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 the Claims
Claims 1-9, 11-17, and 19-22 were previously pending. Claims 1 and 14 were amended in the reply filed May 21, 2026. Claims 1-9, 11-17, and 19-22 are currently pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed with respect to the rejection made under § 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. "In the interview, the Examiner stated that USPTO Subject Matter Eligibility Example 42 was 'overruled' by the Federal Circuit, citing University of Florida Research Foundation v. GE Company, 916 F.3d 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2019). Applicant respectfully disagrees with this characterization." Remarks, 9. This is a mischaracterization of the interview. As Applicant correctly notes, a hypothetical example does not have the force of law and therefore cannot be "overruled." Remarks, 10. However, § 101 decisions issued by the CAFC do have the force of law. A more accurate characterization of the interview would be that some older examples are "out-of-date." A listing of decisions applying the Alice/Mayo framework subsequent to the 2019 Revised Guidance can be found at www.bitlaw.com/patent/section-101-cases.html. Many of these decisions have yet to be incorporated into the MPEP, but they are nonetheless authoritative.
The remainder of Applicant's arguments (Remarks, 11-15) describe the invention as a record-keeping system for airline flights using generic computers. The system converts flight data into a unique identifier and distributes the identifier to different systems. However, the Federal Circuit has held both that "converting information from one format to another ... is an abstract idea" (Hawk Tech. Sys., LLC v. Castle Retail, LLC, 60 F.4th 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2023)) and that "distribution of information is an abstract idea" (Sanderling Management Ltd. v. Snap Inc., 65 F.4th 698 (Fed. Cir. 2023) (slip op. at 7)). Accordingly, the rejection is maintained.
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 1-9, 11-17, and 19-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter (abstract idea without significantly more). Claims are eligible for patent protection under § 101 if they are in one of the four statutory categories and not directed to a judicial exception to patentability. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014). Claims 1-9, 11-17, and 19-22, each considered as a whole and as an ordered combination, are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea) without significantly more.
MPEP 2106 Step 2A – Prong 1:
The claims recite an abstract idea reflected in the representative functions of the independent claims—including:
providing a flight route comprising a plurality of flight legs, each flight leg comprising a corresponding flight leg unique identifier (FLUID);
receiving a request for a new flight leg based on a given flight leg of the flight route, with at least one field of the new flight leg recorded;
generating a new flight leg unique identifier (FLUID), the new FLUID comprising a first portion, a second portion and a third portion, said generating the new FLUID comprising:
generating the first portion of the new FLUID based on a timestamp associated with the new flight leg;
generating the second portion of the new FLUID based on an identification of the source of the request; and
generating the third portion of the new FLUID based on a random number;
storing the new FLUID associated with the new flight leg;
transmitting the new FLUID with the at least one field of the new flight leg, wherein the flight leg unique identifier comprises an identifier; and
transmitting the flight route comprising the plurality of corresponding FLUIDs and the new FLUID to the flight service, the flight route comprising a plurality of flight legs and the new flight leg, each flight leg comprising a corresponding flight leg unique identifier (FLUID), the new flight leg comprising the new FLUID, the flight service and a third-party each independently referring to a same flight leg using a corresponding same FLUID to ensure consistency in communications;
receiving an indication of an event associated with the given flight leg of the flight route;
in response to the indication of the event, verifying whether the given flight leg is present, identifying the FLUID associated with the given flight leg, and transmitting the given flight leg with the associated FLUID to the flight service and the third-party, the FLUID being communicated consistently regardless of a specific data format used by each of the flight service and the third-party;
wherein the plurality of corresponding FLUIDs and the new FLUID comprises identifiers.
These limitations taken together qualify as a certain method of organizing human activities because they recite collecting, analyzing, and outputting information for managing and communicating information about flight operations of an airline enterprise (i.e., in the terminology of the 2019 Revised Guidance, fundamental economic practices (i.e., flight record keeping); commercial interactions (including business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities). Additionally, it recites purely mental processes (e.g., an airline employee observing and evaluating new flight leg data, and arriving at a judgment on a flight leg unique identifier).
It shares similarities with other abstract ideas held to be non-statutory by the courts (see Secured Mail Solutions v. Universal Wilde, 873 F.3d 905 (Fed. Cir. 2017)—communicating information about a mail object using a personalized marking, similar because at another level of abstraction the claims could be characterized as communicating information about a flight leg using a unique identifier; University of Florida Research Foundation v. GE Company, 916 F.3d 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2019)—collecting, analyzing, manipulating (including converting into a different format), and displaying data, which also characterizes the invention). See also Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Fin. Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (discussing abstract idea precedent related to the collection, recognition, manipulation, and storage of data).
These cases describe significantly similar aspects of the claimed invention, albeit at another level of abstraction. See Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1240-41 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("An abstract idea can generally be described at different levels of abstraction. As the Board has done, the claimed abstract idea could be described as generating menus on a computer, or generating a second menu from a first menu and sending the second menu to another location. It could be described in other ways, including, as indicated in the specification, taking orders from restaurant customers on a computer.").
