DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to the after final amendment filed 12/23/25 in which claims 1, 8, 15, 20 were amended, claims 18, 19 were canceled, and claims 22, 23 were newly presented. Claims 1-15, 17, 20-23 are currently pending.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/23/25 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1 and 8 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15, 17, 20, and 21 are allowed.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or non-obviousness.
Claims 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hwu (US 8,554,645 B1; patented Oct. 8, 2013) in view of Grajek (US 2014/0082715 A1; published Mar. 20, 2014) and Ford (US 2015/0205936 A1; published Jul. 23, 2015).
Regarding claim 1, Hwu discloses [a] system, comprising:
a computing device comprising a processor and a memory; and (fig. 1 (CPU 121, memory 124))
machine-readable instructions stored in the memory that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to at least: (fig. 1 (on-line financial management system 123))
register, in a user account, a linked provider in association with an automatic submission criterion and a submission template for a provider service of the linked provider, the submission template specifying how to complete submissions for the provider service, (13:25—35 (“In one embodiment, on-line financial management system 123 includes any on-line financial management system such as, but not limited to: an on-line personal financial management system; an on-line business financial management system; an on-line personal accounting system; an on-line business accounting system; an on-line tax preparation and/or management system; an on-line healthcare management system; or any other an on-line personal and/or business data management system, as discussed herein, and/or as known in the art at the time of filing, and/or as developed after the time of filing.”), 9:55—60 (“In one embodiment, data representing electronic versions of one or more forms [submission template] associated with the reporting requirements [automatic submission criterion] for the specific jurisdiction and/or agency [linked provider] is obtained and stored.”)) the automatic submission criterion comprising a merchant identifier for identifying a respective merchant in a respective transaction record and the automatic submission criterion being linked to the submission template (8:9-16 (“In one embodiment, the financial transaction data [respective transaction record] associated with the business is analyzed by one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems using at least part of the current vendor reporting requirement data to try and identify/match one or more vendors [merchant identifier for identifying a respective merchant] used by the business that are Subject to the reporting requirement and therefore require the preparation and Submission of one or more of the one or more forms [submission template] associated with the reporting requirement.”)).
Hwu does not expressly disclose:
receive, from the provider service, a request to authenticate a user identity; (but see Grajek ¶ 47 (“Enterprise services, which are provided by enterprise servers 103 a to 103 n at the application layer, provide client apps access to enterprise databases and web servers information through TCP/IP networking or other OSI layer 3 networking. Examples of such services include calendaring, email, document management, file services, or any other application that uses a client/server architecture. Enterprise services usually accept authenticated identities from client apps that are associated with the same enterprise. For example, if Company.com used enterprise service servers 103 a to 103 n to provide network-based application services for its customers and employees, employee “John Smith” at Company.com can use his user profile information stored in identity database 104 n to obtain authentication credentials from the enterprise authentication appliance 102. After the user's client app on the mobile device acquires these credentials, typically in the form of storable token(s) or identities, the credentials are presented to the enterprise server providing the desired service, for example, 103 a.”))
transmit, to the provider service, an authentication token that is stored in the user account to authenticate the user identity; (but see Grajek ¶ 54 (“Before accessing the server, the authentication module may obtain authentication credentials to present to the server for access. Such credentials can be in the form of a client app identity 607, as depicted in FIG. 6. Such a client app identity 607 often comprises user identity information to identify the user to the server, such as a username and/or company/enterprise name, along with any other attributes that the particular server may require (name, email, authentication authority, groups, authorization info, etc.). A client app identity may also contain a cryptographic signature.”), ¶ 55 (“As shown in FIG. 2, the authentication module and/or client app may search for a previously stored client app identity. Well known search techniques may be used to find such identities based on a variety of criteria. Identities may be stored directly in memory, or in more complex data structures such as a relational database. The search may be accessing a known memory location that stores any identities that can be used with the client app, or as complex as searching a database based for a specific identity based on a specific user, credential domain, and/or network-based application resource to be accessed, among other characteristics.”), ¶ 70 (“As described above, in some embodiments, the authentication appliance may also create an affiliated session token (such as an HTML4 cookie and/or HTML5 object) that is associated with the current UserID and the persistent token. This token may only be valid for the current browser session. It allows the authentication appliance to merely check that a valid session is active instead of rechecking the persistent token each time access is requested for a new application, so long as the request occurs within the same browser session.”), ¶ 87 (“If validation and verification is successful, the authentication appliance 102 may generate a new client app identity [authentication token] that will be sent to the client app 111a which can be used to gain access to the desired enterprise service server 103n as described for FIG. 2.”) (Fig. 2 illustrates that the user client app identity is transmitted to the enterprise service server 103n)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Grajek to authenticate the user using an authentication appliance, at least because doing so would allow users and/or devices to authenticate prior to gaining access to network services. Grajek ¶ 46.
