21Notice 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 06/05/2026 has been entered.
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1, 13 and 20 are amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments, filed 04/29/2026, with respect to the 101 rejection have been considered but are not persuasive.
Applicant argues, on page 10 that the claims are not directed to a certain method of organizing human activity because the claims highlight the technical solution to the technical problem that is not related to and does not deal with organizing human activity.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claim limitations as drafted, recite a concept, that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, is a certain method of organizing human activity. The limitations are analogous to managing personal behavior or interactions between people (interactions between people), or a commercial or legal interaction (sales activity) such as tracking statuses and connection times of devices within an organization (See Specification, par. 0002). The additional elements (electronic devices, computer components, database, application, etc) are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Accordingly, the additional elements, when viewed individually and in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The same analysis applies in 2B. The additional elements, when considered separately and in combination, do not add significantly more to the exception. They are generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use and cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. Therefore, the claims are ineligible.
Applicant argues, on pages 10-11, that the technical solution confirms the accuracy of device status information before it is relied upon to make device status determinations and before the information is communicated to the client. Applicant argues that the technical solution provides a failsafe such that only the device status information that is not noted as inaccurate (i.e., only device status information that has a status that is confirmed to be accurate) is provided to the client and that information is only communicated to the client after it has been confirmed as accurate, thereby preventing the client from receiving inaccurate and/or unconfirmed device information.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. As discussed above, the claims recite an abstract idea and the additional elements (electronic devices, computer components, database, application, etc) are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. When viewed individually and in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that an improvement in the abstract idea itself (e.g. a recited fundamental economic concept) is not an improvement in technology. For example, in Trading Technologies Int’l v. IBG, 921 F.3d 1084, 1093-94, 2019 USPQ2d 138290 (Fed. Cir. 2019), the court determined that the claimed user interface simply provided a trader with more information to facilitate market trades, which improved the business process of market trading but did not improve computers or technology. Here, the alleged improvement is to information accuracy being provided to a client and not a technology or technical field. Therefore, the claims are ineligible.
Novelty/Non-Obviousness
The closest prior art of is included in the previous office action mailed on 09/10/2025. The claims would be considered allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejections in this Office Action.
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 an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1
Claim 1-20 is directed to a series of steps, and therefore is a process.
Independent Claims
Step 2A Prong One
The limitation of Claim 1 recites:
A method of communicating device status information to a client regarding an activity of multiple … (devices) only after confirming the accuracy of the device status information, each … (device) being capable of having one of multiple statuses, the method comprising:
accessing first information regarding the multiple ... (devices), the first information including a connection state for a first plurality of ... (devices) of the multiple ... (devices) representative of a most recent timestamp that each of the first plurality of ... (devices) was active, each respective timestamp being established during a most recent … (communication) between the respective one of the first plurality of … (devices) and …;
concurrently determining, …, a first status for each respective ... (device) of the multiple ... (devices) dependent upon the first information;
assigning the first status as a current status for each of the multiple … (devices) …;
accessing second information regarding the multiple ... (devices), the second information including the connection state for a second plurality of ... (devices) of the multiple ... (devices);
concurrently determining, …, a second status for each of the multiple ... (devices) dependent upon the second information;
automatically determining, …, a status change representative of a change of the status from the current status to the second status for each ... (device) of the multiple ... (devices);
comparing the status change to methodology that includes allowable status changes, unusual status changes, and prohibited status changes and: in response to the status change being an unusual status change or a prohibited status change, automatically indicating, …, a potential inaccuracy of at least one of the first information and the second information and not updating the current status for each applicable … (device) in … remains the first status;
in response to the status change being an allowable status change, automatically confirming the accuracy of at least one of the first information and the second information and updating the current status, …, for each of the multiple … (devices) in … with the second status; and
communicating, in response to the confirmation of the accuracy of at least one of the first information and the second information, the device status information to the client that includes the current status for each respective … (device) for which at least the first information or the second information was confirmed to be accurate.
The claim limitations as drafted, recite a concept, that, under broadest reasonable interpretation, is a certain method of organizing human activity. The limitations are analogous to managing personal behavior or interactions between people (interactions between people), or a commercial or legal interaction (sales activity) such as tracking statuses and connection times of devices within an organization. The generic computer implementations (see below) do not change the character of the limitations. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong Two
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the following additional elements:
Claim 1:
electronic devices
electronic communication
computer processor
device tracking database
existing application
one or more servers of a client distributed server system
These additional elements are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Accordingly, the additional elements, when viewed individually and in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims do not amount to more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h))
Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2B
As discussed above with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements, amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. The same analysis applies here in 2B. The additional elements, when considered separately and in combination, do not add significantly more to the exception. They are generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use and cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. The claims are ineligible.
Dependent Claims
Dependent claims 2-20 further narrow the same abstract ideas recited in Claim 1. Therefore, claims 2-20 are directed to an abstract idea for the reasons given above.
Step 2A Prong Two
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the dependent claims recite the following additional elements:
Claim 8:
Electrical transmissions
Claim 9:
Electrical transmissions
Claim 10:
Application programming interface
Claim 12:
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
unified endpoint management (UEM) system
a mobile device management (MDM) system.
Claim 16:
Application programming interface
These additional elements are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Accordingly, the additional elements, when viewed individually and in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims do not amount to more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)). Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2B
As discussed above with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements, amount to no more than generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. The same analysis applies here in 2B. The additional elements, when considered separately and in combination, do not add significantly more to the exception. They are generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use and cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. The claims are ineligible.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ISMAIL A MANEJWALA whose telephone number is (571)272-8904. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5.
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/ISMAIL A MANEJWALA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3628
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