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 non-final rejection in response to claims filed on 01/09/2026. Claims 1-13 are pending and are examined herein.
Priority
The present application holds the earlier priority date of the US Provisional Application #63/743,666 filed on 01/10/2025.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because Fig. 3B contains the typographical error “Dynamic Cecklist” which should state “Dynamic Checklist.” Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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 1-13 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
The independent claim 1 is treated as the representative claims for the 2-step analysis. The dependent claims will be reanalyzed after the initial 2-step analysis on the independent claims. The representative claims are directed to:
Claims 1-13: A method of generating a dynamic building inspection checklist for a construction project.
Since the claims are drawn to a process, the claims above are directed to at least one of the potentially eligible subject matter categories, “process, machine, or manufacture” and are therefore to be further analyzed under step 2.
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?)
Claim 1 recites the following, wherein the abstract idea has been bolded and the additional elements are italicized:
Claim 1: A method of generating a dynamic building inspection checklist for a construction project comprising:
receiving construction project information, the construction project information including tasks that are to be performed for the construction project;
determining building code requirements associated with tasks received in the construction project information; and
generating a building inspection checklist of building inspection tasks based on determined building code requirements.
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 an abstract idea within the category of “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 “commercial or legal interactions” which include agreements in the form of contracts, legal obligations, advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, and business relations. The claims in bold above at least recite an abstract idea because the steps fall within “commercial or legal interactions,” particularly because the claims recite steps of receiving construction project information, the construction project information including tasks that are to be performed for the construction project; determining building code requirements associated with tasks received in the construction project information; and generating a building inspection checklist of building inspection tasks based on determined building code requirements. In this case, the legal obligation at issue is compliance and enforcement of legal obligations such the government regulations associated with building codes. Furthermore, determining tasks to be performed for construction projects, and generating an inspection checklist of building tasks falls squarely within both “commercial or legal interactions,” but it also falls within “managing personal behavior,” because it is no more than a set of rules or instructions to an individual, instructing the individual to carry out an action.
Therefore, when considering all of the steps in bold of the representative claims, 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?
Claim 1 does not recite any additional elements. MPEP 2106.04(2) states, “For a claim reciting a judicial exception to be eligible, the additional elements (if any) in the claim must "transform the nature of the claim" into a patent-eligible application of the judicial exception, Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 217, 110 USPQ2d at 1981, either at Prong Two or in Step 2B. If there are no additional elements in the claim, then it cannot be eligible. In such a case, after making the appropriate rejection (see MPEP § 2106.07 for more information on formulating a rejection for lack of eligibility), it is a best practice for the examiner to recommend an amendment, if possible, that would resolve eligibility of the claim.” The applicant is advised to add additional elements to the claim such as technology that would be more than “apply it” (MPEP 2106.05(f)), or improvements to a particular technological environment (MPEP 2106.05(a)). The examiner notes that the structure in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, contains additional elements that would at least be considered under Step 2A Prong 2 or step 2B. However, the claims must be more than merely “apply it" or mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computer. Therefore, the claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a judicial exception because there are no additional elements recited.
Step 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
Claim 1 does not recite any additional elements, therefore, the claim does not amount to significantly more. The abstract idea is not meaningfully limited, and even when viewed as a whole, the claims are no more than an abstract idea under “certain methods of organizing human activity.”
Dependent Claims 2-13 have been analyzed, both individually and in combination with the claims they depend on, under the full 2-step eligibility analysis.
Claims 2-5 recite more of the same abstract idea because the steps are no more than “storing information,” “receiving information,” “transmitting the checklist to a user,” and “receiving results with respect to the checklist” are no more than necessary data gathering steps as associated with the abstract idea, wherein the information itself is still part of the “certain method of organizing human activity.” There are no additional elements to consider, therefore, the claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or provide significantly more, even when viewed as a whole.
