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 .
Claim Objections
Applicant is advised that should claim 10 be found allowable, claim 19 will be objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate thereof. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
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 under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
In the instant case, claims 1-10 and 19 are directed to a method, claims 11-18 are directed to a system, and claim 20 is directed to a system. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
Claim 1 recites: A method of processing math based currency (“MBC”) credit card transactions by one or more processors of a system of a provider institution, comprising:
receiving, via a network, a request for an MBC transaction for an MBC amount associated with an MBC credit card account of a customer;
receiving, from an acquirer/processor computer system via the network, a public and private key pair of a recipient;
determining, based on the public and private key pair, whether the recipient has an MBC account at the provider institution;
in response to determining that the recipient has the MBC account at the provider institution, updating a first entry of an overlay ledger that lists the MBC account of the recipient and a second entry of the overlay ledger that lists the MBC credit card account of the customer with the MBC amount;
in response to determining that the recipient is unassociated with any MBC account at the provider institution, updating the second entry of the overlay ledger that lists the MBC credit card account of the customer with the MBC amount and transferring the MBC amount from a pooled MBC account of the provider institution to an MBC account of the recipient; and
transmitting, via the network to a customer computer device, a receipt of the MBC transaction.
(Additional element(s) emphasized in bold)
The above claim describes a process for: receiving, at a provider institution, a request for a transaction for an amount associated with a credit card account of a customer; receiving from an acquirer account information of a recipient; determining whether the recipient has an account at the provider institution; in response to determining the recipient has an account at the provider institution, updating a first entry of an overlay ledger that lists the account of the recipient and a second entry of the overlay ledger that lists the credit card account of the customer with the amount; in response to determining the recipient is unassociated with an account at the provider institution, updating the second entry of the overlay ledger that lists the credit card account of the customer with the amount and transferring the amount from a pooled account of the provider institution to an account of the recipient; and sending a receipt of the transaction to the customer. Therefore, claim 1 is directed to the abstract idea of processing a credit transaction via direct transfer between two accounts or a centralized currency pool, which is grouped within the “methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas under the “fundamental economic principles or practices” sub-grouping in prong one of step 2A. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea (See MPEP 2106.04).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A (See MPEP 2106.04), the additional elements of the claim such as MBC, processors, a network, acquirer/processor computer system, public/private key pair, and customer computer device merely use computers as a tool to perform an abstract idea. The use of MBC, a network, and public/private key pair does not more than generally link the abstract idea to a particular field of use (e.g. digital currency transactions) due to reciting such elements at no more than a high level of generality (e.g. MBC is merely a substitute for digital fiat currencies and the public/private key pair are merely used as identifying information to determine whether a matching account exists, functionally no different than a traditional account number). Finally, the use of processors/computers (acquirer/processor computer system, customer computer device) as tools to implement the abstract idea does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it requires no more than computers performing functions that correspond to acts required to carry out the abstract idea. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B (See MPEP 2106.05), the additional elements of MBC, processors, a network, acquirer/processor computer system, public/private key pair, and customer computer device do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. As discussed above, taking the claim elements separately, the use of MBC, a network, and public/private key pair does not more than generally link the abstract idea to a particular field of use (e.g. digital currency transactions) due to reciting such elements at no more than a high level of generality (e.g. MBC is merely a substitute for digital fiat currencies and the public/private key pair are merely used as identifying information to determine whether a matching account exists, functionally no different than a traditional account number). Finally, the use of acquirer/processor computer system and customer computer device does no more than use processors/computers as tools to automate and/or implement that abstract idea (i.e. “apply it”). Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the concept of processing digital currency transactions. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and/or implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 2-10 and 19 further describe characteristics of data (e.g. types of pooled funds) and continue to merely describe steps to perform the abstract idea (e.g. creating a ledger to track credits/debits, updating the ledger, transferring currency, etc.). Furthermore, the additional elements of a recipient computing system, MBC verification nodes, and open loop processing network do no more than continue to generally link the abstract idea to a particular field of use and use computers as tools to implement and/or automate the abstract idea. Accordingly, the dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
The same analysis pertaining to the abstract idea of processing a credit transaction via direct transfer between two accounts or a centralized currency pool holds true for claims 11-18 and 20 as well, with the additional elements of memory and processor merely using a processor/computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea. Therefore, claims 11-18 and 20 are also not patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 10 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 10 and 19 recite the limitation "the open loop processing network" in “broadcasting the MBC transaction, to a plurality of math-based currency verification nodes via the open loop processing network.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 recite allowable subject matter over the prior art.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art does not disclose, in a reasonable number of references, neither singly nor in combination: receiving, from an acquirer/processor computer system via the network, a public and private key pair of a recipient; determining, based on the public and private key pair, whether the recipient has an MBC account at the provider institution; in response to determining that the recipient is unassociated with any MBC account at the provider institution,...transferring the MBC amount from a pooled MBC account of the provider institution to an MBC account of the recipient.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TAYLOR RAK whose telephone number is (571)270-1575. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 11:00-7:00 EST.
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/T.R./Examiner, Art Unit 3697
/JOHN W HAYES/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3697