Remarks
Claims 21-40 are pending.
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 4/2/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
With respect to Applicant’s first allegation, on pages 9-10 of the response, Osterkamp certainly discloses an intermediary platform that executes a plurality of services comprising a separate service for each of the plurality of member platforms, such as in Osterkamp’s disclosure of separate services may be as simple as providing services, such as settlement services, pre-settlement services, authorization services, or the like, to a member, such as a PoS, facilitating server, merchant server, acquiring bank server, or the like, all of which are members/member platforms, and separate services, such as anonymous token generation, 2FA, and the like, for the user, which is also a member and has a member platform (e.g., the device the user uses to access the digital transactions server), for example. The Examiner also notes that this subject matter has no bearing on the scope of the claim, since the claim limitation is directed to a step being performed by one or more processors of a client device, and the intermediary device is separate therefrom. Therefore, what services the intermediary device may or may not execute has no effect on the scope of the claim. Moreover, if Applicant is simply going for VMs being instantiated for various third parties, this is done all over the place. Please look simply at AWS (Amazon Web Services). If the claim were to be amended to require separate computing instances for each third party, a reference would be readily cited for this.
With respect to Applicant’s second allegation, on pages 10-11 of the response, Osterkamp does, indeed, disclose partitions, such as lines 64-65 of column 10: “the anonymous payment token may begin with the number ‘4’, indicating the identity of the facilitating server”. This clearly shows a partition including just the first number and another partition including the rest of the token. It is also noted that newly cited Angara discloses partitions as well, and is cited against the next limitation being argued by Applicant, but is also readily citable against this limitation, since Angara discloses a variety of partitions in anonymous identifiers. Please see cited sections below. Figure 4 includes a few clear examples as well.
With respect to Applicant’s third allegation, on page 11 of the response, Applicant’s argument is moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection provided below.
Claim Interpretation
As Applicant notes, for example, on page 8 of the response dated 4/2/2026, “The claims have been amended herein to recite the physical components (i.e., a plurality of member platforms; an intermediary platform associated with a plurality of member platforms) of the computing system as a elements outside of the preamble.” Thus, the following are considered physical components:
member platform(s)
intermediary platform(s)
processor(s)
memory(ies)
Moreover, all non-transitory computer-readable storage media are construed as being limited to statutory storage media.
Claim Interpretation
The claims include subject matter that does not have any effect on the scope of the claims, such as “that is temporarily stored in a user’s virtual wallet” in the first limitation of claim 21, which is directed to “receiving … an exchange request … indicative of a … UUEK” and the intended use of temporary storage in a user’s virtual wallet does not have any effect on the scope of receiving the UUEK. This is simply an example.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claims 21-25, 27-35, and 37-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Osterkamp (U.S. Patent 12,333,533) in view of Angara (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0180053).
Regarding Claim 21,
Osterkamp discloses a computer implemented method comprising:
Receiving, by one or more processors of an intermediary platform associated with a plurality of member platforms, an exchange request for executing a value based exchange, wherein the exchange request is indicative of a UUEK that is temporarily stored in a user’s virtual wallet (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 3; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 5; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures; any device receiving a request for a transaction with a token from the user’s wallet, for example); wherein:
The intermediary platform executes a plurality of services comprising a separate service for each of the plurality of member platforms (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, line 52 to Column 5, line 11; Column 8 line 47 to Column 9, line 22; Column 9, line 33 to Column 10, line 20; Column 12, lines 4-21; Column 13, lines 53-67; and associated figures; These separate services may be as simple as providing services, such as settlement services, pre-settlement services, authorization services, or the like, to a member, such as a PoS, facilitating server, merchant server, acquiring bank server, or the like, all of which are members/member platforms, and separate services, such as anonymous token generation, 2FA, and the like, for the user, which is also a member and has a member platform (e.g., the device the user uses to access the digital transactions server), for example);
The UUEK is issued to a member platform from the intermediary platform and comprises a UUID and a member partition corresponding to the member platform that is positioned in accordance with a key format (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, line 52 to Column 5, line 11; Column 8 line 47 to Column 9, line 22; Column 9, line 33 to Column 10, line 20; Column 12, lines 22-49; Column 14, lines 1-13; and associated figures; receiving token(s), which is associated with the user’s account identifier and is associated therewith for later server lookup, and is also associated with the user’s credentials, such as user identifier, including the exchange identifier (e.g., the whole thing, or any portion thereof), partitions, such as facilitating server partition (e.g., first digit), rest of token, etc., as examples); and