Claims 6-10 merely adds further steps to the abstract idea, such as tracking deficiencies for each item, linking tasks, predicting a cause of deficiency, and correlating the deficiency with a set of predetermined variables, which are all acts which fall within “commercial or legal interactions,” because even these acts are equivalent to the legal obligations provided in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II)(B), which provides “Other examples of subject matter where the commercial or legal interaction is a legal obligation include: i. hedging, Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 595, 95 USPQ2d 1001, 1004 (2010); ii. mitigating settlement risk, Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208, 218, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1979 (2014);” which similarly to the present claims are no more than business practices that are “certain methods of organizing human activity.” There are no additional elements to consider, therefore, the claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or provide significantly more, even when viewed as a whole.
Claims 11-13 add further steps to the abstract idea that still fall within “certain methods of organizing human activity,” such as calculating a consequence score, performing a risk evaluation, and generating a checklist ranking from highest risk score to lowest risk score.” These are no more than generic data collection, processing, and output steps that are no more than “certain methods of organizing human activity,” under “commercial or legal interactions,” because determining a consequence score or risk score, when recited at such a high level of generality is merely an agreement in the form of contracts. MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II)(B) states, “Other examples of subject matter where the commercial or legal interaction is an agreement in the form of contracts include: i. managing a stable value protected life insurance policy via performing calculations, Bancorp Servs., LLC v. Sun Life Assur. Co. of Canada (U.S.), 687 F.3d 1266, 1280, 103 USPQ2d 1425, 1434 (Fed. Cir. 2012);” There are no additional elements to consider, therefore, the claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or provide significantly more, even when viewed as a whole.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xin Xu et al. (Transportation Research Record 2021, Vol. 2675(5) 418-435, “Automatic Generation of Customized Checklists for Digital Construction Inspection” (Year: 2021)) hereinafter Xu.
Regarding Claim 1:
Xu discloses the automatic generation of customized checklists for digital construction inspection based on construction requirements at the pay item level. Xu teaches:
- A method of generating a dynamic building inspection checklist for a construction project comprising: (Xu [Abstract] This paper presents an intelligent database approach to automatically generate customized check lists of construction requirements at the pay item level. The proposed approach consists of three components: (1) identification of the functional requirements by consulting with the end users, (2) development of a construction inspection knowledge model via ontology to guide the database design, and (3) devising mechanisms to automate the generation of customized construction checklists for the work under inspection with all the necessary details in relation to what, when, and how to check, as well as the risks and actions when noncompliance is encountered.)
- receiving construction project information, the construction project information including tasks that are to be performed for the construction project; (Xu [Page 429] An INDOT road reconstruction project (Contract R 35639-A, Indiana Street from Washington Street to Seminary Street in the Crawfordsville District)was chosen as the test case. The project CIB (in PDF format) contains a list of the pay items for this particular project. Each pay item has the description, quantity and units, unit price, and bid amount. [Page 430] Figure 13 illustrates the procedure to extract the pay items and import them into the database. A Python algorithm was developed to extract the pay items from the project CIB in PDF format and export them to an Excel spreadsheet, which was directly uploaded into the database as a new table. Note that most state DOTs have a list of pay items in the spread sheet format, which offers a more direct approach to incorporate pay items into the database.) “Pay items” are tasks that are to be performed for the particular project.” CIB refers to the “contract information book” which satisfies “construction project information.”
- determining building code requirements associated with tasks received in the construction project information; and (Xu [Page 420, “Identification of Functional Requirements”] In a previous study, the authors extracted check items from INDOT’s 2018 Standard Specification and organized them into checklists (5, 16). Figure 1 illustrates the extraction of requirements from the textual document into check items in a checklist. The resulting checklists and the connections among the checklists, check items, and pay items comprise the construction inspection knowledge requirements. [Page 421] The following functional requirements were identified as necessary in the intelligent digital inspection system to address the aforementioned limitations and maximize the practical value of the checklist approach to INDOT’s construction inspection: Automate the generation of customized checklists at the pay item level. The generated checklist for a specific pay item shall contain the applicable check requirements/items only.) INDOT’s 2018 Standard Specification satisfies “building code requirements.”
