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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) submitted on 02/10/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS statement has been considered by the Examiner
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.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the is recited such that it defines a system, but the claim does not positively identify hardware components of the system. Examiner suggest amending the claim by adding hardware processor and memory to overcome the rejection.
Dependent claims 2-20 are rejected for the same reasons as presented above with respect to independent claim 1.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the "right to exclude" granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/ patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/ patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claim 1 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 11509634. In view of Astrada; Sebastian et al. US 20190213660.
With respect to claim 1 of the instant application, claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 11509634 disclose all the limitations of claim 1 except for each pillar and each component data attribute having a corresponding piece of advice to advance a user within the pillar, the advice being based on machine learning and predictive analytics; However, Astrada discloses: (“For the designation of a financial action plan, the financial action plan manager 155 may be configured to display, via the user interface 110, recommended financial action plans or a customization tool for the user to set forth personalized financial action plan components. The user interface 110 may provide the user the ability to set a financial action plan, which may include the user consenting to adopting a recommended financial action plan or the user defining its own customized action plan, which may include clusters of financial components such as spending limits, spending rules, financial goals such as savings goals, spending goals, debt repayment goals, or any other goal that has a financial component, financial action plan tools such as auto savings and auto investing, and any other type of financial component. Recommended financial action plans may be based on a user's existing financial products, user financial transactions and behavior data, user preferences data, or data regarding preferences attributed to a user's cohort or segment” Astrada: para. 81).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Astrada with the teaching of Rauls to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied in a predictable manner to further personalize the result of the method.
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.
Claims 1-3, 8-13, 15,19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Astrada; Sebastian et al. US 20190213660 (hereinafter Astrada) in view of Rauls; Boris et al. US 20160267595 (hereinafter Rauls).
As per claim 1, Astrada teaches: An artificially intelligent system for financial wellness configured by at least one processor to execute instructions stored in memory, the system comprising:
a user-facing application that performs processing based on user interaction with a goal- based planning application (Astrada: fig. 2, user interface 110 and para. 103) the goal-based planning application configured to execute instructions including:
each pillar and each component data attribute having a corresponding piece of advice to advance a user within the pillar, the advice being based on machine learning and predictive analytics (“For the designation of a financial action plan, the financial action plan manager 155 may be configured to display, via the user interface 110, recommended financial action plans or a customization tool for the user to set forth personalized financial action plan components. The user interface 110 may provide the user the ability to set a financial action plan, which may include the user consenting to adopting a recommended financial action plan or the user defining its own customized action plan, which may include clusters of financial components such as spending limits, spending rules, financial goals such as savings goals, spending goals, debt repayment goals, or any other goal that has a financial component, financial action plan tools such as auto savings and auto investing, and any other type of financial component. Recommended financial action plans may be based on a user's existing financial products, user financial transactions and behavior data, user preferences data, or data regarding preferences attributed to a user's cohort or segment” Astrada: para. 81);
calculating the financial wellness score using the pillar score for each of the plurality of pillars (“assessing the user's financial wellness, wherein the computer-executable program instructions of the product fit manager comprises computer-executable program instructions to: perform a weighted assessment of the user's debt to income ratio, income to expenses ratio, average monthly variation in income, average monthly variation in expenses, average monthly variation in income to expenses ratio, credit score, changes to credit score over past year, credit use to credit availability ratio, savings rate…. providing a numerical score for user financial wellness. .” Astrada: para. 81).
Astrada does not explicitly teach, however, Rauls discloses: determining a pillar score for each of a plurality of pillars (“the inputs regarding the personal characteristics and the financial wellness assessment questions are transformed into a financial wellness score, category scores, and/or sub-category scores for different categories and sub-category.” Rauls: para. 42), the pillar score being a weighted percentage of a financial wellness score (“In some embodiments of the invention, the financial wellness input for each of the financial wellness questions 402 for the day-to-day management category 520 (a pillar) are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, averaged, and then multiplied by 20 in order to scale the score to 100. In other embodiments of the invention the scores for each of the individual financial wellness questions 502 within the day-to-day management category 520 or sub-categories may be weighted differently.” Rauls: para. 55), each of the plurality of pillars including a component data attribute (Rauls: para. 42), the component data attribute being a weighted percentage of the pillar score for each of the plurality of pillars (“The score for user's financial situation category 510 may be based on both the calculation of the net worth as a percentage of income and the age of the user (e.g., the age based on the personal characteristic input received).”para. 54).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Astrada with the teaching of Rauls to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied in a predictable manner to further personalize the result of the method.