Identifying, by the one or more processors, an exchange identifier based at least in part on the UUEK, wherein the exchange identifier corresponds to an exchange data object that comprises an instrument identifier for a service provider instrument of the member platform (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 28; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures; token, portion of token (e.g., the first digit in the token may correspond to the facilitating server and the rest would then correspond to the account), account info, user info, etc., as examples);
Providing, by the one or more processors, an exchange authorization request indicative of the instrument identifier to the member platform (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 28; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures; sending the token up the line for authorization, asking user to authorize the transaction prior to allowing it to occur, determining if enough funds, if the time is prior to expiration of the token, checking geographic area, checking other rules, etc., as examples);
Receiving, by the one or more processors, an exchange authorization response that is indicative of at least one of an approval or a denial (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 11, lines 6-53; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 30; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures; response, such as authentication from user, authentication confirmation, transaction approval, etc., as examples); and
Providing, by the one or more processors, an exchange response based at least in part on the exchange authorization response, wherein the exchange response is indicative of the approval or the denial (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 11, lines 6-53; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 30; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures; authentication confirmation, approval, etc., as examples; authentication confirmation, transaction approval, etc., as examples);
But does not appear to explicitly disclose that the member partition is one of a plurality of member partitions respectively corresponding to the plurality of member platforms and the plurality of services executed within the intermediary platform.
Angara, however, discloses that the member partition is one of a plurality of member partitions respectively corresponding to the plurality of member platforms and the plurality of services executed within the intermediary platform (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Paragraphs 31, 40, 43-47, and associated figures; member partitions may be the member’s name, such as Netflix, email.com (or either/both email and/or .com as they are each domains), city, state, zip code, company partition of a credit card number (e.g., the first number is the MMI (e.g., Visa, MasterCard, etc.), IIN/BIN (e.g., Chase Signature Visa, Bank of America Visa Gold, etc.)) included in the next few numbers, and the user’s individual number in the following numbers), as well as anonymous user identifier (e.g., 567), for example). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of applicant’s invention, which is before any effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the account anonymizing techniques of Angara into the digital wallet system of Osterkamp in order to allow for anonymization of additional pieces of information, to allow for scheduled (re)anonymization of personally identifiable information, to provide for secure storage (e.g., via encryption) of anonymized values, and/or to increase security in the system.
Regarding Claim 31,
Claim 31 is a system claim that corresponds to method claim 21 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 39,
Claim 39 is a medium claim that corresponds to method claim 21 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 22,
Osterkamp as modified by Angara discloses the method of claim 21, in addition, Osterkamp discloses that the exchange data object comprises one or more exchange attributes that are indicative of an expiration status, and the computer implemented method further comprises validating the UUEK based at least in part on the expiration status (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, line 52 to Column 5, line 11; Column 8 line 47 to Column 9, line 22; Column 9, line 33 to Column 10, line 20; Column 11, lines 29-53; Column 12, lines 4-21; Column 13, lines 53-67; and associated figures; verifying time is within time before token expires, for example).
Regarding Claim 32,
Claim 32 is a system claim that corresponds to method claim 22 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 23,
Osterkamp as modified by Angara discloses the method of claim 22, in addition, Osterkamp discloses modifying the expiration status to invalidate the UUEK (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, line 52 to Column 5, line 11; Column 8 line 47 to Column 9, line 22; Column 9, line 33 to Column 10, line 20; Column 11, lines 29-53; Column 12, lines 4-21; Column 13, lines 53-67; and associated figures; expiring the token, removing the account, removing the token, etc., as examples).
Regarding Claim 33,
Claim 33 is a system claim that corresponds to method claim 23 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 24,
Osterkamp as modified by Angara discloses the method of claim 22, in addition, Osterkamp discloses that the expiration status is based at least in part on a valid time period for the UUEK (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, line 52 to Column 5, line 11; Column 8 line 47 to Column 9, line 22; Column 9, line 33 to Column 10, line 20; Column 11, lines 29-53; Column 12, lines 4-21; Column 13, lines 53-67; and associated figures).
