DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Status of Claims
This action is in reply to the application filed on November 14, 2024.
Claim(s) 1-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Claims 7-14 are withdrawn from further consideration as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
This action is made Non-Final.
Election/Restriction
Restriction to one of the following inventions is required under 35 U.S.C. 121:
I. Claims 1-6, drawn to accounting, classified in G06Q 40/12.
II. Claims 7-14, drawn to machine learning, classified in G06N 20/00.
Inventions I and II are related as subcombinations disclosed as usable together in a single combination. The subcombinations are distinct if they do not overlap in scope and are not obvious variants, and if it is shown that at least one subcombination is separately usable. In the instant case, subcombination I has separate utility such as categorizing transactions. See MPEP § 806.05(d).
The examiner has required restriction between subcombinations usable together. Where applicant elects a subcombination and claims thereto are subsequently found allowable, any claim(s) depending from or otherwise requiring all the limitations of the allowable subcombination will be examined for patentability in accordance with 37 CFR 1.104. See MPEP § 821.04(a). Applicant is advised that if any claim presented in a divisional application is anticipated by, or includes all the limitations of, a claim that is allowable in the present application, such claim may be subject to provisional statutory and/or nonstatutory double patenting rejections over the claims of the instant application.
Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all the inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because one or more of the following reasons apply:
(c) the inventions require a different field of search (for example, searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search queries).
Applicant is advised that the reply to this requirement to be complete must include (i) an election of an invention to be examined even though the requirement may be traversed (37 CFR 1.143) and (ii) identification of the claims encompassing the elected invention.
The election of an invention may be made with or without traverse. To reserve a right to petition, the election must be made with traverse. If the reply does not distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election shall be treated as an election without traverse. Traversal must be presented at the time of election in order to be considered timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are added after the election, applicant must indicate which of these claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
During a telephone conversation with Stefan Lehnardt on January 5, 2025, a provisional election was made without traverse to prosecute the invention of claims 1-6. Affirmation of this election must be made by applicant in replying to this Office action. Claims 7-20 are withdrawn from further consideration by the examiner, 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
The examiner has required restriction between product or apparatus claims and process claims. Where applicant elects claims directed to the product/apparatus, and all product/apparatus claims are subsequently found allowable, withdrawn process claims that include all the limitations of the allowable product/apparatus claims should be considered for rejoinder. All claims directed to a nonelected process invention must include all the limitations of an allowable product/apparatus claim for that process invention to be rejoined.
In the event of rejoinder, the requirement for restriction between the product/apparatus claims and the rejoined process claims will be withdrawn, and the rejoined process claims will be fully examined for patentability in accordance with 37 CFR 1.104. Thus, to be allowable, the rejoined claims must meet all criteria for patentability including the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 101, 102, 103 and 112. Until all claims to the elected product/apparatus are found allowable, an otherwise proper restriction requirement between product/apparatus claims and process claims may be maintained. Withdrawn process claims that are not commensurate in scope with an allowable product/apparatus claim will not be rejoined. See MPEP § 821.04. Additionally, in order for rejoinder to occur, applicant is advised that the process claims should be amended during prosecution to require the limitations of the product/apparatus claims. Failure to do so may result in no rejoinder. Further, note that the prohibition against double patenting rejections of 35 U.S.C. 121 does not apply where the restriction requirement is withdrawn by the examiner before the patent issues. See MPEP § 804.01.
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.
Claim(s) 1-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claim(s) 1-6 are directed to a system, method, or product, which are/is one of the statutory categories of invention. (Step 1: YES).
The Examiner has identified independent system claim 1 as the claim that represents the claimed invention for analysis. Claim 1 recites the following limitations:
[a system comprising: one or more processors; and a computer-readable, non-transitory medium including instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause at least one of the one or more processors to:]
obtain transaction data of a transaction, the transaction data including an amount and a description;
[execute a machine-learning model using as input the transaction data to] extract a first confidence vector comprising confidence scores for transaction categories;
determine whether a first confidence score of a first transaction category of the first confidence vector satisfies a predetermined threshold;
in response to determining that the first confidence score of the transaction category does not satisfy the predetermined threshold, augment the description of the transaction using additional data;
[execute the machine-learning model using as input the transaction data and the augmented description] to extract a second confidence vector; and
in response to determining that a second confidence score in the second confidence vector of the transaction category satisfies the predetermined threshold, assign the transaction category to the transaction.
Square brackets denote additional elements in the claims. These limitations, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, cover performance of the limitation as a mental process because the limitations recite concepts performed in the human mind, including observations, evaluations, judgments, and opinions. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation as a mental process as well as it falls within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas because it recites a commercial interaction between parties. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea. The one or more processors, computer-readable, non-transitory medium, and machine-learning model in Claim 1 are just applying generic computer components to the recited abstract limitations. The recitation of generic computer components in a claim does not necessarily preclude that claim from reciting an abstract idea. (Step 2A-Prong 1: YES. The claims recite an abstract idea)
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the additional elements of one or more processors, a computer-readable, non-transitory medium, and a machine-learning model. The computer hardware/software is/are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function) such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, these additional elements, when considered separately and as an ordered combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea and are at a high level of generality. Therefore, claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea without a practical application. (Step 2A-Prong 2: NO. The additional claimed elements are not integrated into a practical application)
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when considered separately and as an ordered combination, they do not add significantly more (also known as an “inventive concept”) to the exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using computer hardware amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. Accordingly, these additional elements do not change the outcome of the analysis when considered separately and as an ordered combination. Thus, claim 1 is not patent eligible. (Step 2B: NO. The claims do not provide significantly more)
Dependent claims 2-6 further define the abstract idea that is present in independent claim 1 and thus correspond to cover performance of the limitation as a mental process as well as it falls within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas because it recites a commercial interaction between parties. and hence are abstract for the reasons presented above. Dependent claims 2-6 do not include any additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception when considered both individually and as an ordered combination. Therefore, dependent claims 2-6 are directed to an abstract idea. Thus, claim(s) 1-6 are not patent-eligible.
