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 .
Priority
This is a continuation Application claims priority to Parent Application # 17/514,980 filed 10/296/2021.
DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to an Amendment Application received on 06/30/2026. In the application, claim 7 has been amended. Claims 1-6, and 12-20 remain cancelled. Claims 8-11, and 21-25 remain original.
Response to Arguments
Double Patenting
Applicants submitted Terminal Disclaimer (T.D.) to overcome the raised Non-Statutory Double Patenting Rejection. The Office reviewed and approved the T.D. on 06/30/2026. Therefore, this rejection has been withdrawn.
Claim Rejections – 35 USC § 102
Applicant’s remarks regarding rejection of claims under 35 USC § 102 have been reviewed, however, remarks are not found to be persuasive. After review, the remarks have been summarized as follows:
Hockey does not disclose such a process. Instead of a financial institution backend providing a redacted statement to a third party backend, Hockey appears to aggregate statements from multiple financial institutions. And, rather than make a redacted statement available to the third party, the third party accesses a remote source of data in a report, and does not retrieve a redacted statement as claimed (Page # 8-9).
Examiner’s Response
Regarding remark # 1 that Instead of a financial institution backend providing a redacted statement to a third party backend, Hockey appears to aggregate statements from multiple financial institutions, examiner respectfully disagree. Hockley clearly discloses providing redacted statement to third-party based on the received request from the third-party ([0261] As shown in FIG. 1, a method S100 for secure permissioning of access to user accounts and the secure distribution of aggregated user account data can include generating a user account report of a user account S110, receiving an account report request from a first third-party system S120 … providing the first third-party system access to the user account report through the report token S140, which functions to enable outside entities to access financial report information of a user).
The above cited portion clearly teaches that financial report which is construed as financial statement is being provided to the third party based on the request of the third-party.
Applicant notes that the Office Action has cited multiple different embodiments from Hockey, and for this reason alone, Hockey cannot anticipate as it does not disclose "all of the limitations arranged or combined in the same way as recited in the claim." Therefore, for this reason alone, Applicant respectfully requests that this rejection be withdrawn (Page # 9) … there is no disclosure that the account report is a statement has claimed (Page # 10).
Examiner’s Response
Regarding remark # 2, that Office Action has cited multiple different embodiments from Hockey, and for this reason alone, Hockey cannot anticipate as it does not disclose "all of the limitations arranged or combined in the same way as recited in the claim.", examiner respectfully disagree.
Examiner would like to note that anticipation under Section 102 does not require the reference to show the features combined in the exact same arrangement or "in the same way" if the structural relationship is directly derivable by a person of ordinary skill.
As described in the rejection, Hockley anticipates each limitation and respective claim element as claimed.
Additionally, Hockley discloses that account documents may include bank statements or other suitable documents ([0264] In a preferred application, the external institution is a financial institution and the user account report is characterized as a financial report, wherein the method functions to manage access to financial records; [0369] The account documents may include bank statements or other suitable documents).
Instead of retrieving and providing a list of available statements from the financial institution to the third party backend, and receiving a selection of one of the available statements, Hockey apparently discloses querying multiple financial institutions for bank statements, and then summarizing those statements (Page # 11).
Examiner’s Response
Regarding remark # 3, that Hockley discloses querying multiple financial institutions for bank statements, and then summarizing those statements instead of retrieving and providing a list of available statements from the financial institution, examiner would like to note that Hockley discloses that financial report comprises of data of a financial user account obtained from a financial institution server, wherein the financial report comprises a listing of financial transactions and balance information (Claim 15. The method of claim 1, wherein the financial report comprises of data of a financial user account obtained from a financial institution server; wherein the financial report comprises a listing of financial transactions and balance information; [0103] According to another aspect, proprietary API requests of a proprietary API of a financial service system include at least one of: a request for a list of transactions for at least one account of the financial service system; a request for details of a transaction associated with an account of the financial service system … a request for a list of transactions for a user account of an external application system; a request for details of a transaction associated with the user account; [0104] According to yet another aspect, the normalized financial service request is a request for a list of transactions for the user account).
There is no disclosure of any embedded metadata in data fields of a statement, as Hockey only discloses formatting operations. And, importantly, the metadata that would have to be inserted would be the alleged metadata from paragraph 0064; there is no disclosure of such (Page # 12).
Examiner’s Response
Regarding remark # 4, that Hockley does not disclose embedded metadata in data fields of statement, examiner respectfully disagree. Hockley discloses hiding information from the account statement based on the request from the third-party server ([0376] The transaction response may additionally include the available funds, such that the requesting entity can check for sufficient funds. The response may additionally indicate if sufficient funds are available if the transaction amount was provided, which functions to hide the available funds from the requesting entity while preventing overdraft transaction; [0563] Alternatively, if the borrower prefers to modify the request to disclose the requested private financial data, the software application 2014 can communicate to the data management platform 2008 to modify the requested information from the third-party server 2004, via the remote account interface 2018. The borrower can modify the request in any suitable way including, but not limited to: adding or modifying a date range for transactions disclosed; adding or modifying an amount range for transactions disclosed; adding or denying access to data obtained from one or more specific financial institutions or other remote data sources; rounding amounts disclosed to a particular significant digit; obfuscating account numbers, routing numbers, or other account or identifying information; and so on).
