DETAILED ACTION
This non final office action is in response to applicant’s filing of application number 19/134,644 on 05/30/2025. Claims 1-10 are pending and under examination.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statements filed on 5/30/2025 have been considered. Initialed copies of the Form 1449 are enclosed herewith.
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 1-10 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.
Subject Matter Eligibility Standard
Under the 35 U.S.C. §101 subject matter eligibility two-part analysis, Step 1 addresses whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. See MPEP §2106.03. If the claim does fall within one of the statutory categories, it must then be determined in Step 2A [prong 1] whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract idea). See MPEP §2106.04. If the claim is directed toward a judicial exception, it must then be determined in Step 2A [prong 2] whether the judicial exception is integrated into a practical application. See MPEP §2106.04(d). Finally, if the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application, it must additionally be determined in Step 2B whether the claim recites "significantly more" than the abstract idea. See MPEP §2106.05.
Examiner’s note: The Office's 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (2019 PEG) is currently found in the Ninth Edition, Revision 10.2019 (revised June 2020) of the Manual of Patent Examination Procedure (MPEP), specifically incorporated in MPEP §2106.03 through MPEP §2106.07(c).
Under Step One: Claims 1-4 are directed to a method (i.e., a process. Claims 5-10 are directed to a device (i.e., a machine).
If the claim does fall within one of the statutory categories, it must then be determined whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract idea). Thus, the claims fall under one of the four statutory classes of invention under step One.
The claims recite the limitations in the abstract idea highlighted in non-bold and the additional elements in bold.
Claim 1 recites:
establishing an expert database formation model based on data of previously conducted scientific and technological achievement testing, so that associated expert databases can be formed based on key characteristics of scientific and technological achievements;
quantifying experts in the associated expert databases based on expert information, comprising research focus, qualification capability, testing experience, activity level, number of co-authored papers with the test subject, and number of co-invented patents with the test subject;
assigning values to quantitative parameters based on actual conditions of the experts, comprising research focus M, qualification capability N, testing experience 0, activity level P, academic collaboration H, and patent collaboration I, and substituting these assigned values into the formula to calculate a comprehensive score K for each expert:
PNG
media_image1.png
118
448
media_image1.png
Greyscale
ranking the experts in the associated expert databases based on their comprehensive scores.
Claim 2 further recites wherein if more than three experts refuse invitations, they may jointly recommend other experts for replacement.
Claim 3 further recites wherein the establishing of an expert database formation model is to perform tagged classification on scientific and technological achievement testing data kept previously, for example, over the past five years, using a Neo4j graph database, so that each tag serves as a node;
all the data are input according to the above- mentioned processing to form an expert database of scientific and technological achievement testing;
when the technical information of the tested scientific and technological achievements is input, an alternative expert panel for the current scientific and technological achievements can be formed.
Claim 4 further recites wherein values are quantitatively assigned to experts within the associated expert databases based on expert information, comprising research focus M, qualification capability N, testing experience O, activity level P, academic collaboration H, and patent collaboration I, and these assigned values are substituted into the formula to calculate a comprehensive score K for each expert:
PNG
media_image1.png
118
448
media_image1.png
Greyscale
the experts are scored according to the comprehensive score K formula, and then optimal results are selected. Where if the result of (NO-HI) is negative; wherein, the research focus M is classified into three tiers: fully relevant (3 points), moderately relevant (2 points), and irrelevant (1 point), and more specifically, three corresponding research tags are established based on the testing experts' research focus during expert enrollment; When submitting technical information of scientific and technological achievements, clients will select three best-matching tags from the system's tag library with a technician's assistance; a score of 3 points is determined when the testing experts fully match all the three tags of the scientific and technological achievements, 2 points for two matches, and 1 point for one match and below;
the qualification capability N is classified into three tiers: 3 points for Senior Professional Title, 2 points for Associate Senior Title, and 1 point for all other cases;
the testing experience O is classified into three tiers: 3 points for national-level project leadership, 2 points for provincial/ministerial-level project leadership, and 1 point for all other cases;
the activity level P is classified into three tiers: 3 points for participation three or more times within one year, 2 points for participation twice, and 1 point for all other cases;
the paper-related H is classified into three tiers: information of the first three authors and corresponding authors from papers published by scientific and technological achievement owners over the past five years is collected and compared to that of a testing expert, a score of 3 points is determined if the testing expert has participated in three or more papers, 2 points for two papers, and 1 point for one paper and below;
the patent-related I is classified into three tiers: information of the first three authors from patents published by scientific and technological achievement owners over the past five years is collected and compared to that of a testing expert, a score of 3 points is determined if the testing expert has participated in three or more patents, 2 points for two patents, and 1 point for one patent and below.
Claim 5 recites:
an expert database formation module, used to acquire associated expert databases based on the characteristics of scientific and technological achievements;
an expert information quantification module, used to quantify the expert information within the associated expert database for subsequent calculation, comprising:
analyzing the recorded expert information, and selecting the expert data to be quantified;
selecting the research focus, qualification capability, testing experience and activity level for matching purposes;
selecting the number of co-authored papers and co-authorized patents for quantification for avoidance purposes;
a comprehensive expert score calculation module, used to assign values to quantified parameters based on an expert's actual condition to obtain a comprehensive score K through calculation; and a ranking module, used to rank the experts based on the comprehensive score K and initiate invitations based on the desired number of experts.
Claim 6 further recites a replacement module:
if more than three experts refuse invitations, alternate experts may be jointly recommended by them for replacement.
Claim 7 further recites allocating a training set, a validation set and a testing set based on scientific and technological achievement testing records historically kept over the past five years; tagging the training set based on the classification of the scientific and technological achievements, including source components, detectors and sensors, and tagging the names of participating testing experts;
each scientific and technological achievement has been tagged with the described category and the name of the expert who participated in the testing;
training the pre-established expert database formation model using the training set to obtain a trained expert database formation model, and subsequently optimizing the trained expert database formation model using the validation set and the testing set, thus obtaining a final expert database formation model.