Hwu further discloses receive, in association with the user account, a transaction record comprising transaction data; and (6:37—38 (“In one embodiment, data representing electronic versions of one or more forms associated with the reporting requirements for the specific jurisdiction and/or agency is obtained and stored.”), 8:28—39 (“In one embodiment: financial transaction data associated with the business that is related to the identified subject vendors, such as the actual amount spent with the subject vendors, dates of the transactions, and/or items purchased; identification data associated with the subject vendors, such as the subject vendor's EIN/SSN or tax ID number; contact data associated with the subject vendors; contact data associated with any required reporting agency; and data representing the one or more required forms, is automatically gathered and correlated to the respective identified subject vendors using one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems.”))
in an instance in which the automatic submission criterion matches the transaction record, complete and transmit a submission to the provider service on behalf of the user identity…, wherein the submission is completed according to the submission template and based at least in part on the transaction data (3:17-38 (“Consequently, using the method and system for determining business expenditures with vendors and automatically generating and submitting required forms, as discussed herein, the business owner [user identity] is spared the considerable burden and use of resources currently required for: tracking expenditures with all vendors; identifying subject vendors with which the business spends some threshold amount, or more; obtaining the proper identification and contact information for each subject vendor, such as the subject vendor's EIN/SSN number; gathering the expenditure data associated with all the subject vendors; obtaining the appropriate one or more forms required; using the expenditure data to fill out one or more required forms, for each subject vendor; submitting the required forms to the each subject vendor and/or the proper agency; and then creating and retaining proof of these actions for each subject vendor. As a result, using the method and system for determining business expenditures with vendors and automatically generating and submitting required forms, as discussed herein, a business owner can devote these saved resources to creating a more efficient and profitable business, thereby benefitting both the business and the economy as a whole.”), 8:8-16 (“In one embodiment, the financial transaction data associated with the business is analyzed by one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems using at least part of the current vendor reporting requirement data to try and identify/match one or more vendors used by the business [on behalf of the user identity] that are subject to the reporting requirement and therefore require the preparation and submission of one or more of the one or more forms associated with the reporting requirement.”), 8:62—9:6 (“In one embodiment: the financial transaction data associated with the business that is related to the identified subject vendors, such as the actual amount spent with the subject vendors, dates of the transactions, and/or items purchased; the identification data associated with the subject vendors, such as the subject vendor's EIN/SSN or tax ID number; the contact data associated with the subject vendors; and the contact data associated with any required reporting agency is used to automatically fill out, i.e., “auto-fill” the one or more required forms for each identified subject vendor; thereby transforming the one or more required forms into filled out, or completed, or partially completed, forms.”), 9:23-29 (“In one embodiment, the auto-filled forms associated with the reporting requirement for each of the identified subject vendors are then automatically, or semi-automatically, sent to the respective vendors, and/or the appropriate reporting agency, using the identification data associated with subject vendors and the data representing current vendor reporting requirements.”)). Hwu does not expressly disclose that the auto-filled forms submitted on behalf of the business owner to the appropriate reporting agency are submitted based at least in part on the authentication of the user identity using the authentication token (but see Ford ¶ 55 (“Referring now to FIGS. 3-6, in use, the prescription management server 102 may execute a method 300 for managing a drug prescription of a user. The method 300 begins with block 302 in which the prescription management server 102 completes a user login [authentication token]. That is, a user of the client computing device 104 (i.e., a patient) may log into the prescription management server 102 by submitting login information. In this way, identification information associated with the user may be maintained by the prescription management server 102, rather than requested by the prescription management server 102 periodically. If the user is a new user, the user may register with the prescription management server 102 in block 304. In such a registration process, the user may provide user identification information (e.g., user name, user address, etc.), insurance payer information (insurance policy number, insurance payer name, etc.), drug prescription information, and/or other information such that the user is not required to repeatedly provide such information to the prescription management server 102.”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Ford to use identification information associated with the business owner and maintained by the system to authenticate the business when submitting the auto-filled forms to the appropriate reporting agency, at least because doing so that the user is not required to repeatedly provide such information to the system.
