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 .
Acknowledgments
Applicant provided information disclosure statement.
Claim 13 is cancelled.
Claims 1-12 are pending.
This is a final rejection with respect to Applicant’s amendments filed 7/2/2026.
Response to Arguments
35 USC 101
Applicant's arguments filed 7/2/2026 with respect to 35 USC 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The rejection is maintained.
Applicant argues on page 18-19 that the system provides a technological improvement, the Applicant states.
As illustrated above, amended claim I does not merely automate the assignment of a ticket to an agent. Rather, the claim recites an architectural separation between ticket creation processing and incident routing processing within the ITSM system. Specifically, ticket creation processing writes ticket information to an incident table and completes independently, while a separate continuously executing backend assignment routine subsequently acquires the ticket information through polling of the incident table
The claimed architectural separation provides technical advantages beyond merely automating a human assignment decision. By decoupling ticket creation processing from incident routing processing, ticket creation and ticket update operations are permitted to complete independently while the continuously executing backend assignment routine performs background routing analysis across multiple active incidents.
The claimed architecture therefore supports continuous backend processing, independent processing paths, and scalable routing analysis within the ITSM computing environment.
Examiner respectfully disagrees.
The claims are not solving a technical problem but a business problem. Assigning tickets to users is not a technical problem but a business problem. Applicant’s Specification in para 0001-0003 also recite the business problem of managing employee issues. The claimed invention is merely improving a business process of assigning tickets. Making a business process execute faster or more efficiently is not enough to be 101 patent eligible. In contrast, a technical problem and solution is seen in the court case of McRO. The patents in McRO were an improvement on 3-D animation wherein the prior art comprised that "for each keyframe, the artist would look at the screen and, relying on her judgment, manipulate the character model until it looked right — a visual and subjective process." Thus, the patents in McRO aimed to automate a 3-D animator's tasks, specifically, determining when to set keyframes and setting those keyframes.
In addition, doing claim limitations (i.e. ticket creating and routing ticketing) separately is also not a test for 101 patent eligibility. A user is able to assign tickets and create/update tickets separately or together. Merely stating that this is done on a computer is also not enough for patent eligibility.
The claimed invention is merely automating a manual process of creating tickets and routing them, a user is able to do this without the use of a computer. Examples that the courts have indicated may not be sufficient to show an improvement in computer-functionality include mere automation of manual processes, such as using a generic computer to process an application for financing a purchase, Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Services, 859 F.3d 1044, 1055, 123 USPQ2d 1100, 1108-09 (Fed. Cir. 2017) or speeding up a loan-application process by enabling borrowers to avoid physically going to or calling each lender and filling out a loan application, LendingTree, LLC v. Zillow, Inc., 656 Fed. App'x 991, 996-97 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (non-precedential).
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 1-12 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 significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Regarding Step 1 of the Subject Matter Eligibility Test for Products and Processes (See MPEP 2106.03), claims 1-12 are directed to a method, apparatus, and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium.
Regarding step 2A-1, Claims 1-12 recite a Judicial Exception. Exemplary independent claim 1 recites the limitations of
Executing…continuous backend assignment routine… polling…an incident table…
writes ticket information to the incident table independently of the backend assignment routine, wherein the backend assignment routine subsequently obtains the ticket information from the incident table through polling of the incident table after creation of a ticket entry, obtaining, from the incident table, ticket information associated with an active ticket, the ticket information comprising at least a ticket status field, an assigned-to field, and an open time field…
delaying validation of the active ticket for a predetermined waiting period to permit an …remediation process of the ITSM system to attempt…resolution of an incident associated with the active ticket;
validating the active ticket by determining…querying a roster table… polling a logged-in table…to obtain…correlating…determining…at least one candidate…ranking candidates…assigning the active ticket…continuously updates…reprocessed…processing…
These limitations, as drafted, are a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation cover concepts of executing, polling, writing, obtaining, validating, determining, querying, correlating, ranking, assigning, updating, and processing. The claim limitations fall under the abstract idea grouping of mental process, because the limitations can be performed in the human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper. For example, but for the language of a processor and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, the claim language encompasses simply polling an incident table, obtaining ticket information, delaying validation of a ticket, validating the ticket, determining an agent to resolve the ticket by determining and querying a roster table, polling a logged in table for the agents, ranking agents, and assigning the ticket to an agent. The claims also include the abstract idea steps of updating and processing data. These are mere data manipulation steps that do not require a computer. Given a real-world example, a manager is able to manage tickets by obtaining tickets and assigning them to agents. A manager is also able to poll (i.e. check status) of an incident table. A manager is able to do this by correlating data and checking agent information and ranking agents.
