DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 16 December 2025 has been entered.
The following is a non-final office action in response to the application filed 16 December 2025.
No amendments to the claims have been submitted. Claim 1 was previously cancelled.
The Double Patenting rejection is withdrawn in view of the Terminal Disclaimer was filed 14 March 2025.
The applicant's claim for benefit of provisional application US 62652232, filed 3 April 2018 and US 17068067 filed 12 Oct 2020 (issued PAT US11823260, 23 Nov 2023) has been received and acknowledged.
Claims 2-23 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 16 December 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
With regard to the rejections under 35 USC 101, Applicant argues: (1) Reiterating, that the instant invention “…recites a method for processing event data, including continuous and streaming out-of-order events with overlapping causality intervals. …..the method may be applicable to loan data processing, other accounting data processing, and out-of-order event data processing in general….” (Applicant’s response, 7) (2) Applicant further reasserts “…the claim does not recite any abstract idea…each of these claim features, alone and in combination with one another, represents a significant improvement over prior-art event processing systems … represents an improvement in the functioning of the computer and in the field of asynchronous event data processing. …any recited abstract idea would be integrated into a practical application….” (Applicant’s response, 8) (3) Applicant asserts that “…the pending claims do not recite any abstract idea….” Further the final office action’s characterization of the invention of as “directed towards… regulating a loan….is incorrect and inconsistent with USPTO guidance and controlling law…none of the claims include actual recitations of the words “regulating” or “loan”…Examiner has broadly alleged that the claims… involve loan regulation….” Rather the “ …the method may be applicable to loan data processing, other accounting data processing and out of order event data processing in general…This automated process provides technological improvements to the functioning of computers and the field of asynchronous event data processing… the claims in any event do not recite any abstract idea of loan regulation of loan data processing…”(Applicant’s response, 8-10). (4) Applicant then asserts that “… the claims …integrate any recited abstract idea into a practical application by providing an improvement to the functioning of the computer and in the field of asynchronous event data processing…. Represents a significant improvement over prior-art event processing systems a… represents an improvement in the functioning of the computer and in the field of asynchronous event data processing…
….As explained in the specification, the claimed invention improves technology for automatically processing historical data… events in the event history may be causally related to one another along logical time, receiving event data "out of order" …. creates a situation in which states cannot be determined based on the new event data by trivially inserting or appending the new event data into an existing data structure representing the event history… the causal order in which the event data must be inserted according to logical time must be accounted for… Known systems for automated event processing have been unable to solve this problem because it is computationally infeasible to approach by brute force...impossible to do in the human mind… even using known computational approaches to account for higher-order interrelations of events is not possible with modern computing systems applying brute force approaches, because insertion of newly-received out-of- order event data into complex event models would require days or even years….other approaches for automatically processing out-of- order event data rely on crude approximations that lead to degradation of fidelity, due in part to the approximations failing to accurately account for higher-order causal relationships amongst events….The claimed invention solves the problems explained above, enabling automated systems that can receive out-of-order event data and process said event data in real time to update a data structure representing an event history to account for the newly-received event data (see ¶¶ [0064], [0069], [0080], [0093])… Using the specific data structures and data processing techniques claimed and described above allows the claimed system to model each transition in an event history and its resulting state as a linear chain of intermediate edges and vertices, reducing the computational complexity of the problem from the infeasible exponential space of prior-art approaches (see ¶ [0069]). ….use of the specific data structures claimed including the event data structures configured for op-based updates allows for efficient retrieval of event data and application of the replay algorithm, enabling the system to run in linear time and to process real- time and dynamic responses to a received update or input (see ¶¶ [0070], [0093]-[0094]). ….using the recited data structures to apply the recited rewind-replay algorithm allows the system to reduce memory access and computation power by performing subsets of calculations that are identified by algorithm to be necessary, including by applying the recited rewind and replay algorithms to leverage the DAG data structure to "identify[] a first series of events related to the logical history affected by the event data structure" and to then "calculate[e] a plurality of states based on the identified first series of events." ….memory access is reduced and computational efficiency is improved (see ¶ [0093])…the recited claims include additional elements that integrate any abstract idea included in the claim into a practical application, at least by improving the functioning of a computer, by using a novel and inventive arrangement of custom data structures and data processing operations to reduce an exponential and computationally- infeasible problem to one that can be accurately processed in real time using available processing resources and memory resources. …the recited claims include additional elements that integrate any abstract idea included in the claim into a practical application, at least by improving the technology of automated event-processing for out-of-order event data, enabling systems to accurately account for second-order, third-order, and higher-order causal interrelations of events without the need to sacrifice fidelity by making crude approximations……” (Applicant’s response, 11-13) (5) Applicant lastly argues that the analysis in the previous office action overgeneralizes the recitations of the claims and improperly atomizes and oversimplifies the claim language. Applicant also references the Ex parte Guilaume Desjardins. (Applicant’s response, 14).