- generating a building inspection checklist of building inspection tasks based on determined building code requirements. (Xu [Page 422, “Intelligent Database System for Automatic Generation of Customized, Dynamic Checklists] Function1: Automatic Generation of Customized Checklists at the Pay Item Level. This functional requirement focuses on retrieving a customized checklist that contains applicable check items only for any given pay item. [Page 423] Table 1 lists the correspondences between the pay items and subsections under Specification Section 201. By using the subsection as the junction, the path in Figure 3 that links the pay items and their applicable check items is established. To be more specific, joining Tables tblPayItem and tblPayItemToSubsection based on the primary key [PayItemID] results in a complete list of pay items with their detailed information including the specification subsections. [Page 424 Function 3: Cross-Referencing] This function focuses on enabling the cross-referencing of the relevant requirements that are captured as separate check items. The cross-referencing is indicated by the semantic triple Check Item-cross references-Check Item in the knowledge model. It is common in the Specification for a requirement to refer to relevant requirements in other sections or subsections, as shown in Figure 6.)
Regarding Claim 2:
Xu teaches The method of Claim 1 further comprising,
- after receiving the construction project information: storing the construction project information. (Xu [Page 430] Figure 13 illustrates the procedure to extract the pay items and import them into the database. A Python algorithm was developed to extract the pay items from the project CIB in PDF format and export them to an Excel spreadsheet, which was directly uploaded into the database as a new table.)
Regarding Claim 3:
Xu teaches The method of Claim 2 further comprising:
- receiving updated construction project information; and storing the updated construction project information. (Xu [Page 430] Figure 13 illustrates the procedure to extract the pay items and import them into the database. A Python algorithm was developed to extract the pay items from the project CIB in PDF format and export them to an Excel spreadsheet, which was directly uploaded into the database as a new table.)
Regarding Claim 4:
Xu teaches The method of Claim 1 further comprising:
-transmitting the building inspection checklist to a user. (Xu [Page 426] For example, based on the responsibility (e.g., PE/S, design reviewer, or inspector), a group of corresponding check items can be retrieved and displayed to the user. To achieve this functionality, several tools (e.g., combo box, filtering, and events builder) provided by MS Access and Visual Basic for Application (VBA) code were used together with SQL statements. [Page 429] A graphical user interface was designed to interact with the users, and specific tools were developed to wrap the SQL queries and corresponding functionalities.)
Regarding Claim 5:
Xu teaches The method of Claim 1 further comprising:
- receiving results with respect to the building inspection checklist. (Xu [Page 430, Function 4: Subgrouping Options Based on the Responsibility, Risk Level, and Inspection Frequency] The applicable check items are retrieved and dis played with details (e.g., inspection frequency, type of check item, and responsibility) (B in Figure 17). Users can filter the results based on responsibility (role) (C in Figure 17) or inspection frequency (D in Figure 17). Figure 18 shows the filtered results when ‘‘Inspector’’ is chosen. Figure 19 illustrates the results for all the check items with an inspection frequency of Level 3.)
Regarding Claims 6:
Xu teaches The method of Claim 5
-further comprising: tracking deficiencies for each item in the building inspection checklist.(Xu [419] This system was envisioned to contain applicable check questions only for the pay item(s) under inspection at that time and would provide inspectors with all the necessary details about the project, such as the inspection frequency, the risk level, quality requirements, actions to take when encountering noncompliance, and educational and training materials.) Tracking “noncompliance” for each of the pay items, satisfies the limitation.
Regarding Claim 7:
Xu teaches The method of Claim 6 further comprising:
- linking building inspection tasks with construction project information. (Xu [Page 431] Third, the division-section-subsection-requirements hierarchy in the project specification is a useful context that helps organize the check requirements and link them to the applicable pay items; and the subsections were found to play a central role in linking the pay items, construction processes, and stages, and check items. Fourth, with the popularity of the cloud for storing and sharing files, linking relevant training materials to corresponding check items affords real-time access through mobile devices.)
