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 .
Status of Claims
This Office action is in response to correspondence received February 24, 2026. Claims 1-22 were previously found allowable. Claim 23 is amended. Claim 26 is canceled. Claims 23-25 and 27-32 are pending and have been examined.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 23-25 and 29-31 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sernet, US PGPUB 20020032632 A1 (“Sernet”), in view of Farquharson et al., US PGPUB 20050160278 A1 (“Farquharson”).
Per claim 23, Sernet teaches A method of mediated anonymous negotiation in an electronically networked system, comprising: a seller generating a product listing comprising terms including specification of price, shipping details, product identification, and product quantity, and electronically transmitting the product listing to a moderator; in par 027 where the “trading unit” can be an offer, which is a product listing, which is a product for sale. See also par 026: “The main trading unit is a SugarContract. The SugarContract typically encompasses a predetermined set of terms, such as Type of Sugar (white/raw, quality), SugarOrigin, Packing, Maturity, Quantity, Price, Payment, ShipmentTerms (CAF/FOB/FOT, Origin and/or Destination, Loading/Unloading Terms, Penalty), and Administrative or Secondary Terms.” See for transmitting product listing to a moderator par 072: “Selecting the New Bid or New Offer function brings up an input template form having input fields for all of the primary terms established in the system for closing a sugar contract. A sample of a New Bid form is shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B. Each field in the form is explained in more detail in Appendix A. Some of the input fields have pull down menus (down arrow buttons) to restrict or simplify selection of options available to the user. Near the end of the form are text input boxes for "Standard Contract Terms" and "Special Terms". These are for term provisions that the submitting party wants to have in the final contract and are therefore binding, but are deemed to be administrative terms which will not be used in determining a match. At the bottom of the form are Reset and Submit buttons. The Reset button clears the form to allow the user to start from the beginning, and the Submit button takes the data and submits it for storage as a transaction data record in the system.” Transaction data record in the system teaches under a broadest reasonable interpretation a moderator, as the taught system is an anonymous offer/bid system. Therefore, under a broadest reasonable interpretation, the computerized system acts as a moderator between the offeror and bidder.
Sernet then teaches a buyer responding to the product listing, by electronically transmitting to the moderator, alternative terms comprising an offer or bid differing at least in part from the terms of the product listing in par 073: “An authorized user may opt to place counterbids or counteroffers to the bid or offer of another party by selecting the bid or offer from the Trading Summary Screen and hitting the Counter button at the top of the screen. This will bring up a Counter form, as illustrated in FIG. 9, which is in the same format as the new bid or offer entry form. The fields of the Counter form are initially populated with the same data that exist in the bid or offer record to which the counter is being made. The user may modify any of these fields to adjust the terms of the user's counterbid or counteroffer. The user may also edit or add to the administrative terms in the text input boxes in the manner they would like to see included in the final contract. When the user clicks the Submit button, the data is stored as a transaction data record in the system, and the counter will be posted on the Trading Summary Screen as a counteroffer or counterbid.” Here the counters are transmitted as well to the system taught by Sernat which teaches a moderator (anonymizing the bids/offers).
Sernet then teaches a platform generating a system message to the seller comprising the offer or bid, the system message being displayed in a seller-side chat screen; in par 075: “For a counter bid/offer, the system will highlight the new entry on the display of the trader who submitted the original bid/offer as a counter, and send a message alerting the user” See seller side chat screen in Fig 6 where there are messages for “Steve” and as previously taught the system allows for bids and offers which teaches sellers (offers).
Sernet does not teach the seller clicking the system message resulting in instantiation of an accept/decline graphical user interface feature;
the seller clicking an accept button of the accept/decline graphical user interface feature, wherein clicking the accept button manifests the seller's assent to the bid;
and generating a contract incorporating the terms of the product listing as modified by the bid.
Farquharson teaches a system to create and execute a customized contract. See abstract.
Farquharson teaches the seller clicking the system message resulting in instantiation of an accept/decline graphical user interface feature in par 058: “Then, execution by OCP 16 can be solicited in a similar manner. Specifically, an electronic execution notification 190 (FIG. 16) will be communicated thereto. Similar to the approval notification, execution notification 190 can include a (smart) link 192 to a login page. Once the login information for OCP 16 has been authenticated, an interface page 200 such as that shown in FIG. 17 can be provided. As shown, interface page 200 includes biographical information 202 and a mechanism 204 for OCP 16 to accept/execute the contract or withdraw it completely.” Smart link under a broadest reasonable interpretation teaches clicking the system message as an html link is accessed by clicking.
