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 .
Response to Arguments
2. The Amendment filed on January 10, 2025 has been entered. The examiner acknowledges the amendments to claims 1 and 10, and the addition of claims 14-22.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101: Applicant argues that the claims that improve the functioning of a computer, and that ‘the workflow section switches processing components in the workflow or processing conditions of each processing component based on given preconditions or priority objectives at a time of generation’ are not mental processes. Examiner notes that making a determination of components based on preconditions or objectives is a mental process, that the processor/software are required to perform. (The Examiner also notes that “the process components” argued above are not “switched” but are changed in the development of an instruction for setting the processing components for an incident, a plan and not physical control of processing assets.)
Applicant argues a specific technical architecture, a current situation/prediction section, a plan generation/evaluation section and an instruction/execution section that outputs the plan. Examiner views these as broad and high level process steps and not conveying technical architecture or distinct functional components.
Applicant argues not oversimplifying the claims, and avoiding dismissing additional elements as generic computer components without considering the elements as an improvement in the technology. Examiner notes that the claims detail and script elements of major incident response for power companies and agrees with the approach as a means to speed up implementation of solutions to remedy anomalous events. A playbook is employed appropriate to the incident, applicable processes are extracted, processing components are selected to match preconditions or priorities and a process is output for the incident. Additional claims weigh the priorities, invoke prediction, planning, verification, data collection and instruction stages, and apply lessons learned from previous incidents as updates to the playbook(s). These are all relevant process steps for incident response and in the past were likely stored in binders and available at operational centers for immediate access.
Additional claims disclose simulators for predicting outcomes, application of external systems to hold and make available risk incident (response) information, coordination across external systems and provide external monitoring. The Examiner notes these steps as linking to technological areas and are prudent, but not innovative integration.
The claims as a whole describe disaster preparedness as has been well established in every technological area. The claims as a whole do not disclose any technological improvement.
Applicant argues that “this is not merely applying an abstract idea using generic computer components, but rather a specific technical architecture for automated workflow generation and execution.” The Examiner disagrees, noting that the description of the architecture as broad and non-specific. Each playbook would be expected to be site specific to address needs or limitations, as well as identifying and resources that would be leveraged. The claims describe something well above a level for actual application of remediation.
The Examiner concludes that the invention applies incident response practices, history, and knowledge to current day automation and tools. Hosting the response information on automated systems is a case of “Apply it” for software on a processor and is not an innovative or novel integration of capabilities. Automation cited appears to be applied in routine and expected ways. Thus, the invention does not cite a technological improvement or practical application. As a result, the rejection of claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101 will not be withdrawn.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103: Applicant’s arguments surrounding the invention’s development of process workflows supporting process component selection for types of incident response, as compared to the development of incident solutions and dashboards under prior art are compelling, and as a result, the claim rejections for independent claims 1 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are withdrawn. Dependent claims 3-9, and 12-22 are not rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as a result of their dependence on independent claims 1 and 10.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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, 3-10, 12-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims, 1, 3-10, 12-22 are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, abstract idea) without providing significantly more.
Step 1
Step 1 of the subject matter eligibility analysis per MPEP § 2106.03, required the claims to be a process, machine, manufacture or a composition of matter. Claims 1, 3-10, 12-22 are directed to a process (method), machine (system), which are statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A
Claims 1, 3-10, 12-22 are directed to abstract ideas, as explained below.
Prong one of the Step 2A analysis requires identifying the specific limitation(s) in the claim under examination that the examiner believes recites an abstract idea, and determining whether the identified limitation(s) falls within at least one of the groupings of abstract ideas of mathematical concepts, mental processes, and certain methods of organizing human activity.
Step 2A-Prong 1
The claims recite the following limitations that are directed to abstract ideas, which can be summarized as being directed to a method, the abstract idea, of developing an incident response for a power and distribution company by acquire information from previous incidents, predicting damage from a forecast event, generating a workflow, creating a response plan, evaluating plan feasibility, and providing the plan for coordination and action.
Claim 10 discloses: an incident response method for responding to individual incidents, the incident response method comprising:
storing as playbooks each being a template of a processing workflow composed workflow composed for individual types of risks, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion), wherein the processing is configured to interface for acquiring data and executing processes; (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion),
acquiring incident information regarding an incident that has occurred or appears to occur, and extracting a playbook corresponding to a type of risk corresponding to the incident information; (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion),
generating a processing workflow corresponding to the acquired incident information based on the extracted playbook, wherein the generating switches processing in the workflow or processing conditions based on given preconditions or priority objectives at a time of generation; (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion),
outputting a process for the incident; and in order to output the process for the incident,
acquiring incident information regarding an incident that has occurred or appears to occur and predicting damage;
creating a necessary response plan based on the prediction;
evaluating whether the generated response plan is feasible; (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion),
outputting the response plan for the incident according to the evaluation; and
executing the generated processing workflow, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion).
Additional limitations employ the method and include, assigning weights regarding priority goals for a risk, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 3), holding individual processes as processing blocks, (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 4), where the processing workflows include, for each incident, a prediction stage, a planning stage, and a verification / evaluation stage, (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 5), where the processing workflows further include a data collection stage and an instruction stage, (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 6), where for a given incident, the workflow generation section changes preconditions or priority goals that are to be used for individual processes in the processing workflows, (mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 7), and the workflow generation section changes processing conditions that are set for the processing blocks, (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 8), and when the playbook is to be created in advance for each type of risk, the playbook is created with reference to incidents that occurred in the past, (following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 9), and the playbook includes weights regarding priority goals, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 12), and when workflows are generated, preconditions or priority goals are changed, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 13), where processes predict incident outcomes, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 14), where processes include holding data to be processed, (claim 15), where playbooks include typhoons, floods and wildfires, (claim 16), where the workflow engine coordinates execution across stakeholders, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 17), where instructions are output for executing the response plan, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 18), where the situation/prediction section acquires incident information externally, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 19), where the evaluation section evaluates plan feasibility, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 20), and where generating workflow is based on the type of risk of the incident, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 21), and where the sequence is determined by the generated workflow, (fundamental economic principles: mitigating risk, following rules or instructions, observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion – claim 22).
