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 .
This communication is in response to the amendment received on 07/07/2026. Claims 1-20 remain pending in this application.
The objection to claim 10 has been withdrawn in light of the amendment made to this claim.
The 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection of claim 12, for being directed to a non-statutory subject matter, has been withdrawn in light of the amendment made to this claim.
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 the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1:
Claims 1-10 are drawn to a method which is within the four statutory categories (i.e. process). Claims 11, 13-20 are drawn to a system which is within the four statutory categories (i.e. machine). Claim 12 is drawn to a storage medium storing computer instructions (see the rejection above).
Step 2A, Prong 1:
Claims 1, 11 and 12 have been amended to recite:
“determining a first element in the first meal plan to be replaced and a first nutritional vector of the first element,
obtaining a candidate set of elements,
obtaining candidate nutritional vectors for some or all the candidate elements in the candidate set,
determining each similarity score based on a similarity between the first nutritional vector and each obtained candidate nutritional vector,
obtaining a second meal plan based on a second element which has a highest similarly score,
wherein the first element in the first meal plan is replaced by the second element to form the second meal plan”.
These limitations correspond to an abstract idea of “certain methods of organizing human activity”. This is a method of managing interactions between people, such as user following rules and instructions. The mere nominal recitation of a generic processor and generic network devices does not take the claim out of the methods of organizing human interactions grouping. Thus, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Claim 15 recites “…the first meal plan and/or the first element is determined according to a user input, or the first meal plan and/or the first element is determined according to at least one predetermined condition”, which also corresponds to a method of managing interactions between people, such as user following rules and instructions. Hence, the claim is directed to an abstract idea of “certain methods of organizing human activity”.
Claims 6 and 17 recite “…the similarity score between two elements is calculated based on the below equation:
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wherein, A and B are the nutritional vectors of the two elements respectively, A is <A1, A2, ...An>, B is <B1, B2, ... B~>, and S is the similarity score.”.
These claim limitations correspond to mathematical calculations, therefore these limitations fall within the “mathematical concept” grouping of abstract ideas.
After considering all claim elements, both individually and in combination and in ordered combination, it has been determined that the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Claims 2-10 and 13-20 are ultimately dependent from claims 1, 11 and include all the limitations of claims 1, 11. Therefore, claims 2-10 and 13-20 recite the same abstract idea. Claims 2-10 and 13-20 describe a further limitation regarding the basis for determining meal plans. These are all just further describing the abstract idea recited in claims 1, 11, without adding significantly more.
Step 2A, Prong 2:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, claims recite the additional elements of “an electronic device”-claim 1, “displaying a number of meal plans and/or receiving an input from a user to select the first meal plan from the displayed meal plans”-claim 2, “the first meal plan and/or the first element is determined according to a user input”-claims 4/15, “an apparatus comprising at least one processor,…the at least one processor is configured to perform the steps of determining…, obtaining…, determining…”-claim 11, “a storage medium storing computer instructions, where the instructions are configured to control at least one processor to perform the steps of determining…, obtaining…, determining…”-claim 12, “…the processor is further configured to perform the step of displaying a number of meal plans and/or receiving an input from a user to select the first meal plan from the displayed meal plans”-claim 13, which are hardware and software elements, these limitations are not enough to qualify as “practical application” being recited in the claims along with the abstract idea since these elements are merely invoked as a tool to apply instructions of the abstract idea in a particular technological environment, and mere instructions to apply/implement/automate an abstract idea in a particular technological environment and merely limiting the use of an abstract idea to a particular field or technological environment do not provide practical application for an abstract idea (MPEP 2106.05(f) & (h)).
Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B:
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using a processor to perform both the obtaining and determining steps amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept.
The claims are not patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1-5, 7-16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bennett (US 2019/0221303 A1) in view of Mehta et al. (hereinafter Mehta) (US 20180121631A1).
Claim 1 has been amended to recite a method, performed by an electronic device, for suggesting meal plans, comprising,
determining a first element in the first meal plan to be replaced and a first nutritional vector of the first element (Bennett discloses “…generating, based on the responses, a recommended meal plan by modifying a candidate nutrient template selected from the plurality of nutrient templates, wherein the modifying is based on a subset of the previously consumed meals,…” in [0023], “a nutrient template includes multiple target nutritional profiles , each of which may be a variant or a modification of a first target nutritional profile… . The nutrient template corresponding to the first target nutritional profile may further include variants of that first profile that are specifically tailored for people with different demographics…” in [0048]),
obtaining a candidate set of elements (Bennett discloses “…generating, based on the responses, a recommended meal plan by modifying a candidate nutrient template selected from the plurality of nutrient templates, wherein the modifying is based on a subset of the previously consumed meals,…” in [0023]),
obtaining candidate nutritional vectors for some or all the candidate elements in the candidate set (Bennett discloses “…generating, based on the responses, a recommended meal plan by modifying a candidate nutrient template selected from the plurality of nutrient templates, wherein the modifying is based on a subset of the previously consumed meals,…” in [0023]),
obtaining a second meal plan based on a second element which has a highest similarly score (Bennett discloses “…the computerized system 100 can be used to modulate a person's diet to improve an efficacy of a medical treatment for the person, according to an illustrative implementation. Additionally, or alternatively, the system 100 may be used to provide an aggregate indicator of a person's overall health, using the person's biomarker levels. The aggregate indicator may a single indicator (e.g., a number or a grade) that provides an indication of an alignment between the person's biomarker levels and a target biomarker profile…” in [0042]),
wherein the first element in the first meal plan is replaced by the second element to form the second meal plan (Bennett; [0069]).