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Examiner also notes that the word “loan” is recited approximately 160 times in the instant Specification. The disclosure as cited below states that the invention is for “regulating a loan managed by a loan accounting system” (Specification, [14]), and financial account/loan accounting (Specification [32]). As previously stated, Applicant’s own arguments describe the invention as a “… a method for processing event data…the method may be loan data processing, other accounting data processing and out of order event data processing in general……” which results “…improves technology for automatically processing historical data…” ideas. This falls into the category of methods of organizing human activity [organizing human activity (commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations)]. An improvement to an abstract idea is still an abstract idea.
Further, as noted in the rejection below, the use of generic computing elements as a tool to perform an abstract idea is not an integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Further “claiming the improved speed or efficiency inherent with applying the abstract idea on a computer" does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide an inventive concept. Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1367, 115 USPQ2d 1636, 1639 (Fed. Cir. 2015). ( See MPEP 2106.05 (f)) As such, the invention is not directed to an improvement to technology. Additionally, the use of a shorthand to reference the steps/elements of the recited invention does not render the analysis improper. Applicant’s arguments, therefore, is not persuasive. (Applicant’s arguments 1-5).
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 2-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
When considering subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101, (1) it must be determined whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. If the claim does fall within one of the statutory categories, (2a) it must then be determined whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract idea), and if so (2b), it must additionally be determined whether the claim is a patent-eligible application of the exception. If an abstract idea is present in the claim, any element or combination of elements in the claim must be sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Examples of abstract ideas include fundamental economic practices; certain methods of organizing human activities; an idea itself; and mathematical relationships/formulas. Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al., 573 U.S. ____ (2014).
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. In the instant case, the claim(s) as a whole, considering all claim elements both individually and in combination, do not amount to significantly more than an abstract idea.
(1) In the instant case, the claims are directed towards a method, non-transitory computer readable medium, and the system of order-sensitive computations
including for use in loan accounting/financial accounting scenarios and regulating a loan managed by a loan accounting system (Specification,[14] and [32]). In the instant case, Claims 2-21 are directed to a process. Claims 22 is directed to a system. Claim 23 is directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium.
(2a) Prong 1: Loan accounting/ financial accounting is categorized in/akin to the abstract idea subject matter grouping of: methods of organizing human activity [organizing human activity (commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations)]. As such, the claims include an abstract idea.
The specific limitations of the invention are (a) identified to encompass the abstract idea include:
2. An …for executing the method, the method comprising:
generating, …, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) data structure that models a logical history comprising a plurality of events ordered along logical time;
…, …, an event data structure representing a new event, wherein the event data structure is configured for operation-based updates;
automatically updating the modeled logical history by applying, by …a rewind algorithm and replay algorithm to exclude conflicting updates, comprising:
applying the rewind algorithm, …, comprising traversing the DAG data structure based on the event data structure and identifying a first series of events related to the logical history affected by the event data structure; and
applying the replay algorithm, … comprising calculating a plurality of states based on the identified first series of events; and
automatically appending the calculated plurality of states...to a physical history wherein... the physical history comprises a second series of events ordered along physical time of actual occurrence, wherein the second series of events comprises the identified first series of events and the calculated plurality of state
A …
generate, …, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) data structure that models a logical history comprising a plurality of events ordered along logical time;
… …, an event data structure representing a new event, wherein the event data structure is configured for operation-based updates;
automatically update the modeled logical history by applying, … a rewind algorithm and replay algorithm to exclude conflicting updates, comprising:
applying the rewind algorithm, …comprising traversing the DAG data structure based on the event data structure and identifying a first series of events related to the logical history affected by the event data structure; and
applying the replay algorithm, …, comprising calculating a plurality of states based on the identified first series of events; and
automatically append the calculated plurality of states …, …, to a physical history wherein the physical history comprises a second series of events ordered along physical time of actual occurrence, wherein the second series of events comprises the identified first series of events and the calculated plurality of states.
