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 .
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 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because, while the claims herein are directed to a method and/or system, which could be classified under one of the listed statutory classifications (i.e., 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (hereinafter “PEG”) “PEG” Step 1=Yes), 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.
Regarding claims 1, 14, 19, the claims recite, in part, receiving user information that describes at least one of user preferences and personality characteristics for multiple users; establishing a vector index that includes coach information and the received user information; for a unique user, filtering the established vector index to generate a set of candidates, in which filtering includes leveraging to identify an appropriate set of candidates for the unique user; refining the generated set of candidates using a processing environment that identifies a subset of candidates; and transmitting the identified subset of candidates to the unique user.
The limitations, as drafted and detailed above, recites identification and transmission of candidate coach recommendations to a user, which falls within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas, and more specifically can be considered as commercial interactions or managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea (i.e. “PEG” Revised Step 2A Prong One=Yes).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims only recite the additional elements of remote determination system (claims 1, 14, 19), one or more processors (claims 1, 19), one or more hardware-based memory devices (claim 1), subsystems (claims 1, 14, 19), and one or more hardware-based non-transitory computer-readable memory devices (claim 19). The additional technical elements above are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e. as a generic processor performing a generic computer function of receiving, establishing, filtering, refining, and transmitting) such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. There are no additional functional limitations to be considered under prong two.
Accordingly, the additional technical elements above do not integrate the abstract idea/judicial exception into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. More specifically, the additional elements fail to include (1) improvements to the functioning of a computer or to any other technology or technical field (see MPEP 2106.05(a)), (2) applying or using a judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition (see Vanda memo), (3) applying the judicial exception with, or by use of, a particular machine (see MPEP 2106.05(b)), (4) effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (see MPEP 2106.05(c)), or (5) 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 (see MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda memo).
Rather, the limitations merely add the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea (see MPEP 2106.05(f)), or generally link the use of the
judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)). Thus, the claim is “directed to” an abstract idea (i.e. “PEG” Revised Step 2A Prong Two=Yes).
When considering Step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test, the claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
More specifically, as discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of using remote determination system (claims 1, 14, 19), one or more processors (claims 1, 19), one or more hardware-based memory devices (claim 1), subsystems (claims 1, 14, 19), and one or more hardware-based non-transitory computer-readable memory devices (claim 19) to perform the claimed functions amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component.
“Generic computer implementation” is insufficient to transform a patent-ineligible abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention (See Affinity Labs, _F.3d_, 120 U.S.P.Q.2d 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2016), citing Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2352, 2357) and more generally, “simply appending conventional steps specified at a high level of generality” to an abstract idea does not make that idea patentable (See Affinity Labs, _F.3d_, 120 U.S.P.Q.2d 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2016), citing Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1300). Moreover, “the use of generic computer elements like a microprocessor or user interface do not alone transform an otherwise abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter (See FairWarning, 120 U.S.P.Q.2d. 1293, citing DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014)). As such, the additional elements of the claim do not add a meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because they would be generic computer functions in any computer implementation. Thus, taken alone, the additional elements 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 taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of the computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation.
The Examiner notes simply implementing an abstract concept on a computer, without meaningful limitations to that concept, does not transform a patent-ineligible claim into a patent- eligible one (See Accenture, 728 F.3d 1336, 108 U.S.P.Q.2d 1173 (Fed. Cir. 2013), citing Bancorp, 687 F.3d at 1280), limiting the application of an abstract idea to one field of use does not necessarily guard against preempting all uses of the abstract idea (See Accenture, 728 F.3d 1336, 108 U.S.P.Q.2d 1173 (Fed. Cir. 2013), citing Bilski, 130 S. Ct. at 3231), and further the prohibition against patenting an abstract principle “cannot be circumvented by attempting to limit the use of the [principle] to a particular technological environment” (See Accenture, 728 F.3d 1336, 108 U.S.P.Q.2d 1173 (Fed. Cir. 2013), citing Flook, 437 U.S. at 584), and finally merely limiting the field of use of the abstract idea to a particular existing technological environment does not render the claims any less abstract (See Affinity Labs, _F.3d_, 120 U.S.P.Q.2d 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2016), citing Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2358; Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1294; Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 612 (2010); Content Extraction & Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, Nat' l Ass' n, 776 F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2014); buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
Applicant herein only requires a general purpose computer (see Applicant specification Figures 2, 15, Paragraphs 0070-0075, “general purpose computing system”, software alone is not enough to “transform” a general purpose computer into a “special purpose computer”); therefore, there does not appear to be any alteration or modification to the generic activities indicated, and they are also therefore recognized as insignificant activity with respect to eligibility.
