DETAILED ACTION
Applicant's Submission of a Response
Applicant’s submission of a response on 4/16/2026 has been received and fully considered. In the response, claims 1-7 and 9-11 have been amended and new claims 12 and 13 have been added. Therefore, claims 1-13 are pending.
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 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract idea without significantly more.
2019 PEG Analysis
Step 1: Are the claims directed to a statutory category (e.g., a process, machine, etc.)
Claims 1-9 and 11-13 are directed to an apparatus (including a non-transitory recording medium in claim 11). Claim 10 is directed to a process.
Step 2A (Prong 1): Does the claim recite an abstract idea, law of nature or natural phenomenon?
Yes, the claims recite an abstract idea. The following specific limitations in the claims under examination recite an abstract idea:
Determining whether an answer to a question is correct (e.g., see claims 1, 4, 10, and 11)
Determining if a question should be manually or automatically graded (e.g., see claims 1, 6, and 10-12)
The above listed identified limitations fall within at least one of the groupings of abstract ideas enumerated in the 2019 PEG:
Mental Processes: concepts preformed in the human mind (including on observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion).
Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity: managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions or relationships of interaction between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions.
Claims 1-1 3are primarily directed to manually grading a question by a person, wherein the grading process is mental processes of observation and evaluation and certain methods of organizing human activity, including teaching and following rules or instructions. With regard to claims 1, 6, and 10-12, teachers make the mental determination that some exam types can be automatically graded (e.g., multiple choice tests with scantron answers) and that other exams or question types should be manually graded (e.g., essays, and other open-ended answers).
Step 2A (Prong 2): Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Overall, the following additional claim limitations appear to merely implement the abstract idea, add insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception, or generally link the judicial exception to a particular environment or field of use, as outlined below:
Displaying question/answer/grade results information including simultaneous displaying (e.g., see at least claims 1-3, 7, 9-11, and 13, insignificant extra-solution activity);
Storing a determination result (e.g., see claim 1, 4, 10, and 11),
Entering a determination result (e.g., see claim 2)
Selecting between a multiple-choice question (with 3 or more choices) and a writing/voice question (e.g., see claims 5 and 8, field of use)
Step 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
With regard to claims 1-11, the claims as a whole do not amount to significantly more than the exception itself. The above listed additional claim limitations display and process game data in a well-understood, routine, and conventional way. Further, the computer hardware of claims 1-11 (e.g., a processor and memory) are well-understood, routine, and conventional in the art.
In order to satisfy the Berkheimer factual determination of conventional elements in the art, U.S. Patent Application No. 2007/0190505 to Hugonnard-Bruyere is cited for disclosing the conventional features of educational systems including processors (e.g., see at least paragraph 32) and memory (e.g., see at least paragraph 32). Therefore, claims 1-11 are not patent eligible under 101.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-8, and 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0046239 to Allen (Fig. 7 shown below for convenience).
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With regard to claim 1, Allen discloses information processing apparatus (e.g., see Fig. 2 for a hardware diagram of an activity tracking system; see also paragraphs 35-44 for discussion of an information processing system) comprising at least one processor configured to: determine whether a question to be scored is appropriate to undergo automatic scoring (e.g., see Fig. 7, which shows an instructor interface for entering grades for student answered questions; Fig. 7 also discusses autograding; see also paragraphs 59-61 for discussion of enabling and overriding autograding by the teacher; see also paragraph 92 that discusses that certain types of questions are autograded, including multiple choice and true/false questions); display a determination screen on which a person who determines makes a determination on an answer provided by a person who answers (e.g., see at least Fig. 7 that shows student answers 104; see also paragraph 59 that discusses student answers 104) on a display device in a case where the question to be scored is not appropriate for automatic scoring (e.g., see Fig. 7 that shows key indicator 106 that indicates whether a student answers a question correctly; see also paragraph 59 for discussion of grading; see also paragraph 58 that discusses a teacher assigning a manual grade); and store, into a memory, determination result entered on the determination screen by the person who determines in association with the question (e.g., see at least paragraphs 31 and 44 for discussion of storing data; see also Fig. 7 that shows results are stored as shown on the GUI);
[claim 2] wherein the determination screen has a first area for displaying a model answer (e.g., see at least Fig 7 that shows a correct exam answer 108 area; see also paragraph 59 that discusses the teacher’s correct answer), a second area for displaying a user’s answer (e.g., see at least Fig. 7 that shows a student’s answer 104 area; see also paragraph 59 that discusses a student’s answer), and a third area for entering the determination result (e.g., see at least Fig. 7 that shows a points awarded value 110 area; see also paragraphs 59 and 60 for discussion of an area for entering the determination result);
[claim 3] wherein the at least one processor is configured to: display the determination screen in such a way that the person who determines is able to enter the determination result in the third area with the model answer and the answer by the person who answers being simultaneously displayed in the first and second areas in the determination screen, in a comparable state for the person who determines (e.g., see Fig. 7 that shows that the first, second, and third areas of 104, 108, and 110 are all different areas of the screen);
[claim 4] wherein the at least one processor is further configured to select either of a first process of performing a determination process of determining whether the answer is correct or incorrect for the question answered by the person who answers, using the pre-stored data for determining a correct or incorrect answer (e.g., see at least paragraph 61 that discusses multiple choice type questions where answers are pre-stored) and a second process of entering a determination result obtained by the person who determines by determining whether the answer is good or not without performing the determination process using the data for the determination (e.g., see at least paragraph 62 that discusses that the teacher may provide additional notes regarding a particular question); store the determination result, obtained by performing the determination process in association with the question, into the memory in the case where the first process is selected (e.g., see at least paragraphs 31 and 44 for discussion of storing data; see also Fig. 7 that shows results are stored as shown on the GUI); and store the entered determination result in association with the question into the memory in the case where the second process is selected (e.g., see at least paragraphs 31 and 44 for discussion of storing data; see also Fig. 7 that shows results are stored as shown on the GUI);
