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 .
Status of Claims
This is a nonfinal rejection in response to preliminary claim amendments filed on 07/14/2025. Claims 1-8 are pending and are examined herein.
Priority
The present application is U.S. National State Application under 35 USC 371 of PCT/JP2023/001352 filed on 01/18/2023.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 07/14/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1: Is the claim to a Process, Machine, Manufacture, or Composition of Matter?
Claim 1-6 : An evacuation plan calculation apparatus comprising:
-a processor; and
-a memory storing program instructions that cause the processor to:
Claim 7: An evacuation plan calculation method causing a computer to execute...
Claim 8: A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having stored therein a program causing a computer to execute...
Therefore, the claims are directed to the potentially eligible subject matter categories, since claim 1 is directed to an apparatus which falls under machine, claim is directed to a method which falls within “process”, and claim 8 is directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium which falls under “manufacture.” Therefore the claims are to be further analyzed under step 2 of the 2 step analysis.
Step 2a Prong 1: Is the claim reciting a Judicial Exception(A Law of Nature, a Natural Phenomenon (Product of Nature), or An Abstract Idea?)
The claims under the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification are analyzed herein. Representative claim 1 is marked up, isolating the abstract idea from additional elements, wherein the abstract idea is in bold and the additional elements have been italicized as follows:
Claim 1: An evacuation plan calculation apparatus comprising:
-a processor; and
-a memory storing program instructions that cause the processor to:
-calculate an evacuation plan chronologically indicating the number of residents staying at home during a predetermined period by solving a linear planning problem to minimize a home residence cost that is a cost of disaster victims staying at the home under a constraint of a capacity of a shelter during the predetermined period based on data chronologically indicating a home residence cost which is a cost per person a disaster victim of a certain disaster staying at home.
Claim 1 is also representative of claims 7 and 8, which merely differ in their preamble, but contain the same functional material:
Claim 7: An evacuation plan calculation method causing a computer to execute...
Claim 8: A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having stored therein a program causing a computer to execute...
When evaluating the bolded limitations of the claims under the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification, it is clear that representative claim 1 recites at least one abstract idea subcategory under “certain methods of organizing human activity.” This abstract idea grouping found in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II) includes concepts related to “fundamental economic principles or practices,” “commercial or legal interactions,” and “managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people.” The present invention falls under managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people which include social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions. When considering the steps in bold, for example, calculate an evacuation plan chronologically indicating the number of residents staying at home during a predetermined period by solving a linear planning problem to minimize a home residence cost that is a cost of disaster victims staying at the home under a constraint of a capacity of a shelter during the predetermined period based on data chronologically indicating a home residence cost which is a cost per person a disaster victim of a certain disaster staying at home, the steps are no more than “certain methods of organizing human activity” because it describes creating an evacuation plan, which would fall at least under “managing personal behavior, interactions, or relationships between people.” Furthermore, claims recite mere data processing steps towards performing an analysis on human behavior. This is no more than “managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people” because it retries data reflective of social behavior and performs calculations.
Furthermore, in addition to reciting certain methods of organizing human activity, it is clear that the claims recite an abstract idea under “mathematical concepts.” MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2) provides further explanation on the abstract idea groupings. It should be noted that these groupings are not mutually exclusive, i.e., some claims recite limitations that fall within more than one grouping or sub-grouping. In this, a claim reciting performing mathematical calculations to carry out “certain methods of organizing human activity” may be considered to fall within the mathematical concepts grouping and the mental process grouping. Accordingly, examiners should identify at least one abstract idea grouping, but preferably identify all groupings to the extent possible, if a claim limitation(s) is determined to fall within multiple groupings and proceed with the analysis in Step 2A Prong Two.
MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(I) defines “mathematical concepts” as mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, and mathematical calculations. When determining whether a claim recites a mathematical concept (i.e., mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, and mathematical calculations), examiners should consider whether the claim recites a mathematical concept or merely limitations that are based on or involve a mathematical concept. A claim does not recite a mathematical concept (i.e., the claim limitations do not fall within the mathematical concept grouping), if it is only based on or involves a mathematical concept. Since each of the amended steps recite either mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, and mathematical calculations, the steps recite an abstract idea. Furthermore, MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II) states, “A mathematical calculation is a mathematical operation (such as multiplication) or an act of calculating using mathematical methods to determine a variable or number, e.g., performing an arithmetic operation such as exponentiation. There is no particular word or set of words that indicates a claim recites a mathematical calculation. That is, a claim does not have to recite the word "calculating" in order to be considered a mathematical calculation. For example, a step of "determining" a variable or number using mathematical methods or "performing" a mathematical operation may also be considered mathematical calculations when the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim in light of the specification encompasses a mathematical calculation.” Therefore, the steps of “calculate an evacuation plan chronologically indicating the number of residents staying at home during a predetermined period by solving a linear planning problem to minimize a home residence cost that is a cost of disaster victims staying at the home under a constraint of a capacity of a shelter during the predetermined period based on data chronologically indicating a home residence cost which is a cost per person a disaster victim of a certain disaster staying at home” are all examples of steps that are considered mathematical operations given their broadest reasonable interpretation. When considering that the claims merely recite the collection of the data, and then recite performing the steps above, it is clear that the claims at least recite an abstract idea, and are not just “based on or involving” a mathematical concept.
Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea under “certain methods of organizing human activity.”
Step 2A Prong 2: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Claims 1, 7, and 8 recite the following additional elements:
An evacuation plan calculation apparatus comprising:
-a processor; and (Claim 1)
-a memory storing program instructions that cause the processor to: (Claim 1)
- An evacuation plan calculation method causing a computer to execute... (Claim 7)
- A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having stored therein a program causing a computer to execute... (Claim 8)
The use of a processor, a memory storing program instructions, a computer, and a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium to perform the abstract idea of “calculate an evacuation plan chronologically indicating the number of residents staying at home during a predetermined period by solving a linear planning problem to minimize a home residence cost that is a cost of disaster victims staying at the home under a constraint of a capacity of a shelter during the predetermined period based on data chronologically indicating a home residence cost which is a cost per person a disaster victim of a certain disaster staying at home” is no more than a recitation of the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea or other exception on a computer on its ordinary capacity (MPEP 2106.05(f)). Even when considering the additional element individually or as an ordered combination, the additional elements fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the claims are still so broad such that they are no more than an example of “apply it” or mere instructions to perform the abstract idea on technology without providing the specific structure or mechanisms to arrive at the claimed solution. See MPEP 2106.05(f) for more information. Furthermore, the combination of elements are not recited with enough specificity to be considered for the “improvements to the functioning of a computer or to any other technology or technical field.” Please refer to MPEP 2106.05(a) for information regarding Improvements to the Functioning of a Computer or To Any Other Technology or Technical Field.
Therefore, claims 1, 7, 8 is directed to an abstract idea without integration into a practical application.
Step 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Claim 1 recites the following additional elements:
An evacuation plan calculation apparatus comprising:
-a processor; and
-a memory storing program instructions that cause the processor to:
Claim 7: An evacuation plan calculation method causing a computer to execute...
Claim 8: A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having stored therein a program causing a computer to execute...
These additional elements have not been found to include significantly more for the same reasons set forth in the Prong 2 rejection, specifically, that limiting the steps of “calculate an evacuation plan chronologically indicating the number of residents staying at home during a predetermined period by solving a linear planning problem to minimize a home residence cost that is a cost of disaster victims staying at the home under a constraint of a capacity of a shelter during the predetermined period based on data chronologically indicating a home residence cost which is a cost per person a disaster victim of a certain disaster staying at home” to the being performed on a processor, a memory storing program instructions, a computer, and a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium is no more than an example of “apply it” or mere instructions to apply an exception. Even when considering the claims as a whole, nothing in the claims meaningfully limits the claims such that it recites significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, representative claims 1, 7 and 8 are patent ineligible under 101 for being directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Dependent claims 2-6 are also given the full two part analysis both individually and in combination with the claims they depend on herein:
Claims 2-6 still recite more of the same abstract idea since they mere add more steps of creating the evacuation plan, whilst merely adding more variables and constraints to the linear planning problem. Furthermore, even when considering each of the individual steps of the dependent claims, the claims still recite mathematical concepts, because each of the steps, given their broadest reasonable interpretation, recite mathematical operations, for example, claim 2 recites: calculate the evacuation plan by solving a linear planning problem to minimize, under the constraint, a sum of the home residence cost and a shelter residence cost that is a cost of the disaster victims staying in one of the shelters during the predetermined period based on data chronologically indicating a cost per person who stays in each shelter. Each limitation in claim 2 can be represented using a mathematical formula, because it is merely writing a formula or equation in text format. This is also applicable to claims 3, 4, 5, and 6, in which each of the claims given their broadest reasonable interpretation still recite the “certain method of organizing human activity,” and are still no more than “mathematical concepts.” Furthermore, there are no further additional elements to consider, and even when considering the additional functions along with the existing additional elements (processor), it is still no more than “apply it” or mere instructions to carry out the abstract idea on a generic computing device. Even when viewed as a whole, nothing in the claims meaningfully limit the abstract idea such that it is directed to significantly more (an inventive concept).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 3-5, 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shimizu et al. (NPL, 2021, “Evacuation Shelter Scheduling Problem,” arXiv:2111.13326v1) hereinafter Shimizu, in view of Jeffrey Czajkowski (NPL, 2011, Natural Hazards Review, “Is it time to Go Yet? Understanding Hurricane Evacuation Decisions from A Dynamic Perspective”) hereinafter Czajkowski.