Regarding claim 2, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 1 as discussed above. Hwu further discloses wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the computing device to at least:
retrieve, from the user account, user data specified in the submission template, wherein the submission is completed based at least in part on the user data that is retrieved (9:10—22 (“As a specific example, in the case of the 1099 reporting requirement of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Pub.L. 111-152, 124 Stat. 1029): the financial transaction data associated with the business that is related to the identified subject vendors with whom the business spent $600.00 or more in the previous tax year; the identification data associated with the subject vendors with whom the business spent $600.00 or more in the previous tax year; and the contact data associated with the subject vendors with whom the business spent $600.00 or more in the previous tax year is used to auto-fill a 1099 for each identified subject vendor with whom the business spent $600.00 or more in the previous tax year.”)).
Regarding claim 5, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 1 as discussed above. Hwu further discloses wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the computing device to at least identify the linked provider based at least in part on an item listed in the transaction record (8:9—16 (“In one embodiment, the financial transaction data associated with the business is analyzed by one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems using at least part of the current vendor reporting requirement data to try and identify/match one or more vendors used by the business that are subject to the reporting requirement and therefore require the preparation and submission of one or more of the one or more forms associated with the reporting requirement.”)).
Regarding claim 7, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 1 as discussed above. Hwu further discloses wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the computing device to at least periodically identify new transaction records associated with a user (30:1—4 (“In one embodiment at EXIT OPERATION 231 process for determining business expenditures with vendors and automatically generating and submitting required forms 200 is exited to await new data.”)).
Regarding claim 22, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 1 as discussed above. Hwu further discloses identify the linked provider associated with the transaction record based at least in part on the transaction data (8:9-16 (“In one embodiment, the financial transaction data associated with the business is analyzed by one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems using at least part of the current vendor reporting requirement data to try and identify/match one or more vendors used by the business that are subject to the reporting requirement and therefore require the preparation and submission of one or more of the one or more forms associated with the reporting requirement.”)).
Regarding claim 8, Hwu discloses [a] method, comprising:
storing, in association with a user account, an automatic submission criterion and a submission template for a provider service, the submission template specifying how to complete submissions for the provider service, (13:25—35 (“In one embodiment, on-line financial management system 123 includes any on-line financial management system such as, but not limited to: an on-line personal financial management system; an on-line business financial management system; an on-line personal accounting system; an on-line business accounting system; an on-line tax preparation and/or management system; an on-line healthcare management system; or any other an on-line personal and/or business data management system, as discussed herein, and/or as known in the art at the time of filing, and/or as developed after the time of filing.”), 9:55—60 (“In one embodiment, data representing electronic versions of one or more forms associated with the reporting requirements for the specific jurisdiction and/or agency is obtained and stored.”)) the automatic submission criterion comprising a merchant identifier for identifying a respective merchant in a respective transaction record and the automatic submission criterion being linked to the submission template; (8:9-16 (“In one embodiment, the financial transaction data [respective transaction record] associated with the business is analyzed by one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems using at least part of the current vendor reporting requirement data to try and identify/match one or more vendors [merchant identifier for identifying a respective merchant] used by the business that are Subject to the reporting requirement and therefore require the preparation and Submission of one or more of the one or more forms [submission template] associated with the reporting requirement.”)).
