DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in reply to application no. 19/043,646, filed 3 February 2025 with a preliminary amendment filed 24 February 2025. Claims 1-20 are pending and are considered below.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
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 1-20 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 a statutory category of invention, as each is directed to a system (machine). The claim(s) recite(s), after receiving a termination notice (which is data gathering), setting a credit rate, tracking an investment value and an asset value; tracking is also data gathering. The claims further recite receiving certain information, which is further data gathering. The claims further recite determining a difference between two values, which is mathematics, and conditionally providing information to a user, which is insignificant, extra-solution activity.
As the claims are essentially directed to a means for managing insurance-related information, they recite a fundamental business practice, one of the "certain methods of organizing human activity" deemed abstract. Further, the steps can practically be performed mentally using nothing more than pen and paper; a human insurance agent or financial advisor could gather the appropriate records in paper form and set a rate and make the required computation mentally, providing the claimed payment indication by speaking or writing it. None of this would present any difficulty, and none requires any technology beyond a pen and paper.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because aside from the bare recitation of generic computer components, discussed below, nothing is done beyond what was set forth above, which does not go beyond using the computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea. See MPEP § 2106.05(f).
As the claims only manipulate information related to the value of various components of an insurance policy or other financial assets, they do not improve the "functioning 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 makes it 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 information, being intangible, is 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 algorithmic or technical 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.
The claims include a computer system with a processor, memory and instructions, as would a generic computer. These elements are recited at a high degree of generality and the specification does not meaningfully limit them. They only perform generic computer functions of receiving data, performing arithmetic, making comparisons and transmitting data. 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 elements when considered as an ordered combination - a generic computer performing a chronological sequence of abstract steps - does nothing more than when they are analyzed individually.
The dependent claims further do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea, as each consists of further detail about the type of information being manipulated and/or further abstract manipulation of data.
The claims are not patent eligible. 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)).
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 – the present claims have priority to April 2012 – is in order.
Schoen et al. (U.S. Patent No. 8,244,560, filed 4 August 2010) disclose a process for creating and managing an entity that holds a pool of insurance policies. [abstract] It can provide a portfolio with certain desirable characteristics such as particular "market value to book value ratios", [Col. 8, line 61] and calculates a particular value as the greater of the result of a particular formula or zero, based on the market and book values. [Col. 10, lines 2-4]
Kruk et al. (U.S. Patent No. 8,170,944, filed 17 November 2011) disclose a process for benchmarking performance of stable value funds. [title] It makes a comparison between the "actual performance of the stable value fund" and a "customized performance benchmark". [Claim 1, clause (e)]
Albertelli et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2011/0258101) disclose a process for loss mitigation, acquisition and disposal of real estate assets. [title] A "payment" is made "in exchange for surrender" of real property, [0007] and the payment is based on a "bid price" that must meet a threshold. [0005]
But none of these, alone or if combined, teach of suggest every limitation of the present claims, in particular doing the required computation and notification in response to receiving an indication that someone has requested termination of a life insurance contract, combined with the other features of the claims of the present invention.
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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