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 .
Status of Claims
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 04/15/2026 has been entered.
Claims 1, 11, 13 & 20 have been amended and claim 7 canceled.
Claims 1, 13 & 20 being independent and claims 2-6, 8-12 and 14-19 being dependent.
Claims 1-6 & 8-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 04/15/2026, have been fully considered but are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the amended claims are patent eligible because the claims allegedly improve the technical field of electronic transfers and short-range wireless transaction processing by establishing trust before a discovery packet is communicated. Applicant further argues that the PKI signature/public-key processing, verification of the signed transaction coordinator authentication token, and communication of the discovery packet only after verification improve short-range transfer technology and address concerns such as packet origin, packet alteration, packet accuracy, and device trust.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims do not recite an improvement to the operation of a computer, mobile device, account server, transaction coordinator system, PKI infrastructure, cryptographic processing, Bluetooth, NFC, short-range wireless communication protocols, or device-discovery protocols. Instead, the claims use generic computing and communication components to carry out the abstract idea of coordinating/authenticating an electronic transfer transaction. The recited private-key signature, obtaining of a public key to decrypt the signed transaction coordinator authentication token, receipt of verification data, and subsequent communication of a discovery packet are used as conventional authentication/verification steps to determine whether transaction-related data is valid before continuing the transfer process.
Applicant argues that paragraph [0092] of the specification supports eligibility because the transaction coordinator authentication token may be signed based on a PKI key pair and useful for authenticating the resource system associated with a banking institution. However, authenticating a banking institution or resource system is part of the transaction-authentication concept itself. The claim does not recite any particular improvement to how the PKI key pair is generated, stored, exchanged, protected, or cryptographically processed. Nor does the claim recite a new cryptographic algorithm, modified public-key infrastructure, improved key-management system, or improved security architecture. Rather, the claims use PKI/public-key processing for its ordinary purpose of authenticating or verifying transaction related information.
Applicant also argues that paragraph [0127] supports eligibility because the specification discusses trust features, including verifying data packet origin, verifying that data packets have not been altered, and verifying that data packets are accurate for downstream electronic transaction operations. This argument is not persuasive because the pending claims do not recite the specific packet-integrity operations relied upon by Applicant. The claims do not require verifying that the discovery packet has not been altered during transmission, verifying that the discovery packet is accurate, or verifying the origin of the discovery packet. At most, claim 1 recites receiving verification of a signed transaction coordinator authentication token and then communicating a discovery packet including a proxy user discovery identifier and a data flag. Thus, Applicant’s argument relies on features described in the specification but not commensurate with the actual scope of the claims.
Even assuming the claim verification contributes to “trust” between parties or systems, improving trust in a transaction is not the same as improving the underlying technology used to perform the transaction. The claims do not change how the mobile device operates, how the short-range wireless network operates, how discovery packets are technically generated or transmitted, how Bluetooth or NFC discovery function, or how PKI cryptography operates. The claimed sequence merely uses generic authentication and communication functions as tools to decide whether to proceed with a transaction-related discovery packet. The claims may improve the reliability or trustworthiness of a transaction workflow; however, improving a business or transactional process performed using technology Is not the same as improving the technology itself. Even if trust is established before communication of a discovery packet, the claims merely change the conditions under which a discovery packet is communicated and do not improve the underlying operation of the communication protocol itself.
Applicant further argues that conventional Bluetooth or NFC transaction lack the claimed pre-authentication before discovery. However, the claims do not recite a technological modification to Bluetooth, NFC, or any short-range wireless protocol. The alleged distinction is a rule or sequence for when transaction-related information is verified before a discovery packet is communicated. Such sequencing of authentication before transaction discovery may limit the transaction workflow, but in does not provide a technological improvement to the communication protocol, wireless hardware, network architecture, or cryptographic technology itself.
