CTNF 18/789,614 CTNF 87283 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on 07/30/2024 and 03/18/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner. Drawings The drawings filed on 07/30/2024 are accepted by the examiner. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101 07-04-01 AIA 07-04 35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows: Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 USC 101. The claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter because claims 1-5, 7-9, 11-15, 17-18, and 20 are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Claims 6, 10, 16, and 19 fail to remedy these deficiencies. The claims 1-5, 7-9, 11-15, 17-18, and 20 recite acquire a request for executing the sales data processing from a POS terminal, assign the sales data processing to another circuit board that is operating as the secondary board, output a result of the sales data processing to the POS terminal, acquiring specification information, determining one of the other circuit boards is to be assigned, determining whether one of the circuit boards has been removed, determining to acquire the specification information, managing communication, blocking communication, control to display one of the circuit boards, and managing the sale data. The claims 4-6, 10, 16-17, and 20 recite determining steps as drafted, are processes that under broadest reasonable interpretation, cover performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than reciting “a plurality of point-of-sale terminals, an edge device, a plurality of circuits boards, a primary board, a second board, the edge device includes a display and an input device, and an external server”, nothing in the claim element precludes the steps from practically being performed in the mind. For example, but for the “the plurality of point-of-sale terminals, the edge device, the plurality of circuit boards, the primary board, the second board, the edge device includes the display and the input device, and the external server” language, “determining” in the context of these claims encompasses a user manually judges one of the other circuit boards can be assigned, judges whether one of the circuit boards has been remove or added, and judges to acquire the specification information. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea. The Claims 1-5, 7-9, 11-15, 17-18, and 20 recite acquiring, assigning, outputting, managing, blocking, and controlling steps as drafted, are processes that under broadest reasonable interpretation, cover performance of managing personal behavior, but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than reciting “the plurality of point-of-sale terminals, the edge device, the plurality of circuit boards, the primary board, the second board, the edge device includes the display and the input device, and the external server”, nothing in the claim element precludes the steps from practically being performed by organizing human activity. For example, but for the “the plurality of point-of-sale terminals, the edge device, the plurality of circuit boards, the primary board, the second board, the edge device includes the display and the input device, and the external server” in the context of these claims encompasses a person manually executes the sale data processing, assigns another circuit board to execute the sale data, outputs a result of the sale data execution, manages/blocks communication, represents/displays which one of the circuits boards can be selected and specifications of the circuits boards on a board/screen/paper, and manages the sale data. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation by managing personal behavior but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because acquiring steps are recited at a high level of generality (i.e., as a general means of receiving specification information step) and amounts to mere data gathering, which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims as a whole merely describe how to generally “apply” the concept of acquiring, assigning, outputting, determining, managing, blocking, and controlling in a computer environment. The claimed computer components such as the plurality of point-of-sale terminals, the edge device, the plurality of circuit boards, the primary board, the second board, the edge device includes the display and the input device, and the external server are recited at a high level of generality and are merely invoked as tools to perform acquiring, assigning, outputting, determining, managing, blocking, and controlling steps. Simply implementing the abstract idea on a generic computer is not a practical application of the abstract idea. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims 1-5, 7-9, 11-15, 17-18, and 20 are directed to an abstract idea. The claims 1-5, 7-9, 11-15, 17-18, and 20 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of using the plurality of point-of-sale terminals, the edge device, the plurality of circuit boards, the primary board, the second board, the edge device includes the display and the input device, and the external server to perform acquiring, assigning, outputting, determining, managing, blocking, and controlling steps amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. Therefore, the claim does not amount to significantly more than the recited abstract idea (Step 2B: NO) . The claims 1-5, 7-9, 11-15, 17-18, and 20 are not patent eligible. Claims 6, 10, 16, and 19 disclose insignificant helpful content to further describe content, such as the circuit board is connect to the store network and the circuit boards are daisy chained, which are merely descriptive content to further limit the abstract idea but not make it less abstract. Thus, the claims 6, 10, 16, and 19 are directed to an abstract idea. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because descriptive content in claims 6, 10, 16, and 19 further limit the abstract idea but not make it less abstract. Thus, the claims 6, 10, 16, and 19 are directed to an abstract idea. There are no additional claim element limitations recited in the claims 6, 10, 16, and 19. Therefore, the claim does not amount to significantly more than the recited abstract idea (Step 2B: NO) . The claims 6, 10, 16, and 19 are not patent eligible. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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 35 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. 