Farquharson then teaches the seller clicking an accept button of the accept/decline graphical user interface feature, wherein clicking the accept button manifests the seller's assent to the bid in par 058: “As shown, interface page 200 includes biographical information 202 and a mechanism 204 for OCP 16 to accept/execute the contract or withdraw it completely. It should be noted that the execution pages 170 (FIG. 14) and 200 both include another prompt for RCP 18 and OCP 16 to input login information. This provides yet another opportunity to authenticate each party and ensure that the individual making the selections is in fact authorized to do so. In any event, once OCP 16 has executed the contract, the status thereof will be changed by contract execution system 48 (FIG. 2) to "Countersigned" as shown in interface page 210 of FIG. 18.” See Fig 14, “Sign” 1. I accept, with user ID and pass, and “submit.”
Farquharson then teaches and generating a contract incorporating the terms of the product listing as modified by the bid in par 059: “At this point, OCP 16 can be prompted by image system 50 (FIG. 2) via notification or the like to have a final image of the contract generated. To this extent, once OCP 16 logs in and is authenticated, an interface page such as 220 of FIG. 19 can be provided. As shown, interface page 220 include biographical information 222 as well as a mechanism 224 for OCP 16 to add the electronic signatures to the contract. Once this is done, a final image of the contract is generated. Referring to FIG. 20, an illustrative final image 230 is shown.”
It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the bid offer counter graphical user interface teaching of Sernet with the click to open, click to accept, and generate a contract teaching of Farquharson because Farquharson teaches in par 006 that: “Specifically a need exists for a more secure system for electronically executing contracts so that certain core principles, such as authentication of the parties, can be provided. A further need exists for approval and execution of a contract to require separate deliberate actions by the parties.” As Farquharson explains in pars 003-005, click to accept (clickwrap and related, for example) contracts may not be as legally binding as more traditional contracts, due to being new and evolving legal ideas about them. Here, however, a solution is provided that includes party authentication and separate deliberate actions by parties, which would further establish legal principles like meeting of the minds. As this would make an agreement more secure from legal challenges, one would be motivated to modify Sernet with Farquharson.
Per claim 24, Sernet and Farquharson teach the limitations of claim 23, above. Sernet further teaches the product listing constitutes an offer for sale in par 027 where the “trading unit” can be an offer, which is a product listing, which is a product for sale. See also par 026: “The main trading unit is a SugarContract. The SugarContract typically encompasses a predetermined set of terms, such as Type of Sugar (white/raw, quality), SugarOrigin, Packing, Maturity, Quantity, Price, Payment, ShipmentTerms (CAF/FOB/FOT, Origin and/or Destination, Loading/Unloading Terms, Penalty), and Administrative or Secondary Terms.”
Per claim 25, Sernet and Farquharson teach the limitations of claim 23, above. Sernet further teaches wherein the product listing is displayed in an Internet enabled graphical user interface in par 031: “Users connect to the system via their client (browser) computer access device which typically navigates through online pages via XML or HTML scripts. The client devices establish connection over the Internet using the standard TCP/IP protocol to the system server. The system server typically has an overall Web server configuration which includes a Java Server for handling Java applets or servelets, and is protected preferably by both an external firewall and an internal firewall.” See also par 051: “An example of a screen display of messages to a user is shown in FIG. 6. The following types of sample messages are illustrated: (indicated at 601) that an offer the user has posted differs from a bid by a counterpart in only one primary term; (602) that an offer posted by the user has been cancelled because the user's group has withdrawn from active trading; (603) that an offer posted by the user has been accepted; (604) that a bid placed by the user has matched an offer posted by a counterpart.” See also par 055: “The user selects the subdomain type from a menu bar, and the Trading Summary Screen then lists all pending bids and offers in that domain, as illustrated in FIG. 7. The Trading Summary Screen is divided into two halves. The left side shows all the available Bids for WHITES (or RAWS depending on the type of sugar) while the right side displays all the Offers for WHITES (or RAWS as appropriate). For each type, the display shows information under the following column headings:” Fig 7 is in Microsoft Internet Explorer a web browser (GUI).
Per claim 29, Sernet and Farquharson teach the limitations of claim 23, above.
