DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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 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.
This action is in reply to the response and/or arguments filed for Application 18/658,397 filed on 23 September 2025.
Claim 2 has been canceled.
Claim 21 has been added.
Claims 1, 3-7, 9- 20 have been amended.
Claims 1 and 3-21 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
A. Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 101:
Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
1. Applicant argues that the claims provide the practical application of optimizing bidding strategies based on campaign information to generate customized bids for auction – e.g., the system may reduce the value of bids in proportion to uncertainty with the intention of rebalancing revenue with more certain predictions.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The limitations as drafted, that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers certain methods of organizing human activity – fundamental economic principles, practices or concepts; following set of instructions; commercial interactions; interactions between people; following rules or instructions, as well as mathematical concepts – mathematical relationships, inasmuch as the claimed method as a whole is directed towards facilitating bid pricing determination – e.g., generating customized bids for auction by adjusting the value of bids in proportion to uncertainty while balancing revenue with more certain predictions, but for the recitation of computer-related components. Other than the mere nominal recitation of a computer device – nothing in the claim element precludes the steps from the organizing human interactions and mathematical concepts groupings. Using rules and/or instructions to calculate a price (i.e., bid value) falls under the realm of a fundamental economic and/or commercial practice or concept whereas utilizing the steps and techniques and calculations in order to generate the price or adjusted bid value incorporates the use of existing mathematical concepts. Accordingly, for these reasons, the claim recites an abstract idea.
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim as a whole merely describes how to generally apply the concept of using rules and/or instructions to calculate an uncertainty measurement in order to mitigate/reduce risk while optimizing opportunity potential in an automatic manner. The claim recites the additional element – using a computer device (“processor”) to perform the steps described. However, the computer device is recited at a high-level of generality and is merely invoked as a tool (intermediary) to perform the steps recited such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a computer component. Simply implementing the abstract idea on a computer is not a practical application of the abstract idea. Moreover, nothing in the steps involve effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing aside from the receiving and sending of data and/or information while also generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. As such, the additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Applicant’s argument is therefore unpersuasive.
2. Applicant argues that by using the determined uncertainty metric to adjust the bids, computation resources are reduced by mitigating the need to subsequently replace irrelevant or unwanted content, claim 1 reduces the amount of computational resources required and, therefore, improves computer technology.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims do not improve technology inasmuch as the underlying technology remains unaffected. Applicant is merely using existing technology (e.g., processor, neural network) for its intended purpose to implement the business solution. Any improvements lie in the abstract idea itself and not in the underlying technology.
The recited physical components behave exactly as expected according to their ordinary use. The computer devices recited – e.g., “processor”, “neural network”, are not modified, changed, or reconfigured in such a way or manner as to change or affect how such devices are designed to perform or function and are merely used as an intermediary to carry out the inventive concept which has been determined to be abstract. Merely using computer-related components to perform the identified basic functions does not constitute meaningful limitations that would amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Nothing in the steps involve an improvement to the conventional functioning of a computer or to any other technology, applying or using a judicial exception with, or, use of a particular machine, effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing aside from merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea while also generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. As such, the 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. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ a computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea, which cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f) & (h)). Hence, the claims are not patent eligible.
Moreover, merely adding computer functionality to increase the speed, accuracy, or efficiency of the process does not confer patent eligibility on an otherwise abstract idea. Use of a computer in a generalized fashion to increase efficiency does not meaningfully limit those otherwise abstract claims. See, e.g., Ex. 1003, col. 5, ll. 21–22; Bancorp, 687 F.3d at 1279; Gottschalk, 409 U.S. at 67. Applicant’s argument is therefore unpersuasive.
The rejection is therefore maintained.
B. Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 103:
Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Libes et al., US 2006/0242017 A1 (“Libes”), in view of Mehanian et al., US 10,580,035 B2 (“Mehanian”).
The Office has given consideration to the remarks and amendments made to the pending set of claims, but are considered moot in light of the grounds of rejection, provided below, for the current listing of claims.
