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 .
Introduction
The following is a non-final Office action in response to Applicant’s RCE submission filed on 8/28/2026. Currently claims 1-10, 12-14, 16, 18-20 are pending and claims 1, 6, 18 are independent. Claims 1, 6, 12, 16, 18 have been amended from the previous claim set dated 3/11/2026. Claims 11, 15, 17 are cancelled. Priority to provisional application 63/378,638 (filed 10/6/2022) is acknowledged.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 8/28/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendments
Applicant’s amendments are acknowledged and necessitated the new grounds of rejection in this Office Action. In light of the amendments, the 35 USC § 103 rejections are withdrawn. The rejections are withdrawn because none of the prior art of record, taken individually or in combination, teach the claimed invention as detailed in the independent claims, wherein the novelty of the claimed invention is in the combination of limitations and not in any single limitation. Specifically, none of the prior art teaches a personal transaction organization system which applies themes to transactions based on the location of the transactions, where the transaction data is cleaned by a series of steps including text permutations of the transaction location, overlay verification of geo-polygon transaction data, and then subsequently calculating a Haversine distance of the overlaid polygons to determine if the distance is within a threshold amount.
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 1-10, 12-14, 16, 18-20 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), specifically an abstract idea, without significantly more. With respect to claims 1-20, following the guidance contained within MPEP 2106, the inquiry for patent eligibility follows two steps: Step 1: Does the claimed invention fall within one of the four statutory categories of invention? Step 2A (Prong 1): Is the claim “directed to” an abstract idea? Step 2A (Prong 2): Is the claim integrated into a practical application? Step 2B: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to “significantly more” than the abstract idea?
In accordance with these steps, the Examiner finds the following:
Step 1: Claim 1 and its dependent claims (claims 2-5) are directed to a statutory category, namely a system/machine. Claim 6 and its dependent claims (claims 7-10, 12-14, 16) are directed to a statutory category, namely a method. Claim 18 and its dependent claims (claims 19, 20) are directed to a statutory category, namely an article of manufacture.
Step 2A (Prong 1): Claims 1, 6, and 18, which are substantially similar claims to one another, are directed to the abstract idea of “Certain methods of organizing human activity”, or more particularly, “Concepts relating to commercial or legal interactions (including: advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations) (See MPEP 2106).” In this application that refers to using a computer system to analyze a user’s spending transactions and classify/categorize them in order to apply themes to the spending to help the user understand their spending. To clarify this further, the Applicant’s disclosed invention is a conceptual system meant to perform the same function that an individual might do when reviewing their spending habits. The abstract elements of claims 1, 6, and 18, recite in part “Extract transaction data…Clean data… Perform text permutation…Enrich geo-data…Create geo-polygon…Scrape theme data…Verify geo-data…Map geodata…Determine whether polygons are same… Determine overlay …Calculate haversine distance …label data…Generate report…”. Dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, 12-14, 16, 19, 20 add to the abstract idea the following limitations which recite in part “Store data…Retrieve data…Define information…Analyze information…Store information…Input criterion…Determine place…Search for place…Determine place existence…Extract data…Store data…Retrieve data…Search for coordinates…Create theme database…Retrieve transaction place…Retrieve destination place…Compare places…Label transaction data…Store data…Label data…Store data… ”. All of these additional limitations, however, only serve to further limit the abstract idea, and hence are nonetheless directed towards fundamentally the same abstract idea as independent claims 1, 6, and 18.
Step 2A (Prong 2): Independent claims 1, 6, and 18, which are substantially similar claims to one another, do not contain additional elements, either considered individually or in combination, that effectively integrate the exception into a practical application of the exception. These claims do include the limitation that recites in part “Processors…Memory…Database…Non-transitory computer readable medium…” which limits the claims to a networked/computer based environment, but this is insufficient with respect to integration into a practical application because it is merely applying the abstract idea to a general computer (See MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Additionally, dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, 12-14, 16, 19, 20 do not include any additional elements to conduct a further Step 2A (Prong 2) analysis.
Step 2B: Independent claims 1, 6, and 18, which are substantially similar claims to one another, include additional elements, when considered both individually and as an ordered combination, which are insufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional elements of these claims recite in part “Processors…Memory…Database…Non-transitory computer readable medium …”. These items are not significantly more because these are merely the software and/or hardware components used to implement the abstract idea (analyze a user’s spending transactions and classify/categorize them in order to apply themes to the spending to help the user understand their spending) on a general purpose computer (See MPEP 2106.05(f)). This is exemplified in the Applicant’s specification in [0130] – “The host machine 4002 may be a computer or computing device, a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a set-top box (STB), a personal digital assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone...”