Hwu does not expressly disclose:
receiving, from the provider service, a request to authenticate a user identity; (but see Grajek ¶ 47 (“Enterprise services, which are provided by enterprise servers 103 a to 103 n at the application layer, provide client apps access to enterprise databases and web servers information through TCP/IP networking or other OSI layer 3 networking. Examples of such services include calendaring, email, document management, file services, or any other application that uses a client/server architecture. Enterprise services usually accept authenticated identities from client apps that are associated with the same enterprise. For example, if Company.com used enterprise service servers 103 a to 103 n to provide network-based application services for its customers and employees, employee “John Smith” at Company.com can use his user profile information stored in identity database 104 n to obtain authentication credentials from the enterprise authentication appliance 102. After the user's client app on the mobile device acquires these credentials, typically in the form of storable token(s) or identities, the credentials are presented to the enterprise server providing the desired service, for example, 103 a.”))
transmitting, to the provider service, an authentication credential that is stored in the user account to authenticate the user identity; (but see Grajek ¶ 54 (“Before accessing the server, the authentication module may obtain authentication credentials to present to the server for access. Such credentials can be in the form of a client app identity 607, as depicted in FIG. 6. Such a client app identity 607 often comprises user identity information to identify the user to the server, such as a username and/or company/enterprise name, along with any other attributes that the particular server may require (name, email, authentication authority, groups, authorization info, etc.). A client app identity may also contain a cryptographic signature.”), ¶ 55 (“As shown in FIG. 2, the authentication module and/or client app may search for a previously stored client app identity. Well known search techniques may be used to find such identities based on a variety of criteria. Identities may be stored directly in memory, or in more complex data structures such as a relational database. The search may be accessing a known memory location that stores any identities that can be used with the client app, or as complex as searching a database based for a specific identity based on a specific user, credential domain, and/or network-based application resource to be accessed, among other characteristics.”), ¶ 70 (“As described above, in some embodiments, the authentication appliance may also create an affiliated session token (such as an HTML4 cookie and/or HTML5 object) that is associated with the current UserID and the persistent token. This token may only be valid for the current browser session. It allows the authentication appliance to merely check that a valid session is active instead of rechecking the persistent token each time access is requested for a new application, so long as the request occurs within the same browser session.”), ¶ 87 (“If validation and verification is successful, the authentication appliance 102 may generate a new client app identity [authentication token] that will be sent to the client app 111a which can be used to gain access to the desired enterprise service server 103n as described for FIG. 2.”) (Fig. 2 illustrates that the user client app identity is transmitted to the enterprise service server 103n)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Grajek to authenticate the user using an authentication appliance, at least because doing so would allow users and/or devices to authenticate prior to gaining access to network services. Grajek ¶ 46.
Hwu further discloses receiving, in association with the user account, a transaction record comprising transaction data; and (6:37—38 (“In one embodiment, data representing electronic versions of one or more forms associated with the reporting requirements for the specific jurisdiction and/or agency is obtained and stored.”), 8:28—39 (“In one embodiment: financial transaction data associated with the business that is related to the identified subject vendors, such as the actual amount spent with the subject vendors, dates of the transactions, and/or items purchased; identification data associated with the subject vendors, such as the subject vendor's EIN/SSN or tax ID number; contact data associated with the subject vendors; contact data associated with any required reporting agency; and data representing the one or more required forms, is automatically gathered and correlated to the respective identified subject vendors using one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems.”))
