DETAILED ACTION
Receipt is acknowledged of a request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) and a submission, filed on February 6, 2026. Claims 1,8, and 13 were amended. Claims 1, 4, 6-8, 11, 13-17 and 20 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed January 21, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant has amended to the claims to recite the steps of:
deploying, by a deployment service on behalf of a token issuer, an asset token contract to a distributed ledger…
matching, by a tokenization agent, the burn request by calling an approve function, and receiving an identifier and approval to execute the burn, wherein only matched burn requests can be executed; wherein the asset token router calls the burn request on the asset token contract, destroying the asset token.
Applicant submits that the amended claims “integrates the alleged judicial exception into a practical application by using the asset token contract that is deployed to the distributed ledger to execute the burn request, thereby destroying the asset token.” However, the Examiner notes that the claims are directed to an abstract idea of removing a token upon request.
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, 4, 6-8, 11, 13-17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
In the instant case, claims 1, 4, 6-8, 11, 13-17 and 20 are directed to method claims. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
For example, claim 1 recites an abstract idea of removing a token upon request. The claim under its broadest reasonable interpretation recites limitations grouped within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. The certain methods of organizing human activity abstract idea grouping is defined as concepts related to fundamental economic principles or practices, commercial or legal interactions including agreements in the form of contracts, legal obligations, advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, and business relations. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection II. The claim limitations reciting the abstract idea are grouped within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas as they relate to removing a token upon request. More specifically, the following the bolded claim elements recite additional elements while the other claim elements recite the abstract idea. according to MPEP 2106.04(a).
A method, comprising:
deploying, by a deployment service on behalf of a token issuer, an asset token contract to a distributed ledger;
receiving, at a balance manager computer program executed by a computer processor, an instruction from a participant to request a transaction comprising a burn of an asset token and a preference for balance manager assistance, wherein the preference is for the balance manager to construct a transaction payload for the transaction, to access a key for the participant, and to sign the transaction for the participant;
constructing, by the balance manager computer program, the transaction payload for the transaction;
accessing, by the balance manager computer program, the key for the participant;
signing, by the balance manager computer program, the transaction with the key for the participant;
sending, by the balance manager computer program, the transaction to an asset token router to call a burn request on the asset token contract for the asset token; and
matching, by a tokenization agent, the burn request by calling an approve function, and receiving an identifier and approval to execute the burn, wherein only matched burn requests can be executed;
wherein the asset token router calls the burn request on the asset token contract, destroying the asset token.
Independent claims 8 and 13 recites similar language.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106.04(d)), the additional element(s) of the claim(s) such as the asset token, asset token router, computer program, distributed ledger, and processor are merely used as tools to perform an abstract idea and/or generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Specifically, these additional elements perform the steps or functions of removing a token upon request. Viewed as a whole, the use of asset token, asset token router, computer program, distributed ledger, and processor as tools to implement the abstract idea and/or generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it requires no more than a computer or computer networks performing functions that correspond to acts required to carry out the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), and the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo). Therefore, the claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106.05), the additional element(s) of the asset token, asset token router, computer program, distributed ledger, and processor to perform the steps amounts to no more than using generic hardware or software to automate and/or implement the abstract idea of removing a token upon request. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the concept of removing a token upon request. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and/or implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05 (f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
The dependent claims further describe the abstract idea such as:
receiving, by the balance manager computer program, an instruction to approve or reject the burn request from a tokenization agent; wherein the asset token router calls a burn function on the asset token contract; and
the asset token contract is configured to burn the asset token, and, in response to a successful burn by the asset token contract, the balance manager computer program deducts and places an amount in an account equal to a burn amount in a pending state.
The dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
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/Jalatee Worjloh/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3697