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 .
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed 6/24/26 has been entered.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
The pending claims comprise 3 groups:
1) System1: 1-9, and
2) Method1: 10-16, and
3) Product1: 17–20.
All appear to have similar scope.
As of 06/24/2026, independent method claim 1 is as followed:
(Currently Amended) A data processing system for processing a pipeline for estimating treatment effects on product-level success metrics of a product, the system comprising:
[I] a processor; and
[II] a memory in communication with the processor, the memory comprising executable instructions that, when executed by the processor alone or in combination with other processors, cause the data processing system to perform functions of:
[1] extracting telemetry data from a use of the product and net promoter score (NPS)values associated with the product in a plurality of extraction batches, wherein at least one of the telemetry data or the NPS values includes confounding variables;
[2] identifying telemetry data and NPS values associated with a same user from each extraction batch of the plurality of extraction batches;
[3] aggregating the identified telemetry data and PS values from each extraction batch of the plurality of extraction batches into [[an]] a corresponding aggregated data structure to generate a plurality of aggregated data structures;
[4] appending the plurality of aggregated data structures to generate an aggregated dataset via a batch aggregation element, wherein the aggregated dataset comprises joined telemetry data, NPS values, and confounding variables from the plurality of extraction batches, and wherein the joined telemetry data, NPS values, and confounding variables correspond to a given time period;
[5] reducing a number of input/output operations required to read the aggregated dataset by storing the aggregated dataset in a Parquet format in a storage medium of a virtual cluster;
[6] performing data preprocessing on the aggregated dataset stored in the storage medium to generate a filtered dataset with one or more debiasing fields, an outcome variable, and one or more treatment fields, wherein performing the data preprocessing on the aggregated dataset comprises normalizing user actions in the aggregated dataset based on usage days of the user;
[7] generating a separate modeling job for each treatment of a plurality of treatments represented in the filtered dataset to estimate a treatment effect of each of the treatments;
[8] transmitting a plurality of requests corresponding to the separate modeling jobs to a double machine learning (DML) cluster, wherein the DML cluster comprises a treatment model and an effect model;
[9] executing the separate modeling jobs by the DML cluster, wherein each separate modeling job corresponds to a request in the plurality of requests, wherein at least two of the separate modeling jobs are executed in parallel, and wherein each separate modeling job uses the treatment model, the effect model, and the confounding variables to debias a treatment estimate for a respective treatment of the plurality of treatments to generate a corresponding treatment effect score, thereby reducing a time required to generate corresponding treatment effect scores for the plurality of treatments;
[10] receiving the treatment effect scores as an output from the DML cluster; and
[11] generating a visual representation of the treatment effect scores via a data visualization engine.
Note: for referential purpose, numbers [1]-[11] are added to the beginning of each step.
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 a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1: when considering subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, it must be determined whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e.,
(1) process,
(2) machine,
(3) manufacture or product, or
(4) composition of matter.
Step 2A, Prong 1: If the claim does fall within one of the statutory categories, it must then be determined whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception, i.e.,
1) law of nature,
2) natural phenomenon, and
3) abstract idea.
and if so, it must additionally be determined whether the claim is a patent-eligible application of the exception. If an abstract idea is present in the claim, any element or combination of elements in the claim must be sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Examples of abstract ideas include:
(1) Mathematical concepts -- mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, and mathematical calculations;
(2) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion).
(3) Certain methods of organizing human activities.
(i) fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk);
(ii) commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; Legal obligations; Advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations);
(iii) managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions).
For instance, in Alice Corp. (Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014)), the Court found that “intermediated settlement” was a fundamental economic practice, which is considered as (1) a certain method of organizing human activities, which is an abstract idea.
Step 1:
In the instant case, with respect to claims 1-20:
Claim categories:
1) System1: 1–9, and
2) Method1: 10-16, and
3) Product1: 17-20.
Analysis of Step 1:
System: claims 1-9 are directed to a system comprising a processor and a memory for determining effects of a feature on a product using double machine learning (DML) cluster. (Step 1:Yes).
Method: claims 10-16 are directed to a process; i.e., a series of steps or acts, for a method for determining effects of a feature on a product using double machine learning (DML) cluster. (Step 1:Yes).
Article: claims 17-20 are directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions to carry out a process; i.e., a series of steps or acts, for a method for determining effects of a feature on a product using double machine learning (DML) cluster. (Step 1:Yes).
Thus, the claims 1-20 are generally directed towards one of the four statutory categories under 35 USC § 101.
Claims 1-6 and 8-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 2A,
(1) Prong One: Does the claim recite a judicial exception?
(2) Prong Two: Are there any additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception and (2) does not integrate that exception into a practical application, then proceeds to step 2B.