Regarding Claim 1, 7, 8:
Shimizu is a non-patent literature publication, published on November 26, 2021. Given the earliest effective filing date of the present disclosure being 01/18/2023, the grace period in MPEP 2153.01(a), for inventor-originated disclosure exceptions does not apply, therefore, the publication qualifies as prior art under AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1). Shimizu discloses an evacuation planning optimization problem that minimizes movement and operational costs of running shelters. Shimizu teaches:
Claim 1 Preamble: An evacuation plan calculation apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory storing program instructions that cause the processor to:(Shimizu [Page 8, 5.4. Experimental Environment] The experiments in this paper were performed on a computer with an Intel(R) Core (TM)i7-1065G7, 1.50GHz CPU, and 16GB memory. Gurobi was used as an integer linear programming solver)
Claim 7 Preamble: An evacuation plan calculation method causing a computer to execute... (Shimizu [Page 8, 5.4. Experimental Environment] The experiments in this paper were performed on a computer with an Intel(R) Core (TM)i7-1065G7, 1.50GHz CPU, and 16GB memory. Gurobi was used as an integer linear programming solver)
Claim 8 Preamble: A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having stored therein a program causing a computer to execute... (Shimizu [Page 8, 5.4. Experimental Environment] The experiments in this paper were performed on a computer with an Intel(R) Core (TM)i7-1065G7, 1.50GHz CPU, and 16GB memory. Gurobi was used as an integer linear programming solver)
- calculat[ing] an evacuation plan chronologically indicating the number of residents (Shimizu [Page 3, “3.1 Facility Location Problem”] Let N be the set of evacuees, and let M be the set of shelters. Consider a situation where all the evacuees in N are evacuated to one of the shelters in M. By solving the problem setting in section 3.1, we can find the optimal allocation considering both the costs of
evacuation to shelters and operating them. However, this FLP does not take time into account. Therefore, when the evacuees start to eventually return home and their numbers decrease, the solution of FLP cannot determine which shelters should be closed to minimize costs. Therefore, we extend the FLP in time and assume that evacuees in a shelter can be relocated to another shelter to reduce the total number of shelters. Let T = maxnτn. The time is expressed as discretized integer t ∈ {0,...,T} where t = 0 is the beginning of the disaster, as in Fig. 1. After a disaster occurs at
t = 0, evacuees move to a shelter and stay there by t = 1.) Given that Shimizu’s formula now includes the time steps, then N is “chronologically indicating” the number of residents.
- by solving a linear planning problem to minimize evacuation costs under a constraint of a capacity of a shelter during the predetermined period (Shimizu [Page 3, 3.1] Let dmn be the evacuation cost of moving evacuee n to shelter m. [Page 3, “3.2 Evacuation Shelter Scheduling Problem] This extended formulation creates a shelter management plan that minimizes the total movement and operation costs.The symbols in this section are defined in Table 1. The location of evacuee n at time t is denoted by ˜mt(n). If an evacuation shelter can be established at location m, it can accommodate Cm evacuees at most. [Page 4] When shelter m is opened, it costs fm per step to operate it. Since evacuation cost dt=0,mm immediately after a disaster is assumed to be different from relocation cost dtmm, ∀t >0,movement cost dtmm is assumed to depend on time t. In the following, we refer to the movement cost at t = 0 as the evacuation cost, and the movement cost at t >0as there location cost. Here, as in the FLP, we introduce variable xtmn, which indicates whether evacuee n will be accommodated in shelter m at time t or not, and Variable y tm, which indicates whether shelter m will be Operated at time t or not. Equation(1) is an objective function that minimizes the sum of the costs of moving the evacuees and operating the shelters. Eq. (2) is a condition under which no evacuees can stay in the closed shelters and the number of evacuees in the open shelters does not exceed the capacity. [Page 5, “3.3 Movement Cost Estimation Problem] The problem setting in section 3.2 can be solved optimally using an integer linear programming solver By appropriately setting the movement and operation costs.) As seen in pages 4 and 5 of the publication, the objective function (1), minimizes the operational costs of the shelter and the movement costs, with several constraints included shelter capacity.
However, Shimizu fails to teach:
- that the calculating step indicates the number of residents specifically “staying at home during a predetermined period.”
-the linear planning problem minimizes “a home residence cost that is a cost of disaster victims staying at the home”
- based on data chronologically indicating a home residence cost which is a cost per person a disaster victim of a certain disaster staying at home.
Czajkowski discloses a dynamic model of hurricane evacuation behavior that models evacuation behavioral response to hurricane forecasts in a way that captures the intertemporal aspects of the evacuation decision process.
- that the calculating step indicates the number of residents specifically “staying at home during a predetermined period.” (Czajkowski [Fig. 1 Adapted cumulative evacuation timing Hurricane Opal]) It is clear by the graph on page 3, that the cumulative % of evacuees, and the timing satisfies the number of residents “staying at home during a predetermined period,” as the percentage of total of 50,000 households in the region (page 12).)
-the linear planning problem minimizes “a home residence cost that is a cost of disaster victims staying at the home” (Czajkowski [Page 6 Expected Costs of Not Evacuating (Personal Hurricane Damage] If a household chooses not to evacuate at T , and given that the hurricane ultimately makes landfall at their location, they will be forced to ride out the storm which has an associated probability of being injured, or even killed.We use existing data from the Multihazard Mitigation Council’s (MMC) study to assess future savings from implementing mitigation activities related to natural hazards (MMC2005) to assign these probabilities forCAT1 to CAT5 hurricanes, and estimate the expected costs of not evacuating from a hurricane(i.e., the value of avoided injury/death). See Table 5 on Page 7 for expected costs of not evacuating per person. [Page 7] Concerning our derived expected costs of not evacuating: first, we make no distinction between perceived costs and actual expected costs of not evacuating, assuming that perceived costs are unbiased estimates of actual costs across all evacuees.)
