DETAILED ACTION
Notice 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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1 – 6 were previously pending and subject to a final office action mailed 06/10/2026. Claims 1 & 6 were amended and claim 3 – 5 were canceled in a reply filed 08/20/2026. Claims 1 – 2 & 6 are currently pending and subject to the non-final office action below.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 after final rejection on 08/20/2026 has been entered.
Novel/Nonobvious Subject Matter
Claims 1 – 2 & 6 are allowed over the prior art.
The closest prior art, Zhou et al. (US 20170261330 A1), discloses, in [0040] – [0042], [0047] – [0049], [0052] – [0053], [0065], & [0067], a process for iteratively estimating a fuel consumption amount for each possible trip segment, accounting for different possible combinations of stops as well as travel timings between each possible segment. Zhou, however, fails to disclose the functionality of: “specify a first movement timing having a highest C02 emission amount among the plurality of movement timings, and compute a C02 credit by calculating a difference between the highest C02 emission amount and a C02 emission amount at a delayed second movement timing after the first movement timing; compute a time difference between the first movement timing and the delayed second movement timing; determine a facility that the user can visit during the movement and that is recommended to the user, by comparing the computed time difference with a sum of a movement time for visiting the facility and an assumed stay time in the facility, and comparing the C02 credit with a C02 emission amount when visiting the facility, on the basis of the estimated C02 emission amount for each movement timing, the facility requiring an additional travel from the estimated movement route.” The remainder of the cited prior art of record likewise fails to disclose or render obvious the above subject matter.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection of the claims under 35 USC 101 have been considered but are not persuasive.
Applicant initially argues, on pg. 6, that the instant claims “have a practical effect to reduce the CO2 emission amount.”
Examiner respectfully disagrees that the claims are directed to an improvement in the functionality of a computing device or any other technology; rather, they are directed to an improvement to the recited judicial exception itself. For example, as noted by the Court in Enfish, “the first step in the Alice inquiry in this case asks whether the focus of the claims is on the specific asserted improvement in computer capabilities (i.e., the self-referential table for a computer database) or, instead, on a process that qualifies as an “abstract idea” for which computers are invoked merely as a tool. As noted infra, in Bilski and Alice and virtually all of the computer-related § 101 cases we have issued in light of those Supreme Court decisions, it was clear that the claims were of the latter type—requiring that the analysis proceed to the second step of the Alice inquiry, which asks if nevertheless there is some inventive concept in the application of the abstract idea.” See Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355, 2357–59. In this case, however, the plain focus of the claims is not to an improvement to computer functionality itself, but “on economic or other tasks for which a computer is used in its ordinary capacity” (e.g., providing a route which reduces vehicle emissions). The instant claims are directed to a method of organizing human activity (e.g., following directions and providing a navigation service), which invokes generic computer components as a mere tool for implementation, rather to an improvement thereof. For example, the claims are not directed to an improvement in the functionality of a computing device or other technology; thus, the claims are directed to a judicial exception without significantly more, and the 101 rejection is maintained.
Applicant next argues, on pp. 6 – 7, that “amended Claim 1 computes a CO2 credit by calculating a difference in CO2 emission amounts between a first movement timing having a highest CO2 emission amount and a delayed second movement timing, and determines a facility that can offset the CO2 emissions caused by the additional travel within the range of the computed credit. This enables CO2 emission reduction in a manner different from the existing technological environment and is directed to a specific method of computer processing for determining a specific facility. Thus, a practical application is clearly achieved.”
Examiner respectfully disagrees that the claims recite additional elements that integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application. In particular, the purported improvement is not directed to an improvement to computer capabilities or any other technology, but rather to “economic or other tasks for which a computer is used in its ordinary capacity.” Examiner submits that this functionality amounts to a determination of where a traveler should stop; that this determination is made based on offsetting CO2 emissions caused by the additional travel within the range of the computed credit renders this concept no less abstract. Reducing emissions or offsetting CO2 emissions within the range of the computed credit does not amount to an improvement in the way a computing device functions or to any other technology. As such, the claims ae directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
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 – 2 & 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1
Claims 1 – 2 are directed to a system (i.e., a machine). Claim 6 is directed to a process (i.e., a method). Therefore, claims 1 – 2 & 6 all fall within the one of the four statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A, Prong One
Independent claims 1 & 6 substantially recite: “acquire movement information indicating a departure point and a destination related to a future movement of a user using a means of transportation emitting C02…; estimate, for a movement related to the acquired movement information, a movement route from the departure point to the destination, and estimate a C02 emission amount due to the movement on the estimated movement route for each of a plurality of movement timings different from each other; specify a first movement timing having a highest C02 emission amount among the plurality of movement timings, and compute a C02 credit by calculating a difference between the highest C02 emission amount and a C02 emission amount at a delayed second movement timing after the first movement timing; compute a time difference between the first movement timing and the delayed second movement timing; determine a facility that the user can visit during the movement and that is recommended to the user, by comparing the computed time difference with a sum of a movement time for visiting the facility and an assumed stay time in the facility, and comparing the C02 credit with a C02 emission amount when visiting the facility, on the basis of the estimated C02 emission amount for each movement timing, the facility requiring an additional travel from the estimated movement route; and output the determined facility to the… user to be displayed as a recommendation to the user.”
