DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Application
This Office Action is in response to Application Serial 18/681,976. In response to Examiner’s action mail dated October 01, 2025, Applicant submitted amendments and arguments. Applicant amended claim 1 and claim 7. Applicant cancelled claims 13-19. Applicant previously cancelled claims 8-12. Claims 1-7 are pending in this application.
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 . 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.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 December 30,2025 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
Applicant did not submit an Information Disclosure Statement for consideration.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed December 1, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant’s arguments are moot in view of the revised rejections. Applicant’s arguments will be address herein below.
Response to Claim Rejections- 35 U.S.C. 101
On pages 8-10 of the Applicant’s 35 U.S.C. 101 arguments, the Applicant submits, the newly amended claim 1 and claim 7 meet the patent eligibility requirements. Applicant argues: Applicant disagrees with Applicant’s determination of the claims recite mathematical concepts. Applicant amended the claims to: minimize service time of all buses and an operational energy consumption cost and regulate a number of departures in a peak period to reduce a total waiting of a passenger. Applicant present disclosure solves the problem of mismatching between dynamic passenger flows and bus transport capacity, enables the dispatching strategy to be closer to an actual passenger flow situation and have better actual benefits, and has wide use prospects in urban bus line networks. Applicant submits the method claimed in the amended claim 1 has incorporated the abstract idea into the practical application for dispatching the electric buses in a road network based on an output result of the computer model, and Applicant respectfully requests reconsideration and withdrawl of the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 of amended independent claims 1 and dependent claim 2-7.
Examiner submits, the Applicant’s claims recite variables and mathematical equations including a bi-level programming model, and therefore, the claims recite a mathematical concept and therefore are a directed to a judicial exception. Since the claims recite limitations that are grouped as a mathematical concept the claims are directed to a judicial exception. The claims recite an improvement to the data variables (e.g., bus departure, passenger flow). Although the claims recite bi-level programming model is solved according to a genetic algorithm to acquire an optimal bus dispatching plan, the genetic algorithm that is an optimization technique, is recited as a mathematical algorithm. The Applicant’s claims do not recite additional elements, so the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Therefore, the Subject Matter Eligibility analysis stops at Step 2A.
Response to Amendment
Claims 1-7 stand pending in this application. Applicant amended claim 1. Cancelled claims 13-19 & 8-12.
Regarding the 35 U.S.C. 101, the pending claims have been fully considered. The Applicant’s arguments are not persuasive. A flow chart of the Subject Matter Eligibility Test for Products and Processes is provided below for reference. See MPEP 2106.
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Regarding prior art, Examiner completed a prior art search particularly for the limitations in amended claim 1 and claim 7. Examiner considered the combination of Lou, Fu, Zheng, Ming, Wang and Liu are before the effective filing date; however, the specific ordered combined sequence of mathematical equations and variables used in the Applicant’s application cannot be found in the cited prior art and can only be found as recited in Applicant’s Specification. Any combination of the cited references and/or additional references(s) to teach all the claim elements, including the features identified by Applicant that are not taught by the cited prior art, would be the result of impermissible hindsight reconstruction. Accordingly, any combination of Lou, Fu, Zheng, Ming, Wang and Liu and/or any other additional reference(s) would be improper to teach the claimed invention. The claims 1-7 are allowable.
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 1-7 are process.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim 1 recites:
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These claims recite mathematical equations. The pending claims are mathematical concepts, and therefore, are directed to a judicial exception at step 2A prong one.
The claims do NOT recite additional elements. Therefore, the judicial exception is/are not integrated into a practical application under the second prong of Step 2A.
Step 2B analysis is not required.
Dependent claims 2 -7 further narrow the abstract idea of independent claim 1. The claims 1-7 are not patent eligible.
Since there are no limitations in these claims that transform the exception into a patent eligible application such that these claims amount to significantly more than the exception itself, claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Lou (CN 110119835A) discloses dynamic bus departure scheduling optimization and models’ flexibility to obtain the passenger total waiting time.
Fu (US 11615368 B) considers vehicle energy consumption and route assignments.
Zheng (CN 104504229 A) discloses intelligent bus dispatching method based on mixed heuristic algorithm and passenger wait and passenger get off.
Wei (2017, Bilevel programming model for multi-model regional bus timetable and vehicle dispatch).
Chen (CN 113743685 B) discloses travel time, traffic, bus departure, bus capacity, and travel route.
Wang (CN 114036749 B) discloses genetic algorithms, demand orders e.g., taxi scheduling, and electric consumption.
Liu (CN 111754039 A) discloses the number of times of transportation service that can be executed after the first time of charging or finishing charging for the operation bus, average departure frequency, passenger flow, total operations cost.
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/THEA LABOGIN/Examiner, Art Unit 3624