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 the Claims
Claims 1-14 were previously pending. Claims 1 and 8 were amended in the reply filed April 21, 2026. Claims 1-14 are currently pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's amendments overcome the rejection made under § 112(a) and it is withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed with respect to the rejection made under § 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the invention improves the efficiency of computer systems by reducing computational overheads. Remarks, 6-7. There is no support for this on the record. Customizing maps based on personal driving behavior is an improvement to certain methods of organizing human activities rather than the computer itself or any other technology. "[C]ustomizing information based on... information known about the user" is an abstract idea. Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2015). Nothing in the claimed invention purports to solve a problem particular to computers.
Applicant's arguments that the claims integrate the abstract idea into a practical application (Remarks, 8) are not persuasive for reasons already of record. Non-Final Rejection mailed 3/19/2026, ¶ 6.
Applicant's arguments that the claims recite signficianltly more than the abstract idea (Remarks, 9-10) are also not persuasive for reasons already of record. Non-Final Rejection mailed 3/19/2026, ¶ 7. Moreover, the cited portions of the Specification do not support the statement that "conventional systems suffer high processing overload, since every drivers' data is processed throughout the ride to determine ETA. See Application, paragraphs [0002] and [0003]." Remarks, 9. Accordingly, the rejection is maintained.
Applicant's amendments and arguments filed with respect to the rejections made under § 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive and the rejections are withdrawn. See Remarks, 11-12.
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 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter (abstract idea without significantly more). Claims are eligible for patent protection under § 101 if they are in one of the four statutory categories and not directed to a judicial exception to patentability. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014). Claims 1-14, each considered as a whole and as an ordered combination, are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea) without significantly more.
MPEP 2106 Step 2A – Prong 1:
The claims recite an abstract idea reflected in the representative functions of the independent claims—including:
With respect to claim 1: retrieving a recommended route for the ride based on location information data; identifying historical ride information relating to routes for the ride, the historical ride information identifying driving behaviour of drivers, accessed from a customer driver profile, who have taken same routes for rides before, the driving behaviour of drivers indicating likelihood of drivers to take a route deviation from the recommended route for the ride; comparing the recommended route and the historical ride information to extract a driving behaviour of the driver during the ride; generating a personalized map for the driver based on the extracted driving behaviour to adaptively provide the estimated time of arrival for the ride to the driver, wherein the personalized map tracks the extracted driving behaviour of the driver during the ride to provide a score to the driver; and output the personalized map to re-route the driver in real-time based on the estimated time of arrival for the ride.
With respect to claim 8: retrieving a recommended route for the ride based on location information data; identifying historical ride information relating to the driver, the historical ride information identifying a driving behaviour of the driver, accessed from a custom driver profile, based on same routes for rides that have been taken before, wherein the driving behaviour of drivers indicates likelihood of drivers to take a route deviation from the recommended route for the ride; comparing the recommended route and the historical ride information to extract a driving behaviour of the driver during the ride; generating a personalized map for the driver based on the extracted driving behaviour to adaptively provide the estimated time of arrival for the ride to the driver, wherein the personalized map tracks the extracted driving behavior of the driver during the ride to provide a score to the driver; and output the personalized map to re-route the driver in real-time based on the estimated time of arrival for the ride.
These limitations taken together qualify as a certain method of organizing human activities because they recite collecting, analyzing, and outputting information for assisting in the navigation of people based on their historical driving data and the historical driving data of other people (i.e., in the terminology of the 2019 Revised Guidance, managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including following rules or instructions). Additionally, it covers certain purely mental processes (e.g., a person observing historical driving data and routes, evaluating them, and arriving at a judgment on a recommended route with ETA).
It shares similarities with other abstract ideas held to be non-statutory by the courts (see Electric Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016)—process of gathering and analyzing information of a specified content, then displaying the results, similar because at another level of abstraction the claims could be characterized as process of gathering and analyzing information of historical routes, then displaying the results; Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015)—tailoring sales information presented to a user based on, e.g., user data or time data, similar because at another level of abstraction the claims could be characterized as tailoring map information presented to a user based on, e.g., historical user data or route data).
These cases describe significantly similar aspects of the claimed invention, albeit at another level of abstraction. See Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1240-41 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("An abstract idea can generally be described at different levels of abstraction. As the Board has done, the claimed abstract idea could be described as generating menus on a computer, or generating a second menu from a first menu and sending the second menu to another location. It could be described in other ways, including, as indicated in the specification, taking orders from restaurant customers on a computer.").