As per claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches: the data retention system and the predictive analytics system being both in secure isolation from a remainder of the secure messaging system ( “The secure elements 117 include hardware and software, and implement interfaces and protocols that enable the secure storage of service account information and applications that may be used for conducting transactions. The secure elements 117 may be implemented in different form factors, such as, for example, Universal Integrated Circuit Cards (UICC), embedded secure elements, and/or a separate chips or secure devices (e.g., a near-field communication (NFC) enabler) that can be inserted into slots on the mobile computing device 104.”Astrada: para. 70).
As per claim 3, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches: the user-facing application being secured through use of a security token cached on a web browser that provides the user-facing application (“User account credentials may optionally be established through the user interface 110. For example, user account credentials may be established by receiving user input for establishing a user name and password; biometric credentialing, including fingerprint, face, eye scan, or voice scan; or social media or third party credentials that may be in the form of a user name or password, a biometric credentialing, or an authentication device such as an Application Program Interface (API) or a token.” Astrada: para. 65).
As per claim 8, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches: the plurality of pillars including a monthly cash flow pillar, a financial freedom pillar, a security pillar, a personal organization pillar, and a decay element pillar ( Astrada: para. 97).
As per claim 9, the rejection of claim 8 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches: the monthly cash flow pillar having the component data attribute of savings as a percentage of gross income or a credit score (“In this example embodiment, the net cash flow is negative for both January and February. The decision engine 141 would calculate January and February as failure months. The decision engine 141 would calculate the ratio of expenses to income for March, a net cash flow positive month, as historically 92.33% and 94% for the test drive lookback calculation. In this example embodiment the ratio threshold for a difficulty month is 93%”. Astrada: para. 97). .
As per claim 10, the rejection of claim 8 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches:
the financial freedom pillar having the component data attribute of a retirement goal status, 401k savings, 403B savings, IRA savings, an investment strategy, or automated savings (“perform a weighted assessment of the user's debt to income ratio, income to expenses ratio, average monthly variation in income, average monthly variation in expenses, average monthly variation in income to expenses ratio, credit score, changes to credit score over past year, credit use to credit availability ratio, savings rate, and presence of 3 or 6 months of emergency savings”. Astrada: para. 41).
As per claim 11, the rejection of claim 8 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches:
the security pillar having the component data attribute of an emergency goal, a funding emergency goal, a saving plan on track, adequate insurance coverage, or an estate plan (“perform a weighted assessment of the user's debt to income ratio, income to expenses ratio, average monthly variation in income, average monthly variation in expenses, average monthly variation in income to expenses ratio, credit score, changes to credit score over past year, credit use to credit availability ratio, savings rate, and presence of 3 or 6 months of emergency savings;” Astrada: para. 41).
As per claim 12, the rejection of claim 8 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches:
the personal organization pillar having the component data attribute of a financial account linked to a net worth dashboard, or record keeping (Astrada: para. 116).
As per claim 13, the rejection of claim 8 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches:
the decay element pillar having the component data attribute of an amount of educational content consumed online, an amount of interaction with a financial advisor or a login frequency to view the financial wellness score (Astrada: para. 28).
As per claim 15, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches: the machine learning and the predictive analytics using user cohort behaviors (Astrada: para. 105).
As per claim 19, the rejection of claim 14 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches: the corresponding piece of advice being prioritized based upon the advice score (Astrada: para. 81).
As per claim 20, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Astrada teaches:
recalculating the financial wellness score using the pillar score for each of the plurality of pillars (Astrada: para. 96).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Astrada in view of Rauls and further in view of Gordon; George A. et al. US 20180032997 (hereinafter Gordon).
