Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Notice to Applicant
2. The following is a Non-Final, first Office Action responsive to Application Serial Number: 19077790 filed on 03/12/2025.
Claims 1-20 are pending in the current application and have been rejected below.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 03/12/2025, 01/26/2026, 03/16/2026, 07/07/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
4. 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.
5. Claims 1-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because, although they are drawn to statutory categories of method (process), system (machine) or medium (manufacture), they are also directed to a judicial exception (an abstract idea) without significantly more.
6. At Step 2A Prong One of the subject matter eligibility analysis, Claim 1 recites A method comprising: receiving .. an incident record involving an individual human being involved in an incident; analyzing .. the incident record, resulting in a[n] .. incident summary; generating, .. based on the .. incident summary, corrective training recommendations for the individual human being, the corrective training recommendations predicted to perform at least one of mitigating or preventing the incident from occurring again; and providing the corrective training recommendations to an authority over the individual human being, which under Broadest Reasonable Interpretation in light of the Specification, is an abstract idea of Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity, particularly fundamental economic principles or practices (including mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people, (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions) because providing corrective training recommendations to a supervisor is a business practice for mitigating risk, involving managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people. Furthermore, it is also an abstract idea of Mental Processes - concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment or opinion), because analyzing and summarizing an incident record to generate corrective training recommendations for an individual in order to mitigate or prevent the incident from re-occurring is a process that can be performed in the mind since it involves observation , evaluation and judgement. Claims 8 and 15 recite a similar abstract idea.
At Step 2A Prong Two of the analysis, the judicial exception (abstract idea) is not integrated into a practical application because independent Claims 1, 8 and 15, including additional elements such as a computer system, via at least one processor of the computer system executing a first Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm, natural language, via the at least one processor executing a second AI algorithm; at least one processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations, individually, and in combination, when viewed as a whole, are not an improvement to a computer or a technology, the claims do not apply the judicial exception with a particular machine, and the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing. Generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, as in the instant claims, is not indicative of integration into a practical application - see MPEP 2106.05(h); adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as in the instant claims, is also not indicative of integration into a practical application - see MPEP 2106.05(f).
At Step 2B of the analysis, independent Claims 1, 8 and 15 do not include any additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (abstract idea), because any such additional elements such as those listed above, individually or in combination, do not recite anything that is beyond conventional and routine activity or use of computers (as evidenced by Figure 4 of the Drawings and paragraphs 37-41 of the Specification in the instant Application, and court decisions such as buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) discussed at 2106.05(d) of the MPEP), do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, nor do they apply the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular field of use or technological environment. Adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea (see MPEP 2106.05(f)), or generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)), as in the instant independent Claims, is not indicative of an inventive concept ("significantly more").
At Step 2A Prong One, dependent Claims 2-7, 9-14 and 16-20 incorporate (and therefore recite) the abstract idea noted in the independent claims from which they depend, and some further recite extensions of that abstract idea.
At Step 2A Prong Two, dependent Claims 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17 and 19 do not include any additional elements beyond those included in the list above with respect to the independent Claims from which they depend. These dependent claims therefore do not integrate the judicial exception (abstract idea) into a practical application for the same reasons as stated above at Step 2A Prong Two for the independent claims.
At Step 2A Prong Two for dependent Claims 4, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14, 18 and 20, the judicial exception (abstract idea) is not integrated into a practical application because these dependent claims, including additional elements such as those listed above for the independent claims and a Large Language Model (LLM), a database, individually, and in combination, when viewed as a whole, are not an improvement to a computer or a technology, the claims do not apply the judicial exception with a particular machine, and the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing. Generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, as in the instant claims, is not indicative of integration into a practical application - see MPEP 2106.05(h); adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as in the instant claims, is also not indicative of integration into a practical application - see MPEP 2106.05(f).
At Step 2B, dependent Claims 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17 and 19 do not include any additional elements beyond those included in the list above with respect to the independent Claims from which they depend. These dependent claims therefore do not recite anything that is sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons as stated above at Step 2B for the independent claims.
At Step 2B, dependent Claims 4, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14, 18 and 20 do not include any additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception (abstract idea), because any such additional elements such as those listed above for the independent claims and a Large Language Model (LLM), a database, individually or in combination, do not recite anything that is beyond conventional and routine activity or use of computers (as evidenced by Figure 4 of the Drawings and paragraphs 37-41 of the Specification in the instant Application, and court decisions such as buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) discussed at 2106.05(d) of the MPEP), do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, nor do they apply the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular field of use or technological environment. Adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea (see MPEP 2106.05(f)), or generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)), as in the instant claims, is not indicative of an inventive concept ("significantly more").
