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 § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 7, 14 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. The claims reciting “the score of the financial instrument is calculated based on assigning severity index scores to impermissible characteristics of the financial instrument” however Applicant’s disclosure fails to disclose such calculations or relationship.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. The recitation “the extracted visible characteristics of the financial instrument” seems to be referring to a previously cited characteristics that does not appear in the claim. Therefore, this citation is vague and confusing because it is unclear what feature or element is further limited by this language. The claimed citation seems to be referring back to the phrase “visible characteristics” in claim 4, and the claim will be treated as such.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 10706466 B1 to Ethington et al (hereinafter ‘Ethington’) in view of US 11900755 B1 to Bueche.
Regarding claim 1, Ethington discloses a computer-implemented method for a remote deposit environment (column 1, lines 28-29, wherein methods, and systems of remote deposit of financial instruments), comprising: activating, on a client device, a financial application, wherein the financial application is configured to instantiate a customer interface (UI) on the client device (column 78 lines 10-15, wherein FIGS. 21A-210 provide example screen shots of user interfaces illustrating aspects of remote deposit via a website within one embodiment of the MultiCrop. In one embodiment, a user may access a MultiCrop website at a personal computer 2101, and the MultiCrop may provide a user interface for user certification 2102.); receiving a customer request, based on interactions with the UI, to electronically deposit a financial instrument (column 78, lines 15-17, wherein a user has to review and agree with terms and conditions of MultiCrop in order to proceed with remote deposit.); based on the customer request, generating a live stream of image data of a field of view of at least one camera, wherein the live stream of image data includes imagery of at least a portion of the financial instrument (column 4, lines 48-54, wherein in one embodiment, the user may operate a smart phone (e.g., an Apple iPhone, etc.) to initiate the remote deposit, wherein the smart phone may automatically download and instantiate a remote deposit software component, which controls the smart phone to capture via its built-in camera, process and send the image of the check.); determining, based on the live stream of image data, an impermissibility score of the financial instrument (column 35, line 65 through column 36, line 5, wherein the MultiCrop utilizes a risk matrix, with various weighted risk factors corresponding to risk information, to determine account limitations. In another implementation, the MultiCrop may utilize risk information in a risk calculation, in which each piece of risk information is assigned a value, as impermissibility scores, and the amount available is determined based on the total risk value of the collected information); and based on exceeding a selectable threshold of the impermissibility score, modifying a status of the remote deposit to pause or terminate the remote deposit (column 43, lines 17-23, wherein if the MultiCrop determines the deposit amount has exceeded a maximum one-time remote deposit amount, as the threshold, defined by the payee's bank. If yes, the MultiCrop may notify the user via a user interface and provide options for the user to proceed. For example, the user may select to submit q request to raise the deposit limit 10A-71, cancel the remote deposit and exit 10A-72, as terminating the remote deposit). Ethington does not specifically disclose determining based on a machine learning model (ML), an imperceptibility score of the financial instrument. (Column 24, lines 22-25 and 43-49, wherein deposit suspension actions, or additional verification tasks, may be triggered at the computing device when one of more of the verification criteria do not match expectations of the system for a given user, and wherein the machine learning model may implement different levels of verification according to predetermined transaction risk levels, as impermissibility score. For example, the computing device may only utilize the rotational angle and/or distance measurements from each lens to recognize a particular user's usage pattern of the computing device when an amount of the check deposit is above a minimum amount, as exceeding the threshold). Ethington and Bueche are combinable because they both disclose financial instrument processing. Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the determining based on a machine learning model (ML), an imperceptibility score of the financial instrument, of Bueche’s method with Ethington’s in order to be able to implement different levels of verification according to predetermined transaction risk levels (column 24, lines 44-45).
Regarding claim 2, in the combination of Ethington and Bueche, Ethington discloses the computer-implemented method further comprising extracting, by an optical character recognition process, financial instrument data fields from the live stream of image data (column 17, lines 14-19, wherein For another example, the CAR OCR score 5B-83 may be generated by counting a number of legible digits in the deposit amount area and calculating a percentage of the legible digits out of the total number of digits of deposit amount on the check image.).
Regarding claim 3, in the combination of Ethington and Bueche, Bueche discloses the computer-implemented method further comprising communicating the extracted financial instrument data fields to the ML model to determine the impermissibility score of the financial instrument (column 24, lines 43-49, wherein the machine learning model may implement different levels of verification according to predetermined transaction risk levels, as the impermissibility score. For example, the computing device may only utilize the rotational angle and/or distance measurements from each lens to recognize a particular user's usage pattern of the computing device when an amount of the check deposit is above a minimum amount, as the threshold corresponding to the score).
Regarding claim 4, in the combination of Ethington and Bueche, Bueche discloses the computer-implemented method further comprising processing, by computer vision algorithms, the live stream of image data to extract visible characteristics of the financial instrument (column 24, lines 45-49, wherein the computing device may only utilize the rotational angle and/or distance measurements from each lens to recognize a particular user's usage pattern of the computing device when an amount, as the visible characteristics, of the check deposit is above a minimum amount).