- based on data chronologically indicating a home residence cost which is a cost per person a disaster victim of a certain disaster staying at home. (Czajkowski See Table 5 on Page 7 for expected costs of not evacuating per person.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present disclosure to modify Shimizu with the teachings of Czajkowski to minimize the home residence cost (the cost of a disaster victim staying at home), within the context of evacuation planning. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to simply substitute Shimizu’s objective function variables to include a home residence cost, as it improves the economic benefits of avoiding increased costs of evacuation too late, or personal injuries, compared to the logistical cost of evacuating. Czajkowski states, “Generically, the dynamic multiperiod model dictates that in each
NHCissued forecast advisory period households compare the costs of evacuating versus the expected costs of not evacuating stemming from the observed forecast information, and select the minimum value of these two amounts. As a result, provided the costs of evacuating represent the minimum value in a particular forecast advisory period, households evacuate, otherwise the expected costs of not evacuating are the minimum value and households wait one more time period for a revised hurricane forecast. Or, in economic terms, in each forecast advisory period households act rationally and evacuate when the expected benefits of evacuating (i.e., the avoided increased costs of evacuating next period and/or avoided personal damage costs of not evacuating) are greater than the costs of evacuating, otherwise it can be said that a positive option value to waiting exists.”(Page 3) One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by this benefit of comparing the costs of evacuating to the costs of staying, arriving at the predictable outcome of the claimed limitations.
Regarding Claim 3:
The combination of Shimizu, and Czajkowski teach or suggest The evacuation plan calculation apparatus according to claim 1,
Furthermore, Shimizu teaches:
- wherein the program instructions cause the processor to calculate, based on a management cost of each shelter in each of time intervals where the predetermined period is divided into a plurality of time intervals, (Shimizu [Page 3, 3.1] Let fm denote the operation cost of running shelter m. [Table 1: Notation] fm Operation cost for one time step of shelter m [Page 7] Table 2: Operation costs and shelter based on a previous work [1]. Unit of fm is dollars per month. )
- the evacuation plan by solving a linear planning problem to minimize, under the constraint, a sum of the management cost and [movement costs] during the predetermined period. (Shimizu [Page 7 ] Then we solved the following optimization problem with ytm fixed and determined xtmn.
This method yields a solution that minimizes the operation cost of the shelters: See equations 1.x to 7.x on page 7.)
However, Shimizu fails to teach:
- the evacuation plan by solving a linear planning problem to minimize, under the constraint, a sum of the management cost and the home residence cost during the predetermined period.
Alternatively, Czajkowski teaches: - the home residence cost during the predetermined period. (Czajkowski [Page 6 Expected Costs of Not Evacuating (Personal Hurricane Damage] If a household chooses not to evacuate at T , and given that the hurricane ultimately makes landfall at their location, they will be forced to ride out the storm which has an associated probability of being injured, or even killed.We use existing data from the Multihazard Mitigation Council’s (MMC) study to assess future savings from implementing mitigation activities related to natural hazards (MMC2005) to assign these probabilities forCAT1 to CAT5 hurricanes, and estimate the expected costs of not evacuating from a hurricane(i.e., the value of avoided injury/death). See Table 5 on Page 7 for expected costs of not evacuating per person. [Page 7] Concerning our derived expected costs of not evacuating: first, we make no distinction between perceived costs and actual expected costs of not evacuating, assuming that perceived costs are unbiased estimates of actual costs across all evacuees.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present disclosure to modify Shimizu with the teachings of Czajkowski to minimize the home residence cost (the cost of a disaster victim staying at home), within the context of evacuation planning. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to simply substitute Shimizu’s objective function variables to include a home residence cost, as it improves the economic benefits of avoiding increased costs of evacuation too late, or personal injuries, compared to the logistical cost of evacuating. Czajkowski states, “Generically, the dynamic multiperiod model dictates that in each
NHCissued forecast advisory period households compare the costs of evacuating versus the expected costs of not evacuating stemming from the observed forecast information, and select the minimum value of these two amounts. As a result, provided the costs of evacuating represent the minimum value in a particular forecast advisory period, households evacuate, otherwise the expected costs of not evacuating are the minimum value and households wait one more time period for a revised hurricane forecast. Or, in economic terms, in each forecast advisory period households act rationally and evacuate when the expected benefits of evacuating (i.e., the avoided increased costs of evacuating next period and/or avoided personal damage costs of not evacuating) are greater than the costs of evacuating, otherwise it can be said that a positive option value to waiting exists.”(Page 3) One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by this benefit of comparing the costs of evacuating to the costs of staying, arriving at the predictable outcome of the claimed limitations.
Regarding Claim 4:
The combination of Shimizu, and Czajkowski teach or suggest The evacuation plan calculation apparatus according to claim 1,
Furthermore, Shimizu teaches:
wherein the program instructions cause the processor to calculate,
- based on data chronologically indicating a cost per person who moves from a home to each shelter, the evacuation plan by solving a linear planning problem to minimize, (Shimizu [Page 3, 3.2] Because the source of movement is either the location of an evacuee at the time of the disaster or the location of a shelter, let M be the set of both locations to treat them in a unified manner, and an evacuee is assumed to be at one of the locations M during the disaster. [Page 4, 3.3] However, movement cost dtmm for evacuees is difficult to determine from historical data because no monetary payments are made. (see Algorithm 1 Proposed Method for Movement Cost Estimation Problem]. [Page 8] Based on the above results, we assume that in the Kobe earthquake, evacuation shelters were operated using a method such as SEQFLP. By dividing ˆ λ by the ratio rn, we got 1,240 dollars per person per km for the evacuation cost, and 124 dollars per person per km for the relocation cost. This relocation cost resemble required nuisance fees for the relocation of evacuees. )
- under the constraint, a sum of the operation cost and an evacuation cost that is a cost of the disaster victims moving from home to a shelter during the predetermined period. (Shimizu [Page 4] Using parameter ˆ λ (hence, movement cost) estimated from the training dataset, we can find the
optimal solution to the problem formulated in section 3.2 by an integer linear programming solver. This procedure is called OPT... This SEQFLP procedure operates the shelters by guiding the evacuees to minimize the sum of the operation and movement costs at each time when the
return time of the evacuees is unknown.)
