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 .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-14 remain pending, and are rejected.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 5/4/2026 with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered, but are not persuasive for at least the following rationale:
Applicant’s arguments filed on 5/4/2026 with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 for claims directed to a judicial exception are not persuasive.
Notably, on pages 12-13 of the Applicant’s Remarks, arguments are made that the technical features of the claims are oversimplified, and the claims are directed to automation and web-infrastructure improvement, such as transforming multimodal inputs into multi-dimensional signatures, determine three regions based on three independent subspaces, performing an intersection-based candidate selection, and executes server-side webstore-modification operations to populate and maintain an entity-associated store. On page 13, comparisons are also drawn to DDR Holdings as the claimed solution being necessarily rooted in computer technology in over to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of computer networks. The Applicant argues that the present claims solve a problem specific to automated webstore infrastructure by reducing stale/broken links, reducing compute workload for candidate scoring across large catalogues, and maintaining store correctness without human intervention. Comparison is also drawn to Enfish because the claims are directed to a specific improvement in how the computer system performs the task of selecting and provisioning candidate items, the three-volume intersection reducing the candidate set before downstream scoring, database lookups, listing-link generation, stock checks, or other pre-candidate provisioning operations. On pages 14-15, the Applicant argues that even if the claims recite a judicial exception, they are integrated into a practical application, such as by the limitations of “establishing a connection with a webserver”, “identifying, using the entity data, the webstore hosted by the webserver and associated with the entity”, and “generating link data to link the existing item listing”. On pages 15-16, it is argued that any use of a “webstore”, “webserver”, and “link data” in the claims is clearly integrated into the practical application of operational automation of webstore modification. Even further, it is argued that the intersection-based selection is not a generic use of a neural network, and is a particular computational architecture for narrowing a candidate set before downstream provisioning operations occur. The court decision of Bascom is also referenced, the arguments stating that the ordered combination of three independent volume determinations, intersection-based filtering, and automated persistent webstore provisioning/maintenance is the inventive technical arrangement.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The transforming of multimodal inputs into multi-dimensional signatures, determining of three regions based on three independent subspaces, and performing an intersection-based candidate selection are not technical operations, but mathematical operations that are leveraged to determine candidate items for the abstract idea. These elements do not change the underlying technology of how a computer processes data, but provides an algorithm of mathematical processes of creating an embedding based on item data and plotting them in a space to determine candidate items within the plotted data points. The server-side webstore-modification operations to populate and maintain an entity-associated store merely query a database (catalog) of information to add link data for an item. The link data being any generic weblink, such that the commercial activities of a store and purchasing of the item may be performed on a computing device. The claims are directed to the mathematical procedure of determining candidate items to associated with an entity store, and then merely querying a database with the generic links such that the store may be online. As such, the comparisons to DDR Holdings are inapposite. In DDR Holdings, the claims specified how interactions with the computer and internet were manipulated to create a composite/hybrid page that prevented the user from being directed to the outside merchant, therein overriding the routine functionality of a link. How the link specifically functions is altered, and the claims were specifically directed to changing the functionality of the web elements. As discussed above, the present claims do not affect computer ability or functionality, and merely utilizes mathematical functions to select items and form a store, and generally links it to an online environment, as opposed to changing how any of the computer elements function. The claims do not recite any particular process or functionality of the links that address technology of the reducing stale/broken links, merely adding link data. The computing workload is not from any changes in how the computer is able to process data from improvements in the underlying technology, but are merely from an improved algorithm of the abstract idea, such that less data needs to be processed. How the computer functions is not changed. Maintaining store correctness represents more of the abstract idea, and automating it the process does not constitute a practical application, and merely provides a general link to a computing environment.
