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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12 June 2026 has been entered.
This action is in reply to the entered RCE.
Claims 1-2, 10-11, and 17 have been amended.
Claims 3, 12, and 14 were previously canceled.
Claims 17-23 are added as new.
Claims 1, 2, 4-11, 13 and 15-23 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendments are insufficient to overcome all of the 112 rejections previously raised. See updated grounds of rejection set forth below.
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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 12 June 2026 have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
Regarding the 112, applicant argues that in response to the first person being removed form the evaluator is clear. Examiner respectfully disagrees. The person can be removed as the actual evaluator, or from the region or display of the actual evaluator, even from the actual evaluator job or position, but the current language remains unclear. Clarification is required.
Regarding the 101, applicant argues that the claims do not recite an abstract idea and recite additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Applicant argues that the system automatically recommends evaluators and structures data associations as well as optimizing user experience by updating an interface. These arguments are more specific than the limitations set forth in the claims. There are no details depicting automated functionality an optimization process or updating the interface beyond merely displaying and redisplaying outputs. The elements recited merely apply the abstract idea in a generic processor electronic device environment. The use of a computer in a generalized fashion does not meaningfully limit the implementation of an otherwise abstract claim. In order for the addition of a machine to impose a meaningful limit on the scope of a 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 “determining”.
The claims do not actively recite any specific interaction with particular elements of the interface itself that would establish a series of layered functional interactions that are essential to the ability to perform the claimed methodology. Instead the interface merely receives and displays data, which are considered insignificant extra solution activity.
Applicant argues that the method improves efficiency and provides specific improvements for the performance optimization of computers. This is considered a mere conclusory allegation of an improvement that is not supported with details in the specification. The specification does not describe the invention such that the improvement would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. This is considered, a bare assertion of an improvement without the detail necessary to be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art and therefore is not considered an improvement in the technology, see MPEP 2106.04d1.
See updated grounds of rejection set forth below as necessitated by the amendments to the claims.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: grammatical errors.
Line 15 : “the second identifier is an adding trigger control” should this recite “is an added trigger control” or “is adding a trigger control”?
Line 17 : “adding all of the at least one recommendation evaluator” the tenses are unclear. Examiner recommends “adding the at least one recommendation evaluator” language and removing the “all of” language.
Appropriate corrections are required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(B) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 2, 4-11, 13 and 15-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claims 1, 15 and 16 recite determining and displaying a recommended evaluator, however then the claim describes adding the recommendation evaluator as an evaluator and further describe displaying the recommendation evaluator and in response to completion of adding all of the at least one recommendation evaluator. There is insufficient antecedent basis for “the recommendation evaluator” in the claims. It is unclear if the recommendation evaluator is the determined and displayed recommended evaluator or some other portion of the recommendation region of the display. Clarification and correction is required.
Claims 1, 15 and 16 recite “in response to triggering a second identifier, on the recommendation region of the display region, adding the recommendation evaluator”. It is unclear if the triggering is part of the recited method, such that the triggering occurs on the recommendation region of the display or whether the triggering occurs outside of the scope of the method and the adding is what is being done on the recommendation region of the display region. Clarification and correction is required.
Claims 1, 15 and 16 recite adding all of the at least one recommendation evaluator. It is unclear what “all of the at least one recommendation evaluator” includes. The claims recites at least one recommended evaluator, not a plurality of recommended evaluators, nor does it recite reiterating or performing the determination a plurality of times. Therefore it is unclear what “all of the at least one recommendation evaluator” refers to or how this function can be determined as complete when only a single recommendation is established in the claims. Clarification and correction is required.
Claims 1, 15 and 16 recite “in response to a first person being removed from the evaluator…redisplaying”. It is unclear how a person is removed “from the evaluator”. Additionally, it is unclear if a first person is being removed as the recommended evaluator, if they are being removed from a particular region of the interface, or merely being removed as an added evaluator? Clarification and correction is required.
Dependent claims 2, 4-11, 13, and 17-23 inherit the deficiencies of the claims from which they depend.
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, 4-11, 13 and 15-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Independent Claims 1, 15 and 16 recite limitations determining a recommended evaluator and adding the recommended evaluator as an evaluator. These limitations, as drafted, illustrate a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitations in the mind. Making a determination of a recommended evaluator and adding/assigning/associating the recommended evaluator as an evaluator illustrate a series of observation and evaluation functions that could be done the same way mentally or manually with a pen and paper. Determining a recommended evaluator and assigning/adding that recommended evaluator as the evaluator could also be interpreted as a certain method of organizing human activity since it demonstrates a series of steps or rules for managing behavior or relationships. The mere nominal recitation of an electronic device, processor, interface/display with regions, terminal, and medium do not take the claim limitations out of the abstract groupings. Thus, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims recite additional elements including acquiring by a processor of the electronic device, determining by the processor and displaying regions and redisplaying in a display of an interface of the electronic device The processor that acquires and display interface of the electronic device that displays information in an interface with regions are recited at a high level of generality and amounts to mere data gathering and transmission/output, which are forms of insignificant extra solution activity. The processor that performs the determining and the ability to add recommended evaluators as evaluators in the device environment are also recited at a high level of generality and merely automate those steps. Each of the additional components is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception in a generic computer environment with generic computer components. Accordingly, even in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. 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 with respect to step 2A Prong 2, the additional elements in the claims amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component or linking the steps to a generic computer environment. The same analysis applies here in 2B and does not provide an inventive concept.
For the processor of the device that acquires and the display interface of the electronic device that were considered extra solution activity in step 2A above, these have been re-evaluated in step 2B and determined to be well-understood, routine and conventional activity in the field. The specification does not provide any indication that the components are anything other than generic, off the shelf computer components, and the Symantec, TLI and OIP Techs. court decisions in MPEP 2106.05 indicate that the mere collection, receipt or transmission/outputting of data over a network is a well-understood, routine and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner, as it is here.
Dependent claims 2, 4-11, 13, and 17-23 include all of the limitations of claim 1 and therefore recite the same abstract idea. The claims merely narrow the recited abstract idea by describing additional determinations, descriptions of data and relationships, associated identifiers and configurations, and types of information. The additional display and output/messaging/prompt elements recited fail to transform the claims into a patent eligible invention but instead describe additional transmission functions that do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application nor do they amount to significantly more.
Accordingly, 1, 2, 4-11, 13 and 15-23 are not drawn to eligible subject matter as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
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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