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 .
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 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis 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.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 remain pending, and are rejected.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 11/26/2025 with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered, but are not persuasive for at least the following rationale:
Applicant’s arguments filed on 11/26/2025 with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 for claims directed to a judicial exception are not persuasive.
Notably, on pages 12-13 of the Applicant’s Remarks, the ARTP Decision is referenced in that the claims identified improvements to the technology itself, and that the present claims also improve technology citing specification paragraphs [0004-0005] disclosing a problem in that digital reviews of goods/services such as restaurants and the like are often biased, which can impact other customers that rely on and/or expect the reviews to be accurate. The Applicant argues that there is a technical problem in that existing digital platforms are unable to process electronic data to account for bias in reviews. On pages 13-14 of the Remarks, other paragraphs of the specification are referenced, such as [0082] disclosing populating a matrix to obtain a matrix of merchant associations reducing an effect of cardholder bias toward a single merchant, increment a counter associated with a merchant pair, and normalizing candidate cardholder preference vector such that each merchant is given a value, which sum provides a scaled candidate cardholder preference vector that is biased based on the candidate cardholder’s merchant preferences.
On pages 15-17, the Applicant argues that the claims are not drawn to any basic took of scientific and technological work, and are not directed to certain methods of organizing human activity or mathematical concepts. On pages 18-19, it is argued that the additional elements integrate the judicial exception into a practical application, such as by reciting the one or more counters configured to monitor electronic data activity, creating a merchant frequency data matrix, tracking electronic data activity of the candidate accountholder, applying the frequency data by incrementing one or more values of the merchant frequency matrix, and applying the merchant frequency data matrix to a candidate accountholder preference vector. On pages 20-21, it is argued that the claims recite unconventional aspect of applying frequency data to a merchant frequency data matrix, and provide significantly more than the abstract idea.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The problem of “digital reviews of goods/services such as restaurants and the like are often biased, which can impact other customers that rely on and/or expect the reviews to be accurate” does not constitute a technical problem. This is a problem of customer trust or customer evaluation of items, which is a sales activity, and not directed to any technology, such as network security. The electronic data also does not reflect any technical element, but merely represents transactions with merchants that are used with electronic payment methods. As such, the electronic data merely represents transaction data with a general link to a computing environment. The counter also does not represent any inherent technical elements, merely incrementing a count of times a cardholder has transacted with a pair of merchant, which is also sales activity. The specification does not disclose the counter with any particularity, merely disclosing that it is incremented for each pair of merchants visited by the cardholder (specification: [0029]). Reducing bias in reviews and bias of a cardholder for a merchant are further sales activities, and are unrelated to any technology. The use of the matrix does not represent any technical functionality, but is a mathematical concept to use in determining merchant scores. As such, the claims are directed to certain methods of organizing human activity and mathematical concepts, as they recite activities in determining recommendation data based on merchant scores, and calculating the scores using the matrix. Similarly, all these concepts are not additional elements, but merely part of the abstract idea, and cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The way the data is used may be unconventional, but if it is unconventional, it is only so within the abstract idea itself, and does not provide an unconventional combination of technical elements that leverage the technical elements to improve a technical field.
In view of the above, the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 has been maintained below.
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 claims are directed to a judicial exception without significantly more.
Step 1:
Claims 1-7 are directed to a system, which is an apparatus. Claims 8-14 are directed to a method, which is a process. Claims 15-20 are directed to non-transitory computer-readable storage media, which is an article of manufacture. Therefore, claims 1-20 are directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A (Prong 1):
Taking claim 1 as representative, claim 1 sets forth the following limitations reciting the abstract idea of recommending merchants to a user based on transaction information of a plurality of users:
receive data including electronic payment transaction information for a plurality of electronic payment transactions involving a plurality of accountholders including a candidate accountholder and a plurality of merchants;
instantiate one or more counters configured to monitor activity of at least a subset of the plurality of accountholders at each of the plurality of merchants, the subset of the plurality of accountholders including the candidate accountholder;
create, based on the payment transaction information associated with the subset of the plurality of accountholders, a merchant frequency data matrix, wherein the merchant frequency data matrix is a data structure that stores and indicates the activity of the subset of the plurality of accountholders including a number of transactions associated with at least two of the plurality of merchants;
track, via respective counters of the one or more counters, activity of the candidate accountholder at each of the at least two of the plurality of merchants over a period of time via the respective counters to generate frequency data for the candidate accountholder;
apply the frequency data to the merchant frequency data matrix by incrementing one or more values in one or more blocks of the merchant frequency data matrix;
apply the merchant frequency data matrix to a candidate accountholder preference vector of the candidate accountholder to normalize, based on the incremented one or more values, the candidate accountholder preference vector to create a candidate accountholder merchant ranking vector;
determine a merchant score vector based on a difference between the candidate accountholder merchant ranking vector and a general merchant ranking vector, wherein the merchant score vector includes a merchant score associated with each merchant of the plurality of merchants;
generate, for output, recommendation data corresponding to the merchant scores;
cause content based on the recommendation data to be displayed.
