DETAILED ACTION
The following NON-FINAL Office action is in response to Application filed on May 1, 2024 for application 18652116
Acknowledgements
Species A – (Claims 1-15 have been elected with traverse).
Claims 1-15 are pending.
Claims 1-15 have been examined.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after December 13, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 16-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 09/05/2025.
Applicant's election with traverse of Invention A (claims 1-15) in the reply filed on 01/26/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that on the basis that if the search and examination of an entire application can be made without serious burden, the claims must be examined on the merits. This is not found persuasive because claim 16 belongs to a different species described in paragraphs [0004] and [0044], of the original specification in which another implementation/embodiment is described where a verification system initiates a microdeposit using an identifier associated with the account and causes a device to transmit a prompt for a code.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
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 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
In the instant case, claims 1-8 are directed to a system and claims 9-15 are directed to a method. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
The claims recite validating accounts which is an abstract idea. Specifically, the claim recites “receiving a request to validate an account; initiate a microdeposit using an electronic rail, wherein the microdeposit is associated with a description that includes a sequence of characters set off from remaining characters in the description; receive an indication of a code associated with the microdeposit; and validate the account based on the code matching the sequence of characters.” which is grouped within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test, classified under “fundamental economic principles or practices”, specifically “mitigating risk” as part of a transaction (See MPEP 2106, specifically 2106.04(a)) because – for example, in this case, the claims involve a series of steps for verifying accounts based on the code (received from the user device) and the sequence of characters (associated with the microdeposit) by matching the code with the sequence of characters. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea (See MPEP 2106, specifically 2106.04(a)).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106.04(d)), the additional elements of the claims such as a system comprising one or more memories and one or more processors and user device merely involves using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea and/or generally links the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment. The use of “a system comprising one or more memories and one or more processors and user device” to implement the abstract idea and/or generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment] does not render the claim patent eligible because it requires no more than a computer performing functions that correspond to acts required to carry out the abstract idea. Specifically, the “system comprising one or more memories and one or more processors and user device” perform the steps or functions of “receiving a request to validate an account; initiate a microdeposit using an electronic rail, wherein the microdeposit is associated with a description that includes a sequence of characters set off from remaining characters in the description; receive an indication of a code associated with the microdeposit; and validate the account based on the code matching the sequence of characters”. The additional claim elements are not indicative of integration into a practical application, because the claims do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), the claims do not apply the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)), the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (MPEP 2106.05(c)), and the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo). Therefore, the claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106, specifically 2106.05), the additional elements of “system comprising one or more memories and one or more processors and user device” to automate and/or implement the abstract idea of validating accounts. As discussed above, taking the claim elements separately “system comprising one or more memories and one or more processors and user device” perform the steps of Claim 1. These functions correspond to the actions required to perform the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the concept of validating accounts. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. The use of “system comprising one or more memories and one or more processors and user device” to merely automate and/or implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Dependent claims further describe details of the human-readable description comprising a sequence of characters and 3-letter code being used to validate the account on an electronic rail. The dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35
U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of application for patent in the United States.
Claims 1-4, 6-12 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 as being unpatentable over Bajan (US 10,282,714 B2)
Regarding Claims 1 and 9, Bajan discloses a system for account verification with microdeposits, the system comprising: one or more memories; and one or more processors, communicatively coupled to the one or more memories, configured to (Col. 6 lines 14-18):
receive, from a user device, a request to validate an account (Col. 2 lines 30-53, Col. 2 lines 61-66)
initiate a microdeposit using an electronic rail, wherein the microdeposit is associated with a description that includes a sequence of characters set off from remaining characters in the description (Col. 3 lines 1-12)
receive, from the user device, an indication of a code associated with the microdeposit; and (Col. 3 lines 13-27, Col. 5 lines 29-41)
validate the account based on the code matching the sequence of characters (Col. 3 lines 28-30, Col. 5 lines 42-49)
Regarding Claim 2, Bajan discloses wherein the sequence of characters includes a human-readable description (Col. 3 lines 13-21)
Regarding Claim 3, Bajan discloses wherein the sequence of characters comprises a three-letter code (Col. 3 lines 1-13)
Regarding Claims 4 and 12, Bajan discloses wherein the sequence of characters includes a leading character (Col. 3 lines 1-13).
Regarding Claim 6, Bajan discloses wherein the request to validate the account includes an identifier associated with the account (claims 9 and 10)
Regarding Claim 7, Bajan discloses wherein the request to validate the account indicates an institution associated with the account (Col. 2 lines 30-39)
Regarding Claim 8, Bajan discloses wherein the electronic rail is associated with immediate delivery (Col. 3 lines 1-12)
Regarding Claim 10, Bajan discloses transmitting, to the user device, instructions for at least one user interface (UI), wherein the request to the validate the account is received using the at least one UI (Col. 4 line 1-2)
Regarding Claim 11, Bajan discloses wherein the human-readable description comprises a sequence of characters set off from a larger description associated with the microdeposit (Col. 3 lines 13-21)
Regarding Claim 14, Bajan discloses wherein the sequence of characters are set off using at least one trailing character (Col. 3 lines 1-12)
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 of this title, 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 5 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bajan in further view of Furtuna et al. (US 2021/0358249 A1).
Regarding Claims 5 and 13, Bajan does not disclose wherein the leading character comprises a pound symbol.
Furtuna however disclose: wherein the leading character comprises a pound symbol (¶0027).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to modify the method of Bajan to include wherein the leading character comprises a pound symbol, as disclosed in Furtuna, in order to provide a system that compares the data sequence input to one or more sequence templates to determine a matching sequence template (see Furtuna abstract).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bajan in further view of GURZ et al. (US 2015/0213418 A1).
Regarding Claim 15, Bajan does not disclose wherein the at least one trailing character includes a space.
GURZ however discloses wherein the at least one trailing character includes a space (¶0025).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to modify the method of Bajan to include wherein the at least one trailing character includes a space, as disclosed in GURZ, in order to provide a system for verifying ACH data for a proposed ACH transaction (see GURZ abstract).
Conclusion
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/ZEHRA RAZA/Examiner, Art Unit 3697
/JOHN W HAYES/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3697