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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 05/20/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s “Amendment” filed on 05/12/2026 has been considered.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, and 20 are amended. Claims 1-20 remain pending in this application and an action on the merits follow.
Applicant' s response by virtue of amendment to claims has overcome the Examiner' s rejection under 35 USC § 112.
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 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 U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2019/0172045 to Dunjic et al., in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0241256 to Caldwell.
With regard to claims 1, 8, and 15, Dunjic discloses a system, comprising:
a payment network comprising a network computer processor executing a network computer program (Fig. 1, paragraph 19, a payment network system 140);
a merchant system comprising a merchant backend, a merchant point of sale device comprising a display, and a merchant content cache (fig. 1, paragraphs 19 and 31, a point-of-sale (POS) terminal 122, an acquirer system 13. POS terminal 122 may, in some instances, include a display unit 127A configured to present interface elements to user 101);
an issuer system for an issuer comprising an issuer backend and an issuer content database (Fig. 1, paragraphs 22 and 52, The payment instrument may, in some instances, be issued to user 101 by a financial institution, e.g., a financial institution that operates issuer system 160 (and/or contextual transaction system 180), and issuer system 160 may perform operations that provide the executable payment application to client device 102 for storage within the one or more tangible, non-transitory memories. payment instrument database 188 may include a data record associated with each payment instrument held by user 101, and each of the discrete data records may include an identifier of the corresponding payment instrument (e.g., a unique alpha-numeric identifier recognized by payment network system 140, issuer system 160, or tokenization system 170) or an element of account data associated with the corresponding payment instrument (e.g., tokenized payment data that masks sensitive elements of actual account data, etc.), along with additional information (e.g., metadata) that identifies characteristics associated with the corresponding payment instrument.); and
a customer electronic device associated with a customer (Fig. 1, a client device 102); wherein:
the network computer program requests content that is specific to one or more payment card issued by the issuer to the customer from the issuer backend (paragraphs 52-56, contextual transaction system 180 may populate the data records of payment instrument database 188 with data received from issuer system 160. Payment instrument database 188 may include structured or unstructured data records identifying and characterizing one or more payment instruments held by each of the participating customers, such as user 101 that operates client device 102. In further examples, the additional data may also information that characterizes a loyalty or rewards program maintained by and associated with the corresponding payment instrument, such as, but not limited to, identifiers of participating merchants, loyalty- or bonus-point allocation schemes (e.g., earning 1.25 bonus points for each $1.00 purchase at Target), and available rewards exchangeable for accrued points (e.g., a $50.00 Visa™ prepaid card in exchange for 3,000 accrued loyalty points). in some examples, each of the data records associated with a corresponding one or more participating customers, such as user 101, may be further associated in payment instrument database 188 with data that uniquely identifies the participating customer (e.g., the authentication credential of user), the data records of rules and preference database 190 may specify a selection of a corresponding one of the payment instruments associated with a loyalty or rewards program maintained by a merchant involved in the expected future occurrence of the transaction. Examiner notes that structured or unstructured data records identifying and characterizing one or more payment instruments and/or a loyalty or rewards program maintained by and associated with the corresponding payment instrument, which is considered as “content that is specific to one or more payment card issued by the issuer”.);
the issuer backend retrieves the content that is specific to the one or more payment cards from the issuer content database and communicates the content that is specific to the one or more payment cards to the network computer program (paragraphs 53-56,78 and 79, contextual transaction system 180 may populate the data records of payment instrument database 188 with data received from issuer system 160, or from one or more client devices operating within environment 100, through a corresponding programmatic interface, such an API, at predetermined intervals or in response to certain events. Selection engine 196 may access rules and preference database 190 (e.g., as maintained locally within one or more tangible, non-transitory memories), and obtain selection data 224 that specifies and characterizes one or more rules or preferences associated with user 101, client device 102, and/or contextual transaction system 180. For example, selection data 224 may identify a preference that a particular payment instrument. selection data 224 may identify and characterize any additional or alternate selection rule or preference appropriate to the payment instruments held by user 101. Examiner notes that the selection data to the payment instruments held by user and/or a loyalty or rewards program maintained by and associated with the corresponding payment instrument, which is considered as “the issuer backend retrieves the content that is specific to the one or more payment cards from the issuer content database and communicates the content that is specific to the one or more payment cards to the network computer program”);
the merchant backend receives payment card information for one of the payment cards from the merchant point of sale device (paragraphs 93-94, In response to the presented interface elements, which may prompt user 101 to provide a payment instrument capable of funding the transaction amount of the initiated transaction, user 101 may dispose client device 102 proximate to POS terminal 122, and interface unit 114 of client device 102 may establish communications channel 120A with POS terminal 12. a payment module 302 of client device 102 may receive input data 201 that identifies the Visa™ credit card selected by user 101 to fund the initiated transaction).
However, Dunjic does not disclose the network computer program receives a location for the customer electronic device; the network computer program determines from the location that the customer is within a predetermined distance of a merchant location for the merchant; the content comprises a graphical image of the payment cards, offers for products, or advertisements; the network computer program communicates the content that is specific to the one or more payment cards to the merchant backend for the merchant; the merchant backend identifies the content that is specific to the respective payment card in the received content; and the merchant backend causes the merchant point of sale device to display the identified content on the display.