The comparisons to Enfish are also inapposite. In Enfish, the claims were directed to a specific improvement to the ways computers store and retrieve data from memory, and functioned differently than conventional databases. As discussed above, the claims do not affect how a computer stores or retrieves data. The various digital signatures and volumes are merely mathematical processes, and implemented with a neural network. However, the claims are not directed to the underlying technology of how the neural networks functions. As disclosed in specification page 4, lines 15-16, any appropriate neural network may be used in the invention. As such, it is evident that the claims are not directed to any functionality of the neural network, but merely leveraging any generic neural network to perform calculations for the abstract idea. Reducing the candidate set before downstream scoring, database lookups, listing-link generation, stock checks, or other pre-candidate provisioning operations also only reflect a more efficient algorithm for the abstract idea. A more efficient algorithm for the abstract process of reducing a candidate set of items before processing the data for further abstract processes and operations merely reduces the amount of data, and does not affect how the computer processes technically processes data. The various elements, such as “establishing a connection with a webserver”, “identifying, using the entity data, the webstore hosted by the webserver and associated with the entity”, and “generating link data to link the existing item listing”, and the “webstore”, “webserver”, and “link data” are generic computer elements that merely provide a general link to a computing environment. They merely represent typical entities of a commercial process, and implement them over a network, such that the commercial processes may be performed over a network. As such, the comparisons to Bascom are also inapposite. In Bascom, the combination of elements did not merely apply generic components to an abstract idea, but applied the judicial exception in a meaningful way beyond providing a general link to a particular technological environment by taking advantage of the ability of the ISPs to identify individual accounts that communicate with the ISP server to associate a request for internet content with a specific individual account. The present claims do not leverage the generic elements of the claims do provide an inventive concept or technical improvement, but merely apply the generic elements to the abstract idea to perform commercial activities on a computing device, as discussed above.
In view of the above, the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 has been maintained below.
Applicant’s arguments filed on 5/4/2026 with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered, and are persuasive. Notably, on page 20-1 of the Applicant’s Remarks, the arguments that the various elements of the cited combination of references used the same data for the entity data and consumer data, and the arguments of the interpretations of the embedding corresponding to the entity volume and the digital signatures were persuasive. Additionally, the arguments on page 23 of the various volumes being used to identify the intersection, and selecting second items that are separately plotted, and determining the second items within the intersection are also persuasive. The currently cited combination do not recite all the elements and the specific combination of limitations as recited in the claims.
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 claims are directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
Step 1:
Claims 1-12 are directed to a method, which is a process. Claim 13 is directed to non-transitory machine-readable medium, which is an article of manufacture. Claim 14 is directed to a system, which is an apparatus. Therefore, claims 1-14 are directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A (Prong 1):
Taking Claim 14 as representative, claim 14 sets forth the following limitations reciting the abstract idea of processing product information to include in a store:
for each entity of a plurality of entities;
receiving entity data relating to an entity and comprising a plurality of entity data points, the plurality of the entity data points comprising text and image data;
processing the plurality of entity data points to generate one or more entity multi-dimensional signatures in a multi-dimensional space, the one or more entity multi-dimensional signatures defining an entity subspace within the multi-dimensional space;
determining an entity volume based on the entity subspace;
receiving first item data comprising a plurality of first item data points, each one of the plurality of first item data points relating to a respective first item and comprising text and image data;
processing the plurality of first item data points to generate a one or more first item multi-dimensional signatures in the multi-dimensional space, the one or more first item multi-dimensional signatures defining a first item subspace within the multi-dimensional space;
determining a first item volume based on the first item subspace;
receiving consumer data comprising a plurality of consumer data points, each one of the plurality of consumer data points relating to a respective consumer;
processing the plurality of consumer data points to generate one or more consumer multi-dimensional signatures, the one or more consumer multi-dimensional signatures defining a consumer subspace within the multi-dimensional space;
determining a consumer volume based on the consumer subspace;
receiving second item data comprising a plurality of second item data points, each one of the plurality of second item data points relating to a respective second item and comprising text and image data;
processing each one of the second item data points to generate a respective second item multi-dimensional signatures;
identifying one or more second item multi-dimensional signatures that fall within an intersection of the entity volume, the first item volume and the consumer volume;
selecting, based on the identified one or more second item multi-dimensional signatures, one or more second items that correspond to the identified one or more second item multi-dimensional signatures;
responsive to selecting the one or more second items, populating a store associated with the entity;
for each one of the selected one or more second items:
querying a database to identify an existing item listing for the selected second item;
The recited limitations above set forth the process for processing product information to include in a store. These limitations amount to certain methods of organizing human activity, including commercial or legal transactions (e.g. agreements in the form of contracts, advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, etc.). The claims are directed to determining signatures of various entities, consumers, and items, to perform calculations to select items to include in a store (see specification: p.1, ln. 15-26, disclosing the problem of the display of information in a store and keeping information more expert input), which is an advertising and marketing activity. Such concepts have been identified by the courts as abstract ideas (see: MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)).
