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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 13 April 2026 has been entered.
This Continued Examination Office Action is in reply to the Request for Continued Examination filed on 13 April 2026.
Claims 1, 6 have been amended.
Claims 1-4 and 6-9 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Amendment
In the previous office action, Claims 1-4 and 6-9 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Applicants have not amended Claims to provide statutory support and the rejection is maintained.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments filed have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In the remarks regarding the 35 USC § 101 rejection for Claims 1-4 and 6-9, Applicants argue that: (1) the claims are not directed to an abstract idea, and even if they were, they would amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Examiner respectfully disagrees. Commensurate with the 2019 revised patent subject matter eligibility guidance (2019 PEG), the October 2019 Update: Subject Matter Eligibility (“October 2019 Update”) and updated with the addition of new Examples 47-49 published July 2024, the claims are continued analyzed based on these new guidelines and is detailed below with further clarification in the maintained rejection under 35 USC 101.
Applicants’ amendments have overcome the previous cited prior art.
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.
Claims1-4 and 6-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. The claims as a whole recite certain grouping of an abstract idea and are analyzed in the following step process:
Step 1: Claims1-4 and 6-9 are each focused to a statutory category of invention namely “computerized-method; computerized-system” sets.
Step 2A: Prong One: Claims 1-4, 6-9 recite limitations that set forth the abstract ideas, namely, the claims as a whole recite the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The steps in the claim broadly relate to automated workforce management (WFM), specifically calculating and applying agent shrinkage (e.g., time-offs and understaffing) to a future staffing plan. The claims recite steps for, generally, processing information by:
“(i) receiving via a User Interface that is associated to a Workforce Management (WFM) application, one or more skills for the future staffing plan and the time-slot;
(ii) calculating a historic-shrinkage percentage during a preconfigured period based on agents’ time-offs and understaffing-levels during the preconfigured period;
(iii) determining the staffing-shrinkage percentage in the time-slot during the future staffing plan based on the calculated historic-shrinkage percentage;
iv) populating the determined staffing-shrinkage percentage automatically into a shrinkage percentage field of the User Interface for a respective day corresponding to the time-slot;
(v) checking whether the staffing-shrinkage percentage has been automatically selected via the User Interface;
(vi) when the staffing-shrinkage percentage has been automatically selected, automatically submitting staffing parameters to the WFM application:
(vii) configuring the WFM application to update staffing level in the future staffing plan, based on the determined staffing-shrinkage percentage and storing the updated future staffing plan in a WEM database, wherein the updating of the staffing level of the future staffing level of the future staffing plan based on the determining staffing-shrinkage percentage is performed by adding number of agents to the future staffing plan, and
wherein the number of added agents is calculated as the determined staffing- shrinkage percentage of a total number of agents that have the one or more skills and are scheduled to the time-slot”
These abstract idea limitations identified above under their broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims as a whole, cover performance of their limitations as the 2019 PEG explains that the abstract idea exception includes the following groupings of subject matter:
Mathematical concepts – [mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, mathematical calculations]: Steps (ii) and (iii) involve "calculating a historic-shrinkage percentage" and "determining the staffing-shrinkage percentage." These are mathematical algorithms or formulas used to derive a numerical value from existing data sets (time-offs and understaffing levels). The claim explicitly recites mathematical algorithms—calculating a "historic-shrinkage percentage", determining a "staffing-shrinkage percentage" based on that calculation, and adding a specific number of agents via the mathematical formulation.
b) Certain methods of organizing human activity – [managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)]: The overall process of "staffing plan" management and "adding number of agents" to a schedule falls under fundamental economic practices or commercial/legal interactions. Managing personnel schedules is a routine business activity that can be performed manually by a human (mental process or pen-and-paper). The claim is directed to managing a business, specifically organizing human activity, resource allocation, and workforce staffing.
c) Mental processes – concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion). Here the logic of observing past absences ("historic-shrinkage") to predict future needs ("future staffing plan") is a type of reasoning that a human supervisor could perform in their mind or on a spreadsheet without a computer. A human could mentally process past time-offs, calculate the rate of attrition, and determine how many more employees are needed to account for the shortfall.
Prong 1 focuses solely on whether the claim "recites" an abstract idea. The claim specifically names the steps of receiving data, calculating percentages, and updating a plan based on those percentages. Because these are computational logic and business-organizing steps, they are considered abstract under the Guidance. Even though they are performed "via a User Interface" or stored in a "WEM database" these technical limitations are typically viewed as mere computer environments for the underlying abstract logic at this stage of the analysis.
