DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 Claims
This action is in reply to the application filed on July 30, 2024.
Claims 1–14 are currently pending and have been examined.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement filed July 30, 2024 fails to comply with 37 CFR 1.98(a)(2), which requires a legible copy of each cited foreign patent document; each non-patent literature publication or that portion which caused it to be listed; and all other information or that portion which caused it to be listed. A copy of the Form 1449 has been placed in the application file, but the information referred to therein has not been considered. The specific document that was not included is the Non-Patent Literature document titled “International Search Report and Written Opinion”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 101:
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 1–14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
First of all, claims must be directed to one or more of the following statutory categories: a process, a machine, a manufacture, or a composition of matter. Claims 1–10 are directed to a process (“A method”), and claim 11–14 is directed to a machine (“A system”). Thus, claims 1–14 satisfy Step One because they are all within one of the four statutory categories of eligible subject matter.
Claims 1–14, however, are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. For claim 1, the specific limitations that recite an abstract idea are:
receiving, at a first bank system, a report of a fraud event involving an account;
receiving, by the first bank system, confirmation of the evidence of fraud;
incorporating, by the first bank system, the account to first bank internal fraud . . .; and
publishing, by the first bank system, an alert to first bank . . . for the first bank . . .;
wherein a plurality of . . . second banks . . . are configured to receive the alert; and
wherein a second bank system for each of the plurality of second banks is configured to receive confirmation of the evidence of fraud, add the information to second bank internal fraud . . ..
Claims 1–5, therefore, recite detecting and tracking bank account fraud, which is the abstract idea of certain methods of organizing human activity because they recite a commercial interaction and the fundamental economic practice of mitigating risk.
For claim 11, the specific limitations that recite an abstract idea are:
an administrator . . . configured to maintain a whitelist . . .;
. . . a first bank internal system . . . configured to receive a report of a fraudulent transaction with an account, investigate the report of the fraudulent transaction, and incorporate the information to first bank internal fraud . . .; and
. . . record and publish . . ., an alert based on the report of the fraudulent transaction . . .; and
a second bank . . . that contains transactional, customer and PII; and
. . . replicate, . . . the alert published . . ., receive, upon a determination . . . that the second bank . . . is authorized, a . . . key . . ., investigate, via the second bank internal system, the report of the fraudulent transaction, confirm, via the second bank internal system, the evidence of fraud, and add, via the second bank internal system, the information to second bank internal fraud . . ..
Claims 6–14, therefore, also recite detecting and tracking bank account fraud, which is the abstract idea of certain methods of organizing human activity because they recite a commercial interaction and the fundamental economic practice of mitigating risk.
The judicial exception recited above is not integrated into a practical application. The additional elements of the claims are various generic technologies and computer components to implement this abstract idea (“controls”, “node”, “information network”, “network of a plurality of nodes”, “decryption keys”, “application business logic”, “application programming interface (API)”, “access keys”, “key vault”, “blockchain node”, “permissioned shared ledger”, “private database”, and “encrypted”). These additional elements are not integrated into a practical application because the invention merely applies the abstract idea to generic computer technology, using the computer to send, receive, store, and secure the various fraud information and determinations. Because the invention is using the computer simply as a tool to perform the abstract idea on, the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application.
Finally, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, as discussed above, the additional elements in combination are at a high level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the abstract idea using generic components. Again, specification paragraphs Because merely “applying” the exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept, the additional elements do not recite significantly more than the judicial exception. Thus, claims 1 and 11 are not patent eligible.
Independent claims 6 is rejected as ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101 for substantially the same reasons as independent system claim 11. There are no additional elements recited in these claims other than the generic technology and computer parts discussed above (“node”, “decryption keys”, “application business logic”, “application programming interface (API)”, “access keys”, “information network”, “key vault”, “controls”, “blockchain node”, “permissioned shared ledger”, “private database”, and “encrypted”). The only difference is that the features of claim 11 are implemented by a method in claim 6. Thus, because the same analysis should be used for all categories of claims, claim 6 is also not patent eligible. See Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2354 (2014).
Dependent claims 2–5, 7–10, and 12–14 have been given the full two part analysis, analyzing the additional limitations both individually and in combination. The dependent claims, when analyzed individually and in combination, are also held to be patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101.
