DETAILED ACTION
Applicant's Submission of a Response (RCE)
Applicant’s submission of a response on 7/9/2026 has been received and fully considered. In the response, claims 1-4, 6-13, and 15-21 have been amended; claim 5 has been canceled. Therefore, claims 1-14, 6-13, and 15-21 are pending.
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 and 15-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract idea without significantly more.
2019 PEG Analysis
Step 1: Are the claims directed to a statutory category (e.g., a process, machine, etc.)
Claims 1-4, 6-13, and 15-21 are directed to an apparatus.
Step 2A (Prong 1): Does the claim recite an abstract idea, law of nature or natural phenomenon?
Yes, the claims recite an abstract idea. The following specific limitations in the claims under examination recite an abstract idea:
Determining a ranking associated with one or more players based on information associated with gameplay by the player, including a combined score of two or more players (e.g., claims 1-5)
determining the type of metrics used to determine a ranking (e.g., claim 8, 9, 16)
determining that a player has earned a gameplay opportunity (e.g., see claims 10 and 18)
determining a prize based on the ranking (e.g., see claim 11)
determining/transmitting score milestones (e.g., see claims 12 and 20)
determining rankings based on a normalized ranking, including an amount won per an amount wagered (e.g., claims 1 and 13)
determining information associated with gameplay of an existing game on an EGM without modifying the existing game (e.g., claims 15 and 17)
The above listed identified limitations fall within at least one of the groupings of abstract ideas enumerated in the 2019 PEG:
Mental Processes: concepts preformed in the human mind (including on observation, evaluation, judgement, opinion).
Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity: managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions or relationships of interaction between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions.
In this case, the abstract ideas are based on rules for managing a secondary tournament game that could be implemented by a mental process. Further, the abstract ideas are also following a set of rules or instructions.
Step 2A (Prong 2): Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?
Overall, the following additional claim limitations appear to merely implement the abstract idea, add insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception, or generally link the judicial exception to a particular environment or field of use, as outlined below:
Transmit a game start and final ranking (claims 1 and 19, insignificant extra-solution activity);
receiving gameplay information for a one or more players (claims 1, 2, insignificant extra-solution activity);
presenting, by a display, an indication of the ranking of the player (1, 15, and 21, insignificant extra-solution activity);
the first and second games are different types of games (claims 6, 7, insignificant extra-solution activity);
Step 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception?
With regard to claims 1-4, 6-13, and 15-21, the claims as a whole do not amount to significantly more than the exception itself. The above listed additional claim limitations display, receive (gather), transmit, and notify in a well-understood, routine, and conventional way. Further, the computer hardware of claims 1 and 15 (e.g., a processor, memory, GUI, display, game controller, and communication network) are well-understood, routine, and conventional in the art. Therefore, claims 1-20 are not patent eligible under 101.
In order to satisfy the Berkheimer factual determination requirement, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0009278 to Vancura is cited for disclosing a computer system (801) that includes a processor (800), memory (not numbered), RNG (810), and output/display device (830) are conventional in the gaming art (e.g., see at least paragraph 94). U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0203524 to Wong is cited for disclosing that a graphical user interface/display (110) is conventional in the gaming art (e.g., see at least paragraph 15). U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0086421 to Schultz is cited for disclosing that communication networks are conventional in gaming systems (e.g., see at least paragraph 77).
Allowable Subject Matter
If Applicant can overcome the 101 rejections, then claims 1-4, 6-13, and 15-21 are allowed over the prior art because the prior art fails to disclose ranking players by calculating a score based on an amount won and an amount wagers per wager over multiple wagers at each of a first EGM and a second EGM. Various prior art gaming systems track gaming dating including amount won, average wagers, and average amount won, but fail to expressly disclosing ranking players by calculating a score based on an amount won and an amount wagers per wager over multiple wagers.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 7/9/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
As initial matter, Applicants amendments have overcome the prior art based on Applicant’s Remarks and the Examiners stated reasons for overcoming the prior art.
However, Applicant’s arguments on pages 10-12 regarding claim eligibility are not persuasive. The Examiner notes that the Applicant’s claim amendments are primarily focused on communicating over to EGMs over networks. As noted above in the 101 rejection, EGMs (and their basic components) and networks are conventional in the game art as evidenced by Vancura, Wong, and Schultz.
On pages 11 and 12, Applicant asserted that the current application should be patent eligible because claims in application 14/010,227 were help eligible by PTAB in 2019, Ex parte Berndt Burghard. As noted in Applicant’s remarks, the Board recognized that the claims were eligible because they included “other meaningful limitations identified above provide technological improvement to gaming machines by providing a new and improved level of bonus play that uses new and improved animations.” The current claims are not analgous to the claims of 14/010,227 because the current claims are not related to animations in a bonus game, but are related to determining ranking gameplay based on game data. Applicant’s ranking score could be performed mentally by a user. The claims do not require calculations that are so sophisticatyed or complex to prevent a human from performing the calculations. For example, using Applicant’s claim features if player A plays 2 games with $1 wagers each game and wins $100 total, then player A’s ranking will be $100/$1=100. If player B plays 2 games with $1 wagers each game and wins $50 total, then player B’s ranking will be $50/$1=50. The ranking leaderboard would be as follows:
Leaderboard
1.) Player A – score of 100
2.) Player B – Score of 50.
The ranking calculations are well within the ability of a user to perform mentally. For at least these reasons, the 101 rejections of claims 1-4, 6-13, and 15-21 are maintained.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMES S MCCLELLAN whose telephone number is (571)272-7167. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday (8:30AM-5:00PM).
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/James S. McClellan/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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