DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 24 February 2026 has been entered.
Status
This Final Office Action is in response to the communications filed on 16 February 2026, 24 February 2026, and 13 May 2026. Claims 1-21 have been cancelled currently or previously, claims 22, 25, and 30-34 have been amended at one or more of the indicated communications, and no new claims have been added. Therefore, claims 22-34 are presented for examination.
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 .
Response to Amendment
A summary of the Examiner’s Response to Applicant’s amendment:
For clarity on the record, the Examiner notes below how the amending of Applicant is being handled or addressed.
Applicant’s amendment does not overcome the rejection(s) under 35 USC § 101; therefore, the Examiner maintains the rejection(s) while updating phrasing in keeping with current examination guidelines.
Applicant’s amendment necessitates new grounds of rejection for prior art; therefore, the Examiner places new grounds of rejection.
Applicant’s arguments are found to be not persuasive; please see the Response to Arguments below.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on 25 February 2026, 18 March 2026, 21 May 2026, and 26 August 2026 were filed after the mailing date of the Final Office Action on 16 December 2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Examiner’s Note
The Examiner notes there were three amendments submitted after the Final and the amendments appear to repeatedly or continually add and delete to/from the previous amendments. The Examiner has tracked Applicant’s continuing variation regarding what was invented and what they wish to protect at the claims and believes the various amendments are correctly reflected herein.
The Examiner notes that the claims several times indicate “from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products” (in relation to the organization, structured price incentives, identifying candidate products, obtaining a status and volume, etc.). The specification indicates “retrieving price incentive data relating to the user query data from the rebate database and price agreement database” (at Applicant ¶ 0007, with similar at 0068), and “retrieving price incentive data from the price agreement database” (at Applicant ¶ 0008 and again at 0009) and does NOT indicate retrieving or obtaining the price incentives directly from the contract itself. Therefore, the phrase “from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products” is interpreted as the price incentive information or data having perhaps originated, or be derived, from the contract, but not that the claims indicate somehow looking up or parsing the contract itself – the price incentive data may be listed in a database and retrieved from such database.
Claim Objections
Claim 32 is objected to because of the following informalities: the phrase “one or more” has been added without edit markings at the end (i.e., “historical purchases of the one or more of the plurality of the candidate products”). Claims submitted 20 November 2025, 16 February 2026, and 24 February 2026 each indicated “historical purchases of the candidate products” and “of the plurality of the” is indicated as added currently (at the 13 May 2026 submission), but “one or more” appears added without edit markings. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim 34 is 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.
Claim 34 recites the limitation "the weighting" in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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 22-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Please see the following Subject Matter Eligibility (“SME”) analysis:
For analysis under SME Step 1, the claims herein are directed to a method, which would be classified under one of the listed statutory classifications (SME Step 1=Yes).
For analysis under revised SME Step 2A, Prong 1, independent claim 22 recites a method comprising: receiving, by one or more processors and from an organization, a search query for a plurality of candidate products, wherein the search query includes organization defined search parameters, prices of the plurality of the candidate products and at least one of names of the plurality of the candidate products, part numbers of the plurality of the candidate products, descriptions of the plurality of the candidate products or attributes of the plurality of the candidate products, and wherein the organization is a business entity that purchases the plurality of candidate products from a supplier and receives structured price incentives from a contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products that provide a benefit based on fulfillment criteria for the organization; determining, by the one or more processors, that the search query is associated with the organization; determining, by the one or more processors, a result set that is responsive to the search query; identifying, by the one or more processors, the plurality of the candidate products of the result set that are associated with structured price incentives from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products that provide the benefit based on fulfillment criteria for the organization; obtaining, by the one or more processors, the structured price incentives associated with the plurality of the candidate products from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products, a status of the structured price incentives associated with the plurality of the candidate products from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products and a volume from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products needed to meet the fulfillment criteria for the benefit; determining, by the one or more processors, the remaining number of products in the structured price incentives from purchase history data by the organization for the plurality of the candidate products that are needed for meeting the fulfillment criteria for the benefit from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products; ranking, by the one or more processors, the plurality of the candidate products by assigning a higher rank to the plurality of the candidate products that meet the remaining number of products for the fulfillment criteria for the benefit provided by the structured price incentives for the organization, wherein the fulfillment criteria includes a purchase of the remaining number of products from the plurality of the candidate products fulfilling the contract between the organization and the supplier for the candidate products in order to obtain the benefit; and displaying, by the one or more processors, the structured price incentives from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products, a status of the structured price incentives from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products, a projected price adjustment based on the structured price incentives, a projected savings based on the structured price incentives and a volume needed to meet the fulfillment criteria for the benefit from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products.
