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 .
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they include the following reference character(s) not mentioned in the description: Fig. 5 element 550. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d), or amendment to the specification to add the reference character(s) in the description in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(b) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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 1-20 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. Using the subject matter eligibility test from page 74621 of the Federal Register Notice titled “2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility,” a two-step process is performed. Under step 1, the claims are analyzed to determine if the claim is directed to a process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter. In this case, claims 1-20 are directed to a device, which is a machine or an article of manufacture; claims 5-12 are directed to a method, which is a process; claims 13-20 are directed to computer-readable media, which is a machine or an article of manufacture. Step 2A (part 1 of the Mayo test), using the guidance from pages 50-57 of the Federal Register Vol. 84 No. 4 from Monday, January 7, 2019, requires applying a two-prong inquiry. In Prong One, examiners evaluate whether the claim recites a judicial exception, determining if the claim is directed to a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea. In this case, claim 1 recites generating a property manifest, generating a filtered property manifest, and generating reduced API response data, which are mental processes. In Prong Two, examiners evaluate whether the judicial exception is integrated into a practical application that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception. In this case, additional limitations of receiving data and processing using an LLM are mere extrasolution activity, while structural elements such as processor, memory, and computer-readable media are generic computing components, none of which integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Step 2B (part 2 of the Mayo test) requires analyzing the claims to determine if they recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. In this case, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Regarding claims 1, 5, and 19, generating a property manifest, generating a filtered property manifest, and generating reduced API response data are mental processes, which is an abstract idea. For example, a human could receive data, determine the fields from the data, select which ones to include, and remove the unselected fields from the data. Additional limitations of receiving data is mere extrasolution activity, while structural elements such as processor, memory, computer-readable media, and LLM are generic computing components, none of which integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or constitute significantly more.
Regarding claim 2, 4, 6, 8, 14, 16, and 20, the limitations are further clarifications of the above abstract ideas.
Regarding claims 3, 7, and 15, determining data does not satisfy criterion, and processing the inputs to generate an output are mental processes, which is an abstract idea. Additional limitations of sending data is mere extrasolution activity, while use of an LLM is considered a generic computing component, none of which integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application or constitute significantly more.
Regarding claims 9 and 17, excluding values is a mental process, which is an abstract idea without integration into an abstract idea and without significantly more.
Regarding claims 10 and 18, using an LLM is mere extrasolution activity, and does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or constitute significantly more.
Regarding claims 11 and 19, generating a manifest is a mental process, which is an abstract idea without integration into an abstract idea and without significantly more.
Regarding claim 12, masking the URL is a mental process, which is an abstract idea, without integration into an abstract idea and without significantly more.
The limitations of the claims, taken alone, do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements individually. Applicable case law cited in the Federal Register includes, but is not limited to: Alice Corp., 134 S. Ct. at 2355-56, Digitech Image Tech., LLC v. Electronics for Imaging, Inc., 758 F.3d 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2014), Benson, 409 U.S. at 63.
See "Preliminary Examination Instructions in view of the Supreme Court Decision in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al.," dated June 25, 2014, and the Federal Register notice titled "2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility" (79 FR 74618).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the closest prior art of Manjhi et al. (US 2025/0284800 A1), Ma et al. (US 2025/0231972 A1), and Holm et al. (US 2023/0412570 A1) do not teach the limitations of the claims. Specifically, while the references do teach reducing or filtering an API response for use with an LLM, the references do not teach generating the filtered property manifest and reduced API response data by identifying fields in the API response that are relevant to a prompt made to an LLM, and processing the prompt and reduced API response data at an LLM, in combination with the other limitations of the claims. Hence, none of the cited prior art, either alone or in combination thereof, teaches the combination of limitations found in the claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 2025/0284800 A1 para [0218] teaches parsing and filtering API responses and creating an LLM context from the API response; US 2025/0231972 A1 para [0108] teaches postprocessing an API response to remove extraneous information to make it more suitable to be used with an LLM; US 2023/0412570 A1 para [0062] teaches including only certain fields from an API response to reduce the size.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRYAN S BLANKENAGEL whose telephone number is (571)270-0685. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00am-5:30pm.
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/BRYAN S BLANKENAGEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2658
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