DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
This Office Action is in response to claims filed on 10/07/2025 and Terminal Disclaimer approval on 10/15/2025.
Claims 1-20 are pending and are examined hereon.
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 .
Response to Arguments
With respect to rejection of the claims under Double Patenting Rejection, Applicant is of the opinion that a Terminal Disclaimer in compliance with 37 C.F.R. § 1.321 to obviate the rejection filled without admitting that the claims are obvious.
Examiner fully considers Applicant’s position and as the Terminal Disclaimer have been filed and approved overcoming the rejection.
REASONS FOR ALLOWANCE
The following is an Examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The present invention is directed to processing payments between payers and payees in a commercial interaction between payers, payees and payment service providers using secure transaction information. If the rejection rendered hereon are properly overcome, the claims may become patentable as the prior art made of record alone or in combination do not disclose: responsive to the detected request to pay: sending, by the server, encrypted data to the client device, the encrypted data including information for processing the invoice; and receiving, by the server, an indication, from the bank, that the amount of the invoice was transferred from the user account to the account of the entity.
Yet even if the missing claimed elements were found in a reasonable number of references, a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made would not have been motivated to include the above missing elements.
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 an abstract idea without significantly more.
Analysis
In the instant case, claims 1-9 are directed to a “Method” (Process). Claims 10-18 are directed to “A system comprising: a memory; and one or more modules coupled to the memory…” (Machine). Claims 19-20 are directed to “A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions…” (Article of Manufacture). Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
The claims recite an abstract idea of processing payment, which is an abstract idea. Specifically, but for the additional elements, the claim under its broadest reasonable interpretation recites limitations grouped within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity,” and “Mathematical Concepts,” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test since the steps include commercial interactions, managing relationships and mathematical calculations (See MPEP 2106.04 & 2106.04(a)). The use of a physical aid to help perform Organized Human Activity and Mathematical Concept steps does not negate the Organized Human Activity and Mathematical Concept nature of the limitations, but simply accounts for variations in memory capacity from one person to another. Further, claims can recite a Methods of Organized Human Activity and Mathematical Concepts even if they are claimed as being performed on a computer. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III. 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 processing payments between payers and payees in a commercial interaction based on managed relationships between payers, payees and payment service providers using mathematical operations to secure the transaction information. More specifically, the following non-underlined claim elements recite the abstract idea while the underlined, bolded claim elements recite additional elements according to MPEP 2106.04(a).
Claims 1, as similarly as 10 and 19,
presenting an invoice and a payment button to a client device of a user, the payment button being associated with an option to pay an amount of the invoice to the entity through a bank of the user;
detecting, via the payment button, a request to pay the amount through a user account of the bank;
responsive to the detected request to pay:
sending encrypted data to the client device, the encrypted data including information for processing the invoice; and
redirecting the client device to a, website of the bank; and
receiving, from the bank, an indication indicating the amount of the invoice was transferred from the user account to the account of the entity.
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 elements are merely used as circuitry and tools to perform an abstract idea and generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Specifically, these additional elements perform the steps or functions of the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the use of the additional elements as a tools to implement the abstract idea and 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 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. Additionally, the additional element of “encrypted data…” also does not improve a computer as it represents the mere performance of a mathematical calculation by a computer. 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 claims 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), using the additional elements to perform the steps amounts to no more than using a computer or processor to automate and implement the abstract idea. As discussed above, taking the claim elements separately, these additional elements perform the steps or functions of the abstract idea. These functions correspond to the actions required to perform the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the concept of processing payment. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and implement the abstract idea. Further, the additional element of encrypted data also does not improve a computer as it represents the mere performance of a mathematical calculation by a computer. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and 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.
Dependent claims 2-9, 11-18 and 20 further describe the abstract idea of processing payment. That is, although claims 6, 8, 14 and 15-16 recites further functional steps, each of the dependent claims simply commensurate the abstract idea. 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Patent to McLaughlin et al. (US 8, 165, 958 B1), McLaughlin discloses: claims 1, 10 and 19, A method, A system comprising: a memory; and one or more modules coupled to the memory and A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: (Fig. 3)
presenting, by a server, an invoice and a payment button to a client device of a user, the payment button being associated with an option to pay an amount of the invoice to the entity through a bank of the user; (Figs. 5; Col. 5, Lines 43-45 “In general, a consumer may only use the software as an “electronic checkbook” to provide payment through the consumer's bank.” Col. 9, Lines 19-23 “The consumer communicates with the comprehensive Paytrust Bill Center 200 by using standard online software to access the Paytrust Web site. Once the user logs into the system, he is presented a “bill inbox” and a “payment outbox”, as shown in FIG. 5.” Col. 9, Lines 50-55 “The user can choose to pay a bill by clicking on the “$” button. This will cause the system to display a screen like the one shown in FIG. 7. In this screen, the user fills out the “check” for payment. Once the user approves the check, then the bill is moved to the outbox. The outbox shows all bills that have been paid by the Paytrust system.”)
detecting, by the server, via the payment button, a request to pay the amount through a user account of the bank; (Col. 9, Lines 50-55)
and
PGPub Davenport et al. (US 2005/0177730 A1) discloses: sending, by the server, encrypted data (Fig. 1; Pars. [0016] “The SSO server 60 also may cause, if desired, the user-entered credentials to be encrypted using the public key associated with the host server 52 that was provided to the SSO server as part of the security information in the original re-direction 102. Arrow 106 illustrates that browser 70 is then re-directed back to the host server's service 53 from which the sign-on process originated. This subsequent re-direction back to the host server 52 may use the URL of the host server that was included in the original re-direction (arrow 102) to the SSO server (the URL of host server 52 in this example). The re-direction back to the host server 52 may include providing the host server 52 with the user's credentials (in encrypted form if desired).”)
PGPub Vancini et al. (US 9,928,490 B1) discloses:
redirecting, by the server, the client device to a website of the bank; (Fig. 3b; Col. 7, Lines 41-44 “If the banking institution identified by the user is a member bank, then at step 372 the user is redirected to the website of the bank and the process moves forward in accordance with FIG. 3a”) and
receiving (Fig. 1; Col. 10, Lines 34-46 “For example, a message may be sent to move money from an ODFI settlement account into an RDFI settlement account. Information may be “parsed” and money may be transferred into individual's chosen deposit account. A disbursement confirmation may also be transmitted to the sender computer system 110.”)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WODAJO GETACHEW whose telephone number is (469)295-9069. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-6:00 CST.
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/WODAJO GETACHEW/Examiner, Art Unit 3697