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 Claim
Claims 1-6, 8, 10, and 11 have been amended.
Claims 12-20 have been added.
Claims 1-6, 8, and 10-20 are currently pending and are rejected as described below.
Response to Amendment/Argument
35 USC § 112
Applicant’s amendments to claims 1, 5, and 8 are sufficient to overcome the 35 U.S.C. 112. Accordingly, the previous rejection of claims 1-6, 8, and 11 under 35 U.S.C 112 is withdrawn.
35 USC § 101
The applicant asserts that MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) describes the category of "commercial or legal interactions" as contracts, legal obligations, advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, and business relations. The MPEP provides examples related to managing insurance, hedging, arbitration, structuring marketing companies, and showing advertisements. The examiner respectfully disagrees. The list of examples in the MPEP is non-exhaustive, more importantly, the examiner points to the types of Commercial or Legal Interactions such as sales activities or behaviors and business relations. The claim discloses scheduling of maintenance contractors qualified to perform maintenance on a piece of equipment. That constitutes a business relation and a sales activity.
Applicant asserts that claim 1 recites servers acquiring equipment information and maintenance contractor information. In an exemplary embodiment discussed in the specification, the equipment management server acquires the equipment information including sensor data and operation data of the air conditioner 100 from a control unit 130 of the air conditioner 100. (See, e.g., paragraph 0019 of the specification.) This cannot be performed in a human mind. The examiner respectfully disagrees. Prong I of Step 2A is aimed at establishing whether the claim recites an abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon. The presence of a server has no bearing at this step, instead it comes to play during Prong II analysis, A human can mentally or with the aid of pen and paper select qualified workers to perform maintenance on a particular equipment. In fact, this is not a problem rooted in computers since humans have done that long before the advent of IoT or computers.
The applicant asserts that the claim as a whole recites a practical application that amounts to more than an abstract idea. The examiner respectfully disagrees. To show that the involvement of a computer assists in improving the technology, the claims must recite the details regarding how a computer aids the method, the extent to which the computer aids the method, or the significance of a computer to the performance of the method. Merely adding generic computer components to perform the method is not sufficient. Thus, the claim must include more than mere instructions to perform the method on a generic component or machinery to qualify as an improvement to an existing technology. Further, mere automation of a manual process or claiming the improved speed or efficiency inherent with applying the abstract idea on a computer where these purported improvements come solely from the capabilities of a general-purpose computer are not sufficient to transform an abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention. See MPEP 2106.04(a); MPEP 2106.05(a); MPEP 2106.05(f); FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., 120 USPQ2d 1293, 1296 (Fed. Cir. 2016); Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Services, 123 USPQ2d 1100, 1108-09 (Fed. Cir. 2017); Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 115 USPQ2d 1636, 1639 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
Allowable Subject Matter
None of the cited art documented by the Examiner, taken individually or in combination, discloses or suggests the features in claim 1-6, 8, and 10-20 nor could a person skilled in the art easily conceive of such features even in the light of common technical knowledge at the time of filing. Therefore, pending claims 1-6, 8, and 10-20 are distinguished from the prior arts cited by the Examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
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 1-6, 8, and 10-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
When considering subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101, it must be determined whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machines, article of manufacture, or composition of matter. If the claim does fall within one of the statutory categories, it must then be determined whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract idea), and if so, it must additionally be determined whether the claim is a patent-eligible application of the exception.
The claims are then analyzed to determine whether the claims are directed to a judicial exception. MPEP §2106.04(a). In determining, whether the claims are directed to a judicial exception, the claims are analyzed to evaluate whether the claims recite a judicial exception (Prong One of Step 2A), and whether the claims recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application (Prong Two of Step 2A). See 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (“PEG” 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50-57 (Jan. 7, 2019)).
With respect to 2A Prong 1, claim 1 recites “an equipment management server configured to acquire equipment information including information about equipment; a maintenance contractor server configured to acquire maintenance contractor information including information about maintenance contractors who provide maintenance services on the basis of information transmitted from maintenance contractor terminals; a maintenance reservation server configured to acquire reservation information including desired conditions for the maintenance services on the basis of information transmitted from a user terminal; select maintenance contractor candidates on the basis of a model identified with the equipment information and a model within an available range of the maintenance contractors identified with the maintenance contractor information; narrow down the candidates on the basis of the desired conditions and the maintenance contractor information corresponding to the maintenance contractors included in the candidates, and notify the user terminal of the candidates narrowed down by the maintenance reservation server; wherein the maintenance contractor information includes information indicating first available work related to maintenance work for the equipment and second available work related to work other than the maintenance of the equipment; the reservation information includes information indicating a first desired condition related to the maintenance work for the equipment, a second desired condition related to the work other than the maintenance of the equipment, the second desired condition including priority for the work other than the maintenance of the equipment; and the maintenance reservation server selects the maintenance contractor candidates on the basis of the equipment information, the first available work, and the first desired condition, and prioritizes the selected maintenance contractor candidates based on whether the second available work, among the first available work and the second available work in the maintenance contractor information, includes the work, indicated by the second desired condition, other than the maintenance whose priority is high”. Claim 10 discloses similar limitations as Claim 1, and therefore recite an abstract idea.
