DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Status of Claims
This action is in reply to the claims filed on 01/26/2026.
Claims 1, 10, 11, and 20 are amended.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Continued Examination
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/26/2026 has been entered.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim Rejections- 35 U.S.C. § 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.
Under Step 1 of the subject matter eligibility (SME) analysis described in MPEP 2106.03, the instant claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention identified by 35 U.S.C. 101. In the instant case, claims 1-10 are directed to a method and claims 11-20 are directed to a system. Claims 1 and 11 are parallel in nature, therefore, the analysis will use claim 1 as the representative claim.
In Step 2A Prong One, it must be considered whether the claims recite a judicial exception. Claim 1, as exemplary, recites abstract concepts including: receiving ... user identification information; determining ... one or more user attributes based on the user identification information; determining ... one or more data sets describing one or more products, each of the one or more data sets including one or more product parameters, each of the one or more product parameters being associated with a user attribute; determining ... a set of matched products based on whether the one or more user attributes satisfy the one or more product parameters of the one or more products; and providing ... the set of matched products; selecting... first subset of user attributes from among the one or more user attributes based on the first subset of user attributes not satisfying a first subset of associated products parameters; monitoring ... the first subset of user attributes and the first subset of associated product parameters based on the first subset of user attributes being selected from among the one or more user attributes including querying one or more servers for one or more of the selected user attribute and the associated product parameter the first subset of user attributes and the first subset of associated product parameters; based on detecting a change to the one or more of the first subset of user attributes and the first subset of associated product parameters, querying ... to retrieve one or more of a second subset of user attributes and a second subset of associated product parameters, the one or more user attributes including the second subset of user attributes, the second subset of user attributes being different than the first subset of user attributes; and transmitting ... an alert notification based on the one or more of the second subset of user attributes and the second subset of associated product parameters.
These identified limitations recite the abstract idea of “determining and providing a set of matched products”, which falls within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas as it relates to commercial interactions of sales and marketing activities or behaviors. See MPEP 2106.04. Accordingly, claims 1 and 11 recite an abstract idea.
In Step 2A Prong Two, examiners evaluate integration into a practical application by: (1) identifying whether there are any additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception(s); and (2) evaluating those additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether they integrate the exception into a practical application.
Claims 1 and 11 recite additional elements including: one or more processors; a client device; one or more graphical interfaces; and querying one or more servers. The processors, client device, graphical interfaces, and servers are each recited at a high level of generality and invoked merely as tools to perform the abstract idea. Implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two similar to how the recitation of the computer in the claim in Alice amounted to mere instructions to apply the abstract idea of intermediated settlement on a generic computer. See MPEP 2106.05(f). The combination of these elements also amounts to more than mere instruction to apply the abstract idea on a computer. Accordingly, even in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Claims 1 and 11 are directed to an abstract idea.
Under Step 2B of the SME analysis, if it is determined that the claims recite a judicial exception that is not integrated into a practical application of that exception, it is then necessary to evaluate the additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether they provide an inventive concept (i.e., whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the exception itself).
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, as discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element(s) individually and in combination are merely being used to apply the abstract idea to a general computer environment. For the same reason, the elements are not sufficient to provide an inventive concept. As explained in MPEP 2106.05(f), implementing an abstract idea with a generic computer does not add significantly more in Step 2B. Therefore, the additional elements, alone or in ordered combination, there is no inventive concept in the claim, and thus claims 1 and 11 are not patent eligible.
Dependent claim(s) 2, 4, 5, 8-10, 12, 14-15, and 18-20 do not aid in the eligibility of the independent claims. These claims merely further define the abstract idea without reciting any further additional elements. Thus dependent claims 2, 4, 5, 8-10, 12, 14-15, and 18-20 are also ineligible.
Dependent claim 3 and 13 recite additional elements including: a graphical element. Similar to the additional elements identified above, the graphical element is described in ordinary terms and merely used as a tool in performance of the abstract idea. For example, the claims do not recite any technical details which distinguish the graphical element or its display from generic graphical elements. Accordingly, claim(s) 3 and 13 are ineligible.
