DETAILED ACTION
This Final Office Action is in response Applicant communication filed on
2/21/2026. In Applicant’s amendment, claims 1-18 are cancelled. Claims 19 and 20 are new. Claims 19 and 20 are currently pending and have been rejected as follows.
Response to Amendments
Rejections under 35 USC 112(b) are withdrawn. Rejections under 35 USC 101 are maintained. Rejections under 35 USC 103 are withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s 35 USC 101 rebuttal arguments and amendments have been fully considered but they are not persuasive to overcome the rejection.
Applicant argues on p. 11-12 that claims 19 and 20 require certain hardware to be performed and are therefore patent eligible. Examiner respectfully disagrees. Requiring the use of certain hardware to perform the claimed steps does not automatically make claims reciting an abstract idea patent eligible without a technological improvement or an inventive concept. An updated rejection for the new claims is provided below.
Examiner conducted a thorough search of the body of available prior art (see attached documents regards PTO-892 Notice of Reference Cited and PE2E search History). Notably, Examiner discovered patent literature documents that most closely taught aspects of the invention, but no single disclosure taught “every element required by the claims under its broadest reasonable interpretation” [MPEP 2131] to make a 35 USC 102 rejection of claims 19 and 20. Further, Examiner considered the individual elements of the recited claims taught across the prior art, but did not find it obvious to combine such disclosures [MPEP 2142] to make a 35 USC 103 rejection.
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 19 and 20 are clearly drawn to at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter recited in 35 U.S.C. 101 (method). Claims 19 and 20 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 natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without integrating the abstract idea into a practical application or amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Regarding Step 1 of the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (‘2019 PEG”), Claims 19 and 20 are directed toward the statutory category of a process (reciting a “method”).
Regarding Step 2A, prong 1 of the 2019 PEG, Claim 19 is directed to an abstract idea by reciting … said enhanced net promoter score survey comprising:
providing each respondent of a plurality of respondents with a set of
questions relating to recommendations or positive feedback given to
others, positive feedback received from others, negative feedback
given to other, the number of people to whom such negative feedback
was given, and negative feedback or communication received from
others by the respondent, said questions comprising:
a question 1 comprising "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are
you to recommend [company/product/service] to a friend or
colleague?" wherein each respondent of the plurality of
respondents answers in the form of an integer from 0 to 10,
said integer composing an NPS score associated with said
respondent of the plurality of respondents;
a question 2 comprising "Please tell us why" wherein each
respondent of the plurality of respondents answers in the form
of written text;
a question 3 comprising "Have you given positive feedback
and referred [company/product/service] to someone in the past
"Y" months?" wherein Y is a number, and each respondent of the plurality of respondents answers in the form of a yes or no
response;
a question 4 comprising "Have any of your friends / family /
colleagues said positive words to you and referred
[company/product/service] to you in the past "Y" months"
wherein Y is a number, and each respondent of the plurality of
respondents answers in the form of a yes or no response;
a question 5 comprising "Have you spoken negatively or
discouraged someone from buying [company/product/service]
in the past "Y" months" wherein Y is a number, and each
respondent of the plurality of respondents answers in the form
of a yes or no response;
a question 6 comprising "if yes to question 5, how many people
did you give negative feedback / discouraged?" wherein each
respondent of the plurality of respondents answers in the form
of an integer;
a question 7 comprising "Has anyone in the past "Y" months,
spoken negatively or discouraged you about
[company/product/servicel]. wherein Y is a number, and each
respondent of the plurality of respondents answers in the form
of a yes or no response; […]. the plurality of respondents providing the … with
answers to the set of questions utilizing the …, said answers forming a
response of the plurality of responses; […]from the plurality of responses, the […] assesses
the NPS rating provided by the plurality of respondents, to classify each respondent of the plurality of respondents into one of the three
categories promoter, passive, or detractor, using the following steps:
the […] takes the NPS score of each
respondent of the plurality of respondents;
the […] labels each respondent based on the
value of said respondent's NPS score under the following
criteria:
if the respondent's NPS score is 9 or 10, then said
respondent is a promoter;
if the respondent's NPS score is 7 or 8, then said
respondent is a passive;
if the respondent's NPS score is 6 or lower, then said
respondent is a detractor; […] the […] counts the total number of promoters,
passives, and detractors as stored in the data storage unit, and saves the
total number of promoters, passives, and detractors in the […];
the […] calculates a net promoter score by
subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of
