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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 08/03/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Claims 1-7, 9-10, 13, 17, 20, and 28 are canceled. The Examiner notes that claims 1-7 were previously withdrawn as being directed towards the non-elected invention.
Claim 33 is new.
Claims 8, 15-16, 22, 27, and 31 are currently amended.
Claims 8, 11-12, 14-16, 18-19, and 21-27 and 29-33 are currently pending and addressed below.
Specification
The Amendment to the Specification filed on 08/03/2026 is ok to be entered.
Claim Interpretation
The Examiner notes the following claim interpretation:
Claim 1 recites the limitations “determining, by the intent engine and based on the confidence score satisfying a threshold, that the narrative conforms with one or more fluency and completeness rules; outputting, by the intent engine, the narrative as a user intent of the current user utterance when the confidence score satisfies the threshold and when the narrative conforms with the one or more fluency and completeness rules; converting, by an embedding language model, the user intent into a user intent embedding, wherein the user intent embedding comprises a numerical vector having one or more dimensions representing at least one of syntactic features, semantic features, or sentiment of the user intent; identifying one or more stored intent embeddings based on a similarity with the user intent embedding; generating, by a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) model, one or more suggested resolutions in response to the current user utterance, wherein the GenAI model generates the one or more suggested resolutions using a prompt comprising the current user utterance, historical interactions related to the one or more stored intent embeddings selected from a corpus of historical interactions, and domain-specific documentation associated with the one or more stored intent embeddings; and providing, to the help center agent, the one or more suggested resolutions.” The Examiner notes that the broadest reasonable interpretation of a method (or process) claim having contingent limitations requires only those steps that must be performed and does not include steps that are not required to be performed because the condition(s) precedent are not met. See MPEP 2111.04(II). Here, the above limitations are contingent limitations that are not required to be performed if the confidence score does not satisfy the threshold, or if the narrative does not conform with the one or more fluency and completeness rules. Additionally, the dependent claims that further limit the above contingent limitations are also not required to be performed under the broadest reasonable interpretation.
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 8, 11-12, 14-16, 18-19, and 21-27 and 29-33 is/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 nature phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1:
Claims 8, 11-12, 14-16, 18-19, and 21-27 and 29-33 is/are directed towards a statutory category (i.e., a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter) (Step 1, Yes).
Step 2A Prong One:
Claim 8 recites (additional elements underlined):
A method for providing resolution guidance to a help center agent, comprising:
providing a current user utterance from a customer to an intent engine;
detecting, by the intent engine, one or more intents from an interaction transcript associated with the current user utterance;
generating, by the intent engine, a narrative summarizing the one or more intents and a confidence score corresponding to a probability indicating whether the one or more intents are expressed in the interaction transcript;
determining, by the intent engine and based on the confidence score satisfying a threshold, that the narrative conforms with one or more fluency and completeness rules;
outputting1, by the intent engine, the narrative as a user intent of the current user utterance when the confidence score satisfies the threshold and when the narrative conforms with the one or more fluency and completeness rules;
converting, by an embedding language model, the user intent into a user intent embedding, wherein the user intent embedding comprises a numerical vector having one or more dimensions representing at least one of syntactic features, semantic features, or sentiment of the user intent;
identifying one or more stored intent embeddings based on a similarity with the user intent embedding;
generating, by a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) model, one or more suggested resolutions in response to the current user utterance, wherein the GenAI model generates the one or more suggested resolutions using a prompt comprising the current user utterance, historical interactions related to the one or more stored intent embeddings selected from a corpus of historical interactions, and domain-specific documentation associated with the one or more stored intent embeddings; and
providing, to the help center agent, the one or more suggested resolutions.
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the limitations outlined above that describe or set forth the abstract idea, cover performance of the limitations in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer(s) and/or generic computer component(s). That is, other than reciting the additional elements, nothing in the claim precludes the limitations from practically being performed in the mind. For example, but for the additional elements recited above, the context of the claim encompasses a user detecting one or more user intents from a transaction; generating a narrative and a confidence score; determining if the confidence score satisfies a threshold and rules; writing/indicating the narrative as a user intent; convert the user intent into a user intent embedding; identify one or more stored intent embeddings based on a similarity; generate one or more suggested resolutions using the current user utterance, historical interactions, and domain-specific documentation; and providing/writing, to the help center agent, the one or more suggested resolutions. The Examiner notes that “[t]he courts do not distinguish between mental processes that are performed entirely in the human mind and mental processes that require a human to use a physical aid (e.g., pen and paper or a slide rule) to perform the claim limitation” (MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)). These limitations are considered a mental process because the limitations include an observation, evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion. These limitations are also similar to “collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis” and/or “collecting and comparing known information” which were determined to be mental processes in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A). The Examiner notes that “[c]laims can recite a mental process even if they are claimed as being performed on a computer” (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(C)). The mere nominal recitation of the additional elements do not take the claims out of the mental process grouping. Therefore, the claim recite a mental process (Step 2A Prong One, Yes).