The recited limitations above set forth the process for recommending merchants to a user based on transaction information of a plurality of users. These limitations amount to certain methods of organizing human activity, including commercial or legal transactions (e.g. agreements in the form of contracts, advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors, etc.). The claims are directed to using transaction data to identify accountholders and merchants to score the merchants for ranking and recommendation (see specification [0002] disclosing the invention for recommending merchants to a transaction payment cardholder based on past transaction history and merchant preferences; [0005] disclosing the problem of websites that are not objective and friending numerous merchants is time-consuming), which is an advertising and marketing activity. The limitations also amount to mathematical concepts, including mathematical formulas and calculation. The claims are directed to forming vectors and calculating a difference between them, which are mathematical calculations.
Such concepts have been identified by the courts as abstract ideas (see: MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)).
Step 2A (Prong 2):
Examiner acknowledges that representative claim 1 recites additional elements, such as:
a memory device for storing data;
at least one processor;
a payment network;
electronic data;
an application executing on a user device;
Taken individually and as a whole, representative claim 1 does not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception. The additional elements do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
Furthermore, this is also because the claim fails to (i) reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, (ii) implement a judicial exception with a particular machine, (iii) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or (iv) apply the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
While the claims recite a memory device and at least one processor, these elements are recited with a very high level of generality, and are only recited in passing as executing the steps of the abstract idea. Specification paragraph [0067] discloses the processor as including one or more processing units with no further description. Specification paragraph [0071] discloses the memory as including, but not limited to, RAM, DRAM, SRAM, ROM, EPROM, etc. Specification paragraphs [0109-0110] provide a similar definition for processors and memory. As such, it is evident that the processor and memory are any generic computer components that only serve to provide a general link to a computing environment. The payment network is defined in specification paragraphs [0041] and [0043], which describe the payment network as MasterCard interchange network to communicated financial transaction data. How the payment network functions is not disclosed in the specification. It is evident that the payment network is merely applied to the claims to communicate transaction data between entities, but are not directed to any technical functionality or construction of a network. The application and user device are also not disclosed with any particularity. The application is disclosed as being stored on a cardholder computing device, and is any software for implementing the abstract idea in a computing environment. The user device can be any device, such as a smartphone, installed with the application (specification: [0030]). It is evident that the additional elements are generic components that are only applied to the abstract idea to implement that idea in a computing network, but the claims are directed to the abstract idea of recommending merchants for a user.
In view of the above, under Step 2A (Prong 2), representative claim 1 does not integrate the recited exception into a practical application (see: MPEP 2106.04(d)).
Step 2B:
Returning to representative claim 1, taken individually or as a whole, the additional elements of claim 1 do not provide an inventive concept (i.e. whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself). As noted above, the additional elements recited in claim 1 are recited in a generic manner with a high level of generality and only serve to implement the abstract idea on a generic computing device. The claims result only in an improved abstract idea itself and do not reflect improvements to the functioning of a computer or another technology or technical field. As discussed above with respect to the integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements used to perform the claimed process ultimately amount to no more than the mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer and/or no more than a general link to a technological environment.
Even when considered as an ordered combination, the additional elements of claim 1 do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
In view of the above, claim 1 does not provide an inventive concept under step 2B, and is ineligible for patenting.
Regarding Claim 8 (method): Claim 8 recites at least substantially similar concepts and elements as recited in claim 1 such that similar analysis of the claims would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. As such, claims 8 is rejected under at least similar rationale as provided above regarding claim 1.
Regarding Claim 15 (non-transitory computer-readable storage media): Claim 15 recites at least substantially similar concepts and elements as recited in claim 1 such that similar analysis of the claims would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. As such, claims 15 is rejected under at least similar rationale as provided above regarding claim 1.
Dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 recite further complexity to the judicial exception (abstract idea) of claim 1, such as by further defining the algorithm of recommending merchants to a user based on transaction information of a plurality of users, and do not recite any further additional elements. Thus, each of claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 are held to recite a judicial exception under Step 2A (Prong 1) for at least similar reasons as discussed above.
Under prong 2 of step 2A, the additional elements of dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 also do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, considered both individually or as a whole. More specifically, dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 rely on at least similar elements as recited in claim 1. Further additional elements are also acknowledged; however, the additional elements of claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 are recited only at a high level of generality (i.e. as generic computing hardware) such that they amount to nothing more than the mere instructions to implement or apply the abstract idea on generic computing hardware (or, merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea). Further, the additional elements do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (such as the Internet or computing networks).
Secondly, this is also because the claims fails to (i) reflect an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, (ii) implement the judicial exception with, or use the judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim, (iii) effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, or (iv) applies or uses the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
Taken individually and as a whole, dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception under step 2A (prong 2).