in an instance in which the automatic submission criterion matches the transaction record, completing and transmitting a submission to the provider service on behalf of the user identity…, wherein the submission is completed according to the submission template and based at least in part on the transaction data (3:17-38 (“Consequently, using the method and system for determining business expenditures with vendors and automatically generating and submitting required forms, as discussed herein, the business owner [user identity] is spared the considerable burden and use of resources currently required for: tracking expenditures with all vendors; identifying subject vendors with which the business spends some threshold amount, or more; obtaining the proper identification and contact information for each subject vendor, such as the subject vendor's EIN/SSN number; gathering the expenditure data associated with all the subject vendors; obtaining the appropriate one or more forms required; using the expenditure data to fill out one or more required forms, for each subject vendor; submitting the required forms to the each subject vendor and/or the proper agency; and then creating and retaining proof of these actions for each subject vendor. As a result, using the method and system for determining business expenditures with vendors and automatically generating and submitting required forms, as discussed herein, a business owner can devote these saved resources to creating a more efficient and profitable business, thereby benefitting both the business and the economy as a whole.”), 8:8-16 (“In one embodiment, the financial transaction data associated with the business is analyzed by one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems using at least part of the current vendor reporting requirement data to try and identify/match one or more vendors used by the business [on behalf of the user identity] that are subject to the reporting requirement and therefore require the preparation and submission of one or more of the one or more forms associated with the reporting requirement.”), 8:62—9:6 (“In one embodiment: the financial transaction data associated with the business that is related to the identified subject vendors, such as the actual amount spent with the subject vendors, dates of the transactions, and/or items purchased; the identification data associated with the subject vendors, such as the subject vendor's EIN/SSN or tax ID number; the contact data associated with the subject vendors; and the contact data associated with any required reporting agency is used to automatically fill out, i.e., “auto-fill” the one or more required forms for each identified subject vendor; thereby transforming the one or more required forms into filled out, or completed, or partially completed, forms.”), 9:23-29 (“In one embodiment, the auto-filled forms associated with the reporting requirement for each of the identified subject vendors are then automatically, or semi-automatically, sent to the respective vendors, and/or the appropriate reporting agency, using the identification data associated with subject vendors and the data representing current vendor reporting requirements.”)). Hwu does not expressly disclose that the auto-filled forms submitted on behalf of the business owner to the appropriate reporting agency are submitted based at least in part on the authentication of the user identity using the authentication token (but see Ford ¶ 55 (“Referring now to FIGS. 3-6, in use, the prescription management server 102 may execute a method 300 for managing a drug prescription of a user. The method 300 begins with block 302 in which the prescription management server 102 completes a user login [authentication token]. That is, a user of the client computing device 104 (i.e., a patient) may log into the prescription management server 102 by submitting login information. In this way, identification information associated with the user may be maintained by the prescription management server 102, rather than requested by the prescription management server 102 periodically. If the user is a new user, the user may register with the prescription management server 102 in block 304. In such a registration process, the user may provide user identification information (e.g., user name, user address, etc.), insurance payer information (insurance policy number, insurance payer name, etc.), drug prescription information, and/or other information such that the user is not required to repeatedly provide such information to the prescription management server 102.”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Ford to use identification information associated with the business owner and maintained by the system to authenticate the business when submitting the auto-filled forms to the appropriate reporting agency, at least because doing so that the user is not required to repeatedly provide such information to the system.
Regarding claim 11, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 8 as discussed above. Hwu further discloses identifying a linked provider based at least in part on a merchant identifier specified in the transaction record, wherein the linked provider is associated with the provider service (8:9—16 (“In one embodiment, the financial transaction data associated with the business is analyzed by one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems using at least part of the current vendor reporting requirement data to try and identify/match one or more vendors used by the business that are subject to the reporting requirement and therefore require the preparation and submission of one or more of the one or more forms associated with the reporting requirement.”)).
Regarding claim 12, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 8 as discussed above. Hwu further discloses identifying a linked provider based at least in part on an item listed in the transaction record, wherein the linked provider is associated with the provider service (8:9—16 (“In one embodiment, the financial transaction data associated with the business is analyzed by one or more processors associated with one or more computing systems using at least part of the current vendor reporting requirement data to try and identify/match one or more vendors used by the business that are subject to the reporting requirement and therefore require the preparation and submission of one or more of the one or more forms associated with the reporting requirement.”)).