In summary and additional to the above, the elements of the claim fall under the following recognized categories of abstract ideas: Mathematical Concepts: Mathematical relationships and formulas used to calculate shrinkage percentages. Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity: Managing a workforce, scheduling employees, and business planning/optimization. Mental Processes: Concepts that can be performed in the human mind, such as predicting future needs based on historical data. See MPEP § 2106.04(a) II C. Hence, the claims are ineligible under Step 2A Prong one. Furthermore, the dependent claims are merely directed to the particulars of the abstract idea and likewise do not add significantly more to the above-identified judicial exception.
Step 2A: Prong Two: Claims 1-4, 6-9: With regard to this step of the analysis (as explained in MPEP § 2106.04(d)), the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Independent Claim 1 recites additional elements directed to “one or more processors; user interface; application; database”. Therefore, the claims contain computer components that are cited at a high level of generality and are merely invoked as a tool to perform the abstract idea. Simply implementing an abstract idea on a computer is not a practical application of the abstract idea. Furthermore, the dependent claims are merely directed to the particulars of the abstract idea and likewise do not add significantly more to the above-identified judicial exception. The limitations of the claims do not transform the abstract idea that they recite into patent-eligible subject matter because Claim 1 simply instructs the practitioner to implement the abstract idea using generally-recited computer components, and furthermore do not amount to an improvement to a computer or any other technology, and thus are ineligible. See MPEP § 2106.05(f) (h).
Step 2B: As explained in MPEP § 2106.05, Claims 1-4, 6-9 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea nor recites additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The additional elements of independent Claim 1’s “one or more processors; user interface; application; database”, etc. are generically-recited computer-related elements that amount to a mere instruction to “apply it” (the abstract idea) on the computer-related elements (see MPEP § 2106.05 (f) – Mere Instructions to Apply an Exception). These additional elements in the claims are recited at a high level of generality and are merely limiting the field of use of the judicial exception (see MPEP §2106.05 (h) – Field of Use and Technological Environment). There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the function of a computer or improves any other technology. Furthermore, the dependent claims are merely directed to the particulars of the abstract idea and likewise do not add significantly more to the above-identified judicial exception. The limitations of the claims do not transform the abstract idea that they recite into patent-eligible subject matter because the claims simply instruct the practitioner to implement the abstract idea using generally-recited computer components, and furthermore do not amount to an improvement to a computer or any other technology, and thus are ineligible.
The Examiner interprets that the steps of the claimed invention both individually and as an ordered combination result in Mere Instructions to Apply a Judicial Exception (see MPEP §2106.05 (f)). These claims recite only the idea of a solution or outcome with no restriction on how the result is accomplished and no description of the mechanism used for accomplishing the result. Here, the claims utilize a computer or other machinery (e.g., see Applicants’ un-published Specification ¶’s 42-60) regarding using existing computer processors as well as program products comprising machine-readable media for carrying or having machine-executable instructions or data structures stored. “system 100A” in its ordinary capacity for performing tasks (e.g., to receive, analyze, transmit and display data) and/or use computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice and certain methods of organization human activities) and does not provide significantly more. See Affinity Labs v. DirecTV, 838 F.3d 1253, 1262, 120 USPQ2d 1201, 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2016)). Software implementations are accomplished with standard programming techniques with logic to perform connection steps, processing steps, comparison steps and decisions steps. These claims are directed to being a commonplace business method being applied on a general-purpose computer (see Alice Corp. Pty, Ltd. V. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 1357, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983 (2014)); Versata Dev. Group, Inc., v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 D.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015)) and require the use of software such as via a server to tailor information and provide it to the user on a generic computer. Based on all these, Examiner finds that when viewed either individually or in combination, these additional claim element(s) do not provide meaningful limitation(s) that raise to the high standards of eligibility to transform the abstract idea(s) into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea(s) such that the claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea(s) itself. Accordingly, Claims 1-4, 6-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e. abstract idea exception) without significantly more.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant's disclosure:
Fogg (US 2023/0214940)
Badra (US 2021/0150447)
Lazaroiu, George, and Elżbieta Rogalska. "How generative artificial intelligence technologies shape partial job displacement and labor productivity growth." Oeconomia Copernicana 14.3 (2023): 703-706.
Chuang et al. (WO 2013/052769)
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THOMAS L. MANSFIELD
Examiner
Art Unit 3623
/THOMAS L MANSFIELD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624
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