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 .
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 1-9 and 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. In the instant case, claim 1 is directed to a “method”.
Claim 1 is directed to the concept of “making loan offers” which is grouped under “organizing human activity… fundamental economic practice (mitigating risk is similar to making loan offers because analyzing risk and returns of potential loans is a form of risk mitigation), commercial or legal interactions (analyzing risk and returns of potential loans is a type of legal agreement and business relations)” in prong one of step 2A (See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)). Claim 1 recites receiving a target yield rate constraint, a target loss rate constraint, and target repayment time constraint for a portfolio of assets, receiving historical transaction data for each corresponding merchant of a plurality of merchants, computing parameters of an implied growth ratio distribution for each corresponding merchant of the plurality of merchants based on features of the corresponding historical transaction data, identifying a plurality of financial offers to be made to the plurality of merchants based on the corresponding implied growth ratio distributions, subject to the target yield rate constraint, the target loss rate constraint, and the target repayment time constraint, a first optimization based on the target yield rate constraint and backtesting on the target loss rate constraint and the target repayment time constraint; a second optimization based on the target loss rate constraint and backtesting on the target yield rate constraint and the target repayment time constraint; and identifying an offer size and offer premium for each of the plurality of financial offers based on the corresponding implied growth ratio distribution, the first optimization, and the second optimization; and transmitting the plurality of financial offers to corresponding ones of the plurality of merchants to construct the portfolio of assets. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea (See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A (See MPEP 2106.04(d)), the additional elements of the claim such as a computer system comprising a processing circuit and a machine learning model represent the use of a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea and/or does no more than generally link the abstract idea to a particular field of use (MPEP 2106.05(f)&(h)). Therefore, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application as they do no more than represent a computer performing functions that correspond to (i.e. implement) the acts of making loan offers.
When analyzed under step 2B (See MPEP 2106.05), the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely describe the concept of making loan offers using computer technology (e.g. a computer system comprising a processing circuit). Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ a computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea, which cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f) & (h)).
Dependent claims 2-9 and 15-20 do not remedy the deficiencies of the independent claims and are rejected accordingly. The dependent claims further refine the abstract idea of the independent claims and do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application In this case, all claims have been reviewed and are found to be substantially similar and linked to the same abstract idea (see Content Extraction and Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo (Fed. Cir. 2014)).
Prior Art
The prior art of record is Agarwal US 20240119517 and Masoni US 11144990. The prior art fails to teach or disclose, individually or in combination, at least “identifying, by the computer system, a plurality of financial offers to be made to the plurality of merchants based on the corresponding implied growth ratio distributions, subject to the target yield rate constraint, the target loss rate constraint, and the target repayment time constraint.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID P SHARVIN whose telephone number is (571)272-9863. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9 am - 5 pm EST.
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/DAVID P SHARVIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3692
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