Accordingly, the Examiner maintains that the claims are directed to the abstract idea of coordinating/authenticating an electronic transfer transaction. The additional elements, including the PKI signature, public-key retrieval, decryption, transaction coordinator system, account server, mobile device, communication network, short-range wireless network, proxy user discovery identifier, alias identifier, discovery packet, and data flag, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application and do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea, whether considered individually or as an ordered combination. Therefore, the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is maintained.
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 1-6 and 8-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without practical application or significantly more. The claims fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because independent claim 1 is directed to a process, claim 13 is directed to a machine and claim 20 is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable medium or media; Step 1-yes.
Under Step 2A, Prong 1, representative claim 1 recites a series of steps for coordinating/authenticating an electronic transfer/payment transaction between users/devices, which falls under commercial interaction/business relations. As such, the claim as a whole and the limitations in combination recite an abstract idea(s). Specifically, the limitations of representative claim 1, stripped of all additional elements, recite the abstract idea as follows:
receiving an invocation of a short-range data process;
transmitting a request for a transaction coordinator authentication token;
receiving a signed transaction coordinator authentication token including a user transaction identifier associated with a user account;
transmitting the signed transaction coordinator authentication token;
receiving verification of the signed transaction coordinator token, the received verification comprising initialization data including a proxy user discovery identifier associated with the user transaction identifier and an alias identifier for a downstream short-range transfer among proximally located devices; and
after receiving said verification of the token, communicating a discovery packet, the discovery packet including the proxy user discovery identifier and a data flag indicating that the discovery packet includes discovery data for the downstream short-range transfer.
The claimed limitations, identified above, recite a process for coordinating/authenticating a transaction, but for the recitation of generic computer components. There is nothing in the claim limitations that removes the claim from the certain methods of organizing human activity abstract idea groupings. Thus, claim 1 recites an abstract idea.
Under step 2A, Prong 2, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim only recites using generic, commercially available, off-the-shelf computing devices, i.e. processors suitable programmed communicating of a generic network, to perform the steps of receiving, transmitting and communicating data. The computer components are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e. as generic processors with memory suitably programmed communication information over a generic network, see at least paragraphs [0071]-[0074], [0091-0095], [0170-0178] [0241], [0247]-[0254] & [0259]-[0278] of the specifications) such that it amounts no more than adding the words “apply it” (the abstract idea or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea across generic computing technology, or merely uses computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea, see MPEP 2106.05(f) and generally linking the use of the judicial exception to particular technological environment or field of use, see MPEP 2106.05(h). The recited PKI key pair, public key, private key signature, and decryption of the signed transaction coordinator authentication token do not improve PKI technology, cryptographic processing, key generation, key exchange, encryption, decryption algorithms, or network security architecture. Rather, the claim uses conventional PKI authentication as a tool to verify transaction-related data before communicating a discovery packet for a downstream transfer. The claim does not recite any particular improvement to how the public/private keys are generated, stored, exchanged, protected, or cryptographically processed. Accordingly, the additional elements claimed do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Claims 1, 13 & 20 are directed to an abstract idea.
Under Step 2B, the additional elements, considered individually and as an ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. The additional elements include, at most, an account server, a transaction coordinator system, a communication network, a mobile device, a short-range wireless network, a PKI key pair, use of a private key signature, obtaining a public key and decrypting/processing the signed transaction coordinator authentication token using the public key, receiving verification data, and communicating a discovery packet including a proxy user discovery identifier and a data flag. These elements are recited at a high-level of generality and are used according to their ordinary functions of sending, receiving, verifying, decrypting, identifying, and communicating transaction-related data. The claim does not recite any unconventional cryptographic algorithm, modification to a cryptographic algorithm, improvement to cryptographic processing, improvement to key management, or improvement to PKI architecture. Rather, the claimed PKI/public-key/decryption features are used as conventional authentication tools to verify transaction-related information before the abstract transaction coordination process continues. Similarly, the proxy user discovery identifier, alias identifier, user transaction identifier, verification data, discovery packet, and data flag are merely transaction-related data items used to identify parties/devices and control whether the downstream short-range transfer proceeds.