MPEP 2106 Step 2A – Prong 2:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because there are no meaningful limitations that transform the exception into a patent eligible application. The elements merely serve to provide a general link to a technological environment (e.g., computers and the Internet) in which to carry out the judicial exception (computer, server, processor, memory including computer program code, graphical neural network, database, graphical user interface—all recited at a high level of generality).
Although they have and execute instructions to perform the abstract idea itself (e.g., modules, program code, etc. to automate the abstract idea), this also does not serve to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application as it merely amounts to instructions to "apply it." Aside from such instructions to implement the abstract idea, they are solely used for generic computer operations (e.g., receiving, storing, retrieving, transmitting data), employing the computer as a tool. See FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("[T]he use of generic computer elements like a microprocessor or user interface do not alone transform an otherwise abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter.") (citing DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245,1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014)) (emphasis added).
The claims only manipulate abstract data elements into another form. They do not set forth improvements to another technological field or the functioning of the computer itself and instead use computer elements as tools to improve the functioning of the abstract idea identified above. Looking at the additional limitations and abstract idea as an ordered combination and as a whole adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Rather than any meaningful limits, their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation of the abstract idea identified in Prong One. None of the additional elements recited "offers a meaningful limitation beyond generally linking 'the use of the [method] to a particular technological environment,' that is, implementation via computers." Alice Corp., slip op. at 16 (citing Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 610, 611 (U.S. 2010)).
At the levels of abstraction described above, the claims do not readily lend themselves to a finding that they are directed to a nonabstract idea. Therefore, the analysis proceeds to step 2B. See BASCOM Global Internet v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("The Enfish claims, understood in light of their specific limitations, were unambiguously directed to an improvement in computer capabilities. Here, in contrast, the claims and their specific limitations do not readily lend themselves to a step-one finding that they are directed to a nonabstract idea. We therefore defer our consideration of the specific claim limitations’ narrowing effect for step two.") (citations omitted).
MPEP 2106 Step 2B:
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons as presented in Step 2A Prong 2 (i.e., they amount to nothing more than a general link to a particular technological environment and instructions to apply it there). Moreover, the additional elements recited are known and conventional computing elements (computer, server, processor, memory including computer program code, graphical neural network, database, graphical user interface—see published Specification ¶¶ 0033-35, 46, 57, 76, 79-84 describing these at a high level of generality and in a manner that indicates that the additional elements are sufficiently well-known that the specification does not need to describe the particulars of such additional elements to satisfy the statutory disclosure requirements).
The Federal Circuit has recognized that "an invocation of already-available computers that are not themselves plausibly asserted to be an advance, for use in carrying out improved mathematical calculations, amounts to a recitation of what is 'well-understood, routine, [and] conventional.'" SAP Am., Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 890 F.3d 1016, 1023 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (alteration in original) (citing Mayo v. Prometheus, 566 U.S. 66, 73 (2012)). Apart from the instructions to implement the abstract idea, they only serve to perform well-understood functions (e.g., receiving, storing, retrieving, transmitting data—see Specification above as well as Alice Corp.; Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307 (Fed. Cir. 2016); and Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 2015) covering the well-known nature of these basic computer functions).
"The use and arrangement of conventional and generic computer components recited in the claims—such as a database, user terminal, and server— do not transform the claim, as a whole, into 'significantly more' than a claim to the abstract idea itself. We have repeatedly held that such invocations of computers and networks that are not even arguably inventive are insufficient to pass the test of an inventive concept in the application of an abstract idea." Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Services, 859 F.3d 1044, 1056 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely provide conventional computer implementation.
Dependent Claims Step 2A:
The limitations of the dependent claims merely set forth further refinements of the abstract idea without changing the analysis already presented (i.e., they merely narrow the same abstract idea identified above without adding any new additional elements beyond it). Additionally, for the same reasons as above, the limitations fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they use the same general technological environment and instructions to implement the abstract idea as the independent claims (i.e., generic computer processor/server with instructions).
Dependent Claims Step 2B:
The dependent claims merely use the same general technological environment and instructions to implement the abstract idea. They do not add any new additional elements to be analyzed here. Accordingly, they are not directed to significantly more than the exception itself, and are not eligible subject matter under § 101.
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 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 DANIEL VETTER whose telephone number is (571)270-1366. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-6:00.
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/DANIEL VETTER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3628
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