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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of group I, claims 1-9 in the reply filed on 7/8/2026 is acknowledged. Claims 10-20 are withdrawn.
Claims Status
Claims 10-20 are cancelled.
Claims 1-9 remain pending and stand rejected.
Claim Objection
Claim 5 is objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 5 recites “The system of claim 1, wherein narrowing the one or more instance results includes prompting the provisioning model to execute a plan to qualify the service.”. Narrowing is recited in claim 2 (not claim 1), and the claim has incorrectly recited dependency from claim 1 rather than claim 2. This is similar to claim 4, which depends from claim 2. Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (abstract idea) without significantly more.
Regarding claims 1-9, under Step 2A claims 1-9 recite a judicial exception (abstract idea) that is not integrated into a practical application and does not provide significantly more.
Under Step 2A (prong 1), and taking claim 1 as representative, claim 1 recites a system for service qualification,
provide, to a provisioning model configured to provision a service for a customer, a service introspection request based on the service qualification request,
receive from the provisioning model one or more instance results indicating whether the service can be provided to the customer, and
generate and output, based on the one or more instance results, a qualification result indicating at least one of whether and when the service can be provided to the customer.
These limitations recite ‘certain methods of organizing human activity’, such as by performing commercial interactions and/or fundamental economic principals or practices (see: MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II)). This is because claim 1 sets forth or describes performing service qualification. This represents the performance of a marketing or sales activities or behaviors, which is a commercial interaction and falls under organizing human activity. This also describes concepts relating to the economy and commerce that represent fundamental economic practices, which also fall under organizing human activity.
Accordingly, under step 2A (prong 1) claim 1 recites an abstract idea because claim 1 recites limitations that fall within the “Certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas.
Under Step 2A (prong 2), the abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application. The Examiner acknowledges that representative claim 1 does recite additional elements, including one or more processors, memory comprising instructions, one or more processors, and a user interface of a computing device.
Additionally, the claims recite a provisioning model. The specification, paragraph 0014, the term “model” refers to declarative provisioning model defining properties and interdependencies of a service and constituent components and resources of the service. While this represents an abstract construct, the Examiner also acknowledges that the provisioning model may be intended to represent software implementing the model.
Although reciting these additional elements, taken alone or in combination these elements are not sufficient to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. This is because the additional elements of claim 1 are recited at a high level of generality (i.e. as generic computing hardware) such that they amount to nothing more than the mere instructions to implement or apply the abstract idea on generic computing hardware (or, merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea).
Further, the additional elements do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (such as the Internet or computing networks).
Secondly, the additional elements are insufficient to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the claim fails to (i) reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, (ii) implement the judicial exception with, or use the judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, (iii) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or (iv) applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
In view of the above, under Step 2A (prong 2), claim 1 does not integrate the recited exception into a practical application.
Under Step 2B, examiners should evaluate additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether they provide an inventive concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself). In this case, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Returning to representative claim 1, taken individually or as a whole the additional elements of claim 1 do not provide an inventive concept (i.e. they do not amount to “significantly more” than the exception itself). As discussed above with respect to the integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements used to perform the claimed process amount to no more than the mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer and/or no more than a general link to a technological environment. Even considered as an ordered combination (as a whole), the additional elements of claim 1 do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
In view of the above, representative claim 1 does not provide an inventive concept (“significantly more”) under Step 2B, and is therefore ineligible for patenting.
Regarding dependent claims 2-9, dependent claims 2-9 recite more complexities descriptive of the abstract idea itself, and at least inherit the abstract idea of claim 1. As such, claims 2-9 are understood to recite an abstract idea under step 2A (prong 1) for at least similar reasons as discussed above.
Under prong 2 of step 2A, the additional elements of dependent claims 2-9 also do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, considered both individually or as a whole. More specifically, claims 2-9 rely on at least similar additional elements as discussed above with respect to claim 1. Further additional elements such as an application programming interface (e.g., claim 8) are also recited only at a high level of generality (i.e. as generic computing hardware) such that they amount to nothing more than the mere instructions to implement or apply the abstract idea on generic computing hardware (or, merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea). Further, the additional elements do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (such as the Internet or computing networks).
Lastly, under step 2B, claims 2-9 also fail to result in “significantly more” than the abstract idea under step 2B. This is again because the claims merely apply the exception on generic computing hardware and generally link the exception to a technological environment.
Even when viewed as an ordered combination (as a whole), the additional elements of the dependent claims do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
In view of the above, claims 2-9 do not provide an inventive concept (“significantly more”) under Step 2B, and are therefore ineligible for patenting.
Claim Interpretation Notes
The claims and specification are generally narrative and use terms/language that Applicant has acted as their own lexicographer. For these reasons, the Examiner provides the following interpretations made in view of the specification or from the understanding in the field/art:
Qualification: whether or when services can be provided (e.g., 0001)
Qualification request: a request to determine whether or when services can be provided (e.g., 0001)
Introspection: examination of something (e.g., a service or request, such as by using criteria or constraints)
Introspection request: a request that uses the data of a qualification request (e.g., 0025)
Plan (to qualify a service): any operation performed as part of qualification (i.e., determining whether or when services can be provided)
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-7 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Goad (US 2015/0178804).