23. … cause the system to:
generate…, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) data structure that models a logical history comprising a plurality of events ordered along logical time;
…, …, an event data structure representing a new event, wherein the event data structure is configured for operation-based updates;
automatically … the modeled logical history by applying, … a rewind algorithm and replay algorithm, to exclude conflicting updates comprising:
applying the rewind algorithm, …comprising traversing the DAG data structure based on the event data structure and identifying a first series of events related to the logical history affected by the event data structure; and
applying the replay algorithm, … comprising calculating a plurality of states based on the identified first series of events; and
automatically append the calculated plurality of states …, … to a physical history, wherein the physical history comprises a second series of events ordered along physical time of actual occurrence, wherein the second series of events comprises the identified first series of events and the calculated plurality of state .
As stated above, this abstract idea falls into the (b) subject matter grouping of: methods of organizing human activity.
Prong 2: When considered individually and in combination, the instant claims are do not integrate the exception into a practical application because the steps of …generating…;… updating…; applying … algorithm…traversing… identifying…; ….applying … algorithm…. calculating…; appending… (- do not apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that that imposes a meaningful limitation on the judicial exception (i.e. the abstract idea).
The instant recited claims including additional elements (i.e. storing… receiving…updating….) do not improve the functioning of the computer or improve another technology or technical field nor do they recite meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. The limitations merely recite: “apply it” (or an equivalent) or merely include instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer or merely uses a computer a as tool to perform an abstract idea or merely uses generic computing elements to perform well known, routine, and conventional functions or generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (See MPEP 2106.05 (d) and (f))
(2b) In the instant case, Claims 2-21 are directed to a process. Claims 22 is directed to a system. Claim 23 is directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium.
Additionally, the claims (independent and dependent) do not include additional elements that individually or in combination are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception of abstract idea (i.e. provide an inventive concept). As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of: (processor, memory, computer, instructions, non-transitory computer readable storage medium ) merely uses a computer a as tool to perform an abstract idea or merely uses generic computing elements to perform well known, routine, and conventional functions. (See MPEP 2106.05 (d) and (f) ) (Specification, [37] processors, memory… instructions… hardware …or combinations of hardware and software… general purpose computers….)
The dependent claims have also been examined and do not correct the deficiencies of the independent claims.
It is noted that claim 3-21 introduces the additional elements of (wherein clauses further defining the applying the rewind algorithm step…(Claims 3, 4, 6) or elements of the rewind algorithm.. (Claims 5)… the traversing step ( Claims 7, 8); …calculating… (Claim 9); …identifying… (Claim 10) ; further defining data … DAG data structure/data structure (Claims 11, 12,13, 14, 15 ); … associated event… (Claim 16); … updating… (Claim 17, 18, 19)…causing display… (Claims 20, 21) This element is not a practical application of the judicial exception because these limitations merely recite: “apply it” (or an equivalent) or merely include instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer or merely uses a computer a as tool to perform an abstract idea or merely uses generic computing elements to perform well known, routine, and conventional functions or generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (See MPEP 2106.05 (d) (f) and (g)) Further these limitations taken alone or in combination with the abstract do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea alone because these elements amount to mere use of a computer a as tool to perform an abstract idea or merely uses generic computing elements to perform well known, routine, and conventional functions or merely add insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception. (See MPEP 2106.05 (d) and (f)) (See MPEP 2106.05 (d) and (f) ) (: Specification, [37] processors, memory… instructions… hardware …or combinations of hardware and software… general purpose computers….)
Therefore, claims 2-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Conclusion
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/ASHA PUTTAIA H/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3691