FINAL REJECTION
Introduction
This Office action is responsive to the communications filed October 28, 2025. Claims 1, 16, and 20 were amended. Claims 13, 14, and 19 canceled. Claims 1-12, 15-18, and 20 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant has amended the claims, thereby overcoming the 35 USC 112(b) rejection.
As per the 35 USC 101 rejection, the additional elements in the claims do not add more than insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception. MPEP 2106.05(g).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-12, 15-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The term “relevant” in claims 1, 16, and 20 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “relevant” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
The term “irrelevant” in claims 1, 16, and 20 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “irrelevant” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claims 2-12,15, 17, and18 are rejected as being dependent upon either claim 1 or 16 above.
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 1-12, 15-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
In the instant case, claims 1-12 and 15 are directed to a system see paragraph [0010] of specification that identifies the platform as a system. Claims 16-18 are directed to a method and claim 20 is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
For example, claim 1 recites an abstract idea of gathering, manipulating, and transmitting information including poll data. The claim under its broadest reasonable interpretation recites limitations grouped within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. The certain methods of organizing human activity abstract idea grouping is defined as concepts related to fundamental economic principles or practices, commercial or legal interactions including agreements in the form of contracts, legal obligations, advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, and business relations. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection II. The claim limitations reciting the abstract idea are grouped within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas as they relate to gathering, manipulating, and transmitting information including poll data. More specifically, the following the bolded claim elements recite additional elements while the other claim elements recite the abstract idea. according to MPEP 2106.04(a).
A platform comprising:
a memory configured to store:
profiles of a plurality of users and a plurality of officials;
a mapping of a profile of each official with profiles of one or more users based on a geographical area associated with each official, wherein the one or more users are citizens of the geographical area; and
a machine learning model trained on a training dataset comprising a plurality of historical messages associated with historical message exchange between the plurality of users and the plurality of officials on the platform; and
a processor configured to:
obtain a message comprising a poll on a predefined topic from a first official of the plurality of officials;
analyze, via the machine learning model, the message relative to the plurality of historical messages associated with the historical message exchange between the plurality of users and the plurality of officials on the platform;
identify, based on the analysis, first historical messages that are associated with the message and are likely to be most relevant to users, wherein the first historical messages are associated with at least one historical poll result or message exchange similar to the message obtained from the first official;
selectively fetch, from the memory, the first historical messages, from the plurality of historical messages, wherein selectively fetching and caching the first historical messages reduce platform-side computational latency by avoiding fetching of irrelevant messages
identify, based on the mapping, at least one user, of the plurality of users, who is a citizen of the geographical area associated with the first official; and
obtain information associated with device-specific constraints from a user device associated with the at least one user;
compress the message based on device-specific constraints to minimize network bandwidth consumption associated with a network connecting the platform to the user device, wherein the device-specific constraints comprise at least one of: an available memory, a display resolution, or a battery status of the user device; and
transmit, to the user device, the compressed message comprising the poll, and the first historical messages to enable the at least one user to optimally respond to the poll.
Independent claims 16 and 20 recite similar language.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106.04(d)), the additional element(s) of the claim(s) such as the memory, machine learning model, and processor are adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception.
Specifically, these additional elements perform the steps or functions of gathering, manipulating, and transmitting information including poll data. The specification of the present invention states the following:
[0016] The platform may further enable the user to interact with representatives of companies, stores, schools, etc., which may be located in the same geographical area as the users, in the similar manner as described above. The platform may further enable the users to form groups, friends, digital communities, etc., similar to conventional social networking platforms, and post messages, images, videos, etc. on the groups. Stated another way, the platform can also operate as a normal social media platform where the citizens/users can form groups, post videos, advertise their merchandize, share direct messages (DMs), etc.
However, the claims do not include additional elements that are significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements or combination of elements in the claims, other than the abstract idea per se, amount to no more than recitation of generic components that serves to perform generic functions. These functions are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the pertinent industry. See Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1354-55, 119 USPQ2d 1739, 1742 (Fed. Cir. 2016), which is directed to selecting a particular data source or type of data to be manipulated. The information in this case is selected based on types of information for collection, analysis and display similar to gathering, manipulating, and transmitting information including poll data.
Viewed as a whole, the use of memory, machine learning model, and processor do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claims amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
The dependent claims further describe the abstract idea such as obtain personally identifiable information associated with the plurality of users, authenticate the one or more users, and transmit real-time poll results.
The dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
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.
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/Jalatee Worjloh/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3697