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 .
Status of Application
This is a final rejection in response to Amendments to the Claims and Remarks / Arguments submitted on March 9, 2026 relating to U.S. Patent Application No. 18/781,019, filed on July 23, 2024 which is a Continuation of U.S. Patent Application No. 17/537,245, filed on Nov. 29, 2021, now U.S. Patent No. 12,079,794, which is a
continuation of application No. PCT/IB2020/055136, filed on May 29, 2020, which claims priority to Provisional Application 62/855,281, filed on May 31, 2019. Claims 1, 10 and 15 have been amended. Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
The Remarks / Arguments submitted by Applicant on March 9, 2026 have been fully considered, however, are not persuasive.
With respect to the Section 101 Rejection, Applicant has amended independent Claims 1, 10 and 15 and asserts that the claim amendments obviate the Section 101 rejection. (Remarks, p. 8). Examiner respectfully disagrees. The additional elements in the claims are recited at a high level of generality and are used as tools to implement the abstract idea. They do not provide a technical improvement such as an improvement to the functioning of a computer or to technology or to a technical field and, as such, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or provide significantly more. (See the Section 101 Rejection below). The Section 101 Rejection 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 1-20 are rejected pursuant to 35 USC § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1 - Statutory Class
Claims 1-9 are directed to a method. Claims 10-14 are directed to a mobile device. Claims 15-20 are directed to a computer readable medium. Insofar as the Specification contemplates only non-transitory embodiments of the computer readable medium, it is being interpreted as non-transitory. Therefore, on its face, each of the Claims 1-20 is directed to a statutory class of invention.
Step 2A, Prong 1 – Abstract Idea
Claim 10 recites receive a message requesting an applet; transmit an applet request comprising transaction information; receive information to provision the applet; present a prompt for account information associated with the transaction; read the account information, store the account information, transmit the account information and receive a confirmation that confirms completion of the transaction. The abstract idea recited in Claim 10 involves performing a transaction between a buyer and a seller which amounts to commercial interactions falling under Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity enumerated in MPEP 2106.04(a). Claims 1 and 15 recite the same abstract idea.
Step 2A, Prong 2 – Practical Application
Claim 10 recites a mobile device, a processor of a service provider, a computer-readable medium comprising instructions, a communication service device, an applet, a server, a secure element of the mobile device, a near-field communication (NFC) interface of the mobile device, a payment device and a confirmation token. The additional elements are recited at a high level of generality and are used as tools to implement the abstract idea. They do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. They do not provide a technical improvement such as an improvement to the functioning of a computer or to technology because they only manipulate financial data. The claims do not invoke a particular machine as our guidance is clear that a generic computer is not the particular machine envisioned, they do not transform matter as they only manipulate data which is not matter.
Step 2B – Significantly more
As set forth in the discussion in Step 2A, Prong 2, above, the additional elements are recited at a high level of generality and are used as tools to implement the abstract idea. They do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or add significantly more to the abstract idea.
Dependent claims
Claims 2, 11 and 16 (the server corresponds to an applet management service or a device management service), Claims 3, 12 and 17 (a near-field communication (NFC) interface of the mobile device is configured to acquire the account information), Claims 4, 13 and 18 (the account information comprises an account token generated by an application of the mobile device.), Claim 5 (the confirmation token comprises a card-not-present token), Claim 6 (the transaction information comprises a transaction amount), Claim 7 (a mobile device identifier of the mobile device comprises a phone number corresponding to the mobile device), Claims 8, 14 and 20 (data corresponding to a payment request corresponds to an operating system of the mobile device) and Claim 9 (the operating system of the mobile device is determined based at least in part on a device identifier of the mobile device) contain additional elements (which are underlined above) that are recited at a high level of generality and used as tools to implement the abstract idea and/or further define and merely add specificity to the abstract idea. Thus, the dependent claims also fail to add significantly more to the abstract idea.
As such, Claims 1-20 are not patent eligible.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GEORGE PROIOS whose telephone number is (571)272-4573. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5.
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, Bennett M Sigmond can be reached at 303-297-4411. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GEORGE N. PROIOS/Examiner, Art Unit 3694
/BENNETT M SIGMOND/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3694