Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Claims
Claims 2, 4-5, 9-12, and 15-21 have been amended.
Claims 2-21 are pending
The rejection under 35 USC 101 is withdrawn. The examiner interprets the amended claims to recite a technological improvement to a POS system.
Response to Applicant Remarks
Applicant’s well-articulated remarks have been considered but are unpersuasive for the reasons below.
Applicant’s amendments are addressed by the newly cited art.
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 2-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. Regarding independent claims 2,9, 16 the claimed invention recites an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recites the abstract idea of fulfilling a purchase which is a mental process. Other than reciting a device, interface, system, store front, POS nothing in the claims precludes the steps from being performed mentally/manually. But for the device, interface, system, store front, POS the limitations on receive purchase request, receive item selection, withhold identifying information from merchant, process transaction, facilitate fulfillment, send confirmation to merchant is a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation could be performed by mentally/manually but for the recitation of generic computer elements. If claim limitations, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Further the above limitations related to fulfilling a purchase stripped of the identified additional and insignificant elements could also be considered a “Method of Organizing Human Activity” relating to the managing human behavior and interactions. (fundamental economic practice) Thus, the claims recite an abstract idea.
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The computers are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. The additional element(s) does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Simply implementing the abstract idea on a generic computer environment is not a practical application of the abstract idea and does not take the claim out of the mental process or method of organizing human activity grouping.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above, with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element device, interface, system, store front, POS amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Collecting, analyzing and displaying information, and receiving and transmitting over a network are conventional in the computing arts. (MPEP 2106.05h; See also MPEP 2106.05, Alice v. CLS, “. Nearly every computer will include a ‘communications controller’ and ‘data storage unit’ capable of performing the basic calculation, storage, and transmission functions required by the method claims.”).t The claims are not patent eligible.
Regarding the dependent claims , these claims are directed to limitations which serve to limit the purchase fulfillment steps. The subject matter of claims 3/10/17 (item not fulfilled by merchant), 4/11/18 (identifying information includes contact and payment), 5/12/19 (withhold contact information from merchant), 6/7/13/14/20 (receive instruction to configure store), 8/15/21 (update inventory on fulfillment) appear to add additional steps to the abstract idea, implemented by generic computers. These claims neither introduce a new abstract idea nor additional limitations which are significantly more than an abstract idea. They provide descriptive details that offer helpful context, but have no impact on statutory subject matter eligibility.
Therefore the limitations on the invention, when viewed individually and in ordered combination are directed to in-eligible subject matter.
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 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.
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 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 pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 2-5, 9,10,11,12,16,17,18,19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103a as being unpatentable over
Nowka US8121957B1 in view of
Stone, “Sold on eBay, Shipped by Amazon.com”, 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/technology/27amazon.html in view of
Siegel 20030014317 in view of
Hunter 20130282438
Regarding Claim 2,
causing, by an ecommerce management system, a first graphical user interface to be displayed on a user device of an ecommerce customer;
receiving, at the ecommerce management system and responsive to a first user input on the first graphical user interface, a request to purchase an item, …
receiving, via one or more second user inputs on the second user interface on the user device, at least a selection of the item to be purchased from the digital store front of the merchant and identifying information for completing the purchase;
configuring, by the ecommerce management system, a second user interface on the user device to display the corresponding digital store front;
determining, by the ecommerce management system, to withhold the identifying information of the ecommerce customer from the merchant; processing, by the ecommerce management system, a transaction to complete the purchase of the item;
Nowka is directed to an e-commerce system that does not disclose consumer account information to a merchant. (Nowka, summary, “Systems and methods are disclosed for verifying payment information for transactions, such as sales transactions, without disclosing consumer account information to a merchant. In a first general aspect, a computer-implemented method includes receiving, in response to an order placed by a customer, a request for verification information from a merchant. The method also includes communicating customer information to an issuing organization associated with the customer while withholding the information from the merchant. The method further includes connecting the merchant for communication with the issuing organization for verification of information associated with the order.”; col.5,lns.35-50, “When the search results appear, the user may access a merchant's online site 130, as illustrated by arrow “B” in FIG. 1, and may browse through listings of various mountain bikes on the site 130. In this example, the user 120 may be interested in purchasing a full-suspension mountain bike suited for riding off-road, cross-country mountain bike trails. After locating an appropriate mountain bike on the merchant's site 130 (e.g., the “Expert” model for $2499), the user 120 may select a checkout icon 135 associated with the transaction processor 105, according to an implementation. In FIG. 1, the exemplary checkout icon 135 is shown as a shopping cart, but the icon may take any appropriate shape or form in other implementations, including a button or selectable text.”)