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.
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 factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background 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 1-3 and 5-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang (US 2024/0144050) in view of Dongare (US 2023/0385825).
Regarding claim(s) 1:
Wang teaches:
a system comprising: one or more processors; and (Wang: Fig. 1, item 130. Discloses one or more processors.)
a computer-readable, non-transitory medium including instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause at least one of the one or more processors to: (Wang: pgh 26, “…the functions may be stored on or encoded as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium.”)
obtain transaction data of a transaction, the transaction data including an amount and a description; (Wang: Fig. 7, item 702 discloses obtaining a dataset comprising transaction data; pgh 17, “The transaction attributes may include, for example, user, transaction description, payee, time, amount, and other metadata from the institution.”)
execute a machine-learning model using as input the transaction data to extract a first confidence vector comprising confidence scores for transaction categories; (Wang: pgh 44, “The multilayer perceptron learner model…may be trained with a final softmax layer that produces a vector output of predicted category probability distribution, which may also be used as the confidence measure vector.”)
execute the machine-learning model using as input the transaction data and the augmented description to extract a second confidence vector; and (Wang: pgh 20, “A second stage (meta learning) includes a meta machine learning model that is trained to receive the meta dataset as a model input, and to generate a final prediction, along with a final confidence score…”)
in response to determining that a second confidence score in the second confidence vector of the transaction category satisfies the predetermined threshold, assign the transaction category to the transaction. (Wang: pgh 6, “The system may further be caused to generate final inference results comprising categorized transactions from a trained meta machine learning model based on the meta dataset…”)
Wang does not teach, however, Dongare teaches:
determine whether a first confidence score of a first transaction category of the first confidence vector satisfies a predetermined threshold; in response to determining that the first confidence score of the transaction category does not satisfy the predetermined threshold, augment the description of the transaction using additional data; (Dongare: pgh 115, “If the output from the model results in an entity name with an entity confidence score at or above a predetermined threshold value, the standardized entity name and parent entity name are extracted from the lookup table and used to label the respective transaction…”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have modified Wang to include the teachings of Dongare to improve upon model outputs (Dongare: pgh 39).
Regarding claim(s) 2:
The combination of Wang/Dongare, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Dongare further teaches:
wherein the machine-learning model is trained to categorize transactions using a training set comprising a set of categorized transactions. (Dongare: pgh 75, “Fig. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary computer-implemented method of model training for improving the categorization and classification of open banking transactions…”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have modified Wang to include the teachings of Dongare to improve upon model outputs (Dongare: pgh 39).
Regarding claim(s) 3:
The combination of Wang/Dongare, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 2. Dongare further teaches:
wherein the categorized transactions comprise standardized transaction categories and augmented descriptions. (Dongare: pgh 42, “…the data mining goal may be defined as the following: i) categorize the transaction data based on the text at a granular level, and ii) extract and standardize the transaction entity from the given transaction dataset…”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have modified Wang to include the teachings of Dongare to improve upon model outputs (Dongare: pgh 39).
Regarding claim(s) 5:
The combination of Wang/Dongare, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 4. Wang further teaches:
wherein the additional information comprises at least one of an amount of the transaction, information from a website associated with a merchant associated with the transaction, historical user input, and location-specific information. (Wang: pgh 17, “The transaction attributes may include…amount…”)
Regarding claim(s) 6:
The combination of Wang/Dongare, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Wang further teaches:
wherein the second confidence score is a highest confidence score of the second confidence vector. (Wang: pgh 32, “Once trained, the meta learner model and confidence score model produce the final predictions…”; Fig. 2, item 226.)
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang/Dongare in view of Bireley (US 2023/0360121).
Regarding claim(s) 4:
The combination of Wang/Dongare, as shown in the rejection above, discloses the limitations of claim 1. Bireley further teaches:
wherein the at least one of the one or more processors augments the description of the transaction by adding additional words to the description based on the description and additional information. (Bireley: pgh 36, “The income identification function is a useful example that can be implemented by the income/debt identification function to identify and add descriptive metadata to income transactions…”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have modified Wang/Dongare to include the teachings of Bireley to improve the data categorization process (Bireley: pgh 6).
Conclusion
Pertinent Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure. Sakai (US 2024/0062048) discloses a learning device, learning method, and storage medium.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN O PRESTON whose telephone number is (571)270-3918. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, MICHAEL ANDERSON can be reached on 571-270-0508. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOHN O PRESTON/Examiner, Art Unit 3698
January 4, 2026
/Mike Anderson/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3693