DETAILED ACTION
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 Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 08/28/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
With respect to U.S.C. 101 rejection, Applicant is of the opinion that claims are nor abstract idea because the claims are not directed to commercial or legal interactions. Claims are rooted in the computer technology similar to DDR Holding. Claimed operations provide for “guaranteeing an actual purchase of a product”, “identifying a purchase trend of platform users”, “maximizing a brand advertisement effect based on the purchase trend”, “a platform that rewards platform users in exchange for using the platform and “a highly reliable social network service that guarantees actual purchase of product to platform users. Further, claims provide unconventional operations that are not well-understood, routine, or conventional activity in the field. However, examiner respectfully disagrees.
The claims are directed to verifying and storing assets in saving account and determining a reward which is an abstract idea. Claims involve series of steps of receiving a request to registered token, verifying the token, registering the token, updating the registration status and determining the reward for the registration of token which is a process that deals with commercial or legal interactions. Further, claims do not provide any practical application because additional elements such as user terminal, smart contract and electronic device are used as a tool to implement the abstract idea 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.
With respect to “Claimed operations provide for “guaranteeing an actual purchase of a product”, “identifying a purchase trend of platform users”, “maximizing a brand advertisement effect based on the purchase trend”, “a platform that rewards platform users in exchange for using the platform and “a highly reliable social network service that guarantees actual purchase of product to platform users” claims do not recite any of these functions. Applicant must take into consideration that in order to view the claims as supplying an inventive concept the technological improvement must be present within the claims themselves (Accenture Global Servs., GmbH v. Guidewire Software, inc., 108 USPQ2d 1173 (Fed. Cir. 2013)), (Synopsys, inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp... 120 USPQ2d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
Further, specification does not provide any evidence that how the claims provide an improvement to functioning of computing systems or any other technology. Applicant failed to provide persuasive arguments supported by any necessary evidence to demonstrate that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the disclosed invention improves technology.
With respect to arguments that claims are not directed to abstract idea because claims provide unconventional operations that are not well-understood, routine, or conventional activity in the field, Examiner notes that judicial exceptions need not be old or long-prevalent, and that even newly discovered judicial exceptions are still exceptions, despite their novelty (See MPEP 2106.04 I).
Claims are not similar to DDR Holdings, In the case of DDR Holdings, the claim addresses the problem of retaining Web site visitors from being diverted from a host’s web site to an advertiser s Web site, for which the claimed solution is necessarily rooted in computer technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of computer network". Here, however, the instant claim is directed to abstract idea of verifying and storing assets in saving account and determining a reward. Unlike the situation in DDR Holdings, Applicant did not identify any problem particular to computer networks and/or the Internet that claim allegedly overcome.
Therefore, the rejection is maintained.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-14 have been examined.
Claims 15-20 have been withdraw by the Applicant.
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 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
In the instance case, claims 1-14 are directed to a method. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
The claims are directed to verifying and storing assets in saving account and determining a reward which is an abstract idea. Specifically, the claims recite “receiving a message requesting to register the token…; performing…based on the message a verification of the token…; registering the token…; updating a registration status… and determining whether to provide the user a reward…” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106) because the claims involve a series of steps of receiving a request to registered token, verifying the token, registering the token, updating the registration status and determining the reward for the registration of token which is a process that deals with commercial or legal interactions. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea (See MPEP 2106).
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), the additional elements of the claims such as, user terminal, smart contract and electronic device merely use a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea. Specifically, user terminal, smart contract and electronic device perform the steps receiving a request to registered token, verifying the token, registering the token, updating the registration status and determining the reward for the registration of token. The use of a processor/computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea 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)), the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition (Vanda Memo), the claims do not apply the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)), the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (MPEP 2106.05(c)), 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 claims do 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 (MPEP 2106), the additional elements of user terminal, smart contract and electronic device, to perform the steps amounts to no more than using a computer or processor to automate and/or implement the abstract idea of storing assets in saving account and determining a reward. As discussed above, taking the claim elements separately, user terminal, smart contract and electronic device perform the steps of receiving a request to registered token, verifying the token, registering the token, updating the registration status and determining the reward for the registration of token. These functions correspond to the actions required to perform the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the concept of verifying and storing assets in saving account and determining a reward. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and/or implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Dependent claims further describe the abstract idea of verifying and storing assets in saving account and determining a reward. Specifically, claims 2-3 further describing transmitting the registration status which is part pf the abstract idea. Claims 4-5 further describe the transmitting information which is part of the abstract idea. Claims 6-8 describing the payment information which is part of the abstract idea of storing assets in saving account and determining a reward. Claims 9-14 further describe the generation of reward which is part of the abstract idea. The dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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/ZESHAN QAYYUM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3697