DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office Action is in response to the application filed on 01/17/2025.
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 Objections
Claim 1 is objected in view of a potential typo. The limitation reciting "the plurality of moneymaking orders" is believed to be “the plurality of marketmaking orders”.
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 1 is 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.
As an initial matter, the claims as a whole are to an apparatus, which falls within one or more statutory categories. (Step 1: YES) The recitation of the claimed invention is then further analyzed as follow, in which the abstract elements are boldfaced.
Claim 1 recites:
An electronic exchange platform configured to:
receive a plurality of marketmaking orders for a side of trades for a financial instrument from each of a plurality of sellside participants in a market for the financial instrument;
for each of a plurality of the marketmaking orders of the plurality of moneymaking orders, receive a respective list of approved buyside participants out of a plurality of buyside participants in the market for the financial instrument;
in response to receiving the plurality of orders, peg a price for each of the marketmaking orders of the plurality of moneymaking orders to a price relative to and multiple ticks behind a best price on the side of trades in an order book for the market that is maintained by the electronic exchange platform;
in response to receiving the plurality of orders, populate a respective interface of each buyside participant of the plurality of buyside participants with market information that includes information about a respective subsets of the plurality of marketmaking orders for which the buyside participant has been identified as an approved buyside participant;
receive, from a buyside participant, a contra order to the plurality of marketmaking orders, in which the buyside participant is approved to trade with a subset of the sellside participants and in which the contra order identifies a preferred sellside participants;
in response to receiving the contra order, distribute the contra order first to orders in the order book according to a priority scheme that distributes liquidity first to orders at the best bid or offer counter to the contra order, second to marketmaking orders from the identified preferred sellside participant, third to a subset of marketmaking orders of the plurality of marketmaking orders that the buyside participant is approved to trade against and whose sellside submitter has an order at the best bid or offer counter to the contra order, and fourth to marketmaking orders that the buyside participant is approved to trade against and whose sellside submitter does not have an order at the best bid or offer counter to the contra order;
determine new best bid and offer prices in the order book in response to the distribution; and
adjust remaining market making orders of the plurality of marketmaking orders to retain a pegged price in response to determining the new best bid or offer.
Based on the limitations above, the claims describe a process that covers allocating trade orders pegged to a best price. Allocating trade orders manages contractual relationship between market participants, and is considered to be a commercial interaction, which falls within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas. As such, the claim(s) recite(s) a Judicial Exception. (Step 2A prong one: Yes)
This analysis then evaluates whether the claims as a whole integrates the recited Judicial Exception into a practical application of the exception. In particular, the claims recite the additional element(s) of “electronic … platform” as a mere tool to perform the steps of the Judicial Exception, which encompasses no more than Mere Instruction to Apply.
For example, the limitation “receive a plurality of marketmaking orders for a side of trades for a financial instrument from each of a plurality of sellside participants in a market for the financial instrument” encompasses no more than generically invoking a electronic platform to apply the Judicial Exception step of receiving a plurality of marketmaking orders for a side of trades from each of a plurality of sellside participants;
the limitation “for each of a plurality of the marketmaking orders of the plurality of moneymaking orders, receive a respective list of approved buyside participants out of a plurality of buyside participants in the market for the financial instrument” encompasses no more than generically invoking a electronic platform to apply the Judicial Exception step of receiving a respective list of approved buyside participants for each of a plurality of the marketmaking orders of the plurality of the marketmaking orders;
the limitation “in response to receiving the plurality of orders, peg a price for each of the marketmaking orders of the plurality of moneymaking orders to a price relative to and multiple ticks behind a best price on the side of trades in an order book for the market that is maintained by the electronic exchange platform” encompasses no more than generically invoking a electronic platform to apply the Judicial Exception step of pegging a price for each of the marketmaking orders to a price relative to and multiple ticks behind a best price on the side of trades in an order book;
the limitation “in response to receiving the plurality of orders, populate a respective interface of each buyside participant of the plurality of buyside participants with market information that includes information about a respective subsets of the plurality of marketmaking orders for which the buyside participant has been identified as an approved buyside participant” encompasses no more than generically invoking a electronic platform to apply the Judicial Exception step of populating market information to each buyside participant of the plurality of buyside participants;
the limitation “receive, from a buyside participant, a contra order to the plurality of marketmaking orders, in which the buyside participant is approved to trade with a subset of the sellside participants and in which the contra order identifies a preferred sellside participants” encompasses no more than generically invoking a electronic platform to apply the Judicial Exception step of receiving a contra order to the plurality of marketmaking orders;
the limitation “in response to receiving the contra order, distribute the contra order first to orders in the order book according to a priority scheme that distributes liquidity first to orders at the best bid or offer counter to the contra order, second to marketmaking orders from the identified preferred sellside participant, third to a subset of marketmaking orders of the plurality of marketmaking orders that the buyside participant is approved to trade against and whose sellside submitter has an order at the best bid or offer counter to the contra order, and fourth to marketmaking orders that the buyside participant is approved to trade against and whose sellside submitter does not have an order at the best bid or offer counter to the contra order” encompasses no more than generically invoking a electronic platform to apply the Judicial Exception step of distribute the contra order according a priority scheme;
the limitation “determine new best bid and offer prices in the order book in response to the distribution” encompasses no more than generically invoking a electronic platform to apply the Judicial Exception step of determining new best bid and offer prices in response to the distribution;
the limitation “adjust remaining market making orders of the plurality of marketmaking orders to retain a pegged price in response to determining the new best bid or offer” encompasses no more than generically invoking a electronic platform to apply the Judicial Exception step of adjusting remaining market making orders to retain a pegged price.
Other than being generally linked to the steps of the Judicial Exception, the additional elements in the above step(s) is/are recited at a high-level of generality, without technological detail of how the particular steps are performed technologically.
The additional element(s) of “populate a respective interface” are generically recited to perform input/output steps described only by a result-oriented solution with insufficient detail for how the interface accomplish it. The examiner further noted generic computer affixes such as “electronic … platform” are appended to abstract elements such as “exchange”, but found that to be mere instructions to implement the Judicial Exception idea on a computer.
Indeed, the instant claims (1) attempted to cover a solution to an identified problem with no restriction on how the result is accomplished and no description of the mechanism for accomplishing the result; (2) used of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks or simply added a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to the Judicial Exception and (3) generally applied the Judicial Exception to a generic computing environment without limitation indicative of practical application (See MPEP 2106.04(d)I). Thus, the claims are no more than Mere Instruction to Apply the Judicial Exception (See MPEP 2106.05(f)) or adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception (See MPEP 2106.05(g)), which do not integrate the cited Judicial Exception into practical application (Step 2A prong two: No) The claims are directed to a Judicial Exception.
The claim does 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 using an electronic platform to allocate to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. No additional element currently recited in the claims amount the claims to be significantly more than the cited abstract idea. (Step 2B: No)
Therefore, claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Czupek et al. (US 2010/0088214)
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/CHO YIU KWONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3693