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 1, 4-6, 8, 9, 11, 14-16, 18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0149833 to Ringe et al., in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0003826 to Parker et al . With regard to claims 1, 11, and 20 , Ringe discloses a store system comprising: a plurality of terminals each installed at a location (fig. 1, paragraphs 44-45, Within the interconnect 40 , a number of internal nodes 45 , 50 , 55 may be provided, which will be referred to herein as home nodes. The home nodes are arranged to receive transactions issued by the master devices and to process those transactions); and an edge device connectable to the terminals via a store network for executing sales data processing on sales data generated by the POS terminals (fig. 1, paragraphs 44-45, In the example of element 70 , this may be a downstream network which itself provides connections to multiple further slave devices. In processing those transactions, further transactions may also be issued downstream from the home nodes to connected slave devices, and for those transactions the home nodes 45 , 50 , 55 can be considered to be requester elements and the slave devices can be considered to be completer elements.), wherein the edge device includes a plurality of circuit boards, each of which can operate as a primary board or a secondary board and is configured to, when operating as the primary board (fig. 1, paragraphs 44-45 and 48, The home nodes are arranged to receive transactions issued by the master devices and to process those transactions, which may result in downstream communication with connected slave devices.): acquire a request for executing the sales data processing from a POS terminal (paragraph 54, At the time such a master device issues a transaction), assign the sales data processing to another circuit board that is operating as the secondary board (paragraph 54, for example a system address map 80 within the interconnect 40 may be used to map an address specified by the transaction to a particular completer node that is to process that transaction), and output a result of the sales data processing to the POS terminal (paragraph 6, a given completer element that is processing a given transaction in the sequence is arranged to issue a response signal to the requester element over its associated communication channel). However, Ringe does not disclose a plurality of point-of-sale (POS) terminals each installed at a store; and an edge device connectable to the POS terminals via a store network for executing sales data processing on sales data generated by the POS terminals. However, Parker teaches a plurality of point-of-sale (POS) terminals each installed at a store; and an edge device connectable to the POS terminals via a store network for executing sales data processing on sales data generated by the POS terminals (As shown, the edge cloud 4010 is co-located at an edge location, such as an access point or base station 4040 , a local processing hub 4050 , or a central office 4020 , and thus may include multiple entities, devices, and equipment instances. The layers begin at an endpoint (devices and things) layer 4100 , which accesses the edge cloud 4010 to conduct data creation, analysis, and data consumption activities. Fog computing (or “fogging”) generally refers to extensions of cloud computing to the edge of an enterprise's network or to the ability to manage transactions across the cloud/edge landscape, typically in a coordinated distributed or multi- node network. In FIG. 42 , various client endpoints 4210 (in the form of mobile devices, computers, autonomous vehicles, business computing equipment, industrial processing equipment) exchange requests and responses that are specific to the type of endpoint network aggregation. In fig. 41, it shows an endpoint (devices and things) at a retail location (i.e., a shop)., fig. 41-43, paragraphs 325, 332, 342 and 344). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Ringe to include, a plurality of point-of-sale (POS) terminals each installed at a store; and an edge device connectable to the POS terminals via a store network for executing sales data processing on sales data generated by the POS terminals, as taught in Parker, in order to virtualize entire classes of network node functions into building blocks that may be connected, or chained together (Parker, paragraph 90). With regard to claims 4 and 14 , Ringe discloses each of the circuit boards is configured to, when operating as the primary board, manage communication between the other circuit boards and the POS terminals (paragraph 32, each completer element is arranged to issue a data pull signal to the requester element when processing a transaction, to trigger the requester element to transmit to the completer element an item of data to be processed by the transaction.). With regard to claims 5 and 15 , Ringe discloses each of the circuit boards is configured to, when operating as the primary board, block communication from the POS terminals to the other circuit boards (paragraphs 32 and 39, , the predetermined signal may be a data pull signal issued by the completer element to the requester element when processing a transaction, to trigger the requester element to transmit to the completer element an item of data to be processed by the transaction. Examiner notes that communication are blocked when there is no predetermined data pull signal is triggered.). With regard to claims 6 and 16 , Ringe discloses the circuit board that is operating as the primary board is connected to the store network (paragraphs 44 and 46, Whilst in FIG. 1 each home node connects to a single slave device or network, in some implementations multiple home nodes may connect to the same slave device, or one home node could connect to multiple slave devices.). With regard to claim 9 , the combination of references discloses a communication device through which the store network is connected to an external server that manages the sales data processed by the edge device (Parker, paragraphs 325, As shown, the edge cloud 4010 is co-located at an edge location, such as an access point or base station 4040 , a local processing hub 4050 , or a central office 4020 , and thus may include multiple entities, devices, and equipment instances.). With regard to claims 10 and 19 , the combination of references discloses the circuit boards are daisy chained (Parker, paragraph 90) . 