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 .
Status of Claims
This Office Action is in response to the communication filed on 09/30/2025.
Claims 1, 4, 10, 18 and 20 have been amended.
4. Claims 1-20 are currently pending and are considered below.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
5. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 07/14/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
6. 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.
7. 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. Representative claim 1, recites a method (a statutory class, process) the method performing:
retrieving, from a database communicatively coupled to a server, a data record including at least a portion of utility data of a customer of the community distributed energy system;
determining, at the server, historic energy usage data of the customer based on the retrieved data record;
determining, at the server, an allocation of energy to be provided to the customer based on the determined historic energy usage data and based on an energy allocation of a plurality of customers subscribed to the community distributed energy system;
allocating, to the customer, a portion of the electricity generated by the solar energy system and provided to an electrical grid that includes a utility configured to provide electricity to the customer at least in part by:
storing, at a storage device communicatively coupled to the server, the determined
allocation of energy in a data model for tracking allocations of the community distributed
energy system, the data model including customer-specific data structures for the plurality of customers, the customer-specific data structures including a customer-specific data structure storing the determined allocation of energy, the historic energy usage data, and a usage factor applied to the historic energy usage data;
continuously updating, in the customer-specific data structure, the historic energy usage data of the customer responsive to new utility data of the customer being stored in the database; and
dynamically adjusting, in the customer-specific data structure, the allocation of energy to the customer responsive to an update to the historic energy usage data and a change in the plurality of customers subscribed to the community distributed energy system, wherein the dynamic adjusting comprises adjusting the usage factor that is applied to the historic energy usage data such that the electricity generated by the solar energy system is allocated among the plurality of customers subscribed to the community distributed energy system.
The steps of:
retrieving, from a database communicatively coupled to a server, a data record including at least a portion of utility data of a customer of the community distributed energy system;
determining, at the server, historic energy usage data of the customer based on the retrieved data record;
determining, at the server, an allocation of energy to be provided to the customer based on the determined historic energy usage data and based on an energy allocation of a plurality of customers subscribed to the community distributed energy system;
allocating, to the customer, a portion of the electricity generated by the solar energy system and provided to an electrical grid that includes a utility configured to provide electricity to the customer at least in part by:
storing, at a storage device communicatively coupled to the server, the determined
allocation of energy in a data model for tracking allocations of the community distributed
energy system, the data model including customer-specific data structures for the plurality of customers, the customer-specific data structures including a customer-specific data structure storing the determined allocation of energy, the historic energy usage data, and a usage factor applied to the historic energy usage data;
continuously updating, in the customer-specific data structure, the historic energy usage data of the customer responsive to new utility data of the customer being stored in the database; and
dynamically adjusting, in the customer-specific data structure, the allocation of energy to the customer responsive to an update to the historic energy usage data and a change in the plurality of customers subscribed to the community distributed energy system, wherein the dynamic adjusting comprises adjusting the usage factor that is applied to the historic energy usage data such that the electricity generated by the solar energy system is allocated among the plurality of customers subscribed to the community distributed energy system,
as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers a method of organizing human activity. Given the broadest reasonable interpretation, the claim recites a method for dynamically allocating electricity generated by a solar energy system. The above identified method steps recite commercial interactions such as sales activities and/or tailored personalized marketing relating to improving the allocation of energy.
If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers commercial interaction such as commercial interaction, then it falls within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim recites the additional elements of a memory, processor, servers and databases. The processor and the memory is recited at a high level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer functions of retrieving a data record; determining historic energy usage data of the customer; determining an allocation of energy to be provided to the customer; allocating a portion of the electricity generated by the solar energy system and provided to an electrical grid: storing the determined
allocation of energy in a data model for tracking allocations of the community distributed
energy system; continuously updating the historic energy usage data of the customer; and dynamically adjusting the allocation of energy to the customer) such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Accordingly, these 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. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does 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 elements of a memory, processor, servers and databases amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. The additional elements are similar to the additional elements found by courts to be mere instructions to apply an exception because they do no more than merely invoke computers or machinery to perform an existing process such as: a common business method or mathematical algorithm being applied on a general purpose computer (Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. V. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 US 208, 223; Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334); generating a second menu from a first menu and sending the menu to the second location as performed by a generic computer components (Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1243-44). Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept.
Thus, considered as an ordered combination, the additional elements add nothing that is already present when the steps are considered separately. That is, a memory, processor, servers, performing commercial interactions including: retrieving a data record; determining historic energy usage data of the customer; determining an allocation of energy to be provided to the customer; allocating a portion of the electricity generated by the solar energy system and provided to an electrical grid: storing the determined allocation of energy in a data model for tracking allocations of the community distributed energy system; continuously updating the historic energy usage data of the customer; and dynamically adjusting the allocation of energy to the customer, amount to mere instructions to apply the steps to a computer comprising of a processor.
Thus, independent claims 1, 18 and 20 are not eligible.
As for dependent claims 2-17 and 19, these claims recite limitations that further define the same abstract idea in claims 1 and 18. Therefore, they are considered patent ineligible for the reasons given above. The additional limitations of the dependent claims, when considered individually and as an ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Claims 1-20 are therefore not drawn to eligible subject matter as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Response to Arguments
8. Applicant's arguments filed on 07/14/2026 with respect to the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. See new 101 rejection above with regards to the amendments.
Conclusion
9. The claims are not rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102/103(a) for the same reasons set forth in the parent application 18110113 (now Patent No. 11,948,210), see Non-Final Office Action mailed 9/14/2024.
10. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
11. Carrel et al. (U.S. Patent No. 8,489,245) talks about demand response to reduce energy consumption by individual consumers is provided by aggregating individual consumers, and providing feedback to such consumers regarding their energy consumption relative to other energy consumers in a group. The resulting feedback may result in reduced energy consumption by the individual consumer (see at least the Abstract).
12. Golden et al. (U.S Pub. No. 2008/0167756) talks about managing power consumption and storage in a power grid. Measurements are received from a plurality of geographically distributed energy management controllers. Each energy management controllers has energy storage units with stored energy. The measurements comprise the energy production and storage capacity of the energy management controllers and their associated energy storage units. The measurements are processed, e.g., aggregated, and displayed on a graphical user interface. Commands are transmitted to a first subset of the energy management controllers to command the units to discharge their stored energy into a power grid through an inverter. Commands are transmitted to a second subset of the plurality of energy management controllers to store energy in each unit's energy storage unit (see at least the Abstract).
13. Updated search for prior art found:
14. Lin et al. (U.S. Patent No. 11,270,345) discloses targeting users based on energy usage and profile. For example, energy usage data can be received for households monitored using a plurality of meters, where the energy usage data is associated with the households and users. A data set that includes estimated energy usage over geographic areas can be received. The monitored energy usage data and the data set can be combined using a mapping, where the mapping includes location mappings between location information for the households and the geographic areas from the data set. Users with user profiles that meet a targeting criteria can be targeted based on the combined monitored energy usage data and the data set, where the users are targeted based on the location mappings. A messaging campaign that transmits messages to the targeted users can be executed (see at least the Abstract).
15. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARILYN G MACASIANO whose telephone number is (571)270-5205. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 12:00-9:00 pm.
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/MARILYN G MACASIANO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622 09/29/2026
