DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
This Office Action is in response to claims filed with RCE on 06/24/2025.
Claims 1-12 and 27-28 and 30-31 are canceled while claims 13-26, 29 and 32 are pending.
Claims 13-26 and 29 are allowable as provided under “REASONS FOR ALLOWANCE” in the Notice of Allowance mailed on 03/24/2025 while New Claim 32 is rejected as explained below.
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 .
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 allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). 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, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 06/24/2025 has been entered.
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.
Claim 32 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Analysis
In the instant case, Claim 32 is directed to “A system for secure voting, the system comprising: a computer processor…” (Machine).
The claims recite an abstract idea of processing ballots of voters for polling. Specifically, but for the additional elements, the claim under its broadest reasonable interpretation recites limitations grouped within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity,” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test since the steps include commercial interactions and managing relationships (See MPEP 2106.04 & 2106.04(a)). The use of a physical aid to help perform Organized Human Activity and Mathematical Concept steps does not negate the Organized Human Activity Concept nature of the limitations, but simply accounts for variations in memory capacity from one person to another. Further, claims can recite a Methods of Organized Human Activity even if they are claimed as being performed on a computer. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III. The claim limitations reciting the abstract idea are grouped within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas as they relate to processing ballots of voters for polling. More specifically, the following non-underlined claim elements recite the abstract idea while the underlined, bolded claim elements recite additional elements according to MPEP 2106.04(a).
Claim 32,
A system for secure voting, the system comprising: a computer processor configured to:
process ballot creation information to create a ballot template;
process voter identification information to create at least one pseudo-anonymous voter ID; and
generate at least one ballot using the ballot template and pseudo-anonymous voter ID;
a communication device configured to provide the at least one ballot to a voter associated with pseudo-anonymous voter ID;
a secure database configured to:
receive ballot selections from the voter;
store the ballot selections in a manner associated with the at least one pseudo-anonymous voter ID.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106.04(d)), the additional elements are merely used as circuitry and tools to perform an abstract idea and generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Specifically, these additional elements perform the steps or functions of the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the use of the additional elements as a tools to implement the abstract idea and generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it requires no more than a computer performing functions that correspond to acts required to carry out the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), and the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo). Therefore, the claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106.05), using the additional elements to perform the steps amounts to no more than using a computer or processor to automate and implement the abstract idea. As discussed above, taking the claim elements separately, these additional elements perform the steps or functions of the abstract idea. These functions correspond to the actions required to perform the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claim merely recites the concept of processing ballots of voters for polling. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and implement the abstract idea. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05 (f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
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 32 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chung (US 2004/0046021 A1) in view of Grossberg et al. (US 2015/0106169 A1).
With respect to claim 32, Chung discloses: A system for secure voting, the system comprising: a computer processor configured to: (Figs. 1-2)
process voter identification information to create at least one pseudo-anonymous voter ID; (Fig. 3; Pars. [0096] “A smart card is encoded with a unique serial number, such as a voter identifying number, and is issued for each individual voter. This serial number has at least enough digits for representing the voting population, e.g., at least 8 digits, and preferably 9 or more digits, e.g., for anonymity. If the set of unique serial numbers may be utilized as voting session numbers, which is not preferred, the numbers… should not be related to the voter's traceable numbers, such as social security number, telephone number, address and the like. It should be used by and only be traceable, if at all, at the voter registration office, i.e. by election officials, and should be strictly controlled for security and protection of voter privacy.” [0154] “In connection with the election programming and voting database, a random number voting session identifier is generated for each voter identifier (VID) entered to be associated with a voting session and printed on the tangible voting receipt to be issued,” ) and
generate at least one ballot using the ballot template (“options”) and pseudo-anonymous voter ID; (Figs. 7A-B, 9; Pars. [0096], [0155] “The VID includes information that is utilized by the ballot generating logic to produce for the voter the particular combination of general ballot voting screens and criteria-specific ballot voting screens for that particular voter in the particular election. The voting options relating to each office and/or question, for example, as described in relation to FIG. 9 below, is stored in the database and is utilized by the ballot generation logic in generating the ballots.” [0159], [0165])
a communication device configured to provide the at least one ballot to a voter associated with pseudo-anonymous voter ID; (Figs. 7A-B, 9; Pars. [0157], [0165] “Ballot voting screens for municipal, and other offices and questions, such as the election of precinct and ward representatives, are selectively presented to those voters whose voter VID corresponds to the municipality, precinct, district, ward and/or other voting criteria to which the voting screen ballot pertains.”)
a secure database configured to: (Figs. 1-2)
receive ballot selections from the voter; (Figs. 4; Pars. [0081], [0085] “the voter confirms 136 the voting selections he has made.” [0089] “An absentee ballot is requested 162…”)
store the ballot selections in a manner associated with the at least one pseudo-anonymous voter ID. (Figs. 4; Pars. [0042], [0064], [0085] “If the voter confirms 136 his selections (path “Y”), the voting session is complete and the voting record along with a unique voting session identifier generated by the voting machine are stored 138 in the memory devices of the voting machine and are also provided to produce 150, 140 at least one separate tangible record of the voting session.” [0113])
Chung does not explicitly disclose process ballot creation information to create a ballot template.
Grossberg disclose process ballot creation information to create a ballot template; (Figs. 2, 6; Pars. [0004], [0024] “the ballot template may be created via page 600 from scratch or via a modification to an existing ballot template. In any case, the ballot template may allow defining formats for the ballot and the content of the ballot, so that the overall appearance of the ballot can be defined via the ballot template.”).
Therefore, 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 to simply substitute the election options data associated with a specific voting event (Figs. 7A, 9; Pars. [0155] “The voting options relating to each office and/or question, for example, as described in relation to FIG. 9 below, is stored in the database and is utilized by the ballot generation logic in generating the ballots.”) of Chung in view of Grossberg in order to create voting ballots for the specific voting events (Chung, Par. [0155]) and to use specific ballot template to generate election contest ballot (Grossberg, Par. [0004]). ("Express suggestion to substitute one equivalent technique for another need not be present to render such substitution obvious"; In re Fout, 213 USPQ 532 (CCPA 1982), In re Siebentritt, 152 USPQ 618 (CCPA 1967); Ex Parte Smith, 83 USPQ2d 1509 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 2007); KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007)).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
PGPub Young et al. (US 2009/0101418 A1) generate at least one ballot using the ballot template and pseudo-anonymous voter ID. (Pars. [0025]-[0026]).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WODAJO GETACHEW whose telephone number is (469)295-9069. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-6:00 CST.
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/WODAJO GETACHEW/Examiner, Art Unit 3697
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