Regarding claim 14, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 8 as discussed above. Hwu further discloses periodically identifying new transaction records associated with a user (30:1—4 (“In one embodiment at EXIT OPERATION 231 process for determining business expenditures with vendors and automatically generating and submitting required forms 200 is exited to await new data.”)).
Claims 3 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hwu, Grajek, and Ford as applied to claims 1 and 8 above, and further in view of Quass (US 2002/0083068 A1; published Jun. 27, 2002).
Regarding claim 3, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 1 as discussed above. Hwu does not expressly disclose wherein the machine-readable instructions that cause the computing device to complete the submission further cause the computing device to at least use machine learning to determine where to place individual portions of transaction data within the submission (but see Quass Abstract (“A collection of classifiers and their support components, whose composition is largely determined by the specific information being sought and whose implementation may employ techniques from the field of machine learning, are applied to features exposed by the transformations in general and the object model in particular, to make decisions about which forms to fill out, how to populate form fields, and how to cause forms to be submitted.”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Quass to use machine learning to make decisions about how to populate form fields, at least because doing so would enable filling out a diversity of forms. See Quass ¶ 6.
Regarding claim 10, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 8 as discussed above. Hwu does not expressly disclose wherein completing the submission further comprises using machine learning to determine where to place individual portions of transaction data within the submission (but see Quass Abstract (“A collection of classifiers and their support components, whose composition is largely determined by the specific information being sought and whose implementation may employ techniques from the field of machine learning, are applied to features exposed by the transformations in general and the object model in particular, to make decisions about which forms to fill out, how to populate form fields, and how to cause forms to be submitted.”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Quass to use machine learning to make decisions about how to populate form fields, at least because doing so would enable filling out a diversity of forms. See Quass ¶ 6.
Claims 4 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hwu, Grajek, and Ford as applied to claims 1 and 8 above, and further in view of Larson (US 2020/0366671 A1; published Nov. 19, 2020).
Regarding claim 4, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 1 as discussed above. Hwu does not expressly disclose wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the computing device to at least:
authenticate with the provider service prior to transmitting the submission to the provider service (but see Larson ¶ 5 (“In order to authenticate a user's identity, many identity verification services utilize identity information from physical identifying documents, images or videos of physical identifying documents, authentication or authorization credentials, identity scores, biometric data, or knowledge-based authentication (KBA) data. The identity information may be provided to the identity verification service (directly or through the businesses/government agencies) physically or electronically (e.g., entering and submitting identity information to an authentication mechanism via a web form).”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Larson to authenticate the user before submission of the form to the agency, at least because doing so would ensure that information provided by the user is associated with the identity of a real person. See Larson ¶ 4.
Regarding claim 9, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 8 as discussed above. Hwu does not expressly disclose authenticating with the provider service prior to transmitting the submission to the provider service (but see Larson ¶ 5 (“In order to authenticate a user's identity, many identity verification services utilize identity information from physical identifying documents, images or videos of physical identifying documents, authentication or authorization credentials, identity scores, biometric data, or knowledge-based authentication (KBA) data. The identity information may be provided to the identity verification service (directly or through the businesses/government agencies) physically or electronically (e.g., entering and submitting identity information to an authentication mechanism via a web form).”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Larson to authenticate the user before submission of the form to the agency, at least because doing so would ensure that information provided by the user is associated with the identity of a real person. See Larson ¶ 4.
Claims 6 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hwu, Grajek, and Ford as applied to claims 1 and 8 above, and further in view of Woelfer (US 2020/0118230 A1; published Apr. 16, 2020).
