Final Rejection
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 .
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103
Response to Amendment
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract ideas without significantly more. The claims recite mental processes. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims generally link abstract ideas to a generic computer and perform mere data gathering in relation to the mental processes. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they include mere instructions to perform mental processes on a generic computer.
The claimed invention is the use of human-created rules and processes in a computer. The solution to the problem (the details of the self-healing workflow) is never specified, and it is merely stated that this workflow may be created by a human and stored into a generic computer for later use. Many of the additional elements relate to gathering, storing, and outputting this human-created data.
Claim 1
Step 2A Prong 1: Identification of Abstract Ideas
Claim 1 recites:
access an indication of an occurrence of an event, an alert, or a situation detected at a channel in relation to a computer resource (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “observations,” are mental processes; Paragraph 0001 of Applicant’s specification indicates an alert can be accessed by a security team),
evaluate the event, the alert, or the situation (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” are mental processes) against one or more user-defined conditions included in one or more automation rules (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “observations, evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes; Paragraph 0003 of Applicant’s specification states that these rules can be created by technology teams) …
determine that a user-defined condition from among the one or more user-defined conditions of an automation rule for triggering the self-healing automation has been satisfied based on the evaluation (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes);
identify a self-healing workflow based on the automation rule (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes);
Step 2A Prong 2: Identification of Additional Elements
Claim 1 recites:
a processor programmed to (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(C)(2), performing a mental process in a computer environment is still an abstract idea; MPEP 2106.05(f), mere instructions to apply an exception on a computer):
wherein the event, the alert, or the situation indicates an alert state of the computer resource (MPEP 2106.05(g), “selecting a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated” is considered insignificant extra-solution activity);
… that can each trigger a corresponding self-healing workflow (MPEP 2106.05(f), mere instructions to apply an exception on a computer) the user-defined conditions having been stored in a machine-readable interchange format (MPEP 2106.05(f), mere instructions to apply an exception on a computer; MPEP 2106.05(g), “selecting a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated” is considered insignificant extra-solution activity);
wherein to evaluate the event, the alert, or the situation, the processor is programmed to parse the machine-readable interchange format and compare the event, the alert, or the situation against the one or more user-defined conditions (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(C)(2), performing a mental process in a computer environment is still an abstract idea; MPEP 2106.05(f), mere instructions to apply an exception on a computer);
and initiate the self-healing workflow to perform one or more remediation operations (MPEP 2106.05(f), mere instructions to apply an exception on a computer; Paragraph 0003 of Applicant’s specification describes automation of human created processes).
Step 2B: Significantly More Analysis
The additional elements of the claim do not integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application. The claims simply state mental processes with mere instructions to perform these abstract ideas on a generic computer (MPEP 2106.05(f)(3)). The computer is cited at such a high level of generality that it cannot be determined to be a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)) and is simply linking the judicial exception to a particular technology (MPEP 2106.05(h)). The claim recites only the idea of a solution, but fails to recite details as to how the solution to the problem is accomplished, because it leaves a majority of the analysis to the generic computer (MPEP 2106.05(f)(1)).
Claim 2
Claim 2 recites:
receive (MPEP 2106.05(g), mere data gathering is considered insignificant extra-solution activity; MPEP 2106.05(f)(2), “using a computer in its ordinary capacity … e.g. to receive, store, or transmit data … does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application”), from a responsible party associated with the alert state (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), a human input is considered a mental process of a judgment), the one or more user-defined conditions to onboard the self-healing automation (user-defined conditions are considered mental processes in accordance with MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), as, “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes; MPEP 2106.05(g), “selecting a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated” is considered insignificant extra-solution activity);
generate the automation rule based on the one or more user-defined conditions and map the automation rule to the self-healing workflow (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), as, “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes, and these particular mental processes are based on human-created rules as cited above);
and store the mapped automation rule and self-healing workflow for automated retrieval and matching (MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)(ii), sending data to another location is considered insignificant extra-solution activity).
Claim 3
Claim 3 recites:
before the self-healing workflow is associated with the alert state, transmit an indication of the alert state to the responsible party via an intelligent process automation portal (MPEP 2106.05(g), the display and output of data is considered insignificant extra-solution activity), wherein the automation rule and corresponding self-healing workflow are configured based on input from the responsible party to set up automated self-healing for the alert state (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), as, “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes, and these particular mental processes are based on human-created rules as cited above).
Claim 4
Claim 4 recites:
generate an output in an interchange format based on the one or more user-defined conditions (MPEP 2106.05(g), the display and output of data is considered insignificant extra-solution activity);
and convert the output into a format that is compatible with the channel to support multi-channel integrations (MPEP 2106.05(g), “selecting a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated” is considered insignificant extra-solution activity; MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)(v), “requiring the use of software to tailor information and provide it to the user on a generic computer,” is insignificant extra-solution activity).
