DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions. This office action is in response to applicant's communication of September 26, 2025. The rejections are stated below. Claims 1-6 and 10-20 are pending and have been examined.
Response to Amendment/Arguments
2. Applicant has amended claims 1, 11, and 16. Based on Applicant’s amendment, the rejection of claims 1-6 and 10-20 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) has been withdrawn.
Claim Rejections – 35 USC §112
3. The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
4. Claims 1-6 and 10-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Lack of Algorithm
5. Claims 1, 11, and 16 each recite “determine an identity of a rightful possessor of the card device based on the captured coded indicia”. The claim provides no structure, process, or algorithm for how the coded indicia leads to a determination of identity, or how a verification against the mobile device's user is performed. In other words, the algorithms or steps/procedures taken to perform the function must be described with sufficient details so that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand how the inventor intended the functions to be performed. (MPEP 2181 IV: MPEP 2161 01 I).
To explain further, to the best understanding of the reader, this limitation corresponds to paragraph 0012 which explains, “verify that the user is the rightful possessor of the card device by decoding the captured coded-indicia to identify the card device-identifying data and match the card device-identifying data to the user.” There appears to be gap in the written description at the “comparison”, with no explanation as to how captured “coded-indicia” is compared to a “user”. This is exacerbated because the claim recites “wherein the front facing and the back facing do not visibly display any printed or embossed private data used to initiate a resource transfer event”, so the claimed “coded indicia” (interpreted to be the “card device-identifying data” in ¶0012) cannot be an account number, for example, which is known to “initiate a resource transfer event” (e.g. account to account transfers). Also, the “card device-identifying data” cannot be a username, which is, again, known to “initiate a resource transfer event” (e.g. PayPay, Venmo, etc.). Both of these are known ways of "comparing" data to a user. Instead, the specification requires some unknown method of comparing, which the applicant failed to describe. There is clearly a gap amounting to prima facia evidence of a lack of possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 2-6, 12-15, and 17-20 are rejected as each depends on the independent claims.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KEVIN T POE whose telephone number is (571)272-9789. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 9:30 am through 6pm EST.
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/K.T.P/Examiner, Art Unit 3692 /KEVIN T POE/
/RYAN D DONLON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3692