Regarding Claim 34,
Claim 34 is a system claim that corresponds to method claim 24 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 25,
Osterkamp as modified by Angara discloses the method of claim 21, in addition, Osterkamp discloses that the UUEK corresponds to a UUEK representation within the user’s virtual wallet (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 3; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 5; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures).
Regarding Claim 35,
Claim 35 is a system claim that corresponds to method claim 25 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 27,
Osterkamp as modified by Angara discloses the method of claim 25, in addition, Osterkamp discloses that the UUEK representative comprises a virtual widget (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 3; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 5; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures).
Regarding Claim 37,
Claim 37 is a system claim that corresponds to method claim 27 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 28,
Osterkamp as modified by Angara discloses the method of claim 21, in addition, Osterkamp discloses that the UUEK is received from a client device using a near field communication protocol (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 3, line 60 to Column 4, line 9; Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 4 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 10, lines 21-42; Column 12, lines 50-63; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures).
Regarding Claim 38,
Claim 38 is a system claim that corresponds to method claim 28 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 29,
Osterkamp as modified by Angara discloses the method of claim 21, in addition, Osterkamp discloses that the UUEK comprises a partner partition that identifies a partner platform, the instrument identifier comprises an instrument key for the member platform, and the computer implemented method further comprises (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 28; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures; token, portion of token (e.g., the first digit in the token may correspond to the facilitating server and the rest would then correspond to the account), account info, user info, etc., as examples):
Identifying a system instrument data object based at least in part on the instrument key (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 28; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures; this could be lookup of user info, or lookup of account info using user info, etc., for example); and
Generating the exchange authorization request based at least in part on the system instrument data object (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 28; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures; authorization as above based on the just described data, for example).
Regarding Claim 40,
Claim 40 is a medium claim that corresponds to method claim 29 and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding Claim 30,
Osterkamp as modified by Angara discloses the method of claim 21, in addition, Osterkamp discloses that the UUEK comprises a service provider partition that identifies a service provider platform and the computer implemented method comprises (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 28; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures):
Identifying the member platform based at least in part on the service provider partition (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 28; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures);
Identifying a system instrument data object based at least in part on the member platform and the exchange identifier (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 28; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures); and
Generating the exchange authorization request based at least in part on the system instrument data object (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 22; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 28; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures).
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.
Claims 26 and 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Osterkamp in view of Angara and Arnold (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2022/0076255).
Regarding Claim 26,
Osterkamp as modified by Angara discloses the method of claim 25, in addition, Osterkamp discloses that the UUEK representation comprises a machine readable representation (Exemplary Citations: for example, Abstract, Column 4, lines 35-51; Column 6, line 53 to Column 7, line 13; Column 7, line 44 to Column 8, line 10; Column 8, line 59 to Column 9, line 3; Column 10, line 21 to Column 11, line 5; Column 12, line 50 to Column 13, line 20; Column 14, lines 14-30; and associated figures);
But does not explicitly disclose that the machine readable representation comprises a machine readable optical image.
Arnold, however, discloses that the machine readable representative comprises a machine readable optical image (Exemplary Citations: for example, Paragraphs 45, 46, 59, 60, 181, 196, and associated figures; reading QR code including transaction information, for example). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of applicant’s invention, which is before any effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the QR code usage techniques of Arnold into the digital wallet system of Osterkamp as modified by Angara in order to allow transaction information and tokens to be easily transferred between machines using additional techniques, to increase the extensibility of the system to users that wish to use displayed QR codes to authorize transactions, and/or to increase security in the system. Alternatively, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of applicant’s invention, which is before any effective filing date of the claimed invention, to perform a simple substitution of the transfer means (e.g., mag stripe, NFC) in Osterkamp as modified by Angara with another transfer means (QR code of Arnold). Use of QR codes to transfer information between devices is ubiquitous in mobile computing devices and one of ordinary skill in the art would readily use this technique to transfer information between a mobile device and another entity.
Regarding Claim 36,
Claim 36 is a system claim that corresponds to method claim 26 and is rejected for the same reasons.
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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/Jeffrey D. Popham/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2432
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