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 .
Acknowledgements
Claim 8 is cancelled.
Claims 1-7 and 9-14 are pending.
Applicant provided information disclosure statement.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 6/15/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
35 USC 101
Applicant's arguments filed 6/15/2026 with respect to 35 USC 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The rejection is maintained.
Applicant argues on page 7
Without agreeing with the rejection, claims 1, 9, and 10 are amended herein to recite determining an action of a machine configured to perform jobs in a production system and transmitting the determined action to a production system (comprised of machines) to reconfigure a shop scheduling state thereof. The claims recite a solution of reconfiguring a job scheduling state of a production system comprising physical machines. Technical control of a production system is well-established as patent-eligible
Examiner Respectfully Disagrees.
The limitation reconfigure the shop scheduling state based on the determined action is broad and a computer would not be needed for this limitation. For example, a user is able to reconfigure a schedule based on a determined action. Changing a schedule is not novel and has been done before the technological age.
Applicant argues on page 7
The claims recite limitations that improve job-shop scheduling. The improved job-shop scheduling techniques provide various technical effects, including significant reduction of the computational load required for decision-making, which stems from downsizing the candidate operations. As a result, real-time scheduling for a production system becomes possible.
Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Improving scheduling is not a technical problem but a business problem. In addition, the Applicant’s specification recites in para 0003 the business problem of production scheduling in manufacturing systems. A technical problem and solution is seen in the court case of McRO. The patents in McRO were an improvement on 3-D animation wherein the prior art comprised that "for each keyframe, the artist would look at the screen and, relying on her judgment, manipulate the character model until it looked right — a visual and subjective process." Thus, the patents in McRO aimed to automate a 3-D animator's tasks, specifically, determining when to set keyframes and setting those keyframes.
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 and 9-14 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 than the judicial exception itself.
Regarding Step 1 of the Subject Matter Eligibility Test for Products and Processes (See MPEP 2106.03), claims 1-7 and 9-14 are directed apparatus and method.
Regarding step 2A-1, Claims 1-7 and 9-14 recite a Judicial Exception. Exemplary independent claim 1 and similarly claim 9 recite the limitations of
Determining an action…Obtaining…the shop scheduling state…representing…the shop scheduling state as a state hypergraph…extracting…a hypergraph-based job feature…determining…an action…transmitting the determined action…
Claim 10 further states determining an action…using a hypergraph to model a manufacturing process of physical job steps performed by physical machines…generating…an action…transmitting the action…
These limitations, as drafted, are a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation cover concepts of obtaining, representing, extracting, determining, generating, transmitting, and modeling data. The claim limitations fall under the abstract idea grouping of mental process, because the limitations can be performed in the human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper. For example, but for the language of a processor and storage, the claim language encompasses simply obtaining data, representing/modeling that data as a hypergraph, extracting data from the hypergraph, and determining an action. The claims further recite using a hypergraph to model a manufacturing process and generating an action. These steps are mere data manipulation steps that do not require a computer. A user is able to represent/model a hypergraph based on obtained data without needing a computer. A user can also extract information from that hypergraph in order to determine/generate an action and transmit that action. These steps are mere data manipulation steps that do not require a computer. The computer here is merely used as a tool to carry out this mental process. The claimed invention is merely automating a manual process.
The hypergraph and obtained data correspond to job shop scheduling and job tasks with respect to machines. The claims also state sequential ordering of the job shop tasks and operations steps to carry out the tasks. The Applicant’s specification also states the scheduling problem with respect to manufacturing processes (See para 0003). These make the claims fall in the abstract idea grouping of certain methods of organizing human activity (fundamental economic principles or practices and task/business management).
In addition, the independent claims also state mathematical algorithms/concepts such as double-delay deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm and proximity policy optimization algorithm based on an Actor-Critic architecture. These make the claims also fall in the abstract idea grouping of mathematical concepts.
It is clear the limitations recite these abstract idea groupings, but for the recitations of generic computer components. The mere nominal recitations of generic computer components do not take the limitations out of the mental process, certain methods of organizing human activity, and mathematical concepts grouping. The claims are focused on the combination of these abstract idea processes.
Regarding step 2A-2- This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application, and the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
The claim recite the additional elements of apparatus, processors, memory, policy network, production system, value network, decision network, storage, hypergraph neural network, and neural network.
These components are recited at a high level of generality, and merely automate the steps. Each of the additional limitations 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 using a generic computer components or software. Accordingly, even in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Further, the claims do not provide for recite any improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field; applying or using a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition; applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; or applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
The dependent claims have the same deficiencies as their parent claims as being directed towards an abstract idea, as the dependent claims merely narrow the scope of their parent claims. For example, the dependent claims elaborate on how an action is determined. In addition, the dependent claims further recite how a state hypergraph graph feature is determined. In addition, the dependent claims further recite additional features of the policy network.
Regarding step 2B the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because claim 1 recites
Claim 1 and 10 recite method, however method is not considered an additional element.
Claim 1 further recites processors, memory, hypergraph neural network, neural network and policy network.
Claim 3 recites decision network
Claim 4 recites value network
Claim 5 recites first graph neural network
Claim 6 recites second graph neural network
Claim 9 recites apparatus, processor, storage, hypergraph neural network, neural network, and policy network
Claim 10 recites computing device, hypergraph neural network, and policy network.
Claims 1, 9, and 10 recite production system.
When looking at these additional elements individually, the additional elements are purely functional and generic the Applicant specification states general-purpose computer configurations in para 0139.
When looking at the additional elements in combination, the Applicant’s specification merely states a general-purpose computer configuration as seen in para 0139. The computer components add nothing that is not already present when the steps are considered separately. See MPEP 2106.05
Looking at these limitations as an ordered combination and individually adds nothing additional that is sufficient to amount to significantly more than the recited abstract idea because they simply provide instructions to use generic computer components, recitations of generic computer structure to perform generic computer functions that are used to "apply" the recited abstract idea. Thus, the elements of the claims, considered both individually and as an ordered combination, are not sufficient to ensure that the claim as a whole amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
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 and 9-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure.
Sawyer (US20200218858A1) Discloses a system for generating textual instructions for manufacturers from hybrid textual and image data includes a manufacturing instruction generator that may generate a language processing module from a first training set including at least a training annotated file describing at least a first product to manufacture.
Tiara (US20190258233A1) Discloses a method of producing a product through a plurality of production steps.
Jue (US20150332195A1) Discloses a system for monitoring the performance of periodically scheduled workflows and associated jobs while they are executing a computing cluster.
Heris (US20220292434A1) Discloses methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for scheduling resources used for package delivery. One method includes an operation for initializing a reinforcement learning (RL) agent that calculates staff requirements for performing jobs.
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/MUSTAFA IQBAL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3625
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