However, Shimizu fails to teach:
- the home residence cost (Shimizu teaches a sum of the operation cost and evacuation cost but not the home residence cost)
Czajkowski teaches:
- the home residence cost(Czajkowski [Page 6 Expected Costs of Not Evacuating (Personal Hurricane Damage] If a household chooses not to evacuate at T , and given that the hurricane ultimately makes landfall at their location, they will be forced to ride out the storm which has an associated probability of being injured, or even killed.We use existing data from the Multihazard Mitigation Council’s (MMC) study to assess future savings from implementing mitigation activities related to natural hazards (MMC2005) to assign these probabilities forCAT1 to CAT5 hurricanes, and estimate the expected costs of not evacuating from a hurricane(i.e., the value of avoided injury/death). See Table 5 on Page 7 for expected costs of not evacuating per person. [Page 7] Concerning our derived expected costs of not evacuating: first, we make no distinction between perceived costs and actual expected costs of not evacuating, assuming that perceived costs are unbiased estimates of actual costs across all evacuees.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present disclosure to modify Shimizu with the teachings of Czajkowski to minimize the home residence cost (the cost of a disaster victim staying at home), within the context of evacuation planning. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to simply substitute Shimizu’s objective function variables to include a home residence cost, as it improves the economic benefits of avoiding increased costs of evacuation too late, or personal injuries, compared to the logistical cost of evacuating. Czajkowski states, “Generically, the dynamic multiperiod model dictates that in each
NHCissued forecast advisory period households compare the costs of evacuating versus the expected costs of not evacuating stemming from the observed forecast information, and select the minimum value of these two amounts. As a result, provided the costs of evacuating represent the minimum value in a particular forecast advisory period, households evacuate, otherwise the expected costs of not evacuating are the minimum value and households wait one more time period for a revised hurricane forecast. Or, in economic terms, in each forecast advisory period households act rationally and evacuate when the expected benefits of evacuating (i.e., the avoided increased costs of evacuating next period and/or avoided personal damage costs of not evacuating) are greater than the costs of evacuating, otherwise it can be said that a positive option value to waiting exists.”(Page 3) One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by this benefit of comparing the costs of evacuating to the costs of staying, arriving at the predictable outcome of the claimed limitations.
Regarding Claim 5:
The combination of Shimizu, and Czajkowski teach or suggest The evacuation plan calculation apparatus according to claim 1,
Furthermore, Shimizu teaches:
wherein the program instructions cause the processor to calculate,
- based on data chronologically indicating a cost per person who moves from each shelter to the home, (Shimizu [Page 3] Evacuee n is assumed to return home after staying for τn steps. In this paper, τn is referred to as the return time. [Page 3, 3.2] Because the source of movement is either the location of an evacuee at the time of the disaster or the location of a shelter, let M be the set of both locations to treat them in a unified manner, and an evacuee is assumed to be at one of the locations M during the disaster. [Page 4, 3.3] However, movement cost dtmm for evacuees is difficult to determine from historical data because no monetary payments are made. (see Algorithm 1 Proposed Method for Movement Cost Estimation Problem]. [Page 8] Based on the above results, we assume that in the Kobe earthquake, evacuation shelters were operated using a method such as SEQFLP. By dividing ˆ λ by the ratio rn, we got 1,240 dollars per person per km for the evacuation cost, and 124 dollars per person per km for the relocation cost. This relocation cost resemble required nuisance fees for the relocation of evacuees.) Since Shimizu’s movement and relocation cost include the cost of moving people home, the limitation is satisfied. The broadest reasonable interpretation of “the home” includes sheltering homes, not necessarily the personal home address of the evacuee, therefore, the limitation given its BRI is satisfied, because relocation costs between shelters satisfies “cost per person who moves from shelter to the home.”
- the evacuation plan by solving a linear planning problem to minimize, under the constraint, a sum of the operation cost and a return cost that is a cost of the disaster victims moving from the shelters to the home during the predetermined period(Shimizu [Pages 9 and 10] The third issue is to obtain when evacuees return to their homes, for example, by predicting when transportation will be restored and when temporary housing will be built. [Page 8] The experimental results of the performance evaluation using the dataset HANSHIN TEST are shown in Table 5. The movement cost was fixed at ˆ λ = 2,500. In all the methods, the evacuation cost accounts for most of the objective function, and the relocation and operation costs are less than one-tenth of the evacuation cost. This is because the evacuation cost was set ten times higher than the relocation cost (α = 10) to emphasize the importance of quickly reaching a shelter during a disaster. Compared to the baseline SEQFLP, NOMOVE lowered the movement costs, although it significantly increased the operation costs. BINPACK also decreased the operation costs, but it increased the movement costs. On the other hand, OPT minimizes the objective function. Although the operation cost of OPT exceeds BINPACK, the number of relocations of OPT is less than BINPACK and close to SEQFLP. The operation cost of OPT was 70.2 million dollars, while that of SEQFLP was 103.9 million dollars. The proposed method would have reduced the operation cost of the shelters in the Kobe earthquake by 33.7 million dollars (32%) if the return time of the evacuees had been known in advance. By comparing OPT with BQP, it was confirmed that converting the quadratic objective function to a linear one was effective in terms of both computation time and performance.)
