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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 remain pending and are ready for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 07/24/2026, 06/27/2025, and 05/22/2024 were filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1:
Independent claim 1 recites a method, independent claim 8 recites a system, independent claim 15 recites a non-transitory computer-readable storage media. Therefore, step 1 is satisfied for claims 1-20.
Step 2A Prong One:
The claim(s) recite(s) mental process steps of:
from at least the first account embedding, determining an account group that corresponds to the user interaction data; (this step recite abstract mental processes that can be performed by the human mind or practicably with pen and paper. MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(II). The concept of determining an account group that corresponds to the user interaction data is a mental process (e.g., observations, evaluations, judgments, and opinions) that is applied and performed in a computing environment—i.e., an abstract idea. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(I]); see also Elec. Power Grp., 830 F.3d at 1354 (“[A]nalyzing information by steps people go through in their minds, or by mathematical algorithms, without more, [are] essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea category.”’). ).
performing a first action based on the account group, wherein the first action differs from a second action that would have been performed based on a different account group that is not the account group. (this step recite abstract mental processes that can be performed by the human mind or practicably with pen and paper. MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(II). The concept of performing a first action is a mental process (e.g., observations, evaluations, judgments, and opinions) that is applied and performed in a computing environment—i.e., an abstract idea. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(I]); see also Elec. Power Grp., 830 F.3d at 1354 (“[A]nalyzing information by steps people go through in their minds, or by mathematical algorithms, without more, [are] essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea category.”’). ).
Step 2A Prong Two:
The claim/s recites the combination of the additional elements, the additional elements in the claim are:
obtaining user interaction data for a user describing interactions by the user with a given account of multiple different accounts assigned to the user on one or more computer systems; (all independent claims)
processing an input comprising the user interaction data using a machine learning model that is configured to produce a result that includes a first account embedding that differs from the user interaction data; (all independent claims)
one or more computers (claims 8 and 15)
one or more storage devices (claim 8)
the Bold elements above are directed to mere insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2106.04(d)(I) and 2106.05(g). The act of transmitting data based on the abstract idea fails to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application as it does not differ from those actions that have previously been held to be extra-solution activity, such as “presenting offers to potential customers and gathering statistics generated based on the testing about how potential customers responded to the offers; the statistics are then used to calculate an optimized price”, “selecting information, based on types of information and availability of information in a power-grid environment, for collection, analysis and display”, and “requiring a request from a user to view an advertisement and restricting public access.” The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the remaining additional elements amount to nothing more than generic components recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. See MPEP 2106.04(d)(I) and 2106.05(f).
Step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above, the additional elements amount to nothing more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer component(s) and insignificant extra-solution activity. These cannot provide an inventive concept, and thus the claims are patent-ineligible.
Claims 2-7, 9-14 and 16-20 directed to the same abstract idea without significantly more. The claims either recite an additional insignificant extra-solution activity OR recite an additional mental process to evaluate and judge using pen and paper. There are no additional elements recited in these claims that integrates the abstract idea into a practical application or amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are rejected under the same abstract idea as claim 1, 8 or 15.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang et al., U.S. Pub No: US 20210209604 A1 (Hereinafter “Wang”).
Regarding claims 1-20, Wang teaches:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
obtaining user interaction data for a user describing interactions by the user with a given account of multiple different accounts assigned to the user on one or more computer systems (see para. 101: "receiving interaction data [...] associated with at least one account identifier");
processing an input comprising the user interaction data using a machine learning model that is configured to produce a result that includes a first account embedding that differs from the user interaction data (see para. 105: "for each account identifier associated with at least one interaction of the plurality of interactions, generate a vector". See also para. 106: "each vector may be an embedding vector");
from at least the first account embedding, determining an account group that corresponds to the user interaction data (see para. 82: "score that takes into account both activity of individual accounts/nodes (e.g., the vectors associated therewith) and identification of groups (e.g., clusters of accounts/nodes) ". See also para. 114 and 129); and
performing a first action based on the account group, wherein the first action differs from a second action that would have been performed based on a different account group that is not the account group (see para. 117: "determine a score [...] for each cluster" and par. 120: "taking at least one action [...] based on the score (s) [...] may deny at least one further interaction based on the score").
2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: obtaining, from a first user of a plurality of users, training examples, the training examples comprising: (i) an indication of the first user, and (ii) user interaction data describing interactions of the first user with a computer system of the one or more computer systems; and training the machine learning model using the training examples (see paragraph [0005], wherein certain machine learning algorithms may be used to detect fraud and/or risk associated with individual interactions (e.g., payment transactions and/or the like). For example, certain machine learning algorithms may be trained with data (e.g., payment transaction data) that has been separately confirmed to be and/or labeled as fraudulent and/or risky).
3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user interaction data comprises a data relating to at least one of a user interaction with a screen, a keyboard or a mouse (see paragraph [0095], wherein receive information, such as via user input (e.g., a touch screen display, a keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, a button, a switch, a microphone, a camera, and/or the like)).
4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first action comprises authenticating the user at least in part according to the account group (see paragraph [0065, 0120]).
5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first action comprises providing information to the given account of the multiple different accounts according to the account group (see paragraph [0120]).
6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the account group is determined at least in part by determining Euclidean distances between the first account embedding and account embeddings for at least a subset of known account groups (see paragraph [0136, 0159], edge between two account identifiers can be evaluated using a Jaccard coefficient. The system builds connections between accounts if they share attributes, and clusters them accordingly).
7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, further comprising: determining a location for the user; and wherein the subset of known account groups is determined at least in part based on the location (see paragraph [0095, 0125, 0140]).
Claims 8-14 are rejected under the same rationale as claims 1-7.
Claims 15-20 are rejected under the same rationale as claims 1-6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHER N ALGIBHAH whose telephone number is (571)272-0718. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday.
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/MAHER N ALGIBHAH/Primary Examiner , Art Unit 2165
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