Claim 5
Claim 5 recites:
access an indication of an occurrence of a second event, a second alert, or a second situation detected at the channel in relation to the computer resource, wherein the second event, the second alert, or the second situation indicates a second alert state of the computer resource (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “observations,” are mental processes; Paragraph 0001 of Applicant’s specification indicates an alert can be accessed by a security team);
determine that the second alert state has not been onboarded for self-healing automation (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes);
and transmit an indication for manual resolution by a second responsible party that is associated with the second alert state (MPEP 2106.05(g), the display and output of data is considered insignificant extra-solution activity; MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)(v), “requiring the use of software to tailor information and provide it to the user on a generic computer,” is insignificant extra-solution activity).
Claim 6
Claim 6 recites:
receive (MPEP 2106.05(g), mere data gathering is considered insignificant extra-solution activity; MPEP 2106.05(f)(2), “using a computer in its ordinary capacity … e.g. to receive, store, or transmit data … does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application”), from the second responsible party associated with the second alert state (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), a human input is considered a mental process of a judgment), a specification of a second automation rule and corresponding second self-healing workflow (user-defined conditions are considered mental processes in accordance with MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), as, “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes; as seen above, Paragraph 0003 and the claim language describe these rules and workflows as being defined by humans; MPEP 2106.05(g), “selecting a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated” is considered insignificant extra-solution activity);
and store the second automation rule and corresponding second self-healing workflow in a self-healing datastore (MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)(ii), sending data to another location is considered insignificant extra-solution activity).
Claim 7
Claim 7 recites:
generate, responsive to the alert state (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “observations, evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” are mental processes), a tracking record (MPEP 2106.05(g), mere data gathering is considered insignificant extra-solution activity; MPEP 2106.05(g), the display and output of data is considered insignificant extra-solution activity);
determine one or more updates indicating a progress of the self-healing workflow (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes);
and update the tracking record with the one or more updates (MPEP 2106.05(g), Mere Data Gathering (iii), consulting and updating an activity log is considered insignificant extra solution activity).
Claim 8
Claim 8 recites:
wherein the channel comprises an event management platform, the system further comprising: the event management platform, wherein the event management platform is programmed to (MPEP 2106.05(f), mere instructions to apply an exception on a computer):
receive one or more events associated with a technology stack (MPEP 2106.05(g), mere data gathering is considered insignificant extra-solution activity), generate an alert based on the one or more events (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes), cluster the alert with at least one other alert to generate a situation (MPEP 2106.05(g), mere data gathering is considered insignificant extra-solution activity; determining which alerts to cluster together is seen as a mental judgment with respect to MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A)), and generate an automation request to request the self-heal automation responsive to the situation (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A), “evaluations, judgments, and opinions,” and identifying patterns are mental processes).
Claim 9
Claim 9 recites:
an automation computer system programmed to execute the self-healing workflow responsive to the automation request via a virtual engineer comprising one or more automation agents (MPEP 2106.05(f), mere instructions to apply an exception on a generic computer).
Claim 10
Claim 10 recites:
wherein the virtual engineer executes the one or more automation agents to perform a computer process that addresses the alert state (MPEP 2106.05(f), mere instructions to apply an exception on a generic computer).
Claim 11
Step 2A Prong 1: Identification of Abstract Ideas
All limitations identified as abstract ideas have been analyzed above with respect to Claim 1.
Step 2A Prong 2: Identification of Additional Elements
Claim 11 recites:
… by a/the processor (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(C)(2), performing a mental process in a computer environment is still an abstract idea) …
All additional limitations identified as additional elements have been analyzed above with respect to Claim 1.
Step 2B: Significantly More Analysis
Step 2B analysis regarding the limitations of Claim 11 can be seen above in relation to Claim 1.
Claims 12-19
All limitations of Claims 12-19 have been addressed in the analyses of Claims 2-9, respectively. Please see the above rejections for further details.
Claim 20
Step 2A Prong 1: Identification of Abstract Ideas
All limitations identified as abstract ideas have been analyzed above with respect to Claim 1.
Step 2A Prong 2: Identification of Additional Elements
Claim 20 recites:
A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, programs the processor to (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(C)(2), performing a mental process in a computer environment is still an abstract idea):
All additional limitations identified as additional elements have been analyzed above with respect to Claim 1.
Step 2B: Significantly More Analysis
Step 2B analysis regarding the limitations of Claim 20 can be seen above in relation to Claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-3, 5-13, and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ramanujan et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2022/0066852 A1), hereinafter referred to as Ramanujan, in view of Souche et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2020/0110647 A1), hereinafter referred to as Souche.
