RISK BASED PROCESS AND PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Application No. 19/283,163

• Filed: Jul 28, 2025
• Priority: Dec 27, 2022 — continuation of 18/146,887
  • Mar 29, 2023 — continuation of 12/236,380
  • Jan 18, 2025 — continuation of 12/373,758
• Examiner: EL-HAGE HASSAN, ABDALLAH A
• Assignee: Valgenesis Inc.
• OA Round: 1 (Non-Final)

Office Action

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 Application
This action is a first action on the merits in response to the application filed on 07/28/2025.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 filed on 07/28/2025 are currently pending and have been examined in this application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 07/28/2025 and on 11/04/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Specifically, claims 1-20 are directed to an abstract idea without additional elements to integrate the claims into a practical application or to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claims 1-20 are directed to a process, machine, or manufacture (Step 1), however the claims are directed to the abstract idea of tracing matrix that identifies relationships between a process step of process steps of a defined process, respective objects comprising respective attributes that are applicable to change respective performances of the process steps during a lifecycle of the defined process, and the respective attributes of the respective objects; detecting an event representing a performance of the respective performances of the process step; correlating, by the system, the event with the process step, the respective objects, and the respective attributes of the objects, and determining, whether the event corresponds to a first risk profile version of a defined risk profile of a control strategy that has been stored in a data store, determining whether a group of failure modes of the defined failure modes corresponds to candidates of causality of the event representing multi-variant causes of the event; and outputting candidates of causality of the event to facilitate a modification of the defined risk profile to obtain a second risk profile version for mitigation of respective effects of the multi-variant causes of the event on the process step.
With respect to Step 2A Prong One of the frameworks, claim 1 recites an abstract idea. Claim 1 includes limitations for “creating a tracing matrix that identifies relationships between a process step of process steps of a defined process, respective objects comprising respective attributes that are applicable to change respective performances of the process steps during a lifecycle of the defined process, and the respective attributes of the respective objects; detecting an event representing a performance of the respective performances of the process step; in response to the event representing the performance of the process step being detected, correlating the event with the process step, the respective objects, and the respective attributes of the objects, and determining whether the event corresponds to a first risk profile version of a defined risk profile of a control strategy that has been stored in a data store, wherein the defined risk profile represents defined failure modes of the process step; in response to the event being determined to correspond to the defined risk profile, determining whether a group of failure modes of the defined failure modes corresponds to candidates of causality of the event representing multi-variant causes of the event; and in response to the group of failure modes being determined to correspond to the candidates of causality of the event representing the multi-variant causes of the event, outputting the candidates of causality of the event to facilitate a modification of the defined risk profile to obtain a second risk profile version for mitigation of respective effects of the multi-variant causes of the event on the process step”
The limitations above recite an abstract idea under Step 2A Prong One. More particularly, the limitations above recite Mental Process because an ordinary skilled in the art can trace an event and correlate the event to multiple failure modes. As a result, claim 1 recites an abstract idea under Step 2A Prong One.
Claims 11 and 18 recite substantially similar limitations to those presented with respect to claim 1. As a result, claims 11 and 18 recite an abstract idea under Step 2A Prong One for the same reasons as stated above with respect to claim 1. Similarly, claims 2-10, 12-17, and 19-20 recite Mental Process because an ordinary skilled in the art can trace an event and correlate the event to multiple failure modes. As a result, claims 2-10, 12-17, and 19-20 recite an abstract idea under Step 2A Prong One.
With respect to Step 2A Prong Two of the framework, claim 1 does not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Claim 1 includes additional elements that do not recite an abstract idea. The additional elements of claim 1 include “by a system”, “by the system”. When considered in view of the claim as a whole, the recited computer elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the computer elements are generic computer elements that are merely used as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea. As a result, claim 1 does not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application under Step 2A Prong Two.
As noted above, claims 11 and 18 recite substantially similar limitations to those recited with respect to claim 1. Although claim 11 further recites “A system, comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory that stores executable instructions” and claim 18 further recites “A non-transitory machine-readable medium”, when considered in view of the claim as a whole, the recited computer elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the computer elements are generic computer elements that are merely used as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea. As a result, 11 and 18 do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application under Step 2A Prong Two.
Claims 2-10, 12-17, and 19-20 do not include any additional elements beyond those recited by independent claims 1, 11, and 18. As a result, claims 2-10, 12-17, and 19-20 do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application under Step 2A Prong Two.
With respect to Step 2B of the framework, claim 1 does not include additional elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea. As noted above, claim 1 includes additional elements that do not recite an abstract idea. The additional elements of claim 1 include “by a system”, “by the system”. The recited computer elements do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea because the computer elements are generic computer elements that are merely used as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea. As a result, claim 1 does not include additional elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea under Step 2B.
As noted above, claims 11 and 18 recite substantially similar limitations to those recited with respect to claim 1. Although claim 11 further recites “A system, comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory that stores executable instructions” and claim 18 further recites “A non-transitory machine-readable medium”, the recited computer elements do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea because the computer elements are generic computer elements that are merely used as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea. Further, looking at the additional elements as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when considering the additional elements individually. As a result, claims 11 and 18 do not include additional elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea under Step 2B.
Claims 2-10, 12-17, and 19-20 do not include any additional elements beyond those recited by independent claims 1, 11, and 18. As a result, claims 2-10, 12-17, and 19-20 do not include additional elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea under Step 2B.
Therefore, the claims are directed to an abstract idea without additional elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea. Accordingly, claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Conclusion
The following prior arts made of record and not relied upon are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Syed (US 20220129818 A1), Syed teaches providing access to a plurality of stored lifecycle fragments, each of the lifecycle fragments comprising one or more process steps relating to a lifecycle process; configuring a plurality of sequential process steps arranged to form a lifecycle process; providing a placeholder between first and second process steps of the lifecycle process, the placeholder having an input and an output; during runtime of the lifecycle process, receiving data from the first process step; selecting a lifecycle fragment from the plurality of stored lifecycle fragments based on the received data from the first process step; fetching the selected lifecycle fragment; executing the selected lifecycle fragment to generate fragment output data using the received data from the first process step; and providing the fragment output data as an input to the second process step.
Any inquiry concerning this communication from the examiner should be directed to Abdallah El-Hagehassan whose contact information is [phone] and [e-mail] The examiner can normally be reached on Monday- Friday 8 am to 5 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rutao Wu can be reached on [phone]. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is [phone].
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the patent application information retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information of published applications may be obtained from either private PAIR or public PAIR. Status information of unpublished applications is available through private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have any questions on access to the private PAIR system, contact the electronic business center (EBC) at [phone] (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO customer service representative or access to the automated information system, call [phone] (in US or Canada) or [phone].
/ABDALLAH A EL-HAGE HASSAN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623

Prosecution Timeline

• Jul 28, 2025: Application Filed
• Jul 22, 2026: Non-Final Rejection mailed — §101 (current)