The dependent claims (claims 23-34) appear to be encompassed by the abstract idea of the independent claims since they merely indicate the basis for, or type of, benefit or incentive (claims 23-25), querying via a procurement system (claim 26), ranking based on scoring of price incentives, additional purchases, or trends (claims 27-28 and 31-33), removing candidate products that lack fulfillment incentives (claim 29), the type fulfillment criteria used (i.e., rebate type, structure, start or end date, or products included) (claim 30), and/or weighting (for ranking) based on likelihood of being responsive to the query, price incentives, or inventory stock (claim 34).
The underlined portions of the claims are an indication of elements additional to the abstract idea (to be considered below).
The claim elements may be summarized as the idea of comparing and ranking organization (i.e., e.g., company or business) product purchase options and preferences; however, the Examiner notes that although this summary of the claims is provided, the analysis regarding subject matter eligibility considers the entirety of the claim elements, both individually and as a whole (or ordered combination). This idea is within the following grouping(s) of subject matter:
Mental processes (e.g., concepts performed in the human mind such as observation, evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion) – at least based on the observations, evaluations, judgments, and/or opinions that appear required for the product and incentive options.
Certain methods of organizing human activity (e.g. … commercial or legal interactions such as agreements, contracts, legal obligations, advertising, marketing or sales activities/behaviors, or business relations …) – at least based on the organization procurement, benefit comparison(s), use of contracts that give rise to legal obligations, business relations between the purchaser and supplier(s), and advertising, marketing, and sales activities.
The Examiner notes that the primary grouping appears to now be Mental processes since the amendments focus the claims more heavily on the criteria and data being considered and compared; therefore, it is listed first or as a primary grouping. Certain methods of organizing human activity is also implicated based on the content and activities (as noted above), but may be considered a second, additional, or secondary, grouping.
Therefore, the claims are found to be directed to an abstract idea.
For analysis under revised SME Step 2A, Prong 2, the above judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements do not impose a meaningful limit on the judicial exception when evaluated individually and as a combination. The additional elements are the method using one or more processors. This/these additional elements do not reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer or an improvement to other technology or technical field, effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition (there is no medical disease or condition, much less a treatment or prophylaxis for one), implement the judicial exception with, or by using in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (there is no transformation/reduction of a physical article), and/or apply or use the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generically linking use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
The claims appear to merely apply the judicial exception, include instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely use a computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea. The additional elements appear to merely add insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception and/or generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
The expected results of the intended increase in hit rate and the intended increase in price incentive, as well as the intended “less comparisons” and “instead of checking every character of the text” at various elements – as explained above – are intended or expected and/or inherent to the claimed activity and therefore interpreted as having little if any patentable weight.
The Examiner notes in relation to the secondary or additional groupings indicated above, that MPEP § 2106.04(II)(A)(2) indicates that
Because a judicial exception is not eligible subject matter, Bilski, 561 U.S. at 601, 95 USPQ2d at 1005-06 (quoting Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. at 309, 206 USPQ at 197 (1980)), if there are no additional claim elements besides the judicial exception, or if the additional claim elements merely recite another judicial exception, that is insufficient to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. See, e.g., RecogniCorp, LLC v. Nintendo Co., 855 F.3d 1322, 1327, 122 USPQ2d 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2017) ("Adding one abstract idea (math) to another abstract idea (encoding and decoding) does not render the claim non-abstract"); Genetic Techs. Ltd. v. Merial LLC, 818 F.3d 1369, 1376, 118 USPQ2d 1541, 1546 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (eligibility "cannot be furnished by the unpatentable law of nature (or natural phenomenon or abstract idea) itself.").