Regarding claim 5, in the combination of Ethington and Bueche, Bueche discloses the computer-implemented method further comprising communicating the extracted visible characteristics of the finical instrument to the ML model to determine the impermissibility score of the financial instrument (column 24, lines 43-49, wherein the machine learning model may implement different levels of verification according to predetermined transaction risk levels, as the impermissibility score. For example, the computing device may only utilize the rotational angle and/or distance measurements from each lens to recognize a particular user's usage pattern of the computing device when an amount of the check deposit is above a minimum amount).
Regarding claim 6, in the combination of Ethington and Bueche, Bueche discloses the computer-implemented method further comprising processing the live stream of image data by: an optical character recognition process to extract data fields; computer vision algorithms to extract visible characteristics of the financial instrument; and communicating the extracted data fields and the extracted visible characteristics of the financial instrument to the ML model to determine the impermissibility score of the financial instrument (column 24, lines 43-49, wherein the machine learning model may implement different levels of verification according to predetermined transaction risk levels, as the impermissibility score. For example, the computing device may only utilize the rotational angle and/or distance measurements from each lens to recognize a particular user's usage pattern of the computing device when an amount, as the extracted field, of the check deposit is above a minimum amount, as the visible characteristics).
Regarding claim 7, in the combination of Ethington and Bueche, Ethington discloses wherein the score of the financial instrument is calculated based on assigning severity index scores to impermissible characteristics of the financial instrument (column 36, lines 8-21, wherein Similarly, a deposit by a user that had been with a bank for 10 years may be determined to have a lower risk value than a user who had just become a member of the bank. In some implementations, the amounts available and/or the deposit limits may be determined by the MultiCrop utilizing determined risk scores and thresholds such that a user who is determined to have a very low risk value has very few limitations imposed on his or her account, a user that has a determined risk value that exceeds a first threshold but is less than a second threshold may have moderate restrictions associated with his or her account, and a user that has a determined risk value that exceeds the second threshold may have even more restrictions applied to his or her account, inherently as final calculated value corresponding to varying assignment of severity scores of risk).
Regarding claim 8, in the combination of Ethington and Bueche, Ethington discloses wherein the score of the financial instrument is calculated based on any of: aggregating, averaging, or a mean derivation of the assigned severity index scores (column 36, lines 8-21, wherein similarly, a deposit by a user that had been with a bank for 10 years may be determined to have a lower risk value than a user who had just become a member of the bank. In some implementations, the amounts available and/or the deposit limits may be determined by the MultiCrop utilizing determined risk scores and thresholds such that a user who is determined to have a very low risk value has very few limitations imposed on his or her account, a user that has a determined risk value, as first score, that exceeds a first threshold but is less than a second threshold may have moderate restrictions associated with his or her account, and a user that has a determined risk value, as the second score that exceeds the second threshold may have even more restrictions applied to his or her account, inherently result of aggregating of the score values).
Regarding claim 9, in the combination of Ethington and Bueche, Ethington discloses wherein the impermissible characteristics of the financial instrument include any of: visible physical characteristics, data fields, placement of data fields, or detected content (column 36, lines 1-8, wherein he MultiCrop may utilize risk information in a risk calculation, in which each piece of risk information is assigned a value and the amount available is determined based on the total risk value of the collected information. For example, a deposit of over $5000 may have a higher risk value than a smaller deposit amount, as the detected content or data fields, and, as such, may have more restrictions on availability of the full amount.).
Regarding claim 10, Ethington discloses a system, comprising: a memory; and at least one processor coupled to the memory (column 5, lines 5-8, wherein the user 101a may use a desktop computer with a scanner, webcam, camera, video camera, etc. 133a to scan, video, photograph, etc. a digital copy of the check 102.) and configured to: (please refer to the corresponding method claim 1 above for further teachings).
Regarding claims 11-14, please refer to previous rejections of corresponding method claims 2-4 and 7.
Regarding claim 15, in the combination of Ethington and Bueche, Ethington discloses wherein the client device is a mobile client device (column 5, lines 27-29, wherein the user 101b may use a mobile device equipped with a camera 133b to capture a copy of the check, such as a: cellphone, PDA, smartphone, tablet, etc.).
Regarding claim 16, Ethington discloses a non-transitory computer-readable device having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, causes the at least one computing device to perform operations (column 4, lines 54-57, wherein For another example, the user may perform remote deposit by downloading and instantiating the remote deposit software component on their home computer connected to a standard home-use or office-use) comprising: (Please refer to the corresponding method claim 1 for further teachings).
Regarding claims 17-20, please variously refer to corresponding method claims 2-4 and 7.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHERVIN K NAKHJAVAN whose telephone number is (571)272-5731. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00-12:00 PST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sue Lefkowitz can be reached at (571)272-3638. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHERVIN K NAKHJAVAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672