[claim 5] wherein the control unit performs a process of selecting the first process in the case where the question answered by the person who answers is a choice type question (e.g., see at least paragraph 61 that discusses multiple choice type questions where answers are pre-stored) and selecting the second process in the case where the question answered by the person who answers is a question to be answered by writing or by voice (e.g., see at least paragraph 43 that discusses that the content can be a term paper; see also paragraph 50 for discussion of grading text journal entries);
[claim 6] wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:: determine whether it is more appropriate that the person who determines makes a determination of whether the answer is good or not than that the answer is automatically determined to be correct (e.g., see at least paragraph 60 that discusses autograding and manually grading); and select the second process in the case of determining that it is more appropriate that the person who determines makes a determination of whether the answer is good or not (e.g., see at least paragraphs 60-61 that discuss enabling/overriding autograding);
[claim 7] wherein the at least one processor is configured to: switch between displaying the model answer and displaying the question in the first area (e.g., Fig. 7 shows areas for both the model answer 108 and the question, which above the student answer 104; the control unit displays both, but the locations would vary dependent on the number and length of each question);
[claim 8] wherein the determination result contains at least three choices of determination result (e.g., see at least paragraph 61 that discusses multiple-choice questions including A, B, and D choices, which is at least three); and
[claim 12] wherein the question that is appropriate to undergo automatic scoring is a question whose correct answer is uniquely determined (e.g., see also paragraph 92 that discusses that certain types of questions are autograded, including multiple choice and true/false questions, wherein multiple choice and true/false questions have a unique correct answer)
With regard to claims 10 and 11, Allen anticipates the method and non-transitory recording medium as set forth above in detail for claim 1, which is similar in claim scope.
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 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Allen in view of European Patent Application No. EP 1,582,995A2 to Shimizu.
With regard to claim 9, Allen discloses all of the recited features but is silent regarding the processor is configured to: place an electronic sticky note in a predetermined display area of the display device according to a user’s operation and display the question and/or the determination screen within the electronic sticky note.
From the same field of endeavor, Shimizu teaches a control unit places an electronic sticky note in a predetermined display area of the display device according to the user’s operation and displaying the question and/or the determination screen within the electronic sticky note (e.g., see at least Fig. 6 that shows a GUI with a sticky note; see also paragraph 111+ for discussion of using electronic sticky notes in an educational setting with questions).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the current invention to modify Allen with electronic sticky notes as taught by Shimizu in order to use a known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way. In this case, the use of electronic sticky notes allows for important information including the student’s question to presented to the user in a familiar fashion that is aesthetically pleasing.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Allen in view of U.S. Patent No. 6,768,894 to Jongsma.
With regard to claim 13, Allen discloses all of the recited features but is silent regarding the processor is configured to: display a score result screen that is different from the determination screen. That is, Allen is silent regarding two different display screens. Allen appears to only disclose the display screen in Fig. 7.
From the same field of endeavor, Jongsma teaches a computerized system for teaching/assessing/scoring questions (e.g., see at least Fig. 6 that shows a scoring screen that is different from the screen disclosed in Fig. 8).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the current invention to modify Allen with multiple display screens as taught by Jongsma in order to use a known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way. In this case, using multiple display screens reduces the amount of information displayed at any given moment in order for the user to better comprehend information in smaller chunks.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 4/16/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On page 8, final paragraph, Applicant argues that “Allen does not disclose or suggest this determination step” in clam 1. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Allen provides autograding and manual grading. In paragraph 92, Allen discusses that certain types of questions (e.g., multiple choice and true/false) will be autograded in real time.
In the same paragraph, Applicant argues that Allen does not disclose a determination screen. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. In Fig. 7, Allen discloses an Autograding summary, which is the determination screen.
On pages 10 and 11, Applicant argues that the claims recite limitations that define how the system operators, not merely a mental evaluation performed by a human grader. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. In this case, the claims recite abstract ideas (e.g., see above for a list of the abstract ideas) that can be performed manually/mentally by a teacher. The recited computer system that includes a processor, a memory, and a display are merely conventional computer components to carry out the abstract idea. The Examiner maintains that making a determination of whether to automatically grade certain questions/answers and then manually grading other questions/answers is a choice teachers make daily. Questions with unique answers (e.g., multiple choice) are often graded electronically (e.g., scantron). Question that are open ended and subject to complex interpretation (e.g., short answer or essay) are often graded manually. Again, automating this mental task with basic computing hardware does not make the abstract ideas patent eligible. For at least these reasons, all pending claims remain rejected under 101 as not patent eligible.
Conclusion
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 JAMES S MCCLELLAN whose telephone number is (571)272-7167. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday (8:30AM-5:00PM).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kang Hu can be reached at 571-270-1344. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/James S. McClellan/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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