DETAILED ACTION
Status of Application
This action is in response to the request for continued examination filed on November 6, 2025.
Claims 1, 8, and 16 have been amended.
Claims 2-7, 9-15, and 17-20 have been canceled.
Claims 21 and 23-33 have been added.
Claims 1, 8, 16, 21, and 23-33 are pending and rejected.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . 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.
Priority
Support for the independent claims could not be found in priority application number 17,587,494 or provisional application number 63/285,063. Therefore, the priority date for the pending claims is May 1, 2024.
Claim Objections
The claims are objected to for the following reason: New claims were added, but the claim numbering skips claim 22. However, claim 23 depends from claim 22. For purposes of examination, claim 23 is interpreted as depending from claim 21 and not claim 22. Appropriate correction is required.
Response to Arguments
Regarding the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101, Applicant argues that “the specification provides sufficient details such that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the claimed invention as providing an improvement.” Remarks at 20. Applicant points to several paragraphs of the Specification and asserts that they “describe the technical problem solved by and the technical solution realized by the claimed invention.” Id. However, these paragraphs describe business problems and business solutions. When viewed individually and as an ordered combination, the claimed additional elements are not improving technology, but instead using existing technology to allegedly improve a business process, i.e., abstract idea. On page 24 of the Remarks, Applicant points to limitations added to the independent claims. These limitations include features such as assigning a first borrowing rate value, transmitting data to a gateway, a threshold value related to risk, generating normalized transaction data, generating reconciled transaction data, generating augmented transaction data, generating a transaction profile, assigning a borrowing rate value, and a discounted interchange rate. These features are all part of the abstract idea and are not providing a technological improvement. Therefore, the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 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, 8, 16, 21, and 23-33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1: Does the Claim Fall within a Statutory Category? (see MPEP 2106.03)
Yes, with respect to claims 1, 21, and 23-25, which recite a data processing system and, therefore, are directed to the statutory class of machine or manufacture.
Yes, with respect to claims 8 and 26-29, which recite a method and, therefore, are directed to the statutory class of process.
Yes, with respect to claims 16 and 30-33, which recite a non-transitory computer readable medium and, therefore, are directed to the statutory class of manufacture.
Step 2A, Prong One: Is a Judicial Exception Recited? (see MPEP 2106.04(a))
The following claims (1, 21, and 23-25 are representative) identify the limitations that recite additional elements in bold and abstract idea in regular text:
1. A data processing system for reconciling financial data, the system comprising a computing device including a processor, a database, and a memory, the memory storing instructions operative by the processor to:
extract, from a plurality of sets of transaction data, a plurality of raw data fields associated with a plurality of categories of transaction data, wherein:
a first credit server associated with a first credit provider is configured to generate a first risk profile based on a first transaction profile associated with a first credit transaction, the first transaction profile including un-formatted data associated with the first credit transaction,
the first credit server is further configured to assign a first borrowing rate value to the first credit transaction based on the first risk profile, and transmit the first borrowing rate to a first payment gateway,
the first payment gateway is configured to execute the first credit transaction based on the first borrowing rate,
the first borrowing rate is above a threshold value, such that the first risk profile is not associated with level three data,
the plurality of sets of transaction data includes at least a first set of raw transaction data received from a financial platform via a first application programming interface (API) and a second set of raw transaction data associated with a plurality of credit providers including the first credit provider,
the second set of raw transaction data is received via a first plurality of APIs associated with each of the plurality of credit providers, and
the second set of raw transaction data includes the first transaction profile and an identification associated with each of the plurality of credit providers;
generate a set of normalized transaction data, the set of normalized transaction data including a plurality of sets of normalized data having a plurality of normalized data fields each corresponding to a raw data field of the plurality of raw data fields, wherein generating each of the plurality of normalized data field includes:
determining, for a raw data field, a category of the plurality of categories of transaction data,
based on the category, selecting a first one or more normalization functions from a plurality of normalization functions stored in the database, wherein the database includes an external server of publicly available data received via a second plurality of APIs, and
applying each of the first one or more normalization functions to the raw data field in order to generate a normalized data field of the plurality of normalized data fields;
store the set of normalized transaction data in the database;
generate reconciled transaction data by reconciling the plurality of sets of normalized transaction data, the reconciled transaction data having a plurality of reconciled data fields each corresponding to a normalized data field of the plurality of normalized data fields;
store the reconciled transaction data in the database;
receive a request from the financial platform to transmit transaction data to a second credit provider of the at least one credit provider;
in response to the request, generate a set of augmented transaction data, wherein generating the set of augmented transaction data includes:
selecting reconciled transaction data that is associated with an identification of the second credit provider of the one or more identifications,
normalizing the selected reconciled transaction data, wherein normalizing the selected reconciled transaction data includes, for each reconciled data field of the selected transaction data:
determining, for the reconciled data field, a category of the plurality of categories of transaction data;
determining, for the reconciled data field, and based on the identification of the second credit provider, that the data is associated with the second credit provider of the plurality of credit providers;
based on the category and the identification of the second credit provider, selecting a second one or more normalization functions from the plurality of normalization functions stored in the database, wherein the second one or more normalization functions is different than the first one or more normalization functions; and
applying each of the second one or more normalization functions to the reconciled data field,
selecting, based on the identification of the second credit provider, one or more pre-stored data fields from the database, wherein at least a portion of the pre-stored data fields selected from the database is selected from the external server of publicly available data, and
augmenting the one or more pre-stored data fields onto the selected reconciled transaction data; and
transmit the set of augmented transaction data to the second credit provider,
wherein a second credit server associated with the second credit provider is configured to:
generate a second transaction profile associated with a second transaction, the second transaction profile including the set of augmented transaction data,
generate a second risk profile based on the second transaction profile,
assign a second borrowing rate value to the second credit transaction based on the second risk profile, and
transmit the second borrowing rate value to a second payment gateway,
wherein the second payment gateway is configured to execute the second credit transaction based on the second borrowing rate,
wherein the second borrowing rate is below the threshold value, such that the second risk profile is associated with level three data,
wherein the second credit transaction includes a discounted interchange rate relative to the first credit transaction, and
wherein the plurality of normalization functions includes:
a decimal place normalization function,
a data type normalization function,
a formatting normalization function,
a z-score normalization function,
a linear normalization function,
a clipping normalization function, and
a standard deviation normalization function.