The ordered combination also does not provide an inventive concept. When viewed as an ordered combination, the claim merely performs the abstract idea of coordinating/authenticating an electronic transfer by receiving a request, receiving a signed token, transmitting the signed token, obtaining a public key, decrypting the token, receiving verification data, and communicating a discovery packet over generic communication and short-range networks. The sequence does not improve the functioning of the mobile device, account server, transaction coordinator system, communication network, PKI infrastructure, or short-range wireless network. Instead, the ordered combination uses generic comp0uter and network components as tools to implement the abstract transaction/authentication process in a particular electronic-transfer environment. Accordingly, the additional elements, individually and as an ordered combination, are no more than well-understood, routine, and conventional computer/network functions and do not transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter, see MPEP 2106.05(d), 2106.05(f) and 2106.05(h).
The claims recite generic computing elements to perform the abstract idea of without significantly more. Accordingly, claims 1, 13 & 20 are not patent eligible.
The dependent claims 2-6, 8-12 and 14-19 do not add limitations that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or amount to significantly more.
For example, claim 2 merely further limits the proxy user discovery identifier by reciting validity based on a session, session basis, or time-duration basis, and recites that the user transaction identifier is a persistent identifier generated by the account server. These limitations only further define the duration/validity and source of transaction-identifying data, and do not improve computer functionality, PKI technology, or network communication. Claims 3-5 recite detecting an inbound discovery packet from another device, determining a proxy user discovery identifier, transmitting an identifier query, receiving a reply indicating whether the proxy user discovery identifier remains valid, and preventing further identifier queries when the identifier is not associated or when a threshold is met. These limitations merely perform data detection, query validation, thresholding, and prevention of further queries as part of the abstract transaction coordination process. They do not recite an improved discovery protocol, improved wireless communication technique, or improved device operation.
Claims 6 and 8 recite displaying an alias identifier, receiving a user selection, generating a short-range transaction data set, and transmitting the data set to a transaction layer such as an e-transfer platform or real-time rail platform. These limitations merely add generic user-interface display/selection functions and identify the transaction environment in which the abstract idea is applied. Displaying/selecting an alias identifier and transmitting transaction data to an e-transfer or real-time rail platform do not provide a technological improvement or unconventional computer arrangement.
Claims 9 and 10 recite similar inbound-discovery/requesting-sender flow, including detecting an inbound discovery packet, displaying an alias identifier, receiving a selection, generating a short-range transaction request, transmitting an identifier query, and receiving a transaction reply. These limitations mirror the same abstract transaction coordination and validation concepts discussed above and only add generic data receiving, displaying, selecting, querying, and reply-processing functions.
Claim 11 recites generating initialization data from deconstructed underlying data values of the signed transaction coordinator token. This limitation merely extracts, organizes, or derives information from existing transaction-related data and does not improve token processing, cryptographic processing, network communication, or computer functionality.
Claim 12 merely specifies that an alias identifier includes a representative photo, username, or pseudonym, which merely defines the content of information presented or associated with a user.
Claims 14-19 depend from independent device claim 13 and recite substantially similar limitations to claims 2-6 and 8-12, implemented by a mobile device having a communication circuit, processor, and memory. For the same reasons discussed above, these limitations only further refine the abstract transaction coordination/authentication process using generic mobile-device components and generic network communication. Reciting the same process in the form of processor-executable instructions on a mobile device does not add an inventive concept, because the claim does not require any unconventional hardware, specialized mobile-device architecture, improved communication circuit, improved processor operation, or improved memory structure.
Accordingly, the claims are directed to the abstract idea and do not integrate the exception into a practical application nor do the additional elements amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TONY P KANAAN whose telephone number is (571)272-2481. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7:30am - 3:30 pm EST.
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/T.P.K./Examiner, Art Unit 3696
/MATTHEW S GART/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3696
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