The claims also deal with ticket management, which includes managing agents with respect to a roster table and assigning tickets to them. The tickets are also with respect to customers. In addition, the Applicant’s drawings in figure 7 also show interactions between people. These make the claims fall in the abstract idea grouping of certain methods of organizing human activity (managing personal behavior, business relations, interactions between people). It is clear the limitations recite these abstract idea groupings, but for the recitations of generic computer components. The mere nominal recitations of generic computer components do not take the limitations out of the mental process and certain methods of organizing human activity grouping. The claims are focused on the combination of these abstract idea processes.
Regarding step 2A-2- This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application, and the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
The claim recites the additional elements of apparatus, processor, memory, ITSM system, computer program, and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium.
These components are recited at a high level of generality and merely automate the steps. Each of the additional limitations is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The claims are merely automating a manual process and improving a business process which is not 101 patent eligible.
The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components or software. Accordingly, even in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Further, the claims do not provide for or recite any improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field; applying or using a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition; applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; or applying or using 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 claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
The dependent claims have the same deficiencies as their parent claims, as being directed towards an abstract idea, as the dependent claims merely narrow the scope of their parent claims. For example, the dependent claims further describe additional details of the abstract idea steps such as selecting comprises a time counter. In addition, the dependent claims further describe additional information about agent and ticket/incident information such as priority level of incident and group that the agent belongs to too.
Regarding step 2B the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because claim 1 recites
Method, however, method is not considered an additional element.
Claim 1 further recites ITSM system, apparatus, processor, and memory
Claim 6 recites ITSM system
Claim 10 recites apparatus and processor
Claim 11 recites ITSM system and incident ticket generator
Claim 12 recites non-transitory computer readable storage medium and processor
When looking at these additional elements individually, the additional elements are purely functional and generic the Applicant specification states general-purpose computer configurations as seen in para 00123
When looking at the additional elements in combination, the Applicant’s specification merely states general purpose computer configurations as seen in para 00123. The computer components add nothing that is not already present when the steps are considered separately. See MPEP 2106.05
Looking at these limitations as an ordered combination and individually adds nothing additional that is sufficient to amount to significantly more than the recited abstract idea because they simply provide instructions to use generic computer components, recitations of generic computer structure to perform generic computer functions that are used to "apply" the recited abstract idea. Thus, the elements of the claims, considered both individually and as an ordered combination, are not sufficient to ensure that the claim as a whole amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Since there are no limitations in these claims that transform the exception into a patent eligible application such that these claims amount to significantly more than the exception itself, claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure.
Ijidakinro (US20080056233A1) Discloses incident support routing. The Internet is utilized to distribute the received customer support calls among a plurality of customer support agents who may be remotely located and geographically distributed. Voice data to voice-over-IP (VOIP) data packet conversion and VOIP to voice conversion may be utilized to facilitate a customer support call between a customer's telephone and a customer support agent's computer system.
Kishore (20120259540) who teaches a ticket table that includes a status field that includes statuses such as assigned, in progress, or closed.
Wendell (20140081691) who teaches a ticket table that includes an open time which corresponds to the age of the ticket.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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.
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/MUSTAFA IQBAL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3625
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