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.
Claims 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Per step 1 of the Subject Matter Eligibility Test (See MPEP 2106), claim 1 is directed to a method, which is a process, and falls within a statutory category (See MPEP 2106.03).
Per step 2A, prong 1, claim 1 recites a step for a computer to collect analysis file sets from a plurality of types of analyzers, the analysis file sets each including analysis data by the analyzer; and a step for the computer to assign a tag to each of a plurality of collected analysis file sets, the tag indicating a type of the analyzer, a material of a sample measured by the analyzer, preprocessing conditions of the sample, and measurement conditions of the sample. The claim limitations require observation of data and evaluation and/or judgment of the data based on the observation to assign a tag. The claim limitations can be performed in the human mind and fall into the mental processes grouping (See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III).
Claim 1 does not recite any additional elements.
Per step 2A, prong 2, The abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because claim 1 does not recite any additional elements.
Per step 2B, claim 1 does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because claim 1 does not recite any additional elements.
Claims 2-5 depend from claim 1 and recite further details of the abstract idea. Claims 2-5 do not recite any additional elements. Since there are no recited additional elements, claims 2-5 are not integrated into a practical application and does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claims 6 and 7 depend from claim 1 and recites further details of the abstract idea. Claim 6 recites further additional elements including a step for the computer to present the information to a user for each of a plurality of collected analysis file sets and a step for the computer to receive a tag input operation from the user for each analysis file set. Each of these steps recite insignificant extra-solution activity (See MPEP 2106.06.05(g). Therefore, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The additional elements are also not significantly more than the abstract idea. Further, the courts have recognized that collecting data in various manners and presenting or outputting the data is well-understood, routine and conventional (See MPEP 2106.05(d), subsection II).
Independent claims 7 and 8 recite an abstract idea similar to that recited in claim 1. Claim 7 includes an additional element of a processor and memory, and claim 8 recites a computer and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. The additional elements in claims 7 and 8 amount to instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer (See MPEP 2106.05(f)). Therefore, claims 7 and 8 are not integrated into a practical application and are not significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 5, 6, 8 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by WO 2021/235111 to Nagai et al. (Nagai).
The citations for Nagai will refer to equivalent US Patent Application Publication 2023/0186158.
Claims 1, 8 and 9
With regard to a step for a computer to collect analysis file sets from a plurality of types of analyzers, the analysis file sets each including analysis data by the analyzer; Nagai teaches a data processing device that collects data from multiple analyzers (Fig. 1, data processing device 10, analyzers 3a to 3n; par. 26).
With regard to a step for the computer to assign a tag to each of a plurality of collected analysis file sets, the tag indicating a type of the analyzer, a material of a sample measured by the analyzer, preprocessing conditions of the sample, and measurement conditions of the sample; Nagai teaches tagging the data with an ID number and LOT that corresponds to material type (par. 28, 29, 33), the blending quality and process, which corresponds to preprocessing conditions (pars. 29, 33) and identification of the type of analyzer (Fig. 4C, par. 63) and measurement parameters which correspond to measurement conditions (pars. 36-38).
Ngai teaches a processor and memory (Fig. 1, control unit 15, database 11, memory 21), as recited in claim 8.
Claim 5
Nagai teaches that the analysis file set further includes information on the type of the analyzer, the material of the sample measured by the analyzer, preprocessing conditions of the sample, and measurement conditions of the sample, wherein the step of assigning the tag includes a step for the computer to assign the tag to each analysis file set based on the information (pars. 28, 29, 33, 36-38, 63).
Claim 6
Nagai teaches that the analysis file set further includes information on the type of then analyzer, the material of the sample measured by the analyzer, preprocessing conditions of the sample, and measurement conditions of the sample (pars. 28, 29, 33, 36-38, 63), and
wherein the data processing method further comprises:
a step for the computer to present the information to a user for each of a plurality of collected analysis file sets (pars. 28, 29),
wherein the step of assigning the tag includes:
a step for the computer to receive a tag input operation from the user for each analysis file set (pars. 39, 40, 57); and
a step for the computer to assign a tag received by the tag input operation to a corresponding analysis file set (pars. 39, 40, 57).
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) 2-4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagai in view of US 2024/0272956 to Hall (Hall).
Claim 2
Nagai teaches all the limitations of claim 1 upon which claim 2 depends. Nagai further teaches that the analysis file set further includes features extracted from the analysis data, wherein the data processing method further comprises: a step for the computer to execute machine learning using the calculated representative values (pars. 37, 38, 44, 45).
Nagai does not teach a step for the computer to calculate representative values of a plurality of features included in an analysis file set group with the same tag. Hall teaches calculating an average of collected data (pars. 52, 53). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify data management, as taught by Nagai, to include calculating an average of collected data, as taught by Hall, because the statistical analysis of data from multiple instruments would have been facilitated (Nagai, pars. 2, 3).
Claim 3
Nagai teaches a step for the computer to present the analysis data and the features to a user for each analysis file set in the analysis file set group (par. 39).
Claim 4
Nagai teaches a step for the computer to receive an input operation for specifying the analysis file set to be excluded from the analysis file set group and exclude the analysis file set specified by the input operation from the analysis file set group (par. 39),
wherein the step of calculating the representative values includes a step of calculating representative values of a plurality of features included in remaining analysis file sets in the analysis file set group (pars. 39, 46, 77-81).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagai in view of US Patent Application Publication 2021/0303628 to Harding et al. (Harding).
Claim 7
Nagai teaches all the limitations of claim 6 upon which claim 7 depends. Nagai does not teach that the step of assigning the tag further includes a step for the computer to present the tag assigned to other analysis file sets in which the type of the analyzer, the material of the sample measured by the analyzer, the preprocessing conditions of the sample, and the measurement conditions of the sample all match, as a candidate tag, to the user, based on the information included in each analysis file set.
Harding teaches suggesting data that is correlated and that should be aggregated (pars. 34, 51, 52). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify data management, as taught by Nagai, to include suggesting data that is correlated, as taught by Harding, because then record keeping of data would have been improved (Harding, par. 9).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MANUEL L BARBEE whose telephone number is (571)272-2212. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9-5:30..
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/MANUEL L BARBEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857
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