transmitting, by the ecommerce management system, a confirmation of the transaction for the item to a point-of-sale (POS) device of the merchant.
(Nowka, col.15,lns.56-62, “The issuing organization may issue the verification at step 555, and the transaction processor may provide the verification to the merchant at step 560. The merchant may receive the verification at step 565. In some implementations, the issuing organization may provide the verification information directly to the merchant.”)
wherein the identifying information includes an address of the ecommerce customer, and
(Nowka, col.4, lns.33-44, “Because of the risk of identity theft, credit card fraud and loan fraud, customers 120 may have reservations about providing sensitive personal information to merchants 110. For example, a customer 120 may fear that if they provide a credit card number, credit card expiration date, social security number, address, phone number, birth date, password, or other sensitive information to a merchant 110, that such information may eventually be compromised in some fashion.”)
Nowka does not explicitly disclose
facilitating, by the ecommerce management system, a fulfillment of the item purchased; and
the ecommerce management system having a corresponding digital store front for a merchant that offers the item for sale through the ecommerce management system;
Stone is an article describing Amazon.com’s fulfillment services. (Stone, p.1). Stone discloses that an ecommerce platform could provide fulfillment services and also host a commerce site for a merchant. (Stone, p.2, “Since last fall, the program, Fulfillment by Amazon, has allowed independent sellers who list their goods on Amazon.com to use its network of more than 20 distribution centers around the world to fill orders. Now Amazon, which is based in Seattle, is opening the program to vendors who list their items elsewhere on the Web — on their own site, through Google, or even on Amazon’s e-commerce rival, eBay.
The program is part of a broader set of tools called Amazon Web Services, an effort by the e-commerce pioneer to rent out complicated parts of its infrastructure to smaller companies that might benefit from its hard-earned expertise, and who will pay for the privilege of lightening their workload.”) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the invention was made to combine Nowka with the ecommerce system of Stone with the motivation of providing paid services to merchants. Id.
Nowka does not explicitly disclose
the corresponding digital store front having been generated responsive to an indication received from a merchant application running on a point- of-sale (POS) device of the merchant by identifying the item from inventory data of a point-of- sale system of the merchant, and by generating a resource for the item that is accessible from a web domain and includes details obtained from the inventory data and executable instructions that enable purchase of the item;
Siegel is directed to system for integrating a merchant website with brick and mortar inventory information. (Siegel, abstract). Siegel discloses that merchant ecommerce website may be created by interaction with the merchant POS. (Siegel, para 0013, “[0013] The present invention addresses these problems directly by providing a system that allows the online and "bricks and mortar" sales and inventory data to be integrated without requiring a dynamic web host. Instead, the present invention provides a software program which can reside on a merchant's in store personal computer that performs all of the inventory database functions of the database in the dynamic web server context, but which can also double as an in store point-of-sale terminal, and which has the ability to simultaneously generate all web pages of the merchant's static web site based on the information changes in the program's inventory database. The advantage of this is that that merchant does not have to write any HTML, and they can host their web site on any one of a myriad of static website hosting providers. These static hosts are far less expensive than the dynamic hosts, and the pages can be retrieved by Internet surfing customers much faster.”; para 0018, “[0018] Without the direct use of Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML) code, the user may create a custom web page through a "set up wizard" to add color, backgrounds, frames, links, and sounds or use templates to add variety. Items may be photographed and displayed on the web pages and can be customized and organized for easier access. The search engine is specially formatted to deal with a group of similarly created and managed electronic retail web sites.”) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the invention was made to combine Nowka and Stone with the ecommerce system of Siegel with the motivation of selling goods. Id.