Step 2A (Prong 2):
Examiner acknowledges that representative claim 14 recites additional elements, such as:
processing circuitry;
a memory storing instructions, when executed by processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform operations;
at the processing circuitry;
a digital signature generator;
multi-dimensional digital signature;
a webstore;
establishing a connection with a webserver;
identifying, using the entity data, the webstore hosted by the webserver and associated with the entity;
generating link data to link the existing item listing;
adding the link data to the webstore to enable third parties to purchase the selected second item from the webstore.
Taken individually and as a whole, representative claim 14 does not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception. The additional elements do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
Furthermore, this is also because the claim fails to (i) reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, (ii) implement a judicial exception with a particular machine, (iii) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or (iv) apply the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
While the claims recite processing circuitry and a memory storing instructions, these elements are recited with a very high level of generality, and are merely recited as a preamble of executing the steps of the abstract idea. The specification discloses the processing circuitry as any FPGA, ASIC, general or special purpose microprocessors, or any other kind of central processing unit (specification: p. 24, ln. 27-36). The memory is also disclosed very generally, such as being any EPROM, flash memory devices, magnetic disks, internal hard disks, etc (specification: p. 25, ln. 11-15). As such, it is evident that these elements are any generic computing components applied to the abstract idea to perform the abstract idea within a computing environment. Similarly, the digital signature generator and any calculations utilizing the multi-dimensional space are not disclosed with any particularity, the specification merely disclosing the digital signature generator may be a neural network (specification: p. 12, ln. 15-22). The neural network is merely applied to the abstract idea to perform calculations and on the data of the abstract idea (entities, consumers, items) to determine similarities between them. The claims nor the specification disclose any changes to a neural network, but merely utilize generic neural networks to process data. The webstore and link data are also not disclosed with any particularity, such as on pages 20-21 of the specification. These elements, while taking place in a computing environment, only represent abstract concepts, such as a store with items for purchase, within a computing environment, and merely provides a general link of the abstract idea to the computing environment. The claims are directed to processing data of entities, items, and consumers in order to determine what items to offer in a store, and the additional elements merely place the abstract idea within the computing environment.
In view of the above, under Step 2A (Prong 2), representative claim 14 does not integrate the recited exception into a practical application (see: MPEP 2106.04(d)).
Step 2B:
Returning to representative claim 14, taken individually or as a whole, the additional elements of claim 14 do not provide an inventive concept (i.e. whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself). As noted above, the additional elements recited in claim 14 are recited in a generic manner with a high level of generality and only serve to implement the abstract idea on a generic computing device. The claims result only in an improved abstract idea itself and do not reflect improvements to the functioning of a computer or another technology or technical field. As discussed above with respect to the integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements used to perform the claimed process ultimately amount to no more than the mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer and/or no more than a general link to a technological environment.
Even when considered as an ordered combination, the additional elements of claim 14 do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
In view of the above, claim 14 does not provide an inventive concept under step 2B, and is ineligible for patenting.
Regarding Claim 1 (method): Claim 1 recites at least substantially similar concepts and elements as recited in claim 14 such that similar analysis of the claims would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. As such, claims 9 is rejected under at least similar rationale as provided above regarding claim 14.