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 8-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over further in view of Xin Xu et al. (Transportation Research Record 2021, Vol. 2675(5) 418-435, “Automatic Generation of Customized Checklists for Digital Construction Inspection” (Year: 2021)) further in view of Yuan et al. (Yuan et al, 2018, Risk Based Prioritization of Construction Inspection, Transportation Research Record 2018, Vol. 2672(26) 96 –105) hereinafter Yuan.
Regarding Claims 8:
Xu teaches The method of Claim 7 further comprising:
However, Xu fails to teach:
- predicting a cause of deficiency.
Alternatively, Yuan discloses risk-based prioritization model for construction inspection. Yuan teaches:
- predicting a cause of deficiency.(Yuan [Page 97-98] To evaluate the risks attributable to reduced/missing inspections, which was a supplement to the risk-based material QA part, a survey was completed by 101 experts who represented INDOT, other SHAs, and consultants. However, risk in the survey was evaluated by an overall rating, which did not provide more detailed information to explore the types or causes of aggregate risk that would afford more accurate decisions, such as the impacts associated with higher probability of failure, lower safety, higher cost, or more time.) Yuan suggests surveying the causes of aggregate risk (deficiencies).
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 Xu with the teachings of Yuan, particularly the features of Yuan to survey the causes of aggregate risks when tracking each deficiency in Xu. One would have predictably arrived at the outcome of the limitations at hand, as a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine based on the benefit’s of Yuan’s system in optimizing the allocation of available inspection resources based on the risk. (Yuan [Page 96] A promising alternative to the current practices is to optimize the allocation of available inspection resources to the critical inspection items (including materials testing and construction process inspection) based on the risk. Regarding material properties, performance-related acceptance methods have identified a few material properties that are indicative of the long-term performance of pavement (1–3). Such material properties are called acceptance quality characteristics (AQCs), and their impacts on long-term pavement performance can be quantitatively assessed as the risks associated with their failures.)
Regarding Claims 9:
Xu teaches: The method of Claim 8
However, Xu fails to teach:
- wherein predicting a cause of deficiency comprises: correlating the deficiency with a set of predetermined variables.
Alternatively, Yuan teaches:
- wherein predicting a cause of deficiency comprises: correlating the deficiency with a set of predetermined variables.(Yuan [Page 103] Each inspection activity is aligned with a construction process to facilitate the risk assessment in terms of the failure probability and the severity of the consequence of the materials or the construction process not meeting the requirements. [Page 101] The survey criteria to determine whether a specific inspection activity was critical were as follows. • • For earthwork and PCCP: 1) If the composite index was less than 5, the inspection activity was excluded from the critical inspection list unless additional information or comments were provided. 2) If the composite index was 5 or larger and INDOT practice indicated that a better alternative was available, the inspection activity was excluded from the critical inspection list. 3) The remaining inspection activities were included in the critical inspection list. • • For HMA pavement and bridge decks: 1) If less than 40% of the respondents replied YES (1) to the question pertaining to the necessity to include the specific inspection activity, the inspection activity was excluded from the critical inspection list. 2) If the composite index was less than 5, the inspection activity was excluded from the critical inspection list unless additional information or comment was provided. 3) If the composite index was 5 or larger than 5 and INDOT practice indicated that a better alternative was available, the inspection activity was excluded from the critical inspection list. 4) The remaining inspection activities were included in the critical inspection list) See Page 101 for the predetermined variables which are correlated with the failures.
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 Xu with the teachings of Yuan, particularly the features of correlating the deficiency (failure), with a set of predetermined variables. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Yuan’s teachings with Xu based on the benefit of using such predetermined variables as it would enable an accurate prioritization of the most critical inspection tasks to be performed based on risks. (Yuan [Page 103] A total of 118 inspection activities were generated after linking the core inspection items to the four construction processes of earthwork, PCCP, HMA pavement, and bridge decks. The risks associated with those 118 inspection activities then were assessed based on the aggregated risk of the likelihood and the severity of the consequence of failure; and thereafter by removing 28 low-risk inspection activities, a final list of 90 critical inspection activities was generated)
Regarding Claims 10:
Xu teaches The method of Claim 6 further comprising:
However, Xu fails to teach:
- determining a frequency of deficiency for the deficiency being tracked.