The limitations outlined above also describe or set forth a method for providing resolution guidance to a help center agent which is a commercial interaction (e.g., advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, and business relations). Commercial interactions fall within the certain method of organizing human activity enumerated grouping of abstract ideas. The limitations outlined above also describe or set forth a fundamental economic principle or practice because commercial interactions are related to commerce and economy. The limitations outlined above also describe or set forth the managing of personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (e.g., between a help center agent and a user). Therefore, the claim recites a certain method of organizing human activity (Step 2A Prong One, Yes).
The limitations outlined above that describe or set forth the abstract idea are also considered mathematical concepts because the above limitations generate a narrative summarizing the one or more intents and a confidence score corresponding to a probability indicating whether the one or more intents are expressed in the interaction transcript; determine based on the confidence score satisfying a threshold, that the narrative conforms with one or more fluency and completeness rules; write/indicate the narrative as a user intent of the current user utterance when the confidence score satisfies the threshold and when the narrative conforms with the one or more fluency and completeness rules; converting the user intent into a user intent embedding, wherein the user intent embedding comprises a numerical vector having one or more dimensions representing at least one of syntactic features, semantic features, or sentiment of the user intent; and identify one or more stored intent embeddings based on a similarity with the user intent embedding. These limitations are similar to “organizing information and manipulating information through mathematical correlations” which was determined to be a mathematical concept in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II). Therefore, the claim recites a mathematical concept (Step 2A Prong One, Yes).
Step 2A Prong Two:
In Step 2A Prong Two, the additional element(s) outlined above are recited at a high level of generality, and under the broadest reasonable interpretation, are generic computer(s) and/or generic computer component(s) that perform generic computer functions. The additional element(s) are merely used as tools, in their ordinary capacity, to perform the abstract idea. The additional element(s) amount adding the words “apply it” with the judicial exception. Merely implementing an abstract idea on generic computer(s) and/or generic computer component(s) does not integrate the judicial exception similar to how the recitation of the computer in the claim in Alice amounted to mere instructions to apply the abstract idea of intermediated settlement on a generic computer. The Examiner notes that “the use of generic computer elements like a microprocessor or user interface do not alone transform an otherwise abstract idea into patent eligible subject matter" (see pp 10-11 of FairWarning IP, LLC. v. Iatric Systems, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2016)). The additional element(s) “providing a current user utterance from a customer to an intent engine” and “output, by the intent engine” also amount(s) to adding insignificant extra-solution activity. The additional elements also amount to generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment or field of use (e.g., in a computer environment). The courts have found that simply limiting the use of the abstract idea to a particular environment does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Viewing the limitations as an ordered combination does not add anything further than looking at the limitations individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer, improves any other technology or technical field, applies or uses the judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for disease or medical condition, applies the judicial exception with, or by use of a particular machine, effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or 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, such that the claims as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. Their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation (Step 2A Prong Two, No).
Step 2B:
In Step 2B, the additional elements of “providing a current user utterance from a customer to an intent engine” and “output, by the intent engine” amount to receiving or transmitting data over a network which is well-understood, routine, and conventional activity as evidenced by at least MPEP 2106.05(d)(II) (e.g., receiving or transmitting data over a network, using the Internet to gather data, using an intermediary computer to forward information, sending messages over a network, computer receives and sends information over a network). With regard to the remaining additional elements, they also do not amount to significantly more for the same reasons set forth with respect to Step 2A Prong Two. The Examiner notes that revised Step 2A overlaps with Step 2B, and thus, many of the considerations need not be reevaluated in Step 2B because the answer will be the same. Viewing the limitations as an ordered combination does not add anything further than looking at the limitations individually. Their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation (Step 2B, No).
Claim(s) 11-12, 14-15, 23-27, and 33 recite further limitations that also fall within the same abstract ideas identified above with respect to claim 8 (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activities and/or mental processes).
