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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 July 27, 2026 has been entered.
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 and 3-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
At step 1, claim 1 is directed to an apparatus, claim 17 is directed to a method, and claim 18 is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium. Thus, claims 1, 17, and 18 are directed to statutory categories of patentable subject matter.
At step 2A, prong I, independent claim 1 (representative) recites, "An information processing apparatus comprising: circuitry configured to measure effectiveness of an advertisement on a basis of encounter timing at which a user has encountered the advertisement and consumption timing at which the user has taken consumption behavior for an advertisement target of the advertisement, the effectiveness of the advertisement being measured on a basis of an evaluation value calculated using a weight corresponding to required consumption time from the encounter timing to the consumption timing, determine a presenting condition including at least one of an updated timing and an updated location to provide the advertisement, based on the evaluation value, and provide an updated advertisement to the user with the presenting condition, wherein the advertisement is provided to the user on any one of a plurality of advertising media provided at different positions on a vehicle, while the vehicle is driving, wherein the presenting condition further includes a target position, among the different positions on the vehicle, at which the advertisement is to be presented, and wherein the circuitry is further configured to determine the target position based on the evaluation value, and cause the updated advertisement to be presented to the user at the target position while the vehicle is driving." These limitations of claim 1, under their broadest reasonable interpretations, recite Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity. The claimed invention of claim 1 measures effectiveness of an advertisement and targets the advertisement to be most effective, which are adverting activities and behaviors. Further, calculating an evaluation value based on a weight is considered Mathematical Concepts, and measuring and determining can be considered a Mental Process as they are something that a human can do either in the mind or using pen and paper. Therefore, the limitations of claim 1 comprise at least one abstract idea.
At step 2A, prong II, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the additional elements of "an information processing apparatus,” "circuitry", "a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium," and “the plurality of advertising media including a display provided on a side surface of a vehicle.” These additional elements are generic computing elements performing generic computer functions such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a computer. Accordingly, these additional elements when considered individually or as a whole do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The fact that the advertising medium is located on a vehicle does not impact or improve the functioning of the vehicle itself, such that it is a mere field of use, rather than an improvement to the technology. The independent claims are directed to an abstract idea.
At step 2B, 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 elements of "an information processing apparatus, "circuitry", "a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium," and “the plurality of advertising media including a display provided on a side surface of a vehicle” are generic computing elements performing generic computer functions such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a computer, and mere field of use of the abstract idea. When considering the claim as a whole, there is no improvement to technology integrated into the claims. Therefore, the independent claims are not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 2-16 and 19-21, when analyzed as a whole, are held to be patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the additional recited limitations fail to establish that the claims are not directed to the same abstract idea of Independent Claim 1 without significantly more.
Claims 2-9, 11, 14-16, and 19-20 further limit the abstract idea and are part of the same abstract idea of claim 1.
Claim 10 recites, "The information processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the circuitry is configured to cause a terminal used by the user to display a list of advertisements encountered by the user." Claim 12 recites, "The information processing apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the circuitry is configured to cause the terminal to display the list of the advertisements arranged in descending order of the gaze degree." Claim 13 recites, "The information processing apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the circuitry is configured to cause the terminal to display the list of the advertisements that meet a condition specified by the user among the advertisements encountered by the user." Claim 21 recites “a camera to capture an image of the user surrounding the vehicle.” The displaying steps of claims 10, 12, and 13, and the camera of claim 21, are additional elements that do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application and are not significantly more because they are recited at the apply it level. The additional elements of a display control unit, a terminal, and a camera are generic computing elements performing generic functions and they also do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application and are not significantly more because they are generically recited.
Therefore, claims 1-21 are ineligible.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed July 27, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the amendments integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they recite a particular manner of improving advertising effectiveness. However, the manner recited is part of the abstract idea, namely assessing variables and making decisions. While the field of use is a moving vehicle, nothing in the claim is a specific improvement in how the vehicle itself operates, or how the fact that the vehicle is moving is an inherent challenge to presenting advertising, with the claimed method being a technical improvement to the process of delivering an advertisement on a moving vehicle. Rather, the claims seem to focus on determining a best location to present the advertisement at a given time, which is not technical in nature, and is a problem found in any advertising situation, where the goal is to deliver the ad at the location and time where it will have the most positive effect. Applicant points to example 40 as being analogous, but nothing in the claims or the specification appears to demonstrate a particular improvement in advertising, other than what has previously been known to be the goal of advertising in general. Applicant has not pointed to any specific teaching in the specification explaining why the claimed method is a technical improvement to a technical problem found in the field of advertising. Both the August 4, 2024 Memorandum and December 5, 2025 change to MPEP 2106.05(a) require a showing, either in the claims or the specification, of the practical application as an improvement to the technology. Because Applicant has merely alleged an improvement, rather than showing such improvement, this argument is not persuasive.
Applicant’s argument that the measurement of effectiveness cannot be performed in the human mind is not persuasive. The primary grouping of abstract ideas identified above is Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity, which does not require any steps to be performed in the human mind. Further, the examiner has only identified the generic concept of measuring, which is only claimed as carrying out a calculation, as a mental process. The claim does not define ‘calculated using a weight corresponding to required consumption time from the encounter timing to the consumption timing’ as a calculation not capable of being done by a human, such that the mental process grouping is appropriate, in addition to CMOHA and mathematical calculations.
Applicant further argues that the arrangement by which a position is selected is significantly more than the abstract idea. However, this is merely an allegation, which is not supported by any facts or arguments, and the concept of analyzing data to determine the optimized output, whether for displaying an advertisement on a vehicle or anywhere else, does not go beyond the abstract idea of optimizing an advertisement. Therefore, this argument is not persuasive.
Applicant’s argument that claim 21 recognizes gender or age from an image captured by a camera is recited at a high level, and does not disclose anything technical other than generic data analysis, such that this is not demonstrative of a technical solution to a technical problem that would integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, this argument is not persuasive.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ILANA L SPAR whose telephone number is (571)270-7537. The examiner can normally be reached 8-4 M-F.
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/ILANA L SPAR/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3622
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