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 and 3-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Method claim 1 recites:
“receiving, …, campaign information associated with one or more campaigns from at least one content supplier, wherein:
… the campaign information includes a level of caution;
generating, … in response to receiving a search query, an auction, wherein the auction is a request for bids for a reserved content space on a content page of a publisher;
determining, …, an uncertainty metric for at least one model;
executing, …, the at least one model, wherein the at least one model is configured to:
receive the campaign information associated with the one or more campaigns as input;
generate a plurality of bids for the auction;
adjust, based on the uncertainty metric and the level of caution, at least one bid of the plurality of bids;
selecting, … based on at least the adjusted bid of the plurality of bids, at least one of the one or more campaigns; and
causing content associated with the selected at least one of the one or more campaigns to be displayed at the reserved content space”.
The limitations as drafted, that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers certain methods of organizing human activity – fundamental economic principles, practices or concepts; following set of instructions; commercial interactions; interactions between people; following rules or instructions, as well as mathematical concepts – mathematical relationships, inasmuch as the claimed method as a whole is directed towards facilitating bid pricing determination – e.g., generating customized bids for auction by adjusting the value of bids in proportion to uncertainty while balancing revenue with more certain predictions, but for the recitation of computer-related components. Other than the mere nominal recitation of a computer device – nothing in the claim element precludes the steps from the organizing human interactions and mathematical concepts groupings. Using rules and/or instructions to calculate a price (i.e., bid value) falls under the realm of a fundamental economic and/or commercial practice or concept whereas utilizing the steps and techniques and calculations in order to generate the price or adjusted bid value incorporates the use of existing mathematical concepts. Accordingly, for these reasons, the claim recites an abstract idea.
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim as a whole merely describes how to generally apply the concept of using rules and/or instructions to calculate an uncertainty measurement in order to mitigate/reduce risk while optimizing opportunity potential in an automatic manner. The claim recites the additional element – using a computer device (“processor”) to perform the steps described. However, the computer device is recited at a high-level of generality and is merely invoked as a tool (intermediary) to perform the steps recited such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a computer component. Simply implementing the abstract idea on a computer is not a practical application of the abstract idea. Moreover, nothing in the steps involve effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing aside from the receiving and sending of data and/or information while also generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. As such, the additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is therefore directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does 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 claim as a whole merely describes how to generally apply the concept of using rules and/or instructions to calculate an uncertainty measurement in order to mitigate/reduce risk while optimizing opportunity potential. The additional element of using the computer devices recited to perform the steps recited amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a computer-related component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a computer-related component cannot provide an inventive concept. Thus, even when viewed as a whole, nothing in the claim adds significantly more (i.e., an inventive concept) to the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is ineligible.
Independent claim 11 recites substantially the same limitations as claim 1 above and are ineligible for the same reasons. The subject matter of claim 11 corresponds to the subject matter of claim 1 in terms of a system (e.g., machine). Therefore the reasoning provided for claim 1 applies to claim 11 accordingly.
Independent claim 20 recites substantially the same limitations as claim 1 above and are ineligible for the same reasons. The subject matter of claim 20 corresponds to the subject matter of claim 1 in terms of a computer readable medium (e.g., manufacture). Therefore the reasoning provided for claim 1 applies to claim 20 accordingly.
Dependent claims 2-10 and 12-19 add further details and contain limitations that narrow the scope of the invention. However, these details do not result in significantly more than the abstract idea itself. As explained in the December 16, 2014 Interim Eligibility Guidance from the USPTO (in reference to the BuySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc. decision), further narrowing the details of an abstract idea does not change the § 101 analysis since a more narrow abstract idea does not make it any less abstract.
Viewed individually and in combination, these additional elements do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea such that the claims amount to significantly more than the abstraction itself.
Accordingly, the present pending claims are not patent eligible and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claim Rejections – 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office Action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1 and 3-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Libes et al., US 2006/0242017 A1 (“Libes”), in view of Medina-Peralta et al., US 11,037,204 B1 (“Medina-Peralta”), in view of Mehanian et al., US 10,580,035 B2 (“Mehanian”).