For claims 2, 3, 7, 8, 12, and 13, the additional recited limitations of these claims merely further narrow the abstract idea discussed above. These dependent claims only narrow the fraud tracking recited in claims 1, 6, and 11 by further specifying the information included in the fraud report—“compromise type”, “type of fraud”, and “relationship and trust fraud, product and service fraud, social engineering fraud, fraudulent activation fraud, and/or impersonated authorized party fraud”.
For claims 4, 5, 9, 10, and 14, the additional recited limitations of these claims merely further narrow the abstract idea discussed above. These dependent claims only narrow the fraud tracking recited in claims 1, 6, and 11 by further specifying information included in the alert—“compromise type and identifying information” and “email address, an IP address, a user agent hash, and/or an account identifier”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event that the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 nonobviousness.
Claims 1–14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vijayaraghavan, U.S. Patent App. No. 2023/0098747 (“Vijayaraghavan”) in view of Hunter et al., U.S. Patent App. No. 2019/0188652 (“Hunter”).
For claim 1, Vijayaraghavan teaches:
A method, comprising (¶ 63: example method):
receiving, . . . a report of a fraud event involving an account (¶ 54: payment transaction potential fraud dispute received);
receiving, . . . confirmation of the evidence of fraud (¶ 54: payment transaction investigated for possible fraud);
incorporating, . . . the account to first bank internal fraud controls (¶ 55: fraud information stored on blockchain interface server); and
publishing, . . . an alert to first bank node for the first bank on an information network (¶ 55–56: fraud information published);
wherein a second bank system for each of the plurality of second banks is configured to receive confirmation of the evidence of fraud, add the information to second bank internal fraud controls (¶ 55: fraud information stored on blockchain interface server).
Vijayaraghavan does not teach: at a first bank system; and wherein a plurality of second bank nodes for a plurality of second banks on the information network are configured to receive the alert.
Hunter, however, teaches:
at a first bank system (Fig. 3, ¶ 33, 39: bank node including internal system communicating application business logic via API); and
wherein a plurality of second bank nodes for a plurality of second banks on the information network are configured to receive the alert (Fig. 3, ¶ 33, 39: bank node including internal system communicating application business logic via API; ¶ 33, 36, 37: blockchain node supporting permissioned shared ledger communicating published inquiry information over channel).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified fraud detection in Vijayaraghavan by adding the bank node system from Hunter. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification for the purpose of facilitating the communication of fraud information between banks—a benefit explicitly disclosed by Hunter (¶ 3: current system requires excessive time and multiple entities to exchange information; ¶ 5: invention provides distributed information system) and desired by Vijayaraghavan (¶ 3–4: need for system to communicate information and resolve disputes between parties efficiently).
For claim 2, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 1 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the report of the fraud event comprises an indicator of a compromise type (¶ 73, 116: fraud types included in data).
For claim 3, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 2 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The method of claim 2, wherein the report of the compromise type comprises fraudulent activation fraud and/or impersonated authorized party fraud (¶ 73: fraud types include counterfeit fraud or theft).
For claim 4, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 2 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The method of claim 2, wherein the alert comprises the compromise type and identifying information for a fraudulent party (¶ 40, 55, 73: information on liable party as well as fraud type).
For claim 5, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 4 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The method of claim 4, wherein the identifying information comprises an impersonating email address, an IP address, a user agent hash, and/or an account identifier (¶ 50: email and IP address; ¶ 80: account ID).
For claim 6, Vijayaraghavan teaches:
A method, comprising (¶ 63: example method): . . .
the first bank internal system is configured to receive a report of a fraudulent transaction with an account, investigate the report of the fraudulent transaction, and add the information to first bank internal fraud controls (¶ 54: payment transaction investigated for possible fraud); and
. . . the first blockchain node is configured to record and publish to the permissioned shared ledger, an alert based on the report of the fraudulent transaction that is encrypted by the information network (¶ 55: fraud information stored on blockchain interface server; ¶ 122: information encrypted); and
. . . investigate, via the second bank internal system, the report of the fraudulent transaction, confirm, via the second bank internal system, the evidence of fraud, and add, via the second bank internal system, the information to second bank internal fraud controls (¶ 54: payment transaction investigated for possible fraud).