Claim 8 further recites an acquisition unit, used to acquire technical information of tested scientific and technological achievements, and acquire element information of research focus M, qualification capability N, testing experience O, activity level P, paper-related H, and patent-related I of corresponding experts in the expert database based on the technical information;
an assignment unit, used to assign values to quantitative values of testing experts' element information of research focus M, qualification capability N, testing experience O, activity level P, paper-related H, and patent-related I based on acquired relevant data;
Preferably, the research focus M is classified into three tiers: fully relevant (3 points), partially relevant (2 points) and irrelevant (1 point), and more specifically, three corresponding research tags are established based on the testing experts' research focus during expert enrollment;
when submitting technical information of scientific and technological achievements, clients will select three best-matching tags from the system's tag library with a technician's assistance; a score of 3 points is determined when the testing experts fully match all the three tags of the scientific and technological achievements, 2 points for two matches, and 1 point for one match and below;
the qualification capability N is classified into three tiers: 3 points for Senior Professional Title, 2 points for Associate Senior Title, and 1 point for all other cases;
the testing experience O is classified into three tiers: 3 points for national-level project leadership, 2 points for provincial/ministerial-level project leadership, and 1 point for all other cases;
the activity level P is classified into three tiers: 3 points for participation three or more times within one year, 2 points for participation twice, and 1 point for all other cases;
the paper-related H is classified into three tiers: information of the first three authors and corresponding authors from papers published previously, for example, over the past five years, by scientific and technological achievement owners, is collected and compared to that of a testing expert, a score of 3 points is determined if the testing expert has participated in three or more papers, 2 points for two papers, and 1 point for one paper and below;
the patent-related I is classified into three tiers: information of the first three authors from patents published by scientific and technological achievement owners over the past five years is collected and compared to that of a testing expert, a score of 3 points is determined if the testing expert has participated in three or more patents, 2 points for two patents, and 1 point for one patent and below.
Claim 9 further recites:
a calculation unit, used to calculate the comprehensive score K of each testing expert, i.e., to calculate the comprehensive evaluation score K based on the research focus M, qualification capability N, testing experience O, activity level P, academic
collaboration H, and patent collaboration I of extracted testing experts:
PNG
media_image2.png
105
14
media_image2.png
Greyscale
PNG
media_image1.png
118
448
media_image1.png
Greyscale
Claim 10 further recites wherein the device further comprises a display module configured to present the ranking results or recommendation results, e.g., presentation through displays, mobile terminals and the like.
Regarding claim 1, applicant is to be noted that the steps or functions of “establishing”, “quantifying”, involve mental processes and/or generic computer functions. The function of “assigning” and “ranking” are similar to mathematical functions.
Regarding claim 5, applicant is to be noted that the step or function of “acquire" is considered as data gathering functions. The steps or functions of “qualify”, “analyzing”, “selecting” , involve mental processes and/or generic computer functions. The function of “assigning” is similar to a mathematical function. Similarly in claim 5,
Claims 1, and 5 are found to include at least one judicial exception, that the resent claims recite steps that can be performed using the human mind, pen, and paper. According to the 2019 Revised Guidance, concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgement, or opinion) fall into the category of mental processes. See 2019 Revised Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52.
Step 2A, Prong two: This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the clams recite the above noted bolded limitations as understood to be the additional limitations.
The claims as a whole integrate the recited judicial exception(s) into a practical application of the exception.
An evaluation is performed by (a) identifying whether there are any additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception, and (b) evaluating those additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether the claim as a whole integrates the exception into a practical application.2019 PEG Section III(A)(2), 84 Fed. Reg. at 54-55.
Claims 1 recites the additional element of an expert database. Claim 5 8 recites the additional elements of an expert database formation module, an expert databases, a quantification module, and an expert score calculation module. In particular, the claimed additional elements are recited at a high level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic component.
Accordingly, the 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 claimed additional elements are also seen as generic computer components for identifying, retrieving, generating and transmitting data as a processor performs generic functions without an inventive concept as such do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
The claimed additional elements are interpreted as being recited at a high level of generality and even if the claims recited in the affirmative. The type of data being manipulated does not impose meaningful limitations or render the idea less abstract. Looking at the elements as a combination does not add anything more than the elements analyzed individually.
Therefore, the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Applicant is reminded that a statutory claim would recite an automated machine implemented method or system with specific structures for performing the claimed invention so as to provide an improvement to another technology or technical field, an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Each claim as a whole, does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. This is because each claim does not effect an improvement to another technology or technical field; the claim does not amount to an improvement to the functioning of a computer itself; and the claim does not move beyond a general link of the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment.
Accordingly, claims 1, and 5 are directed to an abstract idea.
The dependent claim(s) when analyzed and each taken as a whole are held to be patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the additional recited limitations) fail(s) to establish that the claim(s) is/are not directed to an abstract idea.
The above recited limitations provide meaningful limitations that transforms the abstract idea into patent eligible. The claims as a whole effect an improvement to another technology or technical field. These limitations in combination provide meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a practical application.
7 . NOTE: Currently there are no outstanding prior art rejections under 35 USC § 102 or 35 USC§ 103.
Allowable Subject Matter
8. The claims would be allowable if overcome the under 35 USC § 101 rejection.
Conclusion
9. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. As per attached PTO 892 form.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROMAIN JEANTY whose telephone number is (571) 272-6732. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00AM to 5:30PM.
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, Jerry O'Connor can be reached at 571 272-6787. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ROMAIN JEANTY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624
Prosecution Insights