DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because figures 1 and 4-6 contain shaded gray areas, and/or lines that are not uniformly thick and well defined. See MPEP §608.02, 37 CFR 1.84 (I), and 37 CFR 1.84 (m).
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121 (d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as "amended." If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either "Replacement Sheet" or "New Sheet" pursuant to 37 CFR 1.1 21 (d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Here, under step 1 of the Alice analysis, system claims 1-10 are directed to an interface, a memory component that stores and manages data, and a computer processor coupled to the interface and the memory component, and method claims 11-20 are directed to a series of steps. Thus the claims are directed to a machine and process, respectively.
Under step 2A Prong One of the analysis, the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite implementing a research and development (R&D) risk assessment and optimization tool, including identifying, extracting, analyzing, assessing, identifying, generating, optimizing, and providing steps.
The limitations of identifying, extracting, analyzing, assessing, identifying, generating, optimizing, and providing, are a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers organizing human activity concepts, but for the recitation of generic computer components.
Specifically, the claim elements recite identifying one or more datasets relevant to a research and development tax credit for an entity; extracting data from one or more data sources, wherein the data comprises project data and human resource data related to one or more business components; analyzing the human resource data to identify employee movement data that represents headcount change, title change and team change; analyzing the project data to identify variances for the one or more datasets for each business component associated with an entity, wherein the variances relate to the headcount change, the title change, the team change, an activity change and a Qualified Research Expenditures (QRE) change; assessing risk profiles based on the variances for the one or more datasets by business component; identifying a ranked set of business components based on the variances for the one or more datasets; based on the ranked set of business components, generating a risk optimization model that learns from prior engagements and dynamically determines weights for a set of risk variance parameters comprising: requirements, risk tolerances, reserve, and business component coverage; automatically optimizing risk based on a combination of the set of risk variance parameters; and providing the optimized risk and one or more graphics representing the requirements, the risk tolerance, the reserve, and the business component coverage.
That is, other than reciting a computer processor, a memory component, an interface, and a machine learning algorithm, the claim limitations merely cover fundamental economic principles or practices, including risk analysis, thus falling within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Under Step 2A Prong Two, the eligibility analysis evaluates whether the claim as a whole integrates the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims include a computer processor, a memory component, an interface, and a machine learning algorithm. The computer processor, memory component, interface, and machine learning algorithm in the steps is recited at a high-level of generality, such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. 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. As a result, the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims 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 element of a computer processor, a memory component, an interface, and a machine learning algorithm amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept.
None of the dependent claims recite additional limitations that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Claims 2 and 3 further describe the one or more data sources and the business component. Claims 4-7 further describe the set of risk variance parameters, the requirements, the reserve, and the risk tolerances. Claims 8-10 further describe the variances. Similarly, dependent claims 12-20 recite additional details that further restrict/define the abstract idea. A more detailed abstract idea remains an abstract idea.
Under step 2B of the analysis, the claims include, inter alia, a computer processor, a memory component, an interface, and a machine learning algorithm.
As discussed with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements in the claim amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The same analysis applies here in 2B, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception on a generic computer cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B.
There isn’t any improvement to another technology or technical field, or the functioning of the computer itself. Moreover, individually, there are not any meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, i.e., implementation via a computer system. Further, taken as a combination, the limitations add nothing more than what is present when the limitations are considered individually. There is no indication that the combination provides any effect regarding the functioning of the computer or any improvement to another technology.
In addition, as discussed in paragraph 0098 of the specification, “The term “processor” encompasses all apparatus, devices, and machines for processing data, including by way of example a programmable processor, a computer, or multiple processors or computers. The apparatus can include, in addition to hardware, software code that creates an execution environment for the computer program in question, e.g., code that constitutes processor firmware, a protocol stack, a database management system, an operating system, or a combination of one or more of them.”
As such, this disclosure supports the finding that no more than a general purpose computer, performing generic computer functions, is required by the claims.
Viewed as a whole, these additional claim element(s) do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, the claim(s) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter. See Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l et al., No. 13-298 (U.S. June 19, 2014).
Conclusion
With respect to independent claims 1 and 11, none of the prior art of record, taken individually or in any combination, teach inter alia, analyze; via the computer processor, the human resource data to identify employee movement data that represents headcount change, title change and team change; analyze; via the computer processor, the project data to identify variances for the one or more datasets for each business component associated with an entity, wherein the variances relate to the headcount change, the title change, the team change, an activity change and a Qualified Research Expenditures (QRE) change; assess, via the computer processor, risk profiles based on the variances for the one or more datasets by business component; identify, via the computer processor, a ranked set of business components based on the variances for the one or more datasets; based on the ranked set of business components, generate a risk optimization model through a machine learning algorithm that learns from prior engagements and dynamically determines weights for a set of risk variance parameters comprising: requirements, risk tolerances, reserve, and business component coverage; and automatically optimize risk, via the computer processor, based on a combination of the set of risk variance parameters.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon, listed in the PTO-892, considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure, discloses risk analysis and assessment.
-Christensen et al (Top management conservatism and corporate risk strategies: Evidence from managers' personal political orientation and corporate tax avoidance) disclose how tax avoidance can serve as another measure of corporate risk taking and using political orientation as a proxy for managerial conservatism, which is an ex ante measure of a manager's propensity toward risk.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDRE D BOYCE whose telephone number is (571)272-6726. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10a-6:30p.
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/ANDRE D BOYCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623 January 7, 2026