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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the Request for Continued Examination (RCE) filed 4/27/2026. Applicant has amended claim 1, cancelled claims 9-20 and added new claims 23- 32. Accordingly, claims 1-8 and 21-32 are pending for examination.
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 1-8 and 21-32 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.
Claim 1 recites the abstract idea of “determining likelihood of fraud using models and approve attempted transaction”, which is grouped under “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” such as “fundamental economic principles or practices”- mitigating risk, “commercial or legal interactions”- sales activities or behaviors and “Mathematical Concepts”- model). (MPEP 2016.04(a)).
Specifically, claim 1 recites “receive…personally identifiable information associated with a first user”, “responsive to receiving the personally identifiable information, authenticate the first user”, “responsive to authenticating the first user… a temporary account number”, “associate the temporary account number with a primary account associated with the first user”, “….associated with the temporary account number”, “receive … an attempted transaction associated with the …”, “identify a plurality of previously …each associated with a respective temporary account number generated responsive to authenticating a respective associated user”, “train one or more … models based on one or more attempted transactions associated with the identified plurality of previously generated …., the attempted transactions received from merchant …as user conduct transactions using previously generated….”, “determine, using one or more… a likelihood of fraud associated with the attempted transaction, wherein the one or more…to determine whether the attempted transaction fraudulent based on one or more attempted transaction associated with the identified plurality of previously …. and one or more similarly authenticated users and similarly previously….”, “determine whether the likelihood of fraud exceeds a threshold”, “responsive to determining the likelihood of fraud does not exceed the threshold, approve the attempted transaction”. Accordingly, claim 12 recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A (MPEP 2106.04II), the additional elements of claim 1 such as “one or more processors”, “a memory in communication with the one or more processors and storing instructions”, “via an automated teller machine (ATM)”, “via a merchant point of sale (POS) terminal” does no more than serve as a tool to implement the abstract idea and/or provide a particular technological environment. With respect to “generating… temporary account number/physical payment cards)”, “generated physical payment cards”, “dispense… a physical payment card”, “determining, using one or more machine learning models (MFL)”, “MLMs are trained”, “train one or more machine learning models (MLMs) the claims lack detail regarding what “generating”, “dispense”, “determining” and “training/trained” comprise (MPEP 2106.05(f)(1)). Therefore, as Applicant has neither placed a restriction on how generating, dispensing, determining and training are performed nor describe how the functions are accomplished the limitations do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application as they are no more than “apply it” (MPEP 2106.05(f)(1)).
When analyzed under step 2B (MPEP 2106.04II), because the additional elements do no more than 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, they do not provide an improvement to computer functionality, or an improvement to another technology or technical field and, therefore, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f)&(h)).
Hence, claim 1 is not patent eligible.
Depending claims 2-8 and 21-32 further recite “wherein the personally identifiable information comprise a phone number, a social security number, an account number, or combinations thereof (claim 2)”, “responsive to receiving the personally identifiable information: transmit a request for the first user to provide additional authentication information and receive…the additional authentication information, wherein generating the temporary account number is further responsive to receiving the additional authentication information (claim 3)”, “wherein the additional authentication information comprises a biometric input, a code, a personally identification number (PIN), an answer to a security question, or combination thereof (claim 4)”, “responsive to determining the likelihood of fraud exceeds the threshold, conduct one or more fraud prevention actions (claim 5)”, “the one or more …comprise a first … and a second …; the first … is associated with a first weighting factor; the second … is associated with a second weighing factor and determining the likelihood of fraud is based on the first and second weighting factors (claim 6)”, “the first … to determine the likelihood of fraud associated with the attempted transaction based on historical transaction data and the second … to determine the likelihood of fraud associated with the attempted transaction based on the one or more attempted transactions associated with the identified plurality of previously … (claim 7)” and “wherein the second weighting factor is higher than the first weighting factor (claim 8)”, “wherein the temporary account number is associated with the primary account such that the primary account … to financially lack the temporary account number (claim 21)”, “….temporary account number (claim 22)”, “wherein the temporary account number comprises a … card number (claim 23)”, “wherein the threshold is a dynamic threshold that changes based on the number of … used in determining the likelihood of fraud (claim 24)”, “wherein the threshold is a dynamic threshold that changes based on weighting factors associated with the one or more ….