However, Caldwell teaches the network computer program receives a location for the customer electronic device (he location module 322 monitors for location data by polling the sensors at periodic intervals for location data. paragraph 175); the network computer program determines from the location that the customer is within a predetermined distance of a merchant location for the merchant ( the location module 322 may select a target location where an offer or other prompt is redeemable and/or may otherwise be used, such as a location associated with a merchant 108 providing the offer, so that the user receives the offer when the user is at or near (e.g., within a selected distance) the location where the offer may be accepted and used. Paragraph 168); the content comprises a graphical image of the payment cards, offers for products, or advertisements (an offer or other prompt selected for a user may include one or more advertisements, coupons, promotions, discounts, rewards, rebates, incentives, and/or other marketing materials. Paragraph 185); the network computer program communicates the content that is specific to the one or more payment cards to the merchant backend for the merchant (The prompt module 324, in one embodiment, may prompt a user (e.g., to use a different funding source, to use the payment module 104, with an offer, or the like) on the hardware payment device 112 (e.g., an electronic display screen of hardware payment terminal 112 or the like). paragraph 180); the merchant backend identifies the content that is specific to the respective payment card in the received content ( the prompt module 324 may present and/or display a prompt is in response to a user attempting payment with a payment card (e.g., a card-based payment source), paragraphs 177 and 180); and the merchant backend causes the merchant point of sale device to display the identified content on the display (The prompt module 324, in one embodiment, may prompt a user (e.g., to use a different funding source, to use the payment module 104, with an offer, or the like) on the hardware payment device 112 (e.g., an electronic display screen of hardware payment terminal 112 or the like). paragraph 180).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Dunjic to include, the network computer program receives a location for the customer electronic device; the network computer program determines from the location that the customer is within a predetermined distance of a merchant location for the merchant; the network computer program communicates the content that is specific to the one or more payment cards to the merchant backend for the merchant; the merchant backend identifies the content that is specific to the respective payment card in the received content; and the merchant backend causes the merchant point of sale device to display the identified content on the display, as taught in Caldwell, in order to compare one or more available offers for a user to determine a benefit of the offers to the user (Caldwell, paragraph 201).
With regard to claims 2, 9, and 16, Dunjic discloses the content that is specific to the respective payment card in the received content is encrypted with a shared secret and a portion of the payment card information, and the merchant backend decrypts the content that is specific to the respective payment card in the received content with the shared secret and the portion of the payment card information (paragraph 41, Cryptographic data 172 may, in some instances, specify one or more private, public, or symmetric cryptographic keys capable of decrypting one or more authorization requests selectively encrypted by POS terminal 122.).
With regard to claims 3, 10, and 17, Dunjic discloses the portion of the payment card information comprises issuer discretionary data for the payment card (paragraph 41 and 88, other sensitive account data that facilitate an authorization, by issuer system 160, of transactions involving the payment instruments. tokenized data 246 may include a digital token that masks all or a portion of the sensitive, underlying account information characterizing the Visa™ credit card, such as, but not limited to, an underlying account number, an expiration date, or a card verification value (CVV). ).
With regard to claims 4, 11, and 18, the combination of references discloses the content that is specific to the respective payment card in the received content comprises interactive content comprising a plurality of options, and the method further comprises: receiving, by the network computer program, a selection of one of the plurality of options from the merchant point of sale device that was selected by the customer; and communicating, by the network computer program, the selection to the issuer backend (Caldwell, paragraphs 179 and 202, in response to a user accepting a prompt from the prompt module 324 to use a different funding source, to use the payment module 104, or the like, the payment module 104 may process the different funding source to complete the transaction. the prompt module 324 may present a plurality of the multiple offers available to the user so that the user may choose to accept one or more of the available offers.).
With regard to claims 5, 12, and 19, the combination of references discloses polling, by the network computer program, the customer electronic device for the location (Caldwell, paragraph 175, the location module 322 monitors for location data by polling the sensors at periodic intervals for location data.).
With regard to claims 6, 13, and 20, the combination of references discloses deleting, by the network computer program, the content that is specific to the respective payment card in the received content after a predetermined condition (Caldwell, paragraph 185, The offer, in some embodiments, may be available to a user in response to the user crossing a geo-fence for a target location. Examiner notes that it’s would be obvious that content in the memory is cleared/removed after a certain period for storage management).
With regard to claims 7 and 14, the combination of references discloses the predetermined condition comprises a time condition or a customer electronic device location condition (Caldwell, paragraphs 172 and 185, the location module 322 may determine a target location based on one or more offers available to a user based on the user's financial transaction data.).
Response to Arguments
Applicants' arguments filed on 05/12/2026 have been fully considered but they are not fully persuasive especially in light of the new prior art applied in the rejections.
Applicants remark that “the combination of references does not disclose content that is specific to one or more payment card issued by an issuer to the customer from an issuer backend for the issuer, wherein the content comprises a graphical image of the payment cards, offers for products, or advertisements; identify the content that is specific to the respective payment card in the received content, and to cause the merchant point of sale device to display the personalized identified content on a display”.
Examiner directs Applicants' attention to the office action above.
Conclusion
Please refer to form 892 for cited references.
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/ARIEL J YU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627
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