However, Shimizu fails to teach:
-minimize, under the constraint, a sum of home residence cost and a return cost
Alternatively, Czajkowski teaches: -home residence cost(Czajkowski [Page 6 Expected Costs of Not Evacuating (Personal Hurricane Damage] If a household chooses not to evacuate at T , and given that the hurricane ultimately makes landfall at their location, they will be forced to ride out the storm which has an associated probability of being injured, or even killed.We use existing data from the Multihazard Mitigation Council’s (MMC) study to assess future savings from implementing mitigation activities related to natural hazards (MMC2005) to assign these probabilities forCAT1 to CAT5 hurricanes, and estimate the expected costs of not evacuating from a hurricane(i.e., the value of avoided injury/death). See Table 5 on Page 7 for expected costs of not evacuating per person. [Page 7] Concerning our derived expected costs of not evacuating: first, we make no distinction between perceived costs and actual expected costs of not evacuating, assuming that perceived costs are unbiased estimates of actual costs across all evacuees.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present disclosure to modify Shimizu with the teachings of Czajkowski to minimize the home residence cost (the cost of a disaster victim staying at home), within the context of evacuation planning. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to simply substitute Shimizu’s objective function variables to include a home residence cost, as it improves the economic benefits of avoiding increased costs of evacuation too late, or personal injuries, compared to the logistical cost of evacuating. Czajkowski states, “Generically, the dynamic multiperiod model dictates that in each
NHCissued forecast advisory period households compare the costs of evacuating versus the expected costs of not evacuating stemming from the observed forecast information, and select the minimum value of these two amounts. As a result, provided the costs of evacuating represent the minimum value in a particular forecast advisory period, households evacuate, otherwise the expected costs of not evacuating are the minimum value and households wait one more time period for a revised hurricane forecast. Or, in economic terms, in each forecast advisory period households act rationally and evacuate when the expected benefits of evacuating (i.e., the avoided increased costs of evacuating next period and/or avoided personal damage costs of not evacuating) are greater than the costs of evacuating, otherwise it can be said that a positive option value to waiting exists.”(Page 3) One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by this benefit of comparing the costs of evacuating to the costs of staying, arriving at the predictable outcome of the claimed limitations.
Claims 2 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shimizu (NPL, 2021, “Evacuation Shelter Scheduling Problem,” arXiv:2111.13326v1),
in view of Jeffrey Czajkowski (NPL, 2011, Natural Hazards Review, “Is it time to Go Yet? Understanding Hurricane Evacuation Decisions from A Dynamic Perspective”),
further in view of Hallak et al. (NPL, 2019, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Determining shelter locations in conflict areas by multiobjective modeling: A case study in northern Syria (Year: 2019)) hereinafter Hallak.
Regarding Claim 2:
The combination of Shimizu, and Czajkowski teach or suggest The evacuation plan calculation apparatus according to claim 1,
Furthermore, Shimizu teaches:
- the program instructions cause the processor to calculate the evacuation plan by solving a linear planning problem to minimize, under the constraint, a shelter residence cost that is a cost of the disaster victims staying in one of the shelters during the predetermined period (Shimizu [Page 3, 3.1] Let fm denote the operation cost of running shelter m. [Table 1: Notation] fm Operation cost for one time step of shelter m [Page 7] Table 2: Operation costs and shelter based on a previous work [1]. Unit of fm is dollars per month. [Page 9] Our simulation experiments on the Kobe earthquake showed that our proposed method reduced operation costs by 33.7 million dollars: 32%. Note that the proposed method does not guarantee to reduce all of the evacuation, relocation, and operation costs, but to minimize the total cost. Although we only considered a decrease in the number of evacuees in the formulation, a natural extension could also address an increase in them. ) Shimizu optimizes the shelter residence cost, (operation cost)
However, Shimizu fails to teach:
- that the “calculate the evacuation plan by solving a linear planning problem to minimize, under the constraint,” is based on a sum of the home residence cost and a shelter residence cost
- based on data chronologically indicating a cost per person who stays in each shelter. (Shimizu does not calculate the sheltering cost on a per person basis)
Alternatively, Czajkowski teaches: - the home residence cost (Czajkowski [Page 6 Expected Costs of Not Evacuating (Personal Hurricane Damage] If a household chooses not to evacuate at T , and given that the hurricane ultimately makes landfall at their location, they will be forced to ride out the storm which has an associated probability of being injured, or even killed.We use existing data from the Multihazard Mitigation Council’s (MMC) study to assess future savings from implementing mitigation activities related to natural hazards (MMC2005) to assign these probabilities forCAT1 to CAT5 hurricanes, and estimate the expected costs of not evacuating from a hurricane(i.e., the value of avoided injury/death). See Table 5 on Page 7 for expected costs of not evacuating per person. [Page 7] Concerning our derived expected costs of not evacuating: first, we make no distinction between perceived costs and actual expected costs of not evacuating, assuming that perceived costs are unbiased estimates of actual costs across all evacuees.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present disclosure to modify Shimizu with the teachings of Czajkowski to minimize the home residence cost (the cost of a disaster victim staying at home), within the context of evacuation planning. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to simply substitute Shimizu’s objective function variables to include a home residence cost, as it improves the economic benefits of avoiding increased costs of evacuation too late, or personal injuries, compared to the logistical cost of evacuating. Czajkowski states, “Generically, the dynamic multiperiod model dictates that in each
NHCissued forecast advisory period households compare the costs of evacuating versus the expected costs of not evacuating stemming from the observed forecast information, and select the minimum value of these two amounts. As a result, provided the costs of evacuating represent the minimum value in a particular forecast advisory period, households evacuate, otherwise the expected costs of not evacuating are the minimum value and households wait one more time period for a revised hurricane forecast. Or, in economic terms, in each forecast advisory period households act rationally and evacuate when the expected benefits of evacuating (i.e., the avoided increased costs of evacuating next period and/or avoided personal damage costs of not evacuating) are greater than the costs of evacuating, otherwise it can be said that a positive option value to waiting exists.”(Page 3) One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by this benefit of comparing the costs of evacuating to the costs of staying, arriving at the predictable outcome of the claimed limitations.