Each of these claimed limitations employ: organizing human activity in the form of fundamental economic principles and practices based on mitigating risk and calculating costs, following rules or instructions; performing mental processes including, observation, evaluation, judgement, and opinion.
Claim 1 recites similar abstract ideas as those identified with respect to claim 1.
Thus, the concepts set forth in claims 1, 3-10, 12-22 recite abstract ideas.
Step 2A-Prong 2
As per MPEP § 2106.04, while the claims 1, 3-10, 12-22 recite additional limitations which are hardware or software elements such as a combination of processing components, interface with external systems, and automatic execution, these limitations are not sufficient to qualify as a practical application being recited in the claims along with the abstract ideas since these elements are invoked as tools to apply the instructions of the abstract ideas in a specific technological environment. The mere application of an abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological field do not integrate an abstract idea into a practical application (MPEP § 2106.05 (f) & (h)).
Evaluated individually, the additional elements do not integrate the identified abstract ideas into a practical application. Evaluating the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually.
The claims do not amount to a “practical application” of the abstract idea because they neither (1) recite any improvements to another technology or technical field; (2) recite any improvements to the functioning of the computer itself; (3) apply the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine; (4) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing; (5) provide other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
Accordingly, claims 1, 3-10, 12-22 are directed to abstract ideas.
Step 2B
Claims 1, 3-10, 12-22 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
The analysis above describes how the claims recite the additional elements beyond those identified above as being directed to an abstract idea, as well as why identified judicial exception(s) are not integrated into a practical application. These findings are hereby incorporated into the analysis of the additional elements when considered both individually and in combination.
For the reasons provided in the analysis in Step 2A, Prong 1, evaluated individually, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than a judicial exception. Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than a judicial exception.
Evaluating the claim limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. In addition to the factors discussed regarding Step 2A, prong two, there is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely amount to instructions to implement the identified abstract ideas on a computer.
Therefore, since there are no limitations in the claims 1, 3-10, 12-22 that transform the exception into a patent eligible application such that the claims amount to significantly more than the exception itself, the claims are directed to non-statutory subject matter and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Conclusion
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.
Claims 1 and 10 are not rejected under prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Dependent
claims 3-9, and 12-22 are not rejected under as a result of their inherent dependency on independent claims 1 and 10.
The closest prior art to the invention includes Saraiya, (US 20210406041 A1), “Analytics Dashboards for Critical Event Management Software Systems, and Related Software” and Zettle, (US 20190268354 A1), “Incident Response Techniques.” None of the prior art alone or in combination teach the claimed invention as recited in this claim wherein the novelty is in the combination of all the limitations and not in a single limitation.
Regarding claim 1, Saraiya teaches An incident response system that responds to individual incidents, (Analytics dashboards for critical event management systems, [ ] which can then be used to improve response performance and/or to inform the generation of predictive models, [Abstract]), the incident response system comprising:
a playbook database that stores playbooks each being a template of a processing workflow for individual types of risks, wherein a playbook selection section that acquires incident information regarding an incident that has occurred or appears to occur, and extracts a playbook corresponding to a type of risk corresponding to the incident information; a workflow generation section that generates a processing workflow corresponding to the acquired incident information based on the extracted playbook;
(retrieving, from a datastore in memory of the computing system, data contained in an analytics table comprising values for a plurality of attributes of each of a plurality of stored critical events; [0004], to provide optimal response performance and allow users to efficiently and effectively manage responses critical events, [Abstract], and FIG. 8), values for a plurality of attributes of each of a plurality of stored critical events; executing at least one pattern-recognition algorithm that operates on the data in the analytics table so as to identify one or more patterns within the plurality of attributes among the plurality of stored critical events; [0004], a method of assisting a user with critical-event management. The method being performed by a computing system includes displaying, to a user via a graphical user interface (GUI) of the computing system, information concerning a first stored critical event; soliciting, via the GUI, a user to provide one or more attribute annotations for one or more corresponding respective attributes of the stored critical event; receiving, from the user via the GUI, the one or more attribute annotations; storing, in memory of the computing system, the one or more attribute annotations in an analytics table comprising values for a plurality of attributes of each of a plurality of stored critical events, including the first stored event; executing at least one predictive algorithm that operates on contents of the analytics table so as to build one or more predictive models representing at least some of the plurality of stored critical events; [0005]),
Saraiya does not teach, the processing components include components configured to interface with external systems for acquiring data and executing processes; composed of a combination of processing components corresponding to the acquired incident information based on the extracted playbook; wherein the workflow generation section switches processing components in the workflow or processing conditions of each processing component based on given preconditions or priority objectives at a time of generation. The specific template features of processing components as foundational to playbooks and their external connections to external sources and switching components in the workflow based on precondition or priority objectives were not taught or found in prior art. Prior art individually or in combination did not teach the complete scope of the claim.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to
applicant's disclosure or directed to the state of the art is listed on the enclosed PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL BOROWSKI whose telephone number is (703)756-1822. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jerry O’Connor can be reached on (571) 272-6787. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/MB/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3624
/MEHMET YESILDAG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624
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