DETAILED ACTION
Non-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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. In particular, claims are directed to a judicial exception (abstract idea) without significantly more.
When considering subject matter eligibility launder 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., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. 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., law of nature, natural phenomenon, and 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 mental processes; certain methods of organizing human activities; and mathematical relationships/formulas. Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al., 573 U.S. ____ (2014).
Analysis has been updated based on the new 2019 Patent Eligibility Guidance (2019 PEG).
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claim 1 (exemplary) recites a method.
The claim is directed to a process, which is a statutory category of invention.
The claim is then analyzed to determine whether it is directed to a judicial exception. The claim recites a method that comprises the limitations of:
decomposing an up-going wave field P₄ into a primary wave Pu and up-going multiple waves of different orders on an acquisition surface, and decomposing down-going wave field Pd into the down-going multiple waves of different orders on a seismic virtual source;
based on a separation of the up-going wave field P₄ and the down-going wave field Pd,
applying a two-way wave equation based wave field depth extrapolation method of for
simultaneous depth extrapolation and imaging of primary waves and multiple waves of different orders to avoid crosstalk noise in imaging.
The claimed process simply describes series of steps for a method, based on decomposing, and applying. These limitations set forth a judicial exception, because this is simply the organization and comparison of data which can be performed with pen and paper and is an idea of itself. These limitations, as drafted, are processes that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitations activities that falls within the enumerated group of “mathematical relationships/formulas” in the 2019 PEG.
Next, the claim is analyzed to determine if it is integrated into a practical application. The claim recites no additional limitation and thus does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because there is no limitation that imposes any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to the abstract idea.
Next, the claim is analyzed to determine if there are additional claim limitations that individually, or as an ordered combination, ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the abstract ideas (whether claim provides inventive concept). As discussed above, the recitation of the claimed limitations amounts to mere instructions to implement the abstract idea and have no additional elements present in the claims. As such, there is no inventive concept sufficient to transform the claimed subject matter into a patent-eligible application. The same analysis applies here, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at or provide an inventive concept.
Viewing the limitations as an ordered combination does not add anything further than looking at the limitations individually. When viewed either individually, or as an ordered combination, the additional limitations do not amount to a claim as a whole that is significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, the claim does not amount to significantly more than the recited abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
The analysis above applies to all statutory categories of invention including claim 1.
Furthermore, the dependent claims 2-10 do not resolve the issues raised in the independent claims. The dependent claims do not add limitations that meaningfully limit the abstract idea. The dependent claims do not impart patent eligibility to the abstract idea of the independent claims. Therefore, none of the dependent claims alone or as an ordered combination add limitations that qualify as integrating the abstract idea into a practical application.
Lastly, dependent claims do not include any additional elements and thus do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application and are not sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claim merely amounts to the application or instructions to apply the abstract idea.
Accordingly, claims 1-10 are rejected as ineligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. 101 based upon the same analysis.
The instant claims are rejected under 35 USC 101 in view of The Decision in Alice Corporation Ply. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al. in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that the patent claims in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, el al. ("Alice Corp. ") are not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
The term “usually” is a relative term and it is unclear to what quantifications this term encompass. The specification fails to clearly describe what is encompassed by this relative term and therefore leaves the metes and bounds of the invention unclear to what could and/or couldn’t perform the functions of the instant invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Li (CN 110780348 A, all citations provided from machine translation attached).
Regarding claim 1, Li teaches a method for separation of generalized primary and multiple waves using two-way wave equation based depth extrapolation method, comprising: decomposing an up-going wave field P₄ into a primary wave Pu and up-going multiple waves of different orders on an acquisition surface, and decomposing down-going wave field Pd into the down-going multiple waves of different orders on a seismic virtual source. (Claims 4-5, Page.3-4)
Li also teaches based on a separation of the up-going wave field P₄ and the down-going wave field Pd, applying a two-way wave equation based wave field depth extrapolation method of for simultaneous depth extrapolation and imaging of primary waves and multiple waves of different orders to avoid crosstalk noise in imaging. (Pages.7, 2)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDALLAH ABULABAN whose telephone number is (571)272-4755. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 7:00am-3:00pm EST.
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/ABDALLAH ABULABAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645
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