The limitations stated above are processes / functions that, as drafted, cover performance of the limitations while managing relationships between people. That is, nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed while managing relationships between people. For example, the functions in the context of this claim encompass suggesting trip stopping points based on carbon emissions. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation while managing relationships between people, then it falls within the "Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity" grouping of abstract ideas. Additionally, determining where a user should stop based on emissions could be performed in the human mind or with a pen and paper, and thus falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas (e.g., concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion)). Accordingly, the claims recite abstract ideas that fall within both the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” and “Mental Processes” groupings of abstract ideas.
Step 2A, Prong Two
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Claims 1 & 6, as a whole, amounts to merely invoking generic components as a tool to perform the abstract idea or “apply it” (or an equivalent) and adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception. In particular, claim 1 recites the additional computer elements of “circuitry” and “terminal of the user.” Claim 6 recites the additional computer elements of “circuity of a recommendation system” and “terminal of the user.” Claims 1 & 6 also recite the additional elements of “wherein the circuitry periodically receives information indicating a latitude and longitude indicating the current point of the user from a terminal of the user.”
The additional elements of “circuitry,” “terminal of the user,” and “circuity of a recommendation system” are recited at a high-level of generality, such that, when viewed as whole/ordered combination, it amounts to no more than mere instruction to apply the judicial exception using generic computer components or “apply it” (See MPEP 2106.05(f)).
The additional elements of “wherein the circuitry periodically receives information indicating a latitude and longitude indicating the current point of the user from a terminal of the user” are recited at a high-level of generality, and when viewed as whole/ordered combination, amount to insignificant extra-solution activity (See MPEP 2106.05(g)).
Accordingly, this additional element, when viewed as a whole/ordered combination, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Thus, the claims are directed to an abstract idea without integration into a practical application.
Step 2B
As discussed above with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements amount to no more than merely invoking generic components as a tool to perform the abstract idea or “apply it” (or an equivalent) and adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception, and do not provide integration of the recited abstract ideas into a practical application. The same analysis applies here in Step 2B, i.e., merely invoking the generic components as a tool to perform the abstract idea or “apply it” (See MPEP 2106.05(f)) and adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception (See MPEP2106.05(g)) does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept at Step 2B.
Furthermore, the extra-solution functionality of “wherein the circuitry periodically receives information indicating a latitude and longitude indicating the current point of the user from a terminal of the user” has been found by the courts to be well-understood, routine, and conventional activity (See MPEP § 2106.05(d)(II), noting: “Performing repetitive calculations,” and “Transmitting data over a network”), and thus do not amount to significantly more under Step 2B. Furthermore, the generic recitation of GPS location monitoring in the instant specification at [0022] (“The latitude and the longitude indicating the current point of the user, for example, are acquired by a positioning means such as a global positioning system (GPS) of the terminal 20, and are transmitted to the recommendation system 10 from the terminal 20.”) demonstrates that these additional elements are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities (see MPEP § 2106.05(d)(I)(2.) and the Berkheimer Memo, § (III.)(A.)(1.)).
Therefore, the additional elements of “circuitry,” “terminal of the user,” “circuity of a recommendation system,” and “wherein the circuitry periodically receives information indicating a latitude and longitude indicating the current point of the user from a terminal of the user” fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept at Step 2B. Thus, even when viewed as a whole/ordered combination, nothing in the claims adds significantly more (i.e., an inventive concept) to the abstract idea. There is no indication that the combination of elements, taken both individually and as an ordered combination, improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Thus, the claims are not patent eligible.
Dependent claim 2 is merely directed to the particulars of the abstract idea and likewise do not add significantly more to the above-identified judicial exception. That is, claim 2 further limits the recited judicial exception. Accordingly, the dependent claim is not directed to significantly more than the exception itself, and is not eligible subject matter under 35 USC § 101.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRYAN J KIRK whose telephone number is (571)272-6447. The examiner can normally be reached Monday -Friday 9:00-5:00.
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/BRYAN J KIRK/Examiner, Art Unit 3628
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