Claim 11 recites the additional element “the prompt further comprises.” Claim 12 recites the additional element “in the prompt.” Claim 14 recites the additional element “wherein the GenAI model is a pre-trained large language model fine-tuned.” Claim 15 recites the additional element “wherein the intent engine comprises a large language model trained to.” Claim 23 recites the additional element “by the GenAI model.” Claim 25 recites the additional elements “by the embedding language model” and “by the embedding language model.” Claim 27 recites the additional element “hyperparameters of the large language model.” However, these additional elements also do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more because they amount to adding the words “apply it” with the judicial exception, mere instructions to implement the idea on a computer, merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, and generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
Claims 24, 26, and 33 do not recite any other additional elements. Therefore, for the same reasons explained above with respect to claim 8, claims 24, 26, and 33 also do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more.
Claim 16 recites (additional elements underlined):
A processing system for providing resolution guidance to a help center agent, comprising:
a historical interactions datastore having a corpus of historical interactions stored therein;
a knowledge datastore having a corpus of domain-specific documentation stored therein;
a memory comprising computer-executable instructions; and
one or more processors configured to execute the computer-executable instructions and cause the processing system to:
provide a current user utterance from a customer to an intent engine;
detect, by the intent engine, one or more intents from an interaction transcript associated with the current user utterance;
generate, by the intent engine, a narrative summarizing the one or more intents and a confidence score corresponding to a probability indicating whether the one or more intents are expressed in the interaction transcript;
determine, by the intent engine and based on the confidence score satisfying a threshold, that the narrative conforms with one or more fluency and completeness rules;
output2, by the intent engine, the narrative as a user intent of the current user utterance when the confidence score satisfies the threshold and when the narrative conforms with the one or more fluency and completeness rules;
convert, by an embedding language model, the user intent into a user intent embedding, wherein the user intent embedding comprises a numerical vector having one or more dimensions representing at least one of syntactic features, semantic features, or sentiment of the user intent;
identify one or more stored intent embeddings based on a similarity with the user intent embedding;
generate, by a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) model, one or more suggested resolutions in response to the current user utterance, wherein the GenAI model generates the one or more suggested resolutions using a prompt comprising the current user utterance, historical interactions related to the one or more stored intent embeddings selected from the corpus of historical interactions, and domain-specific documentation associated with the one or more stored intent embeddings; and
provide, to the help center agent, the one or more suggested resolutions.
For the same reasons explained above with respect to claim 8, claim 16 also recite an abstract idea in Step 2A Prong One. For the same reasons explained above with respect to claim 8, claim 16 also does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more.
Claim(s) 18-19, 21-22, 29-32 recite further limitations that also fall within the same abstract ideas identified above with respect to claim 16 (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activities and/or mental processes).
Claim 18 recites the additional element “wherein the prompt further includes.” Claim 19 recites the additional elements “wherein the one or more processors further causes the processing system to” and “in the prompt.” Claim 21 recites the additional element “wherein the GenAI model is a pre-trained large language model fine-tuned.” Claim 22 recites the additional element “wherein the intent engine comprises a large language model trained to.” Claim 29 recites the additional elements “the one or more processors further cause the processing system to,” “by the embedding language model,” and “by the embedding language model.” Claim 30 recites the additional elements “wherein the one or more processors further causes the processing system to.” Claim 31 recites the additional elements “wherein the one or more processors further cause the processing system to” and “hyperparameters of the large language model.” Claim 32 recites the additional elements “the one or more processors further cause the processing system to” and “by the GenAI model.” However, these additional elements also do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more because they amount to adding the words “apply it” with the judicial exception, mere instructions to implement the idea on a computer, merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, and generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
Prior Art
The Examiner notes after a thorough search on the claims as currently amended, the claims are found to recite novel and non-obvious subject matter. The closest prior art found to date are the following:
a. Ghoche et al. (US 2024/0386213 A1) discloses an autonomous customer support Chatbot Agent which utilizes a large language model to aid in implementing a workflow to solve a customer issue. A natural language workflow policy may be selected by an admin, along with tools such as API calls. The large language model determines the implementation details for the workflow based on the workflow policy and the selected tools.
b. Haikin et al. (US 2025/0165720 A1) discloses a method in a contact center for generating insights from conversation data derived from interactions and storing the insights in an index. The method may include: determining an insight type; based on the insight type, determining inputs including a question prompt, answer prefix, and relevant portion of the conversation data; inputting the inputs into a LLM configured to receive the inputs and generate output text answering a question contained in the question prompt pursuant to an answer form suggested by the answer prefix given content contained in the relevant portion of the conversation data; generating the output text via operation of the LLM; transforming the output text of the first insight via a sentence transformer into vector embedding representative of a semantic meaning of the output text; and storing the computed vector embedding of the first insight in the index.
c. Patil et al. (US 2025/0278688 A1) discloses a system and method for automatically generating evaluation forms from interaction recordings comprising: identifying one or more interaction intents from an interaction transcript; generating one or more evaluation categories for the one or more interaction intents using machine learning; generating evaluation questions for the one or more evaluation categories using machine learning; and providing an evaluation form based on the evaluation questions.