Re Claim 1: (Currently Amended) Libes discloses a method, comprising:
receiving, by one or more processors, campaign information associated with one or more campaigns from at least one content supplier, wherein: the one or more campaigns are stored in a memory, and
generating, by the one or more processors in response to receiving a search query, an auction, wherein the auction is a request for bids for a reserved content space on a content page of a publisher; (¶¶[25-26, 28, 52, 73, 147])
Regarding the limitation features comprising:
determining, by the one or more processors, an uncertainty metric for at least one model;
executing, by the one or more processors, the at least one model, wherein the at least one model is configured to:
receive the campaign information associated with the one or more campaigns as input;
generate a plurality of bids for the auction;
adjust, based on the uncertainty metric and the level of caution, at least one bid of the plurality of bids;
Medina-Peralta, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor (Abstract; C2 L60-67; C3 L1-2, L43-67; C4 L1-19; C11 L32-50; C14 L3-54). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Medina-Peralta with the invention of Libes as disclosed above for the motivation of providing accurate and realistic bid requests which are most beneficial to content campaigns.
Libes further discloses:
selecting, by the one or more processors, based on at least the adjusted bid of the plurality of bids, at least one of the one or more campaigns; (Abstract; FIGs. 8-9; ¶¶[4, 8, 18, 30, 34, 35, 38])
Regarding the limitation features comprising:
causing content associated with the selected at least one of the one or more campaigns to be displayed at the reserved content space.
Mehanian, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor (C1 L53-67; C2 L1-22). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Mehanian with the invention of Libes as disclosed above for the motivation of maximizing an overall quantitative business objective for a content provider/supplier.
Re Claim 2: (Canceled)
Re Claim 3: (Currently Amended) Libes in view of Medina-Peralta in view of Mehanian discloses the method of claim 1. Libes doesn’t explicitly disclose:
wherein the uncertainty metric is based on at least one of: historical information of the at least one model, or a function of a likelihood of success of a bid.
Mehanian, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor (Abstract; Figs., 8A, 8B, 9, 10; C1 L54-67; C2 L1-22, L28-39; C3 L49-67; C4 L1-10; C6 L13-16, C9 L47-67; C13 L17-67). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Mehanian with the invention of Libes as disclosed above for the motivation of maximizing an overall quantitative business objective for a content provider/supplier.
Re Claim 4: (Currently Amended) Libes in view of Medina-Peralta in view of Mehanian discloses the method of claim 1. Libes doesn’t explicitly disclose:
wherein the uncertainty metric is determined using quantile regression methods;.
Mehanian, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor (Abstract; Figs., 8A, 8B, 9, 10; C1 L54-67; C2 L1-22, L28-39; C3 L49-67; C4 L1-10; C6 L13-16, C9 L47-67; C13 L17-67). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Mehanian with the invention of Libes as disclosed above for the motivation of maximizing an overall quantitative business objective for a content provider/supplier.
Re Claim 5: (Currently Amended) Libes in view of Medina-Peralta in view of Mehanian discloses the method of claim 1. Libes doesn’t explicitly discloses:
wherein the uncertainty metric is determined using a trained neural network, wherein the trained neural network is trained using data from previous outcomes.
Mehanian, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor (Abstract; Figs., 8A, 8B, 9, 10; C1 L54-67; C2 L1-22, L28-39; C3 L49-67; C4 L1-10; C6 L13-16, C9 L47-67; C11 L18-20; C12 L5-8; C13 L17-67). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Mehanian with the invention of Libes as disclosed above for the motivation of maximizing an overall quantitative business objective for a content provider/supplier.
Re Claim 6: (Currently Amended) Libes in view of Medina-Peralta in view of Mehanian discloses the method of claim 1. Libes further discloses:
wherein generating the plurality of bids is further based on the search query, such that at least one bid for the auction is related to the search query. (¶¶[52, 63-66, 73, 118, 124-125])
Re Claim 7: (Currently Amended) Libes in view of Medina-Peralta in view of Mehanian discloses the method of claim 1. Libes further discloses:
providing feedback to the content supplier comprising a metric of effectiveness of a bidding strategy for the selected at least one campaign. (¶¶[138, 216])
Re Claim 8: (Original) Libes in view of Medina-Peralta in view of Mehanian discloses the method of claim 1. Libes further discloses:
generating, by one or more processors, keywords associated with a subject of the search query; and
selecting, by one or more processors, one or more campaigns associated with the search query keywords.
(¶¶[52, 63-66, 73, 118, 124-125])
Re Claim 9: (Currently Amended) Libes in view of Medina-Peralta in view of Mehanian discloses the method of claim 1. Libes further discloses:
wherein the search query is received from an end user, and selecting the at least one of the one or more campaigns is based on historical interactions of the end user.
