DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in reply to application no. 19/132,875, filed 27 May 2025 with a preliminary amendment filed concurrently. Claims 1-5 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 1-5 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 non-transitory computer readable medium (manufacture) or system (machine). The claim(s) recite(s) controlling execution of an event – of no particular type – in no particular manner, providing something to a person who executes the event, and providing that person with one or two other things, apparently as a form of payment.
First, managing events and being paid are both fundamental business practices and commercial interactions, each of which is among the “certain methods of organizing human activity” deemed abstract. Second, in the absence of computers, these are steps which can be performed mentally and with pen and paper.
A human event manager can manage some features of an event and pay another person to perform some action regarding an event, e.g. by writing a check or handing over currency or an award. None of this presents any practical difficulty and none requires any technology at all.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because aside from the bare inclusion of a generic computer, discussed below, nothing is done beyond what was set forth above, which does not go beyond using a generic computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea. See MPEP § 2106.05(f).
As the claims only manipulate data relating to event management and forms of payment, 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 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.
Claim 5, which has the most, includes a processor and memory storing instructions. These elements are recited at a high degree of generality and the specification is clear, ¶ 12, that nothing more than a “general-purpose computer” is required.
It only performs generic computer functions of nondescriptly manipulating information and sharing information 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 invention less abstract. The claim limitations when considered as an ordered combination – a generic computer performing a possibly-chronological sequence of abstract steps – do nothing more than when they are analyzed individually.
The other independent claim is simply a different embodiment but is likewise directed to a generic computer performing, essentially, the same process. Claims 2-4 further do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea, as claim 2 simply recites a numerical coincidence, and claims 3 and 4 simply require trades, which is abstract.
The claims are not patent eligible. The Examiner has thoroughly reviewed the originally-filed application, including the specification and drawing sheets, and finds nothing likely sufficient to overcome this rejection.
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, revised October 2019)).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(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) 1-3 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Kinsey et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2023/0119912, filed 15 October 2021).
With regard to Claim 1:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program, [0030; a computer readable medium such as “hard disks” may store computer programs] the program causing a computer to execute:
controlling execution of a predetermined event; [abstract; event processing is performed including particular events such, 0033, managing purchase or payment requests]
providing a user with a first object based on execution of the predetermined event; [0005; funds for a purchase are transferred to the account of the merchant who made a sale] and
providing the user with at least one of a crypto asset and a second object exchangeable with the crypto asset based on execution of the predetermined event, [0007; payment may be converted ton an “amount of a fiat currency” equivalent to a “predetermined amount of cryptocurrency” or, 0022, it may be made in cryptocurrency itself]
wherein the first object is convertible to an NFT state.
That a “first object is convertible to an NFT state” consists entirely of nonfunctional, descriptive language, disclosing at most a coincidental character of an object which imparts neither structure nor functionality to the claimed medium, the program instructions it executes, or the computer which executes them.
With regard to Claim 2:
The non-transitory computer-readable medium according to claim 1, wherein a probability of providing the first object in the predetermined event is lower than a probability of providing the crypto asset or a probability of providing the second object in the predetermined event.
This claim is not patentably distinct from claim 1, as it consists entirely of nonfunctional, descriptive language, merely disclosing a coincidence among numbers; the claim includes no means by which the claimed medium or its software or processor cause or enforce such a coincidence.
With regard to Claim 3:
The non-transitory computer-readable medium according to claim 1, wherein the program further causes the computer to execute exchanging the first object possessed by the user with the crypto asset. [0007, as cited above in regard to claim 1]
With regard to Claim 5:
An information processing system comprising:
at least one processor, [0005; “at least one processor”] and
at least one memory storing a program that, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to perform operations [0005; “memory storing computer-readable instructions” for the processor to execute] including:
controlling execution of a predetermined event; [abstract; event processing is performed including particular events such, 0033, managing purchase or payment requests]
providing a user with a first object based on execution of the predetermined event; [0005; funds for a purchase are transferred to the account of the merchant who made a sale] and
providing the user with at least one of a crypto asset and a second object exchangeable with the crypto asset based on execution of the predetermined event. [0007; payment may be converted ton an “amount of a fiat currency” equivalent to a “predetermined amount of cryptocurrency” or, 0022, it may be made in cryptocurrency itself]
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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) 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kinsey et al. in view of Long et al. (U.S. Patent No. 11,075,891)
With regard to Claim 4:
The non-transitory computer-readable medium according to claim 1, wherein the program further causes the computer to execute consuming the crypto asset to convert the first object into an NFT.
Kinsey teaches the medium of claim 1, including converting among forms of payment as cited above, but does not explicitly teach the use of NFT, but it is known in the art. Long teaches an NFT-based digital rights management system [title] in which an NFT can be purchased using cryptocurrency. [Col. 15, lines 65-67] Long and Kinsey are analogous art as each is directed to electronic means for using cryptocurrency as a form of payment.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art just prior to the filing of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Long with that of Kinsey in order to protect the interests of content owners, as taught by Long; [Col..2, lines 33-34] further, it is simply a substitution of one known part for another with predictable results, simply making an exchange in the manner of Long rather than, or in addition to, that of Kinsey; the substitution produces no new and unexpected result.
Conclusion
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
