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
The Amendment of claims 2, 5, 9, 16 and 19-21, filed on 05/18/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 2-21, was previously pending.
Claims 3-4 and 18, canceled, therefore
Claims 2, 5-17 and 19-21 are currently pending, and examined below.
Examiner’s Response to Amendment/Remarks
Double Patenting
Examiner agrees with the Applicant’s remarks that the amendment has obviate the Double Patent rejection in the Office Action mailed out on 12/17/2025. Therefore, the Double Patent rejection is hereby withdrawn.
USC § 101
Claims 2, 5-17 and 19-21 continues to be directed towards determining the health of social tokens. This is an abstract idea. The computer technology merely automates and implements the abstract idea. The additional elements (“a data assessment system”, “A system for determining the health of social tokens, the system comprising:”, “A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:”), do not improve the functioning of a computer nor does it improve a technology or technical field. Also, the additional elements of computer technology merely automate the abstract idea. In this instance, these are all elements of a computer and do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The devices, merely automates and implements the abstract idea to perform the functions. The devices do not provide meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment, the claim continues to be ineligible.
Applicant has amended the claims to recite [the data pertaining to use of the social token used by the sender in transactions conducted using each of the one or more accounts is stored in a paver profile; receiving, from the sender, data associated with a transaction initiated by the sender, the data associated with the transaction comprising a social token used by a receiver of the transaction; analyzing data pertaining to use of the social token used by the receiver in one or more prior transactions to generate a health score for the social token used by the receiver, wherein: the data pertaining to use of the social token used by the receiver in one or more prior transactions is stored in a payee profile; and the payee profile and the paver profile are stored in separate and discrete data structures and memory locations;] Under the broadest interpretation of these newly added limitations, For example, the disclosure establishes, analyzing the data pertaining to use of the social token used by the receiver in one or more prior transactions to generate a health score, which is a form of commercial and legal activities, fits squarely within the “certain methods of
organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Therefore, these added limitations does not help to overcome the 101 rejection. The 101 rejection is hereby maintained.
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, 5-17 and 19-21, 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 2 and 5-8 are directed to a machine (i.e., a system), claims 9-15 are directed to a process (i.e., a method), and claims 16-17 and 19-21 are directed to a product (i.e., a non-transitory computer-readable medium), therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention. Thus, the eligibility analysis proceeds to Step 2A.1.
The limitations of independent claim 9, which is representative of independent claims 2 and 15, have been denoted with letters by the Examiner for easy reference. The judicial exceptions recited in claim 9 are identified in bold below:
[A] A method for the health of social tokens, comprising:
[B] receiving data associated with a sender, wherein:
[C] the data associated with the sender is used by a data assessment system to generate an account associated with the sender; and
[D] the data associated with the sender comprises a social token used by the sender;
[E] utilizing the social token used by the sender to retrieve account data associated with one or more accounts maintained at one or more entities, wherein: the account data comprises data pertaining to use of the social token used by the sender in transactions conducted using each of the one or more accounts; and
[F] the data pertaining to use of the social token used by the sender in transactions conducted using each of the one or more accounts is stored in a payer profile;
[G] analyzing the data pertaining to use of the social token used by the sender in transactions conducted using each of the one or more accounts to generate a health score for the social token used by the sender, wherein the health score for the social token used by the sender is indicative of a level of risk for use of the social token by the sender as a payer in a transaction;
[H] receiving, from the sender, data associated with a transaction initiated by the sender, the data associated with the transaction comprising a social token used by a receiver of the transaction;
[I] analyzing data pertaining to use of the social token used by the receiver in one or more prior transactions to generate a health score for the social token used by the receiver, wherein:
[J] the data pertaining to use of the social token used by the receiver in
one or more prior transactions is stored in a payee profile; and
[K] the payee profile and the payer profile are stored in separate and discrete data structures and memory locations;
[L] determining a health score for the transaction based at least in part the health score for the social token used by the sender, the health score for the social token used by the receiver, and data associated with the transaction; and
[M] determining whether the transaction should be approved or rejected based at least in part on the health score for the transaction.
Limitations A-M under the broadest reasonable interpretation covers steps or
functions of certain methods of organizing human activity, specifically managing
personal/commercial behavior (e.g., receiving, generating, utilizing, analyzing, and
determining). For example, the disclosure establishes collecting data of sender’s social
behavior and using the data to generate a score of risk level of the sender to
determining approving or rejecting the completion of the transaction, which is a
form of commercial and legal activities, fits squarely within the “certain methods of
organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Therefore, limitations A and M
recite at least one abstract idea. Accordingly, claim 9, recite at least one abstract idea
and the analysis proceed to Step 2A.2.