promoters as stored in the data storage unit;
the […] assessing a referral disposition index to
describe a respondent disposition to positively refer and influence a
purchase or negatively refer and discourage the purchase of a product
using the following steps:
the […] defines a plurality of variables
comprising:
total number of respondents (R);
total number of promoters (PR);
total number of passives (PA);
total number of detractors (DE);
total respondents who gave positive reference (RPT);
total promoters who gave positive reference (PPT);
total respondents who received positive reference
(RPF);
total respondents who discouraged or gave negative
reference (RDT);
total detractors who gave negative reference (DNT);
total people discouraged (TPD);
total respondents who received negative reference
(RDF);
the […] initially sets the value of each variable of
the plurality of variables to 0;
for each response of the plurality of responses, the data processing
module performs the following steps:
add 1 to R;
if the respondent who gave the present response is determined
to be a promoter, then the […] performs the
following steps in regard to the present response:
if the response to the question 3 is yes, add 1 to RPT
and add 1 to PPT;
if the response to the question 4 is yes, add 1 to RPF;
if the response to the question 5 is yes, add 1 to RDT;
if the response to the question 5 is yes, add the value
given as response to the question 6 to TPD;
if the response to the question 7 is yes, add 1 to RDF;
if the respondent who gave the present response is determined
to be a passive, then the data processing module performs the
following steps:
if the response to the question 3 is yes, add 1 to RPT;
if the response to the question 4 is yes, add 1 to RPF;
if the response to the question 5 is yes, add 1 to RDT;
if the response to the question 5 is yes, add the value
given as response to the question 6 to TPD;
if the response to the question 7 is yes, add 1 to RDF;
if the respondent who gave the present response is determined
to be a detractor, then the data processing module performs the
following steps:
if the response to the question 3 is yes, add 1 to RPT;
if the response to the question 4 is yes, add 1 to RPF;
if the response to the question 5 is yes, add 1 to RDT
and add 1 to DNT;
if the response to the question 5 is yes, add the value
given as response to the question 6 to TPD;
if the response to the question 7 is yes, add 1 to RDF;
the […] evaluates a referral impact using the
following steps:
multiply the percentage of respondents who positively referred
to the product to others with the percentage of respondents who
received a positive reference of the product from others using
an equation 1 comprising the following formula:
referral impact (RI) = (RPT / * (RPF / R);
the […] calculates a number of referrals per
customer acquisition by taking the inverse of the referral impact using
an equation 2 comprising the following formula:
referrals per customer acquisition (RPCA) = (1/RI);
the […] calculates a referral impact of promoters
by multiplying the referral impact with the percentage of promotors
who positively referred the product to others using an equation 3
comprising the following formula:
referral impact of promoters (PRI) = RI * (PPT/R);
the […] calculates a number of promoter referrals
per customer acquisition by taking the inverse of the referral impact of
promoters using an equation 4 comprising the following formula:
promoter referrals per customer acquisition (PRCA) = (1/PRI);
the […] determines an average number of people
discouraged using the following step:
dividing total number of people who were discouraged or
received a negative reference of the product from the
respondents by the total number of respondents using an
equation 5 comprising the following formula:
average number of people discouraged (APD) = (TPD /
R);
the […] calculates a discouragement impact by
multiplying percentage of respondents who discouraged others from
purchasing the product with the percentage of respondents who
received negative references of the product from others multiplied by
the average number of people discouraged, using an equation 6
comprising the following formula:
discouragement impact (DI) = ((RDT / * (RDF / * APD);
the […] calculates a number of discouragements
per customer churn as the inverse of the discouragement impact using
an equation 7 comprising the following formula:
discouragements per customer churn (DCC) = (1/DI);
the […] calculates a discouragement impact of
detractors by multiplying the discouragement impact by the percentage
of detractors who gave a negative reference of the products to others,
using an equation 8 comprising the following formula:
discouragement impact of detractors (DDI) - (DI * (DNT /
the […] calculates a detractor discouragements per
customer churn by calculating the number of detractors leading to 1
lost customer, using an equation 9 comprising the following formula:
detractor discouragements per customer churn (DDCC) =
(1/DDI);
the […] computes a net addition to customer base
by dividing the total number of promoters by the number of promoter
referrals per customer acquisition, then subtracting the total number of
detractors divided by the number of detractor discouragements per
customer churn, using an equation 10 comprising the following
formula:
net additional to customer base (NACB) = (PR / PRCA) - (DE
/ DDCC);
the […] then divides the net addition to the
customer base by the total number of respondents to determine the net
addition as a percentage of the existing customer base, using an
equation 11 comprising the following formula:
net addition as a percentage of existing customer base
(NAPCB) = (NACB / R); […].