With regards to Claim 1, Ramanujan teaches:
A system, comprising:
a processor programmed to (Paragraph 0144, a processor capable of executing instructions to implement the method):
access an indication of an occurrence of an event, an alert, or a situation detected at a channel in relation to a computer resource, wherein the event, the alert, or the situation indicates an alert state of the computer resource (Paragraph 0041, “the blockage may be identified in a ticket generated by a cloud-computing system”; Paragraph 0053, a ticket is created when a job or task fails to complete);
evaluate the event, the alert, or the situation against one or more … conditions included in one or more automation rules that can each trigger a corresponding self-healing workflow (Paragraphs 0053-0054, potential reasons a ticket may be created; Paragraph 0043, the ticket is compared against a historical database to determine recommended repair; Paragraphs 0070-0071 data contracts that define specified behavior), …;
determine that a … condition from among the one or more … conditions of an automation rule for triggering the self-healing automation has been satisfied based on the evaluation (Paragraphs 0053-0054, potential reasons a ticket may be created; Paragraphs 0070-0071 data contracts that define specified behavior);
identify a self-healing workflow based on the automation rule (Paragraph 0043, the ticket is compared against a historical database to determine recommended repair);
and initiate the self-healing workflow to perform one or more remediation operations (Paragraph 0056, automation of repairs).
Ramanujan does not explicitly teach:
… user-defined …
… the user-defined conditions having been stored in a machine-readable interchange format;
wherein to evaluate the event, the alert, or the situation, the processor is programmed to parse the machine-readable interchange format and compare the event, the alert, or the situation against the one or more user-defined conditions;
However, Souche teaches:
… user-defined (Paragraphs 0018 and 0025) …
… the user-defined conditions having been stored in a machine-readable interchange format (Paragraph 0025);
wherein to evaluate the event, the alert, or the situation (Paragraph 0025), the processor is programmed to parse the machine-readable interchange format and compare the event, the alert, or the situation against the one or more user-defined conditions (Paragraph 0025; Paragraph 0026; Paragraph 0023; Paragraph 0048);
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to add the feature of allowing users to determine conditions for triggering the self-healing automation, as taught by Souche, to the system of Ramanujan, so that users may customize the error recovery process (Souche, Paragraphs 0018 and 0025).
With regards to Claim 2, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the system of Claim 1 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche further teaches:
receive, from a responsible party associated with the alert state, the one or more user-defined conditions to onboard the self-healing automation (Souche, Paragraphs 0018 and 0025);
generate the automation rule based on the one or more user-defined conditions and map the automation rule to the self-healing workflow (Souche, Paragraphs 0018 and 0025, an expert can determine how to diagnose an issue, what steps can be taken to remediate the issue, and what steps can be used in combination together to fix the issue; Ramanujan, Paragraph 0043, the ticket is compared against a historical database to determine recommended repair);
and store the mapped automation rule and self-healing workflow for automated retrieval and matching (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0061-0062, the root-cause records are stored in the data store; Ramanujan, Paragraph 0064, decision engine layer; Ramanujan, Paragraph 0144, “any of the various examples of data described herein can be among the data 607 that is stored in memory 603…”; Souche, Paragraph 0018).
With regards to Claim 3, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the system of Claim 2 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche further teaches:
before the self-healing workflow is associated with the alert state, transmit an indication of the alert state to the responsible party via an intelligent process automation portal (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0084), wherein the automation rule and corresponding self-healing workflow are configured based on input from the responsible party to set up automated self-healing for the alert state (Ramanujan, Paragraphs 0084 and 0087).
With regards to Claim 5, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the system of Claim 2 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche further teaches:
access an indication of an occurrence of a second event, a second alert, or a second situation detected at the channel in relation to the computer resource, wherein the second event, the second alert, or the second situation indicates a second alert state of the computer resource (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0046, multiple tickets can be managed at the same time);
determine that the second alert state has not been onboarded for self-healing automation (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0043, human intervention if the root cause/solution to an issue is unknown);
and transmit an indication for manual resolution by a second responsible party that is associated with the second alert state (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0043, human intervention if the root cause/solution to an issue is unknown; Ramanujan, Paragraphs 0040 and 0043, an appropriate team can be selected).
With regards to Claim 6, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the system of Claim 5 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche further teaches:
receive, from the second responsible party associated with the second alert state, a specification of a second automation rule and corresponding second self-healing workflow (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0087);
and store the second automation rule and corresponding second self-healing workflow in a self-healing datastore (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0087).
With regards to Claim 7, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the system of Claim 1 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche further teaches:
generate, responsive to the alert state, a tracking record (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0066, the dashboard);
determine one or more updates indicating a progress of the self-healing workflow (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0066, the dashboard);
and update the tracking record with the one or more updates (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0066, the dashboard includes various information about ongoing tickets, statuses, etc.).