Therefore, Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-eligible subject matter. See Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573__ U.S. 2014.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
7. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103:
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.
35 U.S.C. 103 forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action.
8. Claims 1-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Clodore et al. (US Patent Publication 20230123022 A1 – hereinafter Clodore) in view of Ranga Prasad et al. (US Patent Publication 20250265468 A1 - hereinafter Ranga Prasad).
9. As per Claim 1, Clodore teaches:
A method comprising:
receiving, at a computer system, an incident record involving an individual human being involved in an incident [CLODORE reads on: Fig. 1 (environment 100, AGENT(S) 112); Fig. 15 (system architecture 1500, PROCESSOR 1504); para 41 (agent training system 118 determines that the agent 112 has not followed the suggestions or responses prepared by the agent training system 118)];
analyzing, via at least one processor of the computer system executing a first Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm, the incident record [CLODORE reads on: para 38 (artificial intelligence may be re-trained to provide more accurate or improved recommendations to agents based on historical conversation data is analyzing, via at least one processor of the computer system executing a first Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm, the incident record); para 39 (machine learning algorithm or artificial intelligence provides conditional logic)], resulting in a natural language incident summary [CLODORE reads on: para 104 (likelihood of the customer opening a subsequent conversation within a short period of time for the same or similar intent or issue may increase); para 105 (utilize natural language processing (NLP) to evaluate conversations)]; generating,
… corrective training recommendations for the individual human being, the corrective training recommendations predicted to perform at least one of mitigating or preventing the incident from occurring again; and providing the corrective training recommendations to an authority over the individual human being [CLODORE reads on: para 41 (If the agent training system 118 determines that the agent 112 has not followed the suggestions or responses prepared by the agent training system 118, the agent training system 118 may perform one or more remedial actions, such as transmitting a notification to the agent 112 or supervisor of the agent 112 to indicate any necessary steps that are to be undertaken to improve the performance of the agent 112); para 56 (artificial intelligence may provide one or more recommendations for how to correct these issues to improve the customer experience is mitigating or preventing the incident from occurring again)].
Clodore does not explicitly teach, but Ranga Prasad more explicitly teaches:
… via the at least one processor executing a second AI algorithm based on the natural language incident summary [RANGA PRASAD reads on: Fig. 4 (Natural Language Processing - 406); para 21 (Incident Validation and Classification Module, which validates and categorizes the incident using advanced natural language processing techniques .. Following this, a Generative AI Inference Module generates predictive insights on potential causes); para 41 (Generative AI and LLMs can be used in various aspects of this disclosure performing one or more various tasks, as desired, including: (1) Natural Language Processing(NLP) .. (18) Information Summarization)], …
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Clodore to incorporate the teachings of Ranga Prasad in the same field of endeavor of incident management to include via the at least one processor executing a second AI algorithm based on the natural language incident summary. The motivation for doing this would have been to improve the incident management of Clodore by efficiently using AI algorithms. See Ranga Prasad, Abstract, " The pioneering AI-driven system revolutionizes IT service management by uniquely validating, suggesting, and inferencing incident and problem data. .. It bridges critical gaps in incident resolution and classification through cognitive computing, AI, NLP, and deep learning, applied to both historical and current data.".
10. As per Claim 2, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the incident [as above, Claim 1] is
Clodore does not explicitly teach, but Ranga Prasad further teaches:
one of an environmental incident, a health incident, and a safety incident [RANGA PRASAD reads on: para 22 (supporting quick health and security assessments of IT services)].
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad to incorporate the further teachings of Ranga Prasad in the same field of endeavor of incident management to include one of an environmental incident, a health incident, and a safety incident. The motivation for doing this would have been to improve the incident management of Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad by efficiently classifying incidents.
11. As per Claim 3, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the incident [as above, Claim 1] is
Clodore further teaches:
a quality control incident [CLODORE reads on: para 130 (the performance of agents responding to customer intents may be evaluated to determine their efficacy in providing a positive customer experience. .. the performance monitoring system may provide .. quality assurance teams .. to coach agents on how best to respond to customers or to perform other remedial tasks)].
12. As per Claim 4, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the first AI algorithm [as above, Claim 1] comprises
Clodore does not explicitly teach, but Ranga Prasad further teaches:
a Large Language Model (LLM) [RANGA PRASAD reads on: Fig. 4 (Large Language Model (LLM) - 408); para 13 (utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze text data from incidents)].
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad to incorporate the further teachings of Ranga Prasad in the same field of endeavor of incident management to include a Large Language Model (LLM). The motivation for doing this would have been to improve the incident management of Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad by efficiently using algorithms.