The claims are considered abstract because these steps recite certain methods of organizing human activity like including commercial interactions; mathematical concepts including mathematical calculations; and mental processes. The claims recite steps for surveying customers about recommendations, classifying the customers according to their answers, and estimating the effect of customer referrals and discouragements on customer acquisition and churn. It is understood that the claimed steps aim to increase the level of granularity in business metrics at a customer level and understanding of customer behavior and acquisition dynamics (Applicant’s Specification, [0010]). By this evidence, the claims recite a type of certain methods of organizing human activity like including commercial interactions; mathematical concepts including mathematical calculations; and mental processes common to judicial exception to patent-eligibility. By preponderance, the claims recite an abstract idea (e.g., a “method” for determining the effect of promoters and detractors on net customer churn and acquisition).
Regarding Step 2A, prong 2 of the 2019 PEG, the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims (the judicial exception and the additional elements such as a data acquisition module receiving a plurality of responses for an enhanced
net promoter score survey utilizing an I/O device interface, a network
interface, a plurality of data sources, and a one or more hardware processors; the data acquisition module transferring the plurality of responses to a data
processing module, utilizing an interconnect;
the data processing module converting the plurality of responses, utilizing the
one or more hardware processors to perform the following steps: the data processing module stores each respondent and said
respondent's label in a data storage unit; wherein: the data acquisition module and the data processing module are stored in a memory; the memory is communicatively coupled to each processor of the one or more hardware processors; the data storage unit is a non-volatile data storage; the one or more hardware processors comprising a CPU; the data storage unit is configured to store the enhanced NPS survey responses and the plurality of data sources; the memory is random-access memory; the data acquisition module and the data processing module are in the form of programmable instructions executable by the at least one hardware processor; the data acquisition module being configured to conduct the enhanced net promoter score survey; the data acquisition module being configured to collect and capture data from survey responses utilizing the I/O device interface, and to record and store said data for further analysis and evaluation in the data storage unit; the data acquisition module being configured to store data in the data storage unit; the data processing module being configured to perform computational tasks and calculations, and the data processing module being configured to store intermediate data and results of said computational tasks and calculations; the data processing module being configured to receive data from the data acquisition module; the data processing module being configured to store data in the data storage unit; the I/O interface being configured to connect with one or more external devices, allowing said external devices to send and receive data and instructions to the I/O interface; the interconnect is configured to move data, such as programming instructions, between the CPU, the I/O device interface, the data storage unit, the network interface, and the memory; a network interface is configured to send and receive data with a network; the interconnect comprises one or more buses) are not an improvement to a computer or a technology, the claims do not apply the judicial exception with a particular machine, the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing nor do the claims apply 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 (see MPEP §§ 2106.05(a-c, e)).
The additional elements recite computer components described at a functional level to improve a business metric rather than improve a computer or a technology. The limitations directed to providing the survey questions, respondents supplying answers, the acquisition module receiving and capturing answers through I/O and network interfaces is insignificant extra solution activity because it is mere data gathering for the abstract analysis.