Sernet further teaches the moderator is a human, an artificial intelligence, a rule-based automation module, and/or a large language model in par 052 where a CT administrator teaches human and the “set of matching rules” in par 053 teaches “rules based automation module (“the system will notify” teaches automation and based on rules.). See pars 052-053: “An important feature of the online trading system is the ability of the CT Administrator or Individual User to set counterpart rules. Counterpart rules allow a CT Administrator to specify which other system users the company will do business with and what payment term restrictions apply to that trading company (counterpart). Since the purpose of this type of system is to allow the parties posting and negotiating a bid/offer transaction to remain anonymous until a deal is closed, these settings prevent two counterparts from doing business with one another accidentally in their trading activities. For each company within the list of counterparts, the CT Administrator must specify whether the company will trade with that counterpart company and what kind of payment terms from that counterpart are acceptable.
Another important feature in the system is the set of matching rules which determine when two parties have reached agreement on all essential terms of a contract and the deal is to be closed. Since traders in any given commodity domain generally expect that the matching rules are uniform for all traders using the system, these rules are predetermined and established with the system and apply to all traders in that commodity domain. The system will close a deal and remove the counterpart bid and offer transactions from further trading activity when they match in all primary terms established in the matching rules of the system. The system will notify traders when a bid and offer are within one primary term to a match.”
Per claim 30, Sernet and Farquharson teach the limitations of claim 23, above. Sernet further teaches the step of transmitting notifications pertaining to the product listing to a buyer or a seller by one or more of email, SMS text, or chat in par 051 and Fig 6: “An example of a screen display of messages to a user is shown in FIG. 6. The following types of sample messages are illustrated: (indicated at 601) that an offer the user has posted differs from a bid by a counterpart in only one primary term; (602) that an offer posted by the user has been cancelled because the user's group has withdrawn from active trading; (603) that an offer posted by the user has been accepted; (604) that a bid placed by the user has matched an offer posted by a counterpart.” Screen display of messages teaches under a broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification chat because it is a written communication between two entities.
Claim(s) 27, 28, and 32 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sernet, US PGPUB 20020032632 A1 (“Sernet”), in view of Farquharson et al., US PGPUB 20050160278 A1 (“Farquharson”), further in view of England et al., US PGPUB 2012/0290399 A1 (“England”).
Per claim 27, Sernet and Farquharson teach the limitations of claim 23, above.
Sernet does not teach wherein the product listing generated by the seller is an unpublished listing pending approval by the moderator.
England teaches managing campaigns in a syndicated commerce environment. See abstract.
England teaches wherein the product listing generated by the seller is an unpublished listing pending approval by the moderator in pars 073, 0109, and 0115. See par 073: “In still another embodiment, the scheduler 4099 management sub-module is used to determine when recipients will be exposed to a campaign and the frequency of follow up interactions. In another embodiment, the scheduler 4099 management sub-module is used to determine when landing pages will be published and unpublished for a predetermined campaign. In yet another embodiment, the scheduler 4099 management sub-module is used to determine when offers will be published and unpublished for a predetermined campaign.” Scheduler management sub module teaches moderator as it is intervening between parties.
It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the mediated anonymous negotiation teaching of Sernet with the unpublished listing edited teaching of England because England teaches improving campaign management for sales through optimization, see par 08 and one would be motivated to modify Sernet with England because if offers, by are optimized by timing they will be more effective. For this reason one would be motivated to modify Sernet with England.
Per claim 28, Sernet, Farquharson, and England teach the limitations of claim 27, above.
Sernet does not teach wherein the unpublished listing is edited by the moderator, the edit including a markup or commission
England teaches wherein the unpublished listing is edited by the moderator, the edit including a markup or commission in pars 0109, 0114, see par 0114, edit function: “However, if it is determined in step 1532 that the GTIN of the product offer is not different from the GTIN of the product itself, then a determination is made in step 1556 whether the product GTIN contains profanity. If so, then the process is continued, proceeding with step 1534. Otherwise, a determination is made in step 1558 whether the MPN, manufacturer name, or product brand in the product offer is the same as the product itself. If not, then a determination is made in step 1560 whether any related product offers are mapped to the product itself. If so, then a determination is made in step 1562 whether the MPN, manufacturer name, or product brand in the product offer contains profanity. If so, then the process is continued, proceeding with step 1534. Otherwise, an edit function is implemented in step 1564 to manually or automatically delete the profanity from MPN, manufacturer name, or product brand in the product offer and the process is continued, proceeding with step 1534. However, if it is determined in step 1560 that no other product offers are mapped to the product itself, then the product detail is manually or automatically edited in step 1566 to have the same MPN, manufacturer name, or product brand as the other product offer.”
