DETAILED ACTION
This is in reference to communication received 27 May 2026. Claims 1 – 26 are pending for examination. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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 – 26 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.
Independent claim 25, representative of claims 1 and 26, in part is directed toward a statutory category of invention, the claim appears to be directed toward a judicial exception namely an abstract idea. Claim 25 recites invention directed to displaying to a user location for placing the infrastructure, in response to receiving a request from the user for a location for placing the infrastructure. Geographic map layout is stored as plurality chunks of geographic area within the map, identified as tiles. When a request comprising user input for placing an infrastructure is received from the user, based upon the user input, an initial state for tiles of a plurality of tiles is determined, and an updated state for the tiles of the plurality of tiles is determined by determining a set of source geographic tiles of the plurality of tiles using the initial state based at least in part on the user request; and a list of consumption geographic tiles of the plurality of tiles is determined using the initial state, wherein one or more consumption parameters for the infrastructure are associated with a consumption geographic tile of the list of consumption geographic tiles; a user display is generated based at least in part on the one or more source characteristics and on the one or more consumption parameters; and provided to the user associated with the user request, wherein the user display comprises the location for placing the infrastructure, as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of organizing certain methods of human activity related to advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors but for the recitation of generic computer components. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
The independent claims further recite the additional functional element of “determining, using a processor, an initial state for tiles of a plurality of tiles using the user input data and a neural network model trained on a preexisting data set associated with the plurality of tiles;” Not only do these features fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, but it can also reasonably be seen as the conventional application of well-known machine learning concepts to build and train a model to implement the abstract idea on a computer, and merely uses a computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
Represented claims 1 and 26, which do recite statutory categories (machine, product of manufacture, for example), the same analysis as above applies to these claims since the method steps are the same. However, the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. These claims add the generic computer components (additional elements) of a system comprising one or more hardware processors and a memory (claim 1), and a non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by a processor of a machine cause the machine to perform the method addressed above (claim 26).
The processor, memory, and non-transitory machine-readable medium are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, 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 claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of the processor, memory, and non-transitory machine-readable medium amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claims are not patent eligible.
When taken as an ordered combination, nothing is added that is not already present when the elements are taken individually. When viewed as a whole, the marketing activities amount to instructions applied using generic computer components.
As for dependent claims 2 – 24 dependent on the aforementioned independent claim 1, these claims recite limitations that further define the same abstract idea of defining details regarding descriptions of various data, shape of polygon that will be used to display the results to the requesting user, what values will be included in the parameters. Thus, the dependent claims merely provide additional non-structural (and predominantly non-functional) details that fail to meaningfully limit the claims or the abstract idea(s).
Therefore, claims 1 – 26 are not drawn to eligible subject matter, as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's argument that pending claimed amended invention is eligible for patent under 35 USC 101 because the amended invention makes the computer better by making computation more efficient to determine a location for infrastructure. In some embodiments, the computation is made more efficient by selecting a starting point using machine learning models.", and reflects the improvement by making computation more efficient by reducing the optimization computation for a location using a model to make calculation of the source or consumption parameters more rapid, and also , is acknowledged and considered.
However, upon further review, it is deemed that the claimed invention is not eligible for patent under 35 USC 101, and have been responded to in updated Rejection under 35 USC 101.
Applicant's argument that pending claimed amended invention is eligible for patent because combination of cited prior art does not teach added limitations to the amended claimed invention is acknowledged and accepted.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Basovnik et al. US Publication 2015/0269250 teaches polygon-based indexing of places.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Naresh Vig whose telephone number is (571)272-6810. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 06:30a - 04:00p.
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/NARESH VIG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3622
June 22, 2026
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