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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 19 March 2026, has been entered.
The following is a Non-Final office action on the merits in response to the communications filed on 19 March 2026. Claims 1-3, 5-8, 10-12, 14-18, and 20-27 are currently pending. The rejection under 35 USC § 101 directed to non-statutory subject matter is maintained. The rejections are as stated below.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) submitted in this application on 19 March 2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS is being considered by the examiner. The initialed copy of the1449 is enclosed herewith.
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 1-3, 5-8, 10-12, 14-18, and 20-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. In particular, claims are directed to a judicial exception (abstract idea) without significantly more.
Claim 1 (exemplary) recites a series of steps for linking a bookkeeping account associated with the first entity to an authorized financial account and generating action scores based on the performance of entities to determine action probabilities by these entities.
The claim is directed to a process, which is a statutory category of invention.
The claim is then analyzed to determine whether it is directed to a judicial exception. The claim recites the limitations of receiving an authorization to link a financial account with a bookkeeping account, maintaining bookkeeping accounts for a plurality of entities, the authorization identifying a first user associated with a first entity of the plurality of entities: based on the receiving of the authorization identifying the first user, linking the bookkeeping account associated with the first entity to the authorized financial account; registering for a bank record feed, the registering using the authorization; responsive to the registering for the bank record feed, receiving financial account data related to the financial account; generating accounting data related to the bookkeeping account using the financial account data; storing the accounting data; accessing, the accounting data comprising information about posted transactions that have been exchanged between a second set of entities, each transaction including a sending entity and a receiving entity; dynamically generating, a second set of performance values for each entity of the second set of entities based on the accounting data, wherein dynamically generating the second set of performance values comprises automatically updating the second set of performance values as new posted transactions are received; for each entity of the second set of entities, dynamically generating an action score based on at least one performance value of the second set of performance values, wherein dynamically generating the action score comprises automatically updating the action score as the at least one performance value of the second set of performance values is updated; providing an indication of probabilities of late payment for incoming payments by related entities of the first entity; receiving from a second user of the user account, a request for one or more action probabilities associated with the first entity regarding an event; automatically determining which related entities are associated with the event, wherein the related entities are entities of the second set of entities; providing, an action score for each of the related entities; generating, one or more action probabilities associated with each of the related entities; and automatically causing presentation of the one or more action probabilities for each of the related entities, the presentation of the action probabilities comprising probabilities of late payment for incoming payments.
These limitations, as drafted, are processes that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitations via human commercial or business or transactional activities/interactions (commercial or legal interactions). These claim elements are considered to be abstract ideas because they are directed to a method of organizing human activity which includes fundamental economic principles or practices (including mitigating risk), commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing, or sales activities or behaviors; business relations), and managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including following rules or instructions). If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers concepts performed under fundamental economic principles or practices, commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; or sales activities or behaviors), then it falls within “a method of organizing human activity”. Therefore, it is clear that exemplary independent claim 1 recites limitations that fall under the category of abstract ideas related to “certain methods of organizing human activity”. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2).
Accordingly, independent claim 2 recites an abstract idea.
Next, the claim is analyzed to determine if it is integrated into a practical application. The claim recites additional limitation of providing an accounting system in a cloud computing environment, the cloud computing environment providing the accounting system by a primary data center in an online state in which the primary data center serves customer requests, the primary data center comprising one or more pods, each pod comprising processor hardware and memory hardware and including one or more application server virtual machines that are specific to the pod, and in case of a fault in the primary data center, the cloud computing environment providing the accounting system by a secondary data center in an online state, the secondary data center comprising one or more pods to which the one or more pods of the primary data center are replicated, respectively; while the primary data center is in an online state, serving customer requests at the primary data center and in response to the primary data center developing a fault, bringing the secondary data center to serve customer requests, a one or more processors, a financial system, a machine-learning model, a network connection, a database, a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display device to perform the steps. The one or more processors and the machine learning model in the steps are recited at a high level of generality, i.e., as a generic computer performing a generic computer function of processing data. This generic computer limitations are no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer component. Also, these limitations are an attempt to limit the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(h). The claim is directed to the abstract idea.
Next, the claim is analyzed to determine if there are additional claim limitations that individually, or as an ordered combination, ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the abstract ideas (whether claim provides inventive concept). As discussed above, the recitation of the claimed limitations amounts to mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a server (using the computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea). Taking the additional elements individually and in combination, the server at each step of the process performs purely generic computer functions. As such, there is no inventive concept sufficient to transform the claimed subject matter into a patent-eligible application. The same analysis applies here, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at or provide an inventive concept.
Viewing the limitations as an ordered combination does not add anything further than looking at the limitations individually. When viewed either individually, or as an ordered combination, the additional limitations do not amount to a claim as a whole that is significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, the claim does not amount to significantly more than the recited abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(h). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
The analysis above applies to all statutory categories of invention including claims 1, 10 and 16. Furthermore, dependent claims 2, 3, 5-8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18 and 20-27 do not add limitations that meaningfully limit the abstract idea. Dependent claims further recite the steps of tracking the posted transactions of the first entity with other entities; evaluating a performance of the first entity with reference to the event based on the posted transactions of the first entity with other entities; and calculating the action score for the event based on the evaluated performance, wherein the action score is a network predictive cashflow (NPC), wherein the posted transactions include payments made by the other entities, wherein evaluating the performance comprises analyzing a history of payments by the other entities, calculating a predicted cash flow for the first entity for a predetermined time period based on the history of payments of the other entities; and causing presentation of the predicted cash flow, identifying groups of related entities based on values of the action probabilities; and presenting the action probabilities according to the identified groups, receiving a request from an institution for the action score of the first entity; transmitting the action score to the institution; and determining a risk for a loan to the first entity based on the action score of the first entity, calculating a second action score for the first entity based on a second event; and calculating a third action score for the first entity based on the action score and the second action score, generating a response recommendation based on the action probabilities; and causing presentation of the response recommendation.
These limitations further define the abstract idea. Therefore, they are rejected under the same rational of claim 1 above.
dependent claims repeat the additional elements (GUI), which is addressed above under integration to a practical application and inventive concept. The additional elements are simply steps performed by a generic computer. The claim merely amounts to the application or instructions to apply the abstract idea on a processor, and is considered to amount to nothing more than requiring a generic processor to merely carry out the abstract idea itself. Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to the abstract idea.
The dependent claims do not impart patent eligibility to the abstract idea of the independent claims. Therefore, none of the dependent claims alone or as an ordered combination add limitations that qualify as integrating the abstract idea into a practical application or amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Accordingly, claims 1-3, 5-8, 10-12, 14-18, and 20-27 are rejected as ineligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. 101 based upon the same analysis.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendment with respect to the 35 USC § 112(a) directed to the written description requirement have been fully considered and are deemed to be persuasive. Therefore, the rejection of claims 1-3, 5-8, 10-12, 14-18, and 20-27 under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph has been withdrawn.
Since Applicant omitted the claim limitation which failed to comply with the written description requirement and overcame the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection. Examiner reinstates the rejection under 35 USC § 101 directed to non-statutory subject matter that was previously withdrawn.
Examiner incorporates herein the response to arguments from the previous office actions.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hani Kazimi whose telephone number is (571) 272-6745. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Abhishek Vyas can be reached on (571) 270-1836. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Respectfully Submitted
/HANI M KAZIMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3691
