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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-20 are pending, with claims 1, 8, and 15 being independent.
Claims 1,2,8,9,10,13,14,15,20 have been amended.
The rejection under 35 USC 101 is maintained
Response to Applicant Remarks
Applicant’s well-articulated remarks have been considered but are unpersuasive for the reasons below.
Regarding the rejection under 35 USC 101, Applicant argues that the claimed invention is an improvement to an ERP system and is beyond human mental activity. (Applicant’s 8/13/26 remarks, pp.10-11). The examiner respectfully disagrees.
The examiner respectfully suggests that the type of accounts receivable analysis claimed is a process performed by businesses that is independent of computer processing. (See e.g., Davis, “How to Analyze Accounts Receivable Data”, 9/2024, https://www.southdistrictgroup.com/blog/accounts-receivable-analytics-data-analysis, p.1, “Accounts receivable analysis is the process of reviewing your company’s outstanding invoices to customers, assessing payment behavior, and understanding how these factors impact your overall financial health. By focusing on accounts receivable analytics, you can uncover actionable insights that will improve cash flow, refine your credit policies, and streamline the invoicing process.”; “A key metric in accounts receivable analytics is understanding how quickly your customers pay their invoices. If you notice frequent late payments, it may signal the need to tighten credit policies or adjust your payment terms.
Average Days Sales Outstanding
Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) measures the average time it takes to collect payments after a sale. Lowering this number directly improves your cash flow. Monitoring your DSO over time will help you gauge the success of your collection efforts.”;
“Your payment terms play an important role in the timely collection of receivables. By analyzing how your customers respond to various payment terms, you can find the ideal balance that encourages prompt payments while maintaining healthy relationships. While shorter payment terms can speed up the process, they could also place strain on your customers if not carefully managed.”) That is, the examiner understands that the type of analysis claimed is not specifically technological in nature nor requires an ERP system. The examiner understands that a human analyst could manually access invoices, ledgers and customer information to calculate, for example DSO for groupings of customers, other features, or payment terms to find payment terms that have given the best performance. (See also Kunwar 20230342793, disclosing analysis impact of different groupings of parameters such as customers, payment terms, products, invoices on DSO, para 0015-16, “[0115] In an embodiment, the calculated DSO impact score is compared with the desired grouping level. The desired grouping level comprises one or more customers, payment terms, invoice type, product type. The potential impact is generated and the generated potential impact on the customer level DSO is highlighted.
[0116] In an embodiment, the calculated grouping level DSO impact corresponds to the desired days in period, open amount reduction on the grouping level and credit sales of the group in a period.”)
Applicant also argues that the invention is a practical application of an abstract idea, improving an ERP system. (Applicant’s 8/13/26 remarks, p.12). The examiner respectfully disagrees.
The claimed ERP system appears to be a generic computer that performs financial functions, an abstract idea. The examiner does not consider recitation of an ERP system to represent a particular form of technology, beyond applying an abstract idea to a generic computing environment. Although the claimed system may indeed determine optimal payment terms faster and process larger amounts of historical data than a human data analyst could hope to achieve, this does not necessarily confer eligibility. The increased speed and efficiency resulting from use of computers (with no improved computer techniques) do not themselves create eligibility. See, e.g., Trinity Info Media, LLC v. Covalent, Inc., 72 F.4th 1355, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2023) (rejecting argument that “humans could not mentally engage in the ‘same claimed process’ because they could not perform ‘nanosecond comparisons’ and aggregate ‘result values with huge numbers of polls and members’”)
Applicant also argues that the invention is significantly more than an abstract idea. (Applicant’s 8/13/26 remarks, p.13, “The Office Action states that collecting, analyzing, and displaying information is
conventional. Applicant respectfully submits that the amended claims do not merely collect or
display information. Rather, the processor generates payment-performance distributions,
computes statistical effectiveness metrics from those distributions, filters those metrics using
contextual information, ranks candidate payment terms using computed analytics, and
automatically generates invoices using those computed results.”) The examiner respectfully disagrees.
Although the claimed techniques may indeed be novel, they nevertheless are abstract steps performed by a generic computer. Such inventions typically have been found to be ineligible under 35 USC !01. (See e.g., SAP America vs. Investpic, “We may assume that the techniques claimed are “[g]roundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant,” but that is not enough for eligibility… The claims here are ineligible because their innovation is an innovation in ineligible subject matter. Their subject is nothing but a series of mathematical calculations based on selected information and the presentation of the results of those calculations (in the plot of a probability distribution function). No matter how much of an advance … the claims recite, the advance lies entirely in the realm of abstract ideas, with no plausibly alleged innovation in the nonabstract application realm. An advance of that nature is ineligible for patenting.” )
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 a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. Regarding independent claims 1, 8, 15 the claimed invention recites an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recites the abstract idea of providing invoicing terms which is a mental process. Other than reciting processor/computer (ERP system) nothing in the claims precludes the steps from being performed mentally. But for the processor the limitations on accessing historical invoices and payments, generate payment distribution values over a time interval, computing effectiveness metric of payment terms, filtering effectiveness metric, ranking candidate payment terms according to filtered effectiveness metric, selecting recommended payment term, generate invoice using recommended payment term is a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation could be performed by mentally 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 invoicing terms 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 of a computer or processor 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.”). The claims are not patent eligible.
Regarding the dependent claims, these claims are directed to limitations which serve to limit the invoice term provisioning steps. The subject matter of claims 2/9/16 (minimize DSO), 3/10/17 (maximize revenue), 4/11/18 (perform term determination using country information), 5/12/19 (perform term determination using customer segment information), 6/13/20 (determine and display payment terms for selection and invoice generation), 7/14 (payment term is based on customer ranking)
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.
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.
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, 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.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ALLEN C CHEIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627
Prosecution Insights