Regarding claim 1, Goad teaches a system for performing service qualification, the system comprising:
one or more processors (see: 0036-0037, 0119, Fig. 1); and
memory comprising instructions (see: 0036-0037, 0119, Fig. 1) that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to
receive, via a user interface of a computing device, a service qualification request (see: Fig. 2 (202-204), 0049, 0051),
provide, to a provisioning model configured to provision a service for a customer, a service introspection request based on the service qualification request (see: Fig. 2 (206-208), 0050),
receive, from the provisioning model, one or more instance results indicating whether the service can be provided to the customer (see: Fig. 2 (210-214), 0051-0052), and
generate and output, based on the one or more instance results, a qualification result indicating at least one of whether and when the service can be provided to the customer (see: Fig. 2 (210-214), 0051-0052, Fig. 6-7, 0055).
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the service introspection request includes receiving service specifications associated with the service qualification request, the memory further comprising instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to narrow the one or more instance results (see: 0050, 0067, Fig. 10 (1002-1004 each feed into 1008)).
3. The system of claim 2, the memory further comprising instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to narrow the one or more instance results by:
determining respective service specifications for the service qualification request (see: 0041, 0050, 0067, Fig. 10 (1002-1004 each feed into 1008);
obtaining respective instance results based on each of the respective service specifications (see: 0041, 0050, 0067, Fig. 10 (1008));
narrowing each of the respective instance results (see: 0050, 0067, Fig. 10 (1002-1004 each feed into 1008)); and
generating and outputting the qualification result based on each of the respective instance results (see: Fig. 2 (214), 0015, 0017, 0051, Fig. 5-7 (Services available at address B), Fig. 10 (1010, 160)).
Note: Goad utilizes user address, preferences, user profile, etc. to filter (narrow) respective services that are available at an address, then ranks and outputs this to the user via the user interface.
4. The system of claim 2, wherein narrowing the one or more instance results includes narrowing the one or more instance results based on constraints indicated by the service qualification request (see: 0041, 0050, 0067, Fig. 10 (1002-1004 each feed into 1008).
Note: Goad utilizes user address, preferences, user profile, etc. to filter (narrow) respective services that are then ranked and output to the user via the user interface.
5. The system of claim 1, wherein narrowing the one or more instance results includes prompting the provisioning model to execute a plan to qualify the service (see: 0093 (verify this information), 0085 (confirm address details), 0114 (updated address information, provided for verification)).
6. The system of claim 1, wherein the service qualification request corresponds to a request for the service to be provided from a service provider (see: 0042 (service providers), 0052, 0054, Fig. 6-7 (Service Provider)).
7. The system of claim 1, wherein outputting the qualification result includes providing the qualification result to the user interface of the computing device (see: 0015, 0017, 0051, Fig. 5-7 (Services available at address B)).
9. The system of claim 1, wherein the service qualification request corresponds to at least one of a service qualification query and a service check (see: Fig. 2, 0041-0042 0051).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goad in view of Pugliese, III (US 2001/0044751).
Regarding claim 8, Goad teaches all of the above but does not expressly teach wherein the one or more processors are configured to implement at least a portion of an application programming interface. APIs were notoriously well known in the art before the effective filing date of the invention and would have been obvious.
For example, Pugliese teaches implement at least a portion of an application programming interface (see: 0191, 0167, 0269).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have utilized one or more APIs as taught by Pugliese by the system of Goad, since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable – namely, enabling seamless communication between software elements through APIs.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
MacKay (US 2007/0136775) discloses a system for performing service qualification configured to receive, via a user interface of a computing device, a service qualification request (see: 0026, Fig. 2 (206, 208)), provide, to a provisioning model configured to provision a service for a customer, a service introspection request based on the service qualification request (see: 0026, 0030, 0032, Fig. 2,, Fig. 5a-7A, Fig. 9), receive, from the provisioning model, one or more instance results indicating whether the service can be provided to the customer (see: 0030 (shopping model 200 recommends…), Fig. 8, 0032, Fig. 10), and generate and output, based on the one or more instance results, a qualification result indicating at least one of whether and when the service can be provided to the customer (see: 0030, 0032, Fig. 8, Fig. 10).
Henry (US 2009/0313080) discloses qualifying a customer for installation of services (see: Fig. 5, 0102-0103, 0110) as well as scheduling and managing appointments for installation (see: 0030, 0070, 0073, 0111).
Gilles discloses determining service availability, order data and address validation for telecommunication services (see: abstract, 0021, 0037, 0040, 0047, Fig. 2, Fig. 4).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM J ALLEN whose telephone number is (571)272-1443. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:00-4:00.
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WILLIAM J. ALLEN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3625
/WILLIAM J ALLEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3619
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