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
The office action is being examined in response to the application filed by the applicant on February 20, 2026.
Claims 2 – 9, 11 – 18, and 20 are original.
Claims 1, 10, and 19 are currently amended and are hereby entered.
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined.
This action is made FINAL.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed February 20, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The rejection of Claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) as anticipated by Gilmore is withdrawn in view of Applicant’s amendments.
Applicant argues the amended limitations “cannot be performed in the human mind” because they recite automated script execution, conjunctive filtering criteria, and dynamic updating. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Even assuming arguendo that certain steps are not practically performable in the mind alone, the claims remain directed to certain methods of organizing human activity—specifically, organizing and classifying vehicle data according to business-driven criteria (geographic relevance, temporal relevance, vehicle attributes) for use in credit risk assessment, which constitutes a fundamental economic practice. The filtering criteria are business relevance criteria reflecting the judgment of what vehicles matter for a credit model in a given market, not technical parameters that improve computer functionality. A loan officer or risk analyst would routinely determine which vehicles are relevant to their market, which are sufficiently current, and which attributes matter for risk groupings—the claims automate this business categorization judgment on a generic computer. The recitation of “scripts” and “dynamically update” describes that a computer performs these business classification tasks, not a specific technical mechanism that transforms the nature of the underlying activity from abstract to non-abstract.
Applicant argues the claims integrate any judicial exception into a practical application because they recite “specialized components” (automated scripts), address “technical challenges unique to vehicle data modeling,” and provide improvements in accuracy and system responsiveness, citing specification paragraphs [0012], [0014], and [0023]. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The alleged improvement—making vehicle data “more usable” in credit models and improving predictive power (AUC, R-squared, RMSE)—is an improvement to the business outcome (better credit risk predictions through better-organized input data), not an improvement to computer functionality or another technology. The computer still performs generic operations of storing, retrieving, filtering, and categorizing data; it does not function differently or more efficiently as a result of the claimed invention. “Scripts” are a fundamental unit of computer automation, not a specialized component, and the claims do not specify any particular algorithm, data structure, architecture, or processing optimization that would demonstrate a non-conventional technical implementation. The “dynamic updating” limitation recites only the trigger (new vehicles or changed requirements) and the result (updated segments/categories/indexes) without any technical specificity as to how the system accomplishes this beyond ordinary database maintenance. Accordingly, the claims amount to using generic computing components to perform the abstract idea of organizing vehicle data for credit risk purposes more efficiently, which does not constitute integration into a practical application under MPEP § 2106.05(f).
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claims 1-20 are directed to a system, method, or product, which are one of the statutory categories of invention. (Step 1: YES).
The Examiner has identified independent system Claim 1 as the claim that represents the claimed invention for analysis and is similar to independent method Claim 10 and CRM Claim 19.
Claim 1 recites the limitations of:
one or more memories; and
one or more processors, communicatively coupled to the one or more memories, configured to:
obtain raw vehicle information that includes vehicle make and model combinations associated with one or more models;
filter the raw vehicle information by automatically excluding, via execution of one or more scripts, vehicle make and model combinations that do not satisfy a set of criteria, the criteria comprising at least: (i) availability in a target geographic region, (ii) availability within a threshold time period, and (iii) at least one attribute selected from the group consisting of: body style, fuel type, trim level, or market segment;
define multiple vehicle segments that each include a set of vehicle makes based on the vehicle make and model combinations included in the raw vehicle information;
define, based on the vehicle make and model combinations included in the raw vehicle information, multiple vehicle categories based on subsets of the vehicle make and model combinations with similar attributes,
wherein the multiple vehicle categories are each associated with a unique identifier and a respective vehicle segment, of the multiple vehicle segments;
define multiple vehicle indexes that are each associated with a risk profile; dynamically update the multiple vehicle segments, the multiple vehicle categories, and the multiple vehicle indexes in response to newly introduced or redesigned vehicle make and model combinations, or changes in modeling requirements; and
store, in a data repository accessible to a system that uses the one or more models to generate one or more predictions based on an input vehicle make and model combination, information that associates each of the multiple vehicle indexes with one or more of the multiple vehicle categories.
These limitations, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, cover performance of the limitation in the mind. The limitations above of vehicle categorization to assist model predictions, as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea. The memories, processors, data repository, and system in Claim 1 is just applying generic computer components to the recited abstract limitations. The recitation of generic computer components in a claim does not necessarily preclude that claim from reciting an abstract idea. Claims 10 and 19 are also abstract for similar reasons. (Step 2A-Prong 1: YES. The claims recite an abstract idea)
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the additional elements of: memories, processors, data repository, and system (claim 1, 10, and 19) and client device (Claims 4 and 9). The computer hardware/software is/are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, these additional elements, when considered separately and as an ordered combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea and are at a high level of generality. Therefore, claims 1-20 are directed to an abstract idea without a practical application. (Step 2A-Prong 2: NO. The additional claimed elements are not integrated into a practical application)
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when considered separately and as an ordered combination, they do not add significantly more (also known as an “inventive concept”) to the exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using a computer hardware amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. See MPEP 2106.05(f) where applying a computer as a tool is not indicative of significantly more as well as MPEP 2106.05(d), if applicable. Accordingly, these additional elements, do not change the outcome of the analysis, when considered separately and as an ordered combination. Thus, claims 1-20 are not patent eligible. (Step 2B: NO. The claims do not provide significantly more)
Dependent claims further define the abstract idea, except as noted above, that is present in their respective independent claims 1-20 and thus correspond to performance in the mind and hence are abstract for the reasons presented above. The dependent claims do not include any additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception when considered both individually and as an ordered combination. Therefore, the dependent claims are directed to an abstract idea. Thus, the claims 1-20 are not patent-eligible.
Examiners Note
The previously applied rejection of Claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) as anticipated by Gilmore (U.S. Pub. No. 2017/0032400) is hereby withdrawn in view of Applicant’s amendments. Specifically, amended independent Claims 1 and 10 now recite “filter the raw vehicle information by automatically excluding, via execution of one or more scripts, vehicle make and model combinations that do not satisfy a set of criteria, the criteria comprising at least: (i) availability in a target geographic region, (ii) availability within a threshold time period, and (iii) at least one attribute selected from the group consisting of: body style, fuel type, trim level, or market segment.” Gilmore’s data cleansing and outlier removal (see Gilmore at [0062], [0095]) operates on transaction data to remove statistically anomalous sales records (e.g., transactions with abnormally high or low dealer margins), rather than excluding vehicle make and model combinations themselves from a categorization scheme based on the conjunctive satisfaction of geographic availability, temporal availability, and vehicle attribute criteria as now claimed. Additionally, amended Claims 1 and 10 recite “dynamically update the multiple vehicle segments, the multiple vehicle categories, and the multiple vehicle indexes in response to newly introduced or redesigned vehicle make and model combinations, or changes in modeling requirements.” While Gilmore teaches handling new model years via a low-volume model ([0151-52]), Gilmore does not teach dynamically updating a three-tier hierarchical classification structure (segments, categories, and indexes) in response to the claimed triggering events. Accordingly, Gilmore does not anticipate the claims as amended, and the § 102 rejection is withdrawn. However, the § 101 rejection is maintained as set forth above.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 MICHAEL W ANDERSON whose telephone number is (571)270-0508. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 9am-4pm.
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Mike Anderson
Supervisor Patent Examiner
Art Unit 3693
/Mike Anderson/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3693
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