However, neither Shimizu, nor Czajkowshi teach or suggest:
- based on data chronologically indicating a cost per person who stays in each shelter. (Shimizu does not calculate the sheltering cost on a per person basis)
Alternatively, Hallak discloses an optimization problem to obtain a global solution to the problem of maximizing shelter and other humanitarian demands under the constraints of a case study in Northern Syria. Hallak teaches:
- data chronologically indicating a cost per person who stays in each shelter.(Hallak [Page 4]Model Parameters: j: Operating costs for each person at site j ... Equation (2) minimizes the total cost, which includes two parts: a fixed cost, which is the set-up cost for opening a shelter, and a variable cost for operating the shelter for a year. [Page 10] we first conducted a needs assessment using real data collection in the field to identify the problems and the most important factors according to direct beneficiaries in coordination with community representatives. In the second phase, we identified the constraints and objectives and humanitarian multi-objectives (cash for work, vulnerability criteria, covering, costs) and then prioritized them according to beneficiaries and experts.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to further modify Shimizu by adding the teachings of dividing the costs of staying in a shelter, to per person operational costs, as taught by Hallak. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform this modification by the benefit of assessing individualized needs and costs as opposed to generalized operational costs. (Hallak [Page 3] This study proposes a multiobjective model based on a mixed-integer model comprising capacitated maximum covering, fixed-charge costs, and special humanitarian considerations in the Syrian context. It can be summarized as follows:- Vulnerability criteria: • Number of people with disabilities • Number of pregnant/lactating women • Number of people with chronic disease.)
Regarding Claim 6:
The combination of Shimizu, and Czajkowski, teach or suggest The evacuation plan calculation apparatus according to claim 1,
Furthermore, Shimizu teaches:
, wherein the program instructions cause the processor to calculate,
- based on a management cost of each shelter in each of time intervals where the predetermined period is divided into a plurality of time intervals(Shimizu [Page 5, 3.3] Operation cost fm can be estimated from the cost of renting the facilities [1]. [Page 7] Table 2: Operation costs and shelter based on a previous work [1]. Unit of fm is dollars per month)
- a cost per person who moves from the home to each shelter, and (Shimizu (Shimizu [Page 3] Let dmn be the evacuation cost of moving evacuee n to shelter m. )
- a cost per person who moves from each shelter to the home, (Shimizu [Page 3] Evacuee n is assumed to return home after staying for τn steps. In this paper, τn is referred to as the return time. [Page 3, 3.2] Because the source of movement is either the location of an evacuee at the time of the disaster or the location of a shelter, let M be the set of both locations to treat them in a unified manner, and an evacuee is assumed to be at one of the locations M during the disaster.)
- the evacuation plan by solving a linear planning problem to minimize, under the constraint, a sum of a shelter residence cost that is a cost of the disaster victims staying in one of the shelters during the predetermined period, an evacuation cost that is a cost of the disaster victims moving from home to a shelter during the predetermined period, a return cost that is a cost of the disaster victims moving from the shelters to the home during the predetermined period, and the management cost during the predetermined period. (Shimizu [Page 9] Our simulation experiments on the Kobe earthquake showed that our proposed method reduced operation costs by 33.7 million dollars: 32%. Note that the proposed method does not guarantee to reduce all of the evacuation, relocation, and operation costs, but to minimize the total cost. Although we only considered a decrease in the number of evacuees in the formulation, a natural extension could also address an increase in them. Table 5: Objective function of simulation for dataset HANSHIN TEST and its breakdown of movement and operation costs. Total number of times evacuees moved is shown with movement cost. Bold type indicates the smallest value in each line. All values are averages of ten trials. The calculation time per trial is shown in the bottom line. Parameter ˆ λ was fixed to 2,500. Note that the relocation cost is not proportional to the number of times, but to the distance.) Shimizu satisfies the limitation, because the shelter residence cost and management cost are satisfied by “operation cost,” evacuation cost is taught by Shimizu, and “relocation cost” satisfies “return cost.”