Alternatively, Yuan teaches:
- determining a frequency of deficiency for the deficiency being tracked.(Yuan [Page 105] The main limitation encountered in assessing the risks associated with construction inspection items was the unavailability of quantitative data from records/histories of past projects regarding the frequency of failures and their impacts. Many of the construction inspection results are not formally documented and stored for future analyses; only limited information on materials QA testing results is available. This study relied on INDOT experts and their experience to assess the risk. There is an ongoing effort to increase the sample size by extending the surveys to a larger audience at INDOT and cross-checking the sur vey results with data on material QA records. Also, INDOT is currently exploring the feasibility of determining the frequency and impacts of failures using data from past projects.) Yuan suggests determining the frequency of failures, and their impacts.
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 Xu with the teachings of Yuan, particularly the features of determining the frequency of failures for each deficiency as it would allow for an accurate risk assessment of the failure probability for each time to determine inspection prioritization. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by Yuan’s benefit of allowing field engineers to know when to inspect particular items. (Yuan [Page 105] It is worth noting that since the inspection items were aligned with the construction process, the implementation of the protocol is straightforward: field engineers can now know not only what items/activities to inspect, but also when to inspect them.)
Regarding Claims 11:
Xu teaches: The method of Claim 10 further comprising:
However, Xu fails to teach:
- calculating a consequence score for each deficiency being tracked.
Alternatively, Yuan teaches:
- calculating a consequence score for each deficiency being tracked.(Yuan [Page 99] Risk Assessment Procedure. A 3 × 3 matrix was created to aggregate the two dimensions of the risks into one composite index, which is shown in Figure 3. The horizontal axis represents the severity of the consequence of the inspection not meeting the requirements, and the vertical axis indicates the likelihood of the inspection not meeting the requirements. For example, if a respondent chose High (3) for the severity of the consequence and Medium (2) for the likelihood, the corresponding composite index was “7.” [Page 101] the mean value of the composite indexes from all the respondents was calculated. In the HMA and bridge deck survey, the severity of the consequences included the four aspects of safety, quality, time, and cost. Therefore, the composite index for each respondent was generated based on the likelihood weight and the maximum value for all four aspects of the severity weights, from which the mean value of the composite indexes from all the respondents was calculated.) See also Fig. 3, Matrix of composite index of risk in the surveys.
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 Xu with the teachings of Yuan, particularly the features of calculating a consequence score for each of the possible failures based on safety, quality, time and cost. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated by the benefit of developing a risk-based inspection protocol that also accounts for the possible consequences of failures in order to optimize inspection operations. (Yuan [Page 96] The study presented in this paper aimed to identify the key inspection items that drive long-term pavement performance; assess the risk considering both the probability of an item not meeting the requirements as well as the severity of the consequences insofar as quality, safety, cost, and time; and develop a risk-based inspection protocol.)
Regarding Claims 12:
Xu teaches: The method of Claim 11 further comprising:
However, Xu fails to teach:
- performing a risk evaluation based on the consequence scores.
Alternatively, Yuan teaches:
- performing a risk evaluation based on the consequence scores.(Yuan [Page 99] Survey Design for Risk Assessment. Since the risk for each inspection activity is a function of multiple attributes, the survey requested the expert’s inputs for the list of questions shown in Table 4. Two formats of the survey were distributed. The first format, which included earthwork and PCCP, required the respondents to select the weight from values of low (1), medium (2), and high (3) to evaluate the overall likelihood of an inspection not meeting the requirements and the overall severity as a consequence of not meet ing the requirements. The second survey format, which included HMA and bridge decks, requested the respondents to provide the weight from values of low (1), medium (2), and high (3) to evaluate the overall likelihood and provide a breakdown of the severity of the consequence from four aspects (safety, quality, time, and cost). In addition, the second format also sought input from the experts about the necessity of including the specific inspection activity in the list with a Yes (1) or No (0) option.)
