1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
2. This Non-Final Office action is in response to the application filed on July 23rd, 2024. Claims 1-13 are pending.
Priority
3. Application 18/781,045 was filed on July 23rd, 2024. Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed on March 17th, 2022. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the PCT/JP2022/012336 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Examiner Request
4. The Applicant is requested to indicate where in the specification there is support for amendments to claims should Applicant amend. The purpose of this is to reduce potential 35 U.S.C. §112(a) or §112 1st paragraph issues that can arise when claims are amended without support in the specification. The Examiner thanks the Applicant in advance.
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.
5. Claims 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. Claims 1-13 are directed to a system, method, or product which are/is one of the statutory categories of invention. (Step 1: YES).
Claims 1, 12, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim recites allocating and sharing transportation costs among transaction participants. Claims 1, 12 and 13 the limitations of (Claim 1 being representative) recites:
[…]
when a listing item that requires transportation has been listed by a seller, to disclose transportation condition information indicating a condition of the transportation of the listing item, […];
to receive from a transportation service provider, transportation bid price information indicating a transportation bid price which is a bid price for a transportation cost of the listing item, […]; and
to transmit to the seller, bid notification information that notifies of a burden transportation bid price which is a price obtained by multiplying the transportation bid price by a burden rate of the seller decided based on a burden rate of the transportation cost of the seller desired by the seller and a burden rate of the transportation cost of the seller desired by a bidder of the listing item, […].
These limitations as drafted are processes that, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, covers certain methods of organizing human activity (i.e., a fundamental economic practice and commercial or legal interactions) but for recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than reciting processing circuitry (Claim 1), using a communication network (Claims 1, 12, and 13) and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a transaction support program for causing a computer to execute (Claim 13), the claimed invention amounts to publishing the transport conditions for a listed item, collecting transport price bids from providers, computing the seller’s share of transport cost using a burden-split derived from the seller’s and item-bidder’s preferences, and notifying the seller of that computed “burden” price, i.e. allocating and sharing transportation costs among transaction participants. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers a fundamental economic practice and commercial or legal interactions but for the recitation of generic computer components (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II)), then it falls within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, Claims 1, 12, and 13 recite an abstract idea. (Step 2A- Prong 1: YES. The claims recite an abstract idea).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The additional elements that are recited are a processing resource, a non-transient memory and an agent stored in the non- transient memory, the plural components including at least a keyboard having plural keys and a liquid detection sensor, and interfaced through a network (claim 1) and stored in non-transitory memory of each distributed information handling system and executing on a processing resource of each distributed information handling system (claim 11). These additional elements are not described by the applicant and are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., generic computer components performing generic computer functions) such that they amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer components. 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. Claims 1, 12, and 13 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).
Claims 1 and 11 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more (also known as an “inventive concept”) than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements recited above to perform the noted steps amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept (“significantly more”). Accordingly, even when considered separately and as an ordered combination, nothing in the claim adds significantly more (i.e. an inventive concept) to the abstract idea. Thus claims 1, 12, and 13 are not patent eligible. (Step 2B: NO. The claims do not provide significantly more).
Dependent claims 2-11 are similarly rejected because they merely further narrow the same abstract idea of independent claim 1 and/or do not further limit the claim to a practical application or provide as inventive concept such that the claims are subject matter eligible even when considered individually or as an ordered combination. Claim 2 merely describes notifying the seller of the transport cost split and the buyer’s offered purchase price. Claim 3 merely describes per-bidder transport-bid workflows so the seller can see matched purchase and transport bids per bidder. Claim 4 merely describes collecting transport price offers from many providers and showing the seller multiple computed transport prices. Claim 5 merely describes publishing eligibility criteria for transport providers and filtering/accepting bids only from providers that meet the stated capability requirement. Claim 6 merely describes bundled, end-to-end service bids (remove, move, install) and treating the price as a single combined transportation cost. Claim 7 merely describes publishing distinct skill/qualification requirements per task and only accepts bids from providers that meet all applicable task-specific requirements. Claim 8 merely describes calculating a reference price for the transportation cost and disclosing transportation condition information together with that reference price. Claim 9 merely describes providing a breakdown of expected costs for each task (remove, transport, install), not just a single aggregate estimate. Claim 10 merely describes pulling equipment-condition data from a monitoring system, auto-generating an item listing that reflects that condition, and publishes it. Claim 11 merely describes estimating the item’s sale price (independent of transport) and showing that estimate in the published item listing.
Therefore the dependent claims 2-11 are merely reciting further embellishments of the abstract idea and do not amount to anything that is significantly more than the abstract idea itself. In other words, none of the dependent claims recite an improvement to a technology or technical field or provide any meaningful limitations that, in an ordered combination provide “significantly more” or providing any integration into a practical application. Rather, the dependent claims are merely further reciting features that are just as abstract as independent claims 1, 12, and 13. Therefore, Claims 1-13 are directed to non-statutory subject matter and are rejected as ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Subject Matter Distinguished from Prior Art
6. The cited prior art of record fails to expressly teach or suggest, either alone or in combination, the features found within the independent claim.
Thomas et al. (US2002/0116318) discloses an electronic market for transportation and shipping services in which a shipper lists transportation conditions and transportation service providers submit transportation bid prices. It further teaches receiving these transportation bids and notifying users of the bid results.
Ghani et al. (US7,752,119) discloses online auction transactions and notes that shipping costs may be paid by the buyer, seller or split.
JP 7588424 teaches a sales-support system that calculates transportation cost components associated with delivery of a movable item, including portions borne by a seller and by a buyer.
In particular, the cited prior art of record fails to expressly teach or suggest all of the features in the independent claims and more specifically the limitations of: transmit to the seller, bid notification information that notifies of a burden transportation bid price which is a price obtained by multiplying the transportation bid price by a burden rate of the seller decided based on a burden rate of the transportation cost of the seller desired by the seller and a burden rate of the transportation cost of the seller desired by a bidder of the listing item, using the communication network in combination with the other claim limitations. In other words, no reference teaches, and no combination of the cited references suggests, modifying a transportation provider bid price according to a burden allocation mechanism that is jointly dependent on both seller-side and buyer-side burden preferences. The prior art neither anticipates nor renders obvious the subject matter of the independent claims.
Conclusion
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JESSICA LEMIEUX whose telephone number is (571)270-3445. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7AM-3PM.
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/JESSICA LEMIEUX/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3626