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 action is in reply to the amendments and remarks filed on 7 January 2026.
Claim 1 has been amended.
Claims 1-16 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendments are insufficient to overcome the 101 rejections previously raised. These rejections are respectfully maintained and updated below as necessitated by the amendments to the claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 7 January 2026 have been full considered but are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that the claims as a whole integrates the alleged abstract idea into a practical application because it recites interactions between functional elements that go beyond a generic computing environment including interacting with interface, accessing databases, communicating prompts and responding to selections. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
The claimed invention is tied to a generically recited computing environment including devices, a gui, processor and memory that receives input, stores data, outputs a display and uses a processor to carry out steps. The additional elements of the claims to not apply or use the judicial exception in a meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the exception to a particular technology and there are no improvements to the functioning of the computer or any other technology. The additional elements do not play a significant part in permitting the claimed steps to be performed but rather function solely as an obvious mechanism for permitting the solution to be achieved more quickly through computerized implementation and generally tie the steps to a particular technological environment, the scheduling system. The 101 rejection is respectfully maintained and updated below as necessitated by the amendments to the claims.
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 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Independent Claim 1 recites limitations for receiving a list qualified workers, receiving one or more design constraints, assigning each worker to teams, assigning teams to a primary work schedule, determining based on the primary schedule an associated assignment property, receiving a change request, in response to receiving a change request determining available replacement shifts, determining available second workers, updating the primary work schedules and assignment properties. These functions as a whole illustrate a set of rules or series of instructions for managing behavior, relationships or interactions between people and thus demonstrates a certain method of organizing human activity. Additionally, these limitations, as drafted, illustrate a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitations in the mind. Receiving a list qualified workers, receiving one or more design constraints, assigning each worker to teams, assigning teams to a primary work schedule, determining based on the primary schedule an associated assignment property, receiving a change request, in response to the change request determining available replacement shifts, determining available second workers, updating the primary work schedules and assignment properties illustrate high level observation and evaluation type functions that could be done the same way mentally or manually with a pen and paper. But for the “automatically” and source of the received data, “from one of the plurality of input devices” language, the claims encompass a user simply making observations and evaluations in their mind. The mere nominal recitation of a generic computer component or computer system environment does not take the claim limitations out of the abstract idea groupings. Thus, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims recite additional elements including a system for scheduling shift changes between a plurality of network devices comprising a plurality of input devices configured to receive an input, a plurality of output devices configured to provide an output, a digital processor in communication with the devices and memory comprising instructions configured to execute the above identified abstract steps as well as performing a multitude of receiving both from devices associated with workers and via a gui, storing in a database, and displaying on a gui of a device steps. The receiving, storing in a database and displaying on a gui of a device steps are recited at a high level of generality and amount to mere data gathering and transmission, which are forms of insignificant extra solution activity. The devices, processor and memory that perform the other steps via executable instructions and automatically are also recited at a high level of generality and merely automate those steps. Each of the additional components is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception in a generic computer environment (a system comprising input and output devices, a processor, gui and memory with executable instructions) with generic computer components. Accordingly, even in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. 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 with respect to step 2A Prong 2, the additional elements in the claims amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component or linking the steps to a generic computer environment. The same analysis applies here in 2B and does not provide an inventive concept.
For the receiving, storing and displaying steps that were considered extra solution activity in step 2A above, these have been re-evaluated in step 2B and determined to be well-understood, routine and conventional activity in the field. The specification does not provide any indication that the system components are anything other than generic, off the shelf computer components, and the Symantec, TLI and OIP Techs. court decisions in MPEP 2106.05 indicate that the mere collection/storage, receipt or transmission of data over a network is a well-understood, routine and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner, as it is here.
Dependent claims 2-16 include all of the limitations of claim 1 and therefore recite the same abstract idea. The claims merely narrow the recited abstract idea by describing additional observation and evaluation steps including determinations, describe data and intended use for output data, counting, dividing, assigning, increasing, evaluating rules for assignment, and describing team worker distribution. The additional elements recited fail to transform the claims into a patent eligible invention but instead describe additional displaying, input receiving, output/display capabilities, detecting which is considered another receiving/observation type step and indicating which is considered another outputting/transmission type step that do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application nor do they amount to significantly more.
Accordingly, claims 1-16 are not drawn to eligible subject matter as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Distinguishable over Prior Art
None of the prior art of record teaches a non-obvious combination of the claimed invention in its entirety.
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 STEPHANIE Z DELICH whose telephone number is (571)270-1288. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday 7-3:30.
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/STEPHANIE Z DELICH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623