For analysis under SME Step 2B, the claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements, as indicated above, are merely “[a]dding the words ‘apply it’ (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, e.g., a limitation indicating that a particular function such as creating and maintaining electronic records is performed by a computer, as discussed in Alice Corp.” that MPEP § 2106.05(I)(A) indicates to be insignificant activity
There is no indication the Examiner can find in the record regarding any specialized computer hardware or other “inventive” components, but rather, the claims merely indicate computer components which appear to be generic components and therefore do not satisfy an inventive concept that would constitute “significantly more” with respect to eligibility. Applicant ¶ 0029 as submitted indicates that “’Processor’ or ‘computer’ as used herein includes, but is not limited to, any programmed or programmable electronic device or coordinated devices that can store, retrieve, and process data and may be a processing unit or in a distributed processing configuration” – i.e., generic or general-purpose computers are envisioned. Further, at least Applicant ¶¶ 0074-0080 indicate that “Computer system 610 can be of varying types including a workstation, server, computing cluster, blade server, server farm, or any other data processing system or computing device. Due to the ever-changing nature of computing devices and networks, the description of computer system 610 depicted in FIG. 6 is intended only as a specific example for purposes of illustrating some embodiments. Many other configurations of computer system 610 are possible having more or fewer components than the computer system depicted in FIG. 6.” (quoting Applicant ¶ 0080, where it appears from ¶ 0074 that computer system 610 is the computer and/or components that perform the claim activities).
The individual elements therefore do not appear to offer any significance beyond the application of the abstract idea itself, and there does not appear to be any additional benefit or significance indicated by the ordered combination, i.e., there does not appear to be any synergy or special import to the claim as a whole other than the application of the idea itself.
The dependent claims, as indicated above, appear encompassed by the abstract idea since they merely limit the idea itself; therefore the dependent claims do not add significantly more than the idea.
Therefore, SME Step 2B=No, any additional elements, whether taken individually or as an ordered whole in combination, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea, including analysis of the dependent claims.
Please see the Subject Matter Eligibility (SME) guidance and instruction materials at https://www.uspto.gov/patent/laws-and-regulations/examination-policy/subject-matter-eligibility, which includes the latest guidance, memoranda, and update(s) for further information.
NOTICE
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 22-34 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kranzley et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2017/0323295, hereinafter Kranzley) in view of Walker et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0200143, hereinafter Walker).
Claim 22: Kranzley discloses a method comprising:
receiving, by one or more processors and from an organization, a search query for a plurality of candidate products, (see Kranzley at least at, e.g., ¶ 0174, “a Product for which a Client Device 02100 transmits data associated with the Product, e.g., a query about a Product in which the User of a Client Device 02100 is interested”, 0210, “User means any party querying about a Product of Interest and/or purchasing and/or using a Product. A User can include without limitation: (a) an individual; and/or (b) a party other than an individual including without limitation: (i) a business; (ii) a government; and/or (iii) a non-profit organization. While this application typically illustrates the apparatuses, methods, and CPPs described herein for use by a User as an individual, this disclosure is not limited to that embodiment and can apply to a non-individual as well”, 0073 and Fig. 31, “a plurality of candidate Products of Interest”; citation hereafter by number only);
wherein the search query includes organization defined search parameters, prices of the plurality of the candidate products and at least one of names of the plurality of the candidate products, part numbers of the plurality of the candidate products, descriptions of the plurality of the candidate products or attributes of the plurality of the candidate products (0116, “the data elements can include without limitation: (a) a Product Identifier (defined herein) and/or a Universal Product Identifier (defined herein); (b) a description of the Product”, 0154, “Offer Value means the amount of value in any class of value in an Offer including without limitation: (a) cash transmitted to the purchaser or User of a Product of Interest …; (b) any instrument used by the purchaser or User of a Product of Interest representing cash which can decrease the price of the Product of Interest or any one or more other Products, …; (f) any payment or reimbursement of part or all of the price of a Product of Interest before, at, and/or after a Transaction by a party on behalf of the User of the Product of Interest”, 0167, “Product Class means any class of Products including values of an attribute set within a predefined threshold of a Transaction Attribute Values specified in a User Query”, 0172, “the values of the attributes of the combination meet the values of the attributes of a User Query”, 0194, “the data elements can include without limitation: (a) a Product Identifier and/or a Universal Product Identifier; (b) a description of the Product (“Product Description”); (c) the price at which the Retailer offers to sell the Product (“Retailer Price”)”, 0214, “(c) attributes in a Transaction domain, which can include without limitation: (i) … (3) the Product name identifying a Product”, 0349, “The data elements can include any data enabling one or more embodiments to determine if Retailer Server offers a Product requested in a User Query, e.g., Product Description, Retailer Price, and/or Retailer Available Units”), and