Dependent claim 20 does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the limitations recite mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea ‐ see MPEP 2106.05(f).
Regarding Step 2B of the 2019 PEG, the additional elements have been considered above in Step 2A Prong 2. The claim limitations do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they are directed to limitations referenced in MPEP 2106.05I.A. that are not enough to qualify as significantly more when recited in a claim with an abstract idea because the limitations recite mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea ‐ see MPEP
2106.05(f). The claimed processors, memory, storage, I/O interface, interconnect/buses, acquisition module, processing module, data transfer, and storage all operate to perform their ordinary functions.
Applicant's claims mimic conventional, routine, and generic computing by their similarity to other concepts already deemed routine, generic, and conventional [Berkheimer Memorandum, Page 4, item 2] by the following [MPEP § 2106.05(d) Part (II)]. The claims recite steps like: “Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data,” Symantec and “Performing repetitive calculations,” Flook. (citations omitted), by performing steps to acquire information, transmit the information, classify the information, count categories, apply formulas, and store results.
By the above, the claimed computing “call[s] for performance of the claimed information collection, analysis, and display functions ‘on a set of generic computer components' and display devices” [Elec. Power Group, 830 F.3d at 1355] operating in a “normal, expected manner” [DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d at 1245, 1258 (Fed. Cir. 2014)].
Conclusively, Applicant's invention is patent-ineligible. When viewed both individually and as a whole, Claims 19 and 20 are directed toward an abstract idea without integration into a practical application and lacking an inventive concept.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2017/0140467 A1: A computer system for remote interactive graphical display and data management includes a data storage device storing data records, a remote data acquisition computer configured to selectively trigger display actions for the data records based on at least a time-based rule and a time-independent rule; a classification engine configured to classify a response received from a remote display interface having user-selectable options arranged to define a scale of values, in one of two categories, a first category and a second category, being below a first threshold value being classified as being in the first category, and responses on the scale above a second threshold value being in the second category, and a display interface generator configured to selectively generate a supplemental interface or a conclusion message dependent on the category.
WO 2019/118927 A3: Systems and methods for processing queries against a large database of transactions. Initial queries are processed by lead analysis engines, but processing continues; the output of the lead analysis engine provides context, and aids in selecting a further-processing module. Multiple results, from multiple further-processing modules, are displayed in a ranked list (or equivalent). The availability of multiple directions of further analysis helps the user to develop an intuition for what trends and drivers might drive the numbers. Most preferably the resulting information is used to select one or more objects in an immersive environment. The selections are visualized and displayed with other results. Some analysis modules also process exogenous nontransactional data for use in combination with transactional data. The customer data will often be high-level, e.g. demographics by zip code, but this link to exogenous data permits linking to very detailed customer data results if available
Tong et al., The research of customer loyalty improvement in telecom industry based on NPS data mining, 2017: In recent years, the telecommunications have used the concept of NPS (Net Promoter Score) for customer relationship management, but there is neither definite theory research nor instructive instance research. However, this paper summarizes an approach with instance case analysis to improve customer loyalty via NPS data mining, which has extensive and practical significance for tele-companies. First, this paper finds some driven forces of customer loyalty, which are relative to customer consumption such as the call duration, the usage of data, ARPU, etc., by using some innovative reasoning-analysis based on IG (Information Gain) and xg-boost decision-making tree model, so the tele-companies can predict the role of individual customer and form daily monitoring on big data, which will save a lot of NPS survey cost. Second, this paper summarizes how customer group feature impacts the relationship between NPS and financial performance. Taking ARPU value as the performance goals, we divide the sample customers into 6 groups and summarize their characteristics based on k-means clustering, and give targeted suggestion of each group.
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 extension fee 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 MOHAMED EL-BATHY whose telephone number is (571)270-5847. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8AM-4:30PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, PATRICIA MUNSON can be reached on (571) 270-5396. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MOHAMED N EL-BATHY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624
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