As per claim 4, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of Astrada and Rauls does not teach, however; Gordon discloses: the application server layer performing asynchronous processing (Astrada: para. 432).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Astrada and Rauls with the teachings of Gordon to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied in a predictable manner to allows data processes such as account updating (Gordon: para. 432).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Astrada in view of Rauls and further in view of Nordyke; Craig K. et al. US 8271301 (hereinafter Nordyke).
As per claim 5, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of Astrada and Rauls does not teach, however; Gordon discloses: the goal-based planning application processing data from a plurality of user accounts (“In one embodiment, the funds may be in a variable insurance trust. Separate accounts may be organized as trusts to be managed for the benefit of the policy holder, and are "separate" because they are kept separate from the general account, which is the other reserve assets of the insurer. In some embodiments, the policy may provide at the election of the client for dollar cost averaging and/or automatic account rebalancing.” Nordyke: col. 8, lines 35-42).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Astrada and Rauls with the teachings of Nordyke to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied in a predictable manner to allows automatic account rebalancing (Nordyke: col. 8, lines 35-42).
Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Astrada in view of Rauls and further in view of Levenberg; Richard US 20110047608 (hereinafter Levenberg).
As per claim 6, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of Astrada and Rauls does not teach, however; Levenberg discloses: a batching service, wherein the application server layer transmits a request to the web services layer for data, the request processed by the batching service transparently to a user (“The requestor may provide various information requested by the system, such as the user's full name, email address, mobile number, and so forth. The system may use this information for different authentication methods offered by the system for proving the user's identity. Accounts may be created in a variety of ways. For example, an online service may use the authentication system transparently to users and may create accounts on behalf of users for use with the system (e.g., using a batch process).” Levenberg: para. 49).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Astrada and Rauls with the teachings of Levenberg to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied in a predictable manner to facilitate obtaining data from a user, create account in a transparent manner.
As per claim 7, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of Astrada and Rauls does not teach, however; Levenberg teaches: a request processed by a batching service transparently to a user such that the user can continue to use the user-facing application without disruption (user request is processed (using a batch process). Levenberg: para. 49 and fig. 4)
Claims 14, 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Astrada in view of Rauls and further in view of Kocmond; Peter George US 20110112985 (hereinafter Kocmond).
As per claim 14, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of Astrada and Rauls does not teach, however; Kocmond discloses: the corresponding piece of advice having an advice score (“The goal elements 1100 can be weighted based on the user's profile 304, the goal's weight/priority 210 and/or categorization 208. Differences in the comparison between the user input 602 and the default recommendations 900 can be assigned a value, which can be unique for each goal, in order to calculate a score 238. The score 238 can then be further calculated based on the goal element weighting in order to determine the final score. This score can be presented to the user in the form of a score 241 and/or an illustration 240.” Kocmond: pare. 73).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Astrada and Rauls with the teachings of Kocmond to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied in a predictable manner to provide the user a proper financial advice.
As per claim 17, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of Astrada and Rauls does not teach, however; Kocmond discloses: determining if another piece of advice was followed before the corresponding piece of advice (“FPM device 120 may refrain from outputting a recommendation if there is no recommendation to output or if the recommendation is to take no action (suggesting a previous recommendation was followed”. Kocmond: para. 64).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Astrada and Rauls with the teachings of Jibowu to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to ensure best outcome).
As per claim 18, the rejection of claim 14 is incorporated herein. The combination of Astrada and Rauls does not teach, however; Kocmond discloses: the advice score being inversely related to the financial wellness score for a pillar (Kocmond: para. 64).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Astrada and Rauls with the teachings of Jibowu to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to ensure best outcome).
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Astrada in view of Rauls and further in view of Gowen; David Brian et al. US 8521628 (hereinafter Gowen).
As per claim 16, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of Astrada and Rauls does not teach, however; Gowen discloses: the determining if the corresponding piece of advice was followed (Gowen: col. 8, lines 55-64).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Astrada and Rauls with the teachings of Gowen to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to ensure proving the updated recommendation.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GHODRAT JAMSHIDI whose telephone number is (571)270-1956. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00-6:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Carl Colin can be reached at 5712723862. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/GHODRAT JAMSHIDI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2493
Prosecution Insights