Step 2B: Are there any additional elements that adds an inventive concept to the claim? Determine whether the claim:
(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that is not “well-understood, routine, and conventional” in the field (see MPEP 2106.05(d)); or
(4) simply appends well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception.
A. Step 2A, Prong One:
Claim 1 and 10 as exemplary, recites a method for determining the effect of a treatment on a product or a causal relationship between two items which is a fundamental economic principle or business practice for determining , which is considered as (i) a certain method of organizing human activities, which is an abstract idea.
(ii) commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; Legal obligations; Advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations);
Furthermore, independent claims 1, and 10 recite an abstract idea related to evaluation/analyzing / determining the effect of a treatment on a product or a causal relationship between two items, which constitutes an abstract idea based on “Mental Processes” related to concepts performed in the human mind including observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion.
(2) Mental processes—concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion).
B. Step 2A, Prong Two:
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical applications because it deals with a data processing system for determining the effect of a treatment on a product by carrying out steps of:
The claims recites the additional elements of:
Steps: Types
[1] extracting … data ..score values (data) Data gathering,
insignificant extra-solution activity (IE-SA) step.
[2] identifying telemetry data …. Data preparation/analysis.
[3] aggregating data… values (data) Data preparing/analysis
[4] appending …data structure … dataset. Data preparing/analysis.
[5] reducing operations… Analysis/operation.
[6] data processing… filtered dataset. Analysis
[7] generating modeling job. Analysis/modeling.
[8] transmitting a request (data) to DML .. Data transmitting/analysis-modeling/prediction
[9] executing modeling jobs. Analysis/modeling/prediction.
[10] receiving treatment effect scores (data) Generating analysis output, IE-SA.
[11] generating a visual score rep. (data). Data displaying, IE-SA.
Steps [1], [10] and [11] are data gathering, data (request) transmitting, data receiving and data displaying which are considered as insignificant extra-solution activity (IE-SA) steps.
Steps [2]-[9] are data processing and data analysis using models for generating a treatment effect values/scores. Note that phrases such as “… to debias…” and “to generate…,”are considered as “intended use.”
The claim does not result in an improvement to the functioning of the computer system or to any other technology or technical field. Further, the claim limitations are not indicative of integration into a practical application by applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way. The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computing device, i.e. a processor, a memory, batch aggregation element, DML cluster, models, data visualization engine, etc. Accordingly, even in combination, 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 for determining the effect of a treatment on a product by generating a visual representation of the treatment effect scores and does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
C. Step 2B:
The claims recites the additional elements of steps [1]-[11] above.
Steps [1], [10] and [11] are data gathering, data (request) transmitting, data receiving and data displaying which are considered as insignificant extra-solution activity (IE-SA) steps.
Steps [2]-[9] are data processing and data analysis using models for generating a treatment effect values/scores. Note that phrases such as “… to debias…” and “to generate…,”are considered as “intended use.”
The claim does not result in an improvement to the functioning of the computer system or to any other technology or technical field. Further, the claim limitations are not indicative of integration into a practical application by applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way. The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computing device, i.e. a processor, a memory, batch aggregation element, DML cluster, models, data visualization engine, etc. Accordingly, even in combination, 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 for determining the effect of a treatment on a product by generating a visual representation of the treatment effect scores and does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because as discussed above, the additional elements, steps [2]-[9] when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea(s). As for the system claims, mere instructions to apply an exertion using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. These generic computer components are claimed at high level of generality to perform their basis functions which amount to no more than generally linking the use of the judicial exception to the particular technological environment of field of use and further see insignificant extra-solution activity MPEP 2106.05 (f), (g) and (h). The Symantec, TLI, and OIP Techs, court decisions cited in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II) indicate that mere receipt or transmission of data over a network, sorting data, analyzing data, and transmitting the data is a well-understood, routine and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner (as it is here). The claim are basically collect data, analyze data, and provide set of results, which are not patent eligible, see Electric Power Group, LLC. For these reasons, there is no inventive concept in the claim, and thus the claim is not patent eligible.
As for dep. claims 2-4 (part of 1 above), which deal with further details of the representation displaying parameters, these further limit the abstract idea of the analysis parameters, without including: (a) an improvement to another technology or technical field, (b) an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or (c ) meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, claims 2-4 are not considered as being “significantly more”, and thus do not facilitate the claim to meet the “inventive concept”.
As for dep. claim 5 (part of 1 above), which deals with further details of the treatment effect parameters, this further limits the abstract idea of the analysis parameters, without including: (a) an improvement to another technology or technical field, (b) an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or (c ) meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment.
As for dep. claims 6-7 (part of 1 above), which deal with further details of the data processing parameters, these further limit the abstract idea of the analysis, without including: (a) an improvement to another technology or technical field, (b) an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or (c ) meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, claims 6-7 are not considered as being “significantly more”, and thus do not facilitate the claim to meet the “inventive concept”.