Additionally, dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, 12-14, 16, 19, 20 do not include any additional elements to conduct a further 2B analysis.
Accordingly, whether taken individually or as an ordered combination claims 1-10, 12-14, 16, 18-20 are rejected under 35 USC § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception, an abstract idea, without significantly more.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/28/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive and/or are moot in light of the new rejections addressed above.
Regarding the arguments related to the 35 USC § 101 rejections, as addressed above according to the USPTO guidance contained within MPEP 2106 for 35 USC § 101 rejections, the Examiner maintains that the claimed invention is an abstract idea, without significantly more, and not integrated into a practical application.
Applicant first argues that the claimed invention is patent eligible because the claimed limitations (clean/enrich/standardize/scrape/verify/map/determine/label) are technical solutions and overcome the rejection within the Step 2A (Prong 1) analysis because of the way that the data is analyzed/transformed. Examiner does not find this persuasive. Specifically, the claimed invention is interpreted as a method for organizing transaction data (which is facilitated through analyzing raw transaction data) and not a method for addressing any technical deficiencies with transaction processing.
Applicant points to Example 42 as being analogous, however Examiner does not agree. Specifically, the problem that example 42 addresses is that there are multiple users of a system that can simultaneously input information and that information needs to be aggregated correctly and distributed so that all stakeholders are aware of the current situation with regards to the patient. Example 42 is a technical solution which improves the delivery of medical care by coordinating various information sources/streams. It is not clear to Examiner how the currently claimed invention provides that similar coordination and correction of a problem which impacts the settlement and clearance of transactions.
Further, Applicant argues that the claimed invention is an improvement to technology, but that is not persuasive to the Examiner. the Applicant' s claimed invention is not an improvement to a computer, but rather an improvement to an information gathering and analysis technique that happens to take place by means of a computer.
The Applicant also makes numerous arguments as to how the claimed invention is further integrated into a practical application by addressing the geo-analysis aspect of the claimed invention. While this geo-analysis aspect might be an improvement to the business process of analyzing transactions, and as such, have practical applicability, this practical applicability is not synonymous with USPTO guidance. Specifically, the claimed invention needs to have significant additional elements as to where the claimed invention is effectively integrated into those additional elements. As identified above, the additional elements (Processors…Memory…Database…Non-transitory computer readable medium…) limit the claims to a networked/computer based environment, but this is insufficient with respect to integration into a practical application because it is merely applying the abstract idea to a general computer (See MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Regarding the 35 USC § 101 Step 2B analysis, applicant argues that the identified elements are significantly more. This is unpersuasive because in both the original Office action and in the rejection above, the identified items are found to be not significantly more because they are mere instructions to apply an exception (See MPEP 2106.05(f)) and not because they are standard, routine, and conventional (See MPEP 2106.05(d)). Further, the items that Applicant highlights as “additionally more” (the algorithmic steps) are not interpreted by Examiner as additional elements, but rather elements of the abstract idea itself. These are analysis steps used to determine themes associated with the transactions by identifying where the transaction occurred and are primary actions of the abstract idea.
Regarding the 35 USC § 103 rejections on the previous Office Action, as addressed above, the rejections are withdrawn because none of the prior art of record, taken individually or in combination, teach the claimed invention as detailed in the independent claims, wherein the novelty of the claimed invention is in the combination of limitations and not in any single limitation. Specifically, none of the prior art teaches a personal transaction organization system which applies themes to transactions based on the location of the transactions, where the transaction data is cleaned by a series of steps including text permutations of the transaction location, overlay verification of geo-polygon transaction data, and then subsequently calculating a Haversine distance of the overlaid polygons to determine if the distance is within a threshold amount.
The closest prior art includes:
Reedy et al. (US 20210390573 A1)
Unser et al. (US 20150324823 A1)
McNeel (US 9589259 B2)
Yee et al. (US 20210027394 A1)
Dubey et al. (US 20230047717 A1)
Parekh et al. (US 11836727 B1)
Colevas et al. (US 20200334774 A1)
Zollino et al. (WO 2008045354 A2)
and
Gilbreath, et al. “Automatic Budget Categorization of Electronic Payments.” IPCOM000123828D (2005) [online], [retrieved on 2025-12-13]. Retrieved from the Internet <https://priorart.ip.com/IPCOM/000123828>
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael R Koester whose telephone number is (313)446-4837. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday 8:00AM-5:00 PM EST.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jerry O'Connor can be reached at (571) 272-6787. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL R KOESTER/Examiner, Art Unit 3624
/Jerry O'Connor/Supervisory Patent Examiner,Group Art Unit 3624
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