DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in reply to correspondence filed 23 June 2026 in regard to application no. 18/670,699. Claim 12 has been cancelled. Claims 1-11 and 13 are pending and are considered below.
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 .
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 1-11 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Claim 13, being the narrower independent claim, will be considered in this analysis. The claim(s) recite(s) several data gathering steps: scanning a tray, imaging an image, scanning a tray again, imaging another image, and acquiring the various data. Beyond that, the claim recites measuring a depth, calculating a volume, generating ingestion information by subtracting two numbers, and providing output to a user.
This recites human mental activity. In the absence of computers, a human dietitian could look at a tray before and after a person had eaten a meal from it, determine the quantity eaten using the height and area of the food, tell someone else (e.g. the diner) of this, and compute a volume based on linear measurements; none of this presents any practical difficulty, and none requires any technology at all.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because aside from the bare inclusion of a generic computer, discussed below, nothing is done beyond what was set forth above, which does not go beyond using a generic computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea. See MPEP § 2106.05(f).
As the claims only manipulate data about a food tray and the food on the tray, they do not improve the "functioning of a computer" or of "any other technology or technical field". See MPEP § 2106.05(a). They do not apply the abstract idea "with, or by use of a particular machine", MPEP § 2106.05(b), as the below-cited Guidance is clear that a generic computer is not the particular machine envisioned.
They do not effect a "transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing", MPEP § 2106.05(c). First, such data, being intangible, are not a particular article at all. Second, the claimed manipulation is neither transformative nor reductive; as the courts have pointed out, in the end, data are still data.
They do not apply the abstract idea “in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking [it] to a particular technological environment”, MPEP § 2106.05(e), as the lack of technical and algorithmic detail in the claims is so as not to go beyond such a general linkage.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional claim limitations, considered individually and as an ordered combination, are insufficient to elevate an otherwise-ineligible claim.
The claim includes the use of a "management server" and information acquired by a "scanner". These elements are recited at a high degree of generality and the specification does not meaningfully limit them, such that a generic computer will suffice. It only performs generic computer functions of nondescriptly manipulating information and sharing information with persons and/or other devices. Generic computers performing generic computer functions, without an inventive concept, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claim 1 now includes the use of a “3D depth sensor”, but this was well-understood, routine and conventional before the priority date of the present invention. For example, Yoon et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2015/0172637) could write at that early date of a “conventional method” of “using a depth sensor or depth camera”. [0008]
The type of information being manipulated does not impose meaningful limitations or render the idea less abstract. The claim elements when considered as an ordered combination - a generic computer performing a chronological sequence of abstract steps - do nothing more than when they are analyzed individually. The other independent claim is likewise directed to a generic computer performing, essentially, the same process.
The dependent claims further do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Claim 2 recites machine learning, but the only specific use has to do with the type of data used to train a model and the type of data resulting which, in light of Recentive (cited previously), is not sufficient to elevate an otherwise-ineligible claim to patent eligibility.
Claims 3 and 6 are simply further descriptive of the type of information being manipulated. Claims 4 and 5 simply recite generic computer components which play no role in the claimed method. Claims 7 and 9-11 simply recite output, and claim 8 purports to limit activity of a user quite outside the method performed by the meal service management system.
The claims are not patent eligible. For further guidance please see MPEP § 2106.03 – 2106.07(c) (formerly referred to as the “2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance”, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 55 (7 January 2019, revised October 2019)).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 23 June 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. As before, there is no controversy as to step 1; the claims are directed to a method, i.e. process, which is a statutory category of invention.
Performing fewer computations than what otherwise might be done is not an improvement to a computer or technology, any more than driving an automobile less frequently than one’s neighbors is an improvement to the automobile. Obtaining a height and computing a volume can be done with a measuring-stick (or mentally by estimation) and mental computation.
The applicant states in conclusory fashion that computing a volume cannot be practically done in the human mind. This is not so. A typical restaurant cook, and many home cooks, can look at a quantity of food and estimate its volume. For example, the Examiner, preparing for this evening’s meal, took a cup of squash from a container with a larger quantity in the freezer with no measuring nor any technology at all; he knows how much a cup is, and could estimate by simply observation. This is not difficult at all and requires no technology.
Contrary to the applicant’s assertion, the Examiner only used the “WURC” analysis, previously and above, in discussing step 2B, which is where it is applied per the Guidance. In regard to the “integration into a practical application” argument, the line is not whether a claim produces a tangible result, but whether the claim improves technology. The present claims make no improvement to technology, but, at most, perform a process that improves a human’s understanding of information. Contrary to the applicant’s assertion, nothing in claim is performs a “precise and selective automatic intake measurement”; even if it was so, making measurements is within the ability of generic computers.
In regard to step 2B, the Examiner sees no “unconventional and non-generic arrangement”, but simply a computer with input devices, none of which are new or even arguably unconventional.
The claims are not patent eligible and the rejection is maintained.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 SCOTT C ANDERSON whose telephone number is (571)270-7442. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00 to 5:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bennett Sigmond can be reached at (303) 297-4411. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SCOTT C ANDERSON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3694
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