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 action is in reply to the reply filed on 06/02/2026
Claims 1, 8, 10, 14, 16, 17, and 20 are currently amended.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 06/02/2026 regarding the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection has been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues the claims are not directed to an abstract idea, built instead to a device level process where the electronic device retrieved machine outage and availability information and determined a probable payment faire before a transaction is initiated.
Examiner respectfully disagrees, the claims include detecting a possible transaction, identifying of a payment mode is unavailable, and information to the user of the payment mode being unavailable. This represents fundamental economic practice as the prediction of the transaction and the informing the user of the offline payment mode represents improvements to economic practice.
Applicants’ arguments, filed 06/02/2026, with respect to the prior art rejection has been fully considered and are persuasive. The prior art rejection of claims 1-20 has been withdrawn.
Claim Objections
Claim 8 is objected to because of the following informalities: The claim recites “form a memory” instead of “from a memory” in line 3. Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-20 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 instant case, claims 1, 17 and 20 are directed to a method, system, and method. For the purposes of this analysis, representative claim 1 is addressed.
Claim 1 recites “presenting prospective transaction failure” which is a grouped under “Certain methods of organizing human activity — fundamental economic practices” in prong one of step 2A (MPEP 2106.04(a)). Abstract ideas are in bold below. Claim 1 recites:
A method in an electronic device, the method comprising:
detecting, with one or more processors of the electronic device, a prospective financial transaction using a digital wallet application operable on the one or more processors of the electronic device;
identifying, with the one or more processors from data retrieved with a communication device of the electronic device across a network from a remote electronic device, one or more probable digital wallet application payment failure modes based on one or more alert messages from one or more payment method purveyors or payment mode processors indicating that one or more merchant or payment processor system systems will be unavailable; and
in response to identifying at least one probable digital wallet application payment failure mode due to the one or more merchant or payment processor system malfunctions, presenting, by the one or more processors on a user interface of the electronic device, a potential payment failure mode notification identifying the one or more probable digital wallet application payment failure modes prior to initiating the prospective financial transaction.
The additional elements of claim 1 such as “with one or more processors of the electronic device,… digital… operable on the one or more processors of the electronic device”, “with a communication device of the electronic device across a network from a remote electronic device,”, “ by the one or more processors on a user interface of the electronic device”, represent the use of a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea and/or does no more than generally link the abstract idea to a particular field of use.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration into a practical application, the additional elements amount to no more than [mere instructions to apply the abstract idea of using generic computer components. The claim elements when considered separately and in an ordered combination, do not add significantly more than implementing the abstract idea of fundamental economic practice.
Hence, claims 1, 17 and 20 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 2-16, and 18-19 recited additional details which only further narrow the abstract idea and do not add any additional features, alone or in combination, that would provide a practical application or provide significantly more.
The claims as a whole do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. This is because the claims do not affect an improvement to another technology or technical field, the claims do not amount to an improvement to the functioning of a computer system itself, and the claims do not move beyond a general link of the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment.
Accordingly, there are no meaningful limitations in the claims that transform the judicial exception into a patent eligible application such that the claims amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
Prior Art Rejection
After further search and consideration the prior art rejection is withdrawn. Regarding claim 1 the prior art does not teach “identifying, with the one or more processors from data retrieved with a communication device of the electronic device across a network from a remote electronic device, one or more probable digital wallet application payment failure modes based on one or more alert messages from one or more payment method purveyors or payment mode processors indicating that one or more merchant or payment processor system systems will be unavailable; and in response to identifying at least one probable digital wallet application payment failure mode due to the one or more merchant or payment processor system malfunctions, presenting, by the one or more processors on a user interface of the electronic device, a potential payment failure mode notification identifying the one or more probable digital wallet application payment failure modes prior to initiating the prospective financial transaction.
Prior Art of Record Not Currently Relied Upon
Hubli (US 2019/0057384 A1) Teaches: invention to modify the generating rollback requests to reverse partially approved payments.
Phipps (US 2017/0193491 A1) Teaches: the mobile transaction device enabling dynamic electronic checks.
Wintle et al (US 2022/0245641 A1) Teaches: the intelligent recurring transaction processing and fraud detection.
Torres (Us 2018/0092020 A1) Teaches: Mobile network node routing.
Carrington (US 2018/0165759 A1) Teaches: Method for identifying card on file payment account transactions.
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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/GREGORY M JAMES/Examiner, Art Unit 3692
/RYAN D DONLON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3692 September 25, 2026