With regards to Claim 8, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the system of Claim 1 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche further teaches:
the event management platform, wherein the event management platform is programmed to (Souche, Paragraph 0048):
receive one or more events associated with a technology stack, generate an alert based on the one or more events, cluster the alert with at least one other alert to generate a situation, and generate an automation request to request the self-heal automation responsive to the situation (Souche, Paragraphs 0019-0020 and 0033; Ramanujan, Paragraph 0043).
With regards to Claim 9, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the system of Claim 8 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche further teaches:
an automation computer system programmed to execute the self-healing workflow responsive to the automation request via a virtual engineer comprising one or more automation agents (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0056, automation of repairs). Note: in line with the description given in Paragraph 0030 of Applicant’s specification, the virtual engineer and automation agents are being broadly interpreted as any sort of computer code or software.
With regards to Claim 10, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the system of Claim 9 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche further teaches:
wherein the virtual engineer executes the one or more automation agents to perform a computer process that addresses the alert state (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0056, automation of repairs).
With regards to Claim 11, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the limitations of Claim 11. Please see the analysis of Claim 1 regarding the rejections of these limitations under the prior art, as well as the motivation to combine references in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 103.
All limitations of Claims 12-13 and 15-19 have been addressed in the analyses of Claims 2-3 and 5-9, respectively. Please see the above rejections for further details.
With regards to Claim 20, Ramanujan teaches:
A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, programs the processor to (Paragraph 0149) …
Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the remaining limitations of Claim 20. Please see the analysis of Claim 1 regarding the rejections of these limitations under the prior art, as well as the motivation to combine references in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 103.
Claims 4 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ramanujan in view of Souche, and in further view of Saito et al. ("Application Protocol Conversion Corresponding to Various IoT Protocols," 2020), hereinafter referred to as Saito.
With regards to Claim 4, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the system of Claim 2 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche further teaches:
generate an output (Ramanujan, Paragraph 0056, the solution process) in an interchange format based on the one or more user-defined conditions (Souche, Paragraphs 0018 and 0025);
Ramanujan in view of Souche does not teach:
and convert the output into a format that is compatible with the channel to support multi-channel integrations.
However, Saito teaches:
generate an output in an interchange format (Pages 5220-5221, Section III, output in a JSON format) …;
and convert the output into a format that is compatible with the channel (Page 5221, Section III, regarding the conversion from the JSON format to another format) to support multi-channel integrations (Page 5219, Section I, different devices require different protocols, and thus conversion may be necessary).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to modify the system capable of output as taught by Ramanujan in view of Souche with the output conversion system of Saito in order to allow for efficient communication between different devices that require different protocols (Saito, Page 5219, Section I).
With regards to Claim 14, Ramanujan in view of Souche teaches the method of Claim 12 as cited above. Ramanujan in view of Souche in further view of Saito teaches the limitations of Claim 14. Please see the analysis of Claim 4 regarding the rejections of these limitations under the prior art, as well as the motivation to combine references in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 103.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on December 11th, 2025, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues on Pages 8-9 of the remarks that the claims should not be rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Applicant argues that, “The computer system enables a human operator to identify remediation operations…” in response to Examiner’s argument that the claims are an improvement to a mental process; however, this identification is considered a mental process with regards to MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A). The invention does not offer an improvement to the technology due to being an improvement upon this mental process of identification (MPEP 2106.04(a)(II)). Furthermore, “an important consideration in determining whether a claim improves technology is the extent to which the claim covers a particular solution … as opposed to merely claiming the idea of a solution” (MPEP 2106.05(a)). The claims do not cover a particular solution, and instead, give a generic solution that rules may be used to self-heal the system. Specifics of the rules, self-healing workflow, and remediation operations are not disclosed within the claims.
The cited sections of the specification on Page 9 of the remarks argue features that are mere instructions to apply the abstract idea on a generic computer and features which are not claimed.
The objection to Claim 10 is withdrawn due to the amendment.
Applicant argues on Pages 10 and 11 of the remarks that the cited prior art does not teach the claimed limitations. Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Please see the above rejections for further details.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Ansari (U.S. Patent No. 7,293,201 B2): teaches self-healing software systems that are activated by user criteria
All claims are identical to or patentably indistinct from, or have unity of invention with claims in the application prior to the entry of the submission under 37 CFR 1.114 (that is, restriction (including a lack of unity of invention) would not be proper) and all claims could have been finally rejected on the grounds and art of record in the next Office action if they had been entered in the application prior to entry under 37 CFR 1.114. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL even though it is a first action after the filing of a request for continued examination and the submission under 37 CFR 1.114. See MPEP § 706.07(b). 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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/G.K.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2113
/MICHAEL MASKULINSKI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2113