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 Amendment
Applicant’s “Response to Amendment and Reconsideration” filed on 4/22/2026 has been considered.
Claims 23, 40, 42 are canceled. Claims 43-45 are added. Claims 21, 24-39, 41, 43-45 are pending in this application and an action on the merits follows.
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 21, 24-39, 41, 43-45 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (abstract idea) without significantly more.
Regarding claims 21, 24-39, 41, 43-45 under Step 2A claims recite a judicial exception (abstract idea) that is not integrated into a practical application and does not provide significantly more.
Under Step 2A (prong 1), and taking claims 21, 32, 38 as representative for example recite:
transmitting, from a first merchant point-of-sale (POS) device of a first merchant and to one or more servers of a payment processing service, transaction data for a transaction occurring at the first merchant POS device between a customer and the first merchant, the transaction data including a customer identifier; receiving, by the first merchant POS device and from the one or more servers of the payment processing service, data associated with an unpaid invoice associated with the customer identifier and a historical transaction, wherein the historical transaction is conducted between the customer and a second merchant via a second merchant POS device; based at least in part on the data associated with the unpaid invoice, causing presentation, by the first merchant POS device and on a display of the first merchant POS device, an invoice payment invitation comprising one or more user interfaces including: indications of a plurality of unpaid invoices associated with the customer identifier, including the unpaid invoice associated with the second merchant; and respective selectable controls for individual unpaid invoices of the plurality of unpaid invoices, wherein interaction with a selectable control of the selectable controls causes initiation of an action of a plurality of actions associated with a corresponding unpaid invoice, wherein the plurality of actions comprise paying or skipping paying receiving, at the first merchant POS device, an indication of a selection of a selectable control associated with paying the unpaid invoice associated with the second merchant, wherein [[the]] payment on the unpaid invoice is facilitated via communication between the first merchant POS device, the second merchant POS device, the one or more servers of the payment processing service, and a card network; and transmitting, by the first merchant POS device and to the one or more servers, [[the]] invoice payment information associated with paving the unpaid invoice, wherein transmitting the invoice payment information to the one or more servers causes a notification to be sent to the second POS device indicating that the unpaid invoice has been paid at the first merchant POS device.
These limitations recite organizing human activity, such as commercial activities of facilitating the management of outstanding invoices between customers and merchants. Specifically, the claims recite transmitting transaction information. identifying a customer obtaining unpaid invoices associated with the customer. presenting payment options. receiving payment selections. transmitting payment information and notifying another merchant that payment has been made. The limitations describe the collection, analysis and use of information to facilitate commercial transaction. The claims recite a method of a first merchant collecting unpaid invoices from a customer and a second merchant during a transaction. Collecting financial information, displaying a payment request, processing a payment and notifying another party are activities directed to a fundamental economic practice (i.e. collections) and are grouped as a certain method of organizing human interactions, specifically the grouping of commercial and legal interactions (including business relations).
Under Step 2A (prong 2), the abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application. The Examiner acknowledges that representative claims 21, 32, 38 do recite additional elements, including: first and second POS merchant devices, server, processors, card network, display.
Although reciting these additional elements, taken alone or in combination these elements are not sufficient to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. This is because the additional elements are recited at a high level of generality (i.e. as generic computing hardware) such that they amount to nothing more than the mere instructions to implement or apply the abstract idea on generic computing hardware (or, merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea). Further, the additional elements do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (such as the Internet or computing networks). The additional elements merely automate the commercial practice of identifying outstanding invoices and facilitating payment through generic computing components.
Secondly, the additional elements are insufficient to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because the claim fails to (i) reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, (ii) implement the judicial exception with, or use the judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, (iii) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or (iv) applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
In view of the above, under Step 2A (prong 2), claims do not integrate the recited exception into a practical application (see again: 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance).