wherein the determination to withhold the address is made when a setting in an account profile of the ecommerce customer indicates that the address is not to be shared with the merchant;
Hunter is directed to a system for providing relevant proximity information to a user device. (Hunter, abstract). Hunter discloses that a user profile may contain settings to determine types information that may be disclose to a merchant. (Hunter, para 0070, “[0070] During and after registration, users may set profile permissions that may indicate subsets (e.g., "windows") of the stored profile information that may be provided to particular registered services or in particular circumstances. For example, a user may indicate that all personal information stored within his/her profile, such as birth date, address, and health information, may be private and thus may not be disclosed to any merchant. As another example, the user may indicate that his/her shopping preferences may be shared with merchants who offer particular products or services. When permissions are stored, the central server may only transmit profile information that is authorized, regardless of its relevant to a registered service. With permissions, the central server may provide profile information that assists third-parties in providing improved services to users while maintaining relative anonymity of the users.”) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the invention was made to combine Nowka, Stone and Siegel with the profile of Hunter with the motivation of maintaining privacy. Id.
Regarding Claim 3, Nowka, Stone, Siegel and Hunter disclose the method of claim 2.
wherein the item is not fulfilled by the merchant.
See prior art rejection of claim 2 regarding Stone.
Regarding Claim 4, Nowka, Stone, Siegel and Hunter disclose the method of claim 2.
wherein the identifying information includes at least one item of contact information associated with the ecommerce customer and payment information of the ecommerce customer for processing the transaction.
See prior art rejection of claim 1 regarding Nowka
Regarding Claim 5, Nowka, Stone, Siegel and Hunter disclose the method of claim 4.
wherein the ecommerce management system withholds the at least one item of contact information from the merchant.
See prior art rejection of claim 1 regarding Nowka
Regarding Claim 9,10,11,12,16,17,18,19
See prior art rejections of claim 2,3,4,5,2,3,4,5
Claims 6-8, 13,14,15,20,21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Nowka US8121957B1 in view of
Stone, “Sold on eBay, Shipped by Amazon.com”, 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/technology/27amazon.html in view of Siegel in view of Hunter in view of AAPA
Regarding Claim 6, Nowka, Stone, Siegel and Hunter disclose the method of claim 2.
Nowka does not explicitly disclose
Receiving from the POS device of the merchant, one or more instructions to configure the digital store front.
However, the limitation is obvious in view of official notice. The examiner takes official notice that it is old and well known for a merchant device to send instructions to configure a digital storefront. For example, a merchant could use device access interfaces to set up new listings and manage inventory for Amazon or Ebay ecommerce sites. All the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding Claim 7, Nowka, Stone, Siegel and Hunter and Official Notice disclose the method of claim 6.
configuring a third user interface on the POS device of the merchant for receiving the one or more instructions for configuring the digital store front.
See prior art rejection of claim 6.
Regarding Claim 8, Nowka, Stone, Siegel and Hunter and Official Notice disclose the method of claim 2.
Nowka does not explicitly disclose
updating an inventory associated with the merchant upon completing the fulfillment of the item.
However, the limitation is obvious in view of official notice. The examiner takes official notice that it is old and well known for an ecommerce site to update inventory status on fulfillment. For example, inventory could be determined to be available, shipped, in transit, delivered, etc. All the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claims 13,14,15,20,21
See prior art rejections of claim 6,7,8,6,8
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 ALLEN C CHEIN whose telephone number is (571)270-7985. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am -5pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Florian Zeender can be reached at (571) 272-6790. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ALLEN C CHEIN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627
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