging chip, pattern recognition algorithms adapted to recognize objects, such as persons 5, may be applied. The persons 5 or other objects identified, may then, in box 330, be tracked for motion including amount and speed, etc. The results can then, in box 340, be stored in a database.”
As such, this disclosure supports the finding that no more than a general purpose computer, performing generic computer functions, is required by the claims.
Viewed as a whole, these additional claim element(s) do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, the claim(s) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter. See Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l et al., No. 13-298 (U.S. June 19, 2014).
Response to Arguments
In the Remarks, Applicant argues amended independent claim 1 recites a specific technical solution to a technical problem in automated monitoring of physical environments. The claim is not abstract. Instead, it integrates camera- or sensor-based activity detectors with a grid-based spatial model and per-item reference levels, executed by a digital computer, to determine utilization of concrete "activity items" and to generate alerts when utilization deviates, while preserving privacy via edge anonymization and encryption.
Here, the claim is directed to a technological process that (i) overlays a grid on a camera view to define meshes identifying the location of each physical activity item, (ii) defines and stores per-mesh activity reference levels based on the type of item present, (iii) configures at least one activity detector to anonymize and encrypt data at the source prior to transmission, (iv) computes activity levels per mesh from captured sensor data, and (v) compares those computed levels to the stored reference levels to determine compliance with a predetermined range and to trigger alerts.
These operations are rooted in sensor systems and computer-vision style spatial modeling, are performed by specifically configured hardware and software, and cannot be carried out as a mental process. See, e.g., Thales Visionix Inc. v. United States, 850 F.3d 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (patent-eligible improvement using sensors in a particular configuration); McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco, 837 F.3d 1299 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (claims directed to a specific rule-based technique improving a technological process); and DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, 773 F.3d 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (claims solving a problem specifically arising in computer networks).
Likewise, the present claims improve how monitoring systems operate, reducing localization ambiguity via a grid aligned to the camera view, enabling item-specific thresholds tied to mesh location, and hardening privacy/security through on-device anonymization and encryption, rather than merely using a computer as a calculator.
Even if the claim were deemed to involve an abstract concept of "collecting and analyzing data," it remains patent-eligible under Step 2. The recited elements, viewed as an ordered combination, reflect a non-conventional arrangement that provides a practical application: mapping the activity area by overlaying a grid onto a camera view; storing grid definitions and per-mesh reference levels keyed to item type; performing edge anonymization and encryption before transmission; computing mesh-level activity from captured data; and determining compliance with predetermined ranges on a per-item basis to drive alerts. This is the kind of "non- conventional and non-generic arrangement of known, conventional pieces" found to supply an inventive concept in BASCOM Global Internet Servs., Inc. v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016). See also Ancora Techs., Inc. v. HTC Am., Inc., 908 F.3d 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (claims eligible where they improve computer/security functionality). The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
As an initial point, here, the at least one activity detector (e.g., digital cameras for visible and/or infrared light, laser scanners, LiDAR scanners, range sensors, stereo cameras, structured light sensors, etc. as well as combinations thereof. See specification) configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission merely functions as an obvious data gathering mechanism. This type of data gathering is similar to that seen in Content Extraction v. Wells Fargo Bank (Fed. Cir. Dec. 23, 2014), which found that a scanner using known OCR technology was not significantly more than the abstract idea.
As described in the specification, “According to a further preferred embodiment, the underutilization alert is sent to a maintenance responsible authority. This may prompt a groundskeeper or janitor to check whether something is wrong with the furniture, e.g. a see-saw or a swing not being used due to a defect that needs to be repaired. This could trigger prompt repair and increase the utilization of the activity area.” “A warning of low activity in certain zones could then be given in order to instigate further investigation of the cause. If the zone containing the rocking horse 2' in Fig. 1 is suddenly permanently below a threshold an alert could be given by the computer 4 to a groundskeeper or a janitor to check whether the rocking horse 2' is out of order and, if so, take steps to have it repaired. The warning could also be an alert to further investigate the reasons and possibly reconsider the layout of the playground 1.”
“If mapping of activity zones onto known information 10 about the layout of the playground 1, as defined by the stored information about the grid, yields, in box 405, that at least during a predetermined period, such as recess, is below a given threshold the zone, and hence the furniture 2' is underutilized, a warning may be given in box 406. This warning could be an alert to a maintenance responsible authority, such as a groundskeeper or 15 janitor to check whether the furniture 2' is defective and needs repair. This allows efficient maintenance of the playground 1, without spending man-hours on active and mostly unnecessary routine checks.”