wherein the organization is a business entity that purchases the plurality of candidate products from a supplier and receives structured price incentives from a contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products that provide a benefit based on fulfillment criteria for the organization (0210, “User means any party querying about a Product of Interest and/or purchasing and/or using a Product. A User can include without limitation: (a) an individual; and/or (b) a party other than an individual including without limitation: (i) a business; (ii) a government; and/or (iii) a non-profit organization. While this application typically illustrates the apparatuses, methods, and CPPs described herein for use by a User as an individual, this disclosure is not limited to that embodiment and can apply to a non-individual as well”, 0211, “User Class means any class of Users with the same one or more values for an attribute equal or equivalent to an attribute of an Offer limiting the Offer to members of a class of Users. For example, if an Offer includes at least one Offer Condition Attribute limiting the Offer to a class of Users whose age is 65 years or greater, the equal or equivalent User Class is the class of Users whose age is 65 years or greater. The attributes can include without limitation:
determining, by the one or more processors, that the search query is associated with the organization (0182, “Qualifying Retailer means a Retailer which offers the Product of Interest included in a User Query and has available for sale at least the number of units of the Product of Interest requested in the User Query”, 0492, “Method 17000 can use any sorting algorithm to sort and rank a plurality of Qualifying Retailer/Offer Combinations”);
determining, by the one or more processors, a result set that is responsive to the search query (0182, “Qualifying Retailer means a Retailer which offers the Product of Interest included in a User Query and has available for sale at least the number of units of the Product of Interest requested in the User Query”, 0492, “Method 17000 can use any sorting algorithm to sort and rank a plurality of Qualifying Retailer/Offer Combinations” – the Examiner notes that since the search is merely for “a product”, the only description, attribute, parameter, price, or substitute is that of the product searched for: a search for “XYZ” would merely use “XYZ” as the all or any of the description, attribute, parameter, price, or substitute);
identifying, by the one or more processors, the plurality of the candidate products of the result set that are associated with structured price incentives from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products that provide a benefit based on fulfillment criteria for the organization (0492, sorting and ranking results, such as “The set of Qualifying Retailer/Offer Combinations may be small in the case of a single Product Identifier limited to a specified distance from the User, e.g., the set of Qualifying Retailer/Offer Combinations identified in response to a User Query like “what is the lowest Net Price of Product X sold at a store within 1 mile from my location?” The set of Qualifying Retailer/Offer Combinations may be large in the case of a Product Class with relatively wide ranges for one or more attributes in the specified of Transaction Attribute Value Set 06700. In a third embodiment, Method 17000 can use any algorithm other than a sort algorithm, e.g., any algorithm in the class of evolutionary algorithms, to identify the Qualifying Retailer/Offer Combination yielding the lowest Net Price or a Net Price below a predefined threshold. After using a sort algorithm or any algorithm other than a sort algorithm to generate a list or ranking by Net Price of Qualifying Retailer/Offer Combinations, Method 17000 can select the Qualifying Retailer/Offer Combination with the lowest Net Price or select a Qualifying Retailer/Offer Combination with a Net Price below a predefined threshold, e.g., “Product X at any Net Price below $500”);
obtaining, by the one or more processors, the structured price incentives associated with the one or more candidate products from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products, a status of the structured price incentives associated with the plurality of the candidate products from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products and a volume from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products needed to meet the fulfillment criteria for the benefit (0492 as above, 0514, “Method 17200 can optimize an objective function where the price of the Product of Interest charged by Producer Server 02400 varies by the unit volume purchased by Retailer Server”);
determining, by the one or more processors, the number of products in the structured price incentives from purchase history data by the organization for the plurality of the candidate products that are needed for meeting the fulfillment criteria for the benefit from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products (0494-0495 and Fig. 17, with 0496-0523 further explaining the method – where 0494 indicates determining the qualifying offer(s) with a net price, 0495 indicates identifying (i.e., providing), the various offers);
ranking, by the one or more processors, the plurality of the candidate products by assigning a higher rank to the one or more candidate products that meet the fulfillment criteria for the benefit provided by the structured price incentives for the organization (0492 as above); and