Vijayaraghavan does not teach: provisioning an administrator node configured to maintain a whitelist of nodes that may exchange information as well as controlling permissions including sending decryption keys to authorized nodes; provisioning a first bank node communicatively coupled to a first in-bank system, the first bank node comprising: a first bank internal system that communicates with application business logic via an application programming interface (API), the API requiring one or more access keys for access to an information network and the one or more access keys are secured in a key vault; a first blockchain node that supports a permissioned shared ledger and a private database that contains transactional, customer and personally identifiable information (PII); provisioning a second bank node communicatively coupled to a second bank internal system, the second bank node comprising: a private database that contains transactional, customer and PII; and a second blockchain node that supports the permissioned shared ledger, the second bank node configured to replicate, via the second blockchain node over direct communication channel, the alert published by the first blockchain node, receive, upon a determination by the information network that the second bank node is authorized, a previously generated decryption key for the encrypted alert.
Hunter, however, teaches:
provisioning an administrator node configured to maintain a whitelist of nodes that may exchange information as well as controlling permissions including sending decryption keys to authorized nodes (¶ 29: administrator node controlling permissions maintains whitelist of nodes);
provisioning a first bank node communicatively coupled to a first in-bank system, the first bank node comprising: a first bank internal system that communicates with application business logic via an application programming interface (API) (Fig. 3, ¶ 33, 39: bank node including internal system communicating application business logic via API), the API requiring one or more access keys for access to an information network and the one or more access keys are secured in a key vault (¶ 35: node access keys secured in key-vault, for the API);
a first blockchain node that supports a permissioned shared ledger and a private database that contains transactional, customer and personally identifiable information (PII) (¶ 5: blockchain supporting permissioned shared ledger and private database containing transactional, customer, and personally identifiable information);
provisioning a second bank node communicatively coupled to a second bank internal system, the second bank node comprising: a private database that contains transactional, customer and PII (Fig. 3, ¶ 33, 39: bank node including internal system communicating application business logic via API); and
a second blockchain node that supports the permissioned shared ledger, the second bank node configured to replicate, via the second blockchain node over direct communication channel, the alert published by the first blockchain node (¶ 33, 36, 37: blockchain node supporting permissioned shared ledger communicating published inquiry information over channel), receive, upon a determination by the information network that the second bank node is authorized, a previously generated decryption key for the encrypted alert (¶ 46–47: decryption keys sent to authorized nodes).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified fraud detection in Vijayaraghavan by adding the bank node system from Hunter. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification for the purpose of facilitating the communication of fraud information between banks—a benefit explicitly disclosed by Hunter (¶ 3: current system requires excessive time and multiple entities to exchange information; ¶ 5: invention provides distributed information system) and desired by Vijayaraghavan (¶ 3–4: need for system to communicate information and resolve disputes between parties efficiently).
For claim 7, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 6 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The method of claim 6, wherein the report of the fraudulent transaction comprises an indicator of a compromise type (¶ 73, 116: fraud types included in data).
For claim 8, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 7 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The method of claim 7, wherein the report of the compromise type comprises a type of fraud (¶ 73, 116: fraud types included in data).
For claim 9, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 7 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The method of claim 7, wherein the alert comprises the compromise type and identifying information for a fraudulent party (¶ 40, 55, 73: information on liable party as well as fraud type).
For claim 10, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 9 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The method of claim 9, wherein the identifying information comprises an impersonating email address, an IP address, a user agent hash, and/or an account identifier (¶ 50: email and IP address; ¶ 80: account ID).
For claim 6, Vijayaraghavan teaches:
A system, comprising (¶ 46: example system): . . .
the first bank internal system is configured to receive a report of a fraudulent transaction with an account, investigate the report of the fraudulent transaction, and incorporate the information to first bank internal fraud controls (¶ 54: payment transaction investigated for possible fraud); and
. . . the first blockchain node is configured to record and publish to the permissioned shared ledger, an alert based on the report of the fraudulent transaction that is encrypted by the information network (¶ 55: fraud information stored on blockchain interface server; ¶ 122: information encrypted); and
. . . investigate, via the second bank internal system, the report of the fraudulent transaction, confirm, via the second bank internal system, the evidence of fraud, and add, via the second bank internal system, the information to second bank internal fraud controls (¶ 54: payment transaction investigated for possible fraud).