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 2-3, 7-8, 12-13, and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0149833 to Ringe et al., in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0003826 to Parker et al., and further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0325072 to Zhang et al . With regard to claims 2 and 12 , the combination of references substantially disclose the claimed invention, however, the combination of references does not disclose acquire specification information indicating specifications of the other circuit boards, and based on the acquired specification information, determine one of the other circuit boards to which the sales data processing is to be assigned. However, Zhang teaches acquire specification information indicating specifications of the other circuit boards, and based on the acquired specification information, determine one of the other circuit boards to which the sales data processing is to be assigned (the PES provider 105 may provide a selection of various different computing nodes from which a user may choose for executing programs on behalf of the user, such as with each selection having varying amounts and/or types of computing resources (e.g., size, speed and/or type of processing units; number of processing units; amount of memory and/or storage; platform configuration, such as 32-bit or 64-bit; etc.). paragraph 34). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of references to include, acquire specification information indicating specifications of the other circuit boards, and based on the acquired specification information, determine one of the other circuit boards to which the sales data processing is to be assigned, as taught in Zhang, in order to manage the associated physical computing resources (Zhang, paragraph 1). With regard to claims 3 and 13 , the combination of references substantially disclose the claimed invention, however, the combination of references does not disclose determine whether one of the circuit boards has been removed from the edge device or another circuit board has been added to the edge device, and upon determining that one of the circuit boards has been removed from the edge device or another circuit board has been added to the edge device, determine to acquire the specification information. However, Zhang teaches determine whether one of the circuit boards has been removed from the edge device or another circuit board has been added to the edge device, and upon determining that one of the circuit boards has been removed from the edge device or another circuit board has been added to the edge device, determine to acquire the specification information (The actual program execution capacity of the group may change if, for example, one or more of the computing nodes fail or otherwise become unavailable, and in at least some embodiments, the PES 105 may perform various operations to maintain the program execution capacity of the computing node group in such situations (e.g., by initiating the addition of replacement computing nodes to the group in place of the unavailable computing nodes). determining that a predicted program execution capacity value for a current or a future time (e.g., an average or otherwise expected predicted value for the time) is above the current program execution capacity for the group (e.g., by at least a specified threshold), and initiating the provisioning immediately (e.g., paragraphs 22 and 37). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of references to include, determine whether one of the circuit boards has been removed from the edge device or another circuit board has been added to the edge device, and upon determining that one of the circuit boards has been removed from the edge device or another circuit board has been added to the edge device, determine to acquire the specification information, as taught in Zhang, in order to manage the associated physical computing resources (Zhang, paragraph 1). With regard to claims 7-8 and 17-18 , the combination of references disclose the edge device includes a display and an input device (Parker, paragraphs 341 and 461, edge devices are devices presented in the network for a specific purpose (e.g., a traffic light), but may have processing and/or other capacities that may be utilized for other purposes. Such edge devices may be independent from other networked devices and may be provided with a housing having a form factor suitable for its primary purpose; yet be available for other compute tasks that do not interfere with its primary task. Edge devices include IoT devices. In some optional examples, various input/output (I/O) devices may be present within, or connected to, the IoT device 5450 . For example, a display or other output device 5484 may be included to show information), however, the combination of references does not disclose each of the circuit boards is configured to, when operating as the primary board, control the display to display a screen by which one of the circuit boards can be selected as the primary board, wherein the screen shows specifications of each of the circuit boards. However, Zhang teaches each of the circuit boards is configured to, when operating as the primary board, control the display to display a screen by which one of the circuit boards can be selected as the primary board, wherein the screen shows specifications of each of the circuit boards ( the PES provider 105 may provide a selection of various different computing nodes from which a user may choose for executing programs on behalf of the user, such as with each selection having varying amounts and/or types of computing resources (e.g., size, speed and/or type of processing units; number of processing units; amount of memory and/or storage; platform configuration, such as 32-bit or 64-bit; etc. paragraph 34). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of references to include, each of the circuit boards is configured to, when operating as the primary board, control the display to display a screen by which one of the circuit boards can be selected as the primary board, wherein the screen shows specifications of each of the circuit boards, as taught in Zhang, in order to manage the associated physical computing resources (Zhang, paragraph 1). Conclusion Please refer to form 892 for cited references. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ARIEL J YU whose telephone number is (571)270-3312. The examiner can normally be reached 11AM - 7PM (M-F). Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Obeid Fahd A can be reached on 571-270-3324. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /ARIEL J YU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 2 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 3 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 4 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 5 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 6 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 7 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 8 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 9 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 10 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 11 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 12 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 13 Art Unit: 3627 Application/Control Number: 18/789,614 Page 14 Art Unit: 3627
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