Bennett fails to expressly teach determining each similarity score based on a similarity between the first nutritional vector and each obtained candidate nutritional vector”. However, this feature is well known in the art, as evidenced by Mehta.
In particular, Mehta discloses “In 218 similar food items are correlated and identified by ingredients . Similar food items may also be identified in 220 as distributions based on cuisine , class of food item , and an the like . In 222 , a similarity score may be calculated based on ingredient intersection similarity score based on cuisine closeness similarity score based on class closeness . This data may be used to determine a cumulative weighted similarity in 224 usable to output a content item for a corresponding food item recommendation from a data stor age device in 226 “ in [0020] and “A health vector mapping engine is configured to map the health vectors for a health profile for a food item to provide relevant recommendations from the recommendation engine . Each food item is defined by health vectors and stored in a health storage device , each of the health vectors being correlated to a food item . Several health vectors may make up a health profile for a food item . These health vectors and correlations are further used to map to recommendations provided to a user” in [0047].
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to include the aforementioned limitation as disclosed by Mehta with the motivation of to provide relevant recommendations (Mehta; [0047]).
Claims 2-5, 7-10 have not been amended, and Applicant does not appear to argue the separate patentability of these claims. As such, claims 2-5, 7-10 are rejected for the same reasons given in the previous Office Action and incorporated herein.
As per claims 11 and 12, the amendments to apparatus claim 11 and medium claim 12 reflect the same changes made to method claim 1 and are therefore rejected for the same reasons given above for method claim 1 in addition to the reasons given in the prior Office Action.
Claims 13-16, 18-20 have not been amended, and Applicant does not appear to argue the separate patentability of these claims. As such, claims 13-16, 18-20 are rejected for the same reasons given in the previous Office Action and incorporated herein.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 07/07/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant’s argument will be addressed below in the order in which they appear.
Arguments about 35 USC 101 rejection:
Applicant argues that claim 1 recites a method performed by an electronic device that includes specific technical steps, and claim steps are not directed to managing interactions between people.
In response, Examiner submits that using a generic computing device (processor) to perform the claim steps “determining a first element in the first meal plan to be replaced and a first nutritional vector of the first element, obtaining a candidate set of elements, obtaining candidate nutritional vectors for some or all the candidate elements in the candidate set, determining each similarity score based on a similarity between the first nutritional vector and each obtained candidate nutritional vector, obtaining a second meal plan based on a second element which has a highest similarly score, wherein the first element in the first meal plan is replaced by the second element to form the second meal plan” correspond to “certain methods of organizing human activity”, since they are directed to a method of managing interactions between people, such as user following rules and instructions in order to determine a highest similarity score for an element in the meal plan and make replacements for the elements (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) II C).
The MPEP recites “…certain activity between a person and a computer …may fall within the "certain methods of organizing human activity" grouping.” in § 2106.04(a)(2) II C.
Applicant argues that claim 1 applies similarity calculations to nutritional vectors to improve meal plan generation technology, which is similar to the Example 4 in the Guidance and the Desjardin decision.
In response, Examiner submits that Example 4 in the Guidance is patent eligible under 35 USC 101, since “the combination of elements impose meaningful limits in that the mathematical operations are applied to improve an existing technology (global positioning) by improving the signal-acquisition sensitivity of the receiver to extend the usefulness of the technology into weak-signal environments and providing the location information for display on the mobile device”. In the current application, neither the claims nor the specification provides any improvement in the technology (improvement of the existing technology), but may be directed to improvement of the outcome of meal generation using the calculations. In particular, using the similarity scoring to identify the highest-scoring replacements and forming a second meal plan by replacing the first element with the second element may provide better outcome for meal generation.
The Desjardin claims found to be eligible under 35 USC 101, which the decision recites “Paragraph 21 of the Specification, which the Appellant cites, identifies improvements in training the machine learning model itself. Of course, such an assertion in the Specification alone is insufficient to support a patent eligibility determination, absent a subsequent determination that the claim itself reflects the disclosed improvement. See MPEP § 2106.05(a) (citing Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 2016)). Here, however, we are persuaded that the claims reflect such an improvement. For example, one improvement identified in the Specification is to "effectively learn new tasks in succession whilst protecting knowledge about previous tasks." Spec. ,r 21. The Specification also recites that the claimed improvement allows artificial intelligence (AI) systems to "us[e] less of their storage capacity" and enables "reduced system complexity." Id.”. In the current application, the specification does not provide any improvement to the technology or the computing systems, it basically recites generating meal plans using vector elements calculation.
Therefore, the arguments are not persuasive and claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Arguments about 35 USC 102/103 rejections:
Applicant’s arguments with respect to 35 USC 102 rejection of claims 1-5, 7-16 and 18-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on the combination of references applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed 07/07/2026, with respect to 35 USC 103 rejection of claims 6 and 17 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection has been withdrawn.
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.
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/DILEK B COBANOGLU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3687
