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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
1.The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
2. Claim(s) 1, 4, 7-9, 13, 16 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chandrakant et al. (US 10728392).
Regarding claims 1, 13 and 20, Chandrakant discloses a computer-implemented method for automated management of a plurality of electronic communications (Col.2 lines 5-9: Chandrakant discusses the method include automatically applying the at least one rule with the next availability state to the at least two communication platforms), the computer-implemented method comprising: routing the plurality of electronic communications to a plurality of agents (Col.2 lines 33-39 and Col.6 lines 1-9: Chandrakant discusses routing states for routing incoming and/or outgoing communications between the multiple communication platforms and/or between multiple agents or users); monitoring interactions between the plurality of agents and a plurality of users participating in the plurality of electronic communications (Col.5 lines 7-20 and Col.5 lines 50-61: monitoring a communication over ACD and the interaction of agents with customers); determining a state associated with each particular agent of the plurality of agents based on the interactions between the particular agent and one or more users that participate in an electronic communication with the particular agent (Col.5 lines 62-67, Col.6 lines 1-21 and fig.10: Chandrakant discusses when agent speaks to customer or supervisor on telephone, the system shows or indicate that the state of agent is Busy);
Chandrakant discloses the invention set forth above but does not specifically mentioning “routing new electronic communications away from a first agent of the plurality of agents in response to determining a first state for the first agent”. Chandrakant however discloses how a customer tries to call the call center via ACD System, and ACD now identifies that agent is unavailable and may route that call to a second agent upon the first agent unable to receive an incoming communication ( e.g., incoming call) over communication platform (Chandrakant: Col.6 lines 16-21 and fig.1).
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to interpret “the routing of call to a second agent upon the first agent unable to receive an incoming communication ( e.g., incoming call) over communication platform” as routing new electronic communications away from a first agent of the plurality of agents in response to determining a first state for the first agent, as disclosed by Chandrakant thus allowing to detect the agent availability and synchronizing status of the agent between multiple communication systems so as to reduce inconsistent workflows, operational disruption or a bad user experience as teach by Chandrakant.
Considering claims 4 and 16, Chandrakant discloses the computer-implemented method of claims 3 and 15, further comprising: providing a notification on a device of the third agent prior to connecting the second agent to the active electronic communication; and disconnecting the third agent from the active electronic communication after connecting the second agent to the active electronic communication (Col.5 lines 20-23, Col.8 lines 53-67 and Col.9 lines 36-45: Chandrakant discusses how a computerized platforms received a "not available" notification regarding the user, the other computerized systems may be configured to reroute calls to other available users).
Considering claims 7 and 8, Chandrakant discloses the computer-implemented method of claims 1 and 7, further comprising: transferring the last routed electronic communication from the first agent to another agent or bot in response to the state of the first agent changing from the first state to a second state while the first agent participates in the last routed electronic communication (Col.3 lines 31-44 and Col.6 lines 11-21: Chandrakant discusses how availability states selected from the group consisting of offline, unavailable, unavailable meeting, unavailable lunch, busy, after call work (ACW), out of office, working, away, available, and online etc.; and how based on mapping rules the system routing communications to other users, agents or communication platforms used by the other users).
Considering claim 9, Chandrakant discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: tracking different rates at which states of different agents from the plurality of agents change based on state changes occurring while determining the state associated with each particular agent; and scheduling different times at which the plurality of agents are on a break based on the different rates at which the states of the different agents change (Col.3 lines 31-44 and Col.6 lines 1-21: Chandrakant discusses how availability states selected from the group consisting of offline, unavailable, unavailable meeting, unavailable lunch, busy, after call work (ACW), out of office, working, away, available, and online etc.; and how the system use set of mapping rules for routing incoming and/or outgoing communications between the multiple communication platforms and/or between multiple agents or users based on the agent state).
Considering claim 19, Chandrakant further discloses the system of claim 13, wherein determining the state comprises: tracking changes to the state of the first agent while the first agent participates in the last routed electronic communication; and wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured to: transfer the last routed electronic communication from the first agent to another agent or bot in response to the state of the first agent changing from the first state to a second state while the first agent participates in the last routed electronic communication (Col.3 lines 31-44 and Col.6 lines 11-21: Chandrakant discusses how availability states selected from the group consisting of offline, unavailable, unavailable meeting, unavailable lunch, busy, after call work (ACW), out of office, working, away, available, and online etc.; and how based on mapping rules the system routing communications to other users, agents or communication platforms used by the other users ).
3. Claim(s) 2-3, 5, 10-12, 14-15 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chandrakant et al. (US 10728392) in view of MOUSLMANI et al. (US 20240214493).