Regarding Claim 13 (non-transitory machine-readable medium): Claim 13 recites at least substantially similar concepts and elements as recited in claim 14 such that similar analysis of the claims would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. As such, claims 13 is rejected under at least similar rationale as provided above regarding claim 14.
Dependent claims 2-12 recite further complexity to the judicial exception (abstract idea) of claim 14, such as by further defining the algorithm of processing product information to include in a store, and do not recite any further additional elements. Thus, each of claims 2-12 are held to recite a judicial exception under Step 2A (Prong 1) for at least similar reasons as discussed above.
Under prong 2 of step 2A, the additional elements of dependent claims 2-12 also do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, considered both individually or as a whole. More specifically, dependent claims 2-12 rely on at least similar elements as recited in claim 14. Further additional elements are also acknowledged; however, the additional elements of claims 2-12 are recited only at a high level of generality (i.e. as generic computing hardware) such that they amount to nothing more than the mere instructions to implement or apply the abstract idea on generic computing hardware (or, merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea). Further, the additional elements do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (such as the Internet or computing networks).
Secondly, this is also because the claims fails to (i) reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, (ii) implement the judicial exception with, or use the judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, (iii) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or (iv) applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
Taken individually and as a whole, dependent claims 2-12 do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception under step 2A (prong 2).
Lastly, under step 2B, claims 2-12 also fail to result in “significantly more” than the abstract idea under step 2B. The dependent claims recite additional functions that describe the abstract idea and use the computing device to implement the abstract idea, while failing to provide an improvement to the functioning of a computer, another technology, or technical field. The dependent claims fail to confer eligibility under step 2B because the claims merely apply the exception on generic computing hardware and generally link the exception to a technological environment.
Even when viewed as an ordered combination (as a whole), the additional elements of the dependent claims do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
Taken individually or as an ordered combination, the dependent claims simply convey the abstract idea itself applied on a generic computer and are held to be ineligible under Steps 2B for at least similar rationale as discussed above regarding claim 14. Thus, dependent claims 2-12 do not add “significantly more” to the abstract idea.
Subject Matter Free of Prior Art
Claims 1-14 are determined to have overcome the prior art of rejection and are free of the prior art, however, the claims remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101, as set forth above.
Claims 1-14 are found to overcome the prior art rejection for the reasons as set forth below.
Claim 1 recites the claimed features of:
receiving, at the processor, second item data comprising a plurality of second item data points, each of the plurality of second item data points relating to a respective second item and comprising text and image data;
processing, at the processor, each one of the second item data points using the digital signature generator to generate a respective second item multi-dimensional digital signatures;
identifying, by the processor, one or more second item multi-dimensional digital signatures that fall within an intersection of the entity volume, the first item volume and the consumer volume;
The closest prior art was found to be as follows:
Zabarauskas (US 20230117616 A1) discloses [0024] – “FIG. 2B illustrates embeddings (e.g., embedding 214, embedding 216, and embedding 218) associated with the commercial items detected in view 200. Although the embeddings are depicted in FIG. 2B as being 8-bit strings (e.g., binary numbers), the embeddings may include other types of embeddings (e.g., 256-bit strings and/or 256-bit binary numbers) according to some implementations. A cropped version of the image, which just includes what is inside the bounding box, may be run through a trained machine learning model (e.g., a neural network) to determine a more specific and/or accurate product category and the embedding. In some implementations, embeddings may be created responsive to the user clicking or tapping a button on the post. In some implementations, embeddings for a given unique image may be generated only once so that, if the image is viewed in thousands of different feeds for different users, the computational cost is only for generating a single embedding.”
However, Zabarauskas does not explicitly disclose a volume or space of the embeddings, and more disclose a distance between two points. There is also not a clear distinction of the entity data and the item data as recited in the claims.