Nor does Hockey disclose "storing, by the statement engine computer program, the selected statement in a temporary store" or "returning, by the statement engine computer program, a path for the temporary store to the third- party backend, wherein the third-party backend is configured to retrieve the selected statement from the temporary store." Hockey instead discloses providing tokens - not storing the report - to third parties (Page # 13).
Examiner’s Response
Regarding remark # 5, that Hockley discloses providing tokens – not storing the report – to third parties, examiner respectfully disagree. Hockley discloses securely access financial records stored by a selected banking or financial institution and providing another user interface to review financial records stored by the selected banking or financial institution ([0024] FIG. 22B depicts the electronic device of FIG. 22A, providing another user interface to securely access financial records stored by a selected banking or financial institution; [0025]
FIG. 22C depicts the electronic device of FIG. 22B, providing another user interface to review financial records stored by the selected banking or financial institution).
With regards to tokens, Hockley uses the tokens to provide access to these financial records which are stored in the secure database ([0520] Examples of permissions that may be stored with the electronic record include any permission related to frequency, use, time, amount, type, and/or the like. For example, in the context of financial transactions, the user may specify a limit on the amount of transactions (e.g., no more than $500), the frequency of transactions (e.g., no more than one transaction per month), the amount within a particular time frame (e.g., no more than $1100 per month), and/or any combination of these and/or other permissions. In the context f financial reports, the user may specify when a financial report can be accessed (e.g., there could be a limited accessibility window), who can initiate new report tokens, who can access a financial report; [0658] The method 2300 also includes operation 2306 in which the data processed in operation 2304 is stored in a secure database).
Based on above citations and explanations, Hockley anticipates all claim limitations and respective elements and therefore, the rejection has been maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 7-11, and 21-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) & (a)(2) as being anticipated by Hockey et al., (US20190318122A1).
Regarding claim 7, Hockey discloses:
A method, comprising:
receiving, at a statement engine computer program executed by a computer processor, a request for a statement from a third-party backend (Method for Managing Access to Financial Records [0261] As shown in FIG. 1, a method S100 for secure permissioning of access to user accounts and the secure distribution of aggregated user account data can include generating a user account report of a user account S110, receiving an account report request from a first third-party system S120; Claim 1; second limitation: receiving a financial report request for the financial report of the user account, wherein the financial report request is identified as being received from a third-party system);
retrieving, by the statement engine computer program, a list comprising a plurality of available statements ([0350] an API request via the API 110 may require multiple institutions to be queried. Such an API request may be particularly useful for summarizing financial statements across multiple accounts. The method can include negotiating communication for multiple institutions and combining results into a combined form);
providing, by the statement engine computer program, the list of the plurality of available statements to the third-party backend ([0350] an API request via the API 110 may require multiple institutions to be queried. Such an API request may be particularly useful for summarizing financial statements across multiple accounts. The method can include negotiating communication for multiple institutions and combining results into a combined form; [0351] At block 350, which includes returning results, the system 100 functions to deliver the results as a response to the request. Returning the results includes transforming the data obtained from the external institution into a normalized form);
receiving, by the statement engine computer program, a selection of one of the plurality of available statements ([0350] an API request via the API 110 may require multiple institutions to be queried. Such an API request may be particularly useful for summarizing financial statements across multiple accounts. The method can include negotiating communication for multiple institutions and combining results into a combined form);
identifying, by the statement engine computer program, metadata embedded in a subset of a plurality of data fields in a statement template for the selected statement, wherein the embedded metadata is not visible (i.e., obfuscated) in the selected statement ([0051] Continuing the example, once the data management platform 2008 has obtained the private financial data from the remote data source 2006 via the remote account interface 2018, the data management platform 2008 can format and/or otherwise normalize the obtained private financial data … In other cases, other formatting and/or data normalization operations can be performed by the data management platform 2008 including, but not limited to: recasting data types of received financial data (e.g., string to float or double, integer to float, strings to dates, and so on); truncating transaction descriptions; obfuscating or truncating account numbers; reformatting string and/or date object types; and so on);
requesting, by the statement engine computer program, data for data fields other than the subset of the plurality of data fields ([0064] The asset report can detail various financial account details such as cleaned and normalized transaction data. The asset report can include additional supplementary metadata such as categories, locations, merchant names, user information, and the like; [0084] the data management platform periodically or automatically examines the data stored in the database to recognize patterns, relationships, or associations between different data points or transactions, data irregularities or errors, and so on. In still further embodiments, the data management platform can be configured to determine, estimate, and/or calculate metadata across a set or subset of data stored in the database; [0596] The formatting engine 2126 can perform any number of suitable formatting operations including, but not limited to: recasting data types; truncating one or more data fields; changing case of one or more data fields; merging data from one or more tables of the database 2110; inserting one or more data fields into a template form; substituting tokens in a template form with one or more data fields);
generating, by the statement engine computer program, the selected statement using the statement template and the retrieved data for the data fields other than the subset of the plurality of data fields ([0596] The formatting engine 2126 can perform any number of suitable formatting operations including, but not limited to: recasting data types; truncating one or more data fields; changing case of one or more data fields; merging data from one or more tables of the database 2110; inserting one or more data fields into a template form; substituting tokens in a template form with one or more data fields);
storing, by the statement engine computer program, the selected statement in a temporary store ([0607] In order to verify the veracity of the report generated by the report manager 2134, the third-party server 2108 may audit the report. In these embodiments, the data management platform 2102 can facilitate trusted auditing of a report by providing temporary and/or limited-access tokens to the third-party server 2108); and
returning, by the statement engine computer program, a path for the temporary store to the third-party backend ([0607] In order to verify the veracity of the report generated by the report manager 2134, the third-party server 2108 may audit the report. In these embodiments, the data management platform 2102 can facilitate trusted auditing of a report by providing temporary and/or limited-access tokens to the third-party server 2108),
wherein the third-party backend is configured to retrieve the selected statement from the temporary store ([0607] … in response, the third-party server 2108 can use the received tokens to access the remote source 2106 to verify that at least a portion of data contained in the report generated by the report manager 2134 is accurate).
