DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-10 are pending. Claims 1-10 are considered in this Office 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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 8/18/2025 has been acknowledged.
The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner. The initialed and dated copy of Applicant’s IDS form 1449 is attached to the instant Office action.
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.
Signals Per Se – Claim 10 is not in one of the four statutory categories of invention. Claim 1 recites “computer-readable recording medium storing computer-executable instructions…” embodying various instructions. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a computer program and computer readable medium typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of “a program”. There is no special definition, and as a result, Claim 10 encompasses within its scope signals per se and are thus not statutory. See In re. Nuijten, 500 F.3rd 1346, 1356-57.
Examiner suggests adding the term “non-transitory" to the Claim.
Alice – Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claims 1, 9, and 10 recite the limitations for receiving usage analysis data on usage of an analysis target application executed on each of a plurality of user devices affiliated with an institution, from each of the plurality of user devices, wherein the usage analysis data is collected by a usage analysis application executed on each of the plurality of user devices based on a display state corresponding to an application executed on the user device (Collecting Information, an Observation; Managing Human Activity, i.e. analyzing user usage, a Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity),generating statistical data on usage of the analysis target application based on the usage analysis data collected from each of the plurality of user devices (Analyzing the Information, an Evaluation; Managing Human Activity, i.e. analyzing user usage, a Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity), and presenting the statistical data, wherein the collecting of the usage analysis data based on the display state corresponding to the application executed on the user device (Transmitting the Analyzed Information, an Evaluation and Judgment; Managing Human Activity, i.e. analyzing user usage, a Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity), comprises: initiating session monitoring for the user device (Collecting and Analyzing Information, an Observation and Evaluation; Managing Human Activity, i.e. analyzing user usage, a Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity),determining an analysis target application among a plurality of applications of the user device for which a collection process is to be performed, wherein the determining of the analysis target application includes sequentially determining whether each application currently being executed on the user device is included in a preset monitoring application list (Analyzing the Information, an Evaluation; Managing Human Activity, i.e. analyzing user usage, a Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity), generating the usage analysis data by performing the collection process for the analysis target application (Analyzing the Information, an Evaluation; Managing Human Activity, i.e. analyzing user usage, a Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity), and transmitting the usage analysis data (Transmitting the Information, a Judgment; Managing Human Activity, i.e. analyzing user usage, a Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity), which under their broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind for the purposes of analyzing usage data, but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than reciting a designated device, a plurality of user devices, a GUI, executing the usage analysis application on the user device, an analysis target application, management server, apparatus, processor, memory, and computer readable medium, nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed or read into the mind for the purposes of Managing Human Behavior, a Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas, an observation, evaluation, and judgment. Further, as described above, the claims recite limitations for Managing Human Activity, a “Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity”. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim recites the above stated additional elements to perform the abstract limitations as above. The designated device, plurality of user devices, GUI, usage analysis application on the user device, analysis target application, management server, apparatus, processor, memory, and computer readable medium are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic software/module performing a generic computer function of storing, retrieving, sending, and processing data) such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Even if taken as an additional element, the receiving and transmitting steps above are at best insignificant extra-solution activity as these are receiving, storing, and transmitting data as per the MPEP 2106.05(d). 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 claim is directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered both individually and as an ordered combination. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element being used to perform the abstract limitations stated above amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. The claim is not patent eligible. Applicant’s Specification states:
“[0038] The user device 10 and the administrator device 30 may be any devices having a display capable of presenting the graphical user interface of applications, such as personal computers (PCs), laptops, tablets, mobile phones, wearable devices, and the like, and may be devices capable of being connected to the management server 20.”
Which shows that these steps can be performed on any generic computing device which can be used to perform the abstract limitations, such as a laptop, phone, desktop, etc., and from this interpretation, one would reasonably deduce the aforementioned steps are all functions that can be done on generic components, and thus application of an abstract idea on a generic computer, as per the Alice decision and not requiring further analysis under Berkheimer, but for edification the Applicant’s specification has been used as above satisfying any such requirement. This is “Applying It” by utilizing current technologies. For the receiving and transmitting steps that were considered extra-solution activity in Step 2A above, if they were to be considered additional elements, they have been re-evaluated in Step 2B and determined to be well-understood, routine, conventional, activity in the field. The background does not provide any indication that the additional elements, such as the apparatus, applications, processors, etc., nor the receiving and transmitting steps as above, are anything other than a generic, and the MPEP Section 2106.05(d) indicates that mere collection or receipt, storing, or transmission of data is a well‐understood, routine, and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner (as it is here). For these reasons, there is no inventive concept. The claim is not patent eligible.
Claims 2-8 contain the identified abstract ideas, further narrowing them, with the additional element of a user interface which is highly generalized when considered as part of a practical application or under prong 2 of the Alice analysis of the MPEP, thus not integrated into a practical application, nor are they significantly more for the same reasons and rationale as above.
After considering all claim elements, both individually and in combination, Examiner has determined that the claims are directed to the above abstract ideas and do not amount to significantly more. Therefore, the claims and dependent claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter. See Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, No. 13–298.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-10 have overcome the prior art and would be allowable if amended to overcome the 35 USC 101 rejections.
The closest prior art of record are Moss (U.S. Publication No. 2022/002,7262), Cranfill (U.S. Publication No. 2025/015,6298), and Kong (U.S. Publication No. 2026/013,3886). Moss, an information processing system with intelligent program smoke testing, teaches a system to monitor resource usage, comparison of system resource usage with a predetermined threshold, statistically analyzing the usage and the screen information, monitoring usage on a CPU, GPU, Ram, and ROM, but it does not explicitly state monitoring applications on user devices, presenting the information on a graphical user interface, determining an analysis target application among a number of applications, and sequentially determining whether each application currently being executed on the user device is included in a preset monitoring application list. Cranfill, a system and method for user interfaces for controlling or presenting device usage on an electronic device, teaches settings for usage limits for one or more applications or categories of applications, app limits, comparison of device usage which display a daily, monthly, and other types of usage, indications of usage of various applications on a graphical user interface, comparing average usage over determined periods of time, and comparing an amount of time the device has been used to present information, but does not teach determining an analysis target application among a number of applications, and sequentially determining whether each application currently being executed on the user device is included in a preset monitoring application list. Kong, a system and method for computing resource overcommitment through statistical usage prediction, teaches monitoring task resources usages, using statistics of intervals on monitored tasks resource usages and combining the predicted task resource usages to generate a total predicted resource usage for a physical machine, monitoring performance of application on a graphical user interface, and generating statistics for intervals of the monitored resource usage per task both now and predicted for the future, but does not teach determining an analysis target application among a number of applications, and sequentially determining whether each application currently being executed on the user device is included in a preset monitoring application list. None of the above prior art explicitly teaches this determining an analysis target application among a number of applications, and sequentially determining whether each application currently being executed on the user device is included in a preset monitoring application list, as claimed, along with the other limitations of the claims, and these are the reasons which adequately reflect the Examiner's opinion as to why Claims 1-10 are allowable over the prior art of record.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/JOSEPH M WAESCO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3625B 7/15/2026
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