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 .
The following is a non-final Office action on the merits in response to Application filed on 3/17/2025. Claims 1-20 are examined and pending.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on application filed in Japan on 6/4/2020, and the instant application is a cont of 18/007763 (now Patent 12, 283, 370), filed 12/2/2022, which is in turn a cont of PCT/JP2021/016349 filed 4/27/2021, and names the inventor or at least one joint inventor named in the prior application. Accordingly, this application may constitute a continuation of 18/007763.
However, papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), have not been received.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 3/17/2025, follows the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Double Patenting
A rejection based on double patenting of the “same invention” type finds its support in the language of 35 U.S.C. 101 which states that “whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process... may obtain a patent therefor...” (Emphasis added). Thus, the term “same invention,” in this context, means an invention drawn to identical subject matter. See Miller v. Eagle Mfg. Co., 151 U.S. 186 (1894); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Ockert, 245 F.2d 467, 114 USPQ 330 (CCPA 1957).
A statutory type (35 U.S.C. 101) double patenting rejection can be overcome by canceling or amending the claims that are directed to the same invention so they are no longer coextensive in scope. The filing of a terminal disclaimer cannot overcome a double patenting rejection based upon 35 U.S.C. 101. The applicant should amend or cancel claims such that the reference and the instant application no longer contain claims directed to the same invention.
Claims 1-20 of the instant application are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as claiming the same invention as that of claim 1-9 of prior application No. 18/007763 (now patent 12, 283, 370, i.e. reference application). This is a statutory double patenting rejection since the claims directed to the same invention have been patented.
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 NOT rejected under the Alice/Mayo styled 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention integrates the abstract idea into a practical application.
Applicant’s instant claims are deemed to be persuasive as the combination of elements, the claim as a whole, recite the specifics of performing training using the training data to construct a learning model that outputs a selection of a medical checkup facility recommended to a medical checkup target person who wants to take a medical checkup derived from the learning model and is also known as an output of a neural network after an input image is subject to a certain filtering, to overcome Alice 101 rejection. As such, the claim qualifies as eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101.
After reviewing the Applicant’s disclosure as well as the amended claimed limitations that are included in the pending claim language, it is clear to the Examiner that the steps being performed go beyond the limitations and simple implementation of an abstract idea. The claimed invention integrates the judicial exception into a practical application.
This statement is simply made to inform the record that the claims were considered under the Alice/Mayo analysis.
Allowable Subject Matter
As to the prior art rejections, in interpreting the claims, in light of the specification, upon further search and consideration, and for the reasons presented by the claims, the Examiner finds the claimed invention to be patentably distinct from the prior art of records. It is found that claim 1-20 is allowable subject to outstanding Double Patenting rejections.
Independent claims 1, 8, 15 as a whole recite a combination of limitations that has Not been found as define over prior art of record (the combination of Colsser (US 2022/0383998), Hiral et al. (US 2021/0391077), Tapia (US Patent 10708795), Kapoor et al. (US 2015/0133784), were directed towards the entirety of the claimed subject matter and was the best reference known to one of ordinary skill in the art to address the instant claims as well as the additional references of Bostic et al (US 2021/0005324), Nagashima et al. (US 2019/0189280), Abousy et al. (US 2019/0392931), Okumura et al. (US 2013/0204635),
and the other references teaches all the claimed features.
None of the prior art teaches or suggests specifying the type of selection of one medical checkup facility that is recommended to a medical checkup target person from a plurality of medical checkup facilities based on a medical checkup information indicating a medical checkup that is related to a healthcare and that is intended to be taken by the medical checkup target person, as variously claimed.
However, independent claims 1, 8, 15 and their dependency are rejected under Double Patenting above.
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with, and pending remedy to outstanding issues cited above. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
The prior art made of record and Not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Kirenko et al. (US 2021/0176357, teaches determining a priority level and/or conversation duration of a call. In particular, determine the health condition of the user who is initiating a call, based on extracted physiological data and to use the information on the health condition of the user to determine the priority level and/or conversation duration of the call).
Chen et al. (US 2019/0108914, teaches a health information analysis system configured to analyze, examine, search, investigate, consider, evaluate, and/or otherwise process health information and to generate various medical assessments based on the health information).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SUN M LI whose telephone number is (571)270-5489. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Thurs, 8:30am--5pm. Fax is 571-270-6489.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kambiz Abdi, can be reached on 571-272-6702. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SUN M LI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3685
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