Following, other than reciting at least one digital computer having digital storage and at least one activity detector configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission, the claim limitations merely cover managing personal behavior including following rules or instructions, thus falling within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
In addition, and contrary to Applicant’s assertions, the claims here are not analogous to the claims in Thales. The Federal Circuit held that the claims at issue were directed to a system and a method "that use inertial sensors in a non-conventional manner to reduce errors in measuring the relative position and orientation of a moving object on a moving reference frame." Contrarily, here the at least one activity detector (e.g., digital cameras for visible and/or infrared light, laser scanners, LiDAR scanners, range sensors, stereo cameras, structured light sensors, etc. as well as combinations thereof. See specification) uses no "non-conventional manner” to reduce errors in measuring the relative position and orientation of a moving object on a moving reference frame, nor any other "non-conventional" function of the at least one activity detector.
Moreover, and contrary to Applicant's assertion, the claims here are not similar to the claims in McRO, which were determined to be an improvement to computer technology. In McRO, the Federal Circuit held the claimed methods of automatic lip synchronization and facial expression animation using computer-implemented rules patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101, because they were not directed to an abstract idea (Step 2A of the USPTO's SME guidance). The basis for the McRO court's decision was that the claims were directed to an improvement in computer-related technology (allowing computers to produce "accurate and realistic lip synchronization and facial expressions in animated characters" that previously could only be produced by human animators), and thus did not recite a concept similar to previously identified abstract ideas.
The McRO court thus relied on the specification's explanation of how the claimed rules enabled the automation of specific animation tasks that previously could not be automated when determining that the claims were directed to improvements in computer animation instead of an abstract idea. The McRO court indicated that it was the incorporation of the particular claimed rules in computer animation that "improved [the] existing technological process", unlike cases such as Alice where a computer was merely used as a tool to perform an existing process.
Here, there is no improvement to any computer technology per se here, nor is there a set of "rules" (basically mathematical relationships) that improve computer-related technology by allowing computer performance of a function not previously performable by a computer. Further, the specification does not describe a teaching about how the claimed invention improves a computer or other technology Rather, the abstract idea of registering the use of pieces of playground furniture, including providing, mapping, storing, defining, collecting, determining, comparing, and generating steps is merely implemented on a computer.
Under Step 2A Prong Two, the eligibility analysis evaluates whether the claim as a whole integrates the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception. This evaluation is performed by (a) identifying whether there are any additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception, and (b) evaluating those additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether the claim as a whole integrates the exception into a practical application. 2019 PEG Section III(A)(2), 84 Fed. Reg. at 54-55. Besides the abstract idea, the claims include at least one digital computer having digital storage and at least one activity detector configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission.
The at least one digital computer having digital storage and at least one activity detector configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission in the steps is recited at a high-level of generality, such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. These limitations can also be viewed as nothing more than an attempt to generally link the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment of a computer. It should be noted that because the courts have made it clear that mere physicality or tangibility of an additional element or elements is not a relevant consideration in the eligibility analysis, the physical nature of these computer components does not affect this analysis. See MPEP 2106.05(I) for more information on this point, including explanations from judicial decisions including Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208, 224-26 (2014).
Even when viewed in combination, the additional elements in the claims do no more than use computer components as a tool (i.e., at least one digital computer having digital storage and at least one activity detector configured to anonymize captured activity data and to encrypt the anonymized data prior to transmission). There is no change to the computers and/or other technology recited in the claims, thus the claims do not improve computer functionality or other technology. See, e.g., Trading Technologies Int’l v. IBG, Inc., 921 F.3d 1084, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (using a computer to provide a trader with more information to facilitate market trades improved the business process of market trading, but not the computer) and the cases discussed in MPEP 2106.05(a)(I), particularly FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., 839 F.3d 1089, 1095 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (accelerating a process of analyzing audit log data is not an improvement when the increased speed comes solely from the capabilities of a general-purpose computer) and Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Services, 859 F.3d 1044, 1055 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (using a generic computer to automate a process of applying to finance a purchase is not an improvement to the computer’s functionality). Accordingly, the claim as a whole does not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application and the claim is directed to the judicial exception. Additionally, it is unclear whether the digital computer is implementing every step in method claims 1, 2, and 4-6.
Moreover, and contrary to Applicant's assertion, the claims here are not similar to the claims in BASCOM, which were deemed eligible, since when combined, an inventive concept may be found in the non-conventional and non-generic arrangement of the additional elements, thus amounting to significantly more than a judicial exception.
The BASCOM court agreed that the additional elements were generic computer, network, and Internet components that did not amount to significantly more when considered individually, but explained that the district court erred by failing to recognize that when combined, an inventive concept may be found in the non-conventional and non-generic arrangement of the additional elements, i.e., the installation of a filtering tool at a specific location, remote from the end-users, with customizable filtering features specific to each end user.
Here, taken as a combination, the limitations add nothing more than what is present when the limitations are considered individually Unlike BASCOM, here there are no elements similar to the installation of a filtering tool at a specific location, remote from the end-users, with customizable filtering features specific to each end user. As such, there is no indication that the combination provides any effect regarding the functioning of the computer or any improvement to another technology.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 ANDRE D BOYCE whose telephone number is (571)272-6726. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10a-6:30p.
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/ANDRE D BOYCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623 December 31, 2025