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
Applicant's arguments filed on 06/22/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding Step 2A, Prong One, Applicant does not dispute that claim recites registering a user, verifying a user credentials, and creating a user account, but instead argues that the surrounding technical context (an offline medical computing environment) removes the claim from the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping. However, Examiner disagrees.
The claimed steps of receiving a registration code and credentials, processing the information, and creating a user account based on it describe a commercial/legal (i.e. licensing) interaction, the recited environment does not change the fundamental character of what the claim does, only where it is performed.
Regarding Step 2A, Prong Two, Applicant argues that the claims integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they solve a technical problem of registering users offline without administrator involvement. This argument is not commensurate with the scope of the claim. While the specification describes technical detail regarding offline license/credential verification (See ¶0010-0011, 0015 and 0054), the claim itself recites only that the registration code and credential are processed, without reciting any algorithm, data structure, or technical mechanism by which that processing is carried out. Reciting a desired result (i.e. offline registration) without the specific means for achieving that result does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application (See MPEP 2106.05 (f)). Applicant must take into consideration that in order to view the claims as supplying an inventive concept the technological improvement must be present within the claims themselves (Accenture Global Servs., GmbH v. Guidewire Software, inc., 108 USPQ2d 1173 (Fed. Cir. 2013)), (Synopsys, inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp... 120 USPQ2d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
With respect to Ancora Techs., Inc. v. HTC Am., Inc 908 F.3d 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2018), this case is different from the applicant claims. According to this case “Improving security—here, against a computer’s unauthorized use of a program —can be a non-abstract computer-functionality improvement if done by a specific technique that departs from earlier approaches to solve a specific computer problem. The claimed method here specifically identifies how that functionality improvement is effectuated in an assertedly unexpected way: a structure containing a license record is stored in a particular, modifiable, non-volatile portion of the computer’s BIOS, and the structure in that memory location is used for verification by interacting with the distinct computer memory that contains the program to be verified”. However, the Applicant’s claims silent with respect to any comparable structural or algorithm specificity; “processing…without the network connection…and without involvement of a privileged user” merely describes the absence of a network connection and the absence of a human step, which are, respectively, an environmental/field-of-use limitation and an indication that a manual process has been automated using generic computer functions, not evidence of a technical improvement. (See MPEP 2106.05 (f)).
With respect to claim 10, the additional limitations of creating, editing, and sharing drug libraries between multiple medical devices likewise recite generic data-management functions without any specific technical means (e.g. a particular communication protocol or data structure) for accomplishing the sharing step and therefore do not provide significant more than the abstract idea.
Therefore, the rejection is maintained.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-11 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 1-11 are 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.
In the instance case, claims 1-9 are directed to a computing device and claims 10-11 are directed to a method. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
The claims are directed to registering a user which is an abstract idea. Specifically, the claims recite “providing a registration code… to the user…; receiving from the user, the registration code and at least one user credential…; processing…the registration code…; creating a user account for the user… ” which is grouped within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (MPEP 2106) because the claims involve a series of steps for providing a registration code to a user, receiving the registration code and credential from the user, processing the registration code and credentials and creating a user account which is process deals with commercial or legal interactions. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea (See MPEP 2106).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106), the additional elements of the claims such as, software application and personal computer merely use a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea. Specifically, software application and personal computer perform the steps of providing a registration code to a user, receiving the registration code and credential from the user, processing the registration code and credentials and creating a user account. The use of a processor/computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it requires no more than a computer performing functions that correspond to acts required to carry out the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition (Vanda Memo), the claims do not apply the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)), the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (MPEP 2106.05(c)), and the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo). Therefore, the claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106), the additional elements of software application and personal computer, to perform the steps amounts to no more than using a computer or processor to automate and/or implement the abstract idea of registering a user. As discussed above, taking the claim elements separately, software application and personal computer the steps of providing a registration code to a user, receiving the registration code and credential from the user, processing the registration code and credentials and creating a user account. These functions correspond to the actions required to perform the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the concept of registering a user. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and/or implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 2-9 and 11 further describe the abstract idea of registering a user. Specifically claims 2, 7-8 and 11 just describe the information such as credential and code. This further describes the abstract idea because it involves in the analysis of the information. Claims 3-6 describing the checking and processing the information which is part of the abstract idea because it describes the manner in which user registration is performed. Claim 9 describes the additional element which is used as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea.
Therefore, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZESHAN QAYYUM whose telephone number is (571)270-3323. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00AM-6:00PM EST.
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/ZESHAN QAYYUM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3697
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