DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in reply to correspondence filed 30 January 2026 in regard to application no. 18/529,067. Claims 2-5 and 21-42 have been cancelled. Claims 1 and 6-20 are pending, of which claims 18-20 have been withdrawn from consideration. Claims 1 and 6-17 are considered below.
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 and 6-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims lie within a statutory category of invention, as each is directed to a system (machine). The claims recite conditionally receiving a request to access financial accounts and deliver a result, conditionally receiving a confirmation message, delivering a second result, analyzing data in no particular manner but merely for a particular purpose, making a prediction about future transactions, conducting a dialogue, verifying a user's identity, authenticating accounts, delivering a message, and allowing access to accounts without receiving additional request.
As all of this is directed to allowing a user to access information about a financial account, it recites a fundamental business practice and a commercial interaction, each of which is among the "certain methods of organizing human activity" deemed abstract.
Further, these are steps that can be and have been, in the absence of computers and nondescript use of machine learning, performed mentally and by accessing paper records. A bank manager can verify a customer's identity e.g. by personal recognition, and can grant access to account information or direct others to do so; the access can be granted by allowing the customer to peruse paper records. All of this can be done based on the customer making a single request. None of this presents any practical difficulty and none requires any technology beyond paper records.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because aside from the bare inclusion of a generic computer and nondescript use of machine learning, discussed below, nothing is done beyond what was set forth above, which does not go beyond generally linking the abstract idea to the technological environment of Al enabled, networked computers. See MPEP § 2106.05(h).
As the claims only manipulate data pertaining to a person's identity, financial account information and the like, they do not improve the "functioning of a computer" or of "any other technology or technical field". See MPEP § 2106.05(a). They do not apply the abstract idea "with, or by use of a particular machine", MPEP § 2106.05(b), as the below-cited Guidance is clear that a generic computer is not the particular machine envisioned.
They do not effect a "transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing", MPEP § 2106.05(c). First, such data, being intangible, are not a particular article at all. Second, the claimed manipulation is neither transformative nor reductive; as the courts have pointed out, in the end, data are still data.
They do not apply the abstract idea "in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking [it] to a particular technological environment", MPEP § 2106.05(e), as the lack of technical and algorithmic detail in the claims is so as not to go beyond such a general linkage.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional claim limitations, considered individually and as an ordered combination, are insufficient to elevate an otherwise-ineligible claim to patent eligibility.
The claim includes various named software subcomponents and a computer including a processor, memory and instructions. These elements are recited at a high degree of generality, and the specification does not meaningfully limit them, such that a generic computer will suffice.
It only performs generic computer functions of nondescriptly manipulating information and sharing information with persons and/or other devices. Generic computers performing generic computer functions, without an inventive concept, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
In light of Recentive1, the use of known machine learning techniques where the only difference is the type of data being manipulated is not sufficient to elevate an otherwise-unpatentable invention to eligibility.
The type of information being manipulated does not impose meaningful limitations or render the idea less abstract. The claim elements when considered as an ordered combination - at most, a generic computer performing a sequence of abstract steps - do nothing more than when they are analyzed individually.
The dependent claims further do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea: claims 6 and 11-17 are simply further descriptive of the type of information being manipulated; claims 7 and 10 simply are further descriptive of what is connected to a generic network; claims 8 and 9 simply recite further reception and transmission of data.
The claims are not patent eligible. For further guidance please see MPEP § 2106.03 – 2106.07(c) (formerly referred to as the “2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance”, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 55 (7 January 2019)).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 30 January 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Contrary to the applicant’s assertion, simply reducing the amount of data that a computer processes is not an improvement to a computer, any more than removing a bottle of milk from a refrigerator improves the refrigerator. The Examiner has seen this argument many times over the years, but it has never been accompanied by any source of authority for the statement, which leads the Examiner to suspect no such source exists.
Requiring numerous requests, etc., is an inconvenience to a customer or financial services provider, but is not of a technical character. Similarly, allowing computers to save credit card information presents a security risk, but this is no different than the risk posed in years past by saving paper records that included credit card data.
The applicant states in conclusory fashion that making one request rather than multiple, smaller requests “allows for greater efficiency of [a] computer”, but this is not accompanied by any test results or other evidence that might support such a conclusion, and the Examiner does not believe it to be inherently true. If one asks for the Examiner’s first name and then separately asks for the Examiner’s last name, as opposed to asking for the full name in one take, the number of requests is 1 as opposed to 2, but the amount of data sent is 14 as opposed to 13 because of the space separating the names. It is not at all clear that one is more or less computationally efficient than the other.
The reference to a “volume of information” that is “to large and complicated for the human mind” or a pen-and-paper attack is unavailing. First, there is nothing in the claims that requires voluminous information. Second, the courts and PTAB have been consistent in their approach to the “large volume of data” argument, stating repeatedly that the ability to handle a lot of data is inherent in computing generally and not because of any particular claimed process.
The claims are not patent eligible and the rejection is maintained.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SCOTT C ANDERSON whose telephone number is (571)270-7442. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00 to 5:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bennett Sigmond can be reached at (303) 297-4411. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SCOTT C ANDERSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3694
1 Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp. et al., 692 F.Supp.3d 438 (Fed. Cir. 2025)
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