The dependent claims claims 2-13, 15-18, and 20 appear to merely limit “apply it” use of an artificial intelligence subsystem, specifics of the subsystems, specifics of the identified set of candidates, “apply it” use of an artificial intelligence engine within a machine learning environment, inclusion of a “hard-coded environment” leveraging a point based or rule based ordering system, interoperability of the hard-coded and AI/ML environments, specifying that the vector index and filtration steps operating in distinct “containers”, an order of use of the subsystems, and specifics of the set of candidates, and therefore only limit the application of the idea, and not add significantly more than the idea (i.e. “PEG” Step 2B=No).
The remote determination system (claims 1, 14, 19), one or more processors (claims 1, 19), one or more hardware-based memory devices (claim 1), subsystems (claims 1, 14, 19), and one or more hardware-based non-transitory computer-readable memory devices (claim 19) are each functional generic computer components that perform the generic functions of receiving, establishing, filtering, refining, and transmitting, all common to electronics and computer systems.
Applicant's specification does not provide any indication that the remote determination system (claims 1, 14, 19), one or more processors (claims 1, 19), one or more hardware-based memory devices (claim 1), subsystems (claims 1, 14, 19), and one or more hardware-based non-transitory computer-readable memory devices (claim 19) are anything other than generic, off-the-shelf computer components. Therefore, the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea (i.e. “PEG” Step 2B=No).
Thus, based on the detailed analysis above, claims 1-20 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 1-5, 12-14, and 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Thompson (U.S. Pub No. 2015/0154721). Thompson teaches a system and method of identifying a subset of candidates that includes all of the limitations recited in the above claims.
EXAMINER NOTE: Applicant never defines the term “coach” in the specification. According to Paragraph 0002 of the instant specification, Applicant refers to the user as a “patient”, and uses the terms physician and therapist as being synonymous to “coach”. Therefore, a wellness professional, as taught by Thompson, is believed to represent a “coach”.
Regarding claims 1, 14, 19, Thompson teaches receiving user information that describes at least one of user preferences and personality characteristics for multiple users (Paragraphs 0076, 0088, collection of wellness data from patient, 0048, patient database, system is not limited to one patient and collects data from multiple users); establishing a vector index that includes coach information and the received user information (Paragraphs 0109, 0135-0136, wellness indices for user information and vector indices for wellness professional or “coach” information represent a vector index); for a unique user, filtering the established vector index to generate a set of candidates, in which filtering includes leveraging subsystems to identify an appropriate set of candidates for the unique user (Paragraphs 0135-0136, comparing wellness indices to vector indices to determine a group of candidate professionals represents the claimed filtering); refining the generated set of candidates using a processing environment that identifies a subset of candidates (Paragraphs 0104, refining to identify only professionals who are available, 0137, match according to groups and then identify a subset based on individual matching); and transmitting the identified subset of candidates to the unique user (Paragraph 0102).
Regarding claim 2, Thompson teaches an artificial intelligence subsystem is utilized for filtering the established vector index (Paragraph 0127).
Regarding claim 3, Thompson teaches the subsystems include an NLP (natural language processing) subsystem or user-defined policies and criteria subsystem (Paragraphs 0100, user enters information and this information is used in the filtering step, the software used to analyze and apply this information using programmed criteria is considered to be a “user-defined policies and criteria subsystem”, 0128-0129, natural language processing may be used as well, and this software is considered to be an “NLP subsystem”).
Regarding claim 4, Thompson teaches the identified set of candidates for the unique user includes identifying candidate sets or a single set of top candidates (Paragraphs 0047, 0100, 0106, 0108-0109).
Regarding claim 5, Thompson teaches the processing environment for refining the generated set of candidates includes an Al (artificial intelligence) engine operating within an AI/ML (machine learning) environment to determine the subset of candidates (Paragraphs 0127, 0134, 0138).
