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 action is in response to remarks received 11/21/2025.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19 & 20 have been amended.
Claims 1, 11 & 17 are independent and claims 2-10, 12-16 and 18-20 are dependent claims.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 14-22, filed 11/21/2025, with respect to rejection under 35 USC 101 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 USC 101 rejection of claims 1-20 has been withdrawn.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 11 & 17 are objected to under 35 USC 112 (a) and (b) because the claims do not define objective boundaries for what constitutes a sufficient “amount of impact”, nor do they specify whether SHAP values or other attribution metrics are required, rendering the scope unclear.
Claims 1, 11 & 17 are objected to under 35 USC 112 (b) because the claims do not expressly recite the transactional boundary associated with “real-time”, leaving the scope broader than the disclosed embodiments. For purposes of examination, real-time is interpreted as occurring prior to authorization of the transaction.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
The term “amount of impact” in claims 1, 11 & 17 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “amount of impact” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. It is not clear what defines an amount of impact, no threshold, metric, ranking rule, or comparison standard. Without an objective baseline or standard for determining what constitutes a sufficient “amount” of impact, the scope of the claims is subjective and varies depending on the evaluator, render the claims indefinite. As such, the term fails to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter regarded as the invention. For the purpose of examination, the examiner interprets the amount of impact as a threshold amount.
Claims 1, 11 & 17 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential structural cooperative relationships of elements, such omission amounting to a gap between the necessary structural connections. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted structural cooperative relationships are: it is unclear whether the card-not-present machine learning model, first decision tree, second decision tree, and logistic regression are one model, an ensemble, or separate models. Because the claims do not specify how these components are related or integrated, the claims fail to particularly point out the invention and leaves its scope ambiguous. Also, because the claims omit these essential cooperative relationships, the scope of protection cannot be determined with reasonable certainty. For the purpose of examination, the examiner interprets as being separate models.
Claims 4 & 5 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 6 does not yet exist in the shown sequence but claims 4 & 5 depict a computer-implemented method of claim 6. For the purpose of examination, the examiner interprets the sequence to be written incorrectly in which claim 6 would come prior to claims 4 and 5.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TONY P KANAAN whose telephone number is (571)272-2481. The examiner can normally be reached Monday- Friday 7:30am - 3:30 pm EST.
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/T.P.K./Examiner, Art Unit 3696
/MATTHEW S GART/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3696