Considering claims 2 and 14, Chandrakant fails to discloses claims 2 and 14. MOUSLMANI however discloses the computer-implemented method of claims 2 and 14, wherein routing new electronic communications away from the first agent comprises: routing the new electronic communications to other agents of the plurality of agents in response to determining a second state for the other agents and the second state being associated with less fatigue than the first state (Paragraphs: 0047: MOUSLMANI discusses how a contact centers generally attempt to match the number of agents working during a specified time with an anticipated customer call volume to prevent the contact center from becoming overloaded with customer calls, which in turn increases the stress or anxiety of the agents, i.e. allowing to route calls to agents that are less fatigue or overloaded).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Chandrakant, and modify a system wherein routing new electronic communications away from the first agent comprises: routing the new electronic communications to other agents of the plurality of agents in response to determining a second state for the other agents and the second state being associated with less fatigue than the first state, as taught by MOUSLMANI, thus allowing to predict characteristics of future interactions, thus, improving overall contact center performance and customer experience, as discussed by MOUSLMANI.
Considering claims 3 and 15, MOUSLMANI further discloses the computer-implemented method of claims 1 and 13, further comprising: connecting a second agent of the plurality of agents to an active electronic communication involving a third agent of the plurality of agents in response to determining a second state for the third agent that exceeds a threshold (Paragraphs: 0051 and 0053: MOUSLMANI discusses a method for synchronizing agent staffing and customer call volume within a contact center by utilizing any of the computer-implemented components).
Considering claims 5 and 17, Chandrakant fail to discloses claims 5 and 17. MOUSLMANI however discloses the computer-implemented method of claims 5 and 17, further comprising: activating a bot in response to determining a second state for a second agent of the plurality of agents that is participating in an active electronic communication of the plurality of electronic communications; and transferring the active electronic communication from the second agent to the bot, wherein said transferring comprises responding to audio or textual inquiries of one or more users in the active electronic communication with audio or textual responses that are generated by the bot (Paragraphs: 0049 and 0033: MOUSLMANI discusses how the difficult to manage flow of customer call volumes with agent staffing resolved using chat bots to reduce the number of calls that are routed to live agents).
Considering claim 10, MOUSLMANI further discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: detecting one or more external events; predicting a contact volume at a future shift based on the one or more external events; and selecting a set of agents from the plurality of agents for the future shift to include a number of agents able to respond to the contact volume without reaching a particular state (Paragraphs: 0047-0050: MOUSLMANI discusses how contact centers generally attempt to match the number of agents working during a specified time with an anticipated customer call volume to prevent the contact center from becoming overloaded with customer calls, i.e. allows agents able to respond to the contact volume without reaching a particular state; and how a contact center use workforce management (WFM) and interactive voice response (IVR) routing technologies to streamline and improve the experience for the customer and contact center).
Considering claim 11, MOUSLMANI further discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: detecting one or more external events; predicting an increase in contact volume in response to the one or more external events; and scaling resources according to the contact volume, wherein scaling the resources comprises activating a plurality of bots to supplement the plurality of agents (Paragraphs: 0047-0050: the use of chat bots to reduce the number of calls that are routed to live agents).
Considering claim 12, MOUSLMANI further discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising: routing electronic communications associated with the increase in the contact volume to the plurality of bots (Paragraphs: 0047-0050).
4. Claim(s) 6 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chandrakant et al. (US 10728392) in view of Ristock et al. (US 20170104872).
Considering claims 6 and 18, Chandrakant fails to discloses claims 6 and 18. Ristock however discloses the computer-implemented method of claims 6 and 18, wherein monitoring the interactions comprises: analyzing one or more of an audio stream and a video stream of each electronic communication from the plurality of electronic communications for audio and visual indicators of fatigue; and wherein determining the state comprises: deriving a measure of fatigue for each agent of the plurality of agents based on modeled associations between different audio and visual indicators of fatigue and different classifications of fatigue (abstract and Paragraph: 0052: Ristock discusses how the system analyze the real-time physiological sensor data for each of the multiple agents to determine an emotional state for each agent by predicting the emotional state for each agent based on the task is assigned; and how the system display the agents stress level, i.e. visual indicators of fatigue).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Chandrakant, and modify a system wherein monitoring the interactions comprises: analyzing one or more of an audio stream and a video stream of each electronic communication from the plurality of electronic communications for audio and visual indicators of fatigue; and wherein determining the state comprises: deriving a measure of fatigue for each agent of the plurality of agents based on modeled associations between different audio and visual indicators of fatigue and different classifications of fatigue, as taught by Ristock, thus the system utilizes routing and workflow strategies for routing tasks to be enhanced by consideration of sensor data in addition or removal of the agents from pool of available targets , as discussed by Ristock.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YOSEF K LAEKEMARIAM whose telephone number is (571)270-5149. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30-6:30 M-F.
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/YOSEF K LAEKEMARIAM/ Examiner, Art Unit 2691 01/15/2026