Lastly, under step 2B, claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 also fail to result in “significantly more” than the abstract idea under step 2B. The dependent claims recite additional functions that describe the abstract idea and use the computing device to implement the abstract idea, while failing to provide an improvement to the functioning of a computer, another technology, or technical field. The dependent claims fail to confer eligibility under step 2B because the claims merely apply the exception on generic computing hardware and generally link the exception to a technological environment.
Even when viewed as an ordered combination (as a whole), the additional elements of the dependent claims do not add anything further than when they are considered individually.
Taken individually or as an ordered combination, the dependent claims simply convey the abstract idea itself applied on a generic computer and are held to be ineligible under Steps 2B for at least similar rationale as discussed above regarding claim 1. Thus, dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 do not add “significantly more” to the abstract idea.
Subject Matter Free of the Prior Art
Claims 1-20 are determined to have overcome the prior art of rejection and are free of prior art, however, the claims remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101, as set forth above.
Claims 1-20 are found to overcome the prior art rejection for the reasons as set forth below.
Claim 1 recites the claims features of: determine a merchant score vector based on a difference between the candidate accountholder merchant ranking vector and a general merchant ranking vector, wherein the merchant score vector includes a merchant score associated with each merchant of the plurality of merchants;
The closes prior art was found to be as follows:
Blume (US 20070244741 A1) recites [0171] – “the merchant vectors are based on the co-occurrence of merchants in each consumer's transaction data. The master files 408, which are ordered by account and within account by transaction date, are processed by account, and then in date order to identify groups of co-occurring merchants. The co-occurrence of merchant names (once equivalenced) is the basis of updating the values of the merchant vectors” and [0015] – “generates groupings (segments) of merchants, which accurately reflect underlying consumer interests, and a predictive model of consumer spending patterns for each of the merchant segments. In another aspect, a supervised segmentation technique is employed to develop merchant segments that are of interest to the user”. However, Blume does not disclose a merchant score vector determined from a candidate accountholder merchant ranking vector, where the merchant score vector includes a merchant score associated with each merchant.
Subramanian (US 20120109749 A1) recites [0075] – “In FIG. 3, the computing apparatus is configured to identify (211) a plurality of corporate accounts (e.g., 113, . . . , 114) of a business, group (213) the plurality of accounts (e.g., 113, . . . , 114), receive (215), via an intranet portal (143) of the business, feedback data (e.g., comments (119), ratings (117)) for purchases made using the corporate accounts (e.g., 113, . . . , 114), store (217) the feedback data (e.g., 117, 119) in connection with the merchants of the purchase transactions, compute (219) aggregated purchase amounts and frequencies for the merchants based on the transaction data (e.g., 118) recorded for the plurality of corporate accounts (e.g., 117, 119), determine (221) preference scores of the merchants based on the purchase amounts and frequencies and feedback data, receive (223) a travel location via the intranet portal (143) of the business, and provide (225) a list of merchants ordered according to the preference scores and selected according to the travel location”. Notably, however, Subramanian does not disclose generating vectors to determine merchant scores and rank the merchants, or a merchant score vector/merchant ranking vectors.
Allen (US 9,659,310 B1) recites col. 3, ln. 58-66 – “The electronic retailer 202 retrieves data from a user profile 208 associated with the user 204. Based on the user profile 208, the electronic retailer 202 analyzes purchase statistics 210 and an items data store 212 to determine a subscription frequency for that item for other users having at least one similarity vector to the user profile 208. The system can select specific similarity vectors based on a type of the item”. Notably, however, Allen does not disclose a merchant score vector determined from a candidate accountholder merchant ranking vector and a general merchant ranking vector.
NPL Reference U (see PTO-892 Reference U mailed on 8/28/2025) discloses data mining in order to tailor websites or advertisements to a user based on past behavior and inference from other similar people. Buying patterns of customers are related to each other to determine what the customer is most likely to respond to. Notably, however, NPL Reference U does not disclose a merchant score vector determined from a candidate accountholder merchant ranking vector and a general merchant ranking vector.
Therefore, none of the cited references disclose or render obvious each and every feature of the claimed invention and the claimed invention is determined to be free of the prior art. Although individually the claimed features could be taught, any combination of references would teach the claimed limitations using a piecemeal analysis, since references would only be combined and deemed obvious based on knowledge gleaned from the applicant's disclosure. Such a reconstruction is improper (i.e., hindsight reasoning). See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971). The examiner emphasizes that it is the interrelationship of the limitations that renders these claims free of the prior art/additional art.
Therefore, it is hereby asserted by the Examiner that, in light of the above, that the claims 1-20 are free of prior art as the references do not anticipate the claims and do not render obvious any further modification of the references to a person of ordinary skill in art.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TIMOTHY J KANG whose telephone number is (571)272-8069. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday: 7:30 - 5:00.
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/T.J.K./Examiner, Art Unit 3689
/VICTORIA E. FRUNZI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3689 1/30/2026
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