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 .
This communication is in response to Applicant’s request for continued examination, filed on April 14, 2026.
The new information disclosure statements filed on April 14,2026 has been considered.
Claims 2-8, and 10-13 are pending while all other claims are cancelled.
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 allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). 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, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on April 14, 2026 has been entered.
Specification
The Specification is objected because it seems not all prior related applications are listed in accordance with the cross-references to related applications requirement under 37 CFR 1.78 and MPEP § 211 et seq. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
Claims 2-8, and 10-13 are objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 2 recites “…causing an electronic command to be transmitted to the payment accepting machine, the electronic command including one or more time-dependent and payment accepting machine-dependent conditions, wherein a first of the one or more time-dependent and payment accepting machine-dependent conditions comprises a predefined time or time period by which the cash payment must be made by the payment accepting machine…” emphasis added.
The claim limitation at issue recites intended use language and conditional language as well. In order to overcome the issues, the limitation should instead recite “… transmitting
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the claim limitation at issue could be deemed as never occurring, which would raise other issues linked to 35 U.S.C. 101 and 35 U.S.C 102/103. The above provided amendment would overcome all the issues.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 2-8, and 10-13 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.
Per claim 2, the claim recites:
“…causing an electronic command to be transmitted to the payment accepting machine, the electronic command including one or more time-dependent and payment accepting machine-dependent conditions, wherein a first of the one or more time-dependent and payment accepting machine-dependent conditions comprises a predefined time or time period by which the cash payment must be made by the payment accepting machine;
displaying the one or more time-dependent and payment accepting machine- dependent conditions on a display of the mobile device;
at the payment accepting machine:
receiving the electronic command and the one or more time-dependent and payment accepting machine-dependent conditions;
processing the electronic command within a control loop of the payment accepting machine that monitors messages transmitted over a multi-drop bus (MDB) of the payment accepting machine;
determining that the one or more time-dependent and payment accepting machine-dependent conditions are met based on state information derived from the monitored MDB messages; and
in response to the determination that the one or more time-dependent and payment accepting machine-dependent conditions are met, issuing the cash payment via a payment peripheral controlled through the MDB.”
Emphasis added.
The above emphasized portions are directed to the one or more time-dependent and payment accepting machine-dependent conditions. It’s clear that the limitations in the claims are focused on not a single condition but two conditions. The first condition being (1) a time-dependent condition and the second condition being (2) a machine-dependent condition. The terms “one or more” suggest that at least a single condition of the recited two different conditions (both 1 and 2 above) must be utilized. However, the limitations that follow in the claim only focus on a determination of validation of the first condition; (1). Condition (2) is not displayed nor is it determined to be met. See emphasized portions after the first highlighted causing limitation.
Paragraph 0277 and other portions of the specification describe that there are two conditions that must be determined valid before a cash payment is issued. For example, a user has to press a button or enter a code within a certain time period. The claims mention the two conditions but only determine/analyze the first condition (1) that is linked to a time condition (“a predefined time or time period by which the cash payment must be made”).
As a result, the claimed scope is not supported by the specification. A person of ordinary skill in the art would not know how to send two conditions but only define 1 of the 2 conditions, display the conditions without knowing what the second condition is and then somehow determine that both conditions are valid when only 1 of the 2 conditions are analyzed. Therefore, the claim and all dependent claims are rejected.
To overcome the rejection, Applicant can amend the claim to provide a generalized second condition similar to how the first condition is defined. The claims must provide some level of definition of the second condition that is different than the first condition and that the received command meets not only the time-dependent first condition but also the, yet to be defined, payment accepting machine-dependent condition(s). Once the above is accomplished, the processing limitation and the determining limitation can be carried out, wherein the determination of the time-dependent condition and the second, yet to be defined, condition are met; emphasis added.