Regarding claim 6, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 1 as discussed above. Hwu does not expressly disclose wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the computing device to at least:
present a user interface to a client device, the user interface listing the transaction record; and (but see Woelfer ¶ 47 (“User device 102 may be any electronic device capable of performing the functions attributed to it herein. For example, a user device 102 may be configured to present details related to one or more transactions to a user.”))
obtain a selection of the transaction record from the client device (but see Woelfer ¶ 47 (“In some embodiments, the user device 102 may enable submission of a request for additional transaction details related to a particular transaction. For example, upon selection of a particular transaction via the user device 102, the user device may enable a user to submit a request for additional information via a button displayed on a graphical user interface (GUI).”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Woelfer to present the financial transactions and receive a selection of a particular transaction for submission, at least because doing so would enable manual selection of specific transactions.
Regarding claim 13, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 8 as discussed above. Hwu does not expressly disclose presenting a user interface to a client device, the user interface listing the transaction record; and (but see Woelfer ¶ 47 (“User device 102 may be any electronic device capable of performing the functions attributed to it herein. For example, a user device 102 may be configured to present details related to one or more transactions to a user.”))
obtaining a selection of the transaction record from the client device (but see Woelfer ¶ 47 (“In some embodiments, the user device 102 may enable submission of a request for additional transaction details related to a particular transaction. For example, upon selection of a particular transaction via the user device 102, the user device may enable a user to submit a request for additional information via a button displayed on a graphical user interface (GUI).”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Woelfer to present the financial transactions and receive a selection of a particular transaction for submission, at least because doing so would enable manual selection of specific transactions.
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hwu, Grajek, and Ford as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Wyle (US 2006/0155618 A1; published Ju1. 13, 2006).
Regarding claim 23, Hwu, in view of Grajek and Ford, discloses the invention of claim 1 as discussed above. Hwu does not expressly disclose wherein the machine-readable instructions that cause the computing device to complete the submission further cause the computing device to at least perform an optical character recognition technique to determine where to insert a portion of the transaction data into a form associated with the submission (but see Wyle ¶ 41 (“The computer system 200 inserts, enables or displays the page of the electronic source document and an input form 805 having a plurality of input fields 810 corresponding to the form type 608 (S-516, S-522). That is, based on the form type 805, the plurality of input fields 810 are predetermined and are retrieved from the memory 410. The data entry operator or the tax preparer inputs the numbers shown on the page 800 into the corresponding input fields 810 on the input form 805 (S-518, S-524). The input fields 810 use the same descriptions as those in the electronic source document. For example, the phrase "Box 1: Wages, Tips and Other Compensation" is on both the page 800 and the input form 805. Hence, the lower skilled data entry operator can easily input the correct numbers from the page 800 into the corresponding input fields 810. Alternatively, the OCR system scans the page and inserts the appropriate number into the corresponding input field 810 on the input form 805. As shown in FIG. 8, the numbers input are 80000, 12000, 4960, and 1162. The references may also assist the OCR system in identifying the number corresponding to the input field 810. In one embodiment, one or more data entry operators and/or one or more OCR systems may input information for a particular page for verifying the accuracy of the inputted numbers. The data entry operator and/or the OCR system can move from one page of the electronic source document to another page of the electronic source document or from one electronic source document to another electronic source document. After data entry is complete and/or verified, the data entry operator may select a submit icon 815 indicating to the tax preparer that the page of the electronic source document has been completed. The inputted information is then merged into the tax return.”)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified Hwu to incorporate the teachings of Wyle to use OCR to fill out the required forms, at least because doing so would automate the data entry aspect of filling out the required forms.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Mariotti (US 2011/0112978 A1; published May 12, 2011) SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR REMOTE VALIDATION;
Ghoshal (US 10,007,936 B1; patented Jun. 26, 2018) Product Review Platform Based On Social Connections;
Murali et al. (US 2016/0196566 A1; published Jul. 7, 2016) Methods And Systems Of Validating Consumer Reviews;
Gaddam et al. (US 9,691,109 B2; patented Jun. 27, 2017) Mechanism For Reputation Feedback Based On Real Time Interaction;
Chauhan (US 2015/0332353 A1; published Nov. 19, 2015) Methods And Systems Of Authenticating Reviews;
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHAHID K KHAN whose telephone number is (571)270-0419. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-5 est.
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/SHAHID K KHAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2146