While the prior art teach some of the limitations of the claimed invention, they do not appear to teach the following limitations in the context of the claimed invention when viewed as a whole: “determining, by the intent engine and based on the confidence score satisfying a threshold, that the narrative conforms with one or more fluency and completeness rules; outputting, by the intent engine, the narrative as a user intent of the current user utterance when the confidence score satisfies the threshold and when the narrative conforms with the one or more fluency and completeness rules; converting, by an embedding language model, the user intent into a user intent embedding, wherein the user intent embedding comprises a numerical vector having one or more dimensions representing at least one of syntactic features, semantic features, or sentiment of the user intent; identifying one or more stored intent embeddings based on a similarity with the user intent embedding; generating, by a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) model, one or more suggested resolutions in response to the current user utterance, wherein the GenAI model generates the one or more suggested resolutions using a prompt comprising the current user utterance, historical interactions related to the one or more stored intent embeddings selected from a corpus of historical interactions, and domain-specific documentation associated with the one or more stored intent embeddings” as recited in claims 8 and 16. Additionally, while the prior art teach some of the elements of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would not have arrived at Applicant’s claimed invention unless one was using Applicant’s claims and specification as a roadmap, thus using impermissible hindsight.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 08/03/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. In the remarks, Applicant argues:
Argument: “Here the Office Action has not identified any specific limitations in the claims that recite the alleged abstract idea.”
In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. The Office action clearly identifies the specific limitations that describe or set forth the abstract idea in Step 2A Prong One as can be seen from at least page 4-5 which are the limitations that are not underlined.
Argument: “Applicant respectfully submits that the Office Action’s ‘mental process,’ “method of organizing human activity,’ and ‘mathematical concept’ characterizations are reached only by generalizing the identified features of independent Claims 8 and 16…. Applicant submits that the above-identified features of amended Claims 8 and 16 are patent-eligible because the claims recite operations that do not fall within any of the enumerated groupings of abstract ideas under Step 2A, Prong One.”
In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. The determination that the claims recite an abstract idea in Step 2A Prong One is based on the claim limitations. As explained above, the limitations that exclude the additional elements describe or set forth a certain method of organizing human activity, mental process, and mathematical concepts.
Argument: “Further, the Office Action’s analysis of the dependent claims similarly fails to provide articulated reasoning, clearly and specifically stating why each of the independent claims is allegedly ineligible under Section 101.”
In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. “When performing the analysis at Step 2A Prong One, it is sufficient for the examiner to provide a reasoned rationale that identifies the judicial exception recited in the claim and explains why it is considered a judicial exception (e.g., that the claim limitation(s) falls within one of the abstract idea groupings). Therefore, there is no requirement for the examiner to rely on evidence, such as publications or an affidavit or declaration under 37 CFR 1.104(d)(2), to find that a claim recites a judicial exception.” See MPEP 2106.07(a)(III). Here, the Office action identifies the limitations identifies the specific limitations that describe or set forth the abstract idea in Step 2A Prong One and explains that the limitations fall within the certain method of organizing human activities grouping because the limitations are related to a commercial interaction, can be practically performed in the human mind or by a human using pen and paper, and recite mathematical concepts.
Argument: “Applicant respectfully submits that although the independent claims each present a process that employs steps, which when considered individually may allegedly constitute mental processes, the steps, when considered as a whole, constitute a process that cannot practically be performed in the human mind, and thus is not directed to a mental process.”
In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. As explained above, the limitations outlined above that describe or set forth the abstract idea, cover performance of the limitations in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer(s) and/or generic computer component(s). That is, other than reciting the additional elements, nothing in the claim precludes the limitations from practically being performed in the mind. These limitations are considered a mental process because the limitations include an observation, evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion which is similar to “collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis” and/or “collecting and comparing known information” which were determined to be mental processes in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A).
Argument: “Under Step 2A Prong One, the claimed combination of machine level interaction transcript analysis and intent prediction, prompt-guided machine level identification of best next actions (e.g., responses) for addressing utterances, and system-level generation of suggested resolutions responsive to the utterances for use in providing resolution guidance to a help center agent cannot be "performed in the human mind" and thus do not fall within the mental processes grouping…. The Applicant respectfully submits that is not practical for a human to perform such steps, without user error, across a variety of domains and subject matter. Rather, the operations can only be reasonably completed by one or more trained AI models (e.g., a LLM, an embedding model, or a GenAI model) to provide suggested resolutions to a help center agent, that reduces the time and effort needed to train the help center agent, while providing customers with a high quality of service that is reproducible across a variety of domains and subject matter. Thus, the above features do not recite a mental process.”