Regarding claim 21, it is a system claim and recites similar subject matter as claim 7 and therefore rejected under similar grounds of rejection.
Regarding claim 8, Hockey discloses:
The method of claim 7, further comprising:
requesting, by the statement engine computer program, authorization to provide the list of the plurality of available statements to the third-party backend and/or authorization to make the selected statement available to the third-party backend ([0066] … the information may be modified or redacted by the data management system based on who is accessing the asset report and set access permissions; [0069] Some variations may also relate to systems (e.g., a permissions management system) and techniques for enabling a user to securely authorize a third-party system to initiate transactions related to an account).
Regarding claim 22, it is a system claim and recites similar subject matter as claim 8 and therefore rejected under similar grounds of rejection.
Regarding claim 10, Hockey discloses:
The method of claim 7, wherein the statement engine computer program validates a connection from the third-party backend before making the selected statement available to the third-party backend ([0194] … receiving, from the computing device associated with the external application, authentication information including the public token or key, a secret key, and an identifier associated with the external application; and verifying the validity of the authentication information).
Regarding claim 24, it is a system claim and recites similar subject matter as claim 10 and therefore rejected under similar grounds of rejection.
Regarding claim 11, Hockey discloses:
The method of claim 7, further comprising:
deleting, by the statement engine computer program, the selected statement from the temporary store ([0607] In order to verify the veracity of the report generated by the report manager 2134, the third-party server 2108 may audit the report. In these embodiments, the data management platform 2102 can facilitate trusted auditing of a report by providing temporary and/or limited-access tokens to the third-party server 2108. Examiner notes that “… temporary …” implies that the information is deleted after some time).
Regarding claim 24, it is a system claim and recites similar subject matter as claim 10 and therefore rejected under similar grounds of rejection.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 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) 9, and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hockey et al., (US20190318122A1) in view of Heckel et al., (US10169315B1).
Regarding claim 9, Hockey fails to disclose:
The method of claim 7, wherein the subset of the plurality of data fields comprise Payment Card Industry data, personal identifiable information, and/or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act data.
However, Heckel discloses:
wherein the subset of the plurality of data fields comprise Payment Card Industry data, personal identifiable information, and/or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act data (Col. 6, Line # 64-67 – Col. 7, Line # 1-3; In certain implementations, step 230 may operate on the partially redacted text, and/or on the original text. In certain implementations, step 230 may produce more than one version of the redacted text, for example to support multiple redaction purposes, personal information regimes, to provide data redacted for different reasons to be shared to different users of the data, or the like; Col. 14, Line # 34-44; For example, where a label instance appears in the redacted text, in certain implementations, the related category of personal information may be associated with the label (e.g., medical, PII, business transaction, confidential information, etc.). In certain implementations, the related category of personal information may be stored in relation to the label (e.g., as a property of the label)—which may be in a many-to-many relationship. For example, a specific label may be identified (e.g., as defined by a user) as having a general category of PII and medical).
It would have been obvious to an ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the data management system of Hockey reference and include a system and method of redacting digital information to comply with particular type of data such as personal identifiable information (PII) and medical information, as disclosed by Heckel.
The motivation to incorporate such a system and method is to protect the sensitive information in a digital record by redacting PII and medical information to meet compliance requirements.
Regarding claim 23, it is a system claim and recites similar subject matter as claim 9 and therefore rejected under similar ground of rejection.
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 SYED M AHSAN whose telephone number is (571)272-5018. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30 AM - 6:00 PM.
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, William Korzuch can be reached at 571-272-7589. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SYED M AHSAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2491
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