wherein the fulfillment criteria includes a purchase of the number of products from the plurality of the candidate products fulfilling the contract between the organization and the supplier for the candidate products in order to obtain the benefit (0128, “(d) a Product Unit Condition, i.e., a predefined threshold of the number of units of a Product purchased or used in a Transaction, limiting the applicability of the Offer to the purchase and/or use of a minimum, specific, or maximum number of units of a Product purchased or used in a Transaction where the number of units and Product are specified in the Offer Condition Attribute Value, e.g., if an Offer Condition Attribute is a Product Unit Condition requiring a minimum number of units of a specified Product purchased or used in a Transaction in an integer format and the Offer Condition Attribute Value equals a value of three, the Offer is limited to the purchase and/or use of at least three units of a specified Product in a Transaction”); and
displaying, by the one or more processors, the structured price incentives from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products a status of the structured price incentives from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products associated with the one or more candidate products, a projected price adjustment based on the structured price incentives, a projected savings based on the structured price incentives and a volume of the one or more candidate products needed to meet the fulfillment criteria for the benefit from the contract between the organization and the supplier for the plurality of the candidate products (0492 as above, 0579, “At 22001, Method 22000 can confirm that each Qualifying Offer, Retailer Price, and Retailer Available Unit(s) is still valid”).
Kranzley, however, does not appear to explicitly disclose determining the remaining number of products. Where Kranzley indicates sales to groups such as individuals, businesses, or organizations (Kranzley at 0210 and similar indications for other groups at, e.g., 0214, 0215, 0218, 0220, 0224), the claim appears to presume a previous purchase. Walker, though, teaches “to become eligible to receive the reward, a group must satisfy certain conditions established by the group reward program. For example, a condition may be a number of purchases or a value (e.g., dollar amount) of purchases to be achieved” (Walker at 0023), “The entries in reward status field 603 may be determined in accordance with the reward rules applicable to the group” (Walker at 0071, Fig. 6, item 603, noting for group T1 at row 655 that there are “12/20 purchases complete”), “the data stored in reward status field 603 may reflect either the performance of each customer in the group, a subset of customers in the group, or the performance of the group overall” (Walker at 0072), and “where the stored data reflects the performance of the group, … the performance of the group may be recalculated by retrieving the stored performance from reward status field 603 and adding the current purchase to the stored performance … this embodiment is particularly useful where the performance of the group is measured as an aggregate performance of the group” (Walker at 0073). Therefore, the Examiner understands and finds that to determine the remaining number of products is applying a known technique to a known device, method, or product ready for improvement to yield predictable results so as to provide current, aggregate results.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine or modify the product list ranks of Kranzley with the group purchase tracking of Walker in order to determine the remaining number of products so as to provide current, aggregate results.
The rationale for combining in this manner is that to determine the remaining number of products is applying a known technique to a known device, method, or product ready for improvement to yield predictable results so as to provide current, aggregate results as explained above.
Claim 23: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the benefit includes at least one of obtaining a rebate, reduced administrative fees, reduced pricing based on volume purchases of the one or more products, or reduced pricing tier based on a purchase commitment (Kranzley at 0154, “Offer Value means the amount of value in any class of value in an Offer including without limitation: … (b) any instrument used by the purchaser or User of a Product of Interest representing cash which can decrease the price of the Product of Interest or any one or more other Products, e.g., a coupon, a rebate, a refund, a voucher, and/or stored-value account like a gift card”, 0514, “Method 17200 can optimize an objective function where the price of the Product of Interest charged by Producer Server 02400 varies by the unit volume purchased by Retailer Server”, 0211-0214, “[0211] User Class means any class of Users with the same one or more values for an attribute equal or equivalent to an attribute of an Offer limiting the Offer to members of a class of Users… [0214] (c) attributes in a Transaction domain, which can include without limitation: (i) a Product Loyalty domain … and/or (ii) a Purchase Commitment domain whose values can include any data representing the willingness of a User to purchase a plurality of units of a Product of Interest over some time period after the date of a Transaction, e.g., one or more embodiments can execute one or more methods to classify a User into a plurality of Purchase Commitment classes based on data in the User Prior Transaction Data Structure, e.g., a User subscribing to a program automatically purchasing a book every month can be more likely than Users not subscribing to such subscription programs to subscribe to a program automatically purchasing a Product in a Product Class other than books”).