In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. First, the limitations that exclude the additional elements can be practically performed in the human mind as explained above. Second, the additional elements are addressed in Steps 2A Prong Two and in Step 2B of the analysis. Third, the accelerated process of providing resolution guidance to a help center agent comes solely from the capabilities of the additional elements. “[O]ur precedent is clear that merely adding computer functionality to increase the speed or efficiency of the process does not confer patent eligibility on an otherwise abstract idea." (See p 12 of Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Financial (Fed. Cir. 2015)). Here, the additional elements are recited at a high level of generality, and are merely used as tools, in their ordinary capacity, to perform the abstract idea. “Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other task (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide significantly more” (MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)).
Argument: “Applicant respectfully submits that the additional elements of amended independent Claims 8 and 16 integrate the alleged judicial exception into a practical application.”
In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. Viewing the limitations as an ordered combination does not add anything further than looking at the limitations individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer, improves any other technology or technical field, applies or uses the judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for disease or medical condition, applies the judicial exception with, or by use of a particular machine, effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or 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, such that the claims as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. Their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation.
Argument: “Accordingly, the claimed intent engine, embedding language model, and GenAI model are additional elements that are applied in a specific manner to improve issue resolution assistance and integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.”
In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. Similar to SAP America Inc. v. Inc. v. InvestPic LLC (Fed. Cir. 2018), the advance here lies entirely in the realm of the abstract idea, with no plausible alleged innovation in the non-abstract application realm. The intent engine, embedding language model, and GenAI model are recited at a high level of generality, and amount to no more than “apply it” to the judicial exception. “[P]atents that do no more than claim the application of generic machine learning to new data environments, without disclosing improvements to the machine learning models to be applied, are patent ineligible under § 101” (p. 18 of Recentive Analytics Inc. v. Fox Corp. (Fed. Cir. 2025)).
Argument: “Again, the Office Action fails to evaluate the identified "additional elements" individually and in combination. Accordingly, no prima facie case for ineligibility has been made against any claim under Step 2B. For at least this reason, Applicant requests withdrawal of the rejections of the claims under Section 101….In particular, a claim may be deemed patent-eligible if it "adds a specific limitation or combination of limitations that are not well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field, which is indicative that an inventive concept may be present." MPEP § 2106.05(d). The Applicant asserts that amended independent Claims 8 and 16 satisfy these conditions because amended independent Claims 8 and 16 recite significantly more than the alleged abstract idea. For example, amended independent Claims 8 and 16 recite: "[generating /generate], by the intent engine, a narrative summarizing the one or more intents and a confidence score corresponding to a probability indicating whether the one or more intents are expressed in the interaction transcript;" "[determining / determine], by the intent engine and based on the confidence score satisfying a threshold, that the narrative conforms with one or more fluency and completeness rules;" "[outputting / output], by the intent engine, the narrative as a user intent of the current user utterance when the confidence score satisfies the threshold and when the narrative conforms with the one or more fluency and completeness rules." (emphasis added). Thus, the Applicant respectfully contends that the above features recite significantly more than the abstract idea and provide an inventive concept.”
In response, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. As explained above, viewing the limitations as an ordered combination does not add anything further than looking at the limitations individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer, improves any other technology or technical field, applies or uses the judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for disease or medical condition, applies the judicial exception with, or by use of a particular machine, effects a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or 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, such that the claims as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. Their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation.
With regard to Step 2B, the Examiner notes that revised Step 2A overlaps with Step 2B, and thus, many of the considerations need not be reevaluated in Step 2B because the answer will be the same. In Step 2B, the Office action provides the required Berkhimer evidence for the additional elements that amount to adding insignificant extra-solution activity in Prong Two.
With regard to the argument that the above limitations are not well-understood, routine, and conventional activity in the field, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. "[T]he relevant inquiry is not whether the claimed invention as a whole is unconventional or non-routine" (see p. 16 of BSG Tech LLC v. BuySeasons, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2018).
Therefore, the claims as currently amended still do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application or amount to significantly more.
Conclusion
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/SAM REFAI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3621
1 The Examiner notes that “outputting” could also fall within the abstract idea under the broadest reasonable interpretation.
2 The Examiner notes that “output” could also fall within the abstract idea under the broadest reasonable interpretation.
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