2. The data processing system of claim 1, wherein the database includes an external server of publicly available data, and wherein at least a portion of the pre-stored data fields selected from the database is selected from the external server of publicly available data.
3. The data processing system of claim 2, wherein the plurality of sets of transaction data is associated with an initial risk profile with respect to each of the at least one credit provider, wherein the set of augmented transaction data is associated with a secondary risk profile, and wherein the secondary risk profile associated with the set of augmented transaction data is operable to be computed by the credit provider as level three transaction data.
4. The data processing system of claim 3, wherein the secondary risk profile associated with the set of augmented transaction data is operable to be computed by the credit provider under a discounted interchange rate.
6. The data processing system of claim 4, wherein the one or more credit providers includes a plurality of credit providers.
21. The system of claim 1, wherein a first user interface associated with the first payment gateway located at a first location of a first merchant is configured to receive a first user input from a purchaser to initiate the first credit transaction at a first time, and
wherein the first payment gateway is configured to initiate the first credit transaction in response to the first user input.
23. The system of claim 22, wherein the first payment gateway is configured to provide a first notification to the purchaser that the first credit transaction has been executed, and
wherein the first notification includes an indication of the first borrowing rate.
24. The system of claim 23, wherein a second user interface associated with the second payment gateway located at a second location of a second merchant different than the first merchant is configured to receive a second user input from the purchaser to initiate a second credit transaction at a second time later than the first time, and
wherein the first payment gateway is configured to initiate the first credit transaction in response to the first user input.
25. The system of claim 24, wherein the second user interface is configured to provide a second notification to the purchaser that the second credit transaction has been executed, and
wherein the second notification includes an indication of the second borrowing rate and a confirmation that the second credit transaction included the discounted interchange rate.
Yes. But for the recited additional elements as shown above in bold, the remaining limitations of the claims recite certain methods of organizing human activity. The claims are directed to generating normalized transaction data, reconciled transaction data, and augmented transaction data, and executing transactions. This type of method of organizing human activity is a fundamental economic principle or practice because it involves transactions and mitigating risk and it is a commercial interaction since it involves sales activities or behaviors and business relations. Thus, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A, Prong Two: Is the Abstract Idea Integrated into a Practical Application? (see MPEP 2106.04(d))
No. The claims as a whole merely use a computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea. The computing components (i.e., additional elements that are in bold above) are recited at a high level of generality and are merely invoked as a tool to perform the abstract idea. For example, the claimed computing device is claimed at a high level and is being used as a tool to implement the abstract idea. Simply implementing the abstract idea using generic computers or devices is not a practical application of the abstract idea. Additionally, here there is no improvement to the functioning of a computer or technology. Therefore, the abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application.
Step 2B: Does the Claim Provide an Inventive Concept? (see MPEP 2106.05)
No. As discussed with respect to Step 2A, Prong 2, the additional elements in the claims, both individually and in combination, amount to no more than tools to perform the abstract idea. Merely performing the abstract idea using a computer cannot provide an inventive concept. Therefore, the claims do not provide an inventive concept.
As such, the claims are not patent eligible.
Relevant Prior Art
Manish. “Different Normalization Methods,” https://medium.com/@mkc940/different-normalization-methods-a1be71fe9f1 (Mar. 24, 2022). This reference discusses the seven core data normalization techniques, which include decimal place, data type, formatting, z-score, linear, clipping, and standard deviation.
Viriyavaree, Songkun. “A Deep Dive into Agoda’s Generic Reconciliation Platform,” https://medium.com/agoda-engineering/a-deep-dive-into-agodas-generic-reconciliation-platform-06cab9a98145 (Jan. 25, 2024). This reference discusses transaction data reconciliation.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ELIZABETH H ROSEN whose telephone number is (571) 270-1850 and email address is elizabeth.rosen@uspto.gov. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 10 AM ET - 7 PM ET.
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/ELIZABETH H ROSEN/Primary Examiner, 3693