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 .
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 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because 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.
The claims are directed to transferring funds (mental processes and organizing methods of human activity) involving:
receive and verify identifying information (mental process);
receive financial account information (fundamental economic practice);
credit the electronic gaming machine with funds from a financial account associated with the financial account information (fundamental economic practice such as use money from user’s bank account to play a game).
Claims 1, 7, and 11 do not integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application.
The claim does not improve the functioning of the computer itself or another technology; rather, it uses the computer components as tools to implement the abstract idea of transferring funds.
No particular machine beyond generic components. Claims 1, 7, 11 recite “electronic gaming machine”, “mobile interface device”, “personal electronic device”, “dedicated processing unit”; “gaming machine processor”. See MPEP 2106.05(b), (f).
The additional elements (securing a communication channel, facilitating communications) are generally linking the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use.
The additional elements (claims 1, 7, 11 “one or more peripherals”; claims 4, 6, 10, 11 “cryptographically unique signature”) are adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception and do not impose a meaningful limit on the abstract idea.
Accordingly, the claim does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application under MPEP § 2106.04(d).
Considered individually and as an ordered combination, the claims do not recite an inventive concept (“significantly more”) beyond the abstract ideas.
Generic computer components and environments (electronic gaming machine, mobile interface device, personal electronic device, dedicated processing unit, gaming machine processor) performing fund crediting are well-understood, routine, and conventional (WURC) activities in the field of computer gaming.
Under Berkheimer v. HP, 881 F.3d 1360, absent evidence in the record that any claimed element or arrangement is not WURC, it is proper to treat generic machine, devices, processors, and fund transferring as conventional. The claims do not recite non-conventional computer functionality or architecture.
No specific algorithm, data structure, or hardware improvement is claimed that would transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter.
Therefore, claims 1-14 are ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The claims are directed to judicial exceptions—mental process and organizing methods of human activity —and do not integrate those exceptions into a practical application. The additional elements, viewed individually and in combination, amount to no more than the abstract idea of transferring funds, implemented on a generic computer, and therefore do not add “significantly more.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAMON J PIERCE whose telephone number is (571)270-1997. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am-5pm.
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/DAMON J PIERCE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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