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular,
claims 9, recites the additional elements in bold below:
[A] A method for the health of social tokens, comprising:
[B] receiving data associated with a sender, wherein:
[C] the data associated with the sender is used by a data assessment system to generate an account associated with the sender; and
[D] the data associated with the sender comprises a social token used by the sender;
[E] utilizing the social token used by the sender to retrieve account data associated with one or more accounts maintained at one or more entities, wherein: the account data comprises data pertaining to use of the social token used by the sender in transactions conducted using each of the one or more accounts; and
[F] the data pertaining to use of the social token used by the sender in transactions conducted using each of the one or more accounts is stored in a payer profile;
[G] analyzing the data pertaining to use of the social token used by the sender in transactions conducted using each of the one or more accounts to generate a health score for the social token used by the sender, wherein the health score for the social token used by the sender is indicative of a level of risk for use of the social token by the sender as a payer in a transaction;
[H] receiving, from the sender, data associated with a transaction initiated by the sender, the data associated with the transaction comprising a social token used by a receiver of the transaction;
[I] analyzing data pertaining to use of the social token used by the receiver in
one or more prior transactions to generate a health score for the social token used by the receiver, wherein:
[J] the data pertaining to use of the social token used by the receiver in one or more prior transactions is stored in a payee profile; and
[K] the payee profile and the payer profile are stored in separate and discrete data structures and memory locations;
[L] determining a health score for the transaction based at least in part the health score for the social token used by the sender, the health score for the social token used by the receiver, and data associated with the transaction; and
[M] determining whether the transaction should be approved or rejected based at least in part on the health score for the transaction.
[N] Additionally, claim 2 recites “A system for determining the health of social tokens, the system comprising:”
[O] And claim 16 recites “A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:”
The additional elements (“a data assessment system”, “A system for determining the health of social tokens, the system comprising:”, “A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:”), are no more than a generic computer performing operations to automate the data assessment computer. When the additional elements are considered individually and as an ordered combination, the claim as a whole, amounts to no more than or mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a device/computer, or merely uses a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea. Accordingly, the additional element(s) do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not recite any additional elements indicative of integration into a practical application. Rather, the claim as whole generally links the judicial exception to a technological environment (e.g., “a data assessment system”, “A system for determining the health of social tokens, the system comprising:”, “A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:”), defined by high level recitations of a computer and the Internet. Therefore, the claim is directed to an abstract idea and the analysis proceeds to Step 2B.
The additional elements, both individually and as an ordered combination, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the outcome of the considerations at Step 2B will be the same when the considerations from Step 2A.2 are reevaluated. As discussed under Step 2A.2, the additional element(s) amount to no more than generally link the abstract idea to a technological environment through “instructions” performed by a generic computer. Because those instructions embody the abstract idea, the claim itself is merely a recitation of the abstract idea and an instruction to “apply it” on a computer. This is not enough to provide an inventive
concept. Therefore, claims 2, 9 and 16 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 5-6, further recites wherein: generating the health score for the social token used by the receiver further comprises analyzing data associated with the receiver, and account data received from the one or more entities; wherein: the health score for the social token used by the sender comprises at least one of a general health score that assesses the social token used by the sender in general, a payer health score that represents a score for the social token used by the sender when used by the sender as a payer in a transaction, or a payee health score that represents a score for the social token used by the sender when used by the sender as a payee in a transaction. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation covers steps or functions of certain methods of organizing human activity, specifically managing personal/commercial behavior. For example, the claims establishes, collecting data of sender’s social behavior and using the data to generate a score of risk level of the sender to determine approving or rejecting the completion of the transaction, which is a form of commercial and legal activities, fits squarely within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of Step 2A. The 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, claims 5-6 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 7-8, further recites wherein: the account data comprises at least one of data associated with how long the social token used by the sender has been established, data associated with historical users of the social token used by the sender and information associated with each of those users, network behaviors associated with social token used by the sender over time, a velocity of payments associated with the social token used by the sender, a number of times the social token used by the sender has registered to a new financial institution over a certain time period, a number of times the social token used by the sender has registered to a new demand deposit account over a certain time period, or behavioral patterns associated with use of the social token used by the sender; wherein: receive data indicating that the social token used by the sender has been involved in one or both of past possible fraud or past account abuse; and the health score for the social token used by the sender is determined based at least in part on the data indicating that the social token used by the sender has been involved in one or both of past possible fraud or past account abuse. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation covers steps or functions of certain methods of organizing human activity, specifically managing personal/commercial behavior. For example, the claims establishes, collecting data of sender’s social behavior/attribute and using the data to generate a score of risk level of the sender to determine approving or rejecting the completion of the transaction, which is a form of commercial and legal activities, fits squarely within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of Step 2A. The 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, claims 7-8 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 10-15, further recites further comprising: identifying at least