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 Xu with the teachings of Yuan, particularly the features of performing a risk evaluation based on the consequence scores. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by the benefit of the protocol providing INDOT with (Yuan [Page 103] a risk assessment framework that includes the likelihood of failure, the severity of the failure, the best inspection timing during the construction process and sampling and testing frequency.)
Regarding Claims 13:
Xu teaches: The method of Claim 12 further comprising:
Furthermore, Xu teaches:
- generating an updated building inspection checklist ranking building inspection tasks from highest (inspection frequency) score to lowest (inspection frequency)score.(Xu [Page 426] For example, the following SQL statement, SELECT * FROM tblCheckItem AS A, WHERE A.InspectionFrequency = 1, is used to the retrieve the applicable check items that have the highest level of inspection frequency. Function 4: Subgrouping Options Based on the Responsibility, Risk Level, and Inspection Frequency Figure 17 illustrates this function, using PayItemID 201-52370 CLEARING RIGHT OF WAY as an example. The applicable check items are retrieved and dis played with details (e.g., inspection frequency, type of check item, and responsibility) (B in Figure 17). Users can filter the results based on responsibility (role) (C in Figure 17) or inspection frequency (D in Figure 17). Figure 18 shows the filtered results when ‘‘Inspector’’ is chosen. Figure 19 illustrates the results for all the check items with an inspection frequency of Level 3.) Also see Figure. 14, subsection A, which has “inspection Frequency” and “Inspection Priority Recommended,” which can be ranked based on their score.
However, Xu fails to teach:
- generating an updated building inspection checklist ranking building inspection tasks from highest risk score to lowest risk score.
Alternatively, Yuan teaches:
- generating an updated building inspection checklist based on highest risk score vs lowest risk score (Yuan [Abstract]The resulting core set was aligned with the construction process, and INDOT expert opinions were sought to assess the risks and prioritize the inspection checklist. The resulting prioritized list can help INDOT and other SHAs nationwide to optimize their allocation of resources for inspection. Since all the inspection items are aligned with the construction process, implementation is straightforward: field engineers know not only what to inspect but also when to do so.)
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 Xu with the teachings of Yuan, particularly the features of using a risk score, instead of an inspection frequency score to generate the updated priority list. One of ordinary skill would have performed this simple substitution as a “risk score” is a viable way to measure the priority in which to perform inspections, as taught by Yuan in (Yuan [Page 96] The study presented in this paper aimed to identify the key inspection items that drive long-term pavement performance; assess the risk considering both the probability of an item not meeting the requirements as well as the severity of the consequences insofar as quality, safety, cost, and time; and develop a risk-based inspection protocol.)
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
- Xu et al. (Xu, X., Zhang, Y., Yuan, C., Cai, H., Abraham, D. M., & Bowman, M. D. (2019). Risk-based construction inspection (Joint Transportation Research Program Publication No. FHWA/IN/JTRP-2019/06). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University. https://doi.org/10.5703/1288284316916) discloses a risk-based and knowledge-based digital inspection system, which adopts an ontological approach to store and manage inspection information, and generate a dynamic checklist for any given pay item.
- Stanley R. Luhr (US 20140156548 A1) discloses a system for selecting and prioritizing construction inspection checkpoints based on project geographic location, project-specific exposure, type of structure, complexity of building components, product quality, builder's repeated deficiencies, and codes and specifications, and present checkpoints based on the current stage of construction.
- Leitch et al. (US 20130197965 A1) discloses a system for prioritizing and weighing different objectives based on a risk assessment, and a risk ranking to provide a recommend ranking of tasks.
-William Clemenson (US 20120316930 A1) discloses receiving an inspection status from an inspector and identifying the deficiencies associated with the status to calculate an inspection success rate.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICO LAUREN PADUA whose telephone number is (703)756-1978. The examiner can normally be reached Mon to Fri: 8:30 to 5:00pm.
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/NICO L PADUA/Junior Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3626
/JESSICA LEMIEUX/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3626
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