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 .
Claims 1-6 have been examined.
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 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1:
Claims 1-5 are drawn to a device (a system) which is within the four statutory categories (i.e. machine). Claim 6 is drawn to a method which is within the four statutory categories (i.e. process).
Step 2A, Prong 1:
Claims 1, 5 and 6 recite “receiving, by a computing system, a request for a dental treatment for a dental patient; receiving, by the computing system, one or more bids for the dental treatment for the dental patient; and determining, by the computing system, a winning bid for the dental treatment for the dental patient, wherein the winning bid is associated with a dental care provider that will provide the dental treatment for the dental patient at a price included in the winning bid, wherein there is no human interaction between the dental patient and the dental care provider between a time when the request is received and a time when the winning bid is determined”, which correspond to an abstract idea of “certain methods of organizing human activity”. This is a method of managing interactions between people, such as user following rules and instructions. The mere nominal recitation of a generic processor and generic memory units devices does not take the claims out of the methods of organizing human interactions grouping.
The current specification describes these devices as generic computing devices, such as, in [0014], the current specification recites: “…in the example illustrated in FIG. 1, the auction device 14 includes a computer/data processor 18 (e.g., hardware processor) and data storage medium 22 (e.g., memory unit) comprising instructions 26 executable by the processor 18 to perform the functions of the auction device 14, a display (not shown) that may present data for display to a user (e.g., to an administrator of the auction device 14), and a communication port 38 (e.g., receiver, transmitter, transceiver, network interface) configured to receive and transmit data (e.g., receive requests for data, transmit data)”.
After considering all claim elements, both individually and in combination and in ordered combination, it has been determined that the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Thus, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Claims 2-4 are ultimately dependent from claim 1 and include all the limitations of claim 1. Therefore, claims 2-4 recite the same abstract idea. Claims 2-4 describe a further limitation regarding the basis for determining a winning bid for the dental treatment. These are all just further describing the abstract idea recited in claim 1, without adding significantly more.
Step 2A, Prong 2:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, claims recite the additional elements of “one or more memory units”, “one or more hardware processors coupled to the one or more memory units” and using the one or more processors to: receive a request for a dental treatment, receive one or more bids for the dental treatment and determining a winning bid for the dental treatment. These additional elements correspond to hardware and software elements, these limitations are not enough to qualify as “practical application” being recited in the claims along with the abstract idea since these elements are merely invoked as a tool to apply instructions of the abstract idea in a particular technological environment, and mere instructions to apply/implement/automate an abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting the use of an abstract idea to a particular field or technological environment do not provide practical application for an abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05(f) & (h)).
Accordingly, 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. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
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 element of using a processor to perform both the receiving and determining steps amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept.
The claims are not patent eligible.
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.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Henley (US 2005/0182660 A1).
As per Claim 1, Henley discloses a device comprising:
one or more memory units (Henley; [0068]);
one or more hardware processors communicatively coupled to the one or more memory units (Henley; [0068]), the one or more hardware processors configured to:
receive a request for a dental treatment for a dental patient (Henley discloses “…the exemplary on-line healthcare market exchange transaction (HME) system implementation disclosed herein is that it will enable patients, whether insured or uninsured, to acquire elective surgical services, chronic rehabilitation services, medical equipment support, and other non-emergency medical and dental services through an auction format bidding process…” in [0036]);
receive one or more bids for the dental treatment for the dental patient (Henley discloses “Any user/buyer, once registered, whether a patient, an agent of the patient or an insurer, may use the health services marketplace system 16 to bid for an offered medical service. The registered user/buyer may also use the system to post an offer to purchase a specified medical service and solicit bids for the specified medical service from medical service providers…” in [0090]); and
determine a winning bid for the dental treatment for the dental patient, wherein the winning bid is associated with a dental care provider that will provide the dental treatment for the dental patient at a price included in the winning bid, wherein there is no human interaction between the dental patient and the dental care provider between a time when the request is received and a time when the winning bid is determined (Henley discloses “The HME web-page server computer transaction system 16 is capable of receiving offers to purchase particular a posted medical service in a serialized fashion so as to enable the medical service facility to accept only those offers for which it can reasonably expect to provide consideration and reject buy offers received after 100% facility utilization is realized. Accordingly, clock 78 records the time that an offer to buy is placed to prioritize such bids. Higher bids (i.e. bid purchase prices exceeding the “fixed” price) may receive priority over a lower, but otherwise acceptable, bid which is received earlier. After the medical service provider's facility schedule is full for specified dates and times, additional patients' buy offers (bids) are either rejected or may be accepted by the medical service provider on a “standby” basis for other future slots.” in [0075]).
As per Claim 2, Henley discloses the device of Claim 1, wherein the request for the dental treatment comprises one or more diagnosis notes associated with the dental patient and one or more x-ray images associated with the dental patient (Henley; [0019]).
As per Claim 3, Henley discloses the device of Claim 1, wherein the winning bid is not a bid of the one or more bids with the lowest price (Henley; [0075]).
As per Claim 4, Henley discloses the device of Claim 1, wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured to: determine that a first bid of the one or more bids is priced higher than a typical price for the dental treatment associated with the respective dental care provider that submitted the first bid; and following the determination, reject the first bid (Henley; [0075]).
As per Claim 5, Henley discloses a device comprising:
one or more memory units (Henley; [0068]);
one or more hardware processors communicatively coupled to the one or more memory units (Henley; [0068]), the one or more hardware processors configured to:
receive a request for a dental treatment for a dental patient (Henley discloses “…the exemplary on-line healthcare market exchange transaction (HME) system implementation disclosed herein is that it will enable patients, whether insured or uninsured, to acquire elective surgical services, chronic rehabilitation services, medical equipment support, and other non-emergency medical and dental services through an auction format bidding process…” in [0036]);
receive one or more bids for the dental treatment for the dental patient (Henley discloses “Any user/buyer, once registered, whether a patient, an agent of the patient or an insurer, may use the health services marketplace system 16 to bid for an offered medical service. The registered user/buyer may also use the system to post an offer to purchase a specified medical service and solicit bids for the specified medical service from medical service providers…” in [0090]); and
determine a winning bid for the dental treatment for the dental patient, wherein the winning bid is associated with a dental care provider that will provide the dental treatment for the dental patient at a price included in the winning bid (Henley discloses “The HME web-page server computer transaction system 16 is capable of receiving offers to purchase particular a posted medical service in a serialized fashion so as to enable the medical service facility to accept only those offers for which it can reasonably expect to provide consideration and reject buy offers received after 100% facility utilization is realized. Accordingly, clock 78 records the time that an offer to buy is placed to prioritize such bids. Higher bids (i.e. bid purchase prices exceeding the “fixed” price) may receive priority over a lower, but otherwise acceptable, bid which is received earlier. After the medical service provider's facility schedule is full for specified dates and times, additional patients' buy offers (bids) are either rejected or may be accepted by the medical service provider on a “standby” basis for other future slots.” in [0075]).
As per Claim 6, Henley discloses a method comprising:
receiving, by a computing system, a request for a dental treatment for a dental patient (Henley; [0036]);
receiving, by the computing system, one or more bids for the dental treatment for the dental patient (Henley; [0090]); and
determining, by the computing system, a winning bid for the dental treatment for the dental patient, wherein the winning bid is associated with a dental care provider that will provide the dental treatment for the dental patient at a price included in the winning bid, wherein there is no human interaction between the dental patient and the dental care provider between a time when the request is received and a time when the winning bid is determined (Henley; [0075]).
Conclusion
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/DILEK B COBANOGLU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3687