With respect to 2A Prong 1, claim 8 recites “a processor; a memory; and a communication interface, wherein the communication interface is configured to acquire maintenance contractor information about maintenance contractors who provide maintenance services on the basis of information transmitted from maintenance contractor terminals and reservation information including desired conditions related to work other than maintenance of equipment on the basis of information transmitted from a user terminal; the processor is configured to select maintenance contractor candidates on the basis of equipment information including information about the equipment and first available work of the maintenance contractor related to maintenance work for the equipment, and narrow down the candidates on the basis of the desired conditions and second available work of the maintenance contractor related to work other than the maintenance of the equipment; and the communication interface is configured to notify the user terminal of the candidates narrowed down by the processor, the maintenance contractor information includes information indicating first available work related to maintenance work for the equipment and second available work related to work other than the maintenance of the equipment, the reservation information includes information indicating a first desired condition related to the maintenance work for the equipment, a second desired condition related to the work other than the maintenance of the equipment, the second desired condition including priority for the work other than the maintenance of the equipment, and the processor is configured to select the maintenance contractor candidates on the basis of the equipment information, the first available work, and the first desired condition, and prioritize the selected maintenance contractor candidates based on whether the second available work, among the first available work and the second available work in the maintenance contractor information, includes the work, indicated by the second desired condition, other than the maintenance whose priority is high”, and therefore recite an abstract idea.
More specifically, claims 1, 8, and 10 are directed to “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” in particular “commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations)”, and “Mental Processes” in particular “concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion)” as discussed in MPEP §2106.04(a)(2), and in the 2019-01-08 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Dependent claims 2-6 and 11-20 further recite abstract idea(s) contained within the independent claims, and do not contribute to significant more or enable practical application. Thus, the dependent claims are rejected under 101 based on the same rationale as the independent claims.
Under Prong Two of Step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test, the examiner acknowledges that Claims 1, 8, and 10 recite additional elements yet the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. In order for the judicial exception to be “integrated into a practical application”, an additional element or a combination of additional elements in the claim “will apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the judicial exception.” PEG, 84 Fed. Reg. 54 (Jan. 7, 2019). The courts have identified examples in which a judicial exception has not been integrated into a practical application when “an additional element does no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.” PEG, 84 Fed. Reg. 55 (Jan. 7, 2019); MPEP § 2106.05(h). The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
In particular, claims 1, 8, and 10 recite additional elements boldened and underlined above. These are generic computer components recited as performing generic computer functions that are mere instructions to apply an exception, because it does no more than merely invoke computers or machinery as a tool to perform an existing process. Further, the remaining additional element italicized above reflect insignificant extra solution activities to the judicial exception. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Dependent claims 15 and 16 recite additional element “a drive unit”, “a controller”, “at least one sensor”, “a smartphone”, “a personal computer”, . These are generic computer components recited as performing generic computer functions that are mere instructions to apply an exception, because it does no more than merely invoke computers or machinery as a tool to perform an existing process.
With respect to step 2B, claims 1, 8, 10, 15, and 16 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. The claim recites the additional elements described above. These are generic computer components recited as performing generic computer functions that are mere instructions to apply an exception, because it does no more than merely invoke computers or machinery as a tool to perform an existing process, as evidenced by at least in ¶24 “The maintenance reservation server 600 is an information processing device such as a server device that performs a management process of a maintenance contractor on the basis of a user's request. The maintenance reservation server 600 includes, for example, an acquisition unit 610, a reservation processing unit 620, a reservation information storage unit 630, a notification unit 640, and a reservation information acquisition unit 650. The acquisition unit 610, the reservation processing unit 620, the notification unit 640, and the reservation information acquisition unit 650 are implemented by, for example, a processor such as a CPU executing a program stored in a program memory. The acquisition unit 610 acquires equipment information, operation data, sensor data, error information, and maintenance contractor information. The reservation processing unit 620 performs a process of selecting candidates for the maintenance contractor on the basis of the equipment information and the maintenance contractor information and narrowing down the candidates on the basis of the maintenance contractor information corresponding to the maintenance contractor included in the candidates and the reservation information. The notification unit 640 notifies the user terminal 300 of the candidates narrowed down by the reservation processing unit 620. The reservation information acquisition unit 650 acquires reservation information from the user and transmits the acquired reservation information to the reservation information storage unit 630. The reservation information storage unit 630 stores the reservation information transmitted by the reservation information acquisition unit 650”.
Claims 2-6, 8, 10-14, and 17-20 do not disclose additional elements, further narrowing the abstract ideas of the independent claims and thus not practically integrated under prong 2A as part of a practical application or under 2B not significantly more for the same reasons and rationale as above.
After considering all claim elements, both individually and in combination, Examiner has determined that the claims are directed to the above abstract ideas and do not amount to significantly more. See Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, No. 13–298.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, 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).
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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATHEUS R STIVALETTI whose telephone number is (571)272-5758. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:30-5:30.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rutao (Rob) Wu can be reached on (571)272-7761. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-1822.
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/MATHEUS RIBEIRO STIVALETTI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623 04/14/2026
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