13. As per Claim 5, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the second AI algorithm [as above, Claim 1]
Clodore further teaches:
… a training history of the individual human being [CLODORE reads on: para 37 (the agent training system 118 processes historical data corresponding to previous interactions between the agent 112 and customers); para 38 (identify actions that may be taken by the agent 112 to improve their ability to recognize explicit and implied elements in customer responses)]; and
an incident record of the individual human being [CLODORE reads on: para 37 (historical conversation data corresponding to conversations between the agent 112 and customers is an incident record of the individual human being); para 38 (sample conversations)].
Clodore does not explicitly teach, but Ranga Prasad further teaches:
receives, as input: the natural language incident summary [RANGA PRASAD reads on: Fig. 4, para 21, para 41, as above, Claim 1]; …
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad to incorporate the further teachings of Ranga Prasad in the same field of endeavor of incident management to include receives, as input: the natural language incident summary. The motivation for doing this would have been to improve the incident management of Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad by efficiently classifying incidents.
14. As per Claim 6, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the second AI algorithm [as above, Claim 1]
Clodore further teaches:
uses a database of training courses to identify the corrective training recommendations [CLODORE reads on: Fig. 3 (COMPARISON DATA 306; PERFORMANCE INSIGHT GENERATOR 308 is a database of training courses to identify the corrective training recommendations); Fig. 4 (GENERA TE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REACTING APPROPRIATELY TO CUSTOMER UTTERANCES 410); Fig. 6 (PRESENT COMPARISON AND INSIGHT(S)/ RECOMMENDATION(S) VIA DASHBOARD 616); Fig. 15 (STORAGE DEVICE 1508); para 75 (The performance insight generator 308 may be implemented using a computing device associated with the performance monitoring system 302)].
15. As per Claim 7, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The method of claim 6, wherein: the second AI algorithm [as above, Claim 6] further
Clodore further teaches:
uses the database of training courses, a plurality of incident records, and a plurality of training records to rank how training courses in the plurality of training courses are likely to perform the at least one of mitigating or preventing of the incident from occurring again, resulting in ranked training courses [CLODORE reads on: Fig. 7 (user interface 700); para 106 (most impactful performance metric that will improve overall client performance in conversations with customers); para 106 (rank primary and secondary performance metrics; the performance metrics .. ranked based on which performance metric has the greatest deviation from the selected benchmark); para 112 (user interface 1200 for presenting recommendations and insights for improving one or more performance metrics); ]; and
the corrective training recommendations represent at least one training course in the ranked training courses having a top ranking [CLODORE reads on: para 106 (focus on the most impactful performance metric)].
16. As per Claim 8, Clodore teaches:
A system comprising:
at least one processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations [CLODORE reads on: Fig. 15 (PROCESSOR 1504, STORAGE DEVICE 1508); paras 146, 148, 150] comprising:
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 1 above.
17. As per Claim 9, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein the incident [as above, Claim 8] is
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 2 above.
18. As per Claim 10, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein the incident [as above, Claim 8] is
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 3 above.
19. As per Claim 11, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein the first AI algorithm [as above, Claim 8] comprises
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 4 above.
20. As per Claim 12, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein the second AI algorithm [as above, Claim 8]
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 5 above.
21. As per Claim 13, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein the second AI algorithm [as above, Claim 8]
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 6 above.
22. As per Claim 14, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The system of claim 13, wherein: the second AI algorithm [as above, Claim 13] further
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 7 above.
23. As per Claim 15, Clodore teaches:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations [CLODORE reads on: Fig. 15, paras 146, 148, 150, as above, Claim 8] comprising:
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 1 above.
24. As per Claim 16, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the incident [as above, Claim 15] is
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 2 above.
25. As per Claim 17, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the incident [as above, Claim 15] is
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 3 above.
26. As per Claim 18, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the first AI algorithm [as above, Claim 15] comprises
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 4 above.
27. As per Claim 19, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the second AI algorithm [as above, Claim 15]
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 5 above.
28. As per Claim 20, Clodore in view of Ranga Prasad teaches:
The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the second AI algorithm [as above, Claim 15]
The remainder of the claim rejected under the same rationale as Claim 6 above.
Conclusion
29. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Anand et al. (US Patent Publication 20140129536 A1) describes a system and method for diagnosing and detecting causes of an incident interactively, by classifying the incident by keywords and correlating groups of incidents with causes.
Diner et al. (US Patent Publication 20250285548 A1) describes a system and method for providing simulated coaching of contact center agents where a simulator seamlessly acts as both a customer and a coach using LLM’s.
30. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SARJIT S BAINS whose telephone number is (571)270-0317. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30am-6:00pm.
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/SARJIT S BAINS/Examiner, Art Unit 3623 /RUTAO WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3623
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