It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the mediated anonymous negotiation teaching of Sernet with the unpublished listing edited teaching of England because England teaches improving campaign management for sales through optimization, see par 08 and one would be motivated to modify Sernet with England because if offers, by are optimized by timing they will be more effective. For this reason one would be motivated to modify Sernet with England.
Per claim 32, Sernet and Farquharson teach the limitations of claim 23, above. Sernet does not teach wherein the moderator-side product listing management panel (800B) provides the moderator with features enabling the moderator to approve, reject, edit, or delete a listing.
England teaches wherein the moderator-side product listing management panel (800B) provides the moderator with features enabling the moderator to approve, reject, edit, or delete a listing in pars 073, 0109, and 0115. See par 0115: “Thereafter, or if it is determined in step 1558 that the MPN, manufacturer name, or product brand in the product offer is the same as the product itself, a determination is made in step 1568 whether the manufacturer name or product brand contains profanity. If so, then the product offer is either manually or automatically edited in step 1570 to have the same product brand and manufacturer name as in the related product offer or any identified profanity is deleted. Thereafter, or if is determined in step 1568 that there is no profanity in the manufacturer name or product brand, then a determination is made in step 1572 whether the product image associated with the product offer is marked "not passed." If so, then an "unavailable image" is selected in step 1574 as the product image. Otherwise, a determination is made in step 1576 whether the product image passes image checks. If not, then a product offer image is selected in step 1578 as the product image in the master catalog, or alternatively, an "unavailable image" is selected if the product offer image has merchant-related text. Otherwise, or once the product offer images have respectively selected in steps 1574 or 1578, the product offer is approved in step 1580. A determination is then made in step 1582 whether to end product moderation operations. If not, then the process is continued, proceeding with step 1506. Otherwise, product moderation operations are ended in step 1584.”
It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the mediated anonymous negotiation teaching of Sernet with the editing features teaching of England because England teaches improving campaign management for sales through optimization, see par 08 and one would be motivated to modify Sernet with England because if offers, by are optimized by timing they will be more effective. For this reason one would be motivated to modify Sernet with England.
Claim(s) 31 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sernet, US PGPUB 20020032632 A1 (“Sernet”), in view of Farquharson et al., US PGPUB 20050160278 A1 (“Farquharson”), further in view of Hamscher et al., US PGPUB 20020156850 A1 (“Hamscher”).
Per claim 31, Sernet and Farquharson teach the limitations of claim 23, above. Sernet does not teach the platform generates the system messages and broadcasts some or all of the system messages to the buyer, the seller, and the moderator.
Hamscher teaches negotiating a commercial transaction such as capital equipment over the internet. See abstract.
Hamscher teaches the platform generates the system messages and broadcasts some or all of the system messages to the buyer, the seller, and the moderator in Fig 19 Item 818 where a message goes to everyone; See also par 059: “The contract page 802 also includes a message area where users can send each other text messages whose text content is typed into a scrollable box 822; whose subject is either the full document or the current section 816; which will be visible either to everyone (team members of both sides) or only to the user's own team 818;” That it goes to the buyer is taught because the message goes to “everyone” which would include the buyer’s team, see par 059. Seller is taught in par 056. Third party which teaches moderator under a broadest reasonable interpretation is taught in par 066.
It would have been obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the mediated negotiation teaching of Sernet with the messages to three parties teaching of Hamscher teaches that there are difficulties in processing these commercial capital transactions, see par 003 and Hamscher’s teaching facilitates overcoming these difficulties as taught in par 006 where communications (electronic mail) are sent to parties and enabling parties to further communicate on an agreement, see pars 007-013. As one would be motivated to overcome the difficulties presented in par 003, one would therefore be motivated to combine Sernet with Hamscher per the motivations taught in par 007-013. For these reasons one would be motivated to modify Sernet with Hamscher.
Therefore, claims 23-25 and 27-32 are rejected under 35 USC 103.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-22 are allowed, for the reasons stated in the Final Rejection dated August 29, 2025, beginning on page 16.
Response to Remarks:
Examiner appreciates the remarks, and has carefully considered them. As the amendments required further search and consideration, new art was applied to the rejected claims. Therefore the remarks are no longer applicable.
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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RICHARD W. CRANDALL whose telephone number is (313)446-6562. The examiner can normally be reached M - F, 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
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/RICHARD W. CRANDALL/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3619
Prosecution Insights