DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in reply to correspondence filed 14 April 2026 in regard to application no. 19/013,236. Claims 1-15 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 .
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 1-15 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 statutory categories of invention, as each is directed to a method (process), apparatus or system (machine) or non-transitory computer readable medium (manufacture).
X The claims recite four data gathering steps (the acquiring step and the three referencing steps), all of which relate to data regarding carbon credits; a carbon credit is a financial instrument. The claims then allocate data among sources in no particular manner but merely using the available data and doing so for a particular purpose. As the claim does not positively include any step of creating an upper limit condition, but merely acquires that data from a database, the manner of its creation is of no patentable significance and will not be considered further.
The claimed scope recites three abstract ideas in two categories. First, acquiring financial instruments and keeping track of them are both a fundamental business practice and a commercial interaction, each of which is among the "certain methods of organizing human activity" deemed abstract. Second, these are steps which, in the absence of computers, could be performed mentally and using paper records.
Investors could acquire financial instruments by the use of paper documents and could keep track of them in paper files and perform unspecified calculations, long before there was any such thing as a computer. None of this presents any practical difficulty, and none requires any technology beyond the use of paper records.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because aside from the bare inclusion of generic computers, 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 relating to financial instruments and distributions thereof, they do not improve the "processing 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 to patent eligibility. Taking claims 10, 11 and 12 together, they include two networked devices, at least one of which includes a processor and medium storing instructions.
These elements are recited at a high degree of generality and the specification is clear, ¶ 12, that no particular type of computer is required that "any arbitrary combination" of the described components "are also effective embodiments" of the invention, such that a generic computer will suffice. It only performs generic computer functions of nondescriptly manipulating data and sharing data with persons and/or other devices. 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 limitations when considered as an ordered combination - at most, two generic computers collectively performing a chronological sequence of abstract steps - do nothing more than when they are analyzed individually.
The other independent claims are simply different embodiments but are likewise directed to one or two generic computers performing, essentially, the same process. The dependent claims further do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea: claims 2, 5, 7, 8 and 14 simply recite further, abstract manipulation of data; claims 3, 4 and 13 simply recite mathematics; claims 6 and 15 are simply further descriptive of the type of information being manipulate, and claim 9 requires nothing more than output.
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)).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 14 April 2026 in regard to rejections made under 35 U.S.C. § 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. As a preliminary matter, the Examiner agrees that the present amendments do not require interpretation under 35 U.S.C. 112(f), and no such interpretation is made here; as the interpretation did not lead to any adverse outcome (i.e. an objection or a rejection) there is nothing to actually withdraw.
In regard to § 101, there is no controversy in regard to step 1; all agree the claims lie within statutory categories of invention.
In regard to what the claims recite (prong one of step 2A), first, carbon credits came into being in the United States because of provisions in the Clean Air Act, which was enacted into law in 1970. The Examiner must, therefore, respectfully disagree with the applicant’s contention that a financial instrument that has been known for well over half a century is “relatively new”. Bar codes on grocery store items are newer. In any case managing assets, of whatever type, for others is certainly a commercial interaction. Therefore the Examiner maintains the position that the claims recite certain methods of organizing human activity, as that term is used in the Guidance.
Regarding human mental activity, the applicant makes a conclusory statement to the effect that people cannot retrieve data from multiple databases or at least that “it would be difficult” to write down and physically store the information. The Examiner cannot see how a person consulting three or four pieces of paper and jotting down a bit of information from each would present any difficulty at all. The allocation need nearly improve some unspecified objective function, which need be nothing more than increasing the amount allocated to some particular source. Therefore the Examiner maintains the position that the claims recite human mental activity.
In regard to prong two of step 2A, the question of integration into a practical application, enabling buyers to acquire carbon credits is a business rather than a technical problem, and does not become a technical problem merely because computers are used. Similarly, soil management is an economic problem of farming (among certain other industries) which cannot possibly require computers, as it was routinely worked out for centuries before there was any such thing as a computer.
In regard to step 2B, the inquiry as to whether the additional, that is, non-abstract elements amount to “significantly more” than the abstract idea, the recitation of the abstract steps has nothing to do with this part of the analysis. As the Examiner has stated, previously and above, the only non-abstract claim element is a generic computer with generic computers, and the applicant has not argued, and cannot reasonably argue, to the contrary.
The claims are not patent eligible and the rejection is maintained.
Conclusion
As no rejection is made herein under 35 U.S.C. § 102 or 103, a brief review of the state of the art at the relevant time (July 2022) is in order. In the previous Office action, claims were rejected based on the reference of Nguyen, and in some cases Margolis, Rawat, Oates and/or Ma. As the claims have been amended, further search and consideration were conducted.
Cheiky et al. (U.S. Patent No. 9,493,379) discloses a method of using activated biochar as a soil amendment. [title] It provides for the use of “carbon credits” [Col. 3, line 38] including managing alkalinity of soil. [Col. 15, line 3] But Cheiky’s method does not make use of computers at all.
Hamilton et al. (U.S. Patent No. 8,504,252) disclose tracking carbon output in agricultural applications [title] which includes managing carbon credits. [abstract] The process uses computers interconnected by a network. [Sheet 1, Fig. 1] The system monitors soil conditions. [Sheet 2, Fig. 2]
But none of these, alone, combined or if combined with the prior art previously made of record (assuming for the moment that an obviousness combination could be reasonably justified) teach or suggest every limitation of the claims of the present invention, in particular the use of constraints to compute an amount of application per unit area of a farm, combined with the other presently-claimed limitations.
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 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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