(FIG. 10:{History}; ¶¶[52, 63-66, 73, 118, 124-125, 159, 211, 231])
Re Claim 10: (Currently Amended) Libes in view of Medina-Peralta in view of Mehanian discloses the method of claim 1. Libes doesn’t explicitly disclose:
determining, by one or more processors, a relative degree of the uncertainty metric;
wherein generating the plurality of bids is based on the relative degree of uncertainty
Medina-Peralta, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor (Abstract; C2 L60-67; C3 L1-2, L43-67; C4 L1-19; C11 L32-50; C14 L3-54). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Medina-Peralta with the invention of Libes as disclosed above for the motivation of providing accurate and realistic bid requests which are most beneficial to content campaigns.
Re Claim 11: (Currently Amended) Claim 11, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claim 1. Accordingly, claim 11 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claim 1.
Re Claim 12: (Currently Amended) Claim 12, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claims 2 & 3. Accordingly, claim 12 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claims 2 & 3.
Re Claim 13: (Currently Amended) Claim 13, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claim 4. Accordingly, claim 13 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claim 4.
Re Claim 14: (Currently Amended) Claim 14, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claim 5. Accordingly, claim 14 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claim 5.
Re Claim 15: (Currently Amended) Claim 15, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claim 6. Accordingly, claim 15 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claim 6.
Re Claim 16: (Currently Amended) Claim 16, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claim 7. Accordingly, claim 16 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claim 7.
Re Claim 17: (Currently Amended) Claim 17, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claim 8. Accordingly, claim 17 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claim 8.
Re Claim 18: (Currently Amended) Claim 18, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claim 9. Accordingly, claim 18 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claim 9.
Re Claim 19: (Currently Amended) Claim 19, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claim 10. Accordingly, claim 19 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claim 10.
Re Claim 20: (Currently Amended) Claim 20, as best understood by the Examiner, encompasses the same or substantially the same scope as claim 1. Accordingly, claim 20 is rejected in the same or substantially the same manner as claim 1.
Re Claim 21: (New) Libes in view of Medina-Peralta in view of Mehanian discloses the method of claim 1. Libes doesn’t explicitly disclose:
wherein adjusting the at least one bid of the plurality of bids comprises: decreasing, by the one or more processors, the at least one bid of the plurality of bids when the level of caution is a high level of caution and the uncertainty metric has an increased level of uncertainty, or increasing, by the one or more processors, the at least one bid of the plurality of bids when the level of caution is a low level of caution and the uncertainty metric has the increased level of uncertainty, or maintaining, by the one or more processors, the at least one bid of the plurality of bids when the level of caution is the low level of caution and the uncertainty metric has a level of certainty.
Medina-Peralta, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor (Abstract; C2 L60-67; C3 L1-2, L43-67; C4 L1-19; C11 L32-50; C14 L3-54). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Medina-Peralta with the invention of Libes as disclosed above for the motivation of providing accurate and realistic bid requests which are most beneficial to content campaigns.
Conclusion
The prior art(s) made of record and not relied upon is/are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Gonen (US 8,682,724 B2) discloses a system and method using sampling for scheduling advertisements in slots of different quality in an online auction with budget and time constraints. An improved system and method is provided for using sampling for scheduling advertisements in slots of different quality in an online auction with budget and time constraints. A multi-armed bandit engine may be provided for sampling new advertisements by allocating advertisements for web page placements of different quality and optimizing payments to maximize the welfare of the advertisers while remaining within advertiser's budget and time constraints. Advertisers may report their private information including arrival time, departure time, value per click, and budget. And the multiarmed
bandit mechanism may approximate the maximal welfare that may be achieved under budget and time constraints by bounding the possible gain from any possible lie an advertiser might submit in reporting private information. Advertisers departing from the online auction may be charged using a
payment method that may provide truthful guarantees on budget, arrivals, departures, and valuations for a budget-constrained online auction.
Claims 1 and 3-21 are rejected.
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).
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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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Clifford Madamba whose telephone number is 571-270-1239. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Thu 7:30-5:00 EST Alternate Fridays.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Calvin Hewitt II, can be reached at 571-272-6709. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CLIFFORD B MADAMBA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3692