Even considered as an ordered combination (as a whole), the additional elements of dependent claims 24-31, 33-37, 39, 41, 43-45 do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
In view of the above, claims 21, 24-39, 41, 43-45 do not integrate the recited exception into a practical application.
Under Step 2B, examiners should evaluate additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether they provide an inventive concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself). In this case, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Returning to representative claims, taken individually or as a whole the additional elements of claim 21, 32, 38 do not provide an inventive concept (i.e. they do not amount to “significantly more” than the exception itself). As discussed above with respect to the integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements used to perform the claimed process amount to no more than the mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer and/or no more than a general link to a technological environment.
Furthermore, the additional elements fail to provide significantly more also because the claim simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception. For example, the additional elements utilize operations the courts have held to be well-understood, routine, and conventional (see: MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)), including at least:
receiving or transmitting data
storing or retrieving information
Further, see MPEP 2106.05(f), “Other examples where the courts have found the additional elements to be mere instructions to apply an exception, because they do no more than merely invoke computers or machinery as a tool to perform an existing process include: i. A commonplace business method or mathematical algorithm being applied on a general purpose computer, Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. V. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 1357, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983 (2014); Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 64, 175 USPQ 673, 674 (1972); Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015);”.
See MPEP 2106.05(d), “i. Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information); TLI Communications LLC v. AV Auto. LLC, 823 F.3d 607, 610, 118 USPQ2d 1744, 1745 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (using a telephone for image transmission); OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363, 115 USPQ2d 1090, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (sending messages over a network); buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (computer receives and sends information over a network); but see DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1258, 113 USPQ2d 1097, 1106 (Fed. Cir. 2014) ("Unlike the claims in Ultramercial, the claims at issue here specify how interactions with the Internet are manipulated to yield a desired result‐‐a result that overrides the routine and conventional sequence of events ordinarily triggered by the click of a hyperlink." (emphasis added));”
Even considered as an ordered combination (as a whole), the additional elements of dependent claims 24-31, 33-37, 39, 41, 43-45 do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
In view of the above, claims 21, 24-39, 41, 43-45 do not provide an inventive concept (“significantly more”) under Step 2B, and is therefore ineligible for patenting.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, filed 4/22/2026, with respect to the §101 rejection have been fully considered and are not persuasive.
Applicant contends that the claims provide a technological improvement by enabling cross-merchant invoice payment through a payment processing service by improving the user interface through presentation of multiple invoices with selectable controls and by reciting a specific payment processing architecture involving multiple POS devices, a payment processing service and a card network.
However, the claims remain directed to facilitating payment of outstanding invoices during another commercial transaction. Although the claims recite communication among multiple computing components, the recited components perform their conventional functions of receiving, transmitting, storing, displaying and processing payment information.
Unlike the claims in Core Wireless and Trading Technologies, the present claims do not recite a specific interface architecture that improves the operation of the user interface itself, but instead recite the display of commercial information and conventional user interaction. Applicant’s argument that the claimed interface improves usability on a small-screen POS device is unpersuasive because the claims do not recite any specific display layout, navigation technique, screen organization directed to overcoming the limitations of a constrained display environment. The claims broadly recite displaying invoice information and selectable controls without specifying how the user interface itself is technologically improved. The claims define the interface in terms of the business function, ex. “selectable controls..causes initiation of…paying or skipping paying. The interface is still organized around what commercial action the user wants to take.
While the claims recite using a customer identifier to obtain invoice information associated with another merchant, they recite these operations at a functional level and do no identify HOW the payment processing service performs the cross-merchant correlation or HOW those operations improve the functioning of the payment processing service, payment network or POS devices as opposed to improving the commercial process.
Accordingly, the claims do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and do not recite significantly more than the abstract idea implement suing generic computing components performing their conventional functions.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MILENA RACIC whose telephone number is (571)270-5933. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30am-4pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Florian (Ryan) Zeender can be reached at (571)272-6790. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MILENA RACIC/Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3627
/FLORIAN M ZEENDER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3627
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