As for dep. claims 8-9 (part of 1 above), which deal with further details of the output of the DML cluster, these further limit the abstract idea of the treatment effect analysis, without including: (a) an improvement to another technology or technical field, (b) an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or (c ) meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, claims 8-9 are not considered as being “significantly more”, and thus do not facilitate the claim to meet the “inventive concept”.
Therefore, claims 1-20 are not drawn to eligible subject matter as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. step 2B: NO
Response to Arguments
Applicant's amendment and arguments filed 6/24/2026 have been fully considered and the results are as followed:
1) 101 Rejection:
(1) Applicant’s comments on pages 13-14 are noted but not found to be persuasive.
Steps [1]-[9] are used for determining treatment effects on a product using a prediction model by analyzing the data from a use of the product, and executing prediction models to generate the treatment effects, and displaying a visual representation of the scores. See Fig. 3B below. As shown in the preamble of claim 1, “A data processing system for processing a pipeline for estimating treatment effects on product-level success metrics of a product,” the claim 1 is basically a data processing system, analyzing the use of the product using a prediction model, generating analyzed results, and displaying the results, see Fig. 3B.
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(3) Applicant’s comments that the claims are analogous to the two eligible cases, (a) Enfish, LLC vs. Microsoft Corp., and () DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com are not persuasive for the following reasons:
a) Enfish LLC vs. Microsoft Corp (May 12, 2016)
Claim 17 of US Patent 6,151,604 recites:
A data storage and retrieval system for a computer memory, comprising:
[1] means for configuring said memory according to a logical table, said logical table including:
(i) a plurality of logical rows, each said logical row including an object identification number (OID) to identify each said logical row, each said logical row corresponding to a record of information;
(ii) a plurality of logical columns intersecting said plurality of logical rows to define a plurality of logical cells, each said logical column including an OID to identify each said logical column; and
[2] means for indexing data stored in said table.
The ‘604 and ‘775 patents are directed to an innovative logical model for a computer database. A logical model is a model of data for a computer database explaining how the various elements of information are related to one another. The CAFC said on page 12, 1st paragraph, that the "plain focus of the claims is on an improvement to computer functionality itself, not on economic or other tasks for which a computer is used in its ordinary capacity". Also, on the 2nd paragraph that “the claims at issue … are directed to specific improvement to the way computer operate, embodied in the self-referential table.”.
3) DDR Holdings:
See page 17, of BASCOM vs. AT&T of 7/19/2016:
Turning first to DDR, we held that DDR’s patent claimed a technical solution to a problem unique to the Internet—websites instantly losing views upon the click of a link, which would send the viewer across cyberspace to another company’s website. 773 F.3d at 1248–50. The claimed invention solved that problem in a particular, technical way by sending the viewer to a hybrid webpage that combined visual elements of the first website with the desired content from the second website that the viewer wished to access. Id. at 1257–59. The creation of this hybrid webpage that co-displays the look and feel of the first website with the desired content from the second website required a specific technical solution that did more than claim all implementations for retaining web viewers.
The current claims do not deal with a specific problem to a device, network or system such as a computer system or the Internet, as in DDR Holdings.
(4) Applicant’s comments on pages 17-19 that the claims are analogous to the following eligible cases, (3) McRo, Inc, (4) BASCOMB Global Internet Services are also not persuasive.
1) McRo, Inc. DBA Planet Blue vs. Bandai Namco Games America Inc, (September 13, 2016)
Claim 1 of US Patent 6,307, 576 records:
1. A method for automatically animating lip synchronization and facial expression of three dimensional characters comprising:
[1] obtaining a first set of rules that define output morph weight set stream as a function of phoneme sequence and time of said phoneme sequence;
[2] obtaining a timed data file of phonemes having a plurality of sub-sequences;
[3] generating an intermediate stream of output morph weight sets and a plurality of transition parameters between two adjacent morph weight sets by evaluating said plurality of sub-sequences against said first set of rules;
[4] generating a final stream of output morph weight sets at a desired frame rate from said intermediate stream of output morph weight sets and said plurality of transition parameters; and
[5] applying said final stream of output morph weight sets to a sequence of animated characters to produce lip synchronization and facial expression control of said animated characters.
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Citations of Pertinent Prior Art
CHEN ET AL., US 2020/0.202 in view of (2) EHSANI ET AL., US 12,067,041, and (3) FULLER ET AL., US 2016/0.019.490, and (4) CARDNO ET AL., US 2018/0.189.990 and (5) CN 110.609.851 fairly teaches claimed invention except for steps (4) “performing …” and (5) “Transmitting a request…”
No claims are allowed.
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 Tan "Dean" D NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-6806. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F: 6:30-4:30 PM (ET).
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/TAN D NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3689
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