one additional social token associated with the sender; and accessing data associated with each of the at least one additional social token, wherein the health score for the transaction is further based at least in part on the data associated with each of the at least one additional social token; wherein: the health score of the social token used by the sender further comprises a score that is indicative of a level of risk for use of the social token used by the sender as a payee in a transaction; wherein: the health score of the social token used by the sender is determined based at least in part on usage patterns of the social token used by the sender in transactions conducted using each of the one or more accounts; wherein: the health score of the social token used by the sender is determined based at least in part on a business type of the sender; wherein: the health score of the social token used by the sender is determined based on a plurality of transaction characteristics; and at least some of the plurality of transaction characteristics are weighted differently; wherein: the health score of the social token used by the sender is determined based on a plurality of transaction characteristics; and at least some of the plurality of transaction characteristics are weighted differently; locking the social token used by the sender from being useable. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation covers steps or functions of certain methods of organizing human activity, specifically managing personal/commercial behavior. For example, the claims establishes, collecting data of sender’s social behavior and using the data to generate a score of risk level of the sender to determine approving or rejecting the completion of the transaction, which is a form of commercial and legal activities, fits squarely within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of Step 2A. The 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, claims 10-15 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 17 and 19-21, further recites wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to: determine that the health score for the transaction is too low to approve; and transmit a notification to the sender to confirm details of the transaction to confirm that the transaction is legitimate and not fraudulent; wherein: the risk score comprises a confirmation that the health score for the social token used by the sender and the health score for the social token used by the receiver are above an established threshold; wherein: the social token comprises at least one of a phone number, an email address, a QR code assigned to the sender, a peer to peer payment system user handle, or a social media handle; wherein: the data associated with the transaction comprises an amount of the transaction, a device used to initiate the transaction, a location of the transaction, or a payee of the transaction. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation covers steps or functions of certain methods of organizing human activity, specifically managing personal/commercial behavior. For example, the claims establishes, collecting data of sender’s social behavior and using the data to generate a score of risk level of the sender to determine approving or rejecting the completion of the transaction, which is a form of commercial and legal activities, fits squarely within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of Step 2A. The 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, claims 17 and 19-21 are not patent
eligible.
In summary, the dependent claims considered both individually and as an
ordered combination do not provide meaningful limitations to transform the abstract idea
into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claims amount to
significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The claims do not recite an improvement
to another technology or technical field, an improvement to the functioning of the
computer itself, or provide meaningful limitations beyond generally linking an abstract
idea to a particular technological environment. Therefore, the claims 2, 5-17 and 19-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Novel/Non-obvious Subject Matter
This application contains novel/non-obvious subject matter based on the similar claim limitation that are not patentably distinct from the Allowed patent 12/211,049. Independent claims 2, 9 and 16 recites novel/non-obvious limitations “generate a health score for the social token used by the sender, wherein the health score for the social token used by the sender is indicative of a level of risk for use of the social token by the sender as a payer in a transaction;” and “determining a health score for the transaction based at least in part on the health score for the social token used by the sender, the health score for the social token used by the receiver, and data associated with the transaction;” Upon further search, Examiner is unable to find prior art that teaches these limitations. Therefore, there is no 103 rejection at this stage of prosecution.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon:
1) (US 20230353530 A1) – Schmid et al., Systems and Methods for
Generating Automatically Suggested Recommendations Based on Aggregated Recommendations within a Social Networking System - relates to the field of social networks. More particularly, the present technology relates to techniques for generating recommendations associated with social networking systems.
2) (US Pat. 11810105 B2) – Vyas et al., System And Method For Authorizing
And Provisioning A Token To An Appliance – relate generally to a system and method for providing an appliance with an original personal account number, and, in one particular embodiment, to a system and method for authorizing and provisioning a token to an appliance for conducting transactions.
3) (US 20230132878 A1) – Perez et al., Methods and Apparatus to Analyze and Adjust Demographic Information – relates generally to audience measurements and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus to analyze and adjust demographic information of audience members.
4) (US 20180336553 A1) – Brudnicki et al., Facilitating a Fund Transfer between User Accounts - relates to facilitating a fund transfer between user accounts, including to facilitating a fund transfer between user accounts using anonymous receive tokens.
5) (US 20120278164 A1) – Spivack et al., Adaptive System Architecture for Identifying Popular Topics from messages - relates generally to analysis of messages and associated content in a network or across networks to retrieve useful information, and in particular, useful information to recommend content placement such as advertisement placement.
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 VINCENT IDIAKE whose telephone number is (571)272-1284. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri from 10:30AM to 7:30PM ET.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, PATRICK MCATEE, can be reached at telephone number (571)272-7575. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/V.I./Examiner, Art Unit 3698
/PATRICK MCATEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3698
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