DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to communication filed on 9 December 2025.
Claims 1 – 20 are presented for examination.
The following is a FINAL office action upon examination of application number 18/593302. Claims 1 – 20 are pending in the application and have been examined on the merits discussed below.
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 .
Response to Amendment
In the response filed 9 December 2025, Applicant amended claims 1, 2, 7, 11, 12, 16, and 17.
Amendments to claims 1, 2, 7, 11, 12, 16, and 17 are insufficient to overcome the 35 USC § 101 rejection. Therefore, the 35 USC § 101 rejection of claims 1 – 20 are maintained.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 9 December 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In the remarks regarding the 35 USC 101 rejection, Applicant argues that claims do not recite the judicial exception of abstract ideas without significantly more. Examiner respectfully disagrees. The newly amended limitations that Applicant cites are all abstract concepts that do not require any technology to be performed. The computational model is mathematical concept and obtaining data and making recommendations are mental processes. Additionally, the claims recite analyzing data in an organization and addressing issues related to forecasting. This is a business relation, which is a certain method of organizing human activity. Applicant describes their position of a technical problem of integrating and analyzing organizational and external data via a web application interface. However, that functionality does not require technology to be performed, nor is a web application interface non-generic or specific to these functions. Rather than a technical problem, this is a business problem to be solved utilizing well-known and conventional technology to implement. The 35 USC 101 rejection is proper and maintained.
In the remarks regarding independent claims 1, 11, and 16, Applicant argues that the prior art does not disclose the newly amended limitations. Examiner agrees. The prior art rejection is withdrawn.
Claim Objections
Claim 9 is objected to because of the following informalities: The initialism API is not further defined. Please spell out what the letters stand for in the claim. Appropriate correction is required.
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 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to the judicial exception of abstract ideas without significantly more. The independent claims recite receiving a request from a user to identify key variances for an organization; obtaining organizational data for the organization from a database, the organizational data including forecasting data for the organization; obtaining situational data related to the organization from an external data source; generating a feature vector by transforming the organizational data and the situational data using an extract, transform, and load (ETL) component; identifying one or more variances in the organizational data by providing the feature vector to a computational model that is trained to identify associations in the organizational data and the situational data; generating respective recommendations for addressing the variances, each recommendation providing guidance to address a corresponding variance; and presenting information about the variances and the respective recommendations for addressing the one or more variances. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The eligibility analysis in support of these findings is provided below, in accordance section 2106 of the MPEP (hereinafter, MPEP 2106).With respect to Step 1 of the eligibility inquiry (as explained in MPEP 2106), it is noted that the method, the system, and the computer-readable storage medium are directed to an eligible categories of subject matter. Step 1 is satisfied.
With respect to Step 2A prong 1 of MPEP 2106, it is next noted that claims 1 – 20 recite an abstract idea by reciting concepts of business relations, which falls into the “certain methods of organizing human activity” group within the enumerated groupings of abstract ideas set forth in the MPEP 2106. The claimed invention also recites an abstract idea that falls within the mental processes grouping, as independent claims recite obtaining data, identifying variances, and presenting information. Further, the claimed invention recites abstract ideas of mathematical concepts, as generating feature vectors and using them in a computational model are the use of mathematics. The limitations reciting the abstract idea in independent claims are receiving a request from a user to identify key variances for an organization; obtaining organizational data for the organization from a database, the organizational data including forecasting data for the organization; obtaining situational data related to the organization from an external data source; generating a feature vector by transforming the organizational data and the situational data using an extract, transform, and load (ETL) component; identifying one or more variances in the organizational data by providing the feature vector to a computational model that is trained to identify associations in the organizational data and the situational data; generating respective recommendations for addressing the variances, each recommendation providing guidance to address a corresponding variance; and presenting information about the variances and the respective recommendations for addressing the one or more variances.
With respect to Step 2A Prong Two of the MPEP 2106, the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The additional elements are directed to a computational model, processors, memory, and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, to implement the abstract idea. However, these elements fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they are directed to the use of generic computing elements to perform the abstract idea, including a web application interface, computer-readable storage medium, processors, and memory, which is not sufficient to amount to a practical application (as noted in the MPEP 2106), as these are well-known, routine, and conventional computing components. Further, the claims describe what is tantamount to simply saying “apply it” using a general purpose computer, which merely serves to tie the abstract idea to a particular technological environment by using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea, which is not sufficient to amount to particular application. The computational model is extra solution activity as it is utilized only to provide data to an receive output from.
Accordingly, because the Step 2A Prong One and Prong Two analysis resulted in the conclusion that the claims are directed to an abstract idea, additional analysis under Step 2B of the eligibility inquiry must be conducted in order to determine whether any claim element or combination of elements amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
With respect to Step 2B of the eligibility inquiry, it has been determined that the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional limitations are directed to: a web application interface, processors, memory, and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. These elements have been considered, but merely serve to tie the invention to a particular operating environment, though at a very high level of generality and without imposing meaningful limitation on the scope of the claim. This does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea, and it is not enough to transform an abstract idea into eligible subject matter. Such generic, high-level, and nominal involvement of a computer or computer-based elements for carrying out the invention merely serves to tie the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, which is not enough to render the claims patent-eligible, as noted at pg. 74624 of Federal Register/Vol. 79, No. 241, citing Alice, which in turn cites Mayo.
In addition, when taken as an ordered combination, the ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present as when the elements are taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements integrates the abstract idea into a practical application. Their collective functions merely provide conventional computer implementation. Therefore, when viewed as a whole, these additional claim elements do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea into a practical application of the abstract idea or that the ordered combination amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
The dependent claims have been fully considered as well, however, similar to the finding for claims above, these claims are similarly directed to the abstract idea of concepts of further defining the labels for the organizational and situational data, without integrating it into a practical application and with, at most, a general purpose computer that serves to tie the idea to a particular technological environment, which does not add significantly more to the claims. The ordered combination of elements in the dependent claims (including the limitations inherited from the parent claim(s)) add nothing that is not already present as when the elements are taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely provide conventional computer implementation. Accordingly, the subject matter encompassed by the dependent claims fails to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1 – 20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action.
None of the prior art of record, taken individually or in any combination, teach, inter alia a method, computer readable storage medium, and system of receiving, via a web application interface, a request from a user to identify key variances for an organization obtaining, from a database of the organization, organizational data for the organization, the organizational data including forecasting data for the organization; obtaining, from an external data source, situational data related to the organization; generating a feature vector by transforming the organizational data and the situational data using an extract, transform, and load (ETL) component identifying one or more variances in the organizational data by providing the feature vector to a computational model, wherein the computational model trained to identify associations in the organizational data and the situational data; generating respective recommendations for addressing the one or more variances, each recommendation providing guidance to address a corresponding variance and presenting, to the user via the web application interface, information about the one or more variances, and the respective recommendations for addressing the one or more variances.
Furthermore, neither the prior art, the nature of the problem, not knowledge of a person having ordinary skill in the art provides for any predictable or reasonable rationale to combine prior art teachings.
The closest prior art of Deodhar (U.S. P.G. Pub. 2017/0116552) teaches organizational prediction of organizational data with variance of organizational and situational data. However, Deodhar does not teach the particular method of generating a feature vector transforming the organizational data and situational data using an ETL component the providing to a model to generate recommendations, in the particular manner of Applicant’s claims.
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.
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/AMANDA GURSKI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3625
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