However, Shimizu fails to teach that the sum includes:
- and data chronologically indicating a cost per person who stays in each shelter, (Shimizu specifically discloses that the operational costs of the shelter does not consider the per person cost)
-that the sum includes the home residence cost during the predetermined period.
However, Czajkowski teaches:
- the home residence cost during the predetermined period. (Czajkowski [Page 6 Expected Costs of Not Evacuating (Personal Hurricane Damage] If a household chooses not to evacuate at T , and given that the hurricane ultimately makes landfall at their location, they will be forced to ride out the storm which has an associated probability of being injured, or even killed.We use existing data from the Multihazard Mitigation Council’s (MMC) study to assess future savings from implementing mitigation activities related to natural hazards (MMC2005) to assign these probabilities forCAT1 to CAT5 hurricanes, and estimate the expected costs of not evacuating from a hurricane(i.e., the value of avoided injury/death). See Table 5 on Page 7 for expected costs of not evacuating per person. [Page 7] Concerning our derived expected costs of not evacuating: first, we make no distinction between perceived costs and actual expected costs of not evacuating, assuming that perceived costs are unbiased estimates of actual costs across all evacuees.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present disclosure to modify Shimizu with the teachings of Czajkowski to minimize the home residence cost (the cost of a disaster victim staying at home), within the context of evacuation planning. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to simply substitute Shimizu’s objective function variables to include a home residence cost, as it improves the economic benefits of avoiding increased costs of evacuation too late, or personal injuries, compared to the logistical cost of evacuating. Czajkowski states, “Generically, the dynamic multiperiod model dictates that in each
NHCissued forecast advisory period households compare the costs of evacuating versus the expected costs of not evacuating stemming from the observed forecast information, and select the minimum value of these two amounts. As a result, provided the costs of evacuating represent the minimum value in a particular forecast advisory period, households evacuate, otherwise the expected costs of not evacuating are the minimum value and households wait one more time period for a revised hurricane forecast. Or, in economic terms, in each forecast advisory period households act rationally and evacuate when the expected benefits of evacuating (i.e., the avoided increased costs of evacuating next period and/or avoided personal damage costs of not evacuating) are greater than the costs of evacuating, otherwise it can be said that a positive option value to waiting exists.”(Page 3) One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by this benefit of comparing the costs of evacuating to the costs of staying, arriving at the predictable outcome of the claimed limitations.
However, neither Shimizu, nor Czajkowshi, teach or suggest:
- based on data chronologically indicating a cost per person who stays in each shelter. (Shimizu does not calculate the sheltering cost on a per person basis)
Alternatively, Hallak discloses an optimization problem to obtain a global solution to the problem of maximizing shelter and other humanitarian demands under the constraints of a case study in Northern Syria. Hallak teaches:
- data chronologically indicating a cost per person who stays in each shelter.(Hallak [Page 4]Model Parameters: j: Operating costs for each person at site j ... Equation (2) minimizes the total cost, which includes two parts: a fixed cost, which is the set-up cost for opening a shelter, and a variable cost for operating the shelter for a year. [Page 10] we first conducted a needs assessment using real data collection in the field to identify the problems and the most important factors according to direct beneficiaries in coordination with community representatives. In the second phase, we identified the constraints and objectives and humanitarian multi-objectives (cash for work, vulnerability criteria, covering, costs) and then prioritized them according to beneficiaries and experts.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to further modify Shimizu by adding the teachings of dividing the costs of staying in a shelter, to per person operational costs, as taught by Hallak. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform this modification by the benefit of assessing individualized needs and costs as opposed to generalized operational costs. (Hallak [Page 3] This study proposes a multiobjective model based on a mixed-integer model comprising capacitated maximum covering, fixed-charge costs, and special humanitarian considerations in the Syrian context. It can be summarized as follows:- Vulnerability criteria: • Number of people with disabilities • Number of pregnant/lactating women • Number of people with chronic disease.)
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
- Ng et al. (Ng, Park, Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering 25, A Hybrid Bilevel Model for the Optimal Shelter Assignment in Emergency Evacuations, Year: 2010) discloses an evacuation planning model which minimizes travel time on a given link, under the constraint of the capacity of the link.
- Wang et al. (Wang, Xi, Chen, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, A Dynamic Shelter Location and Victim Resettlement Model Considering Equitable Waiting Costs, Year: 2020) discloses minimizing people’s waiting time for shelter allocation or resettlement through minimizing victims’ waiting costs.
- Oh et al. (Oh et al, PLOS ONE, Efficiency Fairness Trade Offs in Evacuation Management of Urban Floods, Year: 2021) discloses determining the efficiency and fairness tradeoffs under the constraint of shelter capacity distribution, determining that efficiency is highly affected by shelter capacity distribution and only slightly affects fairness.
-Wei et al. (Wei Xu, Xiujuan Zhao, Yunjia Ma, Ying Li, Lianjie Qin, Ying Wang & Juan Du (2018) A multi-objective optimization based method for evaluating earthquake shelter location allocation, Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk, 9:1, 662-677, DOI: 10.1080/19475705.2018.1470114 (Year: 2018)) discloses a multi objective model that considers the evacuation efficiency of evacuees and the investment cost of equipping shelters.
- Pillac (US 20160314554 A1) discloses an evacuation plan apparatus that plans movement of multiple groups.
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/NICO L PADUA/ Junior Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3626 /SANGEETA BAHL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3626
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