DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in reply to correspondence filed 7 April 2026 in regard to application no. 18/929,437. Claims 1-30 are pending and are considered below.
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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of inventive group II, claims 6-8, in the reply filed on 7 April 2026, is acknowledged. Claims 1-5 and 9-30 are withdrawn from consideration by the Examiner as being directed to non-elected inventions. See 37 CFR 1.142(b).
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 6-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims lie within a statutory category of invention, as each is directed to a method (process). The claim(s) recite(s) determining information about device use in no particular manner, awarding reward points in the form of data (cryptocurrency is simply data), and storing the data.
First, providing reward points is a commercial interaction and a fundamental business practice, which are among the “certain methods of organizing human activity” deemed abstract. Second, the steps could, in the absence of computers, be performed mentally or with pen-and-paper means.
A merchant can observe people’s interactions with their devices or anything else of interest, can mentally determine rewards to provide and what their cash value shall be, and can provide them by writing them on paper; the customers can then store them in actual wallets. None of this presents any practical difficulty and none requires any technology beyond a pen and paper.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because aside from the bare inclusion of a generic computer, discussed below, nothing is done beyond what was set forth above, which does not go beyond generally linking the abstract idea to the technological environment of generic, networked computers. See MPEP § 2106.05(h).
As the claims only manipulate data pertaining to a user’s interactions, rewards and the like, they do not improve the “functioning of a computer” or of “any other technology or technical field”. See MPEP § 2106.05(a). They do not apply the abstract idea “with, or by use of a particular machine”, MPEP § 2106.05(b), as the below-cited Guidance is clear that a generic computer is not the particular machine envisioned.
They do not effect a “transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing”, MPEP § 2106.05(c). First, such data, being intangible, are not a particular article at all. Second, the claimed manipulation is neither transformative nor reductive; as the courts have pointed out, in the end, data are still data.
They do not apply the abstract idea “in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking [it] to a particular technological environment”, MPEP § 2106.05(e), as the lack of technical and algorithmic detail in the claims is so as not to go beyond such a general linkage.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional claim limitations, considered individually and as an ordered combination, are insufficient to elevate an otherwise-ineligible claim.
Claim 6 is directed to a “computer-implemented method” executed by a “microprocessor running program instructions stored in a computer-readable non-transitory storage medium coupled to said microprocessor”. These elements are recited at a high degree of generality and the specification does not meaningfully limit them, such that a generic computer will suffice and is encompassed by the claims.
It only performs generic computer functions of nondescriptly manipulating data and storing information. Generic computers performing generic computer functions, without an inventive concept, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
The type of information being manipulated does not impose meaningful limitations or render the idea less abstract. The claim elements when considered as an ordered combination – a generic computer performing a chronological sequence of abstract steps – does nothing more than when they are analyzed individually.
The dependent claims further do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea, as claim 7 simply allows for a person to input information, and claim 8 is simply further descriptive of the type of information being manipulated.
The claims are not patent eligible. For further guidance please see MPEP § 2106.03 – 2106.07(c) (formerly referred to as the “2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance”, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 55 (7 January 2019)).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dao et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2020/0112907) in view of Cheong (U.S. Publication No. 2020/0112833).
In-line citations are to Dao.
With regard to Claim 6:
Dao teaches: A computer-implemented method for awarding reward points to a user of a mobile computing device containing a plurality of applications, said method executed by a microprocessor running program instructions stored in a computer-readable non-transitory storage medium coupled to said microprocessor, [0353; a “computer program” comprises “machine executable program code” for a “processor” to execute] and said method comprising the steps of:
(a) determining context attributes of said user of said mobile computing device, said context attributes comprising a frequency and a duration of usage of said plurality of applications by said user… based on said context attributes… [0322; application information from a user session of a mobile device includes a frequency and duration related to the application; abstract; the information may be provided to users]
Dao does not explicitly teach awarding reward points to said user, wherein said reward points are converted into a cash value represented by cryptocurrency tokens, or storing said reward points in a digital wallet on said mobile computing device, but it is known in the art. Cheong teaches a system for managing cryptocurrencies and tokens. [title] A user may be running a “mobile application” such as an “electronic wallet”. [0030] The system may provide “incentives and/or rewards” using “digital tokens” or “cryptocurrency”. [0084] The cryptocurrency such as “bitcoin” may be redeemed based on “method of payment preferences” such as “cash”. [0030] Cheong and Dao are analogous art as each is directed to electronic means for communicating user information between mobile phones and server devices.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art just prior to the filing of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Cheong with that of Dao, as market forces at the time were increasingly driving developers to use distributed ledger technology for all manner of applications; further, it is simply a combination of known parts with predictable results, simply using Dao’s usage data as a basis for the rewards of Cheong (in place of, or in addition to, Cheong’s own bases) and then performing Cheong’s steps after that of Dao. Each part works independently of the other, and each works in combination identically to how it works when not combined, with no new and unexpected result inherent or disclosed.
Claim(s) 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dao et al. in view of Cheong further in view of Boss et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2018/0240108).
With regard to Claim 7:
The method of claim 6 assigning weights to said context attributes by one or both of a human curator and a machine learning algorithm.
Dao and Cheong teach the method of claim 6 including the use of weighting, [0349] but do not explicitly teach assigning the weights, but it is known in the art. Boss teaches a mobile wallet management system [title] that uses “cognitive learning of a user’s spending habits” and implements a “mobile wallet”. [0017] It maintains information “related to the use of the mobile wallet device”, [0039] and a user may set “user preferences” and assign “preferred weights” to each of them. [0041] Servers maintain the information. [0020] Boss and Dao are analogous art as each is directed to electronic means for managing information between mobile devices and servers.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art just prior to the filing of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Boss with that of Dao and Cheong in order to improve management of user data, as taught by Boss; [0003] further, it is simply a substitution of one known part for another with predictable results, simply having a weight explicitly assigned as in Boss rather than simply using it as in Dao; the substitution produces no new and unexpected result.
With regard to Claim 8:
The method of claim 7 basing said weights on one or more of a user preference, an application usage, a value of said reward points and a sponsor promotion for one of said plurality of applications. [Boss, 0041 as cited above in regard to claim 7]
This claim is not patentably distinct from claim 7 as it consists entirely of nonfunctional, descriptive language, disclosing at most human interpretation of data but which imparts neither structure nor functionality to the claimed method. The reference is provided for the purpose of compact prosecution.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SCOTT C ANDERSON whose telephone number is (571)270-7442. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00 to 5:30.
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/SCOTT C ANDERSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3694
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