Claim 24: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 23, wherein the reduced pricing based on volume purchases include a discount at least one of on the one or more products after a certain number of the one or more products have been purchased, for purchases of the one or more products above a growth threshold, or for purchase activity associated with the one or more products above a threshold value (Kranzley at 0154, 0514, and 0211-0214, as above).
Claim 25: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the structured price incentives include at least one of rebates, contractual agreements, administrative fees paid by Global Purchasing Organizations (GPOs), volume based prices, or purchase commitment based price tiers (Kranzley at 0154, 0514, and 0211-0214, as above).
Claim 26: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the receiving the search query is from a procurement system and the ranking of the result is provided to a procurement system (Kranzley at 0154, “Offer Value means the amount of value in any class of value in an Offer including without limitation: … an exemption from a state and/or local sales tax by a party purchasing a Product of Interest for incorporation in a Product subsequently resold in the usual course of its business, for example, a party issued a Uniform Sales and Use Tax Exemption Certification by the Multistate Tax Commission”).
Claim 27: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the ranking is further based on scoring the plurality of the candidate products, wherein a higher score is assigned to the one or more products that meet the fulfillment criteria for the benefit provided by the structured price incentives (Kranzley at 0492, sorting and ranking, as above).
Claim 28: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the ranking is further based on scoring the plurality of the candidate products, wherein a higher score is assigned to the one or more products based on the structured price incentives being active, additional purchases result in satisfying the fulfillment criteria for the benefit and purchase history data indicates that additional purchases in a time period will result in satisfying the fulfillment criteria for the benefit (Kranzley at 0211-0214, commitment domain, as above).
Claim 29: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, further comprising removing, by the one or more processors, the plurality of the candidate products of the result set that lack an association with structured price incentives that provide a benefit based on the fulfillment criteria (Kranzley at 0492, sorting and ranking, as above).
Claim 30: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the fulfillment criteria includes a type of rebate, a structure of the rebate, a start date of the rebate, an end date of the rebate, and one or more of the plurality of the candidate products to associate with the rebate (Kranzley at 0103 and 0107, Fund Account with start and end dates, 0124 and 0132, Offer Condition Attribute with start and end dates, 0514, Offer Value including rebate, 0208, Qualifying Offer including a rebate).
Claim 31: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the assigning the higher rank to one or more of the plurality of the candidate products that meet the fulfillment criteria for the benefit is further based on a purchase of the one or more of the plurality of the candidate products causing the benefit to be met (Kranzley at 0492, sorting and ranking, as above).
Claim 32: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the assigning the higher rank to one or more of the plurality of the candidate products that meet the fulfillment criteria for the benefit is further based on a percentage of the structured price incentives, an amount of money saved by the structured price incentives, sales trends for the one or more of the plurality of the candidate products and historical purchases of the one or more of the plurality of the candidate products (Kranzley at 0492, sorting and ranking as well as net pricing, as above, 0121-0122 net pricing).
Claim 33: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the assigning the higher rank to one or more of the plurality of the candidate products that meet the fulfillment criteria for the benefit is further based on purchase trends for one or more of the plurality of the candidate products that are determined to result in meeting the fulfillment criteria for the benefit over a time period (Kranzley at 0211-0214, as above).
Claim 34: Kranzley in view of Walker discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the weighting is based on at least one of a likelihood the one or more candidate products are responsive to the submitted query (Kranzley at 0492, sorting and ranking as well as net pricing, as above), price incentives associated with the one or more candidate products (Kranzley at 0492, sorting and ranking as well as net pricing, as above, 0121-0122 net pricing), or the one or more candidate products being in stock (Kranzley at 0181-0182, has available for sale … at least the number of units of the Product of Interest requested in the User Query)
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 13 May 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant first argues the 101 rejections (Remarks at 6-7), asserting first that “Applicant includes new claims to expedite prosecution” (Id. at 6); however, there are NO new claims – claims 22-34 were presented and rejected at the 16 December 2025 Final Office Action, and claims 22-34 are presented herein.