Dependent claims 6-7 and 16-17 recite additional elements including: automatically querying, by the one or more processors, one or more third-party servers. These limitations add insignificant extra-solution activity to the abstract idea in the form of necessary data gathering. As explained by the Supreme Court, the addition of insignificant extra-solution activity does not amount to an inventive concept, particularly when the activity is well-understood or conventional. Querying one or more third-party servers is equivalent to the computer functions of receiving/transmitting data over a network and storing/retrieving information in memory – both of which have repeatedly been recognized as well-understood, routine, and conventional functions when they are claimed at a high level of generality or as insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP 2105.05(d)II. Accordingly, claims 6-7 are ineligible.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 01/26/2026, with respect to 35 USC § 101, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. With regards to claim 1, the Applicant argues that “neither sales nor marketing is actually recited in the claim” (Remarks, 12).
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. In Prong One examiners evaluate whether the claim recites a judicial exception, i.e. whether a law of nature, natural phenomenon, or abstract idea is set forth or described in the claim (MPEP 2106.04). Claim 1 recites limitations including: “determining ... user attributes”, “determining ... one or more data sets describing one or more products”, “determining ... a set of matched products based on whether the one or more user attributes satisfy the one or more product parameters of the one or more products”. These limitations set forth or describe determining user/product attributes and matching products to a user based on that users’ attributes, which are marketing activities. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
On page 13 of the Remarks, Applicant argues “Amended claim 1 is not ‘directed to’ a judicial exception because the claim as a whole integrates its elements into a practical application, for example, by applying the other portions of the claim in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit”. Specifically, Applicant argues the claims “recites a concrete, specific process in which computers are integral and which are drawn to improving the processing and bandwidth utilization of the computer” (Remarks, pgs. 12-13).
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two or add significantly more in Step 2B, similar to how the recitation of the computer in the claim in Alice amounted to mere instructions to apply the abstract idea of intermediated settlement on a generic computer. Merely adding generic computer components to perform the method is not sufficient. Thus, the claim must include more than mere instructions to perform the method on a generic component or machinery to qualify as an improvement to an existing technology. MPEP 2106.05(a) and (f).
Rather than reciting details regarding how the computer performs the communication, monitoring, or display, claim 1 simply states the abstract idea while adding the words “by one or more processors”. Querying servers “based on detecting a change to the one or more of the first subset of user attributes and the first subset of associated products parameters” (claim 1), only adds a condition on when querying will occur but does not distinguish the “querying” from that performed by generic computers. Applicant further argues that “monitoring is enabled at a much lower bandwidth cost as not all attributes and parameters are monitored” (Remarks, pg. 14), however claim 1 recites “monitoring ... the first subset of user attributes and the first subset of associated product parameters ... including querying one or more servers for one or more of the first subset of user attributes and the first subset of associated product parameters”. The claims do not recite any specific rules or mechanisms for performing the querying, and monitoring subsets of information rather than all the information is a mental evaluation. Any alleged bandwidth reduction results from the conventional operation of a general-purpose computer executing a query for a subset of data, rather than any specific technological improvement recited in the claims.
Accordingly, the Examiner is maintaining the 101 rejections of claims 1-20 because the claims merely implement the recited abstract idea on a generic computer system.
Applicant’s arguments filed 01/26/2025, with respect to 35 USC § 103, have been fully considered and they are persuasive. The 103 rejections of claims 1-20 has been withdrawn.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Barenblatt (US 2015/0134483 A1) facilitates the matching of prospective borrowers in real estate transactions with mortgage professionals that arrange mortgages and/or financing.
Chan et al. (US 2025/0095061 A1) describes a system for automating loan authorization to a user.
R. Sun, J. Yan and F. Ren (NPL Reference U) proposes a knowledge graph-based interactive recommender system (KGIRS) to improve the recommendation by considering the users’ dynamic preference for item attributes’ weight.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KENNEDY A GIBSON-WYNN whose telephone number is (571)272-8305. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:30 PM.
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/K.G.W./
Examiner, Art Unit 3688
/Jeffrey A. Smith/
Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3688