DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Status of Claims
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 29 June 2026 has been entered.
This action is in reply to the entered RCE.
Claims 1, 12, and 15 have been amended.
Claims 21-22 are added as new.
Claims 1-2, 5-13 and 15-22 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendments are insufficient to overcome the 101 rejections previously raised. Those rejections are respectfully maintained and updated below as necessitated by the amendments to the claims.
Applicant’s amendments and remarks are sufficient to overcome the 103 rejections previously raised. Those rejections are respectfully withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 21 January 2026 have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
Regarding the 101 Applicant argues that Claim 1 does demonstrate certain methods of organizing human activity. Examiner respectfully disagrees. MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II)(c) explicitly states that the sub-grouping “managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people” include social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions. The specific examples of those types of activities, teaching and following rules or instructions may not include a scheduling or slot allocation example, however, conceptually, the ability to allocate slots in a work plan to an agent based on the results of an analysis is interpreted as a series of rules and instructions, i.e. an analytic results based allocation, as well as being related to social activities, i.e. an agent work plan, work being the social activity.
Additionally, applicant argues that the claims are not directed to mathematical concepts. Examiner respectfully disagrees. First off, the rejection specifically recites that the claims narrow the recited abstract idea, which is a certain method of organizing human activity (e.g. describing the parameters, constraints, inputs, generated work plan patterns based on a variety of information and data and further narrows the recited by describing mathematical concepts. The claims explicitly recite executing a greedy heuristic, and solving a linear program, both of which are mathematical formulas or calculations.
Applicant argues that the specification frames the technical problem as given a potential of a decillion weeks of shifts, the slot optimization leverages various constraints to perform the optimization at school. Merely needing to analyze a large number of possibilities or a large quantity of data does not illustrate a technical problem. That vast number of potential schedules or shifts is not merely a computational scalability problem but instead is a problem that exists outside of the realm of a particular technical implementation and relates to the business problem of allocating agents in contact centers. The claims do not set forth any specific functions of detecting symmetry, pattern selection solving, etc. The steps are merely performed “by a computing system” where the computer acts as a tool to execute linear programs and greedy heuristics which are merely mathematical concepts applied by a computer. The use of a computer in a generalized fashion does not meaningfully limit the otherwise abstract claims. In order for the addition of a machine to impose a meaningful limit on the scope of the claim, it must play a significant part in permitting the claimed method to be performed, rather than function solely as an obvious mechanism for permitting a solution to be achieved more quickly, i.e. through the utilization of a computer for performing calculations.
Unlike Desjardin, Enfish and Mcro, the specification does not detail a specific technical problem that is solved with a particular technical solution. Utilizing the computer less or requiring the computer to perform fewer calculations does not improve the function of the computer itself or any other additional element. There is no improvement to any technology or technological process and any improvement in the ability to allocate slots in a schedule is wholly contained within the abstraction, as the claims utilize current technologies to perform the abstract limitations of the claim. All additional elements recited in the independent claims were considered high level recitations that were merely “apply it” on a computer types of integration, see MPEP 2106.05f. The dependent claims included limitations that were considered high level recitations that were treated as insignificant extra solution activity and when reconsidered under 2B were interpretated as well-understood, routine and conventional activity in the field. This was supported in the rejection by specifically citing to court decisions in MPEP 2106.05d including Symantec, TLI and OIP Tech.
The 101 rejections are respectfully maintained and updated below as necessitated by the amendments to the 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 1-2, 5-13 and 15-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claims 1 and 15 recite as a whole a method of organizing human activity because the claims recite a method for optimizing slot allocations for agent work plan assignments in contact centers by generating a predetermined number of work plan patterns, determining whether two patterns are symmetric and removing any symmetric patterns from the generated patterns for analysis, solving a pattern selection model to determine a type and number of plan patterns to be used, and allocating agent work plan slots based on the selection model solving by defining agents that can be assigned to each work plan. This methodology illustrates organizing activity relating to managing personal behavior, relationships or interactions by indicating subject matter relating to a series of instructions or rules for allocating or scheduling agents to work plan slots based on analysis of patterns. Solving a model by executing a linear program and allocating slots based on executing a greedy heuristic illustrate mathematical concepts in that they both demonstrate executing mathematical formulations to produce outputs. The mere nominal recitation of a generic computer system does not take the claims out of the abstract idea groupings. Thus, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims as a whole merely describe how to generally “apply” the concept of optimizing slot allocations for agent work plan assignments in a computerized environment. The claimed computer components are recited at a high level of generality and are merely invoked as tools to perform the process and execute the mathematical operations. Simply implementing the abstract idea on a generic computer is not a practical application of the abstract idea. Reciting that the generating, solving and allocating are done “by the computing system” are considered merely “apply it” on a computer, see MPEP2106.05f. The additional elements recited do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing or implementing the abstract idea. The claims fail to recite any improvements to another technology, technical field or to the functioning of the computer itself. There is no use of a particular machine or effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing and/or no additional element applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the exception to a particular technological environment.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed with respect to step 2A, the claims as a whole merely describe how to generally apply the concept of allocating slots in a work plan to agents based on analyzed patterns in a computer system environment. Thus, even when viewed as a whole, nothing in the claims amounts to significantly more and the claims are ineligible.
Dependent claims 2, 5-13 and 16-22 include all of the limitations of the independent claims and therefore recite the same abstract idea. These claims merely narrow the abstract idea by describing the objective function parameters, constraints, model inputs, determinations, executing the heuristic for each of a plurality of bid groups in parallel, heuristics, results, patterns, data, linear programming and generating a pattern comprising representing each day pattern as a 7 bit number, generating bit masks and evaluating candidate day patterns against bit masks. Specific objective functions, heuristics and linear programming that can be solved can further be considered mathematical concepts, which are also abstract ideas. Describing the represented pattern as a 7 bit unsigned binary number, describing a bit mask or binary number used to manipulate or control individual bits and evaluating patterns against bit masks using bitwise and operations to enforce constraints does not transform the claim into a patent eligible invention. The same additional elements are considered to “apply it” and “field of use” similar to the independent claims above as there are no details given that transform the claims into a patent eligible invention. Describing a tiered data structure for storing data is considered insignificant extra solution activity since it is merely the gathering/receipt/transmission of data. When reconsidered under step 2B this has been re-evaluated and determined to be well understood, routine and conventional activity in the field. The specification does not provide any indication that the data structure for storing is performed by anything other than a generic off the shelf computer component and the Symantec, TLI and OIP Techs court decisions indicate that the mere collection, receipt or transmission of data over a network is well-understood, routine and conventional when claimed in a merely generic manner, as it is here. Therefore, Claims 1-2, 5-13 and 15-22 are considered ineligible under 101.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEPHANIE Z DELICH whose telephone number is (571)270-1288. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday 7-3:30.
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/STEPHANIE Z DELICH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623
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