Zhang (US 20250384456 A1) discloses [0032] – “The recommender model 220 may include a user embedding layer 222 and a merchant embedding layer 224. The user embedding layer 222 is configured to generate a user embedding based on the user data 212. In some implementations, the recommender model includes a feature extraction layer which extracts user features which are used as input for the user embedding layer 222. The user embedding layer 222 may generate the user embedding to represent a description of the user. In some implementations, the user embedding layer 222 uses an initial user embedding to generate a user embedding for a user, where the initial user embedding is initialized with random data. The merchant embedding layer 224 is configured to generate a merchant embedding based on the merchant data 214. In some implementations, the recommender model includes a feature extraction layer which extracts merchant features which are used as input for the merchant embedding layer 224. The merchant embedding layer 224 may generate the merchant embedding to represent a description of the merchant.”
Zhang also does not explicitly disclose volumes of the various entity, first items, and consumers, and discloses a dot product distance between embeddings, and as the distance was disclosed in Zabarauskas, cannot be interpreted as a volume.
Noskov (US 20240256619 A1) discloses [0262-0264] – “Manually select several profiles within a group-these can be selected to represent the “core”or central members of a group or community; [0263] The arrangement of nodes within a group and/or density of edges connected to a node may be used to suggest possible core members (e.g., those having a greater than average number of connections/edges and/or being a source of a greater than average number of posts of content or other actions within the group); [0264] Determine a sub-group representing the intersection of followers of the selected “core” profiles-these represent a set of people who are likely very interested (at least in a relative sense) in the primary topic or subject of the group”.
However, these clusters are not spaces of an entity, first items, and consumers, but various clusters of consumers.
Agley (US 20240127079 A1) discloses [0064] – “the content item fits within an overlap between the two knowledge spaces, such that the content item may be recommended for addition to both knowledge spaces. The chart further shows the location of the content item relative to centers of the knowledge spaces. In some examples, a content item may be more highly recommended when the content item is placed closer to a center of a knowledge space.”.
However, similar to Noskov, the knowledge spaces are not spaces of an entity, first items, and consumers.
NPL Reference U (see PTO-892 Reference U mailed on 2/2/2026) discloses recommender systems learning to embed items and users in the same embedding space, such as by mapping item features in a continuous space, and using implicit user feedback to generate user embeddings.
The various volumes of each of the entities, items, and consumers are not disclosed in any of the references, and even further, there is no disclosure of an intersection of all three of the specific volumes. Furthermore, the steps of the claims are specific to each limitation, and there are second items that are plotted in the space, separate of the three volumes, and the intersection of the three volumes marks a region to identify the second items as opposed to selecting items of the three volumes that intersect over each other.
It was found that no references alone or in combination, neither anticipates, reasonable teaches, nor renders obvious the below noted features of Applicant’s invention. The features of claim 1 in combination that overcome the prior art are:
receiving, at the processor, second item data comprising a plurality of second item data points, each of the plurality of second item data points relating to a respective second item and comprising text and image data;
processing, at the processor, each one of the second item data points using the digital signature generator to generate a respective second item multi-dimensional digital signatures;
identifying, by the processor, one or more second item multi-dimensional digital signatures that fall within an intersection of the entity volume, the first item volume and the consumer volume;
Therefore, none of the cited references disclose or render obvious each and every feature of the claimed invention and the claimed invention is determined to be free of the prior art. Although individually the claimed features could be taught, any combination of references would teach the claimed limitations using a piecemeal analysis, since references would only be combined and deemed obvious based on knowledge gleaned from the applicant's disclosure. Such a reconstruction is improper (i.e., hindsight reasoning). See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971). The examiner emphasizes that it is the interrelationship of the limitations that renders these claims free of the prior art/additional art.
Therefore, it is hereby asserted by the Examiner that, in light of the above, that claims 1-14 are free of prior art as the references do not anticipate the claims and do not render obvious any further modification of the references to a person of ordinary skill in art.
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 TIMOTHY J KANG whose telephone number is (571)272-8069. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday: 8:30am - 7:00pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Maria-Teresa Thein can be reached at 571-272-6764. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/T.J.K./ Examiner, Art Unit 3689
/VICTORIA E. FRUNZI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3689 6/4/2026
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