Claims Allowable Over Prior Art
Under 35 U.S.C. 102/103, the claims are deemed novel based on the claim amendments suggested above, which clarify the scope of the claims by positively reciting all limitations and describing, with some detail, the second condition of the two recited conditions required to issue the cash payment.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2014/0143137 to Carlson teaches all claimed three entities, as noted above. Carlson teaches that devices can be paired through a trusted intermediary to carry out a transaction. The transaction can be between a user device, a server, and a vending machine. Per Carlson, the user device first provides transaction details to the trusted device 120 to initiate a transaction request. The user has now received confirmation from both the trusted intermediary computer 150 as well as the untrusted device 130 that their trusted device 120 is paired. Accordingly, the consumer may now be shown a number of options for performing a transaction or other actions with the untrusted device 130. The options provided by the trusted intermediary computer 150 application may be determined by information included in the pairing confirmation message. For example, the trusted intermediary computer may include a transaction template or transaction template identifier in the pairing confirmation that includes the appropriate transaction request possibilities associated with the untrusted device controller 140 that is indirectly paired with the trusted device 120. Accordingly, the trusted device 120 may display a transaction template associated with the available transaction requests available to the user. Alternatively, the user may be provided with a generic transaction request for any transaction and the user may enter the transaction information to provide information regarding the type of transaction. The transaction details may include any relevant information to a transaction or action that the user may request. For example, the transaction details may include a type of transaction (e.g., ATM, purchase, entry to secure area, etc.), a quantity, a transaction value or price, a product identifier, an account identifier or account selection, or any other relevant information depending on the type of transaction or action being request. the trusted device 120 may generate a transaction request based on the provided transaction details and send the transaction request (or other command request) to the trusted intermediary computer 150. As explained above, the contents of the transaction request may depend on the configuration and type of entity being used as the trusted intermediary computer 150. For example, in some embodiments, a trusted intermediary computer 150 may store consumer details including financial information and other sensitive information in a user information database 152 at the trusted intermediary computer 150 and thus, the transaction request may merely include an account designation that corresponds to a enrolled user identifier or trusted device identifier (e.g., a username, device serial number, or phone number), an transaction type (e.g., withdraw or transfer), an account type (e.g., checking, savings, etc.), and an amount (e.g., $100). This type of transaction may take place in a single step, for example, the consumer may provide the pairing identifier along with a transaction amount, and the trusted intermediary computer 150 may accomplish the rest. Further, some embodiments may not include the pairing identifier in the transaction request and instead the trusted device identifier may be included (e.g., if the trusted device identifier is associated with the pairing identifier at the pairing identifiers database 151 of the trusted intermediary computer 150). Once the trusted party sends the transaction request to the untrusted device, and the untrusted device provides the funds to the user without the user having to communication with the device or input any other information into the device. The above is contrary to the claimed architecture even though the scope of the claims are similar to those of the teachings of Carlson.
Further search results, including non-patent literature and foreign references were considered. However, the references fail to explicitly teach the claimed scope or deem it obvious in combination. For instance, cited non-patent literature titled Design and Implementation of Automatic Vending Machine Based on the Short Massage Payment by Zhang et al. teaches design of vending machine based on the short massage payment with the main control module M68HC11 and GPRS module MC35 has been illustrated. This paper describes the working program of the system and especially the MDB bus and photoelectric conversing circuit and MC35 module are presented. A structure of vending machine is designed, the hardware ideas of bus conversion interface, the software protocol rules based on AT command and the way to use short message payment.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2017/0178116 to Savolainen teaches a first data store, which includes a user device profile for a user device, the user device profile including routing data for routing communications to the user device. Upon receiving a payment request designating a user device for a transaction with a merchant, the remote transaction processing system is arranged to retrieve a Point-of-Sale, PoS, configuration profile corresponding to the merchant and retrieve the user device profile from the first data store corresponding to the designated user device. The remote transaction processing system is arranged to communicate a PoS configuration dependent on the PoS configuration profile to the user device in dependence on the routing data, the PoS configuration being executable by the user device to cause the user device to act as a PoS terminal for the transaction with the merchant.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2016/0012465 to Jeffrey teaches system for performing various methods of sending, receiving, distributing, and utilizing funds and/or credits is disclosed. In many embodiments, various communications platforms and/or protocols may be employed. Methods of sending funds or credits may be practiced in different environments, including physical and electronic environments. According to some preferred embodiments, users may perform a variety of transactions including various gifting functions, re-gifting functions, and social interactions simply, through various types of electronic communications, including, but not limited to electronic messaging.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is listed on for PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EL MEHDI OUSSIR whose telephone number is (571)270-0191. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM - 5PM.
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Sincerely,
/EL MEHDI OUSSIR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3699
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