Applicant then asserts analogy to Example 2 (Id. at 7), where the Examiner notes that Example 2 is based on DDR. However, where the DDR/Example 2 claims changed the function of a redirect link so as to retain the look and feel of a page after redirect, the instant claims provide no indication any redirecting, or a change to technology or computers, or that there is any look or feel that is changed, modified, retained, or anything similar to that. Applicant’s background indicates “Many organizations utilize searchable electronic catalogs to present customers with goods and/or services from supply chain-approved vendors of the organization. To support purchasing functionality, these catalogs may be consolidated into a marketplace whereby requesters view product details prior to purchasing, and purchase products in a single interface. In some instances, organizations may have price incentives negotiated into price agreements with one or more suppliers. For example, an organization may receive a discount on a product after a certain number of the product has been purchased, for purchases above a growth threshold, and/or for purchase activity above a threshold value” (Applicant ¶ 0003). Applicant’s invention, as summarized by Applicant at Applicant ¶¶ 0004-0012, is apparently that “Applicants have thus appreciated that there is a need for a product procurement system with automated methods for ranking products that are responsive to a search query based on price incentives associated with the products” (at Applicant ¶ 0005) and that “Systems and methods are provided for ranking products that are responsive to a search query based on price incentives associated with the products” (at Applicant ¶ 0006). A volume-based rebate or discount does not appear to have any relation to retaining the look or feel of other web pages – as Applicant has described, the invention is a search engine. There is no apparent indication in the claims or the description that would indicate similarity or analogy to Example 2 or DDR.
Applicant then argues the 103 rejections, again alleging that “Applicant includes new claims to expedite prosecution” (Remarks at 7). However, it is again noted that there are NO new claims – claims 22-34 were presented and rejected at the 16 December 2025 Final Office Action, and claims 22-34 are presented herein.
Therefore, the arguments are considered not persuasive.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
M. Almulla, K. Almatori and H. Yahyaoui, "A QoS-Based Fuzzy Model for Ranking Real World Web Services," 2011 IEEE International Conference on Web Services, Washington, DC, USA, 2011, pp. 203-210, doi: 10.1109/ICWS.2011.43. downloaded from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6009390 on 1 July 2025, indicating “With the increasing popularity of using Web services, Quality of Service (QoS) is becoming a significant concern for both service consumers and providers. Several models for considering functional and non-functional QoS requirements for the purpose of Web service discovery and selection have been proposed. We present in this paper a new Web services selection model based on fuzzy logic. In this model, the non-functional QoS requirements are taken into account for the appropriate selection of required services. Our model can handle consumers' imprecise preferences with fuzzy sets. Moreover, a new fuzzy ranking algorithm that is based on the dependencies between quality attributes is proposed. The experimental results obtained from real world Web service domains revealed better performance of our algorithm compared to Entropy-based ranking algorithms” (at Abstract).
Normi Sham Awang Abu Bakar, Using Language-Based Search in Mining Large Software Repositories, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 27, 2011, Pp. 160-168, ISSN 1877-0428, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.10.594. Downloaded 15 July 2025 from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811024219, indicating “Language component plays an important role in data/information retrieval. Data retrieval in software engineering is often hindered by the difficulty of getting data from commercial software. The emergence of the open source repositories has contributed tremendously in the collection of software data. This paper highlights the data retrieval method for mining software from a vast open source software repository, SourceForge. For the purpose of automating the data retrieval from the repository, a parser was written using the Python programming language, and based on the pattern matching algorithm. The retrieved data were later used to estimate the quality of the open source software” (at Abstract).
Alex Nixon, “Cranberry-based Prodigo Solutions: Hospitals can reduce high supply costs”, TribLive.com, dated 30 September 2014, downloaded 29 September 2025 from https://archive.triblive.com/business/local-stories/cranberry-based-prodigo-solutions-hospitals-can-reduce-high-supply-costs/?printerfriendly=true indicates, in part, that “The Cranberry-based company, which was established by UPMC six years ago and sold to a private equity firm this year, has developed a system that helps health care providers save money through smarter shopping for supplies” (at p. 1) and
Prodigo, which helped UPMC save $3.5 million a year on supplies and services, started an online shopping system that allows hospital networks to find the most efficient prices for supplies. It helps hospitals maximize rebates and pricing discounts with vendors.
Prodigo's marketplace will direct hospital employees to preferred products and those with the best discounts, similar to the way an online search engine might direct users to paid advertising.
(at p. 2)
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/SCOTT D GARTLAND/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3685
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