MPEP 2106 Step 2A – Prong 2:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because there are no meaningful limitations that transform the exception into a patent eligible application. The elements merely serve to provide a general link to a technological environment (e.g., computers and the Internet) in which to carry out the judicial exception (database; processor connected to a source system comprising one selected from the group of a schedule management system and flight services system, computer-readable identifier readable by at least one of a plurality of computer systems, non-transitory storage medium storing computer-readable instructions thereon; and at least one processor operatively connected to the non-transitory storage medium—all recited at a high level of generality).
Although they have and execute instructions to perform the abstract idea itself (e.g., modules, program code, etc. to automate the abstract idea), this also does not serve to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application as it merely amounts to instructions to "apply it." Aside from such instructions to implement the abstract idea, they are solely used for generic computer operations (e.g., receiving, storing, retrieving, transmitting data), employing the computer as a tool. See FairWarning IP, LLC v. Iatric Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("[T]he use of generic computer elements like a microprocessor or user interface do not alone transform an otherwise abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter.") (citing DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245,1256 (Fed. Cir. 2014)) (emphasis added).
The claims only manipulate abstract data elements into another form. They do not set forth improvements to another technological field or the functioning of the computer itself and instead use computer elements as tools to improve the functioning of the abstract idea identified above. Looking at the additional limitations and abstract idea as an ordered combination and as a whole adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Rather than any meaningful limits, their collective functions merely provide generic computer implementation of the abstract idea identified in Prong One. None of the additional elements recited "offers a meaningful limitation beyond generally linking 'the use of the [method] to a particular technological environment,' that is, implementation via computers." Alice Corp., slip op. at 16 (citing Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 610, 611 (U.S. 2010)).
At the levels of abstraction described above, the claims do not readily lend themselves to a finding that they are directed to a nonabstract idea. Therefore, the analysis proceeds to step 2B. See BASCOM Global Internet v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("The Enfish claims, understood in light of their specific limitations, were unambiguously directed to an improvement in computer capabilities. Here, in contrast, the claims and their specific limitations do not readily lend themselves to a step-one finding that they are directed to a nonabstract idea. We therefore defer our consideration of the specific claim limitations’ narrowing effect for step two.") (citations omitted).
MPEP 2106 Step 2B:
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reasons as presented in Step 2A Prong 2 (i.e., they amount to nothing more than a general link to a particular technological environment and instructions to apply it there). Moreover, the additional elements recited are known and conventional computing elements (database; processor connected to a source system comprising one selected from the group of a schedule management system and flight services system, computer-readable identifier readable by at least one of a plurality of computer systems, non-transitory storage medium storing computer-readable instructions thereon; and at least one processor operatively connected to the non-transitory storage medium—see Specification ¶¶ 0040-42, 59, 66-67, 75, 90, 103, 136 describing these at a high level of generality and in a manner that indicates that the additional elements are sufficiently well-known that the specification does not need to describe the particulars of such additional elements to satisfy the statutory disclosure requirements).
The Federal Circuit has recognized that "an invocation of already-available computers that are not themselves plausibly asserted to be an advance, for use in carrying out improved mathematical calculations, amounts to a recitation of what is 'well-understood, routine, [and] conventional.'" SAP Am., Inc. v. InvestPic, LLC, 890 F.3d 1016, 1023 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (alteration in original) (citing Mayo v. Prometheus, 566 U.S. 66, 73 (2012)). Apart from the instructions to implement the abstract idea, they only serve to perform well-understood functions (e.g., receiving, storing, retrieving, transmitting data—see Specification above as well as Alice Corp.; Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307 (Fed. Cir. 2016); and Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 2015) covering the well-known nature of these basic computer functions).
"The use and arrangement of conventional and generic computer components recited in the claims—such as a database, user terminal, and server— do not transform the claim, as a whole, into 'significantly more' than a claim to the abstract idea itself. We have repeatedly held that such invocations of computers and networks that are not even arguably inventive are insufficient to pass the test of an inventive concept in the application of an abstract idea." Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Services, 859 F.3d 1044, 1056 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology. Their collective functions merely provide conventional computer implementation.
Dependent Claims Step 2A:
The limitations of the dependent claims but for those addressed below merely set forth further refinements of the same abstract idea identified above without changing the analysis already presented (i.e., they merely narrow the abstract idea without adding any new additional elements beyond it). Additionally, for the same reasons as above, the limitations fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they use the same general technological environment and instructions to implement the abstract idea as the independent claims (i.e., a generic computer processor and source system comprising one selected from the group of a schedule management system and flight operation control system). Claims 13 and 20-22 recite various generic "systems" only characterized by their abstract functions (e.g., flight planning, crew operations, etc.). Claims 12 and 19 introduce a generic database. All of these merely serve to further limit the general link to a particular technological environment in which to execute the abstract idea.
Dependent Claims Step 2B:
The dependent claims merely use the same general link to a technological environment and instructions to implement the abstract idea. Although they add the elements identified in 2A above (generic "systems" and database), these do not amount to significantly more for the same reasons they fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Moreover, the Specification also indicates this is the routine use of known components for the same reasons presented with respect to the elements in the independent claims above (see ¶¶ 0042, 90-93, 103, 121 describing these at a high level of generality and without appreciable technical specifics). Accordingly, they are not directed to significantly more than the exception itself, and are not eligible subject matter under § 101.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL VETTER whose telephone number is (571)270-1366. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-6:00.
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/DANIEL VETTER/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3628
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