(claim 25)”, “wherein the one or more fraud prevention actions comprise transmitting a notification to a user …associated with the first user (claim 26)”, “wherein the one or more fraud prevention actions comprise transmitting a notification for display via the merchant POS… (claim 27)”, “wherein the one or more fraud prevention actions comprise denying the attempted transaction (claim 28)”, “wherein the one or more …. are specifically trained based only on attempted transactions associated with the identified plurality of previously generated … (claim 29)”, “receive, from a merchant system associated with the merchant POS …, an authorization request for the attempted transaction and responsive to determining the likelihood of fraud does not exceed the threshold, transmit an authorization response to the merchant system approving the attempted transaction (claim 30)”, “wherein ….rather than …cash to the first user, such that the system is configured to track potential fraud associated with transactions involving the …. (claim 31)”, and “wherein the one or more … are trained on a finite grouping of training data comprising data associated with attempted transactions each associated with a pre-authenticated temporary payment …(claim 32)”, which is grouped under “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” such as “fundamental economic principles or practices”- mitigating risk, “commercial or legal interactions”- sales activities or behaviors and “Mathematical Concepts”- model). (MPEP 2016.04(a)).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A (MPEP 2106.04II), the additional elements of claims 2-8 and 21-32, such as “via the ATM (claim 3)”, “MLMs (claims 6, 24, 25, 29, 32)”, “virtual (claim 23)”, “device (claim 26)” and “terminal (claims 27, 30)” 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 technological environment or field of use. With respect to “MLM is trained… generated physical payment cards/ physical payment cards (claims 8, 29, 32)”, “account is configured to… (claim 21), “ATM is configured to print… on the physical payment card prior to dispensing the physical payment card (claim 22)” and “ATM dispenses the physical payment card rather than dispensing cash; physical payment card (claim 31)”, the claims lack detail regarding what “generated”, “dispenses”, “trained” and “is configured to” comprise (MPEP 2106.05(f)(1)). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
When analyzed under step 2B (MPEP 2106.04II), because the additional elements do no more than 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, they do not provide an improvement to computer functionality, or an improvement to another technology or technical field and, therefore, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f)&(h)).
Hence, depending claims 2-8 and 21-32 are not patent eligible.
Claims 1-8 and 21-32 have been searched and reviewed. No prior art has been found that discloses, either expressly or inherently, all of the limitations of the claimed invention. Even though Goldberg et al. (US 2018/0018656 A1) discloses receive, via an automated teller machine (ATM), personally identifiable information associated with a first user, responsive to receiving the personally identifiable information, authenticate the first user, receive, via a merchant point of sale (POS) terminal, an attempted transaction associated with the physical payment card and dispense, via the ATM, a physical payment card, see at least paragraphs 0017, 0018, 0019, 0027, 0039 and 0045, the rest of limitations recited in the independent claim 1, considered as a whole, is not taught by the prior arts found in examiner’s search. Therefore, no rejection under 102/103 is made.
Related But Not Relied Upon
Relevant prior art cited but not applied: BURKE et al. (US 2016/0132886 A1), directed to fraud detection for ATM.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 4/27/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argued that the claims are statutory under 35 U.S.C. 101 because 1) the amended claim 1 is directed to a system that narrowly trains machine learning models on a specific subset of transaction data associated with pre-authenticated temporary payment card 2) the claims are directed to specific improvement to how machine learning models themselves operates 3) the claims are similar to Ex Parte Desjardins where improvements to how machine learning model itself functions are not subsumed in the identified mathematical calculation 4) similar to example 35, the amended claim 1 recites specific combinations of steps that address unique problem of fraud monitoring. The Examiner disagrees. While the claims may limit the source of the data used for training, such limitations merely restrict the type of information that is collected and analyzed. Limiting an abstract idea to a particular field of use or data environment does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. In response to applicant’s argument that the claims recite specific improvement to how machine learning models themselves operates, it is noted that the claims do not recite how the machine learning model is trained, how the selected transaction subset improves machine learning performance, how the model architecture is modified or how any computer functionality is improved. Rather, the claims merely recite the desired result of training a model using the identified subset of transaction data. The claims do not recite a technological improvement resulting form the use of temporary-card transaction data. Instead, the claims merely use that data as an input to a machine learning process that evaluates fraud risk. In response to applicant’s argument that the claims are similar to DesJardins, it is noted that unlike in DesJardins where the claims were directed to a particular technique for generating and utilizing training data that improved that functionality and performance of the machine learning model, the presently claimed invention merely recite training one or more machine learning models using transaction data. The claims do not explain how the machine learning models are modified or improved as a result of the recited training data. Nor do the claims recite any technological mechanism by which the machine learning models achieve improved performance. The recited training limitations therefore remain part of the abstract idea and do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. In response to applicant’s argument that the claims address unique problem of fraud monitoring, it is noted that unlike Example 35, the claims use generic computing components and machine learning techniques to implement the abstract idea of evaluating fraud risk and authorizing financial transactions. Therefore, the claims do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application.
Conclusion
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/CHIA-YI LIU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3692
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