Vijayaraghavan does not teach: an administrator node configured to maintain a whitelist of nodes in a network of a plurality of nodes that may exchange information as well as controlling permissions including sending decryption keys to authorized nodes; an information network that establishes a direct communication channel between two nodes in the network of the plurality of nodes; a first bank node of the plurality of nodes communicatively coupled to a first in-bank system, wherein the first bank node comprises: a first bank internal system that communicates with application business logic via an application programming interface (API), the API requiring one or more access keys for access to an information network and the one or more access keys are secured in a key vault; a first blockchain node that supports a permissioned shared ledger and a private database that contains transactional, customer and personally identifiable information (PII); a second bank node of the plurality of nodes communicatively coupled to a second bank internal system, the second bank node comprising: a private database that contains transactional, customer and PII; and a second blockchain node that supports the permissioned shared ledger, the second bank node configured to replicate, via the second blockchain node over direct communication channel, the alert published by the first blockchain node, receive, upon a determination by the information network that the second bank node is authorized, a previously generated decryption key for the encrypted alert.
Hunter, however, teaches:
an administrator node configured to maintain a whitelist of nodes in a network of a plurality of nodes that may exchange information as well as controlling permissions including sending decryption keys to authorized nodes (¶ 29: administrator node controlling permissions maintains whitelist of nodes);
an information network that establishes a direct communication channel between two nodes in the network of the plurality of nodes (¶ 53: electronic communication channels for connecting multiple nodes in network);
a first bank node of the plurality of nodes communicatively coupled to a first in-bank system, wherein the first bank node comprises: a first bank internal system that communicates with application business logic via an application programming interface (API) (Fig. 3, ¶ 33, 39: bank node including internal system communicating application business logic via API), the API requiring one or more access keys for access to an information network and the one or more access keys are secured in a key vault (¶ 35: node access keys secured in key-vault, for the API);
a first blockchain node that supports a permissioned shared ledger and a private database that contains transactional, customer and personally identifiable information (PII) (¶ 5: blockchain supporting permissioned shared ledger and private database containing transactional, customer, and personally identifiable information);
a second bank node of the plurality of nodes communicatively coupled to a second bank internal system, the second bank node comprising: a private database that contains transactional, customer and PII (Fig. 3, ¶ 33, 39: bank node including internal system communicating application business logic via API); and
a second blockchain node that supports the permissioned shared ledger, the second bank node configured to replicate, via the second blockchain node over direct communication channel, the alert published by the first blockchain node (¶ 33, 36, 37: blockchain node supporting permissioned shared ledger communicating published inquiry information over channel), receive, upon a determination by the information network that the second bank node is authorized, a previously generated decryption key for the encrypted alert (¶ 46–47: decryption keys sent to authorized nodes).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified fraud detection in Vijayaraghavan by adding the bank node system from Hunter. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification for the purpose of facilitating the communication of fraud information between banks—a benefit explicitly disclosed by Hunter (¶ 3: current system requires excessive time and multiple entities to exchange information; ¶ 5: invention provides distributed information system) and desired by Vijayaraghavan (¶ 3–4: need for system to communicate information and resolve disputes between parties efficiently).
For claim 12, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 11 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The system of claim 11, wherein the report of the fraudulent transaction comprises an indicator of a compromise type (¶ 73, 116: fraud types included in data).
For claim 13, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 12 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The system of claim 12, wherein the report of the compromise type comprises relationship and trust fraud, product and service fraud, social engineering fraud, fraudulent activation fraud, and/or impersonated authorized party fraud (¶ 73: fraud types include counterfeit fraud or theft).
For claim 14, Vijayaraghavan and Hunter teach all the limitations of claim 12 above, and Vijayaraghavan further teaches:
The system of claim 12, wherein the alert comprises the compromise type and identifying information for a fraudulent party (¶ 40, 55, 73: information on liable party as well as fraud type).
Prior Art Not Relied Upon
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure. Those prior art references are as follows:
Snyder et al., U.S. Patent App. No. 2020/0005307, discloses fraud alert messages between multiple nodes.
Conclusion
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/DIVESH PATEL/Examiner, Art Unit 3696
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