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
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/02/2026 has been entered.
Claims 1, 8 & 15 being independent while 2-7, 9-14 & 16-20 are dependent claims.
Claim 1 has been amended.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 01/02/2026 have been fully considered but are not persuasive. The rejection under 35 USC 101 is maintained.
With respect to Step 2A, Prong One, Applicant does not present arguments. The claim remains directed to a judicial exception, including mental processes and certain methods of organizing human activity, as set forth in the prior Office Action.
With respect to Step 2A, Prong Two, Applicant argues that the claims integrate the alleged abstract idea into a practical application by improving fraud detection using device and session attributes and by restarting a transaction based on a shift in financial liability. This argument is not persuasive. The claimed use of session attribute data (e.g., IP address, user language) and device attribute data (e.g., screen resolution) represents the use of data for comparison and decision-making, which is itself abstract. the claimed steps identifying mismatches and triggering a challenge-response verification merely apply the abstract idea using generic computer functionality.
Furthermore, the “restarting” of the transaction based on a business-related determination (i.e., a shift fo financial liability), as reflected in the amendments, does not reflect an improvement to computer functionality, network operation, or authentication technology itself, but rather represents a business or transactional decision implementing using conventional computer operations. Restarting or resuming a transaction with previously available information constitutes transaction management and data reuse within the abstract idea, not a technological improvement in how computers store, transmit, authenticate, or process data. Any alleged benefit such as reduced user re-entry, saved time, or improved convenience arises from using the abstract decision in a transactional context, rather than from any technical improvement to the computer or network itself. The claim does not recite any specialized restart protocol, modification to handling, or other technical mechanism by which the restarting is performed. Accordingly, the restarting limitation amounts to no more than routine and conventional use of generic computer components and does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Further, preserving previously entered transaction information during continuation of a workflow is a conventional data-handling consequence of generic computer implementation, not a specific improvement to computer technology.
The claim does not recite any modification to how data is transmitted, how networks operate, or how authentication protocols are technically performed. Instead, the claim relies on existing computer technology to execute the abstract idea.
Applicant’s argument that the claimed invention improves computer-related technology, including fraud detection and network efficiency, is also not persuasive. Any alleged improvement arises from improved decision-making based on data analysis, rather than an improvement to the functioning of the computer or network itself. The claim does not recite any specific improvement to data structures, memory operations, communication protocols, or system architecture. Rather, it uses conventional components to collect and analyze information and to transmit results. Accordingly, the claim does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
With respect to Step 2B, Applicant does not present arguments. The additional elements remain well-understood, routine, and conventional as previously explained, and do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
For the above reasoning, the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection of the claims is maintained.
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 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims do fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because independent claim 1 is directed to a process, claim 8 is directed to a system, and claim 15 is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable device; Step 1-yes.
Under Step 2A, Prong 1, representative claim 1 recites a series of steps for shifting fraud liability, i.e. sales activities or behaviors, and thus grouped as “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity”. The claim as a whole and the limitations in combination recite this abstract idea. Specifically, the limitations of representative claim 1, stripped of all additional elements, recite the abstract idea as follows:
A computer implemented method, comprising:
receiving a request to authorize an online transaction identifying an account holder and a web-client attribute corresponding to a web-client requesting the online transaction, wherein the web-application attribute is a session attribute or a device attribute;
identifying a digital wallet comprising the session attribute data and device attribute data corresponding to the account holder identified in the request;
determining that the web-client attribute does not match the attribute information included in the digital wallet;
in response to determining that the web-client attribute does not match the attribute information included in the digital wallet:
transmitting a challenge prompt to verify the authenticity of the digital wallet for display to the account holder on the web-client;
receiving challenge answer data responsive to the challenge prompt;
verifying that the challenge answer data satisfies the challenge prompt; and
in response to the verifying, transmitting a notification indicating a shift of financial liability for the online transaction from the merchant to the account issuer; and
restarting the transaction wherein the digital wallet comprising the session attribute data and the device attribute data corresponding to the account holder identified in the request must match the web-client attribute data corresponding to the web-client in the restarted transaction.
The claimed limitations, identified above, recite a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of a commercial or legal interaction, but for the recitation of generic computer components. There is nothing in the claim element which takes the steps out of the methods of organizing human activity abstract idea grouping. Thus, claim 1 recites an abstract idea.
Under step 2A, Prong 2, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim only recites using generic, commercially available, off-the-shelf computing devices, i.e. processors suitably programmed communicating over a generic network, to perform the steps of receiving, identifying, determining, transmitting and verifying data. The computer components (i.e. an application programming interface (API) associated with an account issuer system, server and communication network) are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e. as generic processors with memory suitably programmed communication information over a generic network, see at least paragraphs 11-19, 22, 24, 47, 50-52, 61 & 65 of the specifications) such that it amounts no more than adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea, see MPEP 2106.05(f) and generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, see MPEP 2106.05(h). Furthermore, the steps of “receiving, at an account issuer system from a merchant system, a request to authorize an online transaction …”, “transmitting, by the account issuer system, a challenge prompt …”, “receiving, by the account issuer system and from the merchant system…” and “transmitting, by the account issuer system, a notification from the account issuer …” are considered adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception, see MPEP 2106.05(g). Accordingly, the additional elements claimed do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Claims 1, 8 & 15 are directed to an abstract idea.
Under Step 2B, the claim does not include additional elements, i.e. “an account issuer system”, “a merchant system” and “application programming interface” that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of using generic computer processors with memory suitably programmed communicating over a generic network to perform the limitation steps amounts no more than adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea, see MPEP 2106.05(f) and generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, see MPEP 2106.05(h). Furthermore, the steps of “receiving, at an account issuer system from a merchant system, a request to authorize an online transaction …”, “transmitting, by the account issuer system, a challenge prompt …”, “receiving, by the account issuer system and from the merchant system…” and “transmitting, by the account issuer system, a notification from the account issuer …” are considered adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception, see MPEP 2106.05(g). Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components interacting in a conventional manner cannot provide an inventive concept. Claims 1, 8 & 15 are not patent eligible.
Applicant has leveraged generic computing elements to perform the abstract idea of without significantly more. The dependent claims 2-7, 9-14 & 16-20 when analyzed as a whole an in an ordered combination are held to be patent ineligible under 35 USC 101 because the additional recited limitations fail to establish that the claims are not directed to an abstract idea. The additional recited limitations in the dependent claims only refine the abstract idea. Further refinement of an abstract idea does not convert an abstract idea into something concrete.
The claims merely amount to the application or instructions to apply the abstract idea (i.e. a series for shifting fraud liability) on one or more computers, and are considered to amount to nothing more than requiring a generic computer system (e.g. processors suitably programmed and communicating over a network) to merely carry out the abstract idea itself. As such, the claims, when considered as a whole, are nothing more than the instruction to implement the abstract idea (i.e. a series for shifting fraud liability) in a particular, albeit well-understood, routine and conventional technological environment.
Accordingly, the Examiner concludes that there are no meaningful limitations in the claims that transform the judicial exception into a patent eligible application such that the claims amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself or integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Conclusion
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/T.P.K./Examiner, Art Unit 3696
/MATTHEW S GART/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3696