Regarding claims 12, 17, Thompson teaches the set of candidates comprise top rated candidates based on the filtering (Paragraphs 0047, 0100, 0106, 0108-0109).
Regarding claims 13, 18, Thompson teaches the subset of candidates comprise top candidates that satisfy a threshold (Paragraph 0135).
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.
Claims 6-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thompson (U.S. Pub No. 2015/0154721).
Regarding claim 6, Thompson teaches the processing environment further includes a point-based ordering system to determine the subset of candidates (Paragraphs 0118-0119).
Thompson does not appear to specify a hard-coded environment. However, hard coding has been old and well known long before the filing of Applicant’s invention. Hard coding is a fundamental concept in software development that has been around as long as programming languages themselves. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to hard code any ordering system since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements and the combination of each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately and a person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claim 7, Thompson teaches the processing environment further includes a rule-based ordering system to determine the subset of candidates (Paragraphs 0118-0119).
Thompson does not appear to specify a hard-coded environment. However, hard coding has been old and well known long before the filing of Applicant’s invention. Hard coding is a fundamental concept in software development that has been around as long as programming languages themselves. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to hard code any ordering system since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements and the combination of each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately and a person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claim 8, Thompson teaches the ordering system and AI/ML environments interoperate with each other to identify the subset of candidates (Paragraphs 0118-0119, 0127, 0134, 0138).
Thompson does not appear to specify a hard-coded environment. However, hard coding has been old and well known long before the filing of Applicant’s invention. Hard coding is a fundamental concept in software development that has been around as long as programming languages themselves. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to hard code any ordering system since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements and the combination of each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately and a person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thompson (U.S. Pub No. 2015/0154721) in view of Containerization Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Containerization_(computing)&oldid=1074594483, 3/1/2022).
Regarding claim 9, Thompson does not appear to specify the vector index and filtration steps operate in two distinct and independent containers within the remote determination system. However, Containerization Wiki teaches that implementing separate computer processes within separate containers has been old and well known long before the filing of Applicant’s invention. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to operate any of the claimed processes, including the vector index and filtration steps, in separate containers since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements and the combination of each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately and a person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claims 10, 11, 15, 16, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thompson (U.S. Pub No. 2015/0154721) in view of Bao (U.S. Patent No. 11/556,836).
Regarding claims 10, 15, 20, Thompson teaches a NLP (natural language processing) subsystem (Paragraphs 0128-0129, natural language processing may be used as well, and this software is considered to be an “NLP subsystem”), a user-defined policies and criteria subsystem to apply criteria to the coach information and the user information to determine the set of candidates (Paragraphs 0100, user enters information and this information is used in the filtering step, the software used to analyze and apply this information using programmed criteria is considered to be a “user-defined policies and criteria subsystem”), and a machine learning/artificial intelligence subsystem to receive the coach information and the user information to determine the set of candidates (Paragraphs 0127, 0134, 0138).
Thompson does not appear to specify a NLP (natural language processing) subsystem to parse the coach information and the user information to determine the set of candidates. However, Bao teaches a NLP (natural language processing) subsystem to parse the coach information and the user information to determine the set of candidates (Column 10 Lines 61-67, match business user data to specialist data, Column 17 Lines 30-35, Column 20 Lines 15-20, NLP used to identify business user attributes and specialist attributes). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to parse the data with NLP since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements and the combination of each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately and a person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claims 11, 16, Thompson teaches the NLP subsystem is used first, the user-defined policies and criteria subsystem and the machine learning/artificial intelligence subsystem are used after the NLP subsystem (Paragraphs 0128-0129, any language data will need to be recognized before it’s able to be analyzed).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The following references have been cited to further show the state of the art with respect to candidate recommendation systems:
U.S. Pub No. 2020/0338394 to Neumann
U.S. Patent No. 10,600,105 to Kumar
U.S. Pub No. 2025/0014089 to McClure
U.S. Pub No. 2024/0054548 to Catone
U.S. Pub No. 2023/0196471 to Mendell
U.S. Pub No. 2025/0157609 to Shah
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL BEKERMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3256. The